writing is sorrow; having had written is sublime
You just have to go on when it is worst and most helpless -there is only one thing to do with a novel [or anything important**] and that is go straight on through to the end of the damn thing.
Ernest Hemingway to F. Scott Fitzgerald in a 1929 letter from France, courtesy the New York Times archive
#alonetogetherwiththelostgeneration
*Even though it says Straight On Through and not Break On Through, I wonder how many first thought of the Doors…
**IMO
It’s a close call but this might be one of those rare instances where the movie outperforms the book. The flick does have an unfair advantage though with Bogart as the lead…
Even trying to categorize “In a Lonely Place” is tricky: It has elements of murder mystery, melodrama and Hollywood insider scoop. Yet it is certainly one of the most forthright films to deal with domestic abuse ever to come from a major production company, let alone in the early 1950s. Here is a movie so rough-minded, so willing to be unsympathetic that it opens with its protagonist, a screenwriter named Dixon Steele (Humphrey Bogart), threatening to get into a brawl with a stranger.
New York Times , April 30, 2020
#alonetogetherinalonelyplace
The New York Times’ recent piece Melville’s Whale Was a Warning We Failed to Heed is actually a quite serious look at human nature, racism, the environment… but here is a fun selection from it that belies its erudition:
Melville had read Jeremiah Reynolds’s violent account of a sperm whale “white as wool,” named — for his haunt near Mocha Island, off the coast of Chile — Mocha Dick. It’s unknown what led Melville to tweak Mocha to “Moby.” Good thing he did, and that Starbuck was the name he gave his first mate rather than his captain. Otherwise the novel would follow Starbuck’s obsession with a Mocha.
#whosaidseriousnesscantbefun
#nowbacktobeingserious
At least according to the Big Think article The Books You Read Really Make You Who You Are:
“The takeaway from all [the studies] is that no matter the culture, humans are intimately attached to stories. They’re part of our makeup as a species. Stories can literally transport us into the mind and body of a character. They can move us toward empathy or action. Nothing has the power to inform, change our minds, unlock our potential, or transform us and our society in the most powerful and profound ways. Now, we’re starting to unlock the neuroscience behind this and learn exactly how they impact us.”
If this is true, that what we read deeply shapes who we are, and my common sense detector, aka my gut, tells me it is, then in a nation where reading for personal interest has been in steady decline since 1978, we’re in big trouble.
But it certainly goes a long way in explaining our national empathy deficit…
#readon
BOOK | FICTION | SHORT STORIES
A GATHERING OF BUTTERFLIES by Sean C. Wright
RATING: ★ ★ ★ ★
Tales of steely but vulnerable women of color will melt your heart while lifting your spirits…
Book Description from Amazon
A fierce grandmother keeps her grandson from the clutches of Old Scratch in Devil Does Dallas.
An alien abduction transforms a large, miserable woman in Hazel Hogan.
A country girl meets a city girl on her birthday, and struggles to decide if the girl’s heart is dark or light in Bubble Bath Twelve.
And methodical Genie forms an unlikely relationship in Heaven’s Halfway House while in a coma.
I am in wholehearted concurrence with Amazon reviewer Neferet when they opine that “[Author Sean C. Wright’s GATHERING OF BUTTERFLIES] is a nice collection of interesting and clever short stories….”
Nice, indeed.
And I feel nicer as a human being for having read this diminutive collection of pithy and powerful (a redundancy I know, but one worth repeating) folksy parables; and I could tell without a doubt from reading them that the author herself is nice…
Really nice.
I just wish there had been more nice stories to appreciate — there are only four and the collection as a whole weighs in at just over a hundred pages.
Three of the stories are good, written light and fast with limited (but enough) character and setting development as one would expect to find in such folksy parables and morality tales.
However, one of the stories — Bubble Bath Twelve — is exceptional. I got so very and happily lost within that wonderful, beautiful tale and I regretted it when finally finding myself at its end. It compares easily with the best of anything William Faulkner has written, if the boozy, self-hating grouch were to have written such nice, lighthearted stories that didn’t stress the reader out with their unrelenting and migraine-inducing dialect.
Yeah, the story’s that good.
Outside of expanding this fine collection with more stories, I would recommend the author consider a more professional book cover. Personal preference, perhaps, but I think such fine writing deserves something a little better than its present adornment.
So, fantastic work by Ms. Wright, work that I highly recommend. I also recommend checking out her website. While it’s a little confusing to navigate, there the determined reader can find a treasure trove of her equally fun and interesting flash fiction, which, if you recall, is how all who gather here first became acquainted with her fine work.
SEANARCHY.WORDPRESS.COM
I’d like to thank Ms. Cathy Geha of Cathy’s World for her review of The Good Kill. Cathy had, fortunately for me, come across the book at NetGalley.
Her’s is the forth review I’ve received from the site, which is pretty cool. It’s been downloaded from there over 50 times so hopefully we’ll see more than a few more as a time goes on. Fingers crossed.
Help me show my appreciation for Cathy’s review, and all the other many reviews she has prepared for us, by visiting her site and spending some time there with her.
I would like to sincerely thank Ms. Gina Rae Mitchell for taking the time to read The Good Kill and write such a fantastic review for it.
I could tell when first visiting Gina’s website packed full of book reviews, author interviews, and all kinds of other interesting information from gardening tips to tasty recipes that hers was a platform I would love to get my book profiled on. So, as you can imagine, I was very grateful when she responded in the affirmative to my review request.
And grateful I am indeed for throughout the entire time it took from my initial request to Gina posting the review today, it has been nothing but a pleasure to work and correspond with her.
Right from the beginning I signed up for her newsletter and I’m glad I did because it offers way more than just links to her latest book reviews. Had I not been on her list I would have never known to add apple cider vinegar to my bone broth to better soften the bones so my dogs/boys can better enjoy them without me having to worry about them choking on a shard!
There’s so much cool stuff on her site that you’re sure to be amazed when you head over there to read her review of my book.
So be on your way now to Gina’s site… and don’t forget to sign up for her newsletter!
Thanks, Gina!
