My husband loves to read the comics. While I was raised to believe cartoons were simultaneously the lowest form of art and literature, they helped him learn how to read. Before the Internet, he read the comics page before he read anything else in the paper. Now he follows them online. One strip, Mom’s Cancer, has made such an impact on him that I got him the complete graphic novel but I wasn’t going read it. Like everyone else, I’ve lost loved ones to this awful disease and the idea of reading about some poor woman’s struggle didn’t send me. Add that feeling to what I was taught about comics as a kid and I decided this was a book to avoid. Well, I was wrong, not just a little bit wrong, but WRONG with whip cream and cherries. Mom’s Cancer is a story that needs to be shared and a strip was the best way to tell it. In 2004 Brian Fies was just one more baby-boomer in the sandwich generation part of his life (That’s when your kids see you as an adult but your parents still react like you’re a kid.) His parents and his siblings were living mostly…
There’s a theory that people come into our lives to teach us what we need to know. They may be people we like or dislike and we may not always care for their lessons but the knowledge we gain from them helps move us through our lives. I like that theory but I think it needs to be expanded to include books. Along with entertainment and education, the right book at the right time can change a person’s future. I’m still giving thanks for a book that came my way about twenty-five years ago. I’ll always be indebted to Pat Conroy for writing The Prince of Tides. If anyone missed the announcements, Mr. Conroy writes stories about the perennial outsider. Whether the focus is on a Marine’s family readjusting to a new environment or the English Major in a military college, his people don’t think they fit in the orderly pattern that makes up their world. Because they don’t fit, Outsiders tend to stay on the defensive. The first lesson in The Prince of Tides is how defending yourself can cost you everything you care for in life. Tom Wingo, the coach in The Prince of Tides has had good…
There is something special about a Southern Mama. I used to explain it by saying I moved to Alabama because, “I married a Southern Boy. And Southern Boys don’t get too far away from their mamas.” That usually got a laugh because, on one level, it’s true. Southern mothers are strong women and their children respond to that strength. These women have raised generations of kids who know Mama is stronger than anyone except Grandma or God Almighty. Dads are dads and everyone should have a good one but no one’s more certain than Mom. That standard was true of my southern mother-in-law and it is certainly true about Rick Bragg’s mother. In All Over But the Shoutin‘, his mom is the heroine of the story and the center of his life. To hear Rick tell it, life should have been nicer to Margaret Marie Bundrum. Although she was born into a large family in one of the poorer areas of the United States, the country was beautiful, her family was loving and her father provided for them all by building houses and making moonshine. It was a reasonable childhood for that area and at seventeen, Margaret Marie had the…
“I have in my heart of hearts a favorite child. And his name is David Copperfield.” That’s what Charles Dickens said in the preface of his famous novel and I believe he meant it. History didn’t record how his wife or his ten human children reacted to the statement (that would have been a Jerry Springer show in the making!) but, as sad as the remark probably made them, I doubt if they were surprised. A large amount of fiction comes from the writer’s re-imagination of his or her own past and much of the novel David Copperfield can be traced to the life of Charles Dickens. The transfiguration of those experiences in David Copperfield redeemed a lot of the author’s own childhood. It also made a much-loved book. Every fan of fiction knows Charles Dickens had an unsettled childhood. His father was always in debt and the family moved continually, trying to avoid Dad’s creditors. That ended when his father was thrown into debtor’s prison and all of the family (except 12 year old Charles and his slightly older sister) were incarcerated there for a time. His sister managed to stay in her school but his parents forced Charles…