This Sunday in Lincoln Square (Giddings Plaza, Lawrence & Lincoln)I’m joining the MoveOn.org Bake Sale with some of my immodestly titled, Kick-ass Carrot Cupcakes. If you’re in the area around noon or later, check it out.
Oh, to do my bit for Barack in such a traditional female craft. Sigh.
I’ll be there for a while, because I’m then heading to a celebration for the newly adopted child of two new mommies.
I spent last Saturday morning on a panel titled “Uncommon Women” for the Printers Row Book Fair in Chicago. Also on the panel, moderated by the wonderful Lauren Fox, were Laura Moriarty and Marisa de los Santos. One issue that came up during discussion of Ms. Moriarty’s book, The Rest of Her Life, was how some readers have found her narrator to be unsympathetic. Laura seemed distressed that readers didn’t like a character to whom she had a profound attachment.
It troubled me that book discussions at readings or at reading groups come down to “I didn’t like her!” “I was mad at the character.” Are writers supposed to create people who are “uniformly good or bad” (Flann O’Brien)? Is likability even important? Isn’t complexity of character far more interesting?
I’ve found that readers are often irritated by Anne-Marie, the mother in The Heroines, for making choices they would never make. Instead of being distressed by their condemnation of the character, I’m glad that the character’s actions stimulated an emotion. Sometimes readers assume that writers approve of everything their characters do. Not so. The best characters in literature are often the most infuriating. Half of my inspiration for writing The Heroines came from my frustration with Emma Bovary and Anna Karenina. But come on, that doesn’t mean the books are failures because I don’t “like” the characters. Who cares?
Literature should make us stretch, get out of our own worlds to inhabit new ones. If characters always behaved as we do, how do we grow as readers and people? Do we just read to have our view of the world confirmed? So, I say, carry on, Laura with your compelling character Leigh. I think it’s unfortunate that even book critics are concerned with likability, and I wonder, really wonder, if male characters are expected to be “nice and likable.”
I visited a book group in Northbrook, Illinois, and they had a lot of surprising questions that I thought might interest others. Here they are:
What or who inspired you to write The Heroines? The idea for the book began when I was in residence at the Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, Illinois. The book is set there. I arrived with no ideas about what I should write. The Prairie Homestead is similar to Ragdale in that writers and artists get a break from their lives to work on their projects. I was also reading At-Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O’Brien, and I loved his idea of resurrecting characters from other novels and using them to one’s own ends. This literary appropriation stems from several ideas. That there’s nothing new to write under the sun. That characters should be free to move about and not be restricted by their controlling authors. That one cannot “own” one’s characters, etc.
How long was the process? I began the book in the summer of 2002, put it aside for a while (I had to get a full-time job), and then picked it up again in 2004. I sold it in September of 2006. But even then, I worked for a good six months with my editor, Nan Graham, the copyeditor, etc.
When does it come out in paperback? January 2009.
How did you write the chapters? Were they in order? I wrote the main story of Conor’s arrival and Penny & Anne-Marie’s struggles first, interspersing flashbacks of certain Heroines within that. The most important thing for me was to get the present-action drama done, to tell the mother-daughter story first. Later I added a few Heroines who I thought fit in with Penny’s story (Hester Prynne, Scarlet). So the Heroines were mostly chosen for how they fit into the main story, as those would be the Heroines Penny would think about during her “adventure.” I did not choose my favorite heroines from literature.
How did you come up with the hospital scenes and were they based on reality? The hospital scenes were inspired by both real-life occurrences and research. I worked for a time teaching middle school to behavior-disordered kids, so I got to know the language and issues surrounding kids of that age. The ice-cream scoop rewards system comes straight out of that experience, as well as the behavior of the students during group therapy, which we had weekly in our classrooms. I also spoke with a student of mine from the University of Chicago, who worked in adolescent psych wards in the seventies while he was in medical school. He told me about the habits of the psychiatrists, who would wait in the ER hoping/looking to admit adolescents with good insurance, and the song-and-dance routine they’d use to guilt parents into admitting their children.
Who inspired Gretta and Penny’s characters? With Gretta, I was emulating in some ways my mother-in-law, though she was French and very refined, not gruff and Germanic. What both women shared were domestic talents that had begun to be seen as unimportant in feminist America: baking bread, darning socks, gardening, not wasting a thing. The tendency to use everything came from surviving the Second World War. I loved the tension that Anne-Marie, though highly intelligent, could not frost a cake to save her life, and that Gretta covers for her to save her from the wrath of Edith, A-M’s mother. I wanted to write about the roles of women, how domesticity is both revered and denigrated, and how women do not excel in housewifery simply based on their gender. Yet, those domestic arts should also be treasured, and that what’s ultimately most important is that women can choose where they wish to expend their energies, and should be respected for either choice. Penny falls in the middle. She likes making jam with Gretta, but she’s being raised to use her voice and mind and to be independent.
Who was the first Heroine and why didn’t Penny’s grandparents know about them? The first Heroine that Anne-Marie remembers was Rapunzel. When A-M tried to discuss Rapunzel’s visit, her mother’s response was short-tempered. Edith threatens to punish A-M for insisting that the visit was real, and A-M goes quiet. Even at five, A-M knew to avoid confrontations with her mother.
Flying to
A couple across the aisle told me about
their son’s wife who suffered from post-partum
depression. Prozac meant nursing was out
of the question. They worried about him,
their first grandchild. They looked at Lulu, splayed
in the empty seat, sated and snoring,
and I thought of the tricks that Fortune played,
rendered mothers proud or irate or longing
for release. I said it’s a good thing she’s
taking something. I knew a new mom who
jumped in front of a train, felt she couldn’t please
or manage. The woman said, I remember feeling blue.
We wouldn’t want that, the man said with kindness.
Wouldn’t want Sue to feel such desperate sadness.
I tried not to feel the desperate madness
of the man throwing high his magazine,
but there’s just no denying the badness
of a businessman making a scene.
Meanwhile, four calm guys beside me mumbled
and joked, and I struggled to figure out
what linked them. A fair-skinned guy with jumbled
teeth craned his long neck and said, “I’ve no doubt,
that they’re gonna send me off to
I can feel it. I told my mama, you better be
ready. I don’t want you to go into shock,
but I dreamt about driving a Humvee.”
His innocent bravado made me wince,
I haven’t stopped thinking about him since.
I haven’t stopped feeling bad about it since
Lulu was nearly kicked out of my reading.
At Schwartz Books in
when her high-pitched and ear-piercing squealing
sent the careful manager searching the aisles
while Aryn Kyle read from her lovely book
and I offered apologetic smiles.
When I read in
a nap, when she woke she didn’t run away.
Two months later, she’s a roving terror
climbing into the Goodnight Moon display.
We realized too late the stupendous error
of thinking her fit for public appearance.
O the naivete of first-time parents!
Flying to San Diego
A couple across the aisle told me about
their son’s wife who suffered from post-partum
depression. Prozac meant nursing was out
of the question. They worried about him,
their first grandchild. They looked at Lulu, splayed
in the empty seat, sated and snoring,
and I thought of the tricks that Fortune played,
rendered mothers proud or irate or longing
for release. I said it’s a good thing she’s
taking something. I knew a new mom who
jumped in front of a train, felt she couldn’t please
or manage. The woman said, any mom can feel blue.
We wouldn’t want that, the man said with kindness.
Wouldn’t want Sue to feel such desperate sadness.
De-icing en route to
I tried not to feel the desperate madness
of the man throwing high his magazine,
but there’s just no denying the badness
of a businessman making a scene.
Meanwhile, four calm guys beside me mumbled
and joked, and I struggled to figure out
what linked them. A fair-skinned guy with jumbled
teeth craned his long neck and said, “I’ve no doubt,
that they’re gonna send me off to
I can feel it. I told my mama, you better be
ready. I don’t want you to go into shock,
but I dreamt about driving a Humvee.”
His innocent bravado made me wince,
I haven’t stopped thinking about him since.
File attached with Heroine names, book titles, and brief descriptions of their characters.
Also known as a Dramatis Personae.
Check out this one!
http://www.gummerus.fi/page.asp?sivuID=280&component=/PublishDB/Kirjat_kirjaesittely.asp&recID=3175
I spent the weekend in Marietta, GA, just outside of Atlanta. The highlight of the trip was visiting my nephew Tommy’s fifth-grade class at Rocky Mount School. Another round of perfect questions:
“Will you remember us when you become famous?”
“Did you type the book yourself?”
“If you sell the movie rights, I think Miley Cyrus should play Penny.”
“And Johnny Depp should be Conor.”
“And you [meaning me] should play the mom!”
The casting is done, Hollywood. No worries!
The children then did some amazing writing about their names, whether they liked their names, who named them. One girl said she wished her last name was Kool and her first name Chrysanthemum. “Then I’d be called Chrys Kool.” We then did some “People say I’m.., But really ….” poetry. My favorite line, “People say I’m annoying, but they’re probably right.” And “People say I’m weird, but really I like being different.”
I also did a reading at Border’s, and a little girl asked, “Did you use your imagination to write your book?” And my best compliment, from my nephew Michael, “Your book sounds very descriptive.”
Last Thursday night I headed down Berwyn Avenue for a commerative reading of Grace Paley’s work at Women and Children First Bookstore. The event was organized by Sandi Wisenberg, and I looked forward to seeing Rosellen Brown (a former teacher at SAIC), as well as Peggy Shinner, Sharon Solwicz, and others. The frigid air seeped under my fleece scarf as I clomped down the dark street, shuffling onto the snowy parkways when I hit a patch of unshoveled sidewalk. Suddenly, ahead of me, under the pink streetlamp lights, I saw a dowager-humped old lady slip and fall on her side. “Damn people who don’t shovel!” I thought.
I hurried up to her, just as she said, calmly and without any drama, “Will you help me up?”
“Of course.” I grabbed her arm and lifted her to her feet. Then I hung onto her arm and we waddled across the sidewalk and proceeded to walk down the middle of the street. I insisted on taking her all the way to the door of the Baptist Church where she’d been heading when the sidewalk slicked and tricked her.
She wasn’t a syrupy grateful old lady. She hardly spoke as we trundled down the street, me clutching the arm of her faux fur. I thought of how I hoped I wouldn’t end up in an icy place like Chicago when I was old, with nobody to help me get around. My own grandmother, who’d been mugged on her way to St. Rita’s Church one morning, wouldn’t let that stop her from making it to daily Mass 365 days a year. My friend’s aunt, who spied from her window across the street, once spotted Grandma Falvey sneaking out for Mass with her four-pronged cane and a Band-Aid on her face.
After I’d deposited the old woman at the doorstep, I hurried back down the street, my pity for the elderly woman vanishing and my admiration growing. How much energy did it take her to go out? And what guts she had. Instead of wishing that I wouldn’t end up like her, I realized I’d be lucky if I did. How many days had I spent locked inside, turned off by the cold and ice?
I arrived at the warm bookstore and listened with delight to the stories by and about Grace Paley, a writer and activist who spent time in jail for protesting wars and the nuclear arms race. Peace activist Kathy Kelly (www.vitw.org) was there to speak about Paley’s commitment to social justice. What a woman, with her head of long, gray, frizzy hair. Kelly’s strong and musical voice reminded me of a bridge humming with steel cables that could lead us all to heaven.
And yet, the truth is that I’m a lazy activist. I don’t do sit-ins in front of horses like Grace Paley; I’ve never spent time in federal prison for planting corn on nuclear sites like Kathy Kelly. Amazing, stuff that! All I do is help elderly women to their feet once in a while. Why is the obvious fact that we need to mobilize against oppression something I shirk from? Is it the cynicism of the post-babyboomer? Self-absorption? I’m just glad that Kathy Kelly is out there; that Angela West-Blank is out there; that Grace Paley is way way out there, looking down and saying, as she did to Rosellen Brown, “It’s all right.”
I hitched a ride home with Beth Snyder, who told me that my helping the old woman to her door was a mitzvah. I suppose it was my answer to the firemen, who’d blessed me with their jimmy the day before. Or maybe I just wanted another excuse to rail against the people who don’t shovel.
Today Lulu and I had a grand adventure. We were on our way to her 15-month checkup, and I stopped at Harvestime to get some milk. It was one of those Classic Chicago winter mornings, sunnier than June, with no leaves to block the sun, but only 12 degrees , with a -10 windchill. Is there anything more demoralizing than wrestling your child into a carseat, driving your icebox-mobile three blocks, popping the baby out, tearing down the sidewalk in the frigid air, only to discover that for unknown reasons, the city has shut down the only store nearby with organic milk? I turned around, Lulu straddling my hip, and unlocked the car, glad I hadn’t bothered to feed the meter. To fasten Lulu in the carseat, I peeled off my gloves and tossed the car keys into the front seat. I loosened the belts, pried her arms through the straps, snapped the buckles. I wriggled her hat on her head, a pink felt number with a purple rose and a band of faux pink wool. Then I wrapped her legs in a baby Pendleton and slammed the door. I climbed across the icy snowbank and around the car, but when I reached to open the door, it was locked.
When I’d tossed the keys over the front seat, didn’t I accidentally hit the lock button?
I grabbed my cell phone and called my husband, and mercifully, he wasn’t at his desk. What made me think that alarming him might be a good idea? I called 911.
“I locked my baby in the car.”
“Hold for the fire department.”
After I’d given my 20, and they’d promised to be there in a few minutes, I smiled in the window at Lulu, danced from foot-to-foot, and she smiled back at me, highlighting her gapped front teeth. Who knows what she thought–mama’s dancing outside! I couldn’t stand in the sunny spot, because she wouldn’t be able to see me, so I kept moving, wiggling my toes, regretting that vanity had kept me from wearing a hat (though my hair’s exceptionally huge at the moment). I tapped and waved, looking up and down Lawrence, until I heard the distant siren’s approach.
Tears sparked in my eyes, as I saw the firetruck–a big rig with lights flashing–barrel down the middle of the road just for me and Lulu. Oh foolishness! I waved them my way.
Five firemen descended and swarmed the car. They wore big black jackets trimmed in dayglo green, with their names etched along the bottom. One held a hatchet; one held a long steel jimmy.
“Are you going to have to break the window?”
“We hope not,” Moran said.
They peeled the window away from the rim, and one man wheedled the jimmy down to the armrest. They blocked my view of Lulu, so I ran to the other side of the car to see what she thought of the crowd of men circling our car. She stared at them with her mouth open, calm and observant.
“I can’t see,” the guy with the jimmy said.
“Get outta his way,” Moran ordered, and one fireman stepped away from the passenger side window. “You’re almost there. See. It’s on the armrest. Keep going, keep going…”
I relaxed. They were going to reach it. Next thing I knew, another fireman was opening the door for me.
“What do I owe you?” I asked.
“Nothing, ma’am,” Moran said. “Now, what’s your name?”
“Favorite,” I said. “Like your favorite person to rescue.”
“All right, Ma’am. Now, don’t be locking your baby in the car anymore.”
“I won’t.” I said.
Lulu giggled when I got back in the car, and within minutes was fast asleep. We made it to the doctor on time.
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