Alaska Book Report

Hiatus (as if you didn't know)

2009-03-29T19:49:00.000-07:00

Book I'm reading: I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak.

This blog was a good try, but I'm more interested in other things in life to keep up at it for the moment. I might restart a blog someday, but for now I'd rather keep my nose away from a computer screen and in front of a paper copy of a good book.

Thanks for visiting!

Laura

And She Was by Cindy Dyson

2008-08-24T14:42:00.000-07:00

Fine Print: I read the Advance Reading Copy of this book in 2006. It is now in paperback and several people have asked me about it so it was time for an entry.

What I’m reading now: The Accidental by Ali Smith

I picked up And She Was casually and flipped to a random chapter which transported me to the Aleutians where women killed a man with an ulu knife. Soon, I restarted at the beginning and the book was invading my dreams.

At the heart of the intriguing first novel by Cindy Dyson is a flawed young blonde, who like so many before and after her, follows a lover up to Alaska. Her fisherman boyfriend is almost as flawed as she is, however, and her stay in the damp islands will be wrought with problems, including mysteries that surround some her coworkers and the customers at the bar where she slings drinks and avoids rough hands.

Brandy’s story mingles with tales of Aleutian women taking justice into their own hands. The chapters with the women of different generations and circumstances are especially powerful and stayed with me long after I set down the book.

The ending and final chapters don’t quite live up to the rest of the book, and one scene could have been eliminated, but don’t let that scare you from meeting some unique Alaskan characters.

A great vacation read if you can handle a little murder with your margarita.

Hardback: William Morrow (HarperCollins). $24.95. 304 pages.

Paperback: Harper Paperback. $13.95. 304 pages.

UAA Readings

2008-07-16T10:16:00.000-07:00

What I'm reading now: Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson

In case you haven't heard, University of Alaska Anchorage is hosting a bunch of free readings this week and next, featuring Alaska and Outside writers. Last night I listened to Anne Caston and Judith Barrington. Very enjoyable.

Each reading is 7:45 to 9:15 p.m. at the UAA Recital Hall, Room 150 of the Arts Building. To see schedule, click here.

Away by Amy Bloom

2008-06-01T15:29:00.000-07:00

Fine Print: I read this a couple months ago but am moving across town so I decided to write the blog before I gave the book to Title Wave.

What I’m reading now: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (better than all the hype)

Blog update: While I like to think that I publish these things on the whole in relative obscurity it seems more people are randomly finding Alaska Book Report (thanks for the books, Epicenter Press), which is good but also hard because it means I actually have to pay attention to posting things.

Amy Bloom’s Away isn’t so much a book about Alaska as a literary novel about a journey that takes a woman into Alaska. It is about survival and it is about a mother’s love and it is told very well.

At a book reading at Title Wave several months ago, Amy Bloom the author displayed all the qualities that remind me why I’m glad I’m living in Alaska and not on the East Coast with high heels and sophistication and impatience. Almost as if we should apologize for not reading her short stories or the New Yorker often enough, but as she spoke she became just another person that has molded her personality to her environment (or chosen an environment that suits her personality) and when she read a section about the protagonist’s experience on the Telegraph Trail encountering a cabin with children, the author’s personality melted and gave away for the story, a feat which still amazes me as possible since authors put so much of themselves into books.

The story begins in New York but the New York of 1924 and Lillian, the main character, is only days away from eating her own dress out of hunger not in a Manhattan apartment sipping martinis.

The book is so vivid and rich at times that it is strange thinking about Bloom inventing it. When I could, I would put her out of my mind entirely and just focus on the story and words, which was easy enough done because the book is quite absorbing. The Alaska she describes is one I do and do not know and at times the story lessens on her arrival but worth it nonetheless.

Sarah by Kaylene Johnson

2008-05-06T00:00:00.000-07:00

Fine Print: I bought this book for my father-in-law.

What I’m reading now: Boating for Beginners by Jeanette Winterson

Yes, our young governor already has a biography. I bought Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska’s Political Establishment Upside Down at the Alaska Professional Communicators' luncheon, then at a dinner reception later that night sat across the from the governor herself. It was a surreal experience.

At the luncheon Kaylene Johnson explained how she had ten weeks (ten weeks!) to write this book, which fell into her lap after the publisher and another writer parted ways. Johnson wrote a chapter a week, followed leads she could (even when the sources added, “You know this is all off the record, right?”) and approached the book like several newspaper features strung together. Johnson won APC awards when she wrote for the Senior Voice and her journalistic voice comes out in this book which reads rather like a newspaper article, including interviews from family, friends, and Sarah Palin.

I didn’t meet Palin, more my table was next to her table at the Alaska Bar Association Convention, which I attended because Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the keynote speaker and a member of my book group invited several of us to listen.

Palin, her husband Todd and their newborn Trig slipped in after Ginsburg’s husband introduced the Justice. Palin accidentally sat in Mr. Ginsburg’s seat and there was a moment of confusion in looks and gestures: “Who are you?” “I’m the Justice’s husband.” “I’m governor.” Because neither seemed to recognize the other. Then a handler came swooping in, directing people to proper seats, all the while the diminutive Justice is preparing to enthrall a ballroom full of lawyers and a couple book group members than snuck in. Her speech was more entertaining than watching Mayor Begich and Palin eat salad, but still, an eventful day.

Which is to say nothing about the book except that she is real and in the photos and stories of the book you learn how she is real and how she is our local celebrity at the same time.

Read the first chapter online.

159 pages. Epicenter Press. $19.95.

40 Below Ink

2008-03-21T17:26:00.000-07:00

Fine Print: I read about this new publishing company in the Creative Opportunities section of the Anchorage Daily News and decided to investigate.

What I’m reading now: Spiderwick Chronicles, special edition (Okay, I got this book from my cereal box, but it is entertaining and just long enough that I didn’t finish at breakfast.)

40 Below Ink is a brand-spanking-new publishing company based out of Fairbanks. Kirkpatrick Hill, Dermot Cole, Laurel Downing Hill and Carolyn Kremers sit on the advisory board. The independent press wants to challenge the images of Alaska coming out of New York and Hollywood with fiction and non-fiction. They are also actively seeking submissions of illustrators for cover designs.

Publisher Barbara Farris answered several questions via email.

What is your background in writing and publishing?

I’ve been writing my entire life, at work and on my own time.

Why did you decide to create a publishing company?

I saw a need for authentic Alaska stories and decided it was time to fill that need.

What are your goals for 40 Below Ink?

To survive. On a more serious note, we want to publish excellent work by Alaska authors.

Any projects in the works now?

We are currently considering one fiction manuscript and one non-fiction proposal.

What are some tips for writers?

l. Have a group of friends read your manuscript and give you honest feedback.

2. Edit again and again.

3. Read your entire manuscript out loud - that will help you find any stiffness.

4. Prepare your submission package according to standard industry guidelines. I recommend Formatting Your Manuscript.

5. Forget about rejections and just work every day to improve your writing skills.

What kind of submissions would really excite you?

I’ve said we want authentic Alaskan stories, so we’re getting a lot of “Into The Wild” type stories, with a twist. Authentic Alaska doesn’t have to mean backpacking or bears or mountain climbing stories. Excellent writing is our bottom line. We love unique ideas. Take for example the book, “The Spellman Files,” based on a family of private investigators. It is fresh and humorous.

We love good humor in a story.

Anything you’re not looking for?

We’ve recently decided not to accept children’s books for now. This will probably change again in the future.

What are your plans for distribution and sales?

All the typical stuff publishers do. However, there is a trend in big publishing houses for authors to do a lot more marketing than they’ve done in the past. We are following this trend by looking for authors who have the time and energy to put into marketing.

Other resources for writers and readers?

McCoy and Blackburn is an independent press located in Ester, Alaska.

Anything else you’d like to share with people interested in books by Alaskans and about Alaska?

There are more non-fiction books published each year than fiction. If you are new to publishing, you can get a head start by writing a non-fiction book first. After that is published, your chances of getting an agent or publisher for fiction go up. Agents and publishers look for writers with a “platform.” A platform can be a column for the newspaper, being a famous actor, having another popular book out or being an expert on a subject. It is getting harder and harder for writers without a platform to get noticed. Therefore, I suggest people build their own platforms. Start writing for Alaska Magazine, or the Anchorage Daily News, for example, or get that non-fiction fiction written and published.

New Literary Magazine

2008-03-16T21:20:00.000-07:00

Fine print: This comes from Mike Burwell, the poet from the previous post.

What I'm reading now: The Innocent Man by John Grisham (for my book group, but better than I feared)

Cirque & Feed Yer Mind

Mike Burwell & Randol Bruns, Editors

A regional literary journal with a strong connection to the North Pacific Rim: Alaska, British Columbia, Yukon Territory, Washington and Oregon—invites submissions of short stories, poems, creative nonfiction, translations, plays, reviews of first books of poems, B & W photographs, drawings, etc. for its inaugural Fall Equinox issue. Cirque, is a more traditional literary journal. Flipped over the journal becomes Feed Yer Mind, a contemporary ‘zine’ (spoken word, slam poetry, and hip-hop).

Submission Deadlines: June 21, 2008 for Fall Equinox 2008 Issue (Published September 2008), December 21, 2008 for Spring Equinox 2009 Issue (Published March 2009). Electronically: submissions@feedyermind.com By Mail: Feed Yer Mind & Cirque, P.O. Box 873325, Wasilla, Alaska 99687. Submission guidelines and inquiries to inquiries@feedyermind.com. Web site:http://feedyermind.com

Also, there is a new Alaska publishing company, 40 Below Ink, which seeks fiction and non-fiction submissions from Alaska writers.

Cartography of Water by Mike Burwell

2008-01-10T23:59:00.001-08:00

Fine Print: I have moved across town and all my Alaska books are in some box I have yet to find. Luckily, Mike Burwell sent me a copy of “Cartography of Water.” Yeah! Someone has heard of my blog.

What I’m reading now: Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them by Francine Prose

For a portrait of pain, one might find Alaska an ideal setting. The high rate of suicide would not surprise all those I left in Southern California, who only know of cold and darkness in this northern place, but the careful poet eye and heart finds more, finds all the metaphors and questions about loss that they need, and finds beauty in the survival, in the green shoots of spring, in “bugs ripening” and a broken branch beside the trail.

“Cartography of Water” by Mike Burwell and published by a new press created by poet Anne Coray spans several decades of writing and includes poems previously featured in his chapbooks. The subject matter ranges from the poet’s arrival in Alaska to his complicated relationship with his son. Burwell received his MFA in poetry from University of Alaska Anchorage. He has been a guide and climber in the Alaska Range and Wrangell-St. Elias and teaches poetry workshops at UAA. He also writes environmental impact statements for the U.S. Department of Interior, researches shipwrecks and studies anthropology.

This book is poetry you can read on your lunch break with coworkers chatting around you and trying not to spill their cup of soup on your head, but be careful because you will soon tune out their conversations about the amount of sugar in certain drinks and the latest actions of the pope. You may forget you are under halogen lights altogether and breathe slowly, as if you were sipping fresh brewed tea, while the poem draws you in and pries you open.

The poems are full of Alaska details that miss the tour guides—Quonset hut, tangerines that arrive on frosted crates. Burwell captures experiences universal to many Alaskans (“April, and still / no sign of spring”) and takes the “wet winter road” to a sadness battling all humanity. We also hear about the more scenic Alaska of bears, birches and borealis, though even then there might be an unexpected insight. After a climb, he notes “All that work / and no epiphany, no transformation.”

A calculated pace creates elegant verses and stanzas. Sometimes the careful pauses make the rhythm so appealing that the words themselves and their collective meaning are almost, almost secondary. When the precision lapses (as it rarely does), it makes the roughness all the more apparent. Some of the poems are lists that don’t intrigue or capture me, but that’s the beauty of poetry books—Skip that one, read others three times in a row.

“Cartography of Water” comes with an audio CD which includes a discussion with Burwell and Coray and reading of seven poems. The interview brings up his past, son, the title and writing poetry. It is a nice recap of the book and gives new insights into the poems. You can attend a short reading in your comfy pants and blow your nose all you want without disturbing anybody.

Here is a sample of the phrases that reminded me why I love poetry so much and how it is so enriching to enjoy the landscape of language and images:

“All day / I knew the spruce were bigger / than my only good thought” (The Right Place in Oregon)

“perfect and alert darkness” (Morning Prayer to Water)

“I touch the cool waist / of the planet” (Dream Island)

“In June with the sun coming down like a bronze mallet” (Summer on the Out Island)

“We sat with men so serious with drink / they made women enter through separate doors” (The Lake at Northway)

“This is the world / I need, each day, / to plunge into” (In the Middle of Winter / the Water Taxi Leaves the Dock at Jakolof Bay)

“Without medicine, your mind can’t hold / the world for long, a scar redraping itself” (Picture at Swan Lake)

Birds I looked up in Sibley’s: merganser and yellowlegs

Side note 1: The Anchorage Daily News asked me, as an arts reviewer, to write what I liked and disliked about arts in 2007 and what I was looking forward to in 2008. For my dislike, I wrote that I disliked that the Daily News reduced then eliminated the book section. They edited that sentence out.

Side note 2: I have Alaska Book Report bookmarks. Soon to be the must-have reading accessory.

Side note 3 (I really need to visit this blog more often so that I don’t need to bulge a post with everything): Radical Arts for Women is sponsoring a short story contest open to all women in Alaska. For more information, visit www.radicalartsforwomen.org. Deadline is Feb. 1.

(NorthShore Press, $16, 78 pages)

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Trout by Teri Sloat

2007-10-26T17:47:00.000-07:00

Fine print: I found this (Pacific Northwest) book at random in the Alaska section of Title Wave.

What I’m reading now: "Bless Me, Ultima" by Rudolfo Anaya

I’m new to the children book thing. Or, rather, I’m coming back to them after devouring them as a child when we checked out as many books from the library as we could carry. (The rule still applies, though sometimes I cheat with the convenient baskets Loussac provides.)

What I do know is that it is very easy to get lost among all those tiny book spines so when I find a book I like, I want to keep getting it as presents until I’ve covered my baby shopping list.

“There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Trout” by Teri Sloat is one such book. I’ve already bought two copies and if Title Wave had had another the other day, I would have gotten a third because one of the women in my knitting group just had her baby and she’d have fun reading this story to little Trixie.

The story is like the song we all know about the lady and the fly, and it is just as catchy. Maybe more so. Only it has Alaska-Pacific Northwest animals like trout, salmon, otter and whales. The illustrations by Reynold Ruffins are bright and fun and you can watch the lady’s belly grow and grow until she swallows the ocean. “What a commotion! She swallowed the ocean!”

Why aren’t more adult books this silly and fun?

32 pages, Owlet Paperbacks (2002), Ages 4-8

Just Breathe Normally by Peggy Shumaker

2007-10-15T14:14:00.000-07:00

Fine print: I bought this book expecting to like it because I like “Blaze.”

What I’m reading now: “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” by Ann Brashares.

One moment you’re enjoying Alaska life with your husband, biking on a path safely separated from motor traffic. Next moment a kid on an ATV barrels around a blind corner and almost kills you both. You’re so injured you don’t even remember the accident and must listen over and over again while your husband tells you how strangers held your head and helped save your life.

One moment you’re a sixteen year old getting the younger siblings ready for school. Next moment, your mom is dead and your dad’s crazy second wife won’t let you eat an orange from a bowl on the kitchen counter.

Like Heather Lende, another beloved Alaska writer who got struck while riding her bicycle, Peggy Shumaker, a professor emerita of English at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, faced a grueling recovery after an accident. Lucky for us readers, her memoir “Just Breathe Normally” keeps the grueling moments to snapshots and drifts between recovery and prose poems about Shumaker’s family history. Like with her book of sensual poems “Blaze,” this “poemoir” is full of lyrical gems, humorous surprises, poignant insights and also pain.

The snippets look unflinchingly (and sometimes flinchingly) at childhood, the present and all that in between. The portrait of her dysfunctional family is unsentimental toward her parents yet still tender: These are my parents, this is what I got and how we dealt, I’ll tell you how I judged them then and now let you judge. Not bitter. Well, not too much.

The nonlinear telling means that some scenes a reader might expect aren’t included, but the moments we do get often inform how the more standard-fare incidents would happen. A couple of times, I’m a little lost and don’t know how we got from there to here, but mostly the shifts in time and place are nice and clear and understandable and usually the vignettes can stand alone enough or are beautiful enough to make up from any confusion.

This could have been a memoir that dwelled on snippy medical staff, unfairness (like her not being able to drive while the boy who hit her can) or growing up too soon, but it is all told poetically and with such lyrical language that it rises above each of these things (and also sits on my nightstand for a week while I indulge in page-turning fiction). The beauty of the language and the wisdom in the vignettes make up for the fact that “Just Breathe Normally” brings up a lot of memories about time spent in hospitals and my grandparents’ death, moments I don’t want to revisit.

The picture on the book flap is a stock author photo from before the accident so you missed what I and others saw at a reading at Title Wave in September. Her eye was still healing and partially closed – the slight disfiguration made her story so much more real. This isn’t fiction, this isn’t an academic musing on pain, this is something that changed her being in ways we can see, as well as read about.

University of Nebraska Press, $24.95, 267 pages. Part of the American Lives Series edited by Tobias Wolff

The Spanish Bow by Andromeda Romano-Lax – Review extras

2007-08-28T15:08:00.000-07:00

Fine Print: I reviewed this novel for the Anchorage Daily News. Below is what didn’t make the article.

What I’m reading now: Still Water Saints by Alex Espinoza

Wisdom in book by (real life) Varian Fry, an American who helped artists reach safety during World War II: “You can’t take away people’s idea of themselves. Not at the last minute, when they’re facing a dangerous situation. It makes them less stable, less predictable. Everyone clings to some silly thing or other. Everyone seems to have one thing they can’t live without.”

What I don’t mention in my review is that I didn’t really want to like this book so it took me by surprise that I couldn’t put it down after I read the first line in the parking lot. It was a sunny day and the car was heating up, but I opened the door rather than go inside and finish my errands. Why didn’t I want to like this book? Nothing against Andromeda, who I’ve seen a couple times at readings and seems pleasant enough. Her book on renting public use cabins is my bible for cabin adventures and I have another book of hers on my shelf. No, it was more pure jealousy. I applied for a grant she got from the Rasmuson Foundation when I was writing my novel and needed a computer in order to work. I thought she had books already out so I deserved the money more than her. So petty, so true! I think some of the characters in her novel would appreciate it.

But I did like the novel, though the middle was a bit rough getting through and I wanted the narrator Feliu Delargo to be more political and emotional from the get go. Even death does not rattle him until it is piling up to his ears and even then he is too calm. He’s Spanish! Where’s the passion? It all goes to the cello, which we could see more of. And he could have some small victories.

I also liked that his hometown is named Campo Seco—dry countryside. And then there is the scene when the peasants take the bull. You’ll see what I mean. Ayayay.

Here are some more quotes that I want to share (all out of order and without permission from the publisher):

“ ‘Feliu,’ he (Justo) said. ‘We’re living in a time of messages, not art.’ ”

“The beast over there doesn’t know what’s coming. But we do. I recommend the middle road.”
“But you’re not middle—middle is moderate, Loyalist, prodemocracy…"
“No. The other middle."
“Which is?”
“Survival.”

“Duarte’s cello was a glossy caramel color, and the sound it produced was as warm and rich as the instrument looked. It sounded like a human voice. Not the high warble of an opera singer or anyone else singing for the stage, but rather the soothing voice of a fisherman singing as he mended his nets, or of a mother singing lullabies to her sleepy children.
“When the cellist reached a crescendo on one of the lower strings, I felt a strange sensation, both pleasurable and disturbing. It reminded me of holding a cat, feeling its purrs resonate with me. Listening, I felt the sensation strengthen, as if the cello’s quivering vibrato was actually boring into me, opening a small hole in my chest, creating a physical pain as real as any wound. I was afraid of what might fall out of that hole, and yet I didn’t want it to close, either.”

“After the cello came, my world both shrank and brightened, like a piece of wood burning down into red-hot coal. I woke, for the first time in my entire life, knowing exactly what I needed to do.”

Al-Cerraz: “I still think that motocars are the way of the future. It fascinates me. Is there any more important question, really, than what will last?”

Harcout, Inc. 560 pages. $25.

Read what the New York Times printed.

Reading Deprivation

2007-05-29T18:37:00.000-07:00

Fine Print: No Alaska books this week. No books at all. Oh my.

What I’m reading now: Nothing. Ack! But as soon as this week is over, I’ll return to “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” by ZZ Packer, “Letters to a Young Novelist” by Mario Vargas Llosa and “Julius Caesar” by William Shakespeare (none Alaskan).

In a bout of energy to reconnect with my inner creative self, I picked up “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron. I began the twelve-week course four or five years ago and stopped somewhere around week two or three, retaining nothing but my morning pages, which I adore and crave if neglected. It has taken me two months to get to Week 4, but that’s all right. Except, that one of this week’s tasks is reading deprivation. Are you kidding me? I know. It sounds ridiculous, but she sees it as a purging of other voices and forcing your own productivity. I have to say, I have been writing and thinking like a self-sustaining fireworks display. A constant Pop! But it is weird and out of my routine, not an easy thing to rearrange for an OCD person like me. No newspaper, no fiction, no internet, no magazines. However shall I eat my breakfast and lunch? (Quickly, it turns out.) I’m only writing emails and checking them if necessary. Also little or no TV and radio because they too can poison the well.

I’m restless and have trouble concentrating on talk radio. And it’s only Tuesday.

Beluga Days by Nancy Lord

2007-05-09T15:20:00.000-07:00

Fine Print: I have not finished. I’m sorry, dear blog reader. I know I let you down. And if this was for some publication that paid me enough to buy this week’s groceries or at least some fresh veggies for dinner, then I would have slogged through. I do intend to pick it up again because the fate of the Cook Inlet beluga is the fate of all animals in Alaska.

What I’m reading now: Affinity by Sarah Waters

Quoted in the book: “The beluga can act like the canary in the coal mine, as an indicator of ecosystem health.” –Bob Shavelson of Cook Inlet Keeper

If belugas are your favorite animal, then please pick up this book as soon as possible. In “Beluga Days: Tracking the Endangered White Whale,” Nancy Lord travels all around—outings to tag and track the whales, meetings on belugas and trips to aquariums—and interviews all sorts of people to learn as much as she can about this creature. In her often elegant prose, she presents different sides of the whale debate, careful to tread respectfully around Native Alaska hunting and culture. The book also extends beyond belugas to a side of Alaska tourists (and residents) miss and teaches about how political the endangered species listing is. In the paperback version, she has a new preface about recent developments.

But, really, whose favorite animal is the beluga? They are not as cool as killer whales or big enough to swallow a fishing boat and inspire legends. They might make nice meals for those that enjoy that sort of thing. And it might be fun to spot their white and gray humps when kayaking, but now there are so few belugas in Cook Inlet that either activity is unlikely; an estimated 300 exist. Do you have to be a fan to turn the pages of this book? No, but it would help.

Lord has a literary, essay-like style and a subtle sense of humor (“moments stuck with me like sea lice to the side of salmon”), but she works so hard to present a balanced, fully researched point of view that sometimes it gets a little dull. Informative! Thorough! Enough to give me nightmares about whales when I made the mistake of reading it before bed, but not quite enough to stop me from reading a couple other books since starting it. The problem is: It is a lot of beluga.

You care because you know you’re supposed to care. You don’t want another creature to go extinct or politicians to manipulate the system, but after a while the most interesting thing about the beluga story are the people she interviews and they come and go.

Cook Inlet belugas made the front page April 20 when the National Marine Fisheries Service proposed to list the belugas an endangered, www.fakr.noaa.gov. In 2000, NMFS determined the belugas were not endangered, prompting a lot of controversy which Lord covers in her book. According to the Anchorage Daily News article, public comment on the listing are due by June 19. The paper quoted Sen. Ted Stevens as saying “This is being spearheaded by people who want to stop development in the Cook Inlet region.” Rep. Don Young said, “This whole thing is out of whack.”

The International Whaling Commission meets this month in Anchorage.

The Mountaineers Books, 272 pages, $16.95

David Sedaris was here

2007-05-03T14:30:00.000-07:00

Fine Print: Not an Alaskan. Not a book about Alaska. Just a literary good time.

What I’m reading now: Beluga Days by Nancy Lord. Still. I’m probably too slow a reader for a literary blog, but I’m having fun.

David Sedaris nearly filled the 2,000-seat Atwood Concert Hall last night. It was so nice to see so many people out in support of a queer writer. All the literary liberal types replaced their fleece for slacks and put on their best square glasses for the occasion. KSKA 91.1 and Title Wave Books brought him up here, and Bede Trantina, station manager at KSKA who introduced Sedaris, got almost as much applause as the headliner. What a bunch of NPR geeks we are.

And Sedaris was just as funny, witty and observant as always. The images and juxtapositions he shared will stay with me for a long time. And the laugh therapy was worth the admission. I’m not sure about reading the zombie books he recommended though…

Read what ADN art reporter Dawnell Smith thought about the night.

What others say: Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon

2007-05-02T17:32:00.000-07:00

Fine Print: I haven’t read this book yet, but it came out Tuesday and is already number 7 on Amazon so I thought I’d include an entry. Also check a New York Times article on literary blogs and the decline of newspaper reviewers—relevant especially to me since this blog developed because I wanted to have a book column for the Anchorage Daily News but they said they didn’t have the money to pay me—for a column or reviews.

What I’m reading now: Beluga Days by Nancy Lord

Anchorage Daily News:
The ADN picked the novel as its May book club pick. There will be an author reading and book signing at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 29th at Title Wave Books, 1360 W. Northern Blvd. Free, but tickets required.

Novel involving Alaska Jewish colony is rooted in history
by Tom Kizzia
Imagine, if you please, a city of 3.2 million people on the shores of Baranof Island around Sitka. The official language is Yiddish, the inhabitants are Jews, and their lights stretch across the in...

Associated Press

Chabon creates alternate reality in `Yiddish Policeman's Union'
BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) - A wartime proposal to turn Alaska into a sanctuary for Jews fleeing the rising Nazi menace failed. But suppose it hadn't.

Chabon sets Jewish homeland in Alaska in new book
Michael Chabon: When did great writers quit telling great stories? That was Michael Chabon's complaint in his introduction to "McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales" ...

New York Times
Looking for a Home in the Limbo of Alaska
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
From the moment of his precocious debut in 1988 with “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh,” it was clear that Michael Chabon was an immensely gifted writer and a magical prose stylist.

The Frozen Chosen
By Patricia Cohen
ASIDE from geography, Sitka, a boomerang-shaped island in the southeastern panhandle of Alaska, has very little in common with the imaginary city named Sitka conjured up by Michael Chabon in his latest book, “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.”

HarperCollins. 414 pages. $26.95

Winter by Cornelius Osgood

2007-04-18T14:17:00.000-07:00

Fine Print: This book takes place in

Canada

, not Alaska, and the author isn’t from here either, but the experiences mirror events here and Juneau author Nick Jans wrote the introduction.

What I’m reading now: Blue Shoes and Happiness by Alexander McCall Smith

In 1928, an ethnographer name Cornelius Osgood plopped himself down in remote far north of Canada. As he admits in the forward, his documentation of the Athapaskan peoples was a failure, but in return, the chronicle of his winter makes for a fascinating read. Osgood first published this book in England in 1953. I read the 2006 publication by Bison Books and University of Nebraska Press, which includes a welcome introduction by Juneau author Nick Jans, who also wrote “The Grizzly Maze: Timothy Treadwell’s Fatal Obsession with Alaskan Bears.”

This book contains compelling descriptions of the day-to-day adventures of surviving in such a sparse, cold village, a village where the inhabitants are quick to help with fishing nets and proper clothing, but where friendships can be harder to maintain than a fire made of twigs in a drafty cabin.

Osgood provides great detail on winter fishing, mushing, how to warm his dwellings, buildings and other seemingly mundane aspects of winter village life. His observations bring to life the area around and beyond Great Bear Lake. One time he is on the trail, sharing a tent with a group of people. Some are sleeping as he warms his biscuits up next to the fire. One woman sits up, spits out her tobacco juice then lies back down to sleep. Some juice gets on his biscuits, but he eats them anyway because he is that hungry and the rolls are almost thawed.

The scene of him pulling fish from the frozen lake, when the icy water is warmer than the air so the fish and net freeze to his skin, is intense.

If you aren’t into dogs, fishing or man-making-it-in-the-wild, some sections might drag. If you can’t get enough of winter adventures, pick up this book.

I’m going to pass on my copy to a friend who has been reading Alaska and mountaineering tales such as “Into the Wild” and “Into Thin Air” by Jon Krakauer. This book will provide a nice contrast to the grand adventures because while it is seemingly tame in drama, life-threatening moments are bound to happen when traveling by dog sled in isolation. The depictions of the cold have such matter of factness that you can see how it can be a nice day when it warms up to zero.

He does have a patronizing tone toward Native peoples, but given the time, language barriers and relatively limited amount of white people that had visited the area, I can forgive him. He respects the help he receives and knowledge they have, but sometimes lumps their decisions, dogs and way of life together dismissively.

“Winter” makes me have more respect and understanding of people who do the Iditarod and other winter craziness. And here I brag about running in below five weather! Hah! I have a heated shower to return to. But Bill, a white man married to a Native woman who befriends Osgood, says that up there, they appreciate winter because the fishing is better and there are no mosquitoes or sand flies.

Hunger Pangs by Cinthia Ritchie

2007-03-30T14:03:00.000-07:00

Fine Print: Cindi is a former co-worker and current friend. She gave me a copy of the book in manuscript form for my own enjoyment, but I decided to share my reaction to the world, or at least post it on this site.

What I’m reading now: “Middlemarch” by George Eliot

Cinthia Ritchie’s agent is currently shopping “Hunger Pangs” around to various publishers. Once it hits a home and makes its way to the shelves, you should check out this literary memoir because the language is beautiful and story haunting.

Readers of the Anchorage Daily News are familiar with Ritchie’s work. She has been an award-winning features writer and columnist for several years. Ritchie has the knack to make the person she’s interviewing alive by noticing small gestures and certain phrases. Ritchie earned her MFA from University of Alaska Anchorage and has published her stories, poetry and essays in a variety of local and national publications. The Rasmuson Foundation awarded her a grant to work on “Hunger Pangs.”

When you read this lyrical work, you might want to have some food nearby. I don’t mean popcorn you can idly snack on. I mean some hardy nourishment, preferably something that will drip and stain on your clothes to remind you that you are not starving yourself like the narrator and her sister, that you are healthy and of sound mind. I craved thick hot chocolate, not the brown, powdered sugar but the kind that will scald your tongue even with whipped cream. Short of that, I ate chocolate chips.

Food plays a central role in this book. Food connects memory and family; food is a way to punish and reward; food is so much more than mashed potatoes and stolen sweets. The book makes me think about my eating habits, my images of myself and food, and my relationship to food. The book does not delve into the cliché of the woman coveting Bon Bons in the closet, but instead presents a horrific image of a girl, several girls, unable to savor food, and in some cases life, because of the stepfather’s abuse of the narrator and her sisters.

The writing is that exquisite kind that makes you realize we haven’t yet lost society to iPods. It is not a skip-through-the-pages easy read. I had to set it down, let myself breathe, read something a little more happy and come back when I was in a better place. But when I did come back, when I was ready, it was as rich and as bitter and as satisfying as quality dark chocolate.

The version I read may not be the one you find in stores, but the story and the hungry, haunting feeling will remain.

The version I read skips around and reads more like an essay than a narrative. Because the narrator is discussing her disjointed childhood and its effects on her now, I think that skipping is warranted and adds an element of craziness that connects us to the story. Not that we don’t just want to hug her, because we do.

One editor complained the book didn’t have resolution, but this is not a tidy book, a blow-dried hair and stilettos book. This is a wild, barefoot, farm-child book and a memoir of a woman who is still working on her own resolution. It would be an injustice to tie this story up with a red ribbon. It is much more satisfying to see her feet bleed in the end and have her kiss a man we may not want her to kiss.

Like with many good books that draw me into their world, I am left wanting more. I want to know more about her son and his father, about other elements in her life. I want to see each family member a little clearer, even Deena whom we know so well and whose death drives the book.

A Deeper Sleep by Dana Stabenow

2007-03-18T15:08:00.000-07:00

Fine Print: When someone heard I was moving to Alaska, she quickly grabbed a scrap piece of paper and wrote down Dana Stabenow's name. "You have to read her books," she said. I'm generally not a fan of genre mysteries (Ladies Number One Detective Agency series an exception) so it took me a while to pick up a book of hers. Below is a review I wrote for the Anchorage Daily News. Somewhat Spoiler Alert.

Book I'm reading now: "Hunger Pangs" by Cinthia Ritchie (in manuscript form, her agent is currently shopping it around to publishers.)

Dana Stabenow’s latest Kate Shugak novel raises questions about small town ethics and justice. Though “A Deeper Sleep” starts with a murder, the book is not about finding who done it. Within a few pages, we learn about the man most believe is responsible for the killing – and several other deaths that are described in vignettes which contain the book’s best writing.

A jury finds the supposed murderer, Louis Deem, not guilty, and former assistant to the Anchorage district attorney Shugak and her love interest state trooper Jim Chopin believe Deem has again gotten away with murder. Stabenow never clarifies who killed the women, though Deem, who was dating and beating them, is the most likely candidate and an all around bad guy. The next couple of murders in the book are also unsolved until the end when the apparent truth varies from what most characters believe, and justice is not traditionally served. The unresolved ending sets up the 16^th book in the series but leaves the reader unsettled.

Plot and catching up new readers to the series create clunky introductions of characters and pat dialogue, as if Stabenow has to present the familiar faces fans expect as opposed to the people living the story.

We learn Shugak is tough and everyone is scared of her because Stabenow tells us so from Chopin’s perspective. But other than a couple planted scenes, we don’t see her as someone to be afraid of. She is stubborn, opinionated and not shy about taking control, but that’s not scary.

I’m not sure why Shugak doesn’t want to follow her late grandmother’s wishes and footsteps to be a leader in the tribal council. By all accounts, she already is a role model and just needs to hop aboard the council seat, but for whatever reason, she doesn’t. It might just be a stubborn kick she has or she has some genuine concerns. The absence of her reasons grates.

A favorite character and element that emerges is Auntie Vi and her cohorts known collectively as the aunties. They bring out the best in Shugak and don’t let Stabenow play too many author tricks with them. Still, they have flaws and can make mistakes, but their errors only make them more real and believable.

Despite the characterization imperfections and some awkward moments, I wanted to know what would happen. I read the book in three sittings in one day, pushing aside other obligations and delaying dinner. Stabenow knows how to keep the pace of the book moving forward and the reader wanting more.

One of the series’ and book’s strengths is the glimpse of Alaska life. The courtroom scene and crime investigation are not slick like on TV but more like the awkward, human and seemingly incomplete ones we read about in the newspaper. The frigid area known as the Park and the small towns of Niniltna and Ahtna are populated with Pilgrim-family look-alikes, effects of FAS, domestic violence, the tribal system, people grateful for flush toilets and aunties that can host a great potlatch.