N is for Nana Stories

Long-time readers know that a few months ago I began interviewing my grandmother about her life (my "Nana Stories," I called them.) I asked her about her childhood in San Francisco, her experience in the army during World War II, and coming to Cincinnati and being treated so badly by her new husband’s family. Of course, I wanted to know all the bad stuff. I wanted to write about how rotten people were or how many doors were closed because she was a woman.

But my grandmother always returned to the good. The blessings. The holy. And so I wrote the story I thought she wanted me to tell. Here's how I concluded it:

Sundays, after church, Barbara goes with her friends, many ten years younger and in worse health, to breakfast. Her friends like it when she drinks regular coffee with breakfast: she’ll excitedly entertain them with stories about meeting Sammy Davis, Jr., of selling magazines as a child, and of nearly missing a train while somewhere in Texas. She’ll talk about the time when she heard God’s voice saying to her, “Rejoice my child, God forgives you,” bringing her to tears, or she’ll describe the miracles she’s experienced in her life.

This December 24^th, Barbara will turn ninety. In her long life, she’s only had one birthday party. She’s always had to share the day with Christmas Eve, and her family, which visits Christmas Day, regales her with phone calls on the 24^th. But this year, she says, she wants a party. She wants her friends, her son, and her grandchildren to be with her on that day, celebrating her ninety years.

M is for Mom

A coworker somberly asked me--after I'd worked at that library for a number of months--if my mom were deceased.

"No, no!" I immediately replied. But I realized that I had mentioned my dad and his travels quite a few times; I'd shown pictures from his blog of him and giraffes and houses made of mud. I hadn't talked about my mom.

She's taught in the public school system for over twenty years now. Kindergarten, first-grade, second, and now third. She's an excellent teacher, Nationally Board Certified, with a Masters degree in reading. You show me a kid who can't read, and I'll give you my mother. When the Wisconsin governor and Ohio governor yelled about teachers and unions and all their benefits, I thought about my mom, staying in her classroom hours after her students left, grading papers in the evenings, planning lessons on the weekends. But she does it because she loves teaching.

I'm proud of both my parents. In my eyes, they're heroic, each working to make a difference in the lives of others.

L is for Lahiri

One of my favorite authors is Jhumpa Lahiri. Born of Benghali immigrants in London, she moved with her family to the U.S. when she was just three. Her stories and novels are set mostly in the United States, focusing on first- and second-generation Americans. Her first story collection, Interpreter of Maladies, won the Pulitzer Prize, while her first novel, The Namesake, was adapted into a movie. But it's her next collection, Unaccustomed Earth, that is my favorite of hers.

In an interview with The Atlantic Magazine, Lahiri is asked about her approach to short stories versus her approach to novels:

I don't make a huge distinction in terms of what they require because I think an idea is either working or it isn't. And it can work—or not—at long or short or medium length. It depends on what the story I want to tell needs. I always think first about the nature of the story. When I had the idea for The Namesake, I felt that it had to be a novel—it couldn't work as a story. With this new book [Unaccustomed Earth], as opposed to the first collection, I worked on many of the stories for years while they kept evolving and evolving and evolving. One difference is that in The Namesake each piece was contributing to a larger whole.

Lahiri's style doesn't seem to change from short story to novel. She creates interesting and complex characters and describes them in prose that is "un-self-conscious." She says,

I like [my writing] to be plain. It appeals to me more. There's form and there's function and I have never been a fan of just form. My husband and I always have this argument because we go shopping for furniture and he always looks at chairs that are spectacular and beautiful and unusual, and I never want to get a chair if it isn't comfortable. I don't want to sit around and have my language just be beautiful. If you read Nabokov, who I love, the language is beautiful but it also makes the story and is an integral part of the story. Even now in my own work, I just want to get it less—get it plainer. When I rework things I try to get it as simple as I can.

This statement is extremely appealing to me as a writer-in-training. I love the idea of plainness as a virtue. "Plain" is not a synonym for "boring" or "simple." Rather, I take it to mean (borrowing from William Zinsser) stripping the writing of superfluous adjectives and adverbs, those "adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence."

K is for Kingsolver

I fall in love with books the way others do with guys. Some I won't even look at--too popular, too slick. Spare me the Pattersons, the Graftons, the Coulters--give me Kingsolver and Krauss. Give me the Booker Prize winner, not the bestseller.

I start two or three books at the same time. I read a few pages, then move onto the next and give that a sample. While I enjoy reading both, I'm afraid to commit to either. There are so many great books available! Libraries, stores, dedicated to them!

But as I get to know one book better, I set the other aside. I can't put down my chosen book. I tell everyone about it. Read this! It's awesome!

Alas, by halfway through--maybe later--I see its faults. I note the sloppy characterization, the descriptions that go on far too long, and I'll second-guess my commitment. I still want to finish the book, but I also notice that other one I'd started. It nags at me like an ex-boyfriend inviting me to lunch.

Luckily, there's nothing wrong with two-timing a book.

(Tongue fully in cheek;)

J is for Justice

"I SPENT 18 years in prison for robbery and murder, 14 of them on death row. I’ve been free since 2003, exonerated after evidence covered up by prosecutors surfaced just weeks before my execution date."

So begins an op-ed piece in Monday's New York Times. John Thompson had been falsely accused by another man arrested in the same shooting; he was convicted based on eye-witness testimony. The defense attorneys did shoddy work, and the prosecution hid evidence.

A few years ago, Thompson sued the D.A.'s office and won $14 million dollars, but the Supreme Court overturned that ruling. He writes,

I don’t care about the money. I just want to know why the prosecutors who hid evidence, sent me to prison for something I didn’t do and nearly had me killed are not in jail themselves. There were no ethics charges against them, no criminal charges, no one was fired and now, according to the Supreme Court, no one can be sued.

Where's the justice?

I is for Impatient

It's been four days since I've gotten to work on my story. Four days since I let my mind disappear into the fictional world I created. Right now, Monday morning, the characters are in limbo. They can't move and they can't speak until I get back to them.

I'm a little impatient, and I bet they are too. I say that in jest, but there are times when I think of them as people with free will. They have the capacity to choose their actions and their speech, and it's my job to capture it; of course, I nudge them in one direction or another. But when I don't have my document open, we're all static. A movie on pause.

In writing class last week we did a short exercises in which we took a teacher's name, a subject, an emotion, and an age, (each supplied by a different woman) and turned it into a short story. We only had fifteen minutes, so the final piece had fewer than 300 words, but I enjoyed it; in a tiny pocket of time, we created something interesting.

It also gives me something to think about: just because I don't have an entire day off work doesn't mean I can't work on my writing. I can take a lunch break and sketch a character; I can take an hour before bed and write a tiny story.

But I have 30 minutes before I have to leave for work. I'm going to savor my coffee and catch up on my blogs.

H is for Home Birth

My brothers and I were born at home. Me, then Zachary, then Jonah. Midwives guided my mom through labor and birth, and our grandparents, a priest, my mom's sister, and maybe more were there for each birth to welcome us to the world. I have vague memories of Jonah's birth - I was four at the time - though the most concrete image from that day is of walking downstairs and finding two-year-old Zach asleep on the couch. It felt dark, like nighttime, though I know my youngest brother was born in the morning. I also know the bed broke when he was born; maybe when I was, too.

We grew up on a rather busy street in Cincinnati, adjacent to a giant cemetery. On the occasions that I drive by the small house, now painted yellow, I wonder about the people who currently live there. Do they still deal with water bugs and the occasional mouse? Have they recarpeted the living room and dining room? (It had been wall-to-wall brown; sometimes I sat on the floor, cross-legged, watching Sesame street, and I'd "trim" the carpet with scissors as if I were mowing the lawn). Have they had bikes stolen? I notice they've removed the chain-link fence that I guess only offered a semblance of security. And do they know that three babies were born there?