Consuming Passions

Consuming Passions: A Food-Obsessed Life by Michael Lee West
Nonfiction - Cooking Memoir
Finished on 9/11/07
Rating: 2/5 (Below Average)
Nonfiction Challenge #5




Not all Sundays were spent in Mississippi, but our leisure time was still dominated by food. Sometimes we drove to Biloxi and searched for flounder in the cloudy Gulf. Other times my daddy took me to the French Quarter, where he bought a sack of oysters and a dozen cream doughnuts. At least once a month, we drove across another bridge to Westwego, where we were entertained by Alice and Emile, two middle-aged Texans who had a summerhouse in the backyard--built for the sole purpose of entertaining. The food would be lined up on a long picnic table--enchiladas, tamales, barbecue, and huge vats of boiled crabs, shrimp, and crawfish.

Since my mama's relatives lived in the piney woods, they were dependent on the New Generation to keep them on the cutting edge of fashion and food. They were especially fond of Jell-O salads, and casseroles made with cream of mushroom soup. Mama was always trying to introduce these country cooks to the cuisine of New Orleans. One afternoon she tried to explain how to make a roux. "Oh, stop putting on airs," said Aunt Dell. "Stop talking foreign."

Book Description

"Every Sunday, the whole family gathered at Mama Hughes's house in Amite County, Mississippi. They were ferocious eaters and talkers, devouring rumors and innuendo with gusto. Food was their common language, and everyone understood the dialects." -- Aunt Tempe, reminiscing about family dinners

From Michael Lee West, author of the acclaimed American Pie, She Flew the Coop, and Crazy Ladies, comes a delightfully quirky memoir of an adventurous food-obsessed life, laced with delicious secret recipes passed from generation to generation. Wonderfully presented and thoroughly entertaining, this warm and witty work unites West's evocative voice and humor with the uniquely American form of kitchen tales in the tradition of Laurie Colwin.

West lends her distinctive humor and often hilarious insights to stories about her trials and tribulations as a Southern woman who became an "accidental gourmet." In this irresistible memoir mothers swing from chandeliers, elderly aunts brew love potions, a South American nymphomaniac stirs up trouble at a Louisiana barbecue joint, Margaret Mitchell's bed is discovered during a routine antique hunt, a cabbage-eating ghost haunts relatives, mother and daughter peek under fig leaves on statues, and bees attack--all in pursuit of good food.

By watching a multitude of relatives cook, squabble, and carry on tradition, Michael Lee West went from a noncooking student to a full-on gourmet of food and words. Using her own experience and the witticisms of relatives, or clever inspirations overheard in parking lots on the way to the mayor's funeral, West fills these pages with insights such as:

"Potato salad is our friend. It will never let you down. It's a shame we have to eat it, but that's life" and "Live and learn. Die and get food. That's the Southern way."

Often bawdy and always entertaining, West is wonderfully outrageous, charming, and delightful.

"Anybody can cook. But it takes a special person to feed the souls of her guests."-- Miss Johnnie, sitting in a rocking chair, musing about hospitality, 1979

I picked this book up at a Fort Worth Public Library sale several years ago and finally got inspired to read it, thanks to Joy's Nonfiction Five Challenge. While it has close to a dozen Post-It Notes marking various recipes I'd like to try, I wasn't that impressed with West's foodie memoir. Perhaps a Southerner would find it entertaining, but for me it was a chore to get through and I have no intentions of reading any of her works of fiction. Just not my cuppa.

But, oh, the recipes! They do look tasty! I'm anxious to try Mimi's Buttermilk Biscuits, Fried Green Tomatoes, Arny Jean's Red Beans and Rice, Mama's Shrimp Alfredo, Cousin Lula's Sweet Potato Soufflé, Fall Spice Cake, Brabham Family Chocolate Sheet Cake, Better Than Sex Cake, and Georgia Gingersnaps (which, according to the author, are just how I like them - crisp at the edges and moist in the center). Since fall is just around the corner (can y'all believe Sunday marks the first day of autumn?!), maybe I'll start with the spice cake and gingersnaps. Boy, won't that make the house smell cozy!

In addition to garnering a few new recipes to test, I also learned a couple of things from the author. I've always been curious about the name Chess Pie. According to West, "old Southern cooks used to keep their pies in a chest, or safe. The doors of the chest were made of perforated tin to allow air circulation." Well, of course! I happen to own two pie safes (one is an antique with punched copper panels and the other is a reproduction with tin), but never realized a pie would be named in association with these, particularly since I have always thought of them as pie safes, not pie chests. I think the first time I heard about Chess Pie, I envisioned a strange looking pie that might resemble a chess board! Go figure.

And that brings me to another misconception that I've held my entire life. I'm almost embarrassed to admit this, it's so silly. I have always thought "iced tea" was called "ice tea." I know it's a minor mistake, but I was so surprised to see it in print (where have I been?!) that I had to set my book aside, go downstairs, dig through the cupboard, and read the label on the Lipton ICED tea box. Well, whaddaya know! ;)

Consuming Passions starts off very much like a food memoir, but slowly transforms into what I would consider a full-blown cookbook. Not only does the author include close to a hundred recipes, but she offers all sorts of cooking advice. For instance, she devotes an entire chapter to the importance (and care) of a well-seasoned cast iron skillet.

As I love to bake cakes from scratch, this particular passage struck a chord with me:

A scratch cake is an emotional creation, thought to be superior to anything in a box. It is steeped in domestic rituals: measuring, sifting, creaming, beating, stirring. The procedure seems daunting; but as you study the recipe, adding up the long list of ingredients, you find yourself reading between the lines. Who dreamed up this recipe? Who served it and why? Was it a cake to impress a beau, to distract a husband, or to donate to a church bazaar?

If I really wanted to be fair, I'd wait until I've tried the selected recipes before rating the book. With three or four winners, I could conceivably raise the low rating. Unfortunately, Southern cooking isn't exactly low-cal, and after several weeks of dining out while on vacation this summer (and most recently, the consumption of numerous bowls of clam chowder while in Oregon), I can't quite bring myself to try all the recipes I marked in a short span of time. So, the rating will just have to stand. And on that note, it's Raffle Time!

As soon as I've copied down all the recipes I plan to sample, I would like to pass this book on to another reader. In order to enter the drawing, you'll need to pop over to my food blog (Kiss the Cook) and leave a comment on my most recent post. In order to give my "end-of-the-month" visitors a fair chance, the contest will conclude on October 6th. Remember, it's a hardcover library edition, but it's in excellent condition. And, I hope the winner will also be inspired to try some of the recipes, sharing the successful ones on his or her blog.

Happy reading AND cooking!

What Color Green Are You?

I'm off to my second night of STOP class, but thought I'd take a quick minute to post this. I found it over on Nan's blog a couple of weeks ago. I'm not at all surprised that she's also Olive Green.

You Are Olive Green

You are the most real of all the green shades. You're always true to yourself. For you, authenticity and honesty are very important... both in others and yourself. You are grounded and secure. It takes a lot to shake you. People see you as dependable, probably the most dependable person they know.

What Color Green Are You?

Heart-Shaped Box

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill
Fiction/Horror
Finished on 9/5/07
Rating: 4.5/5 (Terrific!)
R.I.P. II Challenge #2




Like father, like son!

Book Description

Judas Coyne is a collector of the macabre: a cookbook for cannibals . . . a used hangman's noose . . . a snuff film. An aging death-metal rock god, his taste for the unnatural is as widely known to his legions of fans as the notorious excesses of his youth. But nothing he possesses is as unlikely or as dreadful as his latest discovery, an item for sale on the Internet, a thing so terribly strange, Jude can't help but reach for his wallet.

I will "sell" my stepfather's ghost to the highest bidder. . . .

For a thousand dollars, Jude will become the proud owner of a dead man's suit, said to be haunted by a restless spirit. He isn't afraid. He has spent a lifetime coping with ghosts—of an abusive father, of the lovers he callously abandoned, of the bandmates he betrayed. What's one more?

But what UPS delivers to his door in a black heart-shaped box is no imaginary or metaphorical ghost, no benign conversation piece. It's the real thing.

And suddenly the suit's previous owner is everywhere: behind the bedroom door . . . seated in Jude's restored vintage Mustang . . . standing outside his window . . . staring out from his widescreen TV. Waiting—with a gleaming razor blade on a chain dangling from one bony hand. . . .

A multiple-award winner for his short fiction, author Joe Hill immediately vaults into the top echelon of dark fantasists with a blood-chilling roller-coaster ride of a novel, a masterwork brimming with relentless thrills and acid terror.

and from Bookmarks Magazine

Heart-Shaped Box raises the obvious question: Does the talent of Joe Hill (née Joseph Hillstrom King) match that of his father, Stephen King? Certainly, Hill has earned acclaim in his own right; his short-story collection 20th Century Ghosts won both the British Fantasy Award and a Bram Stoker. Critics agree that if blood, gore, and psychological terror keep you turning the pages, you'll enjoy the novel's murderous dreamscape and Hill's lean, witty, and hard-hitting style. In order to buy into the story, however, you'll first have to believe in the ghost's powerful existence—and not all critics did. Only the New York Times Book Review completely panned the novel's characterizations, overkill, and implausible plot. The verdict: Heart-Shaped Box is a strong walk in Hill's father's footsteps.

I started this book before our trip, but found it too creepy to read at night, so I set it aside for the flights to Oregon. Not only did this intense page-turner keep me engrossed during the four-hour layover in Dallas, but it kept me thoroughly entertained for the three-hour flight, the pace never faltering or falling short. As I read, I sensed a bit of familiarity in the creepy style, which I suppose is only natural since Hill probably heard the best-of-the-best ghost stories as a young boy thanks to his dad's incredibly twisted imagination. But I say this as a compliment; Hill's talent should not be overlooked. He may have learned from a master, but I have a feeling if he continues with this genre, he too may have 2-3 shelves of books devoted to his works. It's too bad Heart-Shaped Box is his debut novel, as I'd love to have a backlist of titles to look forward to. I do plan to track down a copy of his short-story collection (20th Century Ghosts) and maybe that will hold me over until he releases a second novel.

I loved Heart-Shaped Box and am fairly confident it'll be on my 2007 Top Ten list. The only reason it didn't get a perfect 5/5 was due to the lack of any lyrical passages; otherwise, it's fabulous. It definitely falls in the keep-a-nightlight-on spooky ghost story category; a perfect choice for Carl's R.I.P. II Challenge and one I'll be anxious to recommend to customers at work. But beware! If you don't like horror books (particularly those like The Shining and It), you might want to skip this one. Or, do what I did and read it during the day!

A couple of final notes -- Amazon has two guest reviewers for Hill's book. I especially enjoyed Scott Smith's (The Ruins) take on the book, but felt Harlan Coben's had too many spoilers (as did Publishers Weekly), so you might want to skip that one. Also, as I was re-reading my post for Stephen King's Dreamcatcher, I realized pretty much everything I'd written about his style and the book's suspense could've been used to describe his son's book Heart-Shaped Box. The apple sure doesn't fall far from the tree!

Home Again, Home Again

Yes, we're home! We returned from Oregon on Wednesday evening (actually, more like Thursday morning, as it was 1:30 a.m. when we finally crawled into bed!), only to head back out Friday afternoon to visit some friends in Lathrop, Missouri (a twenty minute drive from Kansas City) for more R&R. I put the camera to great use on both trips and hope to get a few travel blog entries posted in the days to come. I also have 3 book reviews to write and post, not to mention all the blog-hopping I want to do. I've missed everyone!!

But first, an answer to all the inquires regarding the young reader in Victoria. She was engrossed in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I'm surprised nobody guessed that!

Second, a few things I've learned recently...

Just because one has never received a speeding ticket in 30 years of driving does not mean it can't happen! Guess where I'll be on Tuesday and Wednesday evening? Yep, from 6 to 10 I'll be at a Lincoln/Lancaster County S.T.O.P. (Safety Training Option Program) class. Lucky me.

I also learned that it's a good idea to put the camera strap around one's neck while photographing large spiders. That way, when you think said LARGE spider is leaping out toward your face (when in reality, it's only the zoomed-in web that's blowing in the breeze), you won't actually throw the camera on the deck as you run toward the back door! Lucky for me (and the camera), it didn't fall too far or hard on the deck.

Click to enlarge photo, only if you're brave!

Son of Shelob

Busy spinning his web!

Smile for the camera!
(Is it me, or does it look like this thing really does have a face?!)

Brother Odd

Brother Odd by Dean Koontz
Fiction/Horror
Finished on 9/2/07
Rating: 2/5 (Below Average)
R.I.P. II Challenge #1





I see dead people, spirits of the departed who, each for his own reason, will not move on from this world. Some are drawn to me for justice, if they were murdered, or for comfort, or for companionship; others seek me out for motives that I cannot always understand.

This complicates my life.

Meh. I guess I'm not terribly disappointed since I didn't have high hopes for the book. As most of you already know, I loved Odd Thomas (read it twice and still think about reading it again), but was awfully disappointed with the sequel, Forever Odd. I've been holding off on reading Brother Odd for quite some time, but Carl's R.I.P. II Challenge inspired me to finally give it a chance. Well, it wasn't bad. Just not great. It lacked the hold-your-breath suspense that I've grown to enjoy in say, Stephen King's books, and the overdone metaphors became a bit tiresome:

Behind the white gravecloth of churning snow, the dead-gray face of the day awaited imminent burial.

Koontz is a talented and skillful writer. But when you encounter an over-the-top metaphor like this, one gets the feeling that he's simply showing off--using metaphors not because they add to the story, but simply because he can.

Another negative aspect of the book is that I never really connected with any of the supporting characters (far too many monks and nuns to keep track of), and as quantum physics isn't my thing, I found the premise of the story a bit far-fetched. (Then again, quantum physics is probably more plausible than seeing ghosts.) I simply couldn't wrap my brain around the skeletonized boogeyman or uberskeleton, as described by Koontz in this passage:

Beneath the veneer of a face lay the fullness of what I had only glimpsed in the eye sockets, in the yawning mouth: a phantasmagoria of bony forms linked by hinge joints, by pivot joints, by ellipsoidal joints, by ball-and-socket joints, and by joints for which no name existed, and which were not natural to this world. The apparition appeared to be a solid mass of bones combined so intimately that they must be fused, compacted so completely that they could have no room to rotate or flex. Yet they did rotate and flex and pivot and more, seemed to move not merely in three dimensions but in four, in an unceasing exhibition of dexterity that astonished and amazed.

One saving grace in all three of these novels is Odd Thomas' sardonic wit. Not only is he a likeable hero, he's very funny.

Had the visitor been a man, he would have knocked. If it had been only the wind, it would have huffed and strained against the door until the planks creaked. This scrape was the sound of bone on wood, or something like bone. I could imagine an animated skeleton clawing with mindless persistence at the other side of the door. In all my bizarre experiences, I have never actually encountered an animated skeleton. But in a world where McDonald's now sells salad with low-fat dressing, anything is possible.

And, Koontz certainly does have a way with words. This is a particularly nice passage:

Living in a monastery, even as a guest rather than as a monk, you have more opportunities than you might have elsewhere to see the world as it is, instead of through the shadow that you cast upon it.

But given a choice, I'll take a Stephen King or Joe Hill ghost any day; for some reason such ghosts seem more realistic than Koontz’s bizarre creature of flexing bones!

Get Caught Reading!

I'm still on vacation, but have a few drafts ready to post. So, here are a few more pics from our last trip. I should have a couple of book reviews posted in the next day or two, too. I've already read two of my choices for Carl's R.I.P. II Challenge. Stay tuned!

I took this on the last day of our trip.
We had just pulled into the marina in Victoria.
Wanna guess what she's reading? :)

This little guy was in the Harbor Bookstore
in Friday Harbor. I don't believe I've ever seen a
real live hedgehog, let alone an albino!

Spotted this guy crawling across my path in Anacortes.
We had snails in our flower beds when I was growing up
in San Diego. Just don't see too many (if any!) of them here
in Nebraska. We have slugs (little tiny ones that
love the hostas), but not snails.

Spotted this near Lake Union (Washington).
I love it!

This is Conner.
He was on the boat next to ours in Friday Harbor.
Very nice pup (and a very nice boat!).

This is the same seal that stopped by one
morning while we were in Friday Harbor.

Great beer at the Front Street Ale House in Friday Harbor.

Another Blog Break

No man needs a vacation so much
as the person who has just had one.
~Elbert Hubbard

So, we'll just take another!

Our destination:
Little House in the Woods
Little Whale Cove
Depoe Bay, Oregon

Mom and Bill's lovely home.

Yep, we're off again. Back to the Pacific Northwest, but a little bit to the south this time. I'd like to say I'll post daily pictures as I did for our other trip, but I'm tempted to turn the computer off and read two or three books this time! Ha! We'll see. So far I have the following stacked up to go in my bag:

Current book for Carl's R.I.P. II Challenge
So far, this is a great book!
Should keep me occupied for the long flights.

I'm reading this for Joy's Nonfiction Five Challenge.

It's good for sips & gulps between my other books.

I've had this in my stacks for YEARS!
I plan to read it for the 2007 TBR Challenge.

This was one of my selections for
Lesley's Armchair Traveler Reading Challenge.
I love the cover! Hope the content is just as pleasing.

Of course, I plan to visit my favorite Oregon bookstores, as well as some new ones (I hope). I'll post about those after we return. Until then, happy reading!

A Month in Review - August

My reading pleasure was a bit better (with regard to quantity and quality) in August than in recent months. I didn't give up on any books and all but one were worthwhile and enjoyable. Click on the titles to read the reviews and see the ratings.

Mad Dash by Patricia Gaffney
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
The Great Santini by Pat Conroy
The Long Walk Home by Will North
Loud and Clear by Anna Quindlen

Favorite of the Month: Loud and Clear
Books Read 5
DNF 0
Male Authors 2
Female Authors 3
New-To-Me Authors 1
Across the Borders 1
Fiction 4
Nonfiction 1
Classic 0
Poetry 0
Young Adult 1
Sci-Fi 0
Fantasy 1
Humor 0
Travel 0
Mystery/Thriller 0
Series 1
Re-read 1
Challenge 2
Mine 3
Library 2
ARC 0
Gift 1
Keeper 2

Loud and Clear

Loud and Clear by Anna Quindlen
Nonfiction - Essays
Finished on 8/27/07
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)
Nonfiction Challenge #4



In her first retrospective essay collection since Thinking Out Loud (1993), best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Quindlen continues to unscramble gnarly social issues with splendid clarity and pithiness, wit and compassion and uncommon common sense.... So true is Quindlen's moral compass, and so lucid, vital, and forward-looking are her insights, that her opinion pieces not only stand the test of time but also provide an invaluable gage of where we've been and where we're going....Quindlen is a tonic for mind and soul.
-Booklist

Quindlen . . . couldn't have picked a more apt title . . . Whether readers agree with Quindlen's opinions on everything from youth culture to gun control, these razor-sharp musings will open avenues of debate and discussion long after the book is closed. Quindlen is at the top of her game . . .
-Publishers Weekly

Fiction has always been my first choice in books. However, in recent years I've been reading quite a bit of nonfiction, specifically memoirs and collections of essays. I'm especially fond of those in which cooking, gardening, family and home are the primary material source. Anna Quindlen is both novelist and columnist (formerly for the New York Times and currently for Newsweek) and I've read most of her published works, so I was thrilled to receive this book from a dear friend last Christmas. It's the perfect sort of book to pick up and read a few essays here and there. (Or, what another friend refers to as reading in "sips and gulps.")

Quindlen divides the book into five categories: Heart (16), Mind (19), Body (12), Voice (4) and Soul (18) for a total of 69 essays. Perhaps the most moving of all, though, is the Preface in which she speaks about September 11, 2001.

I knew that something uniquely terrible was taking place. I also had reason to believe that everyone I cared for was safe: My husband across the Hudson at his office. The children at their schools. My friend in the hospital across town. It was difficult for us to talk to one another, of course, with the New York City telephone lines out, the tunnels and bridges shut down, and cyberspace hopelessly jammed. One of the mementos I have kept from that morning are three identical e-mails from our son at college, who could not get through on the date of his birthday or for three days afterward. Each one is dated September 11, 2001, and says in capital letters I REALLY NEED TO HEAR YOUR VOICE.

and

Most nights, housebreaking the puppy we had picked up the day after our son left for school, I would run into a fireman who was heading home after working the wreckage, his eyes burning bright in a grimy face, his hands nicked and bandaged. He would pet our dog, rub her ears and muzzle, finally crouch to hold her squirmy little body close, and by the time he rose for the rest of the walk home there would be bright tear tracks in the dirt on his face. I tried not to cry until he was gone.

There are so many wonderful essays in this collective work; I've dog-eared dozens of pages, the majority of which can be found in the Soul section. Essays such as "Life After Death" which deals with grief:

Grief remains one of the few things that has the power to silence us. It is a whisper in the world and a clamor within. More than sex, more than faith, even more than its usher death, grief is unspoken, publicly ignored except for those moments at the funeral that are over too quickly, or the conversations among the cognoscenti, those of us who recognize in one another a kindred chasm deep in the center of who we are.

Maybe we do not speak of it because death will mark all of us, sooner or later. Or maybe it is unspoken because grief is only the first part of it. After a time it becomes something less sharp but larger, too, a more enduring thing called loss.

Perhaps that is why this is the least explored passage: because it has no end. The world loves closure, loves a thing that can, as they say, be gotten through. This is why it comes as a great surprise to find that loss is forever, that two decades after the event there are those occasions when something in you cries out at the continuous presence of an absence, "An awful leisure," Emily Dickinson once called what the living have after death.

Then there's "Anniversary" in which she writes about the loss of a mother, also quite powerful and thought-provoking.

In "Weren't We All So Young Then?" Quindlen returns to the topic of 9/11:

People are changed forever by grief, and changed people change the way the world is, the kind of place it becomes. Getting on with life is not the same as getting over a loss.

I especially liked the following quote from "Leg Waxing and Life Everlasting":

The youth produced by scalpel and laser is of a particularly arid sort, as much like the bloom of the real thing as the decor of those funeral homes is like a real live living room. But if the abs are tight, the eyes unlined, the hands unspotted, the hairline intact, if fifty-five is the new forty, then can't the inevitable be, if not avoided, at least indefinitely deferred? The answer is, of course, no. As Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was said to have told a friend when she became ill, "Why in the world did I do all those push-ups?"

"Watching the World Go By" (an essay about reality tv) provides humor with lines such as:

People named Kimmi and Colby and Amber (who chooses the participants, the writers for One Life to Live?) balancing on rafts, living on goat brains, turning brown in the outback? This is a stunt, not survival.

And then, of course, the column about Harry Potter and readership in America ("Aha! Caught You Reading"):

The next time someone talks about the narrow interests of kids today, how they attend only to the raucous cry of the computer calling across a stretch of cable to its mate the Internet, remember this week. Remember how the boys and girls of America went gaga over a book, a real old-fashioned black-letters-on-white-paper book, how they waited in line for it at the mall, cradled it to their bony little chests and carried it into their bedrooms, slipped into its imaginary world with big eyes and open minds as children have done almost since Gutenberg put the pedal to the metal of the printing press.

There's so much more to this particular essay, but I hate to spoil it for those of you who wish to read the book yourself. Most of the essays are between three to four pages in length, which does pose a problem when trying to share favorite passages. Taken out of context, they have a tendency to lose their significance and power. So, buy the book. Read an essay or two every few days. Don't do what I did and read it like a novel. These need to be savored slowly. And don't forget your highlighter!

Note: Archival copies of Anna Quindlen's Newsweek column, "The Last Word," can be found here. If you enjoy her writing and have read through all 77 essays, you can set up a Google Alert for future columns.

The Long Walk Home

The Long Walk Home by Will North
Contemporary Fiction
Finished on 8/24/07
Rating: 3.5/5 (Good)









Book Description

When forty-three-year-old Fiona Edwards first sees the lanky backpacker striding up the lane toward her award-winning farmhouse bed-and-breakfast in the remote mountains of North Wales, she’s puzzled. She’s used to unexpected strangers, but few arrive on foot. The man to whom she opens her door is middle-aged, unshaven, sweat-soaked . . . and arrestingly handsome. What neither of them knows at that moment is that their lives are about to change forever.

American Alec Hudson has carried the ashes—and the memory—of his late ex-wife, Gwynne, all the way from London’s Heathrow Airport, honoring her request that he scatter them atop a mountain they had climbed together years before—the same brooding peak whose jagged cliffs rise to the sky from the back pastures of Fiona’s farm. But the weather doesn’t cooperate, and as Fiona and Alec wait for it to clear, they are drawn together by mutual loss, longing, and the miracle of love at midlife.

On the day he finally reaches the summit, Alec is caught in a vicious hailstorm. As he struggles to descend, he stumbles upon the body of a man he recognizes from a photograph at the farm: it is Fiona’s ailing and reclusive husband, David, and he is close to death.

Will North’s debut novel, The Long Walk Home, is a story about grief and hope, about love and loss, and about two people struggling with the agonizing complexities of fidelity—to a spouse, to a moral code, to each other, and to a passion neither thought would ever appear again. By turns lyrical and gripping, set amid a landscape of breathtaking beauty and unpredictable danger, this is a story you will not soon forget.

About the Author

Will North is the award-winning ghostwriter of half a dozen nonfiction books. He divides his time between Seattle and Great Britain. This is his first novel.

I don't have too much to say about this book. It started off a bit like something Rosamunde Pilcher might write, but wound up more like Nicholas Sparks does The Bridges of Madison County. That said, I enjoyed it (in spite of the moral dilemmas and somewhat stilted dialogue) and look forward to North's next novel. Oh, and what a great cover! I'd love to have a print of that hanging in my office! Better yet, I'd love to live in Wales in that house!

Southern Reading Challenge Update

I finished Maggie's Southern Reading Challenge earlier this week. As you might recall, I compiled a list of 13, but only needed to read three in the three month period. Here's what I wound up choosing (click on the titles to go to my reviews):

gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson (Georgia)

Up Island by Anne Rivers Siddons (Georgia)

The Great Santini by Pat Conroy (South Carolina)

Unfortunately, none of these were terribly impressive, and I'd be hard pressed to pick one over the other.

Thank you, Maggie, for hosting this challenge. I'm going to hang on to my list just in case you decide to do it again next year.

The Joy of Baking

Once again, Nan has inspired me to step out of my comfort zone and do a little more baking. Last year I tried her homemade bread. It was a huge success! Rod, Miss Maddie and Miss Maddie's family all loved it, as did I. This time, Nan's delicious-looking blueberry crunch caught my eye and I knew I had a similar recipe somewhere that I wanted to try again. After a little searching, I came up with this:

Strawberry Cobbler

The recipe claims to serve 8. Ha!

The Great Santini

The Great Santini by Pat Conroy
Contemporary Fiction
Finished on 8/20/07
Rating: 2.5/5 (Fair)
TBR Challenge #6
Southern Reading Challenge #3



Book Description

The Astonishing Autobiographical Bestseller By The Author Of Beach Music

Today his family would be called dysfunctional. Bull Meecham -- fighter pilot, warrior, juggler, clown and bully -- a hard-drinking terror of a man who calls himself The Great Santini -- actually hides behind his misnomer. His swaggering mask is all Marine, and entitles him to be the absolute ruler of his family, which he handles with all the tenderness and understanding of a drill sergeant shaping up a class of new recruits.

Bull's wife, Lillian, is a beautiful steel magnolia -- without her cool head and infinite patience, the family would fall apart. Ben, at eighteen the oldest of Bull and Lillian's three children, is a natural athlete whose best never satisfies his father. As Ben struggles to become his own man against the intimidation of his father, he's forced to stand up, even fight back, against a man who refuses to give in.

Bull Meecham is undoubtedly Pat Conroy's most explosive character -- a man you should hate, but a man you'll come to love, in this stingingly authentic production.

I never came to love Bull Meecham, but as the book drew to a close, I began to reconsider my initial opinion of the novel. While reading The Great Santini, I couldn't help but compare it to Beach Music, the only other work of Conroy's I've read. From my journal, dated September 1996, I wrote:

THE BEST! I think this has to be one of the very best books I've ever read. I couldn't put it down and didn't want it to end. I want to read everything Pat Conroy has ever written. He writes the most beautiful sentences I have ever read. I felt like I could see, hear, taste and smell everything he described. The characters became part of me. I laughed. I cried. What a beautiful, lyrical book. I recommend it to everyone!

So why did it take me 11 years to pick up another book by Conroy? Did I have some inkling that Beach Music was the best of lot?

Unfortunately, there's just no comparing The Great Santini to Beach Music. Instead of lyrical prose, I found verbosity. Rather than endearing and memorable characters such as Jack McCall and his mother Lucy, I found nothing but crude vulgarity in Bull. The long, drawn out details of several basketball games grew tiresome, whereas the lush details of Italy and South Carolina drew me in to worlds I've come to long for even after all these years.

When asked to name my favorite books, Beach Music immediately springs to mind with no hesitation. I've wanted to read it again, yet fear it won't live up to that magic one feels when reading a gem for the first time. I had hoped to capture that feeling once again when I picked up The Great Santini. Sadly, I was disappointed. My first inclination was to say this is an awful book. However, looking back I think Conroy is superb storyteller. He created a realistic family and a believable character in Bull, who was a dispicable father, husband and human being, and I cringed at his words as often as his actions. I held my breath, hoping for a better outcome, wrapped up in Ben's world and desire to simply make his father proud.

I've wrestled with my reaction to this novel, wondering why I hesitate to recommend it or give it a higher rating. I think it boils down to the disturbing nature of the story. Sure, I've read upsetting novels that I've loved and gone on to rave about to anyone who'll listen (The Book Thief is the first that comes to mind), but this is a portrait of a family (albeit a dysfunctional family), and we all have families. As children, we desire our parents' love and approval and as parents we teach and guide our children while providing them with love and assurance. I know what family is, whereas the terrors of war are distant and somewhat removed from my daily life. I can read a book such as The Book Thief and appreciate the harrowing tale of the Holocaust, yet still love the story. In reading The Great Santini, I felt nothing but disgust for the chauvanistic bully and bigot portrayed by Bull Meecham. That disgust interfered with my overall appreciation of the narrative, but not so much that I couldn't finish. And there were, afterall, beautiful passages sprinkled here and there.

A favorite passage:

The next day Ben received a phone call from a Coach Murphy who said he heard from some of his players that the Arlington Jaycees had cut one hell of a baseball player and that he would consider it a personal favor if Ben would come play for his team. That was the beginning. And as Ben walked along the edge of the salt river, he realized that he wore the memory of Dave Murphy like a chain and it carried him like a prisoner to the infields of Four Mile Run Park in Arlington, Virginia, where he played for the Old Dominion Kiwanis for two of the best years of his life. In the night games, beneath the arc of lights, in his last year of Little league, Ben's new spikes gleamed like teeth as he walked toward Dave Murphy. For years Ben had walked toward him in dreams and sudden thoughts. If he could, Ben would have told him about the soft places a boy reserves for his first coach, his unruined father who enters the grassless practice fields of boyhood like a priest at the end of life. Coach Murphy was gentle. Yes, that was it. Gentle to the clumsy, girl-voiced boys whom he trained to be average, to be adequate, as he hit the soft fungoes to the outfield green. But Dave Murphy had a gift. Any boy who came to him had moments of feeling like a king. Any boy who played for the Old Dominion Kiwanis. Any boy. Coach Murphy still haunts the old fields where his boys bunted down the line, and with graceless fever took infield in voices that cried out for fathers. Going home after practice, they waved good-bye to their coach as they slid their spikes on the sidewalk, astonished at the fire that sprang from their feet. Then they turned toward home, toward the real fathers who waited for their sons to come homeward disguised as heroes.

Hmmm. Perhaps I would've found more to love had The Great Santini been about baseball (which lends itself to poetic prose, not to mention my love for the game) rather than basketball.

The Great Santini is a work of fiction, but how much is really a retelling of Conroy's own childhood? I'll have to give My Losing Season a read and compare details. I've had an Advanced Reader's Copy in my stacks for close to five years. Now I'm eager to give it a read.

Go here for more on Pat Conroy, the author, the man and the child.

Bits and Bobs

It's Friday and I'm trying to get a head start on my weekend chores so I can curl up with a book or two this weekend. I have a stack of library books that have already been renewed once and I really want to get to them! I also have 4 tall stacks of books to pick and choose from for the various challenges I'm participating in. Then there's that stack of recently acquired books... I have an overdue thank you to both Nan and Bellezza for picking me for their Nice Matters Award. I'm truly touched and honored.

I'm supposed to pass this along to seven (or is it four?) bloggers. I really have a terrible time choosing the recipients for this sort of thing. I hate to exclude anyone and cause hurt feelings. Every blog I visit is created by very nice people, so if you're reading this, consider yourself nominated! Labor Day is just around the corner (How can that be?! Summer just started!) and I've posted a few new summertime recipes over on my food blog. Check 'em out! Or better yet, let me tempt you with a few pics!

Potato Salad

Marinated Chicken Wings with White BBQ (Dipping) Sauce

Salmon Pasta

Black Bean Salsa

Rachel's Caribbean Shrimp & Mango Salad

Grilled Chicken Tacos

Shrimp with Feta Cheese

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm constantly amazed when a stranger posts a comment on one of my blogs. How did they find me? Was it a random hit as a result of a Google search? I have been known to spend far too much time perusing my data results on StatCounter. (Are you all just as curious as I am, wanting to know who all those people are who are reading your blogs?) Well, it turns out Ian from the San Juan Island Update has a Google alert set up and discovered my blog after I mentioned Friday Harbor in my bookstore post. He turned around and mentioned my blog here (scroll down to the August 21st news) which generated quite a spike in my stats for that day! I received a nice comment from another Friday Harbor local (a columnist for a different San Juan Island website) who first heard about me via Ian's column. You still with me? I use Google alerts for a variety of subjects, but this is the first time (that I know of!) I've had someone find me via their alert -- well, with the exception of an author who read my negative review of his book last year! I was initially both surprised & horrified when I received his very nice email, claiming he was "proud to get my first 'F'!" In any case, it's flattering to have my blog mentioned elsewhere. Now if only someone would pay me to do this so we can move to Friday Harbor!