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.