Stonehouse Publishing launches five novels, also talks Buzzfeed, Burney, and Bookstagram

The opening of a new publishing house in Edmonton would be a momentous affair no matter what. Add in a literary and historical fiction focus, an intriguing debut run of five novels by Alberta authors, and the most opulent book party I’ve been to apart from the one I attended with Gwyneth Paltrow, and Stonehouse Publishing‘s launch looks like the literary event of the year thus far.

The Books

Stonehouse Publishing wants to publish “the best in Canadian fiction, but not necessarily ‘Canadiana’.” So, not this stuff (though someone really should write a novel about a troupe of French Canadian clowns.) They also plan to reissue forgotten classics, kicking off with Evelina by Fanny Burney next year.  As of May 1st, you can get your hands on five books: Three historical novels, set in WWI-era Canada, Regency England, and revolutionary France; a thriller set in contemporary Ukraine (Course Correction,) and a murder mystery set in rural Alberta (Edge of Wild.) I took the three historicals home:

  • Mary Green by Melanie Kerr: I reviewed Kerr’s first book, Follies Past, a few years back and was pleasantly surprised by the Pride and Prejudice prequel, which stands on it’s own easily while still capturing the style of Jane Austen. I’m very excited to meet Mary Green, who is not an Austen character, but does exist in Regency England and is a neglected orphan who (presumably) must rely on her wits to cope in London society.
  • League of the Star by N.R. Cruse: Hearing the first few pages, in which a sheltered teenage girl sees a man for the first time on a ship, while escaping the French revolution, got me hooked.
  • Kalyna by Pam Clark: I’ve read plenty of WWI-era CanLit but never from the perspective of Ukrainian immigrants. Time to fill in a few gaps.

The Party

The majority of book parties in Edmonton take place in the basement of Audreys Books and feature coffee and cookies. To be clear, I’m not knocking that! This was just on a different level. Hosted in the beautiful Boyle Street Community League, there was a DJ, a photo booth with historical costumes, a snack bar loaded with tea and scones, and a cash bar. Authors met readers in elaborately decorated booths, and readings took place in a comfy armchair in the middle of it all.

I saw and was seen, particularly by Matthew Stepanic of Glass Buffalo and Claire Kelly of NeWest Press. I also met author Melanie Kerr in person for the first time, after corresponding by email on and off for years. She is a delight, and her blog, though not updated so often these days, has some gold in the archives, including this post, if you’re a “begs the question” stickler like me.

It all went off beautifully. The only oddity was that author N.R. Cruse, who was apparently in the crowd, never sat at her booth, signed any books, or read a passage from her novel (her editor read for her.) Cruse is known to be reclusive and claims to be a direct descendant of Daniel Dafoe. I think of her as Alberta’s answer to Elena Ferrente.

Q&A with publisher Netta Johnson

Editor Julie Yerex and Publisher Netta Johnson were much too busy to chat the night of, so I asked some questions by email.

Reading in Bed: I recently read an article about how historical fiction is seen as less prestigious than contemporary literary fiction. This has always confused me. When I see a book classified as “historical fiction” and it’s clearly got tons of literary merit (e.g. Wolf Hall) I wonder why the setting makes it a whole different genre. Do you think historical fiction is seen as less prestigious than contemporary, and did this influence how you chose your focus for Stonehouse, your first run of books, how you market them, and so on?

Netta Johnson:  I thought this question was very interesting, and it serves to highlight how much things change, and yet stay the same. Lately, I have been reading the whole set of novels by Dumas. I had tried to read the Three Musketeers many years ago, but somehow couldn’t get properly interested. Without knowing it, I started to read the 3rd in the series, The Vicomte to Bragelonne and was pretty captivated by the portrayal of the Musketeers at age 50; the characters were so much more interesting in their middle-age. Reading the introductions to these books, I was struck to discover that these challenging and intricate novels (my words) were considered rather fluffy and insubstantial at the time of their publication, and often dismissed as ‘romances’. Perhaps popularity is the heart of the problem, and then and now, it is hard for reviewers to take books seriously when they are popular? Or maybe it is hard to separate the literary historical fiction from the genre historical fiction sold in grocery stories?

RIB: I’m super excited about your plans to publish forgotten classics. Can you tell me how you came to choose Evelina by Fanny Burney for your first book? (By the way, I’m going to host a Fanny Burney readalong this year. I’m thinking Cecilia. I’ve never read her but I’m noticing she’s trending a bit. I first heard about her on RonLit’s YouTube channel.)

NJ: I found Fanny Burney about 18 years ago, via Jane Austen. I began reading Evelina with the expectation that it would be dry and educational, and soon found myself laughing through much of the book. Cecilia is twice the size, and much more serious. It has a very personal appeal to me, so I am never sure if that will translate to others. Julie and I sometimes joke that she is Kanye and I am Jay-Z (thank you, Buzzfeed quizzes!), and in terms of 18th century heroines/books, she is Evelina and I am Cecilia. Evelina is so much more approachable, lighthearted, and when it was first released (anonymously), it spread like wildfire. Cecilia is a longer, darker novel, and it had some pretty famous intellectual admirers (Dr. Johnson, Edmund Burke, Hester Thrale, Napoleon). In Cecilia, FB takes a pretty sharp look at a number of social issues/problems of that time. Cecilia introduces you to misers, superficial friends, gamblers, social climbers, struggling tradesmen (and the poor in general), while showing the social problems with dueling (unavoidable, but the main two consequences were either death or jail, whether you won or lost), and the aimlessness of the aristocratic class. As an underage woman and an heiress, Cecilia is at the mercy of various different people, and as she waits the last few months till she comes of age and inherits her money, she is prey to every kind of snare. There is even a public suicide! Another amazing thing about this book is that we don’t even meet the hero for 120 odd pages. For any time, it is rather unconventional.

RIB: As publishers, are you in tune with all the bookish new media out there: blogs, Booktube, Bookstagram, and so on? Any favourites? How about Snapchat?

NJ: We have to look some of these up! Right now, we think we have a handle on Facebook, Twitter and just staring with Instagram. I didn’t even know the other ones existed!

Note: they’re humble, but their hashtag game was on point: if you missed the big launch, check out #Stoholaunch on Twitter and Instagram.

 

35 Books update: Books 1-6

I’m reading 35 books this year, as you may recall. I made a video about the first six.

Books mentioned:

  1. Asking For It by Lilah Pace, as recommended on Book Riot
  2. The Hunter and the Wild Girl by Pauline Holdstock, with thanks to Goose Lane Editions
  3. The Outside Circle by Patti Laboucane-Benson
  4. The Vegetarian by Han Kang
  5. Mislaid by Nell Zink
  6. In Her Shoes by Jennifer Weiner

The first six of the year were a bit of a bust. The Vegetarian blew me away at first, but hasn’t stuck with me. Since then, I’ve read two phenomenal books, which you will hear more about soon: Birdie by Tracey Lindberg and Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood.

How we spend our days is how we spend our lives

ADayintheLifeWelcome to the second year of A Day in the Life, hosted by Trish of Love, Laughter and a Touch of Insanity. At first glance, this is not my type of blog event. What do I care what people do with their days? Yet, somehow, I do care. I guess it’s true that how we spend our days is how we spend our lives, which is not a quote from Days of Our Lives, it’s from a serious book (The Writing Life by Annie Dillard.) I participated on a whim last year, and read every single post linked up – more than fifty. This year, seventy two bloggers have already linked up, so I’ve got some reading to do.

My day in the life was not a standard one at all; I was on vacation, the kids were in school, and my sister arrived from Minneapolis.To mix things up, I documented my day with Snapchat*. I kind of messed up, though. Instead of saving all the individual snaps I did that day, I saved my story as a video. So take a little look see, or read on for the text version.

Wednesday, March 23 2016

6:07 am: Wake up for the day. This is a sleep-in, I’m usually up for the day by 5:30. Leisurely breakfast (green smoothie), get ready, catch up on social media.

6:57 am: Wake Benjamin up, give him breakfast (dry Cinnamon Toast Crunch)

7:00 am: “Wake” Henry up, as in, dress him and brush his teeth while he sleeps

7:24 am: Make school lunch with disgusting soy-based “peanut” butter

7:43 am: Henry still sleeping, Benjamin is ready to go

7:48 am: Benjamin dropped off at school. Benefit of living across the street is that I can go from “one child still asleep” to “at school” in five minutes.

7:53 am: Henry eats breakfast (Cheerios, he must pour his own milk, and the milk must fill the bowl)

8:20 am: Henry dropped off at daycare. FREEDOM… to do errands. Also, snow.

8:45 am: Errand number one: get car washed at fancy car wash. This is a once-per-year treat. This year I let them upsell me on the vinyl package. It’s so shiny! I read a devastating chapter of Cat’s Eye while I wait.

9:27 am: Errand number two: I am the Easter Bunny. I love London Drugs. I contemplated buying a copy of Birdie by Tracey Lindberg (I got it from the library,) not knowing it had been kicked off Canada Reads just a half hour earlier. Rude!

10:03 am: Errand number three: groceries. First time in Oliver Square Safeway since they renovated; it’s pretty uppity now. I’m also pretty sick of Jamie Oliver’s smug grin everywhere I look.

10:38 am: Pit stop: I pay almost ten bucks for a cup of tea and toast with peanut butter and jam in a fancy cafe (Cafe Blackbird) because I’m on vacation, damn it.

10:58 am: Errand number four: stock up on bras at My Filosophy. When you find the one, you just know. And you go back to buy it in multiple colours. I also tried on some clothes (vacation!)

11:29 am: Pick up Benjamin at school. I could pick up Henry at this time too, but, decide to have some one-on-one time.

12:03 pm: Lunch at Delux. Benjamin enjoys watching soccer highlights on the big screen (“why do they take their shirts off when they’re happy? Do girl soccer players take their shirts off?”) and free cotton candy.

1:21 pm: Emails and stuff while Benjamin watches some bizarre BBC Kids program.

2:45 pm: Screen time continues; blog for me, TV for him.

3:00 pm: Hide and seek. Neither of us are very good.

3:15 pm: Pick up Henry at daycare.

3:44 pm: Head to the park. Drama ensues when they don’t want to play the same game, and Benjamin finds a friend to play with and Henry doesn’t, and I end up carrying Henry home crying. Henry weights almost 50 lbs, so this counts as cardio.

4:30 pm: Read the boys a Star Wars book they bought at yesterday’s book fair.

5:00 pm: Jason arrives home with 24 beers in preparation for my family visiting this weekend. Not clear if the beer is for them, or him. I start making supper – trying a new recipe from Simply Nigella (out from the library and I’ll likely purchase; I’ve now made five recipes and they’re all great! Tonight I made Cauliflower & Cashew Curry.)

5:41 pm: All three boys refuse to eat the DELICIOUS curry. Jason barbecues hot dogs.

6:00 pm: My review of The Wake goes up on The Rusty Toque. This is the first ever piece of writing I’ve been paid to do. I’m a little excited!

6:30 pm: Boys are back on screens after supper. I spend some… alone time with Jason. Five minutes later, Henry needs his butt wiped. So much for romance. No snaps of either of these events.

7:16 pm: Board game with Benjamin. Sequence Letters is great for letter recognition.

7:43 pm: Snack time. The boys made me buy a dragon fruit yesterday, so today I make them try it. I end up eating most of it. Very mild. Then we hang out and read/ have screen time for a bit.

8:15 pm: Jason puts Benjamin to bed. Benjamin goes down easy (always does.) I begin the nightly rigmarole with Henry, which includes stories, additional snacks, bathroom trips, stuffies, back rubs, and sometimes, all-out tantrums.

9:05 pm: Henry demands warm milk.

10:19 pm: Almost done. We’re in the “lying in bed beside him in a dark room, breathing steadily, trying to fake sleep/not really fall asleep” phase.

10:38 pm: He’s down. FREEDOM! (i.e. wasting time online)

11:30 pm: My mom drops my sister off at my house. She’s just picked her up from the airport; she is visiting for a couple days over Easter. Oh yeah, I bought a signed copy of Freedom and had it shipped to her house in Minnesota to avoid international shipping, and she’s brought it with her. Eeek! We stay up yakking for an hour.

12:30 am: To bed, more wasting time on my phone.

1:00 am: To sleep.

*It’s totally cool and normal for a 35 year old to be on Snapchat. Here are some tips for elder Snapchatters I found. Follow me, I’m lauratfrey!

Snapchat-7582390527469711202

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My review of The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth

thewake…and my very first professional book review! After five years of writing about books here at Reading in Bed, I’m so proud to review The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth, my favourite book of 2015, in The Rusty Toque.

I’ve hinted about my super-duper, super-long review of The Wake for months. And it did take months to write. It also took some particular experiences, pieces of advice, and pep talks. I want to give a few shout outs, and a little preview, as it’s definitely in TL;DR territory. I’m proud, but also nervous. I wrote about The Wake, a novel about the Norman Invasion in 11th century England, in the context of Reconciliation in Canada.

It is controversial to suggest we need yet another account of colonization from the English point of view, but The Wake is an important novel in much the same way as Joseph Boyden’s The Orenda. The Orenda is one of Canadian literature’s first balanced accounts of first contact between Indigenous peoples and Europeans, including French and Indigenous points of view, and importantly, multiple Indigenous points of view (it is quite common that Indigenous peoples and their perspectives are presented as a monolith, despite the plural “peoples.”) The Orenda won the 2014 Canada Reads competition, and has been recommended as required reading for all Canadians.

The Wake should also be required reading for Canadians, not for its balanced perspective, and only partially for the old “those who don’t know, doomed to repeat” reasons, but mostly because learning that the Norman invasion was itself a colonization and that English people are no more a monolith than Indigenous peoples are and that the way we label people “Anglo-Saxon” is almost as misguided as the way we used to label Indigenous peoples “Indians” is very much in the spirit of reconciliation. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s mandate states that “The truth of our common experiences will help set our spirits free and pave the way to reconciliation.” The Wake addresses the themes of common experience, colonization, violence, and even cultural genocide.

Thanks to the people who helped me write this:

  • Jennifer Quist for encouragement and suggesting I get in touch with The Rusty Toque
  • Jane and Miranda for organizing a “Read the TRC” group, which I wrote about here
  • Wab Kinew and Ray Saddleback Jr., who spoke at a City of Edmonton employee event last year, where I first heard the phrase “renegade tribe” which made me think of England’s “greenmen” and  inspired the direction this review took
  • Carolyn of Rosemary and Reading Glasses for her review, which informed mine
  • My sister Cait for proofreading and advice

If you make it through this monster review, please let me know what you think.

Spring break at Edmonton Public Library: a guide for working parents

I love that our library will use any school break as an excuse to put on a bunch of free programs for kids – or, more than they usually do, because they always have free programs for kids. Spring break is next week, and those in the Edmonton area should go to the website or check out the program guide, and read on for my picks.

I have a contentious relationship with kiddie events and programs. Working parents of younger-than-school-age children probably know where I’m going with this: the vast majority of programs for preschool age kids, with the notable exception of swimming lessons, are offered on weekday mornings or afternoons. That means you don’t get to do mommy-and-me yoga, and your child doesn’t get as many opportunities to learn with you outside the house.

Kim Bates, a Digital Literacy Librarian at Edmonton Public Library, has heard the same complaint from parents. “We have had customers request more evening and weekend programming and as a result we have been scheduling more of our programs at those times with the working parents in mind.”

May I just say thank you? Here are a few spring break highlights that’ll work for you if you work nine to five (or 8:15-4:45, in my case.)

One Book, One Break, Many Adventures! Lumberjanes Vol. 1Lumberjanes

I loved last year’s One Book One Edmonton project so much that I wrote about it twice. One Book One Break is a child-friendly take on the concept: make a book available to everyone in Edmonton, and give them chances to talk about it and win prizes.

There’s been so much buzz about comic book Lumberjanes on book blogs and Booktube that I wasn’t sure if it was for kids. Kim says Lumberjanes appeals to a “wide demographic” but cautions that “some preschoolers have found the creatures in the book a bit scary.” My four year old cannot abide Goosebumps reruns, so I’m going to take Kim’s advice and check it out myself before I share it with him. It sounds like it’ll be perfect for my six year old.

Everyone in Edmonton can download a copy of Lumberjanes on Hoopla, and the library is ordering extra physical copies. Each day during Spring Break, libraries will have a new activity sheet that doubles as an entry to prizes which include an iPad Mini 4 and an autographed edition of Lumberjanes to the Max Edition Volume 1. Details at epl.ca/onebookonebreak.

Working parent friendly dates: this one’s on your own time, and many branches are open till 9pm weeknights, so there’s plenty of time to get your entries in.

Minecraft Madness

minecraftMinecraft at the library is nothing new, but given the popularity (bordering on obsession in my house), three branches will set aside a Minecraft-dedicated computer for the whole week of Spring Break. I asked Kim if kids get as crazy as mine do when they’re playing Minecraft at the library, and she said that while there generally aren’t fights over the computers, “kids do often like to talk to each other as they play so I do expect plenty of strategizing and cheering!” My kids could use this good example. Oh, the horror of being a one-iPad household!

Working parent friendly dates: Drop in during opening hours at Stanley A. Milner, Woodcroft or Sprucewood branches.

Lego at the Library

lego

Awesome. (via hollywoodreporter.com)

Lego without risk of stepping on a rogue brick at 6:00 am? Sign me up. For kids 6-12.

Working parent friendly dates:

  • Saturday March 26, 2:00 pm at Capilano
  • Saturday April 2, 3:00 pm at Meadows
  • Saturday April 2, 3:00 pm at Woodcroft

Minion Movie Marathon

The downtown library is showing all three Minion movies (does anyone even call them Despicable Me?) over Spring Break. Yeah, you might own them at home, but sometimes a change of venue works wonders. All ages.

Working parent friendly dates: Saturday April 2, 2:00 pm (The Minion Movie) at Stanley A. Milner

Puppet Adventures

Great for younger kids, as long as they can sit still for more than a minute at a time. Look, we’ve all been that parent dragging their kids out of a library program, there’s no shame. All ages.

Working parent friendly dates:

  • Saturday April 2, 2:00 pm at Calder
  • Saturday April 2, 2:00 pm and Sunday April 3, 2:00 pm at Castle Downs
  • Sunday April 3, 2:00 pm at Clareview
  • Saturday March 26, 1:30 pm and 3:00 pm at Lois Hole
  • Saturday March 26, 2:00 pm at Stanley A. Milner
  • Saturday April 2, 2:00 pm and 3:00 pm at Whitemud Crossing

Bonus (and shameless self-promotion; I work for the city and helped develop this): If you’re looking for more kids’ programming in Edmonton, check out myrecguide.ca and create a custom guide to City of Edmonton registered programs – swimming lessons, daycamps, arts, yoga, kickboxing, and much more. You only see the ages, interests, and locations that work for you. And, there are more and more options for us working parents on evening and weekends. We’re working on it!

This post was inspired by, but not paid for by, Edmonton Public Library. I mean… they’re a library. What did you expect? They do lend me free books though.

 

Book to Movie Challenge 2016: Emma (1996), Anna Karenina (2012), and In Her Shoes

movie challenge
I haven’t watched this many movies since before I had kids, when Netflix & Chill was still Blockbuster & Chill* and it’s all thanks to ebookclassics’ Book to Movie Challenge 2016. It’s comforting and nostalgic to go shopping at HMV, to buy movie snacks, to wait till everyone’s gone to bed and curl up with blankets on the couch by myself and watch a movie. Here are my first three adaptations of the year. I also saw The Revenant in theater, but I haven’t read the book, so I’ll spare you the Leo gifs.

Emma (1996)

  • The book: I read Emma for the 200th anniversary in late 2015, and for the second time that year, I started a “reread” to find I’d never read the original at all. It was a delightful, cozy read, though nowhere near my favourite Austen; the stakes are simply too low. Emma doesn’t care about getting married until the very end (uh, spoiler) so her marriage plot is kind of boring. I would love to revisit Emma and Knightly a few years into their marriage and co-habitation with finicky Mr. Woodhouse. I got the feeling Knightly didn’t think about what he was agreeing to. My reading experience was heightened by two blog events: Dolce Bellezza’s Read Along and Sarah Emsley’s Emma in the Snow, which is still going strong, and features guest posts by experts about food, urban planning, and why Mr. Knightley is not a super creep, to name just a few.
  • The movie: It’s a very literal interpretation of the book. It was boring, but pleasantly so, just like the book. I’m pretty sure they added the archery scene with Emma and Mr. Knightly just to get the shot of Emma aiming her bow and arrow for the poster. Apart from that, there are no real surprises or innovations.emmaarrow
  • The casting: I don’t mind when an actor doesn’t look the way I imagined, but I am a stickler for ages. Emma is twenty years old, and Gwyneth Paltrow (who I love, but can only think of as Goopy Paltrow thanks to dlisted) was 24 when the movie came out. Harriet is seventeen and Toni Collette was 24 as well. I don’t know if we are told Frank Churchill’s age, but certainly he should be older than Emma. Ewan McGregor is older than Goopy, but just barely. Everyone looked too old to my eyes. I read Emma as a teenage story, though that might just be me comparing the text to Clueless.

Anna Karenina (2012)

  • The book: I read AK many years ago. I have an Oprah’s Book Club edition, because before blogging, I didn’t know that was gross. I don’t remember a lot about it, so it didn’t make a huge impression.
  • The movie: I loved it. The costumes, the music, the stage/backstage framing, Keira, and Matthew Mcfayden especially. It didn’t matter how faithful it was to the book (not that I’d remember) because it clearly wasn’t meant to be. My only gripe is that they didn’t make this movie years ago, when Jude Law could’ve played hot Vronksy instead of the crotchety husband. I mean:
  • The casting: see gripe above re. Vronsky casting. As for Anna, she is 28 in the book, and Keira was 27 when it came out. Vronsky’s age felt right; Aaron Taylor-Johnson is five years younger than Keira. Mr. Karenin is supposed to be about twenty years older than Anna, and Jude Law is only about thirteen years older than Keira, but their age difference felt okay. My favourite actor was Matthew Mcfayden as the patriarch of the first unhappy family we meet. I liked him here just as much as in P&P.

In Her Shoes (2005)

  • The book: Read last month for Franzen in February, In Her Shoes is my third Weiner novel and middling among books that are themselves pretty middling. It wasn’t as good as Good in Bed, but it was better than super-boring Fly Away Home (though FAH will always have a place in my heart for allowing me to write this.) IHS starts with a tired premise (one sister is a frumpy harpy, the other is a good-time girl, will they ever learn to accept one another) but Weiner takes a few risks and explores some interesting territory with respect to class and consent in the beginning. It never really goes anywhere though. After a bizarre middle section in which the messed-up sister grifts her way through a Princeton dorm, and the serious sister quits practicing law in favour of dog walking, which has no impact on her yuppie lifestyle, everyone ends up exactly where you knew they would.
  • The movie:  Apart from some questionable casting (see below), the movie is much tighter than the book, doing away with the middle section, but still giving us Maggie’s redemption through literature. I don’t know what it says about me that I preferred Maggie to learn to love literature from an old man than to learn it herself. Apparently Weiner was inspired by Push by Sapphire (also a movie, Precious) which is just… look, that’s going to be a WHOLE other blog post. Let’s just say that I will never forget reading Push and I have already forgotten a lot of In Her Shoes.
  • The casting: Age is not an issue this time, but Rose (Toni Collette) is supposed to be overweight, and this is played up in a couple of important scenes. In one of these, Maggie (Cameron Diaz) calls Rose a “fat pig” to which Rose scoffs “that’s the best you can do? You’re my sister,” just before their estrangement. In the movie, it’s a bizarre moment, because Rose is not fat. Both actresses still manage to rock this scene. The male leads were quite a bit more attractive then they seemed to be in the book, and, strangely, the sassy black friend becomes a cynical white friend.

    inhershoes

    Spot the “fat sister”

 

*My most memorable Blockbuster & Chill was Reservoir Dogs, on my second date with a guy I met online. Reader, I married him.

My First Franzen: Eff you and your flat female characters! (Freedom, 2010)

The second in a series in which I convince hapless readers to take on the Fran Man, today’s First Franzen is courtesy of my sister Caitlin Higgins. Caitlin is a sometime-vegan Canadian ex-pat living in St. Paul, Minnesota and previously shared a tour of Freedom’s notable settings. Check her out on Twitter or on her blog, The Angry Vegan, now defunct, but worth reading the archives.

So many feelings happened as I read this book, but surprisingly, when I finished I didn’t know how to share my opinion. I didn’t love Freedom; I didn’t hate it. There were points where I felt both of these feelings as I read, but I walked away thinking, “Really??? That’s it??”.

I started out selfishly thinking it was going to be a great book, because it was set in St. Paul, MN and I moved to St. Paul just a few months before. I love reading books set in places I have been. I really like recognizing streets and landmarks (I found out later that Barrier Street does not really exist… was it supposed to be symbolic?). There is something about walking in the same place a book is set that gives you an instant connection. freedom

There is so much flipping around in this book from one character’s story to the next, making it a tricky read. Most of my reading is done in 20 minute spurts at the gym with long breaks in between, and I was constantly forgetting where I was in the story. I can’t blame Franzen for that one though. Now that I have a hard copy, I can see, this is no gym read!

The story is told in a mix of Patty narrating her own life and marriage, and a variety of characters in Patty’s world narrating: husband- Walter, son- Joey, BFF/Lover- Richard, and a little bit from daughter Jessica. Franzen is great at giving these characters depth. I truly felt I understood the character under the spotlight and then as the story went on, I would change my opinion as I learned more and more. However, as I continued to read, it was clear he is only good at that for his male characters. I went through so many emotions about Walter. First, I liked him, and even compared him to my husband. Then, I hated him. He seems so spineless. (No longer comparing to the husband!). I was either shaking a fist at him or rooting for him to do the right thing.

Patty, on the other hand, seemed to be a victim, never having control, never truly making decisions, and never having her own true plot, even when she should have. Looking back, this happened with Jessica’s character as well, and Joey’s girlfriend. Really, there was not one female character in Freedom that had the depth of the male characters. It made me really dislike this book. Everything centralizes around Patty, so how could she not be more than some helpless lump!?! Shame on you, Franzen! Is that how he sees women? Maybe, maybe not, but I walk away thinking he is a sexist jerk.

10-Things-I-Hate-About-You-Less-Sexist-Take-Taming-Shrew

Putting my thoughts on Franzen and female characters aside, I really got into the book. I was forever rooting for someone to do something (anything!!). In the end, after everything that everyone had been through, Patty goes back to Walter and Walter takes her (Of course, after some passive aggressive punishment). Why would she go back!? WHY does he take her back?! I hated the ending so much I almost threw my Kindle across the gym. The end left me wondering why I had wasted the last few weeks reading this well-written, anger-inducing, yet somehow dull story. I wanted the book to get outside boring and normal life in some way. I wanted Patty to be OK, and all I was left with is Patty right back where she started. To me, Franzen took the easy way out.

So what do I think about Freedom? I guess it is OK (I am rolling my eyes as I type). It clearly evoked emotion, which in my case can be tough to do. I would rather spend a month reading a novel that allows me to escape from the dreary reality I live in (OK, not always dreary, but not all that exciting either). This did not do that. Despite the lack of female character depth, I did think that the book was so well written, that I’d give Franzen one more chance… even though I have a feeling I will be angry again if I do. Maybe I am a glutton for punishment.

cait reading freedom edit

Caitlin, seething with anger, reads Freedom

Alright, well, I’m zero for two. I need to convince someone to read The Corrections. Everyone loves The Corrections!

My first Franzen: Motion sickness (Strong Motion, 1992)

As part of Franzen in February, I asked some of my favourite readers to pick up their very first Franzen novel, and a few of them actually did. I guess I’m what you’d call an online influencer (come at me, brands.) Today, #CanLit poster boy Jason Purcell reviews Strong Motion. For more of Jason’s brilliance, check out his YouTube channel, his Instagram, his blog, or just stalk him on Twitter.

I wonder now if I went into Jonathan Franzen’s Strong Motion (1992) planning to dislike it, perhaps as a way of proving my politics, whatever those may be, however they may speak to Franzen’s. I admit that I approached this, my first Franzen, with suspicion, with my eye already mid-eye roll, pencil poised to write some critique in the margin. I certainly did do these things. But then I stopped altogether. As of this moment, I’ve only made it 116 pages in, and so I don’t have a lot to report. The protagonist is a white male who is a social outcast of one kind or another. There are a number of damaged women who surround him who exist to be critiqued by our protagonist. There are earthquakes. There are several earthquakes.

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I may never know why there are so many earthquakes, because as I’ve said already, I’ve given it up. This brings to mind a 2010 piece by Julia Keller called “When to give up on a book” which reads: “Like a spouse who has already made a secret appointment with a divorce attorney, … I found myself smitten with guilt. ‘It’s not you,’ I murmured to the novel. ‘It’s me. Really.’” But in this case, is it me? It appears that this novel received mostly praise, and the criticism is largely concerned with Franzen’s ambition, that he has written too much here. And, when I think of this novel, and of abandoning it, I don’t feel “smitten with guilt,” though I do feel each individually—glad not to be reading it and guilty for not having finished.

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But there were too many moments in this novel that caused visceral discomfort that I feel I can’t even fight through it. Selecting the most revolting is a real Sophie’s Choice.

“You’re fucked up,” he said without looking at her. “You’re really fucked up. And you’ve got the wrong idea about me.”

“But you like me, right?” she asked him from the doorway.

“Yeah, sure. I like you. I like you.” (75)

I was warned that this novel is not Franzen’s most mature, and I’m willing to believe that his later work really does deserve the praise they have received, and I’m even willing to believe that Franzen might be worthy of his title as one of the greatest living American novelists. But the first hundred pages of Strong Motion are littered with clichéd Manic Pixie Dream Girl moments rendered in lackluster prose that I don’t feel willing to sacrifice my time trying to understand. Maybe one day I’ll go back to it. As Keller notes at the end of her piece, “I did finally finish Wolf Hall. Part of that was a sense of professional responsibility; the novel won the 2009 Man Booker Prize and is simply too highly regarded by too many smart people to be ignored.” Franzen, too, is highly regarded by many smart people, someone whose work I’d love to read and understand. But Strong Motion is to be shelved until someone is able to convince me it is worth the struggle, that it is a great novel that deserves my attention. There is so much to read. So much so that to spend time reading something as uninteresting as this seems the saddest thing to do.

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Okay, so this didn’t work out so well. I’ve advised Jason to give himself time to recover, perhaps indulge in some self-care, and then try again with The Corrections. Stay tuned for another edition of My First Franzen in the next couple of days.

Sigal Samuel reads sexist books so you don’t have to (but you should anyway)

Sigal Samuel is the author of The Mystics of Mile End, a novel about Montreal, Kabbalah, and family secrets. She is working on a middle grade novel about a boy named Zeno who goes to a hotel and discovers that it has an infinite number of rooms – it’s based on a real paradox in math called Hilbert’s Paradox of the Grand Hotel. Are my kids middle grade yet? Visit her at sigalsamuel.com and follow her on Twitter.

sigalSigal Samuel’s debut novel, The Mystics of Mile End, has so much going on that I didn’t spend a lot of time wondering who might have influenced it. In hindsight, the multiple narrators, the prominence of place, the middle-class neighbourhood, the failing patriarch, the young man coming of age, and yeah, even the queer female protagonist, should have tipped me off. This novel has Franzen written all over it.

It was Samuel’s essay, “What Women Can Learn From Reading Sexist Male Authors“, that alerted me to her FranzenFriend status. She questions the mass writing-off of Franzen’s work, particularly by those objecting to his supposed sexism:

Franzen, whose character Denise’s storyline in The Corrections is among the best depictions I’ve encountered of queer female desire? Whose first 50 pages in Freedom form one of the strongest indictments of rape culture I’ve ever read?

(Note to self: reread the first 50 pages of Freedom.)

The essay is a response to Rebecca Solnit’s essay “80 Books No Woman Should Read,” itself a response to an asinine list of “80 books all men should read” that appeared in Esquire a few years ago. (Esquire has since responded with an all-female list of 80 books all people should read, and honestly, the most offensive thing about both lists is that they are slide shows.)

Rather than presuming to prescribe specific books, à la Esquire, or satirizing those lists, à la Solnit,  Samuel examines what readers gain when they read outside their ideology. She also argues that to imply women shouldn’t read certain books is actually pretty darn sexist:

It’s pretty insulting to women’s intelligence to imply that we’re incapable of separating out the good from the bad in these works.

Sigal Samuel kindly agreed to answer a few questions about Franzen, sexists, and The Mystics of Mile End. Check out this review by Buried in Print for more about Mystics; it’s a great read.

Reading in Bed: You’ve admitted to liking Franzen’s work (shock! horror!) Do you count him as an influence? In what way has his work influenced yours?

Sigal Samuel: I absolutely count Franzen as an influence. I think I’ve learned a lot from him, both on the sentence level (remember that “crepuscular”sentence near the beginning of “The Corrections”?) and on the structural level. The opening section of “Freedom” — the way it starts with a bird’s eye view of a neighborhood, then zooms into one person’s perspective, then swivels horizontally into a neighbor’s perspective — directly inspired the structure of the closing section of my novel, “The Mystics of Mile End.”

RIB: Franzen is know for alternating perspectives between multiple narrators. How important was it to tell The Mystics of Mile End from multiple perspectives? Did you ever think about telling it from a single point of view, and if so, whose?

SS: So, yes, following from the last question, multiple perspectives are very important to me! I did actually start by writing “Mystics” entirely from one perspective — that of Samara, a twentysomething university student who’s climbing the Kabbalah’s Tree of Life. But it began to feel pretty claustrophobic to spend 300 pages inside the head of one increasingly insane narrator. Plus, it seemed more interesting to be able to show how other people in Samara’s life were perceiving her obsession, and noticing clues that she was missing, and vice versa. I’m always most interested in drawing connections between people, and across time and space and ideas, and alternating perspectives allows you to do that.

RIB:  You wrote about how reading sexist literature can be instructive. Have you ever read a book where the sexism was just too much? How does a book (or author) cross that line?

SS: You know, a friend of mine asked me this question recently and was surprised when I answered that, no, I’ve never encountered a book where the sexism was just too much. That might be because I was raised in the Orthodox Jewish world. If I can get through the Bible and the Talmud, with all their deep-seated sexism, and still manage to appreciate them as great works of literature — well, I can probably get through anything!

And then, in a moment of Franzen in February zen, she had a run-in with the man himself earlier this month:

Freedom IRL

When I recommended Freedom to my sister a couple years ago, in a post that proved to have a broader appeal than I thought it would, I only did so because it was about marriage. Caitlin was about to get married to her American boyfriend, and due to immigration law, would likely be a housewife for at least the first few months of her marriage. “American housewife” immediately brought Freedom‘s Patty Berglund to mind.

I’d completely forgotten that Freedom takes place in St. Paul, Minnesota, the very city Caitlin was moving too. She got around to reading it recently, and her contribution to Franzen in February is a Freedom-centric tour of St. Paul.

Ramsey Hill

 

Walter and Patty were the young pioneers of Ramsey Hill – the first college grads to buy a house on Barrier Street since the old heart of St. Paul had fallen on hard times three decades earlier.

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If you’re one of those people who like to describe settings as being like a character, Ramsey Hill would be the main character here.

 

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A bit more gentrified over here

Summit-Lexington Intersection

 

According to Blake, the morning’s KSTP weather forecast had been stupid, the Paulsens had put their recycling barrel in a stupid place, the seat-belt beeper in his truck was stupid not to shut off after sixty seconds, the commuters driving the speed limit on Summit Avenue were stupid, the stoplight at Summit and Lexington was stupidly timed…

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What is going on with these signs? I don’t like it. Also, the Cathedral of St. Paul.

 

Macalester College

He got an Ivy League scholarship offer but instead went to Macalester, close enough to Hibbing to take a bus up on weekends and help his mom combat the motel’s encroaching decay (the dad apparently now had emphysema and was useless).

Fun fact: Marlon James teaches here

Fun fact: Marlon James teaches here

Central High School

It happened that one of the popular ninth-grade girls at Joey’s own school, Central High, had come home from a family trip to New York City with a cheap watch, widely admired at lunch hour.

Looks like a cheery place

Looks like a cheery place

 

Caitlin and I are indebted to this article, which appeared in a local paper just as Freedom was published. The author’s excitement at his hometown’s prominence in a novel is embarrassingly Canadian. There are a couple gems in the comments, too: “too much sex geez the guy needs an editor.” Yeah, yeah, we know.