"We Wish You Luck," by Caroline Zancan

And…yet another book about writers! No, I am not in a rut, it’s just a coincidence…I think! “We Wish You Luck” (Riverhead, 2020), by Caroline Zancan, is a novel about a group of aspiring writers at a low residence graduate writing program. Twice a year they meet at the school in Vermont for ten days. The expected happens: friendships, romances, enmities, competitions, etc. But there are strong elements of surprise as well, and the author keeps us guessing until the end. So the book is a mixture of a writer’s novel, a campus novel, and a small-community-in-a-small-space novel…with a touch of mystery and a touch of thriller in the mix. The three main characters form a quirky, very loyal group that fascinates the other writing students who form the collective “we” that narrates the book as a sort of Greek chorus. No one knows what the members of the group will do next. They are the “popular kids” with a touch of menace, and everyone wants to be near them to see what they will do next. And then there are the instructors, famous or semi-famous writers themselves, who have their own issues. Readers are left on the proverbial edge of their seats to find out how it all turns out. But not in a bestseller-y embossed-cover-paperback way. Well, maybe a little. But mostly in a literary way.

RIP Deirdre Bair

I am very sorry to hear, today, of the death of writer Deirdre Bair. She died on April 17, at the age of 84, of heart failure. She was the highly respected biographer about whom I wrote very recently, on 2/18/20, on the occasion of my having read her 2019 book, “Parisian Lives: Samuel Beckett, Simone de Beauvoir and Me.” This book was a memoir about writing biographies of these two towering writers. In my post, I raved about this book, saying it was “one of the very best books I have read recently.” The combination of the fascinating subject matter, the excellent writing, and Bair's good eye for the telling detail made the book pure joy to read. Bair also wrote biographies of other well-known people, and was an active scholar and professor. I am sad that she is gone, and sad that there will be no more books from her.

"Later: My Life at the Edge of the World," by Paul Lisicky

Since my post of 4/5/20, about having very recently (since being in the pandemic stay-at-home era) read six books about women writers, I have now read more books about writers. The first one (I will write about others later) is a memoir by a gay male writer, “Later: My Life at the Edge of the World” (Graywolf, 2020), by Paul Lisicky, tells of the time period during which the author took up a writing fellowship in a program in Provincetown, on the East Coast, a somewhat isolated, charming small city famed for its artists and for its gay life. Lisicky had had a difficult time dealing with homophobia, overt and subtle, in his family and in most parts of his life. Thus Provincetown was for him a sort of magic city, where being gay was the norm, not an aberration, and where he was surrounded by writers, “kindred spirits.” In many ways this was a joyful time for the author, during which he felt free to openly be his real self. But this was in the early days of the AIDS crisis, and he, like every gay man, was both afraid for himself and mourning his friends and others who fell ill and -- in those times before there was life-prolonging medication -- died. He tells of his relationships with lovers, friends, fellow writers (some people were in two or even three of these categories), and with Provincetown itself. “Later” is a bittersweet memoir, one of great interest both for the parts about writing and the parts about the terrible epidemic of HIV/AIDS. And of course, these past few weeks, we readers -- especially those of us old enough to have been around during the beginnings of the appearance of AIDS -- have increasingly seen parallels between that crisis and the current one.

Pandemic Awareness Suffuses My Reading

These days of “shelter-in-place,” I am reading more than ever, partly to distract myself from the pandemic. But I find it intrudes itself even as I read novels and memoirs published well before the coronavirus crisis. For example, there is an occasional reference to a virus, an illness, a health crisis, a hospital stay, and I feel a chill. Even when books don’t directly mention anything to do with illness, I instinctively -- at least for a millisecond -- recoil from scenes in these books in which people sit or stand too close together, at restaurants or parties, or in parks or classrooms or theaters. I find myself wanting to call out to caution the characters: “Don’t do that!” "Stay home!" "Remember to “social-distance!" Or “Don’t sip from the same glass!” Or "Did you wash your hands?" Or “Don’t open that package or letter without wiping it down with alcohol, and/or leaving it unopened for a day or two first!” These reading experiences remind me that even if we are fortunate enough to be in relatively safe situations, as my husband and I are (working from home, able to stay in a comfortable home, getting groceries and other supplies delivered, etc.), we are all vulnerable (we, for example, are now -- like it or not -- defined as “seniors” and thus more vulnerable), we are all on high alert, sensing danger everywhere. We all feel the profound weight of the uncertainty, pain, and loss that surround us.

Why Did I Just Read Six Books in a Row about Women Writers?

It seems that I have unintentionally, unconsciously, read six books in a row (and yes, I am reading even more than usual, now that I am basically confined to my home during the pandemic shelter-in-place orders, and despite still working -- teaching, committee work, research and writing -- remotely, spending time figuring out how to get groceries, and obsessively reading pandemic news) that are by and about (mostly older) women writers, writing about writing and reading. A week ago (3/28/20) I posted about one of these, Vivian Gornick’s book on re-reading, which is a blend of literary criticism and memoir. The second one, “Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading: Finding and Losing Myself in Books” (Random House, 2005), is a memoir by the “Fresh Air” radio program’s longtime book critic, Maureen Corrigan. She writes enthusiastically about her life in books, and the joys of writing, speaking, and teaching about literature (she is also a professor at Georgetown University). The third book is a novel by Lily King, “Writers & Lovers” (Grove Press, 2020), which is “about” exactly the two focuses of the title, although also, among other matters, about the main character’s feelings of lostness after her mother died. Although this main character is only in her thirties, she fits somewhat with the next two books in that she is a blocked writer, a writer who has been working on her novel for more than six years and can’t seem to make progress on it. These next two books (fourth and fifth) are indeed about older (or at least late middle-aged) writers; one book is a memoir and one is a novel. The memoir, “Scratched: A Memoir of Perfectionism” (Harper, 2020), by the well-respected Elizabeth Tallent, explains why she stopped writing after publishing several successful novels. For 22 years, she could not write, which she attributes to her struggle with a serious case of perfectionism. This is not the kind we sometimes speak lightly or even humorously about, but one rooted in the childhood trauma of growing up with a withholding mother; this perfectionism requires psycholanalysis for many, many years. This is a sad and difficult book to read, and Tallent’s somewhat stream-of-consciousness descriptions of her feelings are sometimes overwhelmingly draining even to read. As a result, to be honest, I considered bailing halfway through, but pushed myself to finish. Next, the main character (Judy) in the novel, “Separation Anxiety” (Ecco, 2020), by Laura Zigman, also wants to write something literary; she has published one very successful children’s book, but her following books were unsuccessful. She is paralyzed by the need for money, by her parents’ recent deaths, by the clinical anxiety of her husband, by their fraying marriage, by the (normal but difficult) changes in her teenaged son, and by the approaching death of her best friend. One of her adaptive mechanisms is a strange one: she starts carrying the family dog in a baby sling left over from her son’s infancy. Despite the problems, the reader has a sense of Judy’s underlying strength, devotion to family and friends, and a certain resiliency. These, and her well-drawn characters and the various episodes described in the novel, and the moments of humor, make the book enjoyable to read. The sixth book of this unintentional “series” on similar or at least closely related topics is Joan Frank’s “Where You’re All Going: Four Novellas” (Sarabande, 2020). Joan Frank is a San Francisco Bay Area writer, and her setting many of her books in that area (where I live) is one (but only one) of the reasons I have been reading, admiring, and enjoying her books for years. (See my posts of 7/6/10, 7/11/10, 12/31/10, 4/9/12, 1/5/13, and 3/9/17.) In the first of the four novellas, the main character (who seems in many ways to be based on the author herself) is also a writer. Each of Frank’s four novellas is compelling, and the book reminds me yet again what a wonderful writer she is. So, why did I read so many books by and about women writers during the past couple of weeks? I have always, especially in my twenties and onward, tended to read more books by women than by men. And I enjoy reading books about writers. So books about women writers are a natural preference (obviously with many exceptions), and I have read many of these over the years. These are, however, not usually so densely in evidence in my reading as in these six read consecutively. So the confluence is probably accidental, but I am (idly) trying to puzzle out how this “coincidence” took place.

Changes in My Reading Life during this Pandemic

Among all the huge changes in our lives during this coronavirus crisis, there are some smaller but still important, to me, ways in which the virus has changed my reading life. First, I want to clearly acknowledge that these are small and insignificant in the larger picture. But here on my book blog, speaking to others who love to read, I want to share these changes. First, as I briefly mentioned in my 3/19/20 post, since libraries and bookstores are closed, if I want to read new books (beyond the ones already in my home), I need to order them. I have been ordering books from local independent bookstores (who are still “open” online), and this process makes me so happy. First, I feel good about supporting these wonderful bookstores, especially now when their businesses have been hit so badly. Second, it is such a treat, such a lift to my spirits, when these books are delivered to my door. These beautiful new novels (mostly 2020 books) are now forming a lovely stack on my “to read” shelf. Second, my husband and I are longtime subscribers to and readers of our local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, and reading the paper with our morning coffee is a cherished ritual. But now we wonder if the physical newspaper, delivered to our door every morning, could be a carrier of the virus. We are wary. Should we spray it with alcohol? Leave it to sit for a while before opening it up? So far we have done each of these, at various times, inconsistently. We could decide to just read the paper online (as I already do with the New York Times and the Washington Post). But we love the physical newspaper on newsprint, and don’t want to give it up. We also want to support the press in general and the Chronicle in particular with our subscription dollars (which of course are more than the online price, but worth it…). A third change is that I am – more than ever – uninterested in reading anything even vaguely dystopian. It is not a favorite genre for me anyway, but occasionally I have liked (besides the classics such as “1984”) a novel such as Emily St. John Mandel’s excellent “Station Eleven” (about which I posted on 3/15/16, noting that the reason I liked it was that besides its description of life after a pandemic (!), it did what all good novels should do: focus on characters and relationships. Today, in a book of short stories, I encountered a semi-dystopian story, and felt an almost-physical revulsion; it is a little too close to home these days. Fourth, my reading of novels and other books has been strangely influenced by the current restrictions, in that when I read about a party, or friends meeting each other on the street and shaking hands or hugging, or kids playing on swings and slides in a park, or other actions that violate social distancing or rules of scrupulous virus-era cleanliness, my first instinct now is to say “NO, NO, don’t do that! That’s dangerous!” Of course these books were written in pre-virus times, back in the old days of a few months or a couple of years ago or earlier. But my immediate reaction of worry and fear is instinctive, not logical.

"Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-Reader," by Vivian Gornick

The wonderful author, feminist, literary critic, and memoirist Vivian Gornick has a terrific new book out: “Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-Reader” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020). This is a small, short book that will appeal to most avid readers. I couldn’t resist it, not only because of the topic, but also because I know Gornick to be a compelling writer. Among her earlier books are the acclaimed, wonderful memoir “Fierce Attachments” (1987) and the more recent memoir, “The Odd Woman in the City” (2015), both of which I have read with pleasure, and the latter of which I posted about here on 10/15/15. Gornick writes with conviction and with an approachable, beguiling manner. In this new book, she writes about the joys of re-reading. As she is in her early 80s, she is able to write about reading certain books several times over the years, both rediscovering what she loves about them and often perceiving them quite differently each time, for better or for worse. Throughout, she weaves her experiences with these books into her other life experiences. Some books and topics that she focuses on here include D.H. Lawrence’s “Sons and Lovers”; Colette’s novels, especially “Cheri” and “The Last of Cheri”; Marguerite Duras’ “The Lover”; Jewish- American writing; the work of Natalia Ginzburg; and Thomas Hardy’s “Jude the Obscure.” Perhaps best of all, for me, was the chapter on the work of Elizabeth Bowen, of whom both Gornick and I are great admirers. (Note that I wrote quite recently – 1/25/20 --about Bowen’s book on “English Novelists.”) Gornick writes so well about the role of “receptivity,” in other words, whether or not one reads a novel at the right time, the time that one is ready to read it and connect to it. Most of all, though, I love this book because the author’s deep love of reading, thinking, and re-reading is so evident. I am a chronic re-reader myself (e.g., re-reading each of Jane Austen's novels many times, as well as the novels of Virginia Woolf, Edith Wharton, Barbara Pym, and E.M. Forster, among many others). Re-reading is truly celebrated in the 161 pages of "Unfinished Business," and I loved reading and celebrating along with the author!