Dimestore by Lee Smith

Where in the world have I been???

I don't expect that you've asked that, but I just realized that I'd slipped up and failed to publish my review of Lee Smith's new memoir, Dimestore.

It would be horrible if you wrote off my delinquency to lack of enthusiasm; it has been more a matter of my having been so delighted by it that trying to review it seemed like trying to review a charming visit with an old friend. 

I don't know Ms. Smith; I'd be stretching the truth even to say that I'd been one of her particularly avid fans. My sister-in-law strongly suggested I read this one, though, and passed it along to me as she obviously knew I'd eat it with a spoon. 

When Ms. Smith begins talking about the formative role movies played in her development as a writer I knew I was not in the hands of a literary snob. 

Was anything ever as scary 

as Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte? 

Or as sad as Imitation of Life?

Well, those two films are on my lifetime Top Ten list, so I sensed that now Lee and I understood each other. I mean, even now, if I need a cathartic cry I queue up Imitation of Life (the version starring Juanita Moore, Lana Turner, Sandra Dee, James Gavin, and Susan Kohner, featuring Mahalia Jackson as the funeral soloist), and I begin weepin' and wailin' the minute the opening credits begin. 

This is the sort of memoir I'd write if (a) I were a writer, or (b) had anything interesting to say. This is a life told in snapshots and snatches of memories of people and places and episodes. It's like all the best Southern conversations, eschewing linear structure, relying instead on jumping off places. Each chapter is wholly satisfying, and each shares not only some insight into what made Ms. Smith a writer but offers the tantalizing possibility that the reader might have what it takes, too, if we will just own our stories. 

What a gift. Please do yourself a favor and read this one. 

Algonquin Books

Publication Date: March 2016

Only Love Can Break Your Heart - Ed Tarkington

When I was still making a living as a bookseller I read every book not only for myself but also with my customers in mind. To whom would I be eager to sell this? Which customer has been asking for something like this, and which folks do I already know it wouldn't suit?

That's a lot of people to have up in your head when you're trying to read, as welcome as their company was for all those years. For all that time, part of the fun of reading a great book was being excited about getting to the store so I could start selling it to my favorite customer-people. 

Since the beginning of the year I've read some books I liked, a couple that were just meh, a couple I could not force myself to finish, but until I turned the last page of Only Love Can Break Your Heart I had not had that same feeling of excitement.... only this time with nowhere to put that feeling except here. 

We meet Rocky at age 8, a young boy who idolizes his older half-brother Paul. Paul is that cool guy--Rocky describes him as being like The Fonz, except that you never saw The Fonz with a cigarette. Rocky's adoration survives a cruelty visited on him by Paul, one that leads to Paul's exit from the family home. When, many years hence, he turns up again it is not without consequences for everyone he left behind. 

This is a novel about love felt and experienced imperfectly but deeply, the lies it can force us to believe, and the beautiful truths that are hidden until a heart can break open. 

I've always found a Bildungsroman, as this one is, a particularly satisfying framework for a novel. The writing must be incredibly well balanced; the voice of the protagonist as a child must be authentic, even when you know the story is being narrated from their perspective as an adult. Too many writers seem bent on providing debriefings all along the way rather than letting the story unfold naturally. Tarkington, however, gets it all exquisitely right. 

Publisher:  Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill

Publish Date: January 5, 2016

*****

I'd be much obliged if you'd share this blog with anyone who might find it interesting. 

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry -- Gabrielle Zevin

There was the time I recommended a book to a woman whose mother had recently died, and a week or so later she came by the store just to thank me and give me a hug. (To Dance With the White Dog by Terry Kay)

There was the time a grandmother came in hunting a book to help her grandchild sleep, because the little one had been terrified by the bats she saw flying around in her grand's yard.... and so I recommended Stellaluna by Janell Cannon.  It wasn't long before I heard back that the child now wanted to sleep outside so she could watch the bats.

Every bookseller has stories like these, those moments that make the hours of unpacking and shelving books and rearranging and sweeping and doing all the boring bits of the job so very much worth it. There have been novels about bookshops and booksellers before, most of which made what we do feel so precious, or who we are so bizarre, that they've been silly.

But I knew this one must be different, for after my co-worker had finished reading the galley she brought it back to the shop so that I could read it, too.  That's not the way things ordinarily go. We take the galleys we want, and we rarely fuss over them, because she and I have mostly different taste in what we wish to read. Furthermore, in a small shop like ours, it makes no sense for everyone to read the same books all the time. We give each other reports on what we read, including the customers for whom we believe a book will be a perfect match.

So when she brought this one back I knew I needed to make room for it straightaway.

Widower A.J. Fikry has a small bookshop in an old cottage on Alice Island, one for which he has largely lost all enthusiasm. An unexpected delivery and the attention of a particularly enthusiastic publisher's rep provide him with a second wind for life, and for bookselling.

Fortunately, Zevin doesn't load this up with cutesy "aren't booksellers special?" stuff, nor does it read like a series of insider jokes. It's a small novel, full of good humor, a bigger story than you might expect, and is just a delight.

I find it difficult to share favorite lines from novels because so often they come at a pivotal plot turn and to share them feels like giving something away, but here's one I took the trouble to grab pen and paper to jot down.  

"We agree to be disappointed sometimes so that we can be exhilarated every now and again."

No disappointment here. The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry is a charming, life-affirming, lovely novel, that serves as testament to how much we booksellers love what we do, and how deeply we care about the people for whom we do it. 

Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill

Workman Publishing

Publication date:  April 1, 2014