Thanks for the recommendation. Just reading her blog and her bio at GoodReads, I love her!
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/133576.Sharon_Pywell/blog
Like other teachers, she finds:
.... students increasingly resist reading anything longer than a text. Of course this isn’t all students. But something’s changing. There’s a connection between this pattern and the current state of the Union: reading fiction develops the capacity to see contradiction, decode the implied, value the truth. Not reading does the opposite.
I have been confused by the increasing trouble my students have explaining what is truly going on in human interactions they find in fiction. How does this character feel? I may ask. “Good,” they’ll say. They ignore the fact that the character is lying and the preceding hundred pages made that clear. Lies, I have told my students, are the engines that drive the narrative arc upward to its crisis point ....
I think you will really like her writing style. She writes some bits in a Japanese mind, thoughts that are shared by an American mind, that are gorgeous. Lots of research had to have gone into that. Prescience, purgatory, religiousity or not. Now that I have told you this much, you really must read it.
I'm starting Chapter 3 - THANK YOU for the recommendation. I love this author!
Her voice!
This little girl with all her questions. The awful nun. The martyred saint.
Bought the ebook yesterday and love love love it!
Oh good! I was pretty sure you would. The nun comes back from the dead! I ended up loving her. Spoiler! Sorry!
I finished the book (last month!) and LOVED IT, despite the tragedies.
The nun, back from the dead.... now I have to go back and see what you meant by that.
The dad and his ham radio; our heroine's failure to master Morse Code; why didn't I write a review while all of this story was fresh in my mind.
THANK YOU SO MUCH for the recommendation. The "voice," the themes, the family drama, everything about this story is right up my alley.
Others might complain of a slow pace - not me.
And you know the author in real life! Please tell her she has a new fan!
I knew her in real life. Haven't seen or talked to Sharon for more than 30 years. I remembered her name and that she had hoped to write a Great American Novel, and looked her up. I am so glad you enjoyed it! You and I both like stories that are on the edge of magical realism. I like when they go all in, too.
I've recommended this one to a lot of people, but you're the first to have read it. I should have known you would be!
What is going on in your life? I'm busy in my tiny garden, and learning homeopathy, which has turned out to be wonderful. It's a whole new medical world. Love it!
Oh, to find a great book, to want others to love it too, and .... nobody else reads it.
Been there. Known that feeling.
You read "The Neanderthal's Aunt" at my request - God bless you!! - but so far, I have met nobody who loves that novel the way I do. The wit, tragic-comic events, and timing were Shakespearian. The prose was not flawless, and there may have been a sitcom vibe, but I still treasure this novel.
My life - well, the less said, the better, I'm finding. But oh am I tempted to speak up sometimes.
The people whose dog bit my dog are "PSSED OFF" at me. "Watch your mouth," one of the clan warned me. I have never named them in public, nor "slanderered" them, but they act as if I bought a full page ad in the paper naming them and blaming them for their irresponsible behavior as dog owners. They have since kept their dogs from attacking my dog, but there was never an apology or the least sign of concern or remorse for MY dog. Prince suffered a year of abject misery: five rounds of antibiotics, three rounds of staples, pain killers, bandages, and worst of all THE CONE, for months. He'd get out of it, then start licking again, re-opening the wound that took so long to heal. He will never again be the dog he was. He cannot go on walks with us. They have the gall to be mad at ME? Do they care how "PSSED" every other dog owner in the world would be at THEM???
My husband tells me to ignore the "WATCH YOUR MOUTH" warning and say nothing, but I am soooo ready to post another Prince post. Seeing my good boy suffer so miserably, while their five rescue dogs charge around barking in their one-acre pen (we can hear them!) ....
Gaslighting narcissists hate to be exposed.
Nothing angers them like having someone hold them accountable for their failings.
Ok, now waiting for that lurker here to screenshot this comment and message it to the woman who shouted at me over the fence that I have P*SSED off all the people connected with these dogs and that they are WATCHING me and my other dog - go ahead, you did this in 2017, screenshotting a comment I made on a homesteader's post, mentioning an unnamed person in my neighborhood, and I am 99.999% certain I know who you are. (Hint: #WB)
Some petty, spiteful, vengeful, unpleasant people have nothing better to do than stir up trouble.
Gotta let it go, let it go....