Annabel - Kathleen Winter

Dear Amy,

   Thankyou so much for your kind words a few months ago, you made my day! So, because you like my blog, and because every writer needs to know their readers, I’ve decided to address this to you. It’s okay, I know this is the internet, I won’t make it personal…much. Let’s say I’ll write it so that anyone else can read it too.

   Ames back in January when you told me you wanted to read more of this I was so inspired I decided I’d blog about every book I read this year. Well that was a stupid and quite short-lived decision! I find I’m finishing one book and moving on to the next with barely a pause for a cup of tea and a quiet summation in my mind. Some are amazing books, compact and fully realized, others just a good-read-for-now. I realized though that there are few books that deeply challenge your perspective of self and place and leave you a different – a better – person. This book is definitely one of them, and although there are others out there I'll leave mentioning them for another day.

   This blog today is about Annabel, by Kathleen Winter. It’s a new book, only published this year, and one of the best books I’ve read in a long time – although I find it hard to separate the beauty of the text from the way it spoke to me personally.

   Annabel is the story of Wayne, born to Treadway and Jacinta Blake in a small town in Labrador, in the North-East of Canada, in 1968. Treadway is a trapper, spending three months or more each winter out on his trapline hunting caribou, while Jacinta manages home and garden and nurses the secret sorrow shared only by Thomasina, her trusted friend: Wayne was born a hermaphrodite.

   What follows is a poignant and tender exploration of growing up and self-discovery, against the harsh backdrop of a remote land. 

   Wayne is not told about his condition, and the myriad pills he takes daily he believes to be for a vague blood disorder. He is only aware of the longings inside of him and his father’s disappointment in him as a son. It isn’t until a medical emergency in the seventh grade that Thomasina tells him the truth, that there is a girl buried deep inside his boy body. Thomasina has named her Annabel.

   Although an unusual premise, Annabel resonates so strongly with me not only because of the beauty of the prose and exploration of an unfamiliar landscape, but because Winter captures so perfectly the loneliness of growing up different from those around you and the struggle to find a place in the world.

   Read this book! It is very, VERY good!

   Haven’t finished it yet. I wanted to tell you all about it while I was still inside it, to not lose the moment and forget the beauty and power of it.

   Better go, I’ve got a chai brewing and about a million dishes to wash.

   Love you!

   Megan xx

Lying on Sunday - Sharon K Souza

Sometimes you read a book that really challenges your accepted notions of something, whether for good or for bad. This book certainly did this for me. This week I read Sharon K Shouza's Lying on Sunday, a book I thought I'd enjoy, but didn't expect my dishes to go undone for two days while I finished it.

Lying on Sunday is the story of Abbie Torrington, a Californian mother of two college-age girls, with a passion for shoes and a five bedroom mansion in an exclusive Sacramento suburb. The book jumps right in with a phone call saying that her husband has died of a heart attack in another woman's bed, followed only an hour later by divorce papers being served to her. What comes after this is a taut and heartfelt exploration of Abbie's grief and ultimate renewal in the face of her refusal to defame the memory of their father in the minds of her girls.

This is a book well worth reading.


Yes, you can borrow mine...but you HAVE to give it back.


The reason I say this (the borrowing bit, I'm sure the giving it back is self-explanatory), is because it's super-difficult to get through the normal channels in Australia, unless you want to buy it on Amazon (which I did).

The reason for this is also the answer to my first paragraph, why this book challenged my accepted notions. It's a Christian book.

Yes, I'm a Christian. Out and proud. However, with the exception of the bible, I don't read Christian books. Much as I hate to admit it I actually found myself with a really strong prejudice against them. There'll be times I've searched Amazon and found books that look kind of interesting, I've looked down to see who published it and if it was a Christian publisher I've simply moved on to the next book. Why? Because the ones I've read have (in my opinion - I know many who don't share it) have sacrificed quality writing, storytelling or character development for the sake of preachiness or simplistic romantic storylines.

Anyone ever felt this way?

Yes, there have been exceptions to this. The problem I've found is that it's hard to find authors I enjoy without having to buy the book - often sight unseen. The local Christian bookshops tend to stock huge amounts of romance, recently coupled with Christian chick-lit, none of which appeals to me. Although many more titles are available on order I don't have the budget to order them (with the expectation to purchase) to open it up and find it's really bland. Nor can you get them out of the library.

I took the plunge on this one though, and I wasn't disappointed. Written in first person, Abbie has a strong and engaging voice, and although she and I are very different characters I found myself drawn into her world and her dilemmas very quickly. Abbie isn't a Christian, and I got nervous when she started meeting Christians ("oh no, please don't put a cheesy, preachy conversion scene here!"), but Souza handled all these areas with  a perfect amount of restraint, and stayed very true to her characters and story. I was very impressed.

I'm a convert. I'll certainly read more of Souza's work, and hopefully those like her. Come on Koorong Hobart, lets start stocking books of this ilk!

Verdict:
Excellent. Read it if you enjoy stories that explore emotional issues in depth.

What We Keep – Elizabeth Berg

Overview

A middle-aged woman is reconciled to her estranged mother after a 35 year absence.

What I thought

 When I was young I really, really liked Judy Blume books. She had an amazing knack of presenting ordinary, recognizable characters and reflecting back situations or characteristics that we otherwise wouldn’t talk about or think about. Funny thing is I’ve read them so many times that every so often in my adult life there’ll be a situation that’ll make me think “Oh that’s like in Blubber”, or “That’s so Deenie”!

Anyway, Elizabeth Berg seems to be writing Judy Blume books for people who have outgrown them, or at least feel too embarrassed to read them on a train. This is a compliment, although at times the “Blume-ish” (straightforward and direct, nothing there to trip up a reader) nature of the prose got on my nerves a little. Well, to be completely honest, I was so interested in finding out what happened that I read it at top speed, which left me a little unsatisfied (whose fault was that then?) Probably should read it again soon, but hey, I’ve lent it to someone already.

The story was narrated by the middle-aged Ginny reflecting back on the year she turned 12. I felt the adult’s character wasn’t portrayed with anywhere near as much depth as the 12 year old, (hence the adolescent fiction feel). Although Berg hinted at the adult’s world (drinking scotch and soda on the plane, a dislike of flying, an intense clinging to her own growing daughters), the adult felt one-dimensional, a product solely of her mother’s choices.

Now I understand that when you’re traveling across the country to see someone you haven’t seen in 35 years you would be thinking a lot about them and that relationship, but I still wanted more substance to be hinted at. There was a character on the plane, Martha, sitting next to Ginny when the narrative began, and I expected there to be more dialogue between them, a revelation of character and history. After a few paragraphs though Martha goes to have a sleep in a row of empty seats…seems like she found the older Ginny as uninteresting as I did!

The young Ginny did have a quite refreshing and honest voice about her life and family, particularly about the role of women in the 1950s, although I wish that had been explored in more depth. I can’t believe…well, yes I can…although it’s hard…that a mother would cook French toast for one daughter and then pancakes for the other. This was a time before shaker-jacks, when everything had to be made from scratch. Heck! I’d give ‘em both a bowl of cereal and tell ‘em to like it or lump it!

And, ironically, is kind of the whole point of the book. 

Read it if…

You liked Judy Blume. Or if you’re looking for a good, not too challenging weekend read.

Have you ever read...

Well, it had to happen some time. So many books to read, so few people to talk to about how I REALLY feel about them.

You know how it is; you find a book that intrigues you, challenges the way you look at the world, teaches you something new about your culture, your time, your history. Then you lend it to your mum and she says "No. Wasn't my cup of tea, really darling."

Earlier this year I joined a book group through my local library, through which I'm discovering new authors and books I would never have read otherwise. David Ebershoff's The 19th Wife is a classic example...I LOVED it. I'm collecting book recommendations from a few different sources at the moment, some great, others not so great.

And how sucky is that, when someone you respect, whose work you admire, recommends a book that you think is really just awful! Only one thing for it, really.
Sorry, not my cup of tea...