more of what I'm reading

I finished Leif Enger's wonderful novel, Peace Like A River, and passed it on to my daughter, who is always looking for something else to read. The first sentence:

FROM MY FIRST BREATH IN THIS WORLD, ALL I WANTED WAS A GOOD SET OF lungs and the air to fill them with - given circumstances, you might presume, for an American baby of the twentieth century.

Enger has a new novel coming out in April, So Brave, Young and Handsome. The blurb:

In 1915 Minnesota, novelist Monte Becket has lost his sense of purpose. His only success long behind him, Monte lives simply with his wife and son. But when he befriends outlaw Glendon Hale, a new world of opportunity and experience presents itself. Glendon has spent years in obscurity, but the guilt he harbors for abandoning his wife, Blue, over two decades ago, has lured him from hiding. As the modern age marches swiftly forward, Glendon aims to travel back to his past--heading to California to seek Blue’s forgiveness. Beguiled and inspired, Monte soon finds himself leaving behind his own family to embark for the unruly West with his fugitive guide. As they desperately flee from the relentless Charles Siringo, an ex-Pinkerton who’s been hunting Glendon for years, Monte falls ever further from his family and the law, to be tempered by a fiery adventure from which he may never get home.

A new Leif Enger in April, a new Ellen Gilchrist in May! Life is good.

Right now I'm reading Aryn Kyle's The God of Animals. Very nice so far. The blurb:

Aryn Kyle's haunting coming-of-age novel is the kind of book that you want to share with everyone you know. Twelve-year-old Alice Winston is growing up fast on her father's run-down horse ranch--coping with the death of a classmate and the absence of her older sister (who ran off with a rodeo cowboy), trying to understand her depressed and bedridden mother, and attempting to earn the love and admiration of her reticent, weary father. Lyrical, powerful, and unforgettable.


Sitting on top of my reading pile is Angela Davis-Gardner's Forms of Shelter. Angela is another North Carolina writer and I've had the pleasure of being on a writing retreat with her. Her novel-in-progress has to do with a horse, so I'm looking forward to seeing it when it's published. The blurb for Forms of Shelter:

In this moving, often heartbreaking story, Beryl Fonteyn chronicles her years growing up in Virginia and North Carolina. She is five years old when her adored saxophone-playing father leaves the family in Virginia for a jazz career in Chicago. A few years later, her mother marries Dr. Jack Fonteyn, who introduces his wife, stepdaughter and Beryl's younger brother Stevie to tennis, Greek classics and his passion: beekeeping. On the surface the new arrangement is idyllic, yet the hoped-for love and warmth of family life never materialize as Davis-Gardener's ( Felice ) carefully drawn characters instead connect in a painful, psychologically damaging dynamic spun of loyalty and desperation. Beryl's convincing voice, particularly as a child, lends authenticity to her honest and hard-hitting tale. Readers will identify with her loss and alienation and cheer her eventual courage as she confronts the harsh facts of her childhood.

a comforting sight

This was waiting for me when I went out to the barn this morning, and I want to say thank you to everyone who sent good energy our way.

Since the drought hit and folks started talking about hay shortages, it is even more comforting to get in a nice load of hay and see it stacked there, ready to feed to the horses.

When the local hay talk neared panic proportions last fall, I dreamed one night that there was no hay to be found. The entirety of the dream was me leading our horses miles and miles down power cuts, allowing them to graze and forage what they could each day.

Each time we replenished our hay supply this season I have given thanks. And each time it rains, I do the same thing.

seeking crossed fingers

May I ask for your crossed fingers in the procuring of a load of hay this evening?

On Saturday morning my husband was scheduled to go pick up a load of hay. It was raining, so he rescheduled for Saturday evening. As he was hooking up the trailer to go, the Jimmy got stuck and wouldn't budge, so he rescheduled for Monday afternoon.

He got the Jimmy unstuck, went to work yesterday, and came home to go get that hay. The wheelbarrow tire was flat, so he stopped long enough to inflate it for me and somehow in the process of doing that he backed the Jimmy into the well head and water geysered into the air. This was at 5 pm. so he postponed the hay pick-up and spent the next 6 hours getting the well repaired so we could have water again.

He is set to go get hay YET AGAIN this evening. Needless to say, I am a bit nervous.

Crossed fingers, white light, good energy, prayers... we really need to get this hay!

Once the hay is in the barn, I'll address the metaphorical content of this scenario. :)

writing toward the light

This week I suddenly realized I hadn't checked lately to see if one of my favorite novelists has a new book coming out this year. I discovered Ellen Gilchrist when I was in my early twenties and a writing teacher told me that yes, one could write books about the same characters, and yes, they could all link together in some way. That Ellen Gilchrist had done it and done it very well.

I still remember lying on the floor of what I called the "aquarium apartment" reading her novel The Annunciation. I remember stopping after each chapter and closing my eyes and thinking I might never read another book. I loved that one so very much.

Well, of course I DID read other books. I caught myself up to what she had written thus far and then I waited patiently and sometimes not so patiently, for her next one. I have lived through dating, graduate school, marriage, and having children waiting for Ellen's next books. She has never let me down. They keep coming, and I still love them.

The first year I went to a writing conference, once I had actually completed a novel, Ellen was the keynote speaker. I had corresponded with her in earlier years and she had always written me back with encouragement. At the conference, I got to hear her read from one of my favorite short stories. I had to go to the ladies' room immediately after, because I was so teared up. And then I got to meet her and her grandson, and I felt like I had completed a circle.

These days I am hesitant to check for her new books. I'm afraid there won't be one. One year the book that came out was a huge volume of her collected short stories and that scared me. But this week, with spring coming, I realized she might have a new book coming out too, and I checked.

A Dangerous Age comes out May 13th. And her memoir, The Writing Life, came out a few years back but I have not bought it yet. I have to keep something in reserve, you see.

After discovering that I have a new novel to look forward to, I pulled her journals off the shelf, Falling Through Space, and opened it up.

This is what I read:

All these characters, all this research, all these pages and pages and pages. Perhaps it will be the best thing I have ever written. Perhaps the worst. Still, I have to finish it. A poet once told me that the worst thing a writer can do is fail to finish the things he starts. It was a long time before I knew what that meant or why it was true. The mind is trying very hard to tell us things when we write books. The first impulse is as good as the second or the third -- any thread if followed long enough will lead out of the labyrinth and into the light. So I believe or choose to believe.

The work of a writer is to create order out of chaos. Always, the chaos keeps slipping back in. Underneath the created order the fantastic diversity and madness of life goes on, expanding and changing and insisting upon itself. Still, each piece contains the whole. Tell one story truly and with claruty and you have done all anyone is required to do.

"You can't let them win these little battles."

I was in a situation this week where I was asked to help out with a horse that wasn't doing what it was being asked to do. The request was reasonable and being made in a calm way. The interesting thing to me was that the instant the horse didn't comply, the time factor kicked in, and the stakes were raised. The situation escalated. My only contribution to the situation was to suggest that the request be made in a different way. One the horse might accept more easily.

It worked. I felt good seeing what I considered a success. The horseowner's response was this:

"You can't let them win these little battles."

This jolted when I heard it, even though I suspect I've said the same thing myself in the past. But hearing it this week I realized I no longer see my encounters with my horses as a series of battles I must make sure to win. Rather, I see my encounters with my horses as opportunities to have a conversation, to make a connection, and to find places where both I and the horse can be calm and happy.

It's interesting to encounter other people and their horses. It teaches us a lot about ourselves.