I'm Still Here

Just added. If you have instagram on your phone, you get get IGTV with it where loads of short plays, mostly about isolation but many funny, are on there under The 24 Hour Plays. These are  performed by well-known actors and range from a few minutes to a bit longer. For theater lovers for sure. 

Haven't seen another person in eight days now. Yes, I talk on the phone and text and email, but it is eerie. We have had some nice weather and I have taken a few walks. And now is the time when not driving becomes a problem. I am leery about taking car services now. Lucky to be able to order some of the things I need online. My driver./cleaner will not come until this is over.

Watching BLOOD on Acorn, which is pretty good. BETTER CALL SAUL manages to keep the same vibe year after year. Listening to lots of podcasts. Just found the ones for Desert Island Discs, which should be fun. Rewatching SEX AND THE CITY just for a nostalgic look st NY. Will it ever be like that again? Lots of stuff is bound to be left behind.Didn't much like BLOW THE MAN DOWN on Amazon but it was probably just me.

Reading the Tuesday book of the French series, but I am going to take a break after this one. I don't think you are meant to binge them. Yes, read them in order but not in immediate succession. Reading the Jeanne Bassinger book on THE MOVIE MUSICAL, which is loads of fun.

What about you?

FFB BLUE MONDAY, Nicci French

I decided to go back and see how the Frieda Klein series started. It is a strong start indeed although by the fourth book you can see growth in character development and plot. Frieda Klein is a therapist who is drawn into a kidnapping case in BLUE MONDAY when her patient describes his dreams of a small red-headed boy who matches a child newly snatched. She takes her story to the police, feeling the similarities are too striking not to report it.
A lot of this novel is taken up with therapy sessions with this patient, which are well-handled if a little repetitive. Klein's personal life and personal quirks are also given attention. Have now started on Tuesday. It is very unusual for me to read a series book after book. I usually get tired of the characters or the setting, but the writing here propels it past those concerns. How often do you read right through a series?

Wednesday Music

https://youtu.be/0-EF60neguk

Things That Are Making Me Happy

Really? Stuck in my house alone? Hard to think of much. Reading another Nicci French book. Watching the really depressing Aussie soap, A PLACE CALLED HOME, where almost every character is either a villain or their target. I am counting on you guys to find something to be happy about. I got nothing other than I survived the flu I had for two weeks in Florida. Hope I can survive the next one.Oh, the weather is not bad.

FFB THURSDAY's CHILDREN

This is the fourth or fifth book in a series about a female psychologist, written by a husband and wife. It would have been much better to begin at the beginning because French refers to the earlier books and characters way too much for this reader. 

Dr. Frieda Klein, is drawn back into her past in working class Braxton when a former schoolmate comes to her with worries about her child. The girl claims to have been raped by a man who came to her bedroom at night.
Rather than feeling grateful for Klein's help, the schoolmate feels Klein has made matters worse. Especially when the girl hangs herself. Klein's interest in the case is personal and professional.
 
Frieda has many painful memories about growing up in Braxton. She also has a poor relationship with her mother, a very difficult woman who is dying. 

This was a complex and well-written book and I liked Klein and her assortment of friends. She is an enigmatic character in many respects and there are things that are never explained. I guess that will be the job of the next book in the series. 

On Temporary Hiatus until March 13th

FFB-THE BLACK MOUNTAIN, Rex Stout

THE BLACK MOUNTAIN, Rex Stout

Although I was warned that this was an atypical Rex Stout novel, I had read enough of his books 25 years ago to be in the mood to read something different. And in many ways, it was a good choice. Wolfe steps out of his brownstone, out of his country, and out of his typical "you do the footwork, Archie and I'll do the brain work." setup
But in other ways,  since it had been so long, I wanted that familiar setup. I am not even sure a man of Wolfe's girth and sloth could undertake this trip. But let's say he can.
But getting to the story...
When Nero Wolfe's close friend, a restaurateur is killed, followed by Wolfe's adopted daughter, the reason clearly lies in Montenegro (where both were involved in a protest movement), so much to all of our surprise, Nero abandons his usual methods of solving crimes and goes there, undertaking a difficult passage through the mountains. This is in 1954 and the geopolitics is difficult with Tito in power.
It was hard to know who your enemies were and indeed, Wolfe does not. This is not a whodunnit as much as it is how will Wolfe trip him up. And the real genius in it is that Stout gets to prove he could have written spy novels with as much grace as his mysteries. I enjoyed it but it was not as good as Fer De Lance, The League of Frightened Men or Too Many Cooks for me.
One review suggested that this was a way for Stout to clear out two characters that had been hanging around too long. I wonder.

First Wednesday Book Revew; THE CHESTNUT MAN

 THE CHESTNUT MAN is a Danish thriller written by Soren Sveistrup, who was the voice behind THE KILLING, a very successful TV series. This is as dark if not darker than that. And it is very hard to give you a synopsis without spoilers.

Women are dying and on their mutilated bodies are placed a primitive doll made from a chestnut. The deaths seems to have begun with the kidnapping of a Danish government official's child. Although the body of that child has not been found, it is assumed she is dead. As the official returns to work, the killings begin. They seemed linked to child abuse cases. And oddly, fingerprints on each chestnut man are from the kidnapped child.

Two Danish cops are assigned to the case and both are quirky and thus have trouble forging a team. They are fun to watch in action and give some respite from the horrors of the case.

This is a  page-turner but a very long one. I think some judicious cutting would have made a stronger book. But I did keep turning the pages so I certainly recommend it to those brave enough for Nordic Noir. I am sure this will be on TV before you can finish the book though.

For more Wednesday reviews, see Barrie Summy. 

Things That Are Making Me Happy

I saw the Animated and Live Action Short nominations for the Oscar and although universally well-done, boy they were a depressing group of films. I remember thinking that last year and the year before. But how could they not be? Next weekend I see the short docs. Sure they will be just as sad. Finally had some sun today. Must be averaging 6/7 days cloudy. But the temps have not been bad. Of course, that is also not good news for climate change.
Trying to read Witch Elm by Tana French but it so slow going. It takes her ten pages to walk a man across the room. Yes, the writing is good, very good, but please don't fall in love with your words so much. But all of her books are like this and either you go with it or you don't. I usually do.
Getting ready for Florida now. Fingers crossed for good weather and no health or terrorist scares.
And thank god for my brother who is doing my taxes. So lucky to have him. Phil always did them and I just signed my name. I lived a lot of my life like that I find out now. Most of it, I am able to do now but taxes scare me off.
What about you?

FFB: Patricia Moyes

 Patricia Moyes' series (from the archives)
 
I don't have adequate time to do Patricia Moyes justice, but when I think back to the various detective series I read in my twenties, one that stands out for me is Patricia Moyes' series of mysteries about Inspector Henry Tibbett, who solved many of his cases with the help of his wife, Emmy. I found their marriage as well as their cases fun.

Anthony Boucher wrote this in the NYT at the time of the first of the series, DEAD MEN DON'T SKI.

“If you’re as hungry as I am for a really good whodunit. you will welcome the debut of Patricia Moyes."

We may not be as hungry for whodunits as we were then, but they can still be very satisfying when done well. If I can count on my memory, these were.

The setting for that first book DEAD MEN DON'T SKI was the Italian Alps, where Henry Tibbett, on vacation from Scotland Yard. Henry and his wife. Emmy, have settled in for some skiing, when Henry uncovers a smuggling ring, which includes hotel guests.
Then a guest who was alive when the ski lift began its descent is found dead when the lift touches bottom.
Henry Tibbett, Chief Superintendent of Scotland Yard, gave me many hours of pleasure and I remember sadly the day when I learned of Moyes' death.

Here are the books in the series:

Dead Men Don't Ski (1958)
The Sunken Sailor (1961)
aka Down Among the Dead Men
Death On the Agenda (1962)
Murder a La Mode (1963)
Falling Star (1964)
Johnny Underground (1965)
Murder By Threes (1965)
Murder Fantastical (1967)
Death and the Dutch Uncle (1968)
Who Saw Her Die? (1970)
aka Many Deadly Returns
Season of Snows and Sins (1971)
The Curious Affair of the Third Dog (1973)
Black Widower (1975)
To Kill a Coconut (1977)
aka The Coconut Killings
Who Is Simon Warwick? (1978)
Angel Death (1980)
A Six Letter Word for Death (1983)
Night Ferry to Death (1985)
Black Girl, White Girl (1989)
Twice in a Blue Moon (1993)
Collections:
Who Killed Father Christmas?: And Other Unseasonable Demises (1996)

Things That Are Making Me Happy

A good friend died last week, which kept me away from FFB.
On a brighter note, a gathering on Saturday night saluted Phil and Arnold. Both had belonged to the same men's group and it was nice to hear the kind things said about both men. My doctor came and picked me up, which is one way of getting a house call.
Saw the fifth season of LINE OF DUTY and it is right at the top of the list for best cop shows ever. It is so complex though, you really need to give it your full attention.  I am fading out again on THE OUTSIDER, which seems too woo woo for my tastes.
LES MISERABLES, a French cop movie, was pretty amazing. Awfully dark view of pretty much everyone and a fatalistic look at society today.
Went to hear Kevin play guitar and this time is was punk music. My ears are still ringing.
Still reading THE CHESTNUT MAN. The short chapters, many a page or two, makes me put it down too often.

What about you?

The Grandmother of My Grandmother

St

 This is all true. Or if it isn't true, I'm remembering incorrectly. Or someone told it to me wrong. You get the idea. I am not sure this will interest anyone besides my brother and me, but here it goes.

My great, great maternal grandmother Ellen Jane Stewart was born in Londonderry, NI in 1847. Escaping the constant mid-nineteenth century potato famines, she came to the US. circa 1870 where she earned a modest living as a lace-maker. The idea was that at some later date, her two younger brothers would follow her overseas. (And I understand they did and opened a tavern somewhere in New Jersey eventually.)  

Between 1871 and 1891, 55,690 Irish women emigrated to the U.S. compared to 55,215 men for the same time period. Immigrants coming from other countries were overwhelmingly male. This female-dominated migration stream was unique to the Irish and reflected their cultural values and the impact of the years of famine. Fewer than 50% of Irish women were able to find husbands after the potato famines and marriage was their only avenue out of poverty. (There are several good books and articles about this phenomena).

Soon after her arrival, Ellen married Thomas Alexander Morrison (1846), a coal miner, who came to the US from either Ireland or Wales. The sole story passed down about Ellen is that the first time she saw a streetcar, she fainted at the sight. Or ran after it. One or the other. (The first streetcars in the region, running on steel rails and pulled by horses, began operating on the Frankford and Southwark Philadelphia City Passenger Railway Company on January 20, 1858). They didn't appear in NI until the 1890s.

The young couple had three children: Margaret (1876), John Alexander (1878) and Thomas Wilson (1881). Sadly in 1886, Thomas died from black lung disease, leaving his widow with three children to raise. 

And now we come to the story of Girard College and its impact on the life of my great grandfather, Tom Morrison. Stephen Girard (1750 –1831) was a Philadelphia philanthropist. Using, his fortune, Stephen Girard personally saved the U.S. government from financial collapse during the War of 1812, and became one of the wealthiest people in America, estimated to have been the fourth richest American of all time, based on the ratio of his fortune to contemporar^{y GDP.} Childless, he devoted much of his fortune to philanthropy, particularly the education and welfare of orphans. He was a virulent atheist. He worked hard nursing people who contracted yellow fever in 1793, fearlessly staying to help when he could easily have fled.

He bequeathed nearly his entire fortune to charitable and municipal institutions of Philadelphia and New Orleans, including an endowment for establishing a boarding school for "poor, male, white orphans" in Philadelphia, primarily those who were the children of coal miners. Girard College (130 acres) opened in 1848. It took that long to build it according to his detailed instructions. His will dictated everything from the school’s curriculum to its precise architecture, and even the lunches provided for students and staff. If accepted at Girard College, boys would spend their school years getting a first-rate education, being clothed, fed, and taken care of at the school. Discipline was strict. At one time over 1800 boys lived at the school. 

Ellen Jane Morrison was only able to visit her boys on Sunday afternoons (currently boys go home for the weekend) and a huge wall sequestered the boys from city distractions. No clergy man would be permitted to enter the premises as Girard believed them to be a weakening influence. Ellen's boys were eight and five when their father died. I am not sure if they went to live at Girard College immediately, but the school took first graders. Of course, Margaret, the older daughter, was excluded. And it wasn't until the 1960s, that black students were admitted. Today almost all of the students are black, reflecting the current population. 

Tom Morrison completed his education there and was admitted to Temple University and then Temple Law School. He had a successful career as an attorney, eventually working as Deputy City Controller for the city of Philadelphia. In 1932, just as the Depression began, he opened a diner with a Mr. Struhm called the Morrison and Struhm Diner, which still exists in Philly today as the Mayfair Diner. He died in 1933, age 52, probably a victim of the downturn.

Pics are a painting of Stephen Girard and his male orphans, the ten-foot walls that surround Girard College, Ellen Jane Stewart and her daughter, Margaret, and my grandmother, Dorothy Morrison with her brothers Tom and John and her parents, Edith and Tom.

Things That Are Making Me Happy

Rewatched THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING (1988) and was knocked out by the sophisticated movies Hollywood was putting out thirty years ago. Sensual, political, artistic, full of feeling. This film would only come out of Europe now.

Also saw the National Theater's streamed play ALL MY SONS with Bill Pullman, Sally Field and other fine actors. You probably have access to this series in your neighborhood.. Next up PRESENT LAUGHTER (Noel Coward) with the Hot Priest (Andrew Scott) for those who love Fleabag. 

Also saw the Agnes Varda doc at our Detroit Film Theater. Bit of a snooze. She is too full of herself for my taste. Caught a photography exhibit of the Great Lakes before the show.


Tomorrow would be my 53rd anniversary. Is it still my anniversary now or does that go away in widowhood? Nine months a widow.

Reading THE ACORN MAN, which is very good if very dark.

Finally got a snowfall of significance. Could do without it. 

What about you?

DARE ME on BUILD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYf0tk6PMyc

FFB-BILOXI, Mary Miller

This was just published in May so it is more a neglected book than a forgotten one. I enjoyed it and found the protagonist a familiar character among people I know. Men of a certain age seem more cast in stone than either women or younger men. In his early sixties, Louis has lost his wife, his father, quit his job, and is teetering on estrangement from his daughter and granddaughter. He is waiting to find out what his inheritance from his father will be, believing the money will rescue him from his stasis, when a dog is thrust upon him.

For a dog to change a life, you'd expect to see some super-dog behavior, but Layla is just an ordinary dog. What she does succeed in doing for Louis is to give him someone to care for, to wonder about, to draw him out of his shell. The world seldom allows someone with a dog on a leash to pass by without comment.

Louis can be frustrating as a character. For instance, I never really understood his issues with his daughter. But we will not always understand either people in our life or people in a good book. Miller never leans too hard on the idea of a dog rescuing this man and that light touch and the excellent writing is what made this novel work for me.

Recommended for those who enjoy superb character studies with not a lot of action. Which is me.

More of my life

Just now I  googled the name of my childhood nemesis. His name is unusual enough that when an obit came up, I was sure it was Louis. Plus the picture bears more than a slight resemblance to the boy I knew in second grade. He grew up in Philly, served in Vietnam, and the weight he already carried at seven, grew. If I go to the website on Facebook for my elementary school, his name is treated with awe and shock. Read Jean Sheppard for the story of similar bullies in Indiana.

My elementary school, Samuel Pennypacker, was a good one.  My teachers were fine women, who a generation later, would be lawyers, doctors, accountants, professors. Coming from the generation before mine (at least) my teachers were secondary school teachers. They assumed we needed to know how to diagram a sentence, read novels like David Copperfield, and understand how to calculate distance, and interest and such.

In second grade, my teacher was Mrs. Birch. She was a fearsome woman who needed a few students to torture in class. Louis M. put me in that category by terrorizing me. Not too far into the semester, I began to suffer the insomnia that still plagues me today. His antics were dull, witless but effective. Following me home from school, letting doors slam in my face, tripping me, stealing my books were part of his game. I never understood why.

The school psychologist (and aren't you surprised they had one in 1955) suggested I read poetry. My parents dutifully bought a book of Poems for Children and I read them before trying to go to sleep each night. Still Mom and Dad would find me perched at the top of the steps when they climbed up. A second visit to the shrink netted the idea I would tell myself a story and this idea worked better than the first.  Perhaps it even made my years as a fiction writer possible.

After second grade, Louis and I parted ways. My fears would change to stray dogs, nuclear war, heights, girls who made fun of me for various reasons. But few of these things would ever have the power over me that Louis M. had. I wonder if he realized the power he wielded.

Was there a bully in your childhood? 

Things That Are Making Me Happy

 1917 was more notable (to me) for its technical achievement than for its story telling, but that technical achievement was amazing. It very much seemed like the entire film was one long take with constant movement through the trenches of World War 1. A very fine lead performance too.
Also went to the DSO in the neighborhood program where Steling Elliott (above) played a cello piece by Lali. Also the music of Bizet's Carmen and Franck. I am ambivalent about this program, which was foisted onto the musicians after their last strike. But the very aging crowd at the synagogue that hosted them would have trouble getting downtown in January, I think.
Am enjoying the very strange novel, BILOXI by Mary Miller, which is mostly about a man and a dog.
After rewatching MY BRILLIAN CAREER, from the eighties, I caught up with Judy Davis on MYSTERY ROAD, on Acorn. It seems very stretched out and I believe it was a movie first. But seeing Australia not in the throes of fires was nice.
The weather here is odd. I am not sure the ground have yet been fully frozen and it's mid-January. Troubling.
What's happening with you?

Notes on my life-Daddy

As a girl, I was probably more interested in my mother's childhood than my father's. I wanted to know if she shared my love of dolls (no) and candy (no). Additionally, my dad wasn't around as much. He worked long hours at a low-paying job, and when he was home he was often occupied with household tasks, grocery shopping (he did this chore for some reason), church, etc. But certainly he was not as reticent as my mother about his past. Although his memories tended to focus on areas of deprivation.
He was the sixteenth of nineteen children. His oldest brother, Vincent served and died in World War 1 and my father in the second World War. His mother, Laura Nase, died when he was twelve.

Ralph E. Nase started selling pretzels after school at six (could this be true?) and a series of jobs followed that one. The Nases (in a town filled with Nases and Naces-you wouldn't believe the phone book. This was no uncommon:Herbert S. Nace was born and reared in Sellersville. He married in 1891, Addie M. Nase, daughter of Peter and .. ) lived in a three-bedroom house. The boys, of which only four survived war, birth or early childhood illness, slept in the attic. The girls, I believe there were eight or nine surviving childhood, shared two bedrooms. 
They grew most of their own food. Pigs were slaughtered in their cellar, in fact. 

Herman Nase supported his family working in a cigar family. In the second half of the 19th century, cigar, textile, and other industries established companies in Sellersville. Cigar-making seemed to dominate the small country town.

My father was athletic and played sports, especially tennis. He loved to skate and sled. His great hobby was raising and racing homing pigeons. He inherited this hobby from an older brother. (The only other pigeon raiser, I can think of was Rocky). It is hard for me to picture Dad with his pigeons because he couldn't stand to have his hands dirty. 

Approximately once a year, we would journey to Sellersville, which seemed like a long trip then but was only 25 miles, for a family reunion. We were the outsiders amidst a group that spent their free time fishing and hunting. My father fit in little better than my mother who especially dreaded these days. The reunions always numbered more than one-hundred people and I have vague memories of three-legged races, but that may have been our church picnic. Once in a great while, my uncle Nick (born Noah) would turn up in Philly, with pants too short, white socks, poor grammar and lots of gold teeth. My mother was on pins and needles during his visit. It would seem that she had the upper hand with this kindly, timid man, but it didn't seem to calm her. Stories about poor Nick to come later.

Dad went to a two-year business college (following the example of Uncle Nick) and began his career as an office manager in the mid-thirties. He worked at Oak Terrace Country Club where he met my mother.

Hereafter I am going to try to relate incidents rather than biographical information. I think it will be more fun to write and to read.

FFB-Max Perkins

 From the archives.

 

Richard S. Wheeler was the author of more than sixty-nine contracted or published novels that largely deal with the American West. These include historical novels, biographical novels, and traditional western fiction. In recent years he's been writing mysteries, including some set in the upper Midwest, under the pseudonym Axel Brand. He also wrote numerous short stories.

Max Perkins: Editor of Genius, by A. Scott Berg

I've finished rereading Scott Berg's great biography of Maxwell Perkins, which won the National Book Award in 1978. It is a massive book and took a week to get through. I've often wondered why it is my favorite book, and why I return to it with renewed thirst and joy, every little while.

For a long time, I thought it was because I had been a book editor and found common ground with Perkins. Or perhaps it was because my family is rooted in New England, though I grew up in the Midwest. There was something in Max Perkins' shy, awkward, introspective nature that rang bells in me.

The truth of it is that I have no idea why that book stands above all others in that place of the heart where I build altars. It is largely a description of the way Perkins, a Scribners editor, nurtured several wayward authors and the result was the most sublime period in American literary history. The list of those he encouraged and published is too long for this posting, but they include Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Ring Lardner, Edmund Wilson, Erskine Caldwell, Sherwood Anderson, John P. Marquand, S. S. Van Dine, Taylor Caldwell, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Alan Paton, and James Jones. No other editor has even come close to discovering and publishing a list like that.

Scott Berg writes tenderly. He had his hands full, because of the acrimony, the disappointments, the bitterness, the craziness, the hurt, that he was chronicling. Somehow Perkins managed to nurture each of his authors, supplied the specific criticisms that lifted their books to new heights, all the while trying to remain anonymous because he felt that editors should not take credit or be known to the public. He often said that a book belongs to the author, and it is the editor's task simply to bring out the best in the author and the book.

This great work by Berg shaped me. It deeply affected how I think about literature. It changed what I aspire to in my writing. I am not the same person I was before this book entered the place of honor on my shelf. I lost my father, whom I loved and admired, when I was young. All those authors he nurtured lost a father when Max Perkins died.

Notes on My Life-a rough beginning

In Fierce Attachments, Vivian Gornick writes that she was the repository for the stories of her mother's life. I am not sure how common this is. Do most mothers (or fathers) relate the events of their childhood to their children so fully that the kids become their diarists? But it was not to happen in mine. Many years later, I have some ideas on why this was the case, but before April 2018, it was a great mystery. 

Why didn't my mother talk about herself? Why no stories of growing up in Albany, Syracuse, Manhattan, and Philly. Why no tales of vacations, grandparents, hobbies, the depression, friends, school, books she read as a child, what she did in the hot Philadelphia summer or the cold Syracuse winter. Did she go to camp? Did she sing in the choir? Was she a girl scout? Did she have boyfriends before my father? Did she ever break a bone? Was she sickly? And on and on. Perhaps I was abnormally incurious and never pushed her to tell, but I think that's not the case because I can tell you a lot about my grandmother's childhood.

What little I know about my mother, I know from photographs or my grandmother. But my mother often only figures as background material in my grandmother's stories. She was similar to the unnamed young woman who serves as a companion to Mrs. Van Hopper in the novel, Rebecca. In the photographs, her hair is often cut like a boy's. Her clothes are always practical and eyeglasses dominate her face. She rarely looks directly into the lens. Her parents were more glamorous. I still think of them as Scott and Zelda, and my mother seems a bit like their probably neglected daughter, Scottie. 

But let's put their personalities aside and stick with Mom. Because this is precisely how it went when I tried to find out anything about my mother. The subject would soon turn toward her parents. It was easier to talk about them. Although even that was rare.

This is what I know. Janet Dorothy Grieb was born in 1923, ten months after her parents married. She took dancing lessons, ballet and tap, and was a graceful ballroom dancer. She had acne in the days when there was little to be done for it. She thought of herself as a fat teenager although the photographs don't confirm her impression. In high school, where she finally got to finish four years in one school, she took the business course because her father thought girls would marry and waste a college education. She had four close friends who to some degree remained her friends for the rest of her life. Two of them died within months of her death in 2009. Olney High School in Philly taught Latin and French to all of the students so she studied that along with the business courses. I have no idea if she was a good student, if she even wanted to go to college. She was quiet, passive, polite. When she stayed out too late on her graduation night, her father treated her harshly. She met and married my father at 18. And that is about all I know about my mother before her marriage. (to be cont.) 

top pic Mom with her parents and baby cousin, Letty.