Something Nasty in the Nursery: Gothic Children's Fiction

The books we loved and cherished as kids say a lot about us as adults.  Any grown woman who remembers Ramona Quimby or Katie John fondly probably has an independent streak.  The boys who grew up reading Robert A. Heinlein's Science Fiction for kids grew up to be men with an interest in science.  But what do you say to the kids who fell for The Graveyard Book, Lemony Snicket's series and The Mysterious Benedict Society?  Welcome to the World of Gothic Literature, kiddies; your crypt is right this way?

I hope not because Gothic doesn't always equate to horror or an obsession with death.  What it promises is a spooky atmosphere where anything could happen.  The decrepit old cottage may turn out to be as wholesome as milk, the confining hills may be nothing but hills, but at first glance, every setting borders on the extreme.  The castle isn't a castle, but a ruin, the land isn't boggy and cold, it's a moor where you might get stuck and sink to your doom.  Doom is a big concept in Gothic Lit. as is the idea of all things extreme.  The heroes are usually resourceful and brave, their adventures are perilous and great and the villains....oh, the villains are the best in the world.  They're smart and evil and deliciously mean...Voldemort and Hannibal Lecter level mean.

Okay, so why do kids and former kids enjoy these quirky stories so much?  First, because they seem (to us) so old fashioned.  The genre is about 250 years old, not as decrepit as other categories of literature, but to us, it seems downright quaint. A gothic story can kick up shades of the past without a bustle or hairpin in sight.  And because these are old-fashioned stories, we half-way know what to expect.

These are the stories from our old nursery rhymes where girls with curls can be very, very good or they might be completely horrid. Gone is the modern preoccupation with ennui and moral ambiguity. Whether characters in Gothic tales are "good" or "bad", they are who they are with a vengeance.  And we appreciate that, especially when we are young.

So we love the extremes, we love the fantastic atmosphere and we love the clarity in the characters.  Does that make it a good choice for bedtime reading?  I'd say that depends on the kid.  Like every other literary genre, this one has its fans and its foes.  Give it to the child with too little interest and you'll end up with a bored, angry kid.  If you give it to the one with too much imagination, be prepared for a few nightmares.  But don't be surprised if even the nightmare sufferer clamours for more of these thrilling, atmospheric books.  Whatever else you can say about "Goth", the stories are fun to read.

The Deep End of the POV

Ever wonder what makes a book a bonafide page-turner?  God knows I have.  I pick up a book for a bit of pleasure reading and all of the sudden I'm in the story, oblivious to deadlines, ringing phones, and my overloaded washer's current attempt to escape.  Nothing else matters beyond What Happens Next and I'm useless until I finish the story. How did this happen? How was my attention captured so completely? Instead of  reading the book, it felt more like I was living the story. Did the writer cast a spell over me? No, but it's likely the writer used a technique called "Deep P.O.V."

P. O. V.  is the story's point of view, the perspective of the narrator.  That can be the unseen, omniscient third person narrator (like God is telling the story); first person narration (e.g. "Call me Ishmael") or, if the author is very good and ambitious, second person narrator (second person is very in-your-face and tricky to sustain unless the writer is incredibly skilled like Margaret Atwood, Jay McInerney, or Robert Penn Warren).  The voice of the narrator telling the story acts as a buffer between the reader and characters so the less you can hear of the narrator's voice, the closer you get to the characters, and the more likely you'll get emotionally involved with them.

For an example of immediate Deep P.O.V, look at the first lines of Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games:

"When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. My fingers stretch out, seeking Prim's warmth but finding only the rough canvas cover of the matteress. She must have had bad dreams and climbed in with our mother.  Of course, she did. This is the day of the reaping." 

Immediately, we are in the narrator's head, sensing the cold and the canvas she feels.  And, without being "told", we know so much more. From the temperature and the mattress cover, we can infer this is a hand-to-mouth household. Families who can afford sheets and heating bills don't have their kids sharing a canvas mattress in order to stay warm. We also know Prim is the narrator's sister and Prim sometimes suffers from bad dreams. Finally, we know "the reaping" can bring on nightmares.

Now compare this with one of the most famous opening paragraphs in English Literature.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters."

No sense of physical stimuli here; we get opinion and perspective instead. We're told of a place completely preoccupied with money and marriage.  We also get the impression the narrator thinks this is a ridiculous idea.  A well-modulated voice narrates the story of Pride and Prejudice with dry wit and good humor, letting you know his or her opinion without explicitly stating it.  P&P doesn't pull the reader under, as The Hunger Games does, but the extra layer of distanced narrative gives it a richer, more nuanced perspective.  

Which is better?  That depends on the story, or even what point the story is at.  A story can  decrease the narrative distance during crisis points, which increases the tension and urgency, then re-establish the distance again, once the crisis has passed.  The point is, the success (or failure) of a story often depends on how it's told.  Next time you find yourself getting involved in a story, mentally backup (if you can) and check the language.  Is it written in present tense, with the minimum of emotional signposts (verbs like thought, decided, believed, said) and lots of sensory cues, you'll know why you are getting pulled under.  You're in the Deep End of the POV.

Praising the Books that Chronicle Life.

My mom used to divide her library into sections. Lots of space was dedicated to fiction and the sturdiest shelves held her coffee-table sized books on the movies.  But one special part of the library was devoted to chronicles of everyday life, virtually all of them written by women.  Some also wrote Kid Lit. or humor like Jean Kerr and Judith Viorst while others wrote novels or plays but every book on that shelf was what I called a "Domestic Chronicle"; an account of  everyday life.  If those books sounded boring, they weren't.  All of them were clear-eyed observations on a  fascinating, multi-faceted worlds. usually recorded with dry wit.  These books had a remarkable effect on the reader. Novels might be read for excitement or entertainment and non-fiction for excitement or knowledge but domestic chronicles could appease the soul.  So my question is, where are the books of this genre today?

According to my mom, the best writer in this genre was Gladys Taber, author of the Stillmeadow series.  In book after book, Ms. Taber recorded life at her New England farmhouse, Stillmeadow.  She was not a farmer or a New England Yankee from birth so her stories deal with learning to live in a place like Stillmeadow, a 300-year-old farmhouse with neighbors whose families had been there almost as long. Some of her "Country Living" experiences were good, some were bad and a few were downright painful but all of her stories made you feel at home like you were as much a part of the Stillmeadow life as the tea kettle or a shelf of preserves. Mom loved to read almost anything but she always seemed more serene after reading those Stillmeadow books.  I couldn't wait to grow up and find the domestic chroniclers that would speak to me on such a basic level.

It took awhile but when a friend introduced me to John Chancellor Makes Me Cry, it was like meeting a BFF or getting the keys to the kingdom.  This was an introduction to everyday life in the "New South", where the women who were raised to join Junior League, ran businesses and corporate departments instead but still cherished their domestic life.  Everything was here, from those who still lived on the land to the god-awful traffic on Peachtree; from blizzards and tornados and the fear of a lost job through coastal vacations, Christmas, and the rococo radiance of Spring in North Atlanta.  For years, JCMMC, has been the book I run to when I felt like a stranger to my life and I needed serenity in my soul.  But books like these are few and far between


Which brings me to something I thought I'd never see again, a new(er) book about everyday life.  My Southern Journey is a collection of Rick Bragg's essays about life in the American South.  His is not the same South in JCMMC; life's been harder on Mr. Bragg's family.  But there is still that bone-deep sweetness that comes with knowing a place and its people so completely, of a life measured in years and seasons instead of moments.  And, in writing about what he knows best, Rick Bragg touches the bits of life we all love.  Damn few of us will be whisked away to a haunted English estate but who doesn't know about the post-dinner catnap that feels like the best sleep in the world?

There are books on cooking and beautifying the home and books about people overcoming dreadful obstacles.  There is also, of course, a universe of novels but there are too few volumes that deal with everyday life, the fact (not the art) of living.  These are the stories we can identify with, the ones that really speak to the human heart.  They're the Chronicles of Life.

If there are books on everyday life that you love or would like to suggest, please tell me in the comments below!

The Art of Improving a Story.

It's no secret that I love to tell stories.  The fact is when I'm out with friends I sometimes have to shut myself up; if I don't, I'll dominate the conversation with stories and they won't be my friends anymore.  But, as much as  I love reeling off  anecdotes, I'm not that sure I can tell one well. For that, I need the crew at Arc Stories.

Arc Stories is a group of top-notch raconteurs who help amateurs (like me) tell the stories of their lives. I've been envious of every person they ever put behind a microphone and for years I've been working up the nerve to pitch a story to them. I finally sent in an idea this fall and got a call back from one of the coaches.   Send me the full story, he said.

Writing isn't that easy for me, especially when the material is personal. I wrote, rewrote and rewrote my tale, choking up when some memories came back. Once I dried my eyes, I sent it off, wondering what the coach would think of my draft.  He thought it needed work.

My mentor was extremely kind and polite but he pointed out a big flaw in my narrative.  It had one of the underlying themes we hear all through December. Not a bad message but definitely not original. Closer to a cliche.

Now, even kind, honest criticism can be hard to take (like medicine) but both are meant to make the subject better and the subject here was the story, not my ego. Talking with him showed me a fresher angle of approach so I rehammered out the story.  Same difficult memories, same catch in the throat, the same deliberation over every sentence.  When this draft was finished, I knew it was better and was happy to send it in.  Then the producer called.

Yes, the story isn't bad (she said) but this time I'd left out the stakes. Why was what happened so important to me at the time?  What unknown outcome might keep people interested?  Please rewrite it again.

Of course, the producer was right but I wasn't sure I had another rewrite in me or if I could face the material again.  And I knew that even with this rewrite, they might still turn me down.  On the other hand, if I quit at this point, they would definitely reject the story.  I grabbed the tissues and sat down for one more try.

All of this is to tell you what I've learned and add a small announcement.  First off, when it comes to revision, nothing is more important than improving what's already there. Not an overly sensitive ego, or the previous work, or the angst that went into each sentence. Revision gives stories necessary structure and if that means rebuilding the whole thing from scratch, then that's what you do.  My finished story is a lot better than the first draft I sent.  And on Friday, you can judge for yourself.

   

Unless something unforeseen and terrible happens this is where I'll be on Friday evening, probably overwhelmed by stage-fright.  If you're interested but you can't be there, they issue podcasts of their broadcasts.  (So if I'm really bad, you can hear me mess up over and over and over!) No matter what happens, I'll always be grateful for what I've already learned from those wonderful people at Arc Stories.  They've taught me something of what it takes to improve a story.

The Best and Worst of Times

Have you ever seen an abused or neglected pet?  A creature that nobody loved?  They huddle at the corners of our towns and houses, too frightened to approach us for help.  Have you watched them with their matted coats and terrified eyes, keeping their distance on unsteady feet?  If you have, you've seen Ada Smith, the narrator of The War That Saved My Life.

Of course Ada isn't a dog or a horse; she's a girl, somewhere around ten. Ada doesn't know what age she is because she doesn't know her birthday.  Ada doesn't know how to read, or write, or even walk very well. She has a club foot and is never allowed to leave her Mam's one-room London flat. Ada's only real connection to the world outside is her little brother, Jaime. When Mam says Jaime's being sent to the country because Hitler is going to bomb London, Ada decides to follow her brother.  In the process, she becomes one of the few English children who could thank Germany for starting a war.

Over 800,000 children were evacuated from England's city centers during "Operation Pied Piper". Some of them were relocated overseas but the majority were resettled in rural England; all were separated from places and people they knew. It was an emotionally devastating policy that put much of Britain's future in the hands of unqualified, under-prepared strangers and some evacuees found the poor treatment Ada expects.  What she and Jaime encounter is, for them, more challenging: a reluctant host who treats them well.

What follows is a remarkable exercise in unreliable narration on Ada's part.  From birth she's been raised on two articles of faith: that mothers love children and she is a monster. When Susan, the woman who shelters them, describes herself "as not a nice person" Ada accepts that as well.  The problems come from reconciling her beliefs with the facts.

"She was not a nice person, but she cleaned up the floor. She was not a nice person, but she bandaged my foot... and gave us two of her own clean shirts to wear...Miss Smith was not a nice person, but the bed she put us in was soft and clean, with smooth thin blankets and warm thicker ones."

This is Ada's first experience with sheets (the smooth thin blankets), good food, and regular baths as well as grown ups that think well of her.  Like an abused or feral animal she shies away from kindness and anticipates abuse as her due. She can barely begun to respond to this kinder, rural world of peace when the War comes roaring back in.

The greatest blessing of historical fiction is how it connects us to remote events and animates them through the eyes of the story.  Some sixth graders may have heard of World War II and a few of those may have heard of Dunkirk but this book helps them understand it by seeing it through the eyes of Ada.  Here we see not the tired-but-cheerful soldiers that animated the newsreels but the barely controlled panic of a sea-side village deluged with the wounded and dying.  The war becomes as real a threat as Ada's abusive parent and the lessons she learns in fighting one aid her battle with the other.

I love historical fiction and kid lit but seldom have I seen one book shine in both genres. The War that Saved My Life is a brilliant exception.  It deserves every award it got.  Read it, share it, talk about it with kids and when you see a victim of abuse, remember you're looking at Ada.

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Bringing in The Leaves

I’ve been thinking about the phrase “Apres Moi, le deluge.”  It means, roughly, “After I go, everything’s coming down” and if everything refers to leaves, the "deluge” is lugin’ .  It’s amazing.  I mean, if deciduous trees were water, my address would be “Alabama River". Now this front's blowing in and my river of leaves has turned into Niagra Falls. Why send me more foliage to rake away, God?  Don't I have enough to clean up already?

Luckily, I’ve been a rake warrior for most of my life.  My hometown was blessed with a ton of elm trees and every fall brought the Battle of Leaves, where each family’s goal was to get those discarded solar panels of photosynthesis off of the grass and over the curb before rain and time glued them to the earth.  There was an undeclared neighborhood competition for the cleanest autumn yard and ours usually came in dead last.  Oh, my mother, sister and I would comb leaves from the  of crabgrass, but our lawn never looked better than “lived in”.  

The best lawn on the street was next to ours, an unsullied, emerald crew-cut of grass that was perfect because our neighbor lady removed each leaf as it fell to earth, picking them up with two fingers and placing them in one of the garbage cans she washed out every other week.  Although her behavior seemed silly to me at the time, I think I understand it a bit better now and not just for health-related reasons.  In tidying her yard, our neighbor was caring for the smidge of earth she recognized as “home” and that care was an overt act of love.

As children, we learn to store away our toys before sleep.  The practice saves toys (and bare feet) from mishaps in the night and the toys can be found the next day. By removing the fallen leaves, my neighbor was preparing her yard for its annual nap.  While daylight was waning, birds were boarding their migratory flights and other mammals were settling down for their sleep, she was scooping up those last souvenirs of summer – the leaves – and preparing her lawn for the winter season so nothing could obscure the sunlight when it shone on new grass in the spring. 

Some more summer to clear away before sleep

It’s a wonderful act of symbiosis to care for the land that nurtures and shelters us in return.  So I rake my leaves and tidy the yard, like a parent straightening the toys and bed covers in a beloved child’s nursery.  Once my yard's bedtime preparations of late autumn are finished (which include multiple requests for water but no reading aloud) it will settle into its season of somnolence.  Then, I’ll go back in the house, we’ll all snuggle down and dream dreams of warmth till the Spring.

How the Other Half Lives

There's something in humanity that makes us split ourselves into groups, don't ask me why. Yesterday, people in my state split into groups for a football rivalry that sometimes resembles a blood feud. When we're not divided over sports teams, we split apart over divisions like politics, gender, or income.  And too many of us still divide into groups based on ethnic background and/or  skin color. Those divisions still run so deep populations coexist side-by-side as strangers, wondering how the other half lives but too afraid to reach out.

Then someone like Randi Pink comes along, brave enough to speak the truth.  That's what she does in her debut Young Adult novel, Into White.   It's the story of LaToya Williams who calls herself Toya; a black girl in a mostly-white high school. This kid knows a lot about alienation and fear. It's not bad enough to be treated like the Invisible Girl by a fair percentage of the students and teachers. It's not just anxiety about her parents' marriage.  When one of the few grounded black students picks on her, Toya utters the same prayer every miserable teenager has made: "Please turn me into somebody different."  The kick is, her prayer is heard.  When she wakes up, Toya is white.

Randi Pink

To everyone outside of her loving, flawed family, Toya now looks like she has Nordic ancestry and right away she sees some changes. Pants fit a bit better, some teachers are nicer and she's no longer Invisible Girl. On the other hand, visibility means becoming a target of those who never saw her before. The "popular girls" praise and then undercut her, suggesting she's fat because she wears a size 6.  (For the record, a size 6 is small, but that's another thing Ms. Pink gets right. In the world of competitive, adolescent, mean girls, it's good to be thin and popular but no one is ever good enough.) And some who knew Toya when she was black now react to her with mistrust.  In other words, it can suck to be white as well.

Any writer good enough to carry the title can develop a nuanced hero or villain, but an author's true talent shows in creating interesting minor characters. Through exposition and suggestion, Ms. Pink deftly sketches a secondary antagonist named Aunt Evilyn and then illuminates the lady in a small but key scene.  In the family, Toya's aunt may be tactless and bossy but there's a whisper of scars in her untold back story.  In defending her aunt, Toya finds the voice that will carry her into the future (which is good). I want to learn more about Evilyn and her past.

In her TED talk, Ms. Pink talks of how we limit ourselves by fear and how confronting fear helps us transcend those limits. Perhaps that same fear is why we wall ourselves into groups.  If so, a courageous voice can knock holes in those walls.

InSantaTy

In the South, we like to decorate for the holidays.  All the holidays.  This is where I first saw an Easter-Egg tree and specialized autumn decor for September, October, and November.  Of course, nothing competes with December and its holiday season.  People began opening boxes and stringing lights down here before their Thanksgiving dinners were completely digested.  So when my friend, Edna said her badly injured back might keep her from putting out her "Santa Collection" I said I'd be glad to help.  I had no idea she suffered from In-Santa-Cy.

I walked into a house that, during Decembers, shelters two people, some plants, and approximately a thousand Santas.  My poor friend lay bound the couch by her TENS unit while her niece, Tanya, had been emptying a treasure trove of Santas from stacks of storage boxes  Santas made of wood, paper, plaster, and metal. Santa's image imprinted on cloth.  Seriously, I don't remember seeing this many images of Father Christmas when I went to Santa's Workshop as a child.  

Don't get excited folks; these are just the coffee-table Santas!

Kris Kringle was on everything: Santa towels, Santa spoon rests, Santa cups and hundreds of Santa statues.  I gulped a little and said, "Where can I help?" and was sent off to the library.

The book room played host the "Historical Santas", statues of St. Nick from various countries made in different years.  There was a whole carton of international Santas and it took awhile to unpack and arrange them. I didn't begin to photograph them all.

Who needs books, when you can shelve Santa?

It the exception of Brazil, we're looking at a NATO of Santas

Good luck reaching a book before New Years!

Not my fault, this trio of Santas all moved
the moment I took the picture!

Hours later the house was bursting with Santas, there were still more boxes to unpack and I was seeing Edna in a different light.   What had turned this sweet, sane little woman into a full-fledged Santa groupie?

Another group of Kris Kringles, complete with holiday mouse.

She laughed saying her son called it her "InSantaty".   Some of these images are souvenirs, some are gifts and others come from crafts she made with her children.  In other words, Santa is more than her ambassador of Christmas, he's a talisman of memory.  Given Edna's generous, sweet nature, I suspect he's her role model too.  As far as role models go, she could go far and do worse.

So I went home to my husband and thought about our collection of 10,000 books, a few toys and some Wind-In-The-Willows figurines (4 moles, 2 water rats, 1 badger, 0 toads).  Yes, one person's collectibles are another's waste of time and money and, like most things, extreme collecting can be bad for the health.  But what someone collects says something about who they are and I can think of few characters more benevolent than Santa Claus.  So, in the interest of kindness and Peace on Earth, perhaps we could all use a touch of InSantaty.

The Real Kings of Broadway

Thanksgiving is celebrated all over the US but most Americans start out their day in New York City. Virtually, that is.  Long before the turkey comes out of the oven, Americans are in front of their TVs, staring at Macy's famous parade.  Some watch it for the tradition, some tune in for the bands, and lots of kids can't wait for the balloons but I watch the parade to see Broadway.  Before the main event kicks off, actors perform excerpts from currently running shows.  The stars seem like the kings of Broadway.

But are they?  Actors are the most visible part of theatre but how much power do they really wield in Times Square?  Very few, it seems.  Behind them are the financial and creative engineers behind every show: the writers, directors and composers but even they can be hired and fired.  Behind them are those that can make a show work and invest the money needed for the show to open: the legendary Broadway Producers.  Do you think Producers are the ultimate in show-biz power?  According to Michael Riedel, there's still one group that's higher.

No matter how good it is, no show can open on Broadway, unless it's booked into a theater and the cadre of people who own and run the theaters on Broadway should really be considered the ultimate power-players in their field.  Riedel's book, Razzle Dazzle is an amazing account of these show-business moguls and the impact they've had on our culture.

Enter, the Schubert Brothers, Sam, Lee, and Jacob, who ran theaters in upstate New York before 1900. With the change of the century, they moved to NYC and bought or built theaters across the country and filled them with shows people wanted to see. More than 100 years later, if you look at the current list of Broadway theaters, the Schubert organization owns 17 of the 41 buildings. Book good shows into those theaters and watch the money flow into the box-office; even if the biggest profits are "ice".

Ice are the profits that come from reselling tickets.  The box-office employee sells blocks of these for a bribe.  Then employees of the theatre or the production company sell the tickets they get as an employment perk and pocket the difference.  The ticket scalpers resell what they got for hugely inflated prices and keep the unearned, untaxed income.  The people who invest funds and talent into the show don't make a dime from this revenue based on their work and the audience dwindles because of the high cost of tickets.  A 1960's investigation began to curtail some of the Ice, but it's still a huge problem: this year the creator of the hit musical, Hamilton, begged the legislature to pass a law stopping computer software "bots" from continuing the practice.

Riedel

The Schubert and the Niederlander (who own 7 theaters) organizations helped create decades of show-biz legends as they saw their business rise, fall and rise again.  There are the good stories, like how Chorus Line brought people back to the theater when NYC itself was bankrupt and there are bad tales, like Dorothy Loudon threatening a kid. (" If you make one move on any of my laugh lines, you will not live to see the curtain call.")

Gossipy, gregarious, and suckers for razzle-dazzle, we're all suckers for Broadway and why not?  It's the New York out-of-towners all want to know and as American as Pumpkin Pie and Thanksgiving.

A Date That's Hard to Forget

Our cultural memory is built around a series of events that resound in our collective memory.  Some of these are good like the date man first walked on the moon, but many are terrible to recall.  Yet we recall them when each anniversary comes around and remember where we were when "it" happened. For my Dad, his first "It" date was December 7, 1941.  His childhood memories were divided by the day he went fishing and came home to a country at war.   For me and a lot of other Baby Boomers, our first "It" day is today.  November 22, 1963.  President Kennedy's assassination threw such a big rock in our river of memory that the ripples hit our personal lives.  

Those ripples are one of the big themes in the King novel titled with that date.  In a way, it's a normal time-travel tale: a man goes back in time to prevent something bad and finds out success can breed a bigger failure.  In another way, it's much more than that; it's a tour of history and a trip through a human heart.

King's research in story tale showed me I don't know very much about the event I'll probably remember for the rest of my life.  Yes, I remember my mother crying uncontrollably when the president was shot and how so many grown-ups around me hated, just hated he'd been killed in our state, Texas.  But I didn't know the assassination probably wasn't Oswald's first attempt; seven months earlier, a retired army general had been shot at in his home and evidence indicates Oswald pulled the trigger. That information suggests something in Oswald's motive to me: he was killed people for fame, not politics.  The segregationist/arch-conservative views of the general were the opposite of Kennedy's liberal ideals.  Oswald wouldn't have targeted both men because of their deeds; they were political opposites.  What the victims had in common was their celebrity status which makes Oswald like Mark David Chapman: someone so determined to be remembered, they'll kill to get into history.

11/22/63 also looks at how America has changed in fifty plus years and how we've stayed the same. Our wage rates and prices may change but our attitudes towards these don't.  There are still good people and bad ones and a lot of souls caught in between.  We all know we live in a global economy but we tend to look at the world through home-town glasses.  We still root for the hero and cry when he loses.  We still get up again after we fall. And, like every generation before or since, there are dates we will never forget.