The French House: An American Family, a Ruined Maison, and the Village That Restored Them All / Don Wallace - Book Review

Don Wallace and his wife, Mindy, are both fluent and flexible writers, with their son, Rory, (who appears on the scene slightly later) having clearly inherited their linguistic skills. When they decide to purchase a dilapidated old house in the village of Kerbordardoué, on the island of Belle-Île-en-Mer (haunt, in the past, of such celebrities as Sarah Bernhardt, and of her lover, the Prince of Wales, as well as of the writer Marcel Proust) just off the Breton coast, they little realize what they have let themselves in for. With the entire expanse of the Atlantic Ocean separating them from their home in a tiny apartment in New York, their family (and sometimes even they themselves) doubt their motives, and, at times, even their sanity, as they set about restoring the maison that, ultimately, comes to take over their entire lives, it seems.

The challenges that they encounter emanate not only from their generally straitened financial resources, but also from a certain amount of antagonism that they experience in the village itself. There is a great deal of underlying antagonism to foreigners on the island, which emerges in sundry unsavory incidents, such as the deliberate running over of a rosebush that they plant to mark off a small space outside their house, as they have no garden as such. This is despite Mindy’s mentor and long-time professor of French, a long-standing inhabitant of Belle-Île-en-Mer, having originally enticed them to take up residence there, after a disappointing sojourn on the mainland. However, they grow to be adept masters at weathering such storms, which is just as well, seeing that the island is located in the, at times, tempest-beset Bay of Biscay.

Apart from the appeal of the rather exotic location, a key draw card of the The French House: An American Family, A Ruined Maison and the Village That Restored Them All (Sourcebooks;

ISBN-13: 978-1-4022-9331-3) is the strong family bonding that is evident throughout the book—one that is so strong that it even influences the Wallace’s house guests, resulting in sundry marriages post-Kerbordardoué.   The warmth of the relationship between Don and Mindy proves itself in their strong survival skills, which might, in the case of other, more shaky, unions have foundered on their numerous trials and tribulations. Even though Don does, with what seems like unshakable good humor, refer to the difficulties that they encounter in having a second home abroad, and one that, what’s more, requires almost total rebuilding from the foundations up, the spirit of striving together against the odds, which permeates The French House, is totally heart-warming.

For anyone who has hankered after living abroad, The French House is an absolute must-read. There is a great deal of wisdom in these pages, and much sound advice implicitly given. Prescribed summer reading for anyone with an interest in American–French relations, the book makes for both worthwhile and pleasurable reading—don’t miss it!  

River Rising / T.P. Jones - Book Review

River Rising (Synergy Books; ISBN: 978-0-9842358-8-9) is the third and final book in The Loss of Certainty trilogy, the first of which was Jackson and the second The Gamble, although it can also be read as a stand-alone volume. Almost all of the scenes in River Rising take place in the fictional community of Jackson, based loosely on the city of Dubuque, Iowa. The book tells of how the city officials and families face the impending “worst flood in the history of the white man on the Upper Mississippi.” Not far from the reader’s mind will no doubt be the media coverage of such other water-borne disasters as the devastation wrought on New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina and the numerous other floods that have occurred in recent American history.   

As Jones reveals in an interview on http://www.blogtalkradio.com, when he set out to write a novel set in what he considers to be the archetypal Midwest, he originally set aside two years in which to research and write the book. One book turned out to be three, and two years turned out to be eighteen. But all his hard work has paid off. The 380-page book that rounds out the series is a concentrated gem of fast-paced action, which moves at a cracking pace. Jones’ fluid and free-flowing style is facilitated by his frequent use of dialogue, so that, despite his showing a great deal of technical expertise, learned through hands-on experience on the job, he does not overwhelm one with a crushing amount of unnecessary detail. His writing is succinct and pithy, elaborating on characters and situations only when he needs to do so for the purpose of the plot. The true-to-life nature of the text is based on months of research spent in the various city departments, up close and personal with just the types of middle-class employees whom he so aptly describes, though he takes care that none of his characters is based on the real-life city employees whom he encountered. In order to write a credible story of a town facing the onslaught of a potential major flood, Jones also interviewed many officials elsewhere, including some based in the U.S. Corps of Engineers, the National Weather Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Despite Jones’ claiming that he found the interrelationships and power play between the characters to be of more riveting interest than the individual characters themselves, all of the characters are well-rounded and thoroughly believable beings in their own right. Walter, the weather man, for example, is described as having a gut instinct for his work: “Sometimes a man, if he had spent his entire life attuning himself to the nuances of his experiences, the subtle fields of energy flowing through him…sometimes he knew more than he knew.”

A thoughtfully written, and thought-provoking, novel, River Rising should have a wide audience, not only among all those who are intrigued by inner-city politicking, but also among all those who care about the life blood of America as it courses through the arteries and veins of the most commonplace of its citizenry. A profoundly moving book that should have you grabbing for the first two books in the series if you haven’t read them yet, River Rising is well worth any time and effort that you spend on acquiring your very own copy.

Minifiction Volume One: Marouflage / Jamie Hershing and James Stanson - Book Review

A book of succinct perverse delights, this collection of short short fictional pieces (or minifiction, as the authors term it) provides tantalizing glimpses of the imaginings of its two authors, Jamie Hershing and James Stanson. As stated in their prologue, “our goal is not to deceive. We are not the first to indulge in the self-aggrandizement of parody, and we certainly won’t be the last.” Each of the 90 pieces in this collection is less than a page, or 250 words, in length, but each captures some element of the literary genre which it represents.

As James Stanson reveals in an interview with David Wisehart on Kindle Author (http://kindle-author.blogspot.com.2010/07/interview-james-stanson.html), Hershing and he regard minifiction as exploring “the limits of conventional story writing, in some cases bending and blurring the boundaries of narrative to almost unrecognizable, yet somehow familiar, points.” The two authors initially worked on each piece alone, writing what amounted to ‘homework’ assignments that they set for each other, and then coming together afterwards to discuss the pieces, to swap ideas and to discuss how they wanted the work as a whole to develop. The editing of the collection they approached in similar vein, retaining some of the pieces, while dropping others, until they had a complete collection with which they were both satisfied.

Stanson reveals in the above interview how in “terms of the literary tricks in Marouflage, we made much use of allusion to other literary works and cultural references – as well as to other pieces in Marouflage itself – and made use of omission, or ellipsis, leaving the reader to fill gaps in the story on their own and therefore play a part in its creation, and we also parodied many forms of non-literary writing, such a journalism or encyclopedic writing.” All of this was done, according to Stanson, to stimulate the reader’s imagination.

Intellectually provocative, this collection (which is only the first of many intended by its authors) does set one wondering about the parameters of fiction and other genres of writing. Definitely not a work requiring the sustained suspension of disbelief in the reader, Marouflage (Amazon Digital Services; ASIN: B003UYUY5O) is more anarchic in texture, seeking to sabotage the complacency of those who might else be tempted to accept the existing status quo. After all, is that not what parody is all about? Not an easy read, but one that is likely to appeal to those who are unconventional in their thinking, and who are prepared to experiment with the new and the enlightened, Marouflage is a worthwhile text. Above all, it argues the point: small is not insignificant. Venture into this realm, those who dare!   

Palm Trees on the Hudson: : A True Story of The Mob, Judy Garland & Interior Decorating / Elliot Tiber - Book Review

“‘Baby, let me tell you about home,’” quips Judy Garland, Elliot’s spiritual mentor and a long-standing icon of the gay rights movement in America. “‘Home is whatever’s in your suitcase and wherever you hang your hat. Contrary to the movie [i.e. The Wizard of Oz], it ain’t in Kansas. Home is wherever you want it to be.” Only later does the true meaning of these words come home to Elliot, whose exceptionally well-written memoir, Palm Trees on the Hudson: A True Story of The Mob, Judy Garland & Interior Decorating (Square One Publishers; ISBN: 978-0-7570-0351-6, tells of the lead-up to, and the crash back down after, a birthday bash for a member of the Mob that he arranges on board a dayliner on the Hudson, at which Judy is the chief draw card.

In this rags-to-riches-and-back-again riveter, Elliot tells of his triumph over the endless carping and discouragement of his mother, by means of his working his way up from the position of what was little more than a window-dresser to being one of the leading interior decorators and designers in New York City. The emotional upheavals of his life take the backstage to a focus on the development of his career from working as a relatively low-paid employee for a city store to where he owns his own highly successful business, only to have that come toppling down when his main client pulls out from paying him a dime for what he regarded as the crowning point of his career. Back at home base, he is forced to rethink the reasons behind the demise of his going concern, and, despite, or perhaps because of, the negative impact of his mother’s ongoing criticism, he at last is able to appreciate the full meaning of Garland’s words.

Elliot’s constant longing for a soul mate is still left unfulfilled at the end of this work, only to be realized in his later work, but the pivotal relationships of his early life and burgeoning career are fully explored. The importance of friendship and family are fully expressed in the closeness that he feels to his younger sister and the gratitude that he shows to supportive clients. The humor that prevails throughout Palm Trees on the Hudson makes this both an entertaining and an enlightening text. The soul-searching to which Elliot subjects himself makes this a particularly worthwhile text for all of those interested in, and affected by, the gay lifestyle.

Elliot Tiber has both written and produced numerous award-winning plays, musical comedies, television shows, and films. As a professor of comedy writing and performance, he has taught at the New School University and Hunter College in Manhattan. Palm Trees on the Hudson is the exceptionally entertaining prequel to his bestselling memoir Taking Woodstock, which is now an acclaimed motion picture from director Ang Lee.