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When writing is the family business

A lot of great writers seem like they were better with ink and paper than people. Pick up biographies of some literary geniuses and you’ll find many worked hard at their crafts and often endured terrible setbacks but were also self-centered loners who focused on their own problems to the detriment of their loved ones. A few of the “greats” were self-destructive abusers. Others unearthed family traumas or secrets and then publicized these for money. You wonder how their relations ever stood them. On the other hand, there are a few authors who were so devoted to their families that their talent seemed to echo through their DNA.  Take a look at these clans of chroniclers and prepare to be amazed. The Bronte Girls The Bronte Sisters – Emily, Anne, and Charlotte, the literary doyennes of Yorkshire.  They grew when opportunity ran thin on the ground, especially for girls. These three (and their brother, Branwell) developed a rich communal imaginary life that carried them through some miserable childhood experiences.  All three of the Bronte girls tried to become teachers at some point (the only respectable profession open to women then)  but frail health and romantic disappointment eventually brought them back…

An Early Halloween Story
One of My Stories / October 25, 2016

Let me state from the first, the events of yesterday were unforeseeable and unavoidable. None of the actions taken by all parties were neither premeditated or predictable.  However, in case a group of panicked Puritans is already headed to my house, armed with ropes and lit torches, I wish to make the following declaration: I am not now, nor have I ever been, a witch. Due to a past Halloween party, I own a hooded, black cape. This garment is a mass-marketed item, as the manufacturer’s label attests. To my knowledge, said cape has no supernatural powers but it is a surprisingly warm, yet light-weight garment. Yesterday, I donned the cape in question prior to walking down my private drive at sunset.  The cape’s hood was in an upright position to keep my ears warm.  Said cape is voluminous and anyone seeing me from a distance would not have been able to make out my “regular” clothing beneath its folds. When I started my walk, I had no idea the neighbors were entertaining young children on their front lawn. Consequently, I was as surprised as the children when they saw me coming over the hill.         Children can…

October in Alabama: A Love Story
One of My Stories / October 20, 2016

As a teen, I never cared for love stories.  While other girls were sighing and crying over the latest sugary “boy-meets-girl”, I jumped into the classics, swearing romance book writers conspired to create Cinderella pap to weaken women’s minds.  (Mom said I was foolish but she kept a soft spot for Barbara Cartland.) Not that I didn’t believe in love!  I was just felt very awkward and self-conscious reading about it.  I knew that if/when I fell in love, I’d never write tell the world about it. Then I saw the South in October. Yes, I know people aren’t supposed to fall in love with places.  And if any part of the states is known for autumn scenes, it’s New England, not Alabama.  But I did and the beauty of Autumn in Dixie was then a fairly well kept secret. So I had no idea, when I crossed the Mississippi River, that I was stepping into a place of transcendent beauty.  I spent that first visit walking with my mouth half-open, about the Technicolor foliage that appeared around every bend. I found the South and Southerners fascinating and loved their complex, stubborn relationship with this place but more than anything,…

From Myth to Man: Hamilton
I know a Good Story / October 13, 2016

It was hard telling the Founding Fathers apart when I was in Elementary School.  Every fall another teacher would try to impress the achievements of the frock-coated/ American Revolutionaries into our malleable brains with similar results.  In a group portrait of patriots, we could all pick out Franklin (rotund, bald and smiling) and probably Washington by his unsmiling mouth clamped around a set of dentures but the rest were identifiable only to those who had studied.  To the rest of us, they were a group of middle-aged, white males with funny clothes and powdered hair.   If you had asked me then who Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and Benedict Arnold were, I’d probably have said: “One was a traitor, another was shot and the third one fired the pistol.”  I doubt if I could have said more. And that’s why we need writer-historians like Ron Chernow.  His lauded volume Alexander Hamilton not only rescued the memory of a brilliant man from obscurity and (with the genius of Lin-Manuel Miranda) brought new respect to this patriot’s memory; it illuminates the character of Hamilton so well that the man and his peers become people we can recognize and relate to. Almost everyone went to…

Elegy for an Honest Marriage
I know a Good Story / October 4, 2016

It’s October, one of my favorite months for stories, even though most October stories have a tie to the supernatural.   So it only seems right to start off with a story by one of the writers most associated with scary stories: Stephen King. At its essence, marriage is a closed corporation.  It’s a private entity with its own personality and the principals own all the stock.  Sure, often children are born to a marriage and spouses share parts of their lives with others but these people are beneficiaries, not stockholders; if children leave and friends fall away, the corporation continues unless death or divorce intervene, keeping secrets known only to the principals. At least that’s the premise of Lisey’s Story.  And those untold secrets are what makes a marriage powerful, even when one of the principals dies. Lisey Landon is still learning about the strength of her marriage years after her husband, Scott, died. Scott was a successful novelist and the public face of their marriage.  His passing left her with a sizable amount of cash, a barn full of books, and some very insensitive academic types that believe their knowledge of Scott Landon’s work gives them superior rights…