Book Short
‘A Book of Lives – A Memoir of Sorts‘
By Margaret Atwood
I’ve been reading Margaret Atwood’s memoir (of sorts) in small sips – fearful of the day I’d run out of pages. It’s just so good.
Her writing is as biting and unapologetic and fierce and insightful as always. This is not a self-justifying memoir. It’s like sitting down over a glass of wine and chatting over old times with a wise friend – snippets layer over anecdotes, remembrances are shared out of order and with no segue between, and there is a lot of laughter. Head shaking, lip biting, hooting, cackling laughter.
Atwood traces seminal moments in her life that led to the creation of her books. She says she resisted writing a memoir. “It will be boring: I wrote a book. I wrote a second book. I wrote another book.” (Spoiler: Despite the lack of debauchery and gossip in her life, it’s not boring.)
She reflects on the duality of her writerly personae, her theories on why American Democracy is not all that Americans claim it to be, the development of Canadian literature, and includes some of her poetry and a few whimsical mock-advice columns. She captures the essence of how annoyingly boring it was to fight off so many groping men in her early career – without becoming boring about it.
Two Persons
She begins the whole thing by stating that a writer is two persons — one who lives in the world and one who writes. They “share a body and a wardrobe,” but do something very different with their shared experiences. For example: “In [my mother’s] mistrust of the writerly me, she would not be alone. How many times have I heard at book signings, ‘But your writing is so dark! I wasn’t expecting you to be funny.’ A good question to ponder. Which one of these personae is real? And why can’t it be both?”
She shares her life stories with detached good humor. At her all-girls high school (“a school full of girls and nothing but girls was my idea of the Ninth Circle of Hell”), she was a small, “flat-chested weirdo” in the “brain class” with “horn-rimmed glasses, a snaggle tooth, and frizzy hair.”
By age 14, older, artsy boyfriends “somehow just appeared, like mushrooms after rain.” According to the yearbook, “Peggy’s not-so-secret ambition is to write THE Canadian novel.” But her first publications were poems that appeared under the name ME Atwood, “so I wouldn’t be tagged as a girl.”
She is still writing poems, and the novels were published regularly after her first commercial success as the editor of “Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature,” but “Canadians are prone to be offended by the success of other Canadians” and an “undiluted celebration of one’s feats is a gross violation of etiquette,” so she is limited in self-praise.
Unpublished 1st Novel
She revisits writing her first novel (never published), “Up in the Air So Blue,” and can recall all the inspirations that led to its completion and, indeed, the launch of her impressive career. Of her then landlords she says, “Thank you, long vanished elderly men. You gave me a very important gift, which was a room of my own. Such is the nature of gifts, we often don’t know when we’ve been given one.”
Emotion anchors on her half-century relationship with fellow author and partner Graeme Gibson. She writes warmly of their life together, and a profoundly moving account of his struggle with dementia and death.
She seems to have enjoyed with self-awareness and wry humor her life as a famous author and prophet, wife and mother, environmentalist and animal lover.
Over the years, I’ve been to several interview events where you pack into the room, semi-blinded by a bright light on her barely visible, far away petite figure, and applaud and laugh and lean forward to not miss a word, shushing anyone who dares to speak while she has the stage. Her witty wisdom and social advice is incandescent, and it seems every sentence is another insight or bon mot I want to scribble down to consider later.
My copy of this memoir has similar scribbles and marginalia exclamation points throughout. Plus, I solved my early anxiety by simply re-reading sections at random after I finished. (Spoiler: It’s still great reheated.)
Thank you, Margaret Atwood!
Micro Shorts
‘Among Friends, A Novel‘
By Hal Ebbot
The epigraph of this debut novel is a quote from French filmmaker Jean Renoir, “The real hell of life is that everyone has their reasons.”
This is not obtuse. It accurately describes the unspooling of a long friendship between two college roommates and their families as they visit for Emerson’s 52nd birthday. Inner dialogues reveal all the unspoken annoying bits that have always driven each of them crazy — normally balanced by the deep love and trust built over decades. On this weekend, however, betrayal shines a light on all the deeply intertwined differences of class, power, marriage, and parenting.
It takes a while to get going, but then rapidly escalates – perhaps just the way friendships unravel.
‘The Spy Coast’ (and ‘The Summer Guests’)
Two thrillers by Tess Gerritsen (Maine Author)
I am very sorry that I tucked “The Spy Coast” onto a shelf after hearing Tess read at an event soon after it came out in 2023. And I finally read it a few weeks ago. I loved the characters so much I immediately went out to get the second in the series.
The Martini Club is a group of seemingly ordinary retirees who have an unusual connection to a series of local crimes. The acting chief of police Jo Thibedeau suspects things are not what they appear as the Club members always seem to be three steps ahead of her.
Turns out that Tess was inspired by real life ex-CIA agents living in her own town. I hope there will be a third!
‘We Can’t Save You’
By Thomas E. Ricks (Maine Author)
This is the second Ryan Tapia novel, an FBI agent with a tragic past who requested the most remote posting in the country up near Bangor, Maine. I liked Ryan in the first book, “Everyone Knows But You,” but he doesn’t play much of a role in this one, as it centers around an amazingly well conceived protest of climate inaction by Native Americans.
I enjoyed the scenic tour of the coastline and the history of WW2 POW camps in the Western Mountains, but it’s not really a mystery or a detective novel. It’s more of an eco-challenge to the world. Ricks had a lot of fun creating these characters, but the plot is limited.
‘Whistler’
By Ann Patchett
This quiet family drama will make you seek out the kindly stepfather character of your own life: The wise, older friend who tells you a story when you need one and helps you be brave when you doubt yourself and makes you believe in your own power.
The title character is a horse of legend who, after tossing his beloved owner while spooked by lightning on a remote mountain, comes back three days later to rescue her. This is what Ann Patchett does best: stories of human connection that make us want to sigh with contentment.
I loved all the characters, except the ones I hated – who seem created to be despised. The only risk to picking this up: Succumbing to the rolling prose by finishing too fast.
‘One Leg on Earth‘
By ‘Pemi Aguda
Twenty-three-year-old Yosoye arrives in Lagos for her national service year ready to start her life and take on the world. Her arrival is timed with a ghastly phenomenon: Pregnant women are jumping off bridges or just walking into the water and drowning.
Assigned to an elite architectural firm, she works on a luxury project designed to represent a bright, new Lagos. This idyllic vision of a big city, glamourous lifestyle is quickly shattered as Yosoye senses that the haunting force driving women into the water is somehow connected to the political and moneyed side of progress.
The novel is part folklore and part coming of age and part city and colonial history. It’s eerie and uncomfortable and there are no simple answers at the end. But it is a lyrical, complex story of place and self-determination amid scary changes in the world outside.
‘The Lion Women of Tehran’
By Marian Kamali
In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-olds Ellie and Homa become fast friends on the first day of school, with Homa’s exuberance, intelligence, and courageous energy shaping their ambitions to become “lion women.”
She says, “Shir zan. Lionesses. Us. Can’t you just see it, Ellie? Someday, you and me—we’ll do great things. We’ll live life for ourselves. And we will help others. We are cubs now, maybe. But we will grow to be lionesses. Strong women who make things happen.”
Set within the political turmoil of the next four decades, Homa becomes a woman who helps define feminism and political activism in Iran while Ellie takes a quieter path of marriage and her husband’s job opportunity in New York City.
Tracing the friends from childhood allows us to appreciate a metaphor Kamali introduces in the prologue about how beach-crashing ocean waves start thousands of miles from shore. The epilogue is an email from Homa to her granddaughter recalling this oceanic pulsing and updating her shir zan ambitions: “I wish for you not the world, nor the owning of it, nor even success in it. I wish for you the ability to be free.”
At a time when immigrant rights are under attack in this country, my re-read of this best seller from 2024 hit me differently — it’s still a good story of the power of female friendships, and the need for protest to persist over generations, but it is also a reminder that leaving your country for another rends a tear in the fabric of your life that colors every future experience and can sadden even safety, security, and prosperity.
