Michelle James’s Review
Little Tea is a story of many layers. The author deftly alternates this story of the South in the 1980s with the present day. While racism was outlawed, the South still bristled with hatred from a few of the privileged
Continue with the link to Book Chat hereĀ Little Tea
It took me a while to evolve from a feeling of anxious, pandemic shell-shock to resume what has long been a habit of mine. I like to walk. I don’t need a destination. More often than not, I walk down my driveway in Malibu, California and the biggest decision is whether to turn right or left. I typically listen to Groove Music, where I’ve downloaded my favorite albums. It’s not so much about where I walk as it is the rhythm I strike while moving through space. There’s something centering about it, balancing, and it tends to clarify my perspective regardless of what’s on my mind. And these days, I have a lot on my mind, though most of it has to do with uncertainty.
What got me out of the walking habit during the first few weeks of the pandemic’s strange state of affairs was that it rained sporadically, the sky remained overcast, and it added to the unbalancing sense of gloom and doom similar to how I felt after the Malibu fires when life came down to the daily question of how to get my bearing. I’ve always known walking helps me get my bearings. It’s therapeutic to me, a dreaming meditation, part-and-parcel to my well-being, and the one thing I know about coping in crisis is it’s best to arrive at a schedule as close to business as usual. Since the sun’s been shining in Malibu these past few days, walking is at the center of what little I’ve managed to cobble of a schedule.
We’re currently not allowed on the beaches in Malibu, California, but on a rise of the Pacific Coast Highway, I spied this path. It goes through an indigenous, breathtaking field straight to the cliffs overlooking Nicholas Beach, which flows to the left.
Looking right, Nicholas Beach flows into Leo Carrillo State Beach and makes up western Malibu’s coastline.
The foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains are in Western Malibu, and they run into Ventura County.
There are beautiful wildflowers everywhere, now that we’re in spring: This is Pride of Medeira, and it’s plentiful everywhere.
Along the side of the Pacific Coast Highway is wild mustard seed and bougainvillea
This is ice plant, and currently, it’s blooming
And blooming Rosemary
It wouldn’t be a walk outside in Malibu, California, without spying something emblematic to give one a sense of place. Since we can’t go to the beaches, this brilliant man did the next best thing: parked his VW van for an ocean view and strummed on his guitar.
It took weeks of feeling uncomfortable during this pandemic before I realized what was really bothering me. It went beyond a feeling of lack of control and wrestling with the uncertainty of what I can and cannot count on in my future schedule. My book, Little Tea, releases on May 1st, and as things stand, I have no idea what will be called off in my mid-June book tour of the South. Reports say the US will aim for normalcy in stages; that individual states will move forward according to how its governer sees fit. Conditions differ in varying regions. I think it will be an unfolding. And be that as it may, even if the coast were totally clear, I’m shying from the thought of getting on a plane in June to travel down South. We’ve all been through so much. Even if things were to get back to normal, it’s probably going to take a while to feel normal. But back to what’s been bothering me, because this just dawned on me. I’ve been my own worst enemy through most of this because I haven’t been practicing acceptance, at least not in a way where I wasn’t still trying to fit my square plans into a round hole.
I took this photograph from my front yard a couple of weeks ago, and I believe it’s exemplary of a ray of hope in the midst of a storm.
One day this pandemic will be behind us. For now, I’m working on acceptance.
And the best way I know to work on acceptance?
Go outside and start walking.
Years ago, I was on the airstaff of WEGR, Rock-103 in Memphis. Iād worked at four radio stations before I was hired at Rock-103 and at the time, considered that album-oriented rock station on Memphisās infamous Beale Street the end all and be all of music radio. Because it was. To be working in music radio in the 80ās in Memphis, Tennessee, with its undisputed reputation of being the town that brought the Delta Blues to the big city, which Elvis, in his unique way, turned into rock-n-roll and inspired The Beatles and a host of others who put Rock-n-Roll on the American map was something I never forgot. Music is Memphisās claim to fame. It permeates the air of that historic city and anchors its denizens proudly in a strong sense of place.
When one is a DJ at a radio station that reaches thousands, daily, one lives in a world within a world: a close-knit society populated by people who share the same passion, speak the same language, and hold music at the top of the hierarchy of things that really matter. In radio, the wheels turn on a schedule. There are air shifts and play lists, a Program Director, Music Director, sales staff, publicity team, engineers, and in the middle of it all is the Production Director.
At Rock-103, we called Rick Robinson the Production King. We called him that because Rick seemed to have taken up permanent residency in a small studio down the hall from the control room, where he produced radio spots and promos that went on the air. As Rick existed in the midst of a tribe of on-air talent, he was in the habit of summoning any one of us, when we least expected. He’d want to record a voice over for a commercial, a PSA, or perhaps a glib parody, depending on what he was working on in his electronic cave. Rick was the guy who was always firmly and squarely THERE in the creative commotion of Rock 103. He was a permanent fixture with a peculiar set of skills I didnāt know the half of, but I knew he spun magic on behalf of us all at Rock-103, and we relied on him.
Itās funny who you lose track of as the years transpire, yet perhaps itās understandable for me since I no longer live in Memphis. Life moves on. People change careers, and I left music radio when I moved to Los Angeles and got involved in the record business. Simultaneously, I started concentrating on what Iād been doing since I was in my late teens: writing. Writing has been its own twisting path. So far, it includes four traditionally published novels and one novella, but the reason Iām mentioning this is to say that along writing’s twisting path, I had the good fortune to become involved with Southern Writers Magazine. Which, unbeknownst to me for the first year of my affiliation, just so happened to have its headquarters in Memphis.
It took my correspondence via multiple emails with the Creative Director of Southern Writers Magazine to discover they were headquartered in Memphis. Gary Fearon was the Creative Directorās name, and he and I had cause to collaborate on an advertisement for one of my books. Our back-and-forth correspondence ended up including the proverbial kitchen sink, after I discovered Gary was writing to me from Memphis. āIām from Memphis,ā I twittered.
āI thought you were in California,ā came Gary’s reply, which turned into my telling him I was raised in Memphis, where I went to high school, and that I worked in Memphis radio.
āWhich station?ā came Garyās query, and when I emailed my response, he said, āYou worked at Rock-103? Me too.ā
The thing about radio DJās is many use a stage name. When Gary Fearon was a DJ at another radio station, he used the name Rick Robinson then retained it, when he worked in production at Rock-103. To say we did chapter and verse over what a small world it is puts it mildly.
But back to my point of how life moves on: Gary Fearon left Southern Writers Magazine to focus full-time on his production demands. Robinsong Productions is the name of his company, where he produces radio and television spots for recording artists on tour and voices audiobooks ( because heās blessed with precise diction and a tenor both authoritative and memorable.)
And here sat I, on the threshold of the release of my fourth novel, Little Tea, which is set in three places: Memphis, Heber Springs, Arkansas, and Como, Mississippi. The release date is coming upāMay 1stāand in this visual world of promotional memes and scroll-stopping images, it occurred to me I needed a book trailer for Little Tea.
I looked at the pictures I took the last time I was in Como, Mississippi and thought, āWho can do a book trailer?”
One name came to mind: Gary Fearon the Production King!
Above, Iām sharing a picture of Gary Fearon. Heās in his studio at Robinsong Production, hard at work on Little Teaās book trailer.
I love the surprising turns of life’s connections. In a strange way, it feels like an example of what comes around goes around.
I canāt wait to see Little Teaās book trailer!Ā I understand Gary found an image of a redbone coonhound and will put it on a dirt road, which is suggestive of a scene in the book, Little Tea.
Iāll share the book trailer, here, once itās finished!
In the meantime, you can read about Gary Fearon at two websites:
http://www.garyfearon.comĀ book trailers and such
http://www.robinsongproductions.com concert clients
Little Tea releases May 1st by Firefly Southern Fiction. It’s available now for preorder.
Little Tea ( named after a character whose real name is Thelonia Winfrey) is the story of those long-lasting female friendships that see you through a lifetime, wherein there’s shared history; language; and sense of humor. The narrator, Celia Wakefield spent part of her childhood at her family’s 3rd generation land in Como, Mississippi, where the cultural social mores concerning racial integration had yet to fully evolve. This premise sets the dynamic of a trajectory of events that impact her friendship with Little Tea and haunt Celia Wakefield decades later. When Celia reunites with two childhood friends at Greer’s Ferry Lake in Heber Springs, Arkansas, Celia’s past resurfaces for long-overdue resolution.
I’m thrilled to tell you about Queen of the Owls by Barbara Linn Probst. It’s women’s fiction, about a woman who evolves into her own when she begins research on the artist, Georgia O’Keefe.
Here is Queen of the Owls Book Description:
A chance meeting with a charismatic photographer will forever change Elizabethās life.
Until she met Richard, Elizabeth’s relationship with Georgia OāKeeffe and her little-known Hawaii paintings was purely academic. Now itās personal. Richard tells Elizabeth that the only way she can truly understand OāKeeffe isnāt with her mindāitās by getting into OāKeeffeās skin and reenacting her famous nude photos.
In the intimacy of Richardās studio, Elizabeth experiences a new, intoxicating abandon and fullness. It never occurs to her that the photographs might be made public, especially without her consent. Desperate to avoid exposureāsheās a rising star in the academic world and the mother of young childrenāElizabeth demands that Richard dismantle the exhibit. But he refuses. The pictures are his art. His property, not hers.
As word of the photos spreads, Elizabeth unwittingly becomes a feminist heroine to her students, who misunderstand her motives in posing. To the university, however, her actions are a public scandal. To her husband, theyāre a public humiliation. Yet Richard has reawakened an awareness thatās haunted Elizabeth since she was a childāthe truth that cerebral knowledge will never be enough.
Now she must face the question: How much is she willing to risk to be truly seen and known?
I read an Advance Review Copy of Queen of the Owls, and am sharing my book review:
A beautiful, deeply thoughtful novel concerning a woman who dares to break her own conventions by following what has heart and meaning. Author Barbara Linn Probst has written a contemporary story with timeless themes, and she has done so through the power of an engaging page-turner. Queen of the Owls depicts the day to day life of young wife and mother, Elizabeth, who juggles writing her thesis as a Ph.D. student teaching undergraduate courses while researching a significant time in photographer Georgia OāKeefeās life. This is a soulful, searching novel about the repercussions that come when one woman is inspired by another; about balancing oneās obligations while exploring the voice within that speaks on an individual level. As Elizabeth is tentatively lured deeper and deeper into Georgia OāKeefeās unconventional life, a mirror is held to her own and she finds it lacking. When she is drawn by chance to artistic photographer, Richard, whose ethos captures what lies beneath the surface, the predicament she finds herself in is poignantly metaphoric. Queen of the Owls takes no hard and fast position on either the definition of nor prescription for a womanās happiness, rather, it weaves its message through the power of suggestion in a deftly crafted novel and invites the reader to examine their own understanding.
I interviewed Barbara Linn Probst about Queen Of The Owls, when I had the pleasure of meeting her in Jefferson, Texas at the Pulpwood Queens Girlfriend Weekend, where we both wore the standard tiara and enjoyed a weekend of meeting wonderful readers from many Pulpwood Queen book club chapters, who’d traveled for the annual event from far and wide.
Barbara Linn Probst is a writer, researcher, clinician, and āserious amateurā pianist living on a historic dirt road in New Yorkās Hudson Valley.
In a couple of sentences, can you tell me what Queen of the Owls is about?
Queen of the Owls is about a womanās quest to claim her neglected sensuality and find her true self hidden behind the roles of wife, mother, sister, and colleague. Itās a story of awakening and transformation, framed around the art and life of iconic American painter Georgia OāKeeffe.
Okay, youāve hooked us! Now tell us a bit more.
Elizabeth, the protagonist, has always defined herself by her intellect. Sheās chosen the safe responsible pathāand avoided the sensuality she assumed was beyond her reach. During the course of the story, she comes to know and embrace a fuller knowledge of herself, body and beauty as well as brain. Thereās a price to pay, but Elizabeth knows she canāt go back.
While the bookās overarching theme is about wholenessāwhich you can only find by claiming the parts of yourself youāve deniedāit also explores contemporary issues of privacy, consent, feminism, and the power of social media to upend our lives.
Tell us about the role of Georgia OāKeeffe in the book. Why OāKeeffe?
The idea of framing the story around the art and life of iconic American painter Georgia OāKeeffe really just āappearedā to me! Iāve always loved OāKeeffeās paintings; they called to me in a way that felt very connected to the question of what it means to be a woman. And in doing research for the book, I learned so much more about her life and workāwhich, in turn, enhanced the story in ways I hadnāt expected.
OāKeeffe has been a figure of endless fascination for over a century, not only for her artistic genius, but also because of how she lived. She was the quintessential feminist who rejected the feministsā attempts to turn her into their matriarch, the severe desert recluse who created some of the most sensuous art of all time.
Although the story is framed around the art and life of Georgia OāKeeffe, OāKeeffe isnāt a character in the bookāyet sheās present as Elizabethās inspiration, the person whose blend of austerity and voluptuousness Elizabeth longs to emulate. In seeking to understand OāKeeffe, Elizabeth comes to understand herself.
Art worked perfectly as a vehicle for Queen of the Owls because the story is about Elizabethās yearning to be truly seen. And through being seen, to be known.
What unique challenges did writing this book pose for you?
One of the most demanding aspects of writing Queen of the Owls was the range of research I needed to do. As a first step, I needed to learn far more about Georgia OāKeeffe than would ever find its way into the final book. I read everything I could find, went to see her paintings, talked to experts, visited the places where she lived and worked. I needed to immerse myself in her life and art in order to feel, understand, and convey what that might have brought Elizabeth.
What has been the most rewarding aspect of having written Queen of the Owls?
One of the reasons that writing Queen of the Owls has been so meaningful to me is because it represents a fictionalized version of my own journey. Like Elizabeth, I grew up labeled a ābrainā and had to embark on my own journey to wholeness.
I think all good fiction is like thatānot a thinly-disguised memoir, but a process of digging deeply into the emotional truths youāve learned through your own experience and then ātranslatingā those emotional truths into a fictional world. If youāre lucky, that fictional world will touch others and have enduring meaning for them too.
Queen of the Owls releases on April 7. You can order it through your favorite independent book store and all book outlets online.
You can read about Barbara at barbaralinnprobst.com
One of the gifts of living by the ocean is the view is ever-changing. I have a particular relationship with this constant inconstancy. I am grounded in a reality that fluctuates from no will of mine and it humbles me to bear witness to a majesty I know is endless.
I can literally see the curvature of the earth from my front deck in Malibu. Some days the sea looks like mirrored glass; other days the roiling whitecaps attenuate forever. This is what I can see, yet I know life teems beneath the surface in the labyrinth of an ecosystem of which I can only speculate. And yet I know it is there. Hidden from view, from knowledge, from judgment, from the temptation of assumption. All that is given to me is the moment and my perception. If I stand still and tune into my thoughts, I am aware of my consciousness. I believe if one really wants to know themselves, all they have to do is listen to the song within.
I’m saying all this because first thing this morning, I walked out and was caught unaware by the photograph you see above. It startled me in an awestruck, sobering way, yet the voice I consider the intimate “me” resounded unbiddenly in two words: “Of course.” In that moment, I was reminded of my fundamental beliefs, and they have everything to do with my relationship with the unknown. What I believe is things are rarely as they seem. In the midst of ambiguity, there is always hope.
You don’t need me to remind you these are strange times, unbalancing times, unsettling times, but what I’m thinking of is my understanding of the bigger picture. Because you have to pay attention to your perception of this world. If you do, it dictates experience both immediate and long-range. I’m neither prophet nor seer, but I trust my intuition. When I walked out this morning and saw this neon rainbow placed on the sky seemingly by the hand of God, what I knew at that moment is, always, there is great hope.
Congratulations to Renea Winchester! Today is release-day of her wonderful novel, Outbound Train, a novel with such visceral, Southern nuance and depth; the characters seem to embody the rural South.
In 1976, memories from a night near the railroad tracks, sixteen years earlier, haunt Barbara Parker. She wrestles with past demons every night, then wakes to the trainās five-thirty whistle. Exhausted and dreading the day, she keeps her hands busy working in Bryson Cityās textile plant, known as the āblue jean plant,ā all the while worrying about her teenage daughter, Carole Anne. The whistle of the train, the hum of those machines, and the struggle to survive drives Barbara. When an unexpected layoff creates a financial emergency, the desperate pressure of poverty is overwhelming.
Unbeknownst to Barbara, Carole Anne sneaks out at night to walk the tracks so she can work at Hubertās Bar. Sheās hoarding money with plans to drive her motherās rusty, unused Oldsmobile out of Bryson City, and never return. She only needs one opportunity ā¦ if she can just find it.
When Carole Anne goes missing, Barbara finds herself at a crossroadāshe must put aside old memories and past hurts to rely on a classmate for help finding her daughter. But this is the same man she blames for the incident years ago. Is she strong enoughāor desperate enoughāto do anything to keep her daughter safe?
In Outbound Train, the Parker women struggle to make frayed ends meet in a town where they never quite do ā¦ at least, not without expert weaving and a bit of brute force.
I read the ARC of Outbound Train and recommend this gorgeously written, starkly real Southern set story that will play on your heartstrings all the way through. Author Renea Winchester writes with a clear-sighted, compassionate eye about women in hard times. They are the blue-collar, Parker women, one haunted by her past; the other, her daughter, who plans to escape the poverty of Bryson City, North Carolina at any cost. With twists and turns and secrets that come full-circle, Outbound Train is an engaging story, Southern to its core in setting and character, and captivating to its last page.
Here is my favorite photograph of Renea with her goat!
I asked Renea Winchester the following questions about Outbound Train.
Q: Are any characters based on or named after friends? If so, have you told them?
Full disclosure, the character Doretta is a combination of Loretta Hannon, the funniest woman in the South, and my sister, Doretta McCammon. Both of these ladies are unpredictable, fearless, and funny as all get out. Thereās a reason we live so far apart because together we have entirely too much fun. Secretly Carole Anne wants to be like Doretta. She covets Dorettaās life, her house, and the freedom Doretta has. However, Doretta wishes she were more like Carole Anne. I havenāt told my friends that I based my character on them, until now.
Q: Did you write outside? Do you have a soundtrack?
What an excellent question. I have carried this novel with me, in written form, for years. Jotting down notes, scenes, and sometimes a single saying in notebooks, receipts and napkins whenever a character whispers in my ear. I do not have a soundtrack. Music is a big part of my life, but I find it distracting when writing.
Q: How did you capture the ideas as they came to you?
I write everything by hand because, for me, the first draft comes easier through the tip of a pen. While writing Outbound Train, I voiced to my dear friend, Terry Kay, the troubles I had with a particularly elusive character. The scene simply would not flow no matter how hard I tried to manipulate the story. Terry, in his wisdom, said, āNow dear, you cannot chase characters down the hall. You cannot force them to do your bidding. You are not in control. They are in control. You have two jobs. Observe your characters and write what you observe. Pondering his words, I realized he was correct. The next day I put his advice into action and finished the scene.
Q. You wrote about secrets. Can you tell us a little about the cause and effects of secrets in the story?
Both Barbara and Carole Anne have secrets. Barbara wonāt reveal the name of Carole Anneās father, so young Carole Anne ā who is hungry for a positive male role model-picks her own; except the person she picks is a man her mother blames for a traumatic event from her childhood. Carole Anne has had her fill of poverty. She wishes to escape, by any means necessary, even when it means taking a job that breaks the law. A job that ultimately leads to her kidnapping.
I think we all have secrets. Whether we are hiding a past trauma, or hunger for something more in life, I believe the secrets we carry motivates us to change.
Q: Was the North Carolina setting important to the story?
During the first draft, I set Outbound Train in a fictionalized town, but it felt disingenuous. I knew readers couldnāt connect with the characters without experiencing what we call a āsense of place.ā Honestly, the story lacked heart. I simply could not convey the emotion necessary to touch readers unless I set the story in my hometown. I needed readers to walk the rails with Carole Anne, and hear the hum of sewing machines inside the textile mill. I needed to show them this part of Bryson City because the setting made me who I am today. In order to honor the women who raised me, the setting needed to be real. The same is happening with The Mountains Remember, my work in progress. The story occurs on Indian Creek, in the community where my people once lived before being displaced to form the National Park.
Here’s what others say about Outbound Train:
“Renea Winchester’s storytelling is as real and authentically Southern as the clear water music of an Appalachian creek and the song of Cicadas on a front porch summer evening.” ~ Lisa Wingate,
#1 New York Times Bestselling author of Before We Were Yours and Before and After.
“I fell in love with the smart, strong, funny characters in this community of make-do women, and I predict you will, too.” ~ Pamela Duncan, Author of Plant Life
“With pitch-perfect dialogue and believable characters, Winchester has crafted a story that will make readers stand up and cheer.” ~Michael Morris, Man in the Blue Moon, A Place Called Wiregrass
Renea was born and raised in Bryson City, North Carolina. She began her writing career in Georgia where she penned several non-fiction works including Farming, Friends & Fried Bologna Sandwiches which was nominated for the prestigious SIBA award, earned Renea a nomination for Georgia Author of the Year, and received the endorsement from The Pulpwood Queens, the largest book club in the country. After winning the Wilma Dykeman Award for Essay and the Appalachian Writer’s Award, Renea focused on transitioning to fiction. Renea has served on the Atlanta Writers Board, Georgia Writers Association, and judges multiple literary awards. In April 2020, Firefly Southern Fiction released Outbound Train. Set in her hometown of Bryson City, North Carolina, in 1976, Outbound Train is a triumphant story of perseverance and hope despite the harshness of poverty. Renea is passionate about literacy, Appalachian Heritage, preserving rare seeds, cultivating endangered plants and meeting new friends. Outbound Train is her debut Novel. Contact Renea through her Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/Renea-Winchester-Author-162590877104288/
~Outbound Train releases today. It’s available at your favorite book store as well as book sellers online.
You can find Renea Winchester of WordPress ~ https://reneawinchester.wordpress.com/
Thereās nothing like times of disconnection to get you thinking about connections.
With worldwide activity essentially on pause, youād think itād be optimistic to take advantage of downtime. Typically, in the middle of the day, Iām at my desk working on something. Right now, I could be investing in my own long game, using time productively, filling in this unscheduled time with my self-appointed curriculum geared toward my May book release, or something along those lines.
Instead, Iām sitting outside holding Taylor Brownās new book, Pride of Eden and thinking about connections. Itās 2:00 in the afternoon in Malibu, California. 75 degrees and the sun is shining through cirrus clouds with the ocean breeze just enough to make sitting outside pleasurable.
I canāt recall the last time I sat outside reading a book in the middle of the day. Thereās a shade of guilt involved, but rather than calling it playing hooky, Iāll call it a guilty pleasure. Iāve never met Taylor Brown. I havenāt read the four books he wrote before Pride of Eden came out five days ago, but I got on board because of connectionsāthe first being that this author posted a video of himself on Instagram, standing before pink, flowering shrubbery wearing a black mustache and beard, his baseball cap shading his black-framed glasses, his blue jean vest unbuttoned over his black t-shirt. When I pressed play, his Southern accent sprang like music to my ears, for Iāve been long in the wilds of California, and whenever I hear my own tongue, it sings like a siren call. I next did what any Southern author would do, upon realizing theyāre egregiously unfamiliar with one of their own: I went straight to Taylor Brownās website, unsurprised to learn we have people in common, authors Michael Farris Smith and Patti Callahan Henry to name just two.
The beginning of Pride of Edenās book description reads: āRetired racehorse jockey and Vietnam veteran Anse Caulfield rescues exotic big cats, elephants, and other creatures for Little Eden, a wildlife sanctuary near the abandoned ruins of a failed development on the Georgia coast. But when Anseās prized lion escapes, he becomes obsessed with replacing herāeven if the means of rescue arenāt exactly legal.ā Hereās what grabbed me about the back cover of Pride of Eden: Author Ron Rash writes: āPride of Eden is a beautifully written, visionary novel of scarred souls seeking redemption not only for themselves but, in their limited way, for us all. Taylor Brown is clearly one of the best American writers of his generation.ā
Letās just say when Ron Rash speaks, I listen.
But back to connections during this disconnected downtime, and hereās where I show my true colors as a transplanted Memphian living in Southern California ( which natives call SoCal, but I digress.) Because the most salient characteristic of all Southerners is loyalty, I picked up the phone and called Novel Book Store in Memphis and ordered Taylor Brownās book to be shipped to me āout here.ā Believe me, if Iām going to buy a book, hometown girl is going to give hometown the business. But then I started thinking about Memphisās other independent bookstore, Burkeās Books, and that fine figure of an erudite man, Corey Mesler, who not only owns Burkeās Book Store but recently had his novel, Camelās Bastard Son, published by Cabal Books, which Iām itching to read. Two beats after calling Novel Book Store, I called Burkeās Book Store and ordered Camelās Bastard Son, with the latest from John Grisham for good measure. Now, Iām thinking the good thing about Southern loyalty is that itās not divided.
In this time of disconnection, I think itās only reasonable to honor oneās connections, and the connections Iām thinking of now are those I have with independent bookstores. At the moment, they may not be immediately accessible, but I want to do my part in helping them thrive. Because the first thing Iām going to do once the worst is behind us is head to Memphis. And the second thing Iām going to do is visit both of Memphis’s independent book stores.
A LETTER FROM F. SCOTT FITZGERALD, QUARANTINED IN 1920 IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE DURING THE SPANISH INFLUENZA
Dearest Rosemary,
It was a limpid dreary day, hung as in a basket from a single dull star. I thank you for your letter. Outside, I perceive what may be a collection of fallen leaves tussling against a trash can. It rings like jazz to my ears. The streets are that empty. It seems as though the bulk of the city has retreated to their quarters, rightfully so. At this time, it seems very poignant to avoid all public spaces. Even the bars, as I told Hemingway, but to that he punched me in the stomach, to which I asked if he had washed his hands. He hadnāt. He is much the denier, that one. Why, he considers the virus to be just influenza. Iām curious of his sources.
The officials have alerted us to ensure we have a monthās worth of necessities. Zelda and I have stocked up on red wine, whiskey, rum, vermouth, absinthe, white wine, sherry, gin, and lord, if we need it, brandy. Please pray for us.
You should see the square, oh, it is terrible. I weep for the damned eventualities this future brings. The long afternoons rolling forward slowly on the ever-slick bottomless highball. Z. says itās no excuse to drink, but I just canāt seem to steady my hand. In the distance, from my brooding perch, the shoreline is cloaked in a dull haze where I can discern an unremitting penance that has been heading this way for a long, long while. And yet, amongst the cracked cloudline of an eveningās cast, I focus on a single strain of light, calling me forth to believe in a better morrow.
Faithfully yours,
F. Scott Fitzgerald
This is parody written by American author Nick Farriella for the humor site McSweeneyās earlier this month.
https:www.clairefullerton.com
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I’ve had many people ask me about a certain picture on my website, where I’m standing against a gray stone wall on a windswept day in the middle of an Irish field, with what are obviously the ruins of a monastery behind me. Observant people have thought, “Wait, there’s a ruined monastery behind her, why is her back turned as she looks into the camera, holding a set of keys in her hand as if it were the bigger focal point?” I’m glad for the opportunity to explain that picture here.
We kind of knew where we were heading, my friend Tama and I, and by this I mean we had a loose plan with regard to how we were going to spend the afternoon in Gort, Ireland. We’d been freewheeling across the countryside in a rented car the size of a matchbox,Ā its steering wheel on the right side while we drove on the left of the two-lane road as if trying to best a test for dyslexia.
Tama is a devout Catholic, who has a thing about historic churches, which is why we couldn’t have adhered to a plan had we made one. “Stop,” Tama would shout each time we spied one of the dim, ominous structures in the distance. We’d scratch the gravel driveway and wander inside, our solitary footsteps crossing the marble floor in a tread lightly and humble yourself echo off the cavernous vaulted ceiling. We did this so many times that after yet another sweep inside a church, I’d leave Tama to light a red votive candle and fall to her pious knees while I wandered the graveyards and read the tombstone inscriptions thinking about impermanence;Ā knowing I was passing through in more ways than one.
I thought I was alone in the graveyard when a voice sailed from behind me. “Have you found your way to Kilmacduagh monastery?” it queried. I turned to find a young woman taking in my outlander attire of all-weather jacket and rubber-soled shoes. “It’s just up the road there,” she pointed. “You’ll want to knock on the door of the middle house across the road and ask Lily for the keys.”
I was standing behind Tama when she knocked on the front door of a low slung house on a sparsely populated lane. Across the lane, placid fields of damp clover shimmered in the afternoon mist as far as the eye could see. On one verdant field, a series of interspersed ruins jutted in damp metal-gray; some without roofs, some with wrought-iron gates, one in particular beside a towering stone spire with two windows cut in vertical slashes above a narrow door.Ā When the front door opened, a pair of blue water eyes gave us the once over with a suspicious, “Yes?”
ā
“Are you Lily?” Tama asked.
“I am,” the woman stated.
“We’re here for the keys,” Tama said.
ā
“The keys, is it? Just a moment there,” Lily said, and after she closed the door, Tama and I stood on the doorstep wordlessly, waiting for the next thing to happen.Ā Seconds later, the door opened and Lily handed us a set of long metal keys. “Just slip them through the door slot when you’re through,” she said with a quick nod and closed the door.
There was no indication of which key went to what, among the cluster of gates and doors throughout the 7th-century monastery called Kilmacduagh, but after enough scrambling, we figured it out. I was so tickled over being given the keys that I couldn’t get over it. “Is this weird?” I said to Tama. “We could be anybody. It feels like we’ve been given the keys to the kingdom without being vetted. It’s not that there’s anything anybody could steal, but that’s not the point.
I could wax rhapsody over the hours we spent unlocking gates,Ā pushing through doors and climbing the ruins of the eerie, hallowed grounds, but that’s not my point either. My point is that’s Ireland for you: a stranger offering directions without being asked, Lily handing over the keys like an afterthought, and Tama and I trolling the grounds of historic, sacred space when nobody else was around.
A German couple appeared as we made our way back up the lane. They looked at us wide-eyed and queried, “What is this place?”
“It’s a 7th century monastery,” I said, “here, take these keys and slip them through Lily’s door when you’re through.”
Claire Fullerton is the author of Dancing to an Irish Reel, A Portal in Time, Mourning Dove, and coming May 1st, Litle Tea.
Claire Fullerton Author 