LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN by Colum McCann

This might be the favorite book of my summer reading season. There's still another month or so of heavy reading ahead of me, but Colum McCann's book is going to be hard to beat. It's more than a novel, it's a multifaceted, multi-voiced tale of New York City during August 1974, where each voice

relates to the others or a certain remarkable event. I can't reveal many details without taking away the astonishment aspect of this story. The wonderment is less in the content than in the magnificent telling. Evidently, the National Book Award judges felt the same way since this book won that award in 2009. It also won the 2011 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award which is also a huge honor.

I met Colum McCann in June, at a writers' conference where he spoke about his writing and research process. I sat enraptured as he spoke of living among the subterranean homeless people who live in New York City subway tunnels. This research was for another book, but when reading Let the Great World Spin, I could imagine him researching its characters as thoroughly. How else could he write convincingly in the voice of a prostitute or a radical priest?

After his talk, as he signed my book, I awkwardly attempted to chat him up, He was polite, but my questions were dumb. I was starstruck. He explained that he wrote something in Irish (we'd say Gaelic) that means...um...oh my gosh, I was so starstruck I forgot. I probably wrote the translation down somewhere. Here is a photo of that treasured autograph:

Colum McCann is from Ireland technically, although he has demonstrated that he is a citizen of the world. One of his central characters in this novel is an Irish guy who comes to the United States to visit his brother. (For this tiny bit only McCann could write from his own experience rather than his virtuosic research.) The brother is a father (a priest) who works in a nursing home but looks after a colony of prostitutes working near his home in the Bronx. That alone would be enough of a story for a typical novel, but McCann adds more fully-realized characters and stories, relates them all to each other and the spectacle of a tightrope walker who walked a wire strung between the two World Trade Center towers in 1974.

Here's something unique: McCann collaborated with musician Joe Hurley to create a song cycle based on the book. "The House that Horse Built (Let the Great World Spin)" is the result. I just now learned of it, and that Patti Smith sings on it. YES I'm going to score a copy!

You still have some summer left. There will be stormy days and super-hot days. My recommendation is to make yourself comfortable with a glass of ice-water, possibly infused with strawberries, and read this book.

REALITY HUNGER: A MANIFESTO, by David Shields

Reality Hunger is a thought-provoking book. Nonfiction writers like me will probably come away from it thinking about where to draw the line between fiction and nonfiction. Should there be a line at all? Maybe a blurrier line? Do we need new forms or a new taxonomy? Are we obsessed with reality? (I think I am.) Non-writers will probably ponder how the books they read are put together. Did the author base this novel on facts, possibly autobiographical? Is this alleged nonfiction piece journalistically nonfiction? Consider the books you read, but the magazine articles, too, and the television you watch. (Reality TV!) True? Not true? Have you investigated? Are you skeptical?

Reality Hunger is made up of short, numbered entries that circle around a particular cryptically-named topic: Memory, Books for people who find television too slow, Contradiction, Thinking, Manifesto. Don't get too hung-up on the section titles, though, because the numbered entries are all interesting, even if the section titles are not inviting. Check this one out:

615 What actually happened is only raw material; what the writer makes of what happened is all that matters. 

This rings true for me, the creative nonfiction writer, because I take an experience, a thought, a place, or even the concert I'm watching on PBS right now, and create some analysis of it. It is a fact that I am watching the Vienna Philharmonic New Year's concert right now on my TV. You can't argue with that. To make this story my own, I have to provide some sort of analysis or reaction. You may disagree with me that this concert is an annual treat, but you can't disagree with me that I see it as an annual treat. Tonight's host, Hugh Bonneville (from Downton Abbey) was just standing in the Vienna Opera House!!! You may not be excited by Hugh Bonneville or the Vienna Opera, but I am because I am a Downton fan and I got to tour the Vienna Opera when I was there in 2015. I remember its opulence, and I remember being impressed at how important opera is to Viennese culture. While you may not agree with me or share my taste or travel history, but reading my thoughts, you understand why I enjoy watching this concert on TV. Maybe I haven't convinced you to watch it, but I have explained my music nerd-ness. Go back to #615 above and read it again.

The Vienna Opera on the Ringstrasse, 2015

573 To write only according to the rules laid down by masterpieces signifies that one is not a master but a pupil.

Think about Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms (staying in Austria) for example: if they hadn't broken the musical rules they were taught we probably wouldn't remember them today. They broke the rules and created new art that got attention. They were innovators! I chose this excerpt because it illustrates the concept in this book that got the biggest reaction out of me. At the end of the book is an Appendix. Here, the author, David Shields, explains that the numbered quotes were not all his original thought. Some are. Some, like #573 above, are not. Personally, I did not appreciate not knowing as I read the book that these were not all David Shields's thoughts. In fact, in the Appendix he writes, "However, Random House lawyers determined that it was necessary for me to provide a complete list of citations; the list follows (except of course for any sources I couldn't find or forgot along the way.)" He encourages the reader to tear these pages out and destroy them. WHAT?!?!?!?! I spend my life teaching college students how to cite their sources and why this is necessary. Unlike David Shields, I don't emphasize copyright. I tell students that it is important to cite borrowed material in case your reader or listener would like to follow up on some quote, and to read more. Here's a perfect example: #573 above is a quote from Prokofiev, a Twentieth-Century composer who will probably be included in one of my 2019 lectures. I'd love to know the context of this quote so that I can use it (and cite it), but I won't get that from Shields. I'll have to start from scratch to find where, when, and why Prokofiev said or wrote this sentence. All I find in the Appendix is that #573 came from Prokofiev. I'm not even sure if he's referring to Dmitri Prokofiev, the composer, or Fred Prokofiev, the barkeeper.

Aside from my disagreement with David Shields over the provenance of these quotes, I found this to be an intriguing, thought-provoking, and worthwhile book. I marked many of the quotes to re-visit when working on various upcoming projects, and some just to think about further. If you have an interest in writing, reading, truth, or fiction vs. nonfiction, get your hands on this book! (Just know that not all of the entries come from the same mind!)


 

THE SENSE OF AN ENDING by Julian Barnes

I don't know about you, but the end of the year I get reflective. I think about the previous year's successes and failures, pros and cons, hits and misses, and use these to plan the next year(s). My professional life, my writing, speaking, and my librarian gig, is governed by an academic calendar, but my personal life and learning are still attached to a traditional January-December schedule. This month being December, the month's blog book is about life, learning, and existential considerations, and I thought it would be a good choice to round out the year.

The Sense of an Ending is a novel with a unique form. The narrator, Tony Webster, introduces the reader to his school friends in some detail in Part One. There are Colin and Alex, his long-term friends, and then the noticeably brilliant Adrian Finn who manages to add himself to the trio. A quartet only briefly, each guy goes off to a different college and mostly lose touch, except that an old girlfriend of Tony's provides a link of sorts. Tony zooms through his middle age and we arrive at his retirement. This is where Part Two starts.

Tony the narrator reflects on his relationships in this section and how memory can be faulty. Evidence surfaces which takes Tony and the reader completely by surprise. This evidence makes a start at understanding why people have acted as they have, but as soon as the reader believes they've figured things out, more surprising details surface to shed new light on why people are how they are, and in one case why a person is at all. Oh, the novel is thick with surprises alright, and so many have to do with the slipperiness of memory.

I heard about this book at a memorial service. It was one of the last books the deceased English professor had read with his elderly eulogist. They loved the book, and that was enough of a recommendation for me. I relished imagining them in the elderly gentleman's apartment discussing the thoughtful novel with their intellectual ideas and wry observations. I live for those kinds of conversations over literature, music, art, and film, and wished I had known that my late colleague was such a devout reader! I purchased my copy of The Sense of an Ending and read it soon after, reflecting on how appropriate, or perhaps ironic, the title is. It's the kind of book I'll pick up again, I'm sure, and in it find new surprises and treasure.

DESIGNER YOU by Sarahlyn Bruck

This morning I woke up from a dream in which I was walking around my hometown library with a hamster. I was holding the squirmy creature in my hands and showing him or her the renovations the library had undergone, and explaining how the various areas used to look. I'd been using this library since age 10 and I worked there as a young librarian for seven years, so I was a good guide for this hamster. Upon waking, I thought how strange it was that I didn't have some kind of carrier for the little guy. In real life (IRL), when I transported my hamsters (usually from college to home and back), I would carry them in a clear ball, the same one in which they would roll around on the floor exploring whatever environment we found ourselves.

You're probably wondering why in the world I would start this blogpost about a novel with a hamster dream. I will make that point, I promise.

Designer You is the first published novel by my colleague at Bucks County Community College,

Professor Sarahlyn Bruck. As Sarah was working on this book, I would hear tidbits and clues about it, but the plot and characters didn't take shape until I began reading. I became absorbed in the story immediately. The protagonist, Pam, loses her husband early in the story (Chapter One, Page One to be exact), and the reader is compelled to read on to find out the details of this tragic death. Nate succumbed to an accident while he was building a rooftop deck for the family. After I read the details of this accident, I saw rooftop decks everywhere. Rooftop decks are a thing now, especially in urban areas. I asked Sarah about this, wondering where the idea came from, and knowing from social media that Sarah's husband was still alive and healthy. This hadn't happened to them, but while her husband was building an actual rooftop deck for their family, Sarah would worry that something terrible would happen. That worry turned into Nate's backstory.

All of this is tragic enough for our protagonist, but add to the story the fact that Pam and Nate are a well-known design and home-improvement team with books, TV appearances, and a line of stuff available through Lowe's. The name of their company is Designer You. Is Pam going to be able to keep Designer You going without Nate? Will she have to reinvent herself somehow?

Just like author Sarahlyn Bruck, Pam has a teenage daughter. This daughter has a hard time dealing with her dad's death and makes some really bad choices.These are NOT based on autobiographical elements. Other than their approximate ages, the author's real daughter and the fictional one don't share characteristics. Sarah brings that fictional girl to life, though and the relationship between mother and daughter is stunningly realistic. Will Pam be able to guide her daughter back onto the right path after some rather serious setbacks?

I'm not here to tell you how the story plays out, but I will say that the story remains compelling throughout. Pam has a lot to deal with ("When it rains, it pours") and although we recognize her feelings of self-doubt (we've all been there), she shows herself to be resourceful, agile, and strong. This is an authentic, contemporary story, rich with nuance, and as a bonus it is set in Philadelphia!

Are you still wondering about my hamster dream?

It occurred to me as I drove to work this morning (my car is my best thinking place) that when I read fiction and even some nonfiction, I'm like that hamster in a clear ball. I'm looking around at the world created by the author with all of the characters and places and nuances of detail. I'm safe in my bubble, too, permitted to safely check out the situations while the action happens. Thanks to Sarahlyn's elegant writing, I'm in the house with Pam and her daughter, I'm on the awkward date, and I'm in the basement with the contractor struggling to speak knowledgeably about that job.