Clever Little Title (Actually the book I've been Thinking About)

Okay, so I’m trying this again, hoping to get it into the main index....I’m so inept!

Yes, my clever little title as requested. Not clever at all. But in response to Debra’s post, I’d have to say that the book I keep thinking about is Dwelling Places. I’ve given my copy to my colleague who teaches farm literature. I’ll let you know what he thinks later on. I’ve been trying to find time to read the rest of her novels, the other books I picked up during the seminar, and Al Haley’s books, but the press of the semester is killing me. I just finished writing a 35 page grant to fund a year of leave for myself for thinking and time to write. We’ll see. But I couldn’t help being struck by the thought that here was this huge pile of paper that bascially toots my own horn--yes, I’m great and promising and fastastic; give me money! But all the while, I kept thinking of Vinita’s farm family, losing everything but each other and nearly losing that along the way. Karen has told me lately that she is drawn to people with simple faith, who meet tragedy and loss without a huge overblown intellectual sturm und drang. Simple faith. I’ve been thinking about that and the way it sort of winds around the narrative in Dwelling Places. I wonder if the appearance of the gothic is actually those moments when simplicity doesn’t help wend the way though the morass of pain. But then in the end, those gothic and dark moments of not knowing and not understanding are conquered by love and family witnessed in the scene of the family sitting on top of the graves in the beauty of the evening.

I’ve been thinking of doing an article on these novels eventually. And who knows, if I could convince Legacy to publish it, that means people who teach the literature of women writers might just pick one of those novels up for use in a class. It might help sales. Who knows? We’ll see, I’ve four articles out at journals now, waiting to hear if I need to do revisions, so it might be down the road.

I think Dwelling Places is my book of the year.

I can’t seem to get spell check to work--argh.

Joonna