Little House on the Wide Sargasso Prairie

A Return to Books about Books: Eileen Favorite Unleashes The Heroines on the American Landscape

Thirteen-year-old Penny Entwhistle, in Eileen Favorite’s new novel The Heroines, is growing up in the 1970s American Midwest on a steady diet of Watergate coverage and over-the-top dramatic heroines, from Scarlett O’Hara to Blanche du Bois. For those of us who grew up in similar places and times with similar reading lists, Penny is a familiar figure. One difference: for Penny, the fictional heroines come to weepy, irreverent life and set up residence at her family’s Iowa bed and breakfast, where they proceed to fret and moan and generally make themselves the disconsolate center of attention. In short, they behave like 13-year-olds. Anyone see a parallel here?

Please tell me Rosencrantz and Guildenstern really ARE dead this time.

For those weary of a current influx of literary endeavors where secondary characters take center stage, The Heroines provides a welcome departure. In Favorite’s rendering, the titular heroines, while central to their own stories, take a bucolic backseat to Favorite’s own heroine—especially after a midnight meeting in the woods with a dark stranger and an imprudent mention of the heroines lands Penny in The Unit, a dismal Bell Jar-esque hospital where rebellious and “hysterical” teenage girls are alternately bullied and bribed, albeit with little real success, into conventionally discreet behavior. Fascinating, funny, familiar, and informative—particularly for those being introduced to these literary ladies for the first time—The Heroines is an irreverent and entertaining coming-of-age story and a wonderful paean to the joys and, yes, the foibles of embracing literature and some of its more excessive dramatis personae in our lives. Heroines who make an appearance include: J.D. Salinger’s Franny Glass (of Franny and Zooey), Blanche Du Bois, Scarlett O'Hara, Madame Bovary, Wuthering Heights’ Catherine Earnshaw, and Hester (and Pearl) Prynne, among others. Light-hearted yet thoughtful, The Heroines also makes a great book group choice.

Book About Books, Part Deux

My last entry promised you another book about the power of books, and so I offer you Brock Clarke's darkly humorous, deftly poignant novel, An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England. When habitual bumbler Sam Pulsifer returns from serving a 10-year prison sentence for torching the Emily Dickinson house in Amherst, other famous writers' homes start going up in flames and Sam is the only suspect. Sam's efforts to unravel the mystery lead to a series of comic misadventures that examine the power of literature on our lives. Word of note: If you've ever been in a book group (and even if you haven't), and you don't find Clarke's ruminations on book groups, memoirists, and stoically cynical New England writers funny, well, if you don't find that funny let's just say I'm a little concerned about you. You need to cheer up. Go read the section on Vogon poetry in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Laugh. Please.

If you'd prefer your books about books to be a little less out there, you might enjoy memoirist Julie Powell's Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously. When out-of-work actress and secretarial temp Julie Powell finds her life stuck in a rut, she decides to spice things up by cooking every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking--over the course of 365 wild and flavorful days. Her culinary adventures lead to a blog, the blog leads to a book contract, and the book contract leads to a hilarious and heartfelt homage to good food and the inspiration that can come from one well-loved and much-thumbed-through tome. So, buck up, bloggers, we may have a purpose after all.

Thanks to all of you who shared with me your favorite books about books. I encourage everyone reading to check out Sara F.'s excellent review of House of Leaves on The Birdhouse, and if you know Martha Bayley, be sure and ask her about The Shadow of the Wind. Until next time...

What to read while you're surviving Web 2.0

Yeah, I know I said it, but I have no intention of telling you that. Geez, I could feel my ego swelling like an overfull water balloon even as I wrote that. What I can do is comment on a few things I've read and enjoyed while pushing my Sisyphus' stone of blogging up the internet hill. (Just kidding. It's not that bad.) For now, I'd just like to mention a couple fascinating fiction reads, both books about the power of good old-fashioned books--and not just the words on the page (although those are important), but the book-in-the-hand, the sometimes-musty, jacket-bound artifact that may have belonged to someone before you and that may (or may not) have meant the world to that person.

The first is King Dork, by Frank Portman, in which high schooler Tom Henderson finds a copy of the classic Catcher in the Rye in a box of his deceased father's books. As Tom sets out to learn about his father from his father's books, he finds himself enmeshed in a series of mysteries that may help him understand more about his relationship with his father—or maybe they'll just provide the key to attracting hot girls. A wonderfully funny homage to high school, rock and roll, and—somewhat ironically—The Catcher in the Rye, King Dork is heartfelt and sometimes cynical—but always honest.

For the second... well, you'll have to wait for my next post, because I'm bushed and it's dinner time. Better yet, reply to this post with your favorite books about books.