Book Review: The Promise Between Us

I first heard about this book when I attended a LitChat on twitter in January. Author Barbara Claypole White spoke about her inspiration for this novel: Can you be a good mother if you abandoned your baby?

The novel rotates between five narrators and tells a story about a young girl with OCD and the complicated family of flawed adults who put aside what they want in order to do what's best for her.

I love flawed characters and I love stories told with alternating POV. Claypole White's novel tackles the stigma that still surrounds mental illness, which (along with access to health insurance) can be one of the obstacles to getting treatment.

Incidentally, I liked how this book included the character's financial concerns. It seems like so many authors gloss over this issue, which makes for totally unrelatable stories, in my opinion.

As a writer of women's fiction, I appreciated her definition:

"Technically I write WF, yes, because I'm writing emotionally layered stories. . . WF is about the protag's emotional journey. Some argue protag has to be female: I disagree."

I'll be participating in my own LitChat on twitter February 26th when I will be interviewed by author Mary Vensel White.

WF is about the protag's emotional journey. Some argue protag has to be female: i disagree

WF is about the protag's emotional journey. Some argue protag has to be female: i disagree."

Book Review: All Systems Down

So I'm a slow reader and this is not the genre I typically read, but I blew through this is a little over two days. In All Systems Down, a cyber attack cripples America, and a group of strangers comes together to fight back.

On one level, it's just a lot of fun. It's edge of your seat, heart-pounding, cinematic entertainment. That level would be enough to recommend it, but I'm happy to say there's a deeper level.

The pacing is perfect, the dialogue is spot on, the writing itself is beautiful. It becomes clear early on that this writer knows what he's doing. This doesn't read like a debut. Boush is talented.

The cast of characters is ethnically diverse without making an issue of it. They challenge stereotypes; the female pilot and fierce mother are only two of the strong women who make up this story. There's a character who seems to be on the Autism spectrum, though it's never explained quite that way and the reader finds herself questioning who decides what behavior is "normal."

The story is told in alternating first-person narratives and the reader gets to know and care for each of these original characters deeply. What this story says about human nature is sort of heart-breaking: we're our own worst enemies. When the nation is under attack, the lawlessness of fellow citizens becomes one of the greatest threats.

A few chapters in, I began worrying about whether I have stored enough emergency water. This is a cautionary tale that seems so plausible, it will haunt you.

I enjoyed every moment of this fast-paced read and look forward to the next novel.

Here's my interview with Sam Boush for Today'sAuthor.

Sex in Literary Fiction 4

Here's my last example for this discussion:

"Have you been good?" she asked me.
I nodded. This would help. "I've been very good," I answered chastely.
She smiled and shrugged out of her utilitarian underwear. For some reason, when making love to my wife, I liked to retreat to a little boy persona and often came within ten seconds whenever she started cooing that I was a "good boy." "Good boy," she would whisper, as I thrust and pumped on top of her (or behind her, or underneath; Elaine was as cheerful as a cheerleader about assuming whatever position I wanted). 'Good boy," she would murmur into my hair. "Good boy." And she would sigh and draw a finger down my back.
"I want to be a good boy, I want to be a good boy. Which was true, which was all I'd ever wanted.
"Help me to be good," I would beg her. "Please, please, help me-" And then blast; it was over.
But tonight, after she'd sat astride me for all of five minutes, I considered attempting to fake it- did she really have to know?- and then to my surprise I sputtered out a small orgasm; satisfied, my wife climbed off me. She and I made love like the sexual revolution had never happened; my satisfaction supported her sense of herself as a woman, and even if only one of us came (that would be me), we could usually both go to sleep content. 

That's a scene from Laura Grodstein's A Friend of the Family. I'm impressed that a woman can so believably write this scene as a male narrator. I think this scene is great for the added dimension it gives of this control-freak narrator and the submissive dynamic he plays in bed which is the opposite of how his relationship with his wife plays out through the rest of the book. It's telling too, that his wife gets reassurance from his climax and neither one of them is concerned about hers. This is reflective of his character, and foreboding for their marriage.

The thing about each of these scenes that separates them from erotica is that they're not designed to titillate. It's fine if they do, but that isn't their purpose. Whatever graphic details exist are there for believability. These scenes give us a deeper understanding of who these characters are, and when a novel's main focus is the romantic relationship between two people, the sex is an essential part.

(To start this  series from the beginning, click here.)

Sex in Literary Fiction 3

This topic has become a series, I guess. I wanted to include a female narrator. Here's a passage from Sue Miller's The Senator's Wife:

"Upstairs they stand on opposite sides of the bed and move quickly out of their clothes. Meri crawls across the coverlet to Nathan. She lies down on her side, looking up at him, opening her knees as he reaches for her.
The air from the open window is cool, but Nathan's body is warm, he radiates heat. He's hard, and she reaches down to help him, to shift him into place. She feels a kind of relief as he enters her. This is what she wants. This is the way she feels honest with him, safe. Here, she thinks. Yes. As he begins to move in her, she whispers it: "Yes. Yes!"
They make love quickly, fueled by his urgency, and when he comes, Nathan cries out so loudly that Meri can imagine someone on the sidewalk below stopping, listening under the darkening trees." 

This time we have a couple of newlyweds and despite the somewhat titillating language, there's so much more than sex here. It's such a great example of the advice every writer has drilled into them: "SHOW; don't tell." It could take pages for Miller to tell us what she has in just three paragraphs. Coupled with the revelation from a few pages before, that Meri thinks they're an unlikely pair that ended up together because of the sex, this scene provides something necessary. To leave it out, or "fade to black", would be a cop out.

Sex in Literary Fiction 2

In my last blog, I promised an example of a sex scene from a literary novel that I think is done well. Here's an excerpt from Michael Cunningham's By Nightfall:

"He puts his lips to her left nipple, flicks it with his tongue. She murmurs. It's become singular, his mouth on her breast and her response to it, the exhaled murmur, the miniature seizure he can feel along her body, as if she can't quite believe that this, this, is happening again. He has a hard-on now. He can't always tell, he doesn't really care, when he's excited on his own and when he's excited because she is. She clutches his back, she can't reach his ass anymore, he loves it that she likes his ass. He circles her stiffening nipple with his tongue-tip, taps the other one lightly with a finger. Tonight it will be mainly about getting her off. This often happens, has for years--it reveals its form, on any given night (when did they last fuck anyplace but at night, in bed?), usually decided up front, by who kisses whom. This one's for her, then. That's the sexiness of it."

The scene goes on. It's actually about three pages towards the very beginning of the story and I think it does a great job of establishing who these characters are and their relationship to each other. There is a routine to their passion, but you get the sense that the intimacy is no less enjoyable for the familiarity. It will be important later for the reader to understand the intricacies of this long-married couple's love for one another and Cunningham has found a way to encapsulate it in three pages, right from the beginning. I think he manages to be graphic without being gratuitous.

But that's just my opinion. What do you think?

Sex in Literary Fiction

I recently read an article about how difficult it is to find quality sex scenes depicted in literary fiction. The argument is that the absence feels pretty conspicuous in a genre that prides itself on laying bare the internal mysteries of character. The author of the article suggests the lack may come down to simple embarrassment, in light of things like the annual Bad Sex Review, run by Britain's Literary Review.

As a writer myself, I'd say there are two main concerns when writing sex into my story. The first is: What will my family and friends think? As much as sex is a big part of human experience, it still doesn't get discussed in realistic terms even in some of our closest relationships. This is what makes it such great territory for a writer to reveal intimate parts of their character's nature, but it remains taboo. When I sent my dad a copy of my first novel, Monsoon Season, I blacked out all the naughty bits and in the margin I wrote: "REDACTED."

The second major concern for writers including sex in our books is: Is it gratuitous? We've all heard that "sex sells" and we don't want to be seen as using sex to transform an otherwise uninteresting story into a page-turner. Frankly, many of us don't want our work dismissed as a Fifty Shades knock off when we're trying to write something of literary value. But the "fade to black" approach can feel a bit cowardly.

It's a tricky balance. I notice when it's done well and think Michael Cunningham, Sue Miller and Lauren Grodstein get it right. Perhaps I will locate some of their well-written passages for my next blog.