Lilian Nattel

I’m not sure why it’s called a crack, it’s more of a creeping, the sky dark and then less dark, a blush of pink. I know that’s a cliche but for a good reason if you think about the makeup brush applied across a cheek. Whereas “crack” makes one think of another sort of cheek and that is not a pretty thought at all. At least not to a middle-aged mom such as myself.

Back to dawn and why I rose before it: my younger child is off on a class ski trip today and was required to be at her school at the ungodly hour of 7:00 am. I am absolutely sure it’s ungodly as any sensible sovereign of the universe would be sleeping the sleep of the just, which is why you can observe so much injustice in the world, particularly when it’s night.

Since I’m silly headed on lack of sleep, I decided to do something both pleasurable and easy, and prepare for my interview later this week by listening to Shelagh Rogers interview other authors on CBC radio’s The Next Chapter. If you click on the link you can hear Ami McKay talk about The Virgin Cures (how her great-grandmother inspired her to write a story about a woman doctor treating child prostitutes in 1870′s NY) or Patrick Dewitt on The Sisters Brothers (why he wrote a western/historical novel though he neither reads nor particularly likes either genre).

Have fun and I’ll let you know when my interview airs!

Water Buffalo Picture – Vietnam Photo – National Geographic Photo of the Day.

I’m in my usual writing outfit: old grey sweatpants, old green tanktop, and terry bathrobe. But I know that it isn’t a writing day. For one thing I’m too revved up for interviews to settle into the interiority that writing requires. And it’s a PA day.

Normally I’d be taking my kids out somewhere–we’d planned on the museum. But I’m stuck at home waiting for the carpet cleaners who are due to arrive sometime between 1 and 3. Yes, we have new tenants coming (again). So in the weeks leading up to my pub date, which coincides with the new tenants’ arrival, I’ve had to fit being a landlady in with being a writer and a mom.

When I was 15, I imagined myself as a writer with 4 kids and a husband who’d take an equal part in raising kids. The funny thing is that my dream has come true in essence, though with some modifications–fewer kids, but A cooks and there’s the landlady thing. All in all, it’s a good deal.

The only significant wrinkle, really, is that menopause presents an additional wardrobe challenge. While planning for interviews and readings, I have to make sure that I’ve got the right combination of layers. Some of you will know exactly what I mean. For the rest of you, I’ll just say: stock up on tank tops.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

A close friend of mine who read Beth’s review of Web of Angels, said, “She writes like music.” It’s true–Beth’s writing, both in her blog and her books is gorgeous, as truthful and beautiful as Beth’s heart. And so I am honoured, heartened, and thrilled by Beth’s reflections on my own book:

I was stunned by the opening lines. I thought I knew Lilian Nattel. But new books teach us new things about a writer’s powers.

I have never read a book like this one. You haven’t either. It’s brave, unblinking, categorically generous despite a most heartbreaking subject matter….It’s not just the first page of this book that is so beautifully written. It’s every page.

Full review here. It’s one to treasure.

It’s Valentine’s Day, the day of love–and so I have to ask: do you love your toes, your eyes, your brows, your butt, your belly, your intestines, your femors, your ribcage, your waist, your spleen, your skin (which in some kids’ lexicon refers as well to chesty bits)?

What about your creativity–that’s not too bad, eh? Or your kindness? Your laughter? Oh, but how about your anger, your unreasoning terrors, your regret, your whininess?

This Valentine’s Day, let’s spread the love around, not only to the cute, but to all parts, physical, mental or emotional. I suspect that’s what we all want from each other: to be wholly accepted and embraced.

And it’s possible. I’ve seen it, for example, in the instance of people with DID (dissociative identity disorder aka multiple personalities) who are able to love a singleton even though singletons are so different–being strangely deluded that they are consistent. I mean as if! Doesn’t everyone have parts? But still, they are able to love those singletons with all their hearts.

And I’ve seen this, too: singletons, despite their clinging to the illusion of permanence and continuity, are able to love with all their hearts their partners who are DID. Not just the parts that are cute, but all of them, the bristly parts, the distrustful ones, the super-competent and bossy parts, the motherly, the curious, the wide-eyed, the ones with a wicked sense of humour.

And they are loved back, those singletons, in return with a deep understanding of how the best parts of a person, the strongest, can be the ones most strange. Even in singletons.

Happy Valentine’s Day dear ones–all of you–every sort of part–in every sort of person.

Toes are beautiful too.

And here I want to add a shout-out and thank you to Emily Rosenbaum who inspired this post with a review of Web of Angels that focuses on the universal.

The Book Lovers’ Ball was fantastic. I met several of my favourite writer friends there and we had a great conversation before dinner. Great conversation continued during dinner at my table with the collections manager, planner, and other delightful librarians, as well as the couple who won the best first line for a book contest.

There was high fashion, literary icons, notables, elegant food, and more importantly a lot of money was raised for one of the best causes around: books, more specifically, the free availability of books in the public library system. And that brings me to the most memorable part of the evening, which was the taxi ride to the Book Lovers’ Ball. I described it to to the other guests at my table, and as their faces lit up, I knew that the evening wasn’t really all about what was on the stage at the far end of the vast dining room but about this story I’m going to share with you now.

The driver was a woman, the first female taxi driver I’ve ever ridden with. When I told her that I was on my way to the Book Lovers’ Ball, which was raising money for the public library, she was delighted. After berating our mayor for cutting funds to the library, she spent the rest of the ride telling me how important the library has been for her and her two children. She’s an immigrant from Ethiopia, and a single mom. She took her son, now 8, and daughter, now 16, to the library every weekend, pulling them away from TV and video games. She worked hard to support them and, exhausted, she’d sometimes put on dark glasses and rest while they read. Other times she’d read to them and help them pick out books. But always, she knew that the library was a good place for them to be as a family, a place for her children to develop and grow with books.

“Mommy, you’re the core of the family. It’s like, you’re the snout, and Dad is the nostrils. And us, we’re the eyes.”

Doesn’t this look like a painting from centuries past?

Springbok Picture – Animal Photo – National Geographic Photo of the Day.

Another blogger recommended this book, and as usual I can’t remember who it was! So please remind me in the comments. I wanted to re-read your review after I finished it.

Excellent Women, written in the early 50′s, is almost excellent and certainly very good. The narrator, Mildred Lathbury, is a 30 year old spinster whose calm life doing good at church and at a society dedicated to the assistance of impoverished gentlewomen, is disrupted by the arrival of tumultuous neighbours who move into the flat below hers.

Helen Napier is a messy, cigarette smoking academic. Her husband Rocky (short for Rockingham) is a handsome, debonair naval officer whose service consisted of arranging the social life of his superior in picturesque Italy. Their marriage is on the rocks (pun intended), each of them appealing to Miss Lathbury, as an excellent woman, to clean up their messes, figuratively and literally.

This is the thrust of the novel, a depiction of single women as, despite sometime loneliness and a yearning for love, the cleaners-up and protectors of civil society, the proof-readers and index makers of books and life.

Clear-sighted and brutally honest with herself, Miss Lathbury is tactful with others and a witty narrative voice as she comments on herself, her neighbours, the vicar who is ensared by the lovely and mysterious widow, his flappable sister, or the stiffly reserved anthropologist Everard Bone.

I wanted the ending to be different, feeling the author had led me a merry dance, and closed the book with a tiny harrumph. But I still enjoyed it thoroughly. Reading about Barbara Pym in Wikipedia, I can see why she ended it as she did–without giving too much away, I’ll just say it’s based on personal experience.

Sadly, after a successful early career she wasn’t able to get her books published for 14 years, from 1963 to 1977, until more famous writers (including Philip Larkin) championed her work. I’m glad to know that the last few years of her life saw the publication and positive reception of several new books.

Excellent Women is a delightful read for a grey day.

Watch the whole video–it’s gorgeous and inspiring and made me bawl.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore from Moonbot Studios on Vimeo.

h/t Pieces

All the snow has melted here. Yesterday was sunny and warm, spring weather, but the temperature is dropping, the sky grey. I can’t hope to see one of these birds here, but there’s something special about a snowy owl. I’d like a conversation with this fellow. His posture and direct gaze make me want to write a story for him.

Snowy Owl Picture – Bird Photo – National Geographic Photo of the Day.