August 2008 Archives

There's a special uncategorized category of books I refer to as comfort books. These are books I'll return to again and again, not because of what happened in the story necessarily, but because I want to revisit the lives of the characters that inhabit it.

These books have heart.

I've read every book ever written by Rosamunde Pilcher simply because the homes her characters create embody the way I'd like to live. These cottages are strewn with threadbare rugs, merry fires, and sleeping dogs. There's always a scrubbed wooden table, some sort of stew bubbling on the Aga, and a dried-up heel of gingerbread to offer to whoever happens by in search of a restoring cup of tea. When I read her books, I take a bit more pleasure in cooking, cleaning, and nesting in general. I pull out my vintage tablecloths and use only vinegar to clean the house (lest you get the wrong idea, my house isn't as pristine as I'm leading you to believe here).

Then there's Jane Austen. Her brilliant stories and characters aside, I love to revisit a world of elegant country homes, simple needs, and short lace-up boots meant to be worn with long cotton dresses. Alexander McCall Smith brings me comfort in the stark functionality of Precious Ramotswe's detective agency. Patricia Wood in her Orange-Prize shortlisted book, Lottery, brought me comfort in bringing me back to the summers I spent with my grandmother when I was young.

I could go on and on listing books that warm my heart. But I won't.

Today is the launch day for my novel, Inside Out Girl, in the U.S. I've been asked a few times why I wrote the book and my answers can be found in the Q&A on my website in the book section. But there's another reason I haven't spoken about. Inside Out Girl is a story of two splintered families who are affected by a young child with a severe learning disability. Both families bring their own busted histories to the scrubbed wooden table. It's a story about parenting. About frustration and guilt. Doing the right thing, doing the wrong thing. But most of all it's a story about a girl who has never had any power of her own and how she surprises everyone by becoming a neighborhood hero. And while Rachel Berman's house probably won't inspire you to go at your kitchen grout work with vinegar and a scrub brush, I hope you'll find this to be a story about heart.

You know how you used to see a guy walking down the street talking to himself and you'd cross over to the other side, just in case? But nowadays you know he isn't crazy at all, but is so extraordinarily important he needs a phone screwed into his ear so the world doesn't crack apart in the time it takes to pull a regular cell phone from his front pocket?

I've become one of those guys.

I haven't installed a phone in my head (too ridiculous and who needs the radiation?), but in preparation for the launch of my new website--which was going to arrive complete with its very own blog--I've been doing a lot of internal talking. More so than usual. Fabulous, fully formed posts flash into my mind and glitter for about an hour. These are seriously good posts, posts my mother might copy and send out as a bulk email saying, "Look what my daughter said today..."

There is one that begins with a rant about this year's black flies hanging around Northern Ontario way longer than any other year in history just when we buy our first cottage and how my husband never gets bitten because I'm his own personal No-pest strip. Then, because this first black fly post will be so comprehensive and adorable and I won't want to tax my blog readers (should I have more than one) with too much, too soon; I have a the next day's post all set to further examine black flies and their undocumented fascination with fuchsia sweat pants. Which could only lead into the next probing essay--this one about the psychology of and logic behind the wearing of fuchsia sweat pants in the first place (they were half price at American Eagle and it was early spring. Please, you'd have pulled out your debit card too). Then, as one might expect, this dissertation would be followed by a rant against the person who decided fuchsia should be spelled as if it should read "fucks ya."

I now debate cursing on the new blog. Do I want to appear demure and bookish? Or edgy and eccentric? It is at this point that all previous imaginary blog posts lose their gloss. My internal debate about swearing has brought forth the terrible truth that, still, after decades of vowing to watch Oprah but never noticing it was four o'clock, I still have no idea who I am.  Which makes the voices in my head go silent.

But then a black fly lands on my green yoga shoe...