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.

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.