"Almost Famous Women," by Megan Mayhew Bergman

Women who were a little bit famous. Women who were related to, or close to, someone actually famous. The organizing principle of Megan Mayhew Bergman’s collection of short stories, “Almost Famous Women” (Scribner, 2015), about real although mostly forgotten women, may sound like a gimmick, but the stories are effective not only because of their intriguing topics, but also because they stand strong as stories, regardless of the “fame” angle. The stories are fictional, but very believable. Each character is explored, even cherished, for her individuality, her vividness, her desire to "be someone,” to experience life fully. The protagonists include the poet Lord Byron’s young daughter Allegra, the actress Butterfly McQueen, the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay’s sister Norma, the writer Oscar Wilde’s niece Dolly, and Violent and Daisy Hilton, two sisters joined at the hip. A small quibble I have is that one story is about the adventurer, aviatrix, and writer Beryl Markham, who is in fact quite famous, definitely more so than the women in the other stories. Some of the stories are quite sad; the one about Allegra comes to mind, as she was left in a convent orphanage as a small child, lived there for years, kept expecting to see her parents, but did not. Another pathetic case is that of the writer and painter Romaine Brooks, well known in her glory days in Paris, but now in declining health, querulous, bedroom-bound, and manipulated by those who take care of her. But all the stories burst with the oversized personalities of these very different but all strong and compelling women. Gender is certainly an issue, and we see how many of the characters were oppressed, repressed, and restricted, at various times in various ways, and yet they could not be completely kept down. I especially like the literary aspects of several of the stories, the ones about writers, or relatives of writers.

RIP Philip Levine

I was sad to read this morning that the poet Philip Levine died Saturday (2/14/15) in Fresno at the age of 87. Levine is most well known for his poetry about the lives of working class people. According to John McMurtrie of the San Francisco Chronicle (2/16/15, p. A8), Levine started working in a factory in Detroit at age 14, wrote poetry even at that age, and promised himself that he would “find a voice for the voiceless,” the working class. That became his life’s work. Levine's poetry is wonderfully written as well as being accessible, and he won several prizes, including a Pulitzer Prize and two National Book Awards. I feel a bit connected to Levine because of where he grew up and where he taught. He grew up in Detroit, a city I lived near for several years. After earning an MFA at the famed Iowa Writers Workshop, and being selected for the Stanford Writing Fellowship, he taught most of his career at California State University, Fresno, a city where several of my close family members live, and one which, although I have never lived there myself, I have visited several times a year for decades. But most of all, being interested in issues of social class, and addressing them in my academic writing, I am drawn to the fact that he spoke for the working class. His death is a great loss, but he leaves a distinct and important legacy.

"We Are Not Ourselves," by Matthew Thomas

I had read good reviews of Matthew Thomas’ novel “We Are Not Ourselves” (Simon & Schuster, 2014), so I requested it from my wonderful local library. When I picked it up, I was a bit daunted to see that it is 620 pages long. I am fine with long books, but only if they are very good, and I wasn't sure about this one. I decided I would just begin reading, and gave myself permission to stop reading and return the book to the library if I was not enjoying it after the first 50-100 pages. Well, since I am writing about it here, readers can probably guess what happened: I was soon drawn in to the story, and kept reading. However, I have to say it was a struggle at times. Sometimes I was enjoying it and/or absorbed in it, while other times I was very tempted to stop, or to skip to the end. Why? The novel focuses on many themes in which I am interested, including social class and social mobility, the limitations put on women in the middle of the 20th century, family, illness, and work. The events of the novel take place in some less fashionable areas of New York City, and over the time period of 1951 to 2011. The writing is quite good, and the characters are well drawn. But the aspect that I struggled with was that the main character, Eileen, is so unhappy, and that her unhappiness is like an extended pall over the novel, too drawn out and too ever-present. Eileen comes from a sort of genteel poverty exacerbated by alcoholism in her family of origin, manages to find her way out of it, marries and has a child, has a successful career, but is never really happy with her life. She always feels that others have more, and that she is not allowed to have more, and when she does, it is never enough. For example, she cares deeply about which neighborhood she lives in, and what kind of house she can acquire and live in; these have tremendous symbolic value to her. And then her little family -- her husband Ed, her son Connell, and Eileen herself -- is slowly devastated by a calamitous illness. Eileen keeps working hard, making it all work as well as possible, taking care of everyone, taking care of business. She is a strong, strong woman, but only late in life does she find a measure of peace and happiness. The relentlessness of her unhappiness up to that point was hard to read about, even when I had to admire her sheer hard work and refusal to let anything defeat her. And I think the novel would have been as good or better if the author had trimmed it by perhaps a quarter of its length. (As I said, I am fine with long novels, but the length has to be justified by the needs of the specific novel, and I don't think that is the case here.) That said: Despite my struggles to get through it, I do think it is a good novel. So I honestly don’t know whether to recommend the book to readers or not.

"West of Sunset," by Stewart O'Nan: F. Scott Fitzgerald in Hollywood

I have read all of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novels (some several times), many of his short stories, and several books about him and about his work; he is still one of the most well known and frequently read of American writers. I have also read several books – nonfiction and fiction – about his wife Zelda. (See, for example, my 6/1/13 post on “Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald.”) So I was not particularly interested in yet another book about the couple. But when I saw that one of my most admired American writers, Stewart O’Nan, had just published a novel about them, “West of Sunset” (Viking, 2015), I couldn’t resist reading it. The novel focuses on the last three years of Fitzgerald’s life, some years after the peak of his success, and after the glamorous, if often self-destructive, early years in Europe. At the time of this novel, starting in 1937, he had left his wife Zelda in a kind of sanitarium for those with mental illness (readers probably know that Zelda dealt with mental illness for much of her life, although she was also a brilliant writer and artist in her own right, and it is even rumored that she co-wrote some of her husband’s fiction), and went west to Los Angeles to try to earn money as a screenwriter. He had some success but was mostly obstructed by the unpredictable whims of movie producers and others in the Hollywood world, at the same time that he was struggling with his own alcoholism, health issues, money problems, attempts to keep working on his serious fiction, and feelings of guilt and worry about Zelda, as well as about his daughter Scotty. He did have good company in fellow writers and old friends such as Dorothy Parker, and new friends and neighbors such as Humphrey Bogart, but they also contributed to the atmosphere of constant drinking that was so dangerous for him. Another important bright spot was his relationship with the gossip columnist Sheilah Graham, but it was a very up-and-down relationship, with much drama and many break-ups and reconciliations. She did seem to truly love him, though, and did take care of him when his health was failing. The novel portrays Fitzgerald as very flawed (especially by the alcoholism), but a basically good and sympathetic character. He tried to do right by his family, and cared passionately about his writing, even the formulaic writing he was asked to do in Hollywood. (Interestingly, some other portrayals have been less positive, implying that Fitzgerald neglected his wife, or even worse, treated her as mentally ill when she was in fact just displaying independence and artistic originality; I don’t know the truth of it, obviously, but there does seem to be evidence of some kind of mental illness.) O’Nan is, as always, a wonderful writer (see my posts about other novels by him on 5/17/11, 1/26/12, and 3/14/13). (As a side note: this novel is the first book I have posted on with a 2015 publication date.)

"Is This Tomorrow," by Caroline Leavitt

I have read Caroline Leavitt’s novel “Pictures of You,” and liked it (this was before I started this blog), so when I saw that she had a new novel out, “Is This Tomorrow” (no question mark) (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2013), I checked it out. At first the theme of the missing child almost kept me from reading the novel, first because that theme seems to have appeared too often in fiction in the past few years, and second because the theme is just so sad, and hard for a parent to think about. But because I knew I liked Leavitt’s writing, I persevered and read the novel, and I am glad I did. The first important thing to know is that the story takes place in the 1950s and 1960s, and the mores of the time, especially for women, are heavy presences. For example, one of the main characters, Ava Lark, the mother of another main character, Lewis, is divorced, and therefore somewhat shunned by the neighbors and treated a little too familiarly by her male (of course, male!) boss. Ava’s ex-husband is completely out of her life and that of Lewis, who pines for his father. Their neighbor Dot is also on her own with her kids Jimmy and Rose, who become Lewis’ best friends, forming a tight triumverate. But then (and this happens very early in the novel, so my telling you is not a spoiler) young teen Jimmy goes missing. The effect of his disappearance is devastating for all four of the other characters (two mothers and two teens), and as the novel jumps a few years into the future, we see that it has long-term effects on their behaviors, choices, emotions, romantic relationships, and almost every other aspect of their lives. Dot and Rose move away, and Ava and Lewis lose contact with them. But when the novel jumps to the time when Lewis is a young man in his early and mid-twenties, something happens that brings the two families back into contact with each other. This is where telling you more about the plot would be a spoiler, so I will stop there. I will just say that there is no complete resolution, and how could there be after the terrible events of the story? But as time goes on, there is learning, there is softening, there is connection, there is love, and that is all to the good. This is a wrenching story, but it also has much to tell us about the harm done by society's prejudices, as well as about families, deep friendships, love, and connection.

Two Writers Evocative of the 1970s, Now Passed On

Readers of a certain age will remember two authors who were hugely successful, especially in the 1970s, although not considered “literary” writers. These two very different authors, Rod McKuen and Colleen McCullough, both died yesterday, McKuen at age 81 and McCullough at 77. McCullough, an Australian, was best known for her sentimental novel “The Thorn Birds,” about a priest torn between his vocation and his love of a woman, which was published in 1977 and sold 30 million copies, and then went on to be an extremely popular mini-series. She also wrote 24 other novels. (I learned something surprising and fascinating from her obituary: in her "other life," she had a career as a researcher in neuroscience both at Yale and in Sydney.) McKuen was a prolific poet and songwriter from the Bay Area (Oakland), who was associated with the Beat writers Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, and who developed his own popular New Age-influenced style. His poetry and songs were very accessible and could be found on the radio and in movies, as well as in poetry collections that were snapped up by readers, mostly young and soaked in 60s culture. I remember that in college I thought his poetry collection title “Stanyan Street and Other Sorrows” sounded very sad and romantic, although I didn’t actually read the poetry; it was just in the air around us. When I moved to San Francisco and saw the actual Stanyan Street, which runs next to the university where I teach, I have to admit that I had a starstruck moment of feeling connected to this popular writer and his work (very quickly followed by an embarrassed laugh at myself). Although I didn’t actually read or particularly admire either McKuen or McCullough’s work, their work gave much pleasure to many readers. They were each immensely popular, and each a part of the zeitgeist for many years, so reading their obituaries this morning evoked a shiver of memories of that golden yet complicated time.

"Pioneer Girl," by Bich Minh Nguyen

Last year I heard my University of San Francisco colleague (she is faculty member in the Masters in Writing Program), Bich Minh Nguyen, read from her work, and was very impressed. Now I have read her novel "Pioneer Girl" (Viking, 2014) and thoroughly enjoyed it. I love a literary mystery. I usually thoroughly enjoy stories about academics. I am drawn to stories of growing up, especially those of young women. And I am interested in stories of those who grow up in multicultural settings, such as in the homes of immigrant parents. “Pioneer Girl” brings these four strands, and of course more (I don’t want to be reductive) together, so for me the novel was compelling on several levels. The main character, Lee Lien, grows up in her Vietnamese-American family in the Midwest. Her father has died fairly young, and her mother is closemouthed about various aspects of his past as well as her own past and present. She is also very critical of Lee Lien and her brother Sam, although Sam gets a pass to some extent because he is a son. Lee has earned her PhD in literature, but hasn’t been able to find an academic job. Her mother thinks a PhD in literature is useless, and wants Lee to stay at home and work in the family restaurant. The unique aspect of the main character's story is the unexpected (possible) intertwining of some of her own family history and that of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s mother Rose, this possibility initially based on a mysterious piece of jewelry. Lee becomes fascinated with the possible connections, and uses her literary and research skills to pursue the mystery in various libraries and historical sites related to the Wilders. Both the family story and the literary mystery (especially about an author whose work I know well and love, and read to my daughter when she was little) are intriguing, and combined they are more so. There is also romance, failed romance, possible romance, friendship, insights into academe, and other aspects of the novel to keep readers eagerly reading. The writing is descriptive and evocative. For example, the description of the restaurant, its tastes, smells, and sounds, is vivid. I highly recommend “Pioneer Girl.”