My mom used to divide her library into sections. Lots of space was dedicated to fiction and the sturdiest shelves held her coffee-table sized books on the movies. But one special part of the library was devoted to chronicles of everyday life, virtually all of them written by women. Some also wrote Kid Lit. or humor like Jean Kerr and Judith Viorst while others wrote novels or plays but every book on that shelf was what I called a “Domestic Chronicle”; an account of everyday life. If those books sounded boring, they weren’t. All of them were clear-eyed observations on a fascinating, multi-faceted worlds. usually recorded with dry wit. These books had a remarkable effect on the reader. Novels might be read for excitement or entertainment and non-fiction for excitement or knowledge but domestic chronicles could appease the soul. So my question is, where are the books of this genre today? According to my mom, the best writer in this genre was Gladys Taber, author of the Stillmeadow series. In book after book, Ms. Taber recorded life at her New England farmhouse, Stillmeadow. She was not a farmer or a New England Yankee from birth so her stories deal with…
Most of the time, I try to be happy. I think everybody does. Either we find that’s a good way to deal with the world or we think that’s what the world wants from us. But sometimes, happiness isn’t an appropriate choice for what’s going on in our lives. Now a motivational speaker might say the thing to do when you’re sad is paste a smile on your face anyway. Fake being happy until you cheer up again. While there’s something in the “fake it till you make it” idea, I don’t believe in divorcing yourself from your real feelings. Sometimes, the only way to deal with grief is to feel the grief. When that happens, I reach for Low Country by Anne Rivers Siddons. It’s a guidebook for the broken heart. At first glance Caro Venable wouldn’t seem like the right kind of guide to learn about grief. For one thing, she’s got a life most of us would kill for. She’s got some talent, a loving spouse, a son that’s doing well and two houses, one on her very own island. Sounds perfect right? But Caro’s still tortured by the memory of her daughter’s death five years ago and there’s…
I hate what’s happened to the word “awesome”. For the last 10 years, reality shows and commentators abused this adjective until they reduced it to an on-air cliche. It’s not fair and it’s not right. “Did you see so-and-so’s new Jeep?” “Yeah, it’s awesome.” “Sidney’s so awesome doing her little tap dance. You should see her kick up her legs!” It doesn’t matter whether we’re discussing the Olympics, sugarless pudding or Donald Trump, everything is described as awesome when most of the time…it isn’t. And that cheapens the word for those who wield such power that we gaze at them with a respect bordering on reverence. The power that can end or alter the course of your life, like early friendships and late summer storms. Either of these is an agent of incredible force; combined, the effect is explosive. That is one of the ideas behind Anne Rivers Siddon’s novel, Outer Banks. On the surface, it’s a reunion of four middle-aged women who went to college together as girls but, it’s also a hymn to the power of our very first friendships. The older women all carry a patina of achievement, loss, and experience but in each other, they also…
Vacation Season is coming to an end again, leaving us poorer, happier and (hopefully) a bit less stressed. It’s amazing how much of the rest of our lives are spent preparing for or dwelling on those limited interludes of time. And during each holiday, whether it’s in the mountains, at an amusement park or on the beach, someone always muses, “I wonder what it’s like living here.” Of course, the speaker is shouted down by a chorus of “If you lived here, it wouldn’t be special” and “money flows through this place, it doesn’t stay here” (both of which are true) but what the speaker means is, “What would life be like if you were permanently on vacation?” That is something we all wonder about. What would it be like to live in a beautiful place with enough money to pay for your needs? According to Anne Rivers Siddons (one of my favorite novelists) a vacation lifestyle will still cost too much in the end. In Low Country, Caro Venable seems to have hit vacation life nirvana. As the heiress of Peacock island ( a sunchaser’s paradise with an army of flora and fauna) off the Carolina coast and the wife…
We’re deep in the throes of winter now with the mercury hugging the bottom of the temperature gauge and snow depth being measured in feet. Everyone I know is huddled up, snuggled down, wrapped in layers and beseeching God for a little Global Warming to thaw out the frozen ground. During these long, frozen nights a house almost becomes a living thing, cradling and caring for the creatures within. Our slippered feet scuffle across its floors and we sink into chairs by the fireside content, with our books and our layers, to let winter rage outdoors because it can’t touch us in here. Winter is the time to cherish your home. So this may not be the best night to read The House Next Door, the second novel by Anne Rivers Siddons. It’s a great story, set in Atlanta in the 1970’s and it’s the kind of book that will keep you wound up in its pages, but imaginative people may want to leave this till summer. During these months we need to believe we are safe when we’re home and the house in these pages is wicked. No one in the neighborhood wants to see the new house go up. …