Just be-clause

I have been reading many clauses. Not in my official capacity, however, but as a homeowner. Specifically, as the owner of an older home. It is loaded with charm...and now, with a lot more.

I came home on Wednesday night, wearing my maternity top, and found a note from my dogsitter. He was concerned because there was water in the basement...and not "plain" water....but very dirty water. He said I shouldn't even go down there. He had also seen a mouse. Now, the water with you-know-what in it didn't terrify me, but when he said MOUSE I began to whimper and cover my ears. My little Molly thought I was sick and began to lick my face. (I sure hope she hadn't been in the basement....)

So I called Roto-Rooter and John the plumber said he could come over very late that night, but the next morning at 6 AM would be better. So I set my alarm for before six, got up and waited....for a long, long time. My cell phone, naturally, wasn't on. It wasn't on because I had left the charger in the office. It was a new phone...well, new to me. I had recently lost my third phone in about as many months. I looked on "Craig's List" and found one being sold by a guy called "Iz". I had to meet him in a parking lot. He brought his German shepherd. I brought cash.

While my phone was off, John was desperately trying to reach me, as he was apparently on my street...somewhere. I got to work on time, but was totally exhausted. Finally, John and I reached each other. I went home for lunch and found sewer trucks from the town on my street. I hoped that they had somehow caused my basement flood. I was trying to eat an egg salad sandwich that my mother had made and delivered to me. Then the town engineer showed up. Then the town plumber. Then my friend who was going to hem my curtains. My dogsitters and dogs, of course, were already there. Then John the plumber and his co-pilot began going up and down my stairs. "Look at my pants," one of them said, "they're soaking wet!" As their boots trod over and over my kitchen floor, the egg salad lost its appeal.

Finally, both plumbers faced me. "Bad news," they said. "We're gonna have to dig." (Have I mentioned that my husband was in another country and I hadn't been able to reach him?) "Can you dig?" I asked. "Sure, but not today...it'll have to be tomorrow." And then they showed me the estimate. I was very happy I hadn't eaten the egg salad.

I began to read clauses....and sign my name. Now, earlier that morning, I had read all the clauses in the contract for a new roof and signed my name to that. I realized that I was spending more money in one day on lousy stuff than I had ever though possible. Asphault shingles? A sewer pipe? Nothing I wanted, but everything I needed.

At night, I treated myself to "Vanity Fair" and actually read....at the counter of the Blue Ribbon Diner, with a coke and a cheeseburger deluxe in front of me. Exactly what Geneen Roth says never to do. I didn't care. I was reading Marilyn Monroe's secret diaries. I did not have dessert, but did stop and buy myself an entire box of dark chocolates. It was difficult to drive, put on my reading glasses (have I mentioned that I recently had eye surgery and don't have my new glasses yet?) and read the little writing on the inside cover of the candy box that showed the flavors, but I did it. Then, I went to Home Depot and Ocean State Job Lot and spent more than I ever have (a theme!) on stuff I never wanted. Mops, odor eliminators, disinfectants, detergents, tarps....all the "fun" stuff every girl loves to buy. The mopping of the kitchen floor was a difficult project, especially since I was exhausted and, at the same time, on a sugar high.

The next morning, a huge truck arrived carrying a back hoe. Then, my plumber friends arrived. I took the dogs to doggie daycare to keep them safe. That was the only bargain...they gave me a "two-for" price and put Halloween kerchiefs on Molly and Emily. Adorable! I called my insurance company and a company that handles hazardous waste clean-ups. When the guy told me what the clean-up might cost, I barely felt a thing.

I arrived home to find the two plumbers, the town plumbing inspector and the hazardous clean-up dude. My dad came over too. "It's really bad," said the hazardous clean up man. "Worse than I thought." More than the roof? More than the installation of a new sewer pipe? Yes. More. He handed me some papers, loaded with clauses, at the same time the plumber came in and showed me other papers. I signed them. I was no longer reading clauses.

The men all suggested that I go out and purchase stakes and crime scene tape to make a little fence so that Halloween trick or treaters wouldn't fall on my lawn where the digging had taken place. Sure, I thought. Why not? Right after I wash and disinfect my kitchen floor AGAIN. So, tonight I will go to the store. Not a fun store like Kohl's or Macy's...not even a semi-fun store like the grocery store. No, I will go to a hardware store and buy more things I don't want because my sewer pipe busted. I will not bother to read any warnings or clauses when I purchase these stupid things. I will be too tired, anyway. I might just re-read that Marilyn Monroe article, however. With ice cream on the side.

No, there isn't!

I can't fully explain it, but this week there simply isn't time enough to read. I read two books last week, both by authors I have talked about before. Then, I found myself down to one library book. It is by Jennifer Weiner, whose book about the political wife whose husband cheats got a lot of attention. I read that one. Ho hum. But, I took another of hers out of the library anyway because sometimes, I just like to read books that DON'T make me think. This one is called "Best Friends Forever". It seemed appropriate, as I had plans to meet the friend I have had the longest. We have been friends for fifty-four years, starting when her family moved into a new house next to ours. We were four. She is stunning. She looks twenty years younger than most women our age. Part of this is due to the fact that she has never gained weight. Most of us struggle on a daily basis. Maybe she does too, but she must not give in to the Dunkin' Donuts Pumpkin Muffin (I heard on a morning show that it has 600 calories and has more fat than a huge bacon cheeseburger).

We were to meet at a Panera after work. I brought my jeans to work...the ones that I think make me look tall. This is because they go to the ground and I sort of have to step on them. I also had on my "good" white shirt. Some fashion designer says that every woman must have a good white shirt. I felt...OK. Not great, by any means. Then, unfortunately, I saw myself in the bathroom mirror at work. It is difficult to see anything in that mirror, as the bathroom at work is so dirty, but I saw myself anyway. Yikes! I looked like one of my grandmothers, and not the one everybody called "adorable". I just couldn't stand to meet my beautiful, thin friend looking this way.

I had an hour. This is the hour I could have spent reading. But I went to J.C. Penney's instead. It was a hot day. I was tearing around the store grabbing anything that might help. First, of course, I grabbed some hold-in underwear. Then I found a black blazer in a size that, honestly, I never thought I would wear. I grabbed some t-shirts, as I always like that Bobbi Brown look...jeans, crew neck t-shirt and blazer. My outfit was almost working. Then a very grumpy senior came in the dressing room with two long sweater tops. "I was gonna get these sweaters," she announced to the saleslady, "but they're MATERNITY tops!" She handed them over with disgust.

"Let me try them on," I begged. They were roomy and covered me from neck to mid thigh. One was red, this season's "it" color. Last week I bought a red sweater to see another old friend and when I saw the pictures I turned white. Not a good look on me. But this sweater...it had everything I needed.

It was time for my dinner and I ran to the cashier, bought the underwear and sweater, dashed back to the dressing room, changed into them, and got to Panera on time. I had a salad, just like my beautiful friend. And on the way home, I think you know what else I had, because right across from the Panera is a Dunkin' Donuts. I have finally found the perfect sweater to wear when I am "muffin topping".

A picture is worth.......

Can a well-written book deliver the emotional impact of a documentary film? I recently finished "The Invisible Bridge" by Julie Orringer. Orringer concentrates on the experience of Hungarian Jews during World War II, and uses one family and their friends as her vehicle. The protagonist, Andras Levi, is meant to be an architect and is accepted at an avant-garde Parisian college. In Paris, he meets and falls in love with an older woman who is also Hungarian. The first part of the novel concentrates on their growing romance and the parallel growing threat of the Nazi party. The couple eventually marries and returns to Budapest, where the Hungarian government has protected Jews from the Nazis far longer than in most European countries. However, Jewish men are sent to work details in the most dangerous parts of the war. Orringer's descriptions of these camps makes for compelling reading. Yet, there is still something too sanitized about this novel. I could feel Orringer trying to horrify her readers. I always felt her presence, looking over my shoulder wondering if she had done her job. I enjoyed this book, and learned from it, but I wanted more.

I got almost more than I could handle when I went to see "A Film Unfinished." If you haven't heard about it, don't be surprised. It only played for one week at the local art cinema in our area. This film was made by Nazis as anti-Jewish propaganda in 1942, in the Warsaw ghetto, right before the residents began to be sent to annihilation camps in great numbers. As someone who has read about the Warsaw ghetto since junior high, has looked at still photos of the ghetto in Warsaw, and has seen just about every film made about the plight of those massacred by the Nazis, I still wasn't prepared for the punch to the gut this film gave me. The Nazi party sent a crew of filmmakers into the ghetto for a very brief time. Many scenes were staged; some over and over. Yael Hersonski, the screenwriter and presenter, found survivors of the ghetto who comment about the scenes in the film as we watch. Hersonski has also pored through journals kept, in secret, by many who lived there. These provide a valuable context for the images we see. The Nazis attempt to show that Jews are so insensitive and uncaring that they will even let other Jews suffer and die. There are staged scenes of Jewish people eating in restaurants while others lie on sidewalks right outside, starving to death.

However, in any situation where horror abounds, human beings go into survival mode. Anyone who works in a highly stressful situation where he or she is surrounded by the suffering, the hopeless, the severely mentally ill, abused children, the dying, learns to cope. We look away. We make bad jokes. We stop crying. We become cold in order to keep on doing our jobs without falling to pieces.

There is a memorable scene in "A Film Unfinished" where one of the survivors (who was a young girl when she lived in the Warsaw ghetto) describes walking past dead bodies every single day without looking at them, so she would be able to keep on walking. Then one day, she tells us, she falls into a body. She can't avert her eyes this time. She is hysterical. But, when she goes home, her mother comforts her with a piece of bread and jam, and she goes on. She survives.

Every day, we watch or listen to the news. We see hungry children, victims of natural disasters, people who live without enough food, water, clothing, and shelter. We see the victims of war. These human beings are our fellow travelers in this life. Yet, most of us generally ignore the plights of those who are not our own relatives or friends.

The images from long ago in the Warsaw ghetto moved me very deeply. However, I know that the lesson I need to take from "A Film Unfinished" is that hatred, genocide, and war are all around. I just need to open my eyes before I fall into a dead body.

21st Century Sweathogs

Michael Kanaly calls his newest novel, "Room One, A Story of Public Education". It is that, but it is also the story of the pain teens feel when they are sure they will never succeed; the story of first love and how fragile it can feel; the story of a great teacher who can make students find their gifts and believe in themselves; the story of the isolation teens feel on most days.

Like Holden Caufield, Thomas Berg is failing every subject in high school. Berg long ago gave up trying, as the public school system shuffled him from one class to another, finally demoting him to the worst place in Roosevelt High, "Room One". Kanaly takes a risk in writing this book in the first person, but the risk pays off, because the reader can truly feel Thomas Berg's confusion, anger, fear, loneliness and hopelessness. Room One is filled with kids like Thomas, but Thomas knows, deep in his soul, that he doesn't really belong there.

In describing the sense of isolation students like Thomas feel, Kanaly writes:

"....the other thing that Victoria and I share, indeed the thing that binds all Room Oners, is the sense of exclusion we are forced to live with on a daily basis. We are separated from the other students, rightly or wrongly, by our Room One status. This is true, no matter what anyone else says, or pretends to believe. Once a kid is sentenced to Room One, or its equivalent, this exclusion completes a process that, for most of us, began early on in our so-called Educational Experience...."

I have worked with kids like Thomas and the Room Oners for over thirty years. I have tried to teach them, inspire them, defend them, protect them, and find them the help they so desperately need. I have seen the scars from the cuts they have made on their own bodies, listened to them bang their heads against cell doors when separated from the families who have abused and neglected them, pretended not to see their embarrassed tears as they struggle with addiction, and watched their faces close when they hear their own parents say they do not want to ever see these children again. I love these children, and it is clear that Michael Kanaly does, too.

He honors them in this book, by presenting characters who talk and behave just like real teens do. From the start, the reader senses great tension and a foreshadowing of things to come. Will Thomas find love with the girl of his dreams? Will he be foolish enough to be sucked into the dangerous antics of the Wolf Pack? Or, is there a chance...even a slim one...that Thomas will be able to overcome the negativity that public education has filled him with and succeed?

Anyone who has a teenager, works with teenagers, or simply wants to read a compelling story of what it is like to be in high school right now should read this superb book.

Oops, I read it again...

I have been trying very hard to find a new book to read; a new AUTHOR to read; even a new book by an author I already know. I visit the library at least weekly and take out armfuls of books. I search among the "old" and "new" books. Often, I read the first chapter and realize that I do not care one bit what happens next. Recently, I read an entire book without caring what would happen next. It was one of those books with recipes in it, too. If an author has to add recipes, perhaps she doesn't have enough of everything else. But I finished that book, just to prove that I don't toss every new book aside. Still, it has been several weeks since I have found a wonderful new book. After taking out four books the other day...and finding RECIPES in one...I picked up the yellowing old paperback "Something in the Wind", by Lee Smith. I guess Lee and her publishers don't like this book, because they have never re-issued it. But, as I have written before, I love this book. Brooke Kincaid, the privileged daughter of an attorney and a southern belle and the baby of her family, suffers the loss of her "intended", Charles Hughes, when she is about to graduate from high school...well, private girls-only prep school. Brooke devises a life plan to cope with the emotions she doesn't want to feel. She will act like those around her by watching, listening, and emulating their actions. At Christmas, when she tries to buy her current beau a gift, she ends up buying a huge glass ball (the kind that "snows")with a tiny village inside instead because she wishes she could live there. Brooke even thinks of herself as "Brooke". But she can't always keep her own feelings buried. And when she meets Bentley Travis Hooks, the son of a Baptist missionary, the real Brooke begins to come to the surface. Their love affair is the one we all had our freshman year in college...if we were lucky;passionate, romantic, and life-changing. There are no recipes in this book. Lee Smith has never had to put anything in her stories or novels except great plots, unforgettable characters, lush southern scenery, and a dash of magic.

Back to the Beach

When I read "Those Who Save Us" by Jenna Blum, I was hooked from the first sentence. I especially loved the way Blum portrayed each character's multiple facets; kind and cruel, good and evil, strong and weak. I have recommended this book to everyone.

In my "beach book" mode this summer, I have read far too many books with one-dimensional characters. So, when I saw that Blum had written a new book, "The Stormchasers", I was thrilled. This time, Blum tells the story of twins. When the book opens, they have not seen each other for twenty years, much to the dismay of Karena, a reporter. She is always searching for her brother Charles, a stormchaser who is bipolar and refuses to take medication. She cons her paper into sending her on assignment with a group of stormchasers in order to find Charles. First, Karena finds love with stormchaser Kevin, and then she finds Charles. The scenes between Kevin and Karena are tender and sweet, and their romance is easy to feel. The book never succeeds for me, however, because I found nothing to care about in Charles. It goes without saying that anyone who suffers from severe mental illness has a tragic life. And Blum makes Charles unable to tolerate medications, so that his illness is life-long. But,even when Charles is on his "good" behavior he is not a character I could care about. In fact, I found him boring, and hoped he would get lost for another twenty years.

A few years ago, there was a great holiday movie, "Love, Actually". It was comprised of all kinds of love stories and one of them concerned the devotion a sister has for her mentally ill brother. I remember thinking, when I watched it, that the sister was simply avoiding her own life by being so devoted to her brother.

I felt the same way about Karena's obsession for Charles. As Blum portrayed him, he simply wasn't worth all the time, love, worry, and angst that Karena spent on him. He also constantly addressed her as "sistah", which was as annoying as Kevin calling her "Laredo". These are perhaps small points, but they kept the characters one-dimensional, the last thing I would have expected from Jenna Blum.

So, I went back to the beach, specifically Nantucket, and a new book by one of my favorite authors, Nancy Thayer, called "Beachcombers". This is Thayer's twentieth published novel. Her writing is smooth and comfortable, her characters are people I want to meet, the places she mentions are places I want to see. Take this one on your vacation, no matter where you go.

There once was a book about Nantucket.....

As I suspected I would, I read all of the Elin Hildebrand books I could find on the library shelves...."Nantucket Nights" about a woman who disappears while swimming at night, "Castaways", about a couple who disappears while sailing and a woman still reeling from her twin's death on 9/11, "Barefoot", about a woman undergoing chemotherapy for lung cancer and a young man still dealing with his mother's suicide, and "The Blue Bistro", about a hot restaurant's final year because...yes, the chef is dying. So, I endured the terrible heat wave reading about people on Nantucket while our two little air conditioners bravely tried to keep two little rooms cool...but what I was really reading about were rich people and death. Beach books about the dead and dying must be a new type of literature..."buried in the sand lit"??

These are not books that made me think but entertained me. The young couples in "Castaways" (except for one rich duo)have jobs including police chief, teacher, farmer, restaurant hostess and musician, yet they take group vacations without the kids to Vegas, Mexico, South Beach, England, and "The Point", which is the most expensive resort in the Adirondacks. (I just checked, and rooms for two are either $1,350 or $1,850 per night.) Plus, they own real estate on Nantucket! The assistant restaurant manager in "Blue Bistro", who arrives in Nantucket penniless, can almost immediately afford Jimmy Choo and Kate Spade shoes. In the world Hildebrand creates there are no poor or unattractive people. There I was, sweltering in my size fourteen shorts from Boscov's, drinking ginger ale out of a plastic cup hoping for a trip to "Cracker Barrel" and reading about elegance and beauty and beaches and...oh yeah, death.

As I read about the beautiful people in Hildebrand's Nantucket, my memory pulled me to our visits to Misquamicut Beach on the coast of Rhode Island. There, everyone seemed to have a minimum of three tattoos and though the women were "plus size" they proudly wore two piece bathing suits. The men smoked cigarettes non-stop and swilled cold beers, and the kids wore loaded pull-ups and ate french fries with a side of cotton candy, the kind that comes in a plastic bag. (I just checked, and an entire house in that area can be rented for $1,500 per week.) I know I would read a book about the folks who vacation there, because right now I am reading a book of short stories about just these people. The stories are funny, beautiful, thought-provoking, deeply sad, and make me wish, more than anything, that I had the author's gift. The book is "Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-eyed Stranger" and the author is my idol, Lee Smith.

Enjoy all the beach books you want this summer...but when you want to think and feel and be happy just to be alive, read one of Lee Smith's new stories.

Roll out those lazy, crazy, hazy days of summer....

Why is it that being lazy is "OK" in the summer? Is it because there was no air conditioning in the olden days, so people couldn't move fast or complete tasks? Because school always let out in the summer, creating a natural break? For whatever reason, we all seem to get a little lazy when the summer months arrive. We eat ice cream cones. We take naps. We take vacations.

"Summer Reading" is a synonym for "unimportant", "unrealistic", or even "dumb". I went to the library on a hot day recently and deliberately chose a big stack of "summer reading" books. They were all paperbacks. All by women. One was even a mystery!

But, as I sat in front of my room air conditioner, watching a re-run of "The Middle" I had seen a couple of times before (don't you just love Brick?), I found myself really enjoying the books I selected.

"Tainted", by Brooke Morgan is a mystery set on Cape Cod. A shy single mom, Holly, who doesn't realize she is beautiful, meets a handsome, witty, smart, irresistible Brit, Jack Dane. He asks her out, but when he realizes she has a five-year-old daughter, he tells her he can't see her any more. However, events out of Holly's control bring them together again. Jack is just perfect...except for those bizarre outbursts of anger when there is any noise. The creep who fathered Holly's little girl and abandoned them both, doesn't seem to share Holly's opinion about Jack Dane's perfection. Who is right? And why does the British woman whose number is on Jack's cell phone keep denying she knows him? This first novel kept me interested all the way to the end.

I have seen Elin Hilderbrand's books on the library's shelves for years, but have never wanted to read one. With titles like "The Love Season" and "The Beach Club", they just didn't seem like my glass of iced tea. Where would I find the concentration camp survivors? Members of the French underground? Nonetheless, something made me pick up one of Hilderbrand's books, "Nantucket Nights". It is the story of a twenty year friendship between three women who meet once a year, at midnight, to drink champagne, swim in the buff, and share secrets. They call themselves the "night swimmers". One woman is a high-powered attorney, one is a reclusive millionaire who had been a great dancer, and our heroine is a wife and mother who battles with her weight and tries to take care of everyone. Not surprisingly, the night swimmers encounter a lot more than waves when they try to carry out their ritual this year. Are they really "friends", or has that all been an illusion? I have to admit that I will be taking out the rest of Hilderbrand's beachy paperbacks as soon as I return this one.

Another first novel, "Why the Sky is Blue", by Susan Meissner was my third paperback this week. I will divulge that this book is on the "Christian-lit" side, for anyone who minds that sort of thing. Meissner is the wife of a pastor. Claire is leading a wonderful life...she has a loving husband (he is even a veterinarian), a healthy boy and girl, and she teaches English at the local high school. But, one night she is brutally attacked by a stranger and her life, and the lives of everyone she knows, changes forever. Claire might be able to recover from the attack. She has strength, support, and faith. But she is facing much more than anyone knows. Will her courage be enough?

I can't imagine reading any of these books in the winter. But, for now...well, they are like a soft ice cream cone from Jumpin' Jack's...with sprinkles. Enjoy!

The Choice Isn't Always Easy

Some books stay in your mind and heart for years. You find yourself recommending them to friends. You find yourself re-reading them. Others are enjoyable, but forgettable. The story may keep you up way too late (yes, that happened to me last night) and yet, you can recognize the flaws in the story even as you are reading.

Recently, I read Ann Hood's new book, "The Red Thread". It is about six American couples who adopt baby girls from China through an agency called "The Red Thread." However, it is equally about the heartbroken and courageous Chinese mothers who have no choice but to give up their beloved infant girls. It was a solid, good book. There was nothing wrong with it. I enjoyed it very much and would recommend it to anyone. However...several years ago I read "Digging to America" by Anne Tyler, which is about two very different types of American families who meet at the airport while waiting to meet the little girls they have adopted from Korea. I loved this book! I loved the two families, who shared nothing except the adoption of these babies. I loved learning about the Iranian customs Tyler describes; I could almost taste the tea that grandmother Miriam brewed. I could feel how uncomfortable Jin-Ho Donaldson was with her Korean name.

Perhaps Hood tried to do too much by telling twelve stories within this fairly brief novel. Perhaps I just felt so disgusted by some of the Americans that I couldn't bear to see them acquiring these children. Tyler, however, doesn't flinch when she shows her her characters' flaws and weaknesses. Yet, I never once doubted that these two couples were loving, deserving parents to their daughters.

I also recently read two historical fiction books, "The Kommandant's Girl" by Pam Jenoff and "Purge" by Sofi Oksanen. I have read another of Jenoff's books and have her third waiting for me. So, I really do like her writing. But...things just go way too easily for the Jewish heroine, Emma, who poses as a Catholic, Anna, and finds work as an assistant for the German Kommandant in occupied Poland during World War II. Even the Gestapo isn't very frightening in this book! And while I understand Emma escaping from the ghetto, I do not understand how she seems to ignore her imprisoned parents for the greater part of the story.

Oksanen's book, "Purge", tells so many stories and takes the reader into so many painful places that it could be difficult for some to read. For me, however, this is the way we can all learn about the horrific events in history that shaped those from behind the Iron Curtain. Two women, Aliida and Zara, meet. They are suspicious, as all Estonians must be. We learn about Aliida's painful, almost unbearable past, and we learn that such horrors are still happening to women in the present, through Zara's story.

Some years ago I visited what I consider to be the best museum in the world, "The House of Terror", in Budapest. The story of the victimization of Hungarians by both the Nazis and the Soviet Union is told in a simple, yet chilling, way. Every item I saw at that museum has stayed in my mind. That is how I feel about many of the scenes in "Purge".

For me, there is always time enough to read two, or three, or three dozen books on any given topic. But for many, a choice is necessary. While you will enjoy "The Red Thread", you will remember and be touched by "Digging to America." While you might stay up late to finish "The Kommandant's Girl", as I did, you will feel and be haunted by Aliida's and Zara's victimization in "Purge."

True Grit

I am sure you are all getting mighty tired of my fixation with World War II books. So, I am going to touch on some other wars...I know, I know...why so much war? But battle, or the fear of battle, teaches people to find strength they didn't know they had. We all fight battles, every day. Some are important. Some only seem important at the time. We may have to fight a battle to control our emotions after the death of a loved one. A battle to control our tempers when that person at work you want to depend on calls in sick yet another day. A battle to conquer our fear of death. A battle to be patient with elderly parents who will not listen to our good suggestions. A battle with a teenager who wants to do something you know is unsafe (because it was back when you tried it, too).

When I visited Ypres, Belgium, there was a wonderful bookstore devoted to writing about WWI. I chose a non-fiction book there, "Thirty-odd Feet Below Belgium", edited by Arthur Stockwin. After the death of his mother, and his father's relocation to a nursing home, Stockwin found a chest full of letters. To his surprise, they were not his parents' love letters, but correspondence between his mother and a WWI officer named Geoffrey Boothby. These are innocent and sweet letters between a couple who barely knew each other. When Boothby is first in France, he is brave and excited, but the horror of the conditions and the loss of so many brave friends changes him, as it did all of the men who fought. Although these letters were simply meant as a way for a young man and woman to court, they provide many facts about the danger and hopelessness of life in the trenches.

David Sears, who has written two superb books about World War II, has just published "Such Men as These", which is about a war I know far to little about: Korea. I would guess that most of my generation shares my embarrassment at our lack of concern about this war. Sears takes the story of Michener's "The Bridges at Toko-ri" (who doesn't remember the wonderful movie with William Holden and Grace Kelly?) and helps us understand the truth behind it. He locates the incredible pilots who had to fight in this far away place, risking their lives for a cause many Americans didn't even understand. While Sears' knowledge of the Navy, the ships, and the planes all help the reader understand a forgotten war, the book would not succeed but for his ability to humanize the courageous men in battle. We feel their loneliness and isolation. We understand their fears and feel their pride in their flying accomplishments. At the end of the movie about Toko-ri, a question is posed: "where do we get such men?" David Sears gives us the answer in "Such Men as These".

Most of my generation can tell you where they were when the numbers were called during the draft lotteries to determine who would have to fight in Vietnam. I remember hearing the numbers called in the TV lounge at Ithaca College. Back in those strange college days of the seventies, I never thought of myself as growing older. Perhaps that was just what we baby boomers were like. I certainly never imagined myself becoming a homeowner...and the "mother" of two dogs. Now that I am, I cannot imagine myself without my beloved animal friends. I had no idea that dogs were used by our troops in Vietnam until I read Toni Gardner's book, "Walking Where the Dog Walks". Gardner takes us through the beginning of the partnerships between man and dog, their training, and the incredible bond that develops as these amazing animals learn to save the lives of soldiers in peril. However, the cost to both men and dogs is great. When one soldier loses his dog Gardner writes:

"...Jim could feel the thread they'd formed between them, man and dog. It was as fragile as air, but as strong as a force of nature. It would entwine them forever, and it was now a pain so heavy he wished he'd never known the dog at all. At that moment he swore he would never allow himself to care that much for another living thing...."

For all of us who love their pets far too much, Gardner's words about these brave men and animals touch our hearts.

Men in filthy trenches in Belgium, men flying over the frigid seas in Korea, men and dogs in the jungles of Asia...all three of these books are really about the battle to conquer fear and the hope that this war will be the last.

Shelf Life

Did you ever notice that some authors write a whole lot of books? In the library or bookstore their offerings take up shelf after shelf. When I see that many titles, I tend to ignore them. How can these authors really produce work that is deep, meaningful, and fills the heart and mind? I have, of course, read a book or two by these "best selling" authors. I cannot recommend any of them. I discovered one author because she wrote a book with a snappy, fun title "The Hot Flash Club". The author is Nancy Thayer and her "hot flash" books are now a series. The first one wasn't bad, but the sequels are just terrible. Yet, I went to the library shelves and read all of Thayer's older novels and they are just wonderful, especially her earliest ones. I am glad Thayer is a "best-selling author" now, and I hope somebody makes a "hot flash" movie, but I would much rather see a film of "An Act of Love" or "Morning", two of her books I loved.

There are other authors whose books do not take up a lot of room at the library or bookstore. The three I mention next have only written, between them, eleven novels. However, all eleven books are beautifully written and will stay with you for years. Like me, you will wait and hope for the next offering by these three gifted people.

I don't know which book by the amazing Jane Hamilton I discovered first. I have never been disappointed by any of her novels. "A Map of the World" is one of those heartbreaking stories that starts out with a tragedy and just gets worse for Alice, a school nurse trying to care for her family. A child drowns while in her care, and as she tries to comprehend that loss, her community turns on her. This story of an everywoman who has to deal with unspeakable events resonates because of Hamilton's considerable skill. Hamilton has written only five novels, and each is worth reading more than once.

If you have not read Ken Haruf's books, you have missed some of the best American writing of this century, in my humble opinion. Of course, judging by the many awards he has already won, I am not alone in my opinion. Haruf has written only four novels, but I think he is about due to publish another. I keep searching the library "new book" shelf and hoping. His first was "The Tie That Binds", written in 1984. The life story of Edith Goodnough begins at the end of her life as she is lying in a hospital bed. She has endured loneliness and poverty and has lived her life stoically and with deep strength. All of Haruf's novels paint vivid portraits of people you think you might know. You want to stay in his world long after you finish the last word.

Finally, I urge you not to miss "Fall On Your Knees", by Canadian Ann-Marie MacDonald. This is the story of four amazing women, one of those multi-generational sagas that twists and turns and keeps us breathless. MacDonald has written only one other novel, "As the Crow Flies", which I also could not put down.

So, the next time you need a book, look for the authors who work for years, not months, on each novel. I guarantee you will be rewarded.

Mamma Mia!

When you think about great mothers in literature, who comes to mind? Marmee in "Little Women"? Ma in "Little House on the Prairie"? That mom bunny who always wants her baby bunny to come back to her in "The Runaway Bunny"?

I wish! But the moms I seem to relish are those who are not so nice. Every year or so I re-read the classics..."Peyton Place", "Moll Flanders", and, of course, "Valley of the Dolls". What a story! Suicide, mental illness, bust-enhancing exercises, virgins, a wig flushed down the toilet, Broadway, Hollywood, this book has it all.

It is the story of three young women who come to New York to find their fortunes. Anne is a classic beauty from New England. After graduating from Radcliffe, she naturally becomes a secretary. Luckily Anne finds work for a show biz attorney...and the moment she meets his partner, Lyon Burke (LYON BURKE!!!) she falls madly, wildly, completely, in love. She must have Lyon, she must lose her virginity to Lyon, she must marry Lyon...but he is not the marrying kind!

In her rooming house, Anne meets seventeen year old Neely. Neely is brash and bold, a minx with an amazing voice...her talent knows no bounds. She is in love with press agent Mel, but once Neely gets her Hollywood contract, Mel is nowhere-ville and she falls for Ted Casablanca, a costume designer.

And finally, Jennifer, the goddess. Her body, face, hair are all perfection. She knows she has no talent, but all she wants is to be safely in love...with a man who can provide her with all the fur coats she wants. She falls hard for singer Tony Polar, but what's with his overly protective sister, Miriam?

Who are these girls' mothers? Why don't they ever have to go home for the holidays? Why don't their mothers ever come to visit to tell them their apartments are a mess?

Well, Jackie Susann does give us some information on the barely seen moms of our heroines. Anne's mother is a stern, cold woman who tells twelve year old Anne not to cry in front of people and later that "...unfortunately kissing isn't all a man expects after marriage..."

"There is no such thing as love, the way you talk about it," Anne's mother warns her before she leaves for New York City. After Anne's mother dies, Jennifer says, "I take it you didn't love your mother." Anne agrees.

Neely doesn't even seem to even have a mother. She is in a singing/dancing act with her brothers as a teenager.

Jennifer's mother is financially dependent on her beautiful daughter. "Damn all mothers," Jennifer says, realizing that she has forgotten to send her mother the weekly check. Jennifer's mother is never appreciative of her daughter's efforts, however. She simply demands more and more.



Miriam, who is much older than Tony and has raised him, is at least protective of her brother. She alone knows that Tony has the intellect of a ten year old child, but pushes him and protects him so that he will be happy and financially secure. Miriam and Tony's real mother is described as a drifter who slept with any man, and placed little Miriam in a foster home.

When Jennifer outwits Miriam, marries Tony and becomes pregnant, Miriam finally tells her the whole story...that Tony has a genetic disease that will be passed on to their child...that Tony will probably be insane by age fifty. So, Jennifer, who is loving and kind, loses her chance to become a mother.

Neely has twins, but her life as a Hollywood star is all-consuming. When the studio orders her to take off weight, her battle with pills ("dolls" in Susann-lingo) begins. The twins are never mothered by Neely; she is just an overgrown child herself. After a pill and booze binge, Neely realizes she has missed Bud's and Jud's first birthdays. Neely explains motherhood to Anne by saying, "...a good nurse can handle a new baby better than you..."

Anne finally gives birth to Lyon's baby, but by this time, Lyon is having affairs and Anne, like her friends, has turned to the "dolls" for company.

So, in addition to the pills and booze, these three women get no love from their mothers and don't seem to love their own children. What kind of a woman would write such a book?

Jacqueline Susann.

Susann was born in 1918 and died of breast cancer at the age of 56. In her short life, she was an actress, singer, model, and finally an author. She married press agent Irving Mansfield, though she wasn't any more faithful, according to reports, than characters in "Valley of the Dolls". When Susann was 28, she gave birth to her only child, Guy. He was diagnosed as autistic at the age of 3. Susann placed him in an institution, and never told anyone his true condition or diagnosis. If alive today, he would be 64.

Susann was not a gifted writer, but she was a boffo storyteller who keeps the reader glued to the page. I carry around an old battered paperback copy of "Valley" and have often loaned it to younger women who have never heard of the book (which has sold over 30 million copies).

Today, we are all used to family and friends who have autistic children. We see these kids going to school, in restaurants, playing in parks, and in the malls. We watch parents re-direct the difficult behavior of their autistic children. They are simply part of our communities.

But in 1946, what did anyone really know about autism? Was Susann given any options to institutionalizing her only child? Did she feel guilt over leaving him? Did she miss him?

I think Susann makes her pain about motherhood very clear in "Valley". Her guilt at abandoning her own child is poured into the bad mother characters she creates. There is no motherly love for Anne, Neely or Jennifer. Jennifer aborts the baby who she is told will suffer from a genetic disorder. Anne, despite her desire for a baby, turns to pills. Neely can't be bothered with her twins at all. Tony's mother was a tramp.

But Miriam...plain, fat-fingered Miriam who only owns three dresses and goes to Hollywood parties in white orthopedic shoes...she is the only "mother" who shows her
"child" any warmth or real love. She fights for him, she protects him fiercely, she makes him believe he is smart and important.

To me, Miriam is the mother to Tony that Jacqueline Susann wishes she could have been to Guy.

Something borrowed, something new!

For avid readers, there is no greater moment than finding out that one of our favorite authors has written a new book. In my wonderful library, there is a section that looks like a bookstore where all the new "best sellers" are displayed, shiny and ready to borrow. They can be taken out for a week only, which is more than most of us need to read a book we love. You will not find me borrowing crime novels or romance, which seem to be the REAL best sellers. When our library held its book sale this weekend, certain authors like John Grisham and Danielle Steele even had their own sections! But I was content to browse the crowded fiction tables and hope I had missed some older novel by one of my favorite authors. I hadn't, of course. Still, a few of them have been hard at work, and here are some wonderful new books to enjoy.

"Every Last One", by Anna Quindlan. You may remember the touching film made of her novel "One True Thing", with Meryl Streep as the mom and Renee Zellweger as the daughter. This new novel has the same layers of depth. I found myself racing to finish it while being sorry I was racing. I strongly urge you not to read the description on the dust jacket, or any reviews. This is the kind of story about which a reader should have no expectations. I think Diane Lane would be wonderful as the mom, when they make the film.

"The Lake Shore Limited", by Sue Miller. Miller never seems to strike a wrong note, and in this, her latest, she gives us complex characters and weaves in the horror of 9/11. I love Miller's descriptions of homes, rooms, restaurants, even bouquets of flowers. She gives us flawed people, but people we want to know.

"The Last Time I Saw You", by Elizabeth Berg. I had told some of my friends about this one, because it concerns a group of people attending their 40th high school reunion, which many of us will be doing in October. I think of Berg as a very accessible author, warm, friendly, and fun to read.

"A Change in Altitude", by Anita Shreve. Do you remember the first book you read by Anita Shreve? Do you remember how late you stayed up because you absolutely had to finish it THAT NIGHT; your eyes all red and scratchy the next day? I have not found her last few books as compelling as many of her earlier ones, but in this one, she gives us rich characters, an absolutely amazing setting, and a frightening challenge. I found it as wonderful as her earliest books and I am glad she has given her readers a new location.

"Remarkable Creatures", by Tracy Chevalier. Chevalier has brought history to life in
"Girl With a Pearl Earring", which was a beautiful film as well. (Although I have yet to see Colin Firth in anything I didn't love. I hope you didn't miss "Easy Virtue". If you did, get the DVD). This time, Chevalier tackles fossils. Her heroines are both fossil hunters, separated by class, but united in their passion for discovery.

"Secrets of Eden", by Chris Bohjalian. I am so happy to see Bohjalian return to New England and this century. I appreciate that many people enjoyed "Skeletons at the Feast", but I thought it lacked the drama and difficult questions his other books address so beautifully. His latest is about religion, domestic violence, and some very unlikely angels.

So, there are a half dozen wonderful new reads. If you haven't been to the library lately, walk, bike or drive to the closest one and ask for one of these books. Librarians aim to please.

We are family....

Literature seems filled with bad parents. So many first novels, the ones we read and forget about quickly, are stories of the trials and tribulations of a person trying to overcome his or her difficult childhood. Spare me.

If you want to read a story about a family, and problems, and how love can soothe almost anything, try "The Risk Pool" by Richard Russo. Russo is now a Pulitzer prize winning author, but this was only his second published work. I still love it more than anything he has written. It has heart, humor, and a coating of love like the perfect frosting on a cake. It is the story of Ned, whose parents were never meant to be together. Neither of Ned's parents is even close to being perfect, but he loves both his mom and dad with all his heart. I have read this book over and over, and I always find a new line to tug at my heart. However, part of the reason I love it so is because it is set in Gloversville, the home town of Richard Russo.

Gloversville is old-fashioned. In Gloversville, extended families still have Sunday dinner together. A Mary Kay party is a huge event, with lots and lots of women, lus their daughters, grandchildren, laughter, and so much food you could skip the next three meals. When you have good friends from Gloversville, as I do, you will get a card for each holiday. If you say "no presents" to a friend from Gloversville, you can count on her bringing you a plate of homemade cookies or candy, telling you food doesn't "count" as a present. A Gloversville person will open her home to you, no questions asked. She will cook you a turkey dinner just because you said you felt like having one. In Gloversville, at the holidays, homes are decorated with themes, and presents are wrapped to match the decor. Coffee is not sipped without a piece of cake on the side. Neighbors say hello just because they live near each other.

When Gloversville people go to the malls in Albany, about an hour away, they call it going "down the line", like their grandparents did. There is plenty of poverty, alcoholism, crime, and sadness, just like everywhere else in America. But, in Gloversville,when a new store opens, people support it. When the high school has a football game, people of all ages go to cheer. When people grow old, their families care for them. I was lucky to have known two great women from Gloversville ...Margaret and Martha. Between them, they raised ten amazing children. They were never famous. They didn't write or paint or get elected to the City Council. They didn't need to. They were happy and strong women. Old-fashioned women.

When you begin to read "The Risk Pool", I hope you will see the world of Gloversville as clearly as I do. I hope you will find a character exactly like someone you once knew. And I hope, for just a few hours, you will let yourself live in this old-fashioned world. It surely wasn't perfect, and Russo acknowledges that. But he gives the reader a sense of belonging to a place you just might want to linger in. At least until the next Mary Kay party.

Chick-lit(erature)

Today,I went to Bon Ton Department Store to spend a gift card a dear friend gave me. Bon Ton is always filled with little old ladies, and today was no exception. Two adorable women were trying to figure out the mysterious price checker and I helped them. We began to chat while they were in and out of the dressing rooms, trying on "bargains" and having a ball. One was 88, the other 92. The 88 year old made sure I knew SHE was younger. We talked about weight, clothes, makeup, hair... the things women of all ages discuss. I loved their spunk and interest in life. I was sure that one of the reasons they seemed so young was because they had each other. I left the store with a smile on my face, and a longing to have a friend at my side.

I feel that same kind of smile take over when I read any of Barbara Pym's unique novels. I also find, in her novels, the kind of women I would love to have as friends. Pym's heroines would love Bon Ton.

Barbara Pym was born in 1913 in England. She completed her first novel when she was only 22. In addition to writing, Pym had to work at other jobs to support herself. Her first book was not published until 1950, and then they were regularly published. However, in 1963, her publisher, and all others, refused her latest offering. It wasn't until 1977 that her next book was published. By this time, Pym had had a double mastectomy and a stroke. She died in 1980. For 27 years, from the age of 37 to the age of 64, Pym did not have one book published although she continued to write, always hoping that the next one would be the book that would be accepted again. It is difficult to imagine a person today keeping his or her dreams alive for 27 years! It seems that many of us give up our dreams far too quickly in this age of cell phones, match.com, and instant messages.

I am reading a brand new "chick-lit" book now. The name and author are unimportant. The story is very dramatic; the characters scream, lovers meet, a death is faked. Two well-known chick-litters sing its praises on the dust jacket. As soon as I finish it, I will forget it. But from the first moment I read a Barbara Pym book, I knew that I had discovered something wonderful. No one shrieks in Pym's world. When hearts break, they do it quietly, usually over a solo cup of tea. If the next day happens to be Sunday, the broken-hearted person gets up, fortifies herself with another strong cup of tea, and attends church services.

When Pym is mentioned, two of her books are usually praised, "Excellent Women", published in 1952 and "Quartet In Autumn", published in 1977, the book that finally earned Pym the praise of literary critics. The heroine of "Excellent Women", Mildred, is a quiet churchgoer. She is alone, she has very little money, is not beautiful, and her days consist of helping others and hoping she has a "bit of cake" should someone drop by at tea time. Sounds dull, doesn't it? Let me assure you otherwise. Every time I read it, and I have done so at least twenty times, I laugh out loud at Mildred's observations of those around her. She is a wonderful person; someone I would love to have as a friend.

"Quartet In Autumn" is the story of four lonely people; two men, two women, all at retirement age. They have worked together forever, yet, they have not forged any bonds. None of the four is physically attractive, wealthy, or even educated. However, as they navigate through loneliness and illness, and even face death, they discover that they have, after all, become friends.

While the reader can laugh while reading "Excellent Women", she might cry at "Quartet in Autumn". Barbara Pym gives us real women, who fall in love with the wrong men, who take the bus to save money, who find themselves alone as twilight comes on summer evenings.

I thought of the two women I met today at the Bon-Ton. Both are widows. I pictured them having their suppers...I felt sure they would cook a real meal, not simply nuke a Lean Cuisine like one woman I know. And after dinner, perhaps, a cup of nice, strong tea. And maybe a bit of cake.

Why did we say no?

Every young woman remembers the first time she read "The Diary of Anne Frank". We all feel that we personally know Anne. Those huge brown eyes look out at us from the picture on her book saying...hey, I'm just like you! I laugh, I cry, I get upset with my annoying mother, I like a boy...all the things that every thirteen year old girl feels, Anne does as well. Except Anne does it in a cramped hiding place, where to even walk across the room during the daylight hours is fraught with danger. Just because she is a Jew.

We also know the end of Anne's story before we read the diary. We know Anne does not survive. We know that only her beloved father returns to the hiding place above his business in Amsterdam, Holland, where he picks up the pieces of his own life and endures, and then triumphs as a Jew, and as a father, by giving the world the gift of his daughter's words.

A new book, "Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife" was written by Francine Prose in 2009. For me, who began reading about the Holocaust around the time I was Anne Frank's age, this book offered new insights. And, when read along with the astounding 2008 book by Nicholson Baker, "Human Smoke", more questions than answers are found.

The story of World War II is not the story of bombs, battles, and strategy, but the story of human lives. Who lives, who dies? A man dives into his foxhole just before machine gun fire hits where he had just stood. He lives. His pal turns an ankle and misses the foxhole by an inch. He dies. A concentration camp victim gets a bite of soup, just one bite, the day before liberation. She lives. Her bunk mate is too weak that day to swallow the soup. She dies. War is deliberate, of course. But the deaths can be so random.

Anne Frank's paternal grandfather founded the Michael Frank bank in Frankfurt, Germany, where Anne's father, Otto, was born and raised. Otto came to the United States and lived for two years, before World War I, with a friend from school whose family just happened to own Macy's. Like all good Germans, Otto Frank fought for his country in World War I. In 1933, far earlier than most Jews felt it necessary to leave Germany, Otto Frank moved his family to Holland. In 1938, two of Anne's uncles were able to emigrate to the United States.

The Dutch tried to remain neutral, but Germany overpowered them. Even so, the Dutch people never completely gave up, as other Europeans did. Many wore the yellow Star of David, in solidarity with the Jews, but again, the force of the Nazis overcame the Dutch. Still, as we know from Anne's story and others, many Dutch people demonstrated remarkable courage and hid Jews. Otto Frank had planned well. The family was about to go into the annex to hide when Anne's older sister, Margot, was ordered to report to a camp. This put the entire plan on the fast track, and the Franks moved into their hiding place in July, 1942. They remained hidden for the next two years and one month. On August 4, 1944, they were taken to concentration camps, where all but Otto Frank were murdered by the Nazis. All who read the diary are in anguish once they learn that Ann and Margot died amid the horrors of Bergen-Belsen merely weeks prior to the British liberation. What would it have taken for Anne Frank to survive a matter of weeks? One more more crust of bread? A different temperature outside? Less rain?

Of course, there was one way that Anne Frank and thousands like her could have lived. Otto Frank knew very well what that was, and he tried his best to save his family. In 1938, before the war began, Otto Frank tried to get permission to bring his family to the United States. In 1941, Otto began to ask for help from his friend, Mr. Strauss, the owner of Macy's. Anne's uncles, already settled in the United States, promised to pay for the boat passage and sponsor the family in America. Where was the harm to this country? Otto Frank had lived in the United States for two years. He was a husband and a loving father of two girls. He spoke more than one language and had built a successful business in a new country. But the United States said no. The words on the Statue of Liberty say,..."give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free....". But we said no to the Frank family.

"Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, The End of Civilization" by Nicholson Baker is not like any other history book I have read. It has received plenty of negative press, mostly due to its negative portrayals of Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt. One Roosevelt anecdote has the future president worried that the freshman class of Harvard Law School is comprised of 25% Jews...he helps suggest a way to get that number down to 15%. Throughout the 30's and 40's, as the Jews are targeted, stolen from, moved, bullied, denied basic freedoms, and finally killed, the United States continued to deny entrance to most Jews begging to come. Our quota system could not, or would not, be changed.

When I visited the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam I was able, for a few moments, to stand absolutely alone in her room. Anne's pictures of American movie stars are still on the wall. Anne loved those Americans. But America said no to Anne.

You've got to be taught...

One of my best friends and I saw the national touring company of "South Pacific" today. I learned all the music and lyrics in second grade, when my Christmas present was a record player and albums of musicals. Even now, some fifty years later, I still know every note and every word. I know that Oscar Hammerstein had to fight to keep the song about prejudice in the show. "You've got to be taught, to hate all the people your relatives hate..." The actor who played Lt. Joe Cable today sang this song beautifully. (Well, he did everything beautifully....)

In 1962, when I was ten, my family drove to Florida. That journey taught me more than a hundred social studies classes could have. I sat in the back of our Palomino Beige Pontiac station wagon and gazed silently at a world I hadn't known existed: the south. I saw "Colored Motels". At first, I thought they were a brand, like "Howard Johnson's". But I soon realized what those signs meant. I saw African Americans riding home from their jobs in the cotton fields in yellow buses. I saw their houses, always on the outskirts of town. I absorbed it all and never forgot the details. My curiosity was satisfied that year by the best teacher I ever had, Barbara Fiscus. She taught us Woody Guthrie songs while she played the guitar. She warmly welcomed the first African American student into our elementary classroom that year, teaching our class how to consider the person, not his or her race.

In 1960, "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Alabama-born Harper Lee, was published. I remember the first time I read it, and the ache that filled my heart as the story unfolded. In 1962, the superb movie version brought Lee's characters to life in a different way. I am realizing, perhaps for the first time, how this book and movie were among the early influences that led me to become a criminal defense attorney in the Bronx.

In all the New York City boroughs, people are arrested almost non-stop. Prosecutors, defense attorneys, and a lone judge have to work until those charged have been arraigned. The arraignment courtroom, when I worked in the Bronx, was in use almost 24 hours a day. I remember casually crushing a huge cockroach with my high heel on the front of the judge's bench as I was arguing for my client's release. My clients were the lost, the downtrodden, the poor, the addicted, the mentally ill...and almost all were minorities. One man used to regularly sleep in cars in the winter, so he was always charged with car theft. When he would come out of the cell to meet me, roaches would be crawling out of his clothing and hair. The holding cells next o the courtroom were worse than filthy. There were no windows, no fresh air, and certainly very little hope.

As we worked into the early morning hours, something almost like a dance took place between the corrections officers, the prisoners, and we defense attorneys. We had to get our clients arraigned as quickly as possible, or "move the bodies", as the officers put it. Yet, we wanted to treat these people with the respect they deserved as we worked. You went in, and the door locked behind you. You called out a name and your client was brought to you. You sat across a small, rickety table...from someone charged with something as menial as stealing a cab ride to something as serious as raping a child. And you listened. My best law school professor, Frank Anderson, repeatedly told us, "You may be the only friend your client has. Listening may be all you are able to do."

"You've got to be carefully taught", the great Oscar Hammerstein tells us in his brilliant lyrics to "South Pacific". I am thankful for the books, movies, teachers, trips, and professors who did just that. I am also amazed that yet another generation is hearing the lessons that "South Pacific" teaches so well.

Depression Gals

Mine is probably the last generation that lived with stay-at-home moms. And although one of the moms in our neighborhood was an artist, none of the other moms felt they had to "do" anything creative. Their creativity was found in their chocolate mayonnaise cakes, their Hungarian goulash, or their chicken soup. Once in a while, the moms read. I have often wondered if they stumbled upon the "Claudia" series, by Rose Franken.

Rose Franken was born in 1895 and died in 1988. Her most famous literary creation, Claudia, is someone I have a perfect picture of in my mind. She is not beautiful, but men can't stop looking at her. At 18,she goes to her first party and 25 year old David Naughton, a handsome architect from a wealthy, social Manhattan family, falls immediately in love with her. They marry within weeks. From day one, David insists that Claudia have household help. Claudia doesn't cook, change diapers, clean, have hobbies, or do charity work, but she has always wanted to be an actress. Naturally, she just happens to meet a producer and voila! She is starring in a play. And gets rave reviews! But she turns her back on all of it to go home to David and the children. Claudia has many tragedies. She loses her beloved mother, has a miscarriage, sees David off to WWII, helps David recover from TB, and endures the accidental death of a son. But through it all, Claudia is strong, stoic, sassy, and wise. The Claudia books are escapist literature, and as delicious as a hot fudge sundae. The series of eight novels took place from the late 1930's to the early 1950's.

I wonder if the neighborhood moms might also have read "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck? This truly American novel, published in 1939, covers some of the same time period as the early "Claudia" books. While Claudia is in Hollywood buying an evening gown she believes is $4.95 (it is actually $495,and no, David doesn't get mad at her), Ma Joad and Rose of Sharon are loading up anything they can carry on the truck that will take the entire Joad family from their former Oklahoma farm to the dream world that is California. The story of the Joads is the story of American ingenuity and survival.

I had a grandmother who was a lot like Ma. She raised four sons in the depths of the Depression. When I was old enough to know her, I realized that she always looked out for those less fortunate. When our family gave her a birthday gift, she immediately told us who she was going to give it to...someone who really needed it. I wish I had asked her some questions, but children don't think about the past, and all I have now is a photo of her with her mother looking proud of my dad as he graduates from high school.

"Grapes of Wrath", which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940, has a wonderful companion book in "The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl" by Timothy Egan. Egan's book was the 2006 winner in the non-fiction category of The National Book Awards. In this compelling account of the people who stayed in the dust storm stricken areas, rather than flee to California, Egan presents stories of courage, strength, and heartbreak. I was so moved by this book that on one of our New Mexico trips, we took a detour to the Texas area that Egan wrote about.

The glamour of Claudia, the determination of Ma Joad, the persistence of the real women who lived through the dust bowl, and my own poor but generous grandmother...American women in the depression are wonderful characters to read about and admire.

For good

On Friday night, I attended the New York Library Association Gala. I was at the bar, about to treat myself to a ginger ale, when I saw a familiar, handsome face. An author! A famous author! Gregory Maguire! It's really him! I didn't actually say these things, but despite my extreme shyness around those I admire, I was able to introduce myself, shake his hand, and tell him how much his writing means to me. People will tell you he is charming and accommodating I found that to be absolutely true. But behind his twinkling smile is the brain that imagined "Wicked". Maguire took a tale that every American, for many generations, thought they understood and stood it on its head! He taught us, while thoroughly entertaining us, to look beneath the surface to try to figure out where the truth really lies. None of us is who we appear to be.

Reading "Wicked" is a series of "ahas". When Maguire was approached about making the book into a movie, which then turned into a musical, he did what very few authors are confident enough to do; he let the producers have free reign. The result, to me, is a wonderful romp through the looking glass. The book, as well as the musical, manage to get the reader/viewer thinking about far more than Oz. Just who IS that wizard? And why are certain creatures being silenced, or worse? Maguire was teaching his readers lessons about hatred, prejudice, and telling a generation who may not know about Nazi Germany to start focusing on the lessons of the past. Both the book and the musical deserve more than one look.

Another book that turns our assumptions inside out is "Those Who Save Us", by Jenna Blum. Blum tells us the story of Trudy, the daughter of a German war bride. Far more compelling, however, is the story of Trudy's mother, Anna, and how she managed to survive World War II in Wiemar. Anna is not the woman her daughter believes her to be. And Trudy is absolutely not the woman she believes she is. As in "Wicked", twists and turns take the reader on a thought-provoking journey through good and evil.

When I took my niece to see "Wicked" in December, I didn't want to spoil the story for her by giving anything away. I simply watched her face register delight each time one of the wonderful secrets was revealed. I feel the same way about "Those Who Save Us". I would love to tell you all more about the plot, but to do so would ruin your experience.

Most of us go through life thinking we can tell if a person is good or evil. Perhaps we keep ourselves comforted with these clear cut ideas. But life is not simple; people are filled with the capacity to show great love and kindness as well as terrible cruelty. "Wicked" and "Those Who Save Us" will challenge you, entertain you, and keep you wondering long after you have read them. Perhaps, like the witches in "Wicked", you will be changed "for good".

Fight the power!

Tomorrow night, the New York Library Association will induct the very first honorees into the New York State Annual Writers Hall of Fame. Among those honored will be Robert Caro, who wrote a book that changed the way I looked at power and caused me to always question those in charge. The book was "The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York". It was published in 1975, won the Pulitzer for biography and is....are you ready....1,344 pages long.

Robert Moses was a fascinating man determined to make an impact on New York, especially the city. He did so through the terms of many governors and New York city mayors...spending $27 billion dollars in public money without once ever having been elected by any of the people whose money he so freely spent. For years, almost every park, expressway, parkway, bridge, tunnel and overpass in the New York metropolitan area was built under his control. His power seemed to multiply exponentially as he took on more projects. He became unstoppable.

One of Caro's points that has always stayed with me was Moses' absolute denial of access to the beautiful beaches on Long Island to public transportation. He insisted on building parkways, with overpasses too short to accommodate public buses. In this way, Moses, and Moses alone, kept those New Yorkers who did not have the means to purchase cars from the natural beauty that was right in their own back yards.

I have also always remembered Caro's brilliant discussion of Moses' insistence on building the Cross-Bronx Expressway. That ugly highway cut into and through the heart of the once bustling borough, dividing it essentially in two. Although almost no disruption to the lives of those in the South Bronx would have occurred had Moses agreed to alter his plan by a matter of a couple of blocks, he refused, and so homes, neighborhoods, businesses, and lives were forever changed.

Robert Moses' projects were completed decades ago. In the forties and fifties, when Moses was making crucial decisions about New York, the public didn't expect to know everything about the politicians they elected and people, like Moses, who were responsible for making decisions.

After Watergate, things changed. Reporters began to look at every aspect of the lives of public figures. People who might have had a chance at being president, like Gary Hart, found themselves having to give up their dreams due to private mistakes. Power became more difficult to get, and to keep. The public began to believe that those who sought power should be thoroughly screened by an invasive press. After Watergate, because we relied on the press to vet our politicians, we perhaps began to feel complacent about those who sought power.

Yet, some modern power brokers have eluded, at least for a time, even the persistent press, tabloids, 24-hour cable news, and the Internet.

A few years ago, I introduced then attorney general Eliot Spitzer at a dinner. I wanted to do a good job, so I called everyone I knew who worked at the AG's office and asked them to give me some insight into the kind of man Spitzer was. I heard nothing but praise - from those of his own political party and others. Soon after that dinner, New Yorkers, known as cynical and shrewd, overwhelmingly voted to make Eliot Spitzer governor. Spitzer had it all....brains, money, a beautiful and brilliant wife, and healthy children. But it wasn't enough. He wanted more power.

In the last two presidential races, John Edwards considered himself a very serious contender for the Democratic nomination, despite having only won one election - to a single term in the U.S. Senate. After all, John Kerry even chose Edwards as his running mate in 2004. Edwards' desire for power is detailed in the tell-all book by his former aide, Andrew Young. The book is "The Politician". Young portrays John Edwards as a man obsessed with becoming the most powerful man in the world. Edwards lied to everyone; his wife, his children, his supporters, his family, and his friends in his quest for the presidency. He even denied his own child.

Robert Moses was, and Eliot Spitzer and John Edwards are, all brilliant men. All three were blessed with great intelligence and the ability to get people to follow them in their pursuit of power. Say any of their names today and watch the reaction you get.

"In Flanders' Fields ...."

It wasn't until I visited Ypres, Belgium, that I began to read a lot about World War I. Ypres was completely destroyed in not one, but three separate battles. In Ypres, Germany first used poison gas on the Western Front. In the third battle alone, approximately one half million men lost their lives. By war's end, Ypres was a wasteland of mud, trenches, filth, graves, standing water, and broken trees. However, the people almost immediately went to work and completely rebuilt the city, including the beautiful "Cloth Hall" that was its centerpiece. We arrived on the outskirts of Ypres on a beautiful summer evening. Sign after sign pointed us to cemeteries. These are not the grand and grandiose cemeteries of World War II, but small, intimate graveyards that are right on the farmyards of Belgians. Each is walled in and most have bright red roses growing among the white stones. As you read the markers, you are struck by the youth of those who died. The horrible suffering of the men who fought in World War I is conveyed in what is recognized by many as one of the best museums in the world, "The Flanders Field Museum" which is in the rebuilt Cloth Hall.

One of the most memorable books I have read about the men who returned from battle is "The Crimson Portrait" by Jody Shields. Shields tells the story of those men who returned to England and were ready to be a part of life again, but were not accepted by their friends and families due to their horrible facial wounds and deformities.There was no plastic surgery, as we know it, in those times. Having lived through unimaginable pain, these men who should have been hailed as heroes were instead forced by the society and times they lived in to hide as if they had done something shameful. "The Crimson Portrait" tells of one of the solutions that was tried; that of forming extremely thin masks of tin that were then painted, using pre-war photos of the men, to look as much as possible like their former faces.

British author Pat Barker has written an astounding trilogy about World War I. Although each book is a superb piece of literature on its own, I strongly recommend reading all three in order. They are "Regeneration", "The Eye in the Door", and "The Ghost Road". They raise questions about shell shock and its treatment, homosexuality and prejudice, the value of love as a brutal war is being waged, and duty to one's country when there is almost certain knowledge that following orders will lead to death. These books do not provide any satisfying conclusions, but introduce a series of conflicted men who are dealing with a new kind of war, where weapons are sophisticated, but leaders seem content to allow senseless slaughter. By the last scene of "The Ghost Road", the reader is sickened by what these men are ordered to endure. Why did these men suffer so? What did this war accomplish? Barker offers no explanations, other than the fact that war is waged by human beings, who make terrible mistakes.

Since 1928, there has been a ceremony every night at precisely 8:00 p.m. in Ypres. Under the beautiful pure white Menin Gate monument, people quietly begin to assemble. Traffic is stopped. The monument and ceremony honor those British troops who were lost in the three battles of Ypres and whose bodies were never found (some 90,000 of them). A lone bugler tries to call them home with "The Last Post". If you hear that lonely sound, or stand in any of the small, quiet graveyards around Ypres, you may feel your soul has been touched.

Just text me....

"Columbine", Dave Cullen's minute-by-minute, scream-by-scream, terror-by-terror description of the Columbine massacre should be horrifying to read, but because he never loses sight of the wonderful kids, the courageous adults and the strength of the community, reading his book gave me some hope. In about two weeks, it will be April 20. Just another spring day in most communities, but certainly a day of remembrance, pain, and grief in Littleton, Colorado.

There was so much I did not know and failed to understand about this
event and I am grateful that such a careful and skillful author tackled
this American tragedy. Cullen made me wonder why the media got it
so wrong. I am grateful to him for making this American event as clear
as it is ever going to be. In addition to the information presented in Cullen's book this year, Dylan Klebold's mother publicly expressed her thoughts in an article in Oprah Winfrey's magazine. She claims, and I believe, that she had no idea at the turmoil her son was experiencing.

Wally Lamb's first book in 10 years, "The Hour I First Believed", also
covers the Columbine massacre and again, in the hands of a less talented
writer, such an effort might have seemed to exploit the real victims of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. But Wally Lamb is no ordinary writer, as anyone who had read his previous books knows. The main characters of "The Hour..." are already in trouble when the massacre occurs. Caelum, the husband who teaches at the doomed school, is away, but his wife, Maureen, a Columbine school nurse, is trapped in a cabinet in the library as the massacre is carried out, and she never really escapes. As she descends into the paralyzing world of post-traumatic stress disorder, all hope seems lost. But as this is a book by Wally Lamb, the reader knows that he will make sense, somehow, of all of Maureen's suffering.

The Columbine massacre was 11 years ago...just the blink of an eye as far as history is concerned. However, when considering the advances in technology, 11 years is an eon. Think about texting, web-cams, e-mail, instant messaging, iTouch, iPhones, iPads, Kindles, Facebook, GPS devices...and then read about the primitive "basement tapes" recorded by the killers. The technology available today might have made their attempt to destroy everyone in the school a reality. Yet, I talk to parents all the time who have no idea what their children are doing with their computers, cell phones, and all the other devices they are never without. It is chilling to read that Dylan Klebold's mother had no idea that he had planned this mass murder. It is even more chilling to think about teens like Harris and Klebold with today's technology at their fingertips.

Go West!

I just returned from Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Whenever I am in the west, I feel as if history is just around the next corner. Seeing a man with a long white beard in a cowboy hat, boots and spurs entering the Santa Fe Walmart helped me along. In school, we were told that our nation was discovered in 1492, settled in 1620, and born in 1776. It wasn't until I first traveled to New Mexico in 1999 that I learned that Taos Pueblo was built between 1000 and 1450 and has continuously been in use ever since. In the 50's and 60's, we did not learn about the ancient way of life of the Native Americans that was destroyed as the armed pioneers pushed and shoved their way west, laying claim to any land they liked. The fact that these rugged, beautiful mountains and plains were already the sacred homes of many people did not stop white Americans from their pursuit of land. That pursuit cost the Native Americans a way of life. Yet, those pioneers who came west also paid a great price. When I look at the vastness of the western plains and feel the dizzying height of the mountains, it seems impossible that anyone in a covered wagon made it to California.

One recent book realistically describes the hardships faced by a woman going to California in 1846. It is "The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride" by Daniel James Brown. Mr. Brown chose to tell the story of the Donner party by focusing on just one of the survivors, Sarah Graves, and gathering every bit of information he could find about her. By concentrating on one person, Brown manages to convey what all pioneers faced during such a journey. Even before the Donner party was halted by the early and terrible snowstorms that winter in the Sierra Nevada, they were tested to the very limits of physical and mental endurance. Brown made me feel the filth of the journey, the boredom of the food, and the backbreaking work that was all part of going west. Everyone knows the tale of the cannibalism that some members of the Donner party engaged in to survive. But because Brown has so vividly portrayed the horrors of the journey, the hopelessness of life buried under mountains of snow without adequate shelter, clothing and with a complete lack of food, the reader can almost believe that what the members of this group did was valiant. By the time Sarah takes her first bite of human flesh, we know her very well. She is a good and kind woman, filled with love for her family and fiance, yet, like all pioneers, determined to survive. If that means she must eat human flesh, so be it. When I flew over the great plains of the United States late Monday night, we were all warned of turbulence and the pilot apologized for having to suspend the beverage service. As I looked down into the vast blackness that people like Sarah Graves walked across, step by painful step, I was amazed at the boldness of the journey.

In 1971, another man named Brown, Dee Brown, wrote a book that changed how many of us viewed the history of our country. The ground-breaking book was "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, An Indian History of the American West", and Brown eloquently and sensitively tells us what happened to those Americans who were in the way when the pioneers decided that the people already there didn't matter. Each chapter is heartbreaking...and each story is similar. The tribes are approached, representatives of the U.S. government make promises, the promises are broken almost immediately. After the broken promises, Indians are killed...not just warriors, but old people, women, and children. White people take the land the tribes have called home forever. Brown ends his book with the 1890 massacre by the U.S. Cavalry of approximately 300 of 350 freezing and hungry men, women, and children at Wounded Knee, Pine Ridge, South Dakota.

A few years ago, I spent a week as a volunteer for Mission of Love, a non-profit group not affiliated with any religion or other group. Mission of Love builds and repairs homes for the Lakota people who live on the Pine Ridge reservation, the poorest place in the United States. One cold night, as the sun was about to set, we went to the site of the Wounded Knee massacre. I was fortunate to be there with Lakota people, who gently guided me around this sacred place and told me the story of the slaughter of their ancestors.

After my volunteer work, I visited two more places in South Dakota, Mount Rushmore, and the amazing work in progress...the monument to the courageous Lakota leader, Crazy Horse. Begun in 1948, and without any government funding, this is the largest mountain carving in the world. While I stayed barely half an hour at Mount Rushmore, I spent almost an entire afternoon gazing at the carving of Crazy Horse. As far as it is known, Crazy Horse never was photographed. After he was killed, his family made sure that no one would ever know where his body lay....but his heart is buried somewhere near the creek at Wounded Knee. The motto of those who work on the Crazy Horse carving is "never forget your dreams". In the two books by both Mr. Browns, any reader will be moved by the hopes, dreams, and heartbreak of these Americans.W

Hello, life...

Ali MacGraw, who played Brenda Patimkin in the film of Phillip Roth's novella "Goodbye, Columbus", turns 72 today. On Tuesday I had a massage in Santa Fe and asked the masseuse if she had ever seen Ali, as she lives there. She told me that Ali is always at a local food co-op where she supports the area farmers. Naturally, I got the address and went right over, looking in each aisle for a glimpse of someone who made an impact on my life in high school.

Brenda Patimkin is smart, beautiful, bold, but also afraid to truly love Neil, a man she meets one summer who is, according to her mother, all wrong for her. Brenda and Neil have a summer-long intense romance that takes them from stealing into the movies to having sex in her bedroom as her parents sleep down the hall. Neil wants more, but Brenda wants HIM to be more...more like her father, who built a business from scratch so that his children could go to the best colleges, live in a mansion-like home, and swim at the country club. In order to truly love Neil, Brenda would have to either reject her parents' way of life, or ask them to acknowledge that she is an adult who can make her own choices.

I was so taken by Brenda/Ali as a seventeen year old, that I tried to look like her. There is a picture of me as a freshman at Ithaca College in 1970 wearing camel trousers and a matching coat, with a black turtleneck, my hair tied back in a scarf, just like Brenda/Ali's was in the college scenes of the movie.

I was happy to learn, both from the woman in Santa Fe and a recent magazine article, that Ali MacGraw is a vital member of her community. She is described as committed to good causes, generous, and loving. I wonder what Brenda Patimkin would be like at 72. I think she would have married someone her parents approved of, and lived a life of second homes, skiing in Gstaad, winter vacations in St. Bart's, chairing galas, and serving on various boards. And every once in a while, when she had a glass of wine in the late afternoon, she would think back on that magical summer with Neil and wonder why her life had never lived up to its promise.

So, Happy Birthday, Ms. Ali MacGraw from a woman who has been a fan far longer than she cares to admit.