I’m inspired to think of a woman writing an entire book in a day, doubly inspired to know she did it with two small children running around.
dented love's slated image
What are you reading?
“Even she, reduced to a thumbnail,/ has her side to tell.” — Privilege by Mary Adkins, a line from the poem that opens the book. Privilege, a narrative about life after date rape, is an entertaining tale difficult to leave down as it straddles the uneasy line between comedy and tragedy. Annie, our first-person narrator, takes us into a world new to her, carrying some interesting baggage, that of a burnt bassoonist with an unexpected scholarship, a step up the class ladder. In this adeptly interwoven and intriguing narrative–a triangulation of three women from diverse backgrounds and perspectives–the reader experiences the second coming-of-age in a high-end college with its inherent challenges. As I get to know Annie I want to help carry the weight of what life thrusts at her like a close friend might, but it is far more satisfying to watch her figure out adult life for herself,…
What are You Reading?
The Art of the Wasted Day by Patricia Hample is “a picaresque travelogue of leisure written from a lifelong enchantment with solitude,” and it’s getting many of my allotted reading minutes at the moment. It’s rather perfect for these times of armchair travel and virus inspired daydreaming. Why I like it: I tend to feel bad about not accomplishing much on a given day, but now that I know it’s an art form, I’m all in. I can feel good again. Carry on. A favorite writing inspiration: The author doesn’t believe in the narrative arc, “that fiction of fictions.” I find this more than a bit freeing, along with the idea that the final destination of a novel or story is “the creation of form offering the illusion of inevitability, the denial of chaos.” The author wanders and muses about travel, writing, her lost love, and those musers who have…