Category Archives: Literature

It’s been a while since I’ve been this excited about a book, but Tiffany McDaniel’s ‘The Summer That Melted Everything’ is going to be a favorite for years to come, with pages already dog-eared for all the passages I want and need to remember. Even better, it’s a timely summer read, and, like certain songs, there’s something about the summer that makes it mean a little bit more.

“Why, upon hearing the word devil, did I just imagine the monster? Why did I fail to see a lake? A flower growing by that lake? A mantis praying on the very top of a rock? A foolish mistake, it is, to expect the beast, because sometimes, sometimes, it is the flower’s turn to own the name.” ~ Tiffany McDaniel

The summer of 1984 finds a small Ohio town besieged by both a heat wave and a little boy portending to be the devil. Such is the start of this exquisite novel, which and the promise of a powerful summer read is suddenly fulfilled. Reminiscent of ‘To Kill A Mockingbird‘ in the best possible ways, this is an updated take on morality and humanity, one that posits the impossible questions of what makes a person good and what truly constitutes evil. In addition to that eternal power play, there is McDaniel’s uncanny use of time, as she weaves tales within tales, shifting perspective and time frame in a way that never feels jarring. Even the smallest fragments of fables – such as the brief recounting of what the devil himself may have seen over his years – are powerful ruminations on what the world does to us, and what we in turn do to each other.

“I was once told writing in a journal could help me. Something about putting the pain on the page. So I got one and finished it in a day. I looked back to see what I’d written. Nothing but little lines, swooping and curving. Not one word. And yet didn’t it say everything? The way their smiles did? All the dark, all the hurt, scooped up, carried by curve.” ~ Tiffany McDaniel

I’m not going to delve into any more specifics about plotline or character, because it’s so much better if you read it yourself and enjoy each and every revelation. Then be sure to spread the good word. McDaniel says everything better than I ever could, so I’ll leave you with one of my favorite passages:

“Being the devil made him a target, but it also meant he had a power he didn’t have when he was just a boy. People looked at him, listened to what he said. Being the devil made him important. Made him visible. And isn’t that the biggest tragedy of all? When a boy has to be the devil to be significant?” ~ Tiffany McDaniel

If you’re looking for a good book to see you through this last stretch of winter, dive into ‘Lily and the Octopus’ by Steven Rowley. A work of heartbreaking beauty and love, this is much more than a story of a man and his dog – it’s a moving treatise on how we deal with loss.

Opening with a discussion on the various merits of the Ryans (Reynolds, Gosling, but not Phillippe), the Matts (Bomer and Damon), the Toms (Brady and Hardy), and the Chrises (Evans, Pine, Pratt and Hemsworth), it’s a veritable greatest hits of hunks, and an enthralling way to begin. This is no ordinary tale, filled as it is with whimsy and wit. Soon, we discover that Lily is a dachshund, Ted Flask is her adoring owner, and the octopus is an unwelcome visitor about to wreak the worst kind of havoc in their companionship.

While odd for some non-animal-lovers (Rowley anthropomorphizes Lily to such an extent that she plays board games, talks about guys, and even mans the steering wheel of a ship), for anyone who’s enjoyed the love and adoration of a pet, it’s not such a far cry from the truth. There are deeper layers of meaning at work here, particularly in the dream scenes, and an over-the-top voyage that strongly echoes the fight against one’s own nature in ‘Moby Dick’. More impressive than that, however, is the exploration of the gradual acceptance of grief for love lost. This encompasses all kinds of love – romantic, familial, unrequited and unconditional – and what happens when it ends, for whatever reason.

‘Lily and the Octopus’ reminds us that sometimes we need to break down, that it’s ok to cry, and if you love someone with all your heart, that love doesn’t ever really go away.

Lines Written in the Days of Growing Darkness

Every year we have been
witness to it: how the
world descends
into a rich mash, in order that
it may resume.
And therefore
who would cry out

to the petals on the ground
to stay,
knowing, as we must,
how the vivacity of what was is married

to the vitality of what will be?
I don’t say
it’s easy, but
what else will do

if the love one claims to have for the world
be true?
So let us go on

though the sun be swinging east,
and the ponds be cold and black,
and the sweets of the year be doomed.

— Mary Oliver

The universe has a way of making little winks, signifying whether we are on the right path and if things are properly aligned. Most of us chalk it up to coincidence and chance, but I’ve always felt there was something deeper at work, some grander scheme of a destined plan where everything happens for a reason. Case in point was the sudden proliferation of the octopus as I began one of my favorite reads this summer: ‘The Soul of an Octopus’ by Sy Montgomery. Once I started this, fittingly on the beach, I could not put it down. The ocean and its inhabitants have perennially intrigued me, and the octopus especially has been an animal of fascination and wonder, given its intelligence and shapeshifting prowess. In fact, the eight-armed creature is one of the premiere tricksters of the animal kingdom, and Montgomery manages to demystify and investigate this ‘Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness.’

It’s a marvelous book for anyone looking to delve further into the curious relations between humans and animals, and especially for those of us beholden to the magic and mystery of the octopus. As I turned the pages during our seaside stay, suddenly I found octopuses everywhere: in a print on the hotel wall, in a restaurant poster, on a bathroom rug, and even on a lobby throw pillow.

Reassuring proof that we are all connected somehow, and that there are no accidents. The trick is in deciphering why… Why ‘The Soul of an Octopus’? Why the octopus itself?

More importantly, why does the summer have to end?

On my summer bedside table reading list:

‘The Whale: A Love Story‘ by Mark Beauregard

‘Porn Again‘ by Josh Sabarra

‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ by J.K. Rowling

‘The Soul of an Octopus‘ by Sy Montgomery

“The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.” – Alan Bennett, The History Boys

It was, rather expectedly, in a poetry class where I first read this epic work of Keats. Now, when all things are going Greek this summer, it fits in well with some statuesque posing.

Ode On A Grecian Urn

By John Keats

Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,

Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,

Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:

What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape

Of deities or mortals, or of both,

In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,

Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave

Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;

Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;

She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,

For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed

Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;

And, happy melodist, unwearied,

For ever piping songs for ever new;

More happy love! more happy, happy love!

For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,

For ever panting, and for ever young;

All breathing human passion far above,

That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,

A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?

To what green altar, O mysterious priest,

Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,

And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?

What little town by river or sea shore,

Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,

Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?

And, little town, thy streets for evermore

Will silent be; and not a soul to tell

Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede

Of marble men and maidens overwrought,

With forest branches and the trodden weed;

Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought

As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!

When old age shall this generation waste,

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

Recently added to my summer reading queue is this sizzling memoir by Josh Sabarra. He’s been featured here as the Hunk of the Day, but this is one Renaissance man who will likely be seen a lot more. (As David Beckham and Ben Cohen have been quiet of late, we are on the lookout for the next hunky conglomerate.) As mentioned, I’ll be reading his ‘Porn Again: A Memoir’ on the beach this summer (and writing a review when the vacation is over), thanks in part to this powerful teaser in his own words:

“I struggled for decades to find myself and to be comfortable in my own skin.  As I approached the beginning of the second half of my life, I thought that my stories might inspire people to step into themselves and entertain at the same time.

During the writing process, I learned that I had been borrowing my sense of self for so long.  I looked to food, plastic surgery, my career, my lovers and my celebrity friendships to try to make myself appealing to other people.  I finally realized that I am enough, on my own terms.” – Josh Sabarra

In addition to his novel (and another one on the way) he’s the sex columnist for ‘Gay Times’ magazine (and I’m secretly hoping he’ll write a Special Guest Blog for this little website – pretty please with a cherry on top?)

One of the more disturbing aspects of growing older (and into the dreaded middle-age) is a rapidly-encroaching inability to focus as well as I once did. To that end, I’ve been getting into anthologies and collections of short stories, where I can keep track of a plot or cast of characters without having to make a key with a list of names and descriptions so I won’t forget. (Yes, I have begun to do that.)

It’s strange how my memory works. I can recall events quite vividly from 1994, but ask me what I did two days ago and it’s gone with the wind. Luckily, there are plenty of collections that contain shorter tales and stories for the weaker of mind, including the one pictured here.

My friend Chris just sent me this great little book: ‘The Company They Kept: Writers on Unforgettable Friendships’ as edited by Robert B. Silvers and Barbara Epstein. It’s a fascinating, and often quite moving, series of memories of friendships between writers. Some focus more on the writing aspect, others more on the friendship, and together they comprise a rich and enthralling experience. That it was given to me by one of my dearest friends makes it all the more resonant, and perhaps one day I’ll tell that story of friendship (with disguised names to protect the guilt of the other party). And though my modern day memory may be fading, I remember every moment of those first few days of friendship, first planted on a trip to Puerto Rico, and cultivated with travels and talks from San Francisco to New York to Miami to Washington.

It may be time to make new memories.

There’s a literary wonderland that is conjured whenever Gregory Maguire releases a new book, and that wonderland is a literal thing in his latest work ‘After Alice’ – his enchantingly twisted take on Alice’s own Wonderland. Rather than give away any juicy plot-points or spoil any secrets with a shaky synopsis, I’ll simply highlight my favorite passage, the one that spoke most deeply to me, and the one that echoes the sentiments of certain folks who love books and try valiantly to share that love with others.

Only, sometimes, in the text of a book here and there, we tap the page with a finger and say, “This is what my lost days were like. Something like this.” But even as we turn to the fellow in the bed beside us to say, “Yes, this passage here,” whatever it is we recognized has already disguised itself, changed in that split instant. There is no hope that our companion can see what we, just for a moment, saw anew and hailed with a startled, glad heart. Literary pleasure, and a sense of recognition and identification, real though they are, burn off like alcohol in the flame of the next heated moment.” ~ Gregory Maguire, ‘After Alice’

Many are the books I’ve read and tried to press into the minds of others, and many are the unread books that friends have routinely and quietly ignored when I’ve brought them to their attention. Far from making me feel less alone, most great books leave me feeling an acute sense of loneliness – in the unshared resonance or recognition of some carefully-crafted passage of remarkable beauty, or some thread of a theme that they have no interest in pursuing. In reading a book that speaks to me, I mostly find friends and family falling by the wayside, and my only companion along the way being the author, ever unknown to me. I remain even more unknown to her or him.

Somewhere along our literary history, people started to think of Emily Dickinson’s poetry as cute and harmless fluff. In truth, it was far darker and more sinister than surface readings or historical reputation would allow. As is often the case with poets and poetry, things were never as simple as they seemed. Ms. Dickinson was a complex character, and her work often delved into the introspective reaches of the soul. What she brought up was not always pretty or nice, and she didn’t disguise it as such. It just took the rest of us a little longer to catch on.

One need not be a Chamber to be Haunted
One need not be a House
The Brain has Corridors surpassing 
Material Place

Far safer, of a Midnight Meeting
External Ghost
Than its interior Confronting
That Cooler Host.

Far safer, through an Abbey gallop,
The Stones a’chase
Than Unarmed, one’s a’self encounter
In lonesome Place

Ourself behind ourself, concealed
Should startle most
Assassin hid in our Apartment
Be Horror’s least.

The Body borrows a Revolver 
He bolts the Door 
O’erlooking a superior spectre
Or More

~ Emily Dickinson

Only vaguely do I remember reading ‘The Turn of the Screw’ in one of my college courses. Henry James did very little for  me. Sometimes emotional constipation can’t help but seep into a writer’s work (surely this blog has been in need of an enema more often than not) and while it makes for an interesting tension, it’s a tension that I’d rather do without. Still, he knows how to build suspense, and on this eve of Halloween, that is wonderfully apt.

“It may be, of course, above all, that what suddenly broke into this gives the previous time a charm of stillness—that hush in which something gathers or crouches. The change was actually like the spring of a beast.” ― Henry James

“I could only get on at all by taking “nature” into my confidence and my account, by treating my monstrous ordeal as a push in a direction unusual, of course, and unpleasant, but demanding, after all, for a fair front, only another turn of the screw of ordinary human virtue.” 
― Henry James

“Of course I was under the spell, and the wonderful part is that, even at the time, I perfectly knew I was. But I gave myself up to it; it was an antidote to any pain, and I had more pains than one.” 
― Henry James

“I take up my own pen again – the pen of all my old unforgettable efforts and sacred struggles. To myself – today – I need say no more. Large and full and high the future still opens. It is now indeed that I may do the work of my life. And I will.” 
― Henry James