January 21, 2007
Brushing up on my Geography
The best thing about publishing a new book is that when long-time-no-talk friends hear about it, they get back in touch. I recently got a sweet note from Fenton Johnson, with whom I hadn't even e-mailed in ages. Afterward, I had the urge to pick up his 1996 book Geography of the Heart, which is the memoir of his loving -- and then losing to AIDS -- his partner Larry. I hadn't intended to reread the whole book, but once I started, I couldn't stop. It's a marvel -- and a public service -- that Fenton, while never shying from his subject matter's pain, makes the story, in the end, one of luck and life-loving affirmation. It's time to introduce this book to a new generation of readers who may have missed it the first time.
Posted by Michael Lowenthal at 01:51 PM
January 18, 2007
Scandalous
As someone who wrote a novel about . . . well, here goes the waltz of wiggly wording . . . "intergenerational attraction," I am always keen to see how other books and films address the topic. With apologies for not having read Zoe Heller's novel on which the film was based, I want to say how much I liked Notes on a Scandal.
The story turns a number of cliches on their heads. It's the teenager, not the adult, who is the persistent (and insistent) instigator -- and not in a fake writer's-wish-fulfillment way, but in a way that seems utterly true to my experience of teenagers. Also, in this story's triangle of inappropriate fixations, the true predator is 1) a woman, 2) an older woman, 3) a repressed lesbian, 4) obsessive and controlling but clearly not mentally deranged.
Beyond the tightly told and consistently surprising story, the film's performances are all brave and compelling. Judi Dench is unforgettable in her fury and fragility. Cate Blanchett and Andrew Simpson rendered me incapable of believing that their attraction wasn't real. Bill Nighy, when he learns of Blanchett's character's infidelity, unleashes a terrifying torrent of emotion.
Now I'll go track down the novel.
Posted by Michael Lowenthal at 11:50 AM
January 12, 2007
Lucky to be at Lesley
I've just finished my semi-annual teaching residency at the MFA in Creative Writing program at Lesley University: ten days chockablock with workshops, craft seminars, literary comradeship, and -- best of all -- readings by my astonishingly talented colleagues. What a privilege to listen to their stirring, heartening, boundary-pushing work. This session, we heard from:
Carol Otis Hurst, who read from a subtly subversive children's book, based on her father's life, called Rocks in His Head.
Brian Bouldrey, who read from his chattily erudite novel Boom Economy.
Janet Sylvester, who read from a haunting sequence of new poems about her mother's death. Can't wait for these to appear in a new book! Her previous one is The Mark of Flesh.
Rachel Kadish (who shares my famously fantastic editor at Houghton Mifflin, Jane Rosenman), who read from her funny-bone-tickling, brain-plumping new novel Tolstoy Lied: A Love Story.
Rachel Manley, who read my favorite passage from Drumblair: Memories of a Jamaican Girlhood, winner of the 1997 Governor General's Award, Canada's highest literary honor.
Susan Goodman, who read from a children's book that, like all of her many titles, is at least as enjoyable for adults as it is for kids, On This Spot: An Expedition Back Through Time. After you read it, you'll never see Manhattan the same way again.
Hester Kaplan, a sharp-eyed fiction writer who read her first foray into nonfiction, an unforgettable essay about (trust me on this one) her father's eczema, her own psoriasis, and a pig roast! It was made all the more memorable by the presence of her father, Pulitzer Prize winner Justin Kaplan, in the back row. Hester's most recent book is Kinship Theory.
I heartily recommend all of these writers!
Posted by Michael Lowenthal at 10:26 PM
