Tag Archives: Vermont

Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands by Chris Bohjalian

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9780385534833_p0_v5_s260x420The news explodes with catastrophes periodically – an earthquake, a tsunami, a flood – and our attention is drawn to the horrors for a few days, maybe even weeks if the news cycle has little to do but monitor the clean-up.  After a while, the next explosion grabs the headlines, and those who were closely affected are forgotten.  In Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands, Chris Bohjalian focuses on the life of a sixteen year-old girl, whose father was the engineer who may have been responsible for the meltdown of a nuclear plant in Vermont.  Her life changes in a New York minute from typical teen-age angst and hijinks to misery, paranoia, and homelessness. Despite Bohjalian’s facility with words, this is a difficult book to read.

The protagonist, Emily, loves poetry and aspires to be a writer.  Her favorite author is her namesake – Emily Dickinson, and the story is sprinkled with the reclusive author’s poetry.  The title, however, as lyrical and visionary as it seems, is not poetic. The phrase originated from another horror – the teachers’ directions to the young children who had survived a massacre at their school.  To keep them from seeing their dead classmates, they were instructed to hold hands and close their eyes as they were escorted outside.  Bohjalian insists that the reader know this – his quirky balance between shock and relief that he does so well, as he guides the reader through Emily’s maze from orphaned self-mutilating survivor to sympathetic protector of a nine year-old runaway, and finally, to a semblance of salvation.

At one point, the author notes:

“…We watch it, we read about it, and then we move on.  As a species, we’re either very resilient or super callous. I don’t know which…”

Emily’s trials are unforgettable, and in her case…hope is not the thing with feathers…

 

Want to Get Away? Read “The Borrower” by Rebecca Makkai

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Some days, who doesn’t want to hop in the car and keep driving – as far and as long as you can?  I remember mornings when blue skies and endless roads held a promise of escape, and it was hard to turn into that parking lot for work.  In Rebecca Makkai’s The Borrower, twenty-six year old children’s librarian Lucy Hull, unexpectedly finds herself on a road-trip with her favorite library patron, ten-year old Ian Drake.

The story centers on two characters: Lucy, the only daughter of Russian immigrant parents, who is doing her time at her first job since graduating from Mount Holyoke as an English major; and Ian, the library regular who devours any books Lucy suggests.  Unfortunately, Ian’s mother, suspicious of fictional influence, does not approve of all of Lucy’s selections.  Lucy knows books, and so does Makkai, as she cleverly inserts classic book titles and songs-for-the-road, incorporating the storyline from some favorites you will recognize.

Lucy is happy to conspire with Ian to help him read books about anything he is interested in – sometimes, checking out the books to herself to maintain his cover, other times subversively slipping Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing into his backpack.  Mrs. Drake has enrolled Ian in Pastor Bob’s anti-gay camp, and her list of readings is confined to Pastor Bob’s suggestions.

When Ian packs his knapsack, runs away from home, and hides out in the library, Lucy decides to cooperate in his escape plan – and the road trip begins. The odyssey continues from Missouri to Chicago to Pittsburgh and Vermont.  Makkai uses other characters along the way to add humor and convenient ploys that work to help Lucy in the end.  When Lucy and Ian make a rest stop at her parents’ luxurious apartment on the lake in Chicago, Lucy’s Russian immigrant father tells his story of his harrowing and heroic escape from Russia.  Later, when she visits her uncle in Pittsburgh, the story gets retold, and the family’s connections to shady underworld characters is confirmed.  Having connections can be very helpful when you are in danger of being arrested for kidnapping.

Makkai cleverly spins the story so that you vacillate between wondering if Lucy and Ian will be caught, and hoping that they will get away.  Makkai’s plays on words are sometimes funny:  a scene in a New England bar when a man who has had too much to drink calls her a libertarian, and she thinks she – the librarian –  has been discovered; Lucy listing the seven deadly sins – Sloth as measured in calories not burned; Avarice – apparent sense of entitlement; Lust – untalented musician slept with…

It all works out in the end.   If you can laugh and just enjoy the ride, you will enjoy the adventures of this unlikely pair, despite – or maybe because of  – Makkai’s obvious political musings.

Where Writers, and Readers, Feel at Home

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My kind of town – home to local independent bookstores with people who read – and sometimes write.

The New York Times travel section article, Where Writers, and Readers, Feel at Home, recommending Norwich, England for its independent book stores and cafes, author readings, comfortable nooks for reading and “eavesdropping” – reminded me of one of my favorite “wouldn’t it be loverly” places.

I remember finding one in a little town off Route 7 in Vermont – they served the best pumpkin soup in their cafe – and the owner (he told me he was) suggested a book I’d never heard of.   When I looked in the back of Ingrid Hill’s Ursula Under, the publisher had cited the person I was talking to –  in his review of the book.   Now that’s doesn’t happen in the big chain stores.

I do not remember the name of the bookstore but hope I’ll find it, if I am ever traveling in green Vermont again.

I do remember that Ursula fell down a mine shaft, triggering a rescue attempt by the town – and a series of interrelated stories that connected her past ancestry to the present.  And, I remember liking it.  So far, it’s the only book Ingrid Hill has written.

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