Alice Walker's MERIDIAN: Timeless

The great Alice Walker

PBS recently aired a fascinating documentary on the writer Alice Walker who rose literally from a hardscrabble existence to reverence as writer and activist. I have always been a fan of her clear prose and rich characters, and I was reminded that I had never read Meridian, her second novel, which is now available for e-readers, as are all her works.

While The Color Purple, The Temple of My Familiar, and Possessing the Secret of Joy are novels worthy of their accolades and readership, I found this early work especially interesting as I felt I was taking Walker's journey to activism with her.

As an aside, when Possessing the Secret of Joy came out, I decided not to read it, the thought of a novel about clitoral mutilation just too hard to bear, but my daughters, who knew I liked great fiction, bought it for me for Mother's Day, so of course, like all the art on the fridge, I had to comply. The great surprise: one of the most fantastic books I've read and yes, deeply embedded with joy despite the subject.

When you re-read a great writer, you nestle into their prose as if you've just run into an old friend. Walker never manipulates her reader, she just tells it like it is. Taking place largely during the sixties, a young woman is thrust into the harsh realities of sex and racism too soon to make sense of it, at first. Living in a small southern black community, she encounters civil rights fighters in black and white, and discovers the depth of the divide between the races, while also discovering her own desire to make a difference.

However the path to change for Meridian, like her people, is fraught with obstacles, not the least of which is her own community, filled with an assortment of unusual and fascinating characters.

"The majority of black townspeople were sympathetic to the Movement from the first, and told Meridian she was doing a good thing... Her mother however was not sympathetic... God separated the sheeps from the goats, and the blacks from the whites."

Meridian is the embodiment of truth. She suffers physically for her own and others' sins: a lightning rod for the storms around her. She struggles to forgive and to be forgiven. She longs for what she cannot describe. The man in her life, Truman, who also evolves over the decade, abandons her after a heated affair for a long-term relationship with a white woman, Lynne, whom he also ultimately abandons in the hopes of rekindling his relationship with Meridian, who by then has found her voice and her mission.

Lynne, like many whites and Jews who supported the civil rights movement, is one of the more terrific characters, for me, as Walker digs deep into her psyche, revealing her motives for activism: a woman who suffers for the oppression perpetrated by her people. Like Germans who sheltered Jews during WWII, were they compassionate or were they compensating for the sins of their nations? Walker also deftly portrays the mixed feelings among towards the whites who invaded their movement and some, like Lynne, who took their men as well.

"By being white, Lynne was guilty of whiteness. Then the question was, is it possible to be guilty of color?"

In my own novel, "Colors of the Wheel" I explore contemporary challenges of race, and novels like Meridian that reflect on the civil rights movement confirm that much has changed, and too much hasn't.

One Book Leads to Another

COLORS OF THE WHEEL was not the first novel I've written, only the first to find its way to publication. Three novels in twenty years: the first a lesson in crafting, and diligence, the second a good book that never found a home, and the third finding its way and some very fine reviews.

Having written one that at last rose to the surface, I find myself with a new confidence, and a greater strength of voice, as I embark on rewriting SIGNS OF LIFE [novel #2]. This one had representation by a big agent and interest by a couple of literary editors at big houses, but did not make the cut, and now, ten years later, I view it with a new set of eyes and a greater set of writing skills and, dare I say, a greater sophistication as a novelist.

After months of the publishing process, which, I was told once long ago by the writer Dani Shapiro, can zap your creative juices, and she was so right, I am back at the keyboard and in the creative zone. I write with a new comfort level. I see characters and prose differently. I also see, painfully, what was missing in that second novel, and what it needs to be enhanced: greater descriptive prose, more attention to the narrative arc, more intensive fluctuating character revelations. I have a good sense of what I need to do to make it better, but I am more than tweaking, I am rewriting and it feels absolutely wonderful.

More wonderfully is that the ten year absence actually provides an opportunity to flesh out the story line with greater meaning. So, that closed door indeed has opened another. Wide.

I've only got the first eight pages right at the moment, but these are critical pages, setting the tone for all those that follow, and where the characters either speak to the reader, or not. As I write, I can almost hear them saying: welcome back creator, you left us too soon.

Among the many pleasures of the writing life is the pleasure of the process.

Indie Author News: Featured Indie Book: Colors of the Wheel (Randy Kr...

Indie Author News: Featured Indie Book: Colors of the Wheel (Randy Kr...: Featured Indie Book on Indie Author News : Literary Fiction Colors of the Wheel by Randy Kraft. Terrific write-up captures the essence of the novel. Right on-point. Great press. Thanks Indie Author News!!!

The latest lovely Maggie O'Farrell

Maggie O'Farrell

The English writer Maggie O'Farrell is a favorite of mine. She has a tender voice, lyrical and descriptive. Her characters are real, in fact, we think of them as people we know. Vivid, flawed, heartfelt. In this novel, members of an Irish family return in the heat of a dry summer to their mother's home when they discover their father has disappeared without a word. Parched, you might say, for connections, and understanding.

            I encountered O'Farrell first years ago with "After You'd Gone" a magical little novel that kept you hanging. After that, I read "The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox" which also focused on siblings and was surprisingly fascinating, followed by my favorite O'Farrell, "The Hand that First Held Mine." That novel subtly and incisively captured the essence of loss and trauma.

            Last year she published "Instructions for a Heatwave" which garnered a few modest reviews. I finally got around to it and yes, it is not as compelling as the others, but still on the upper rung of storytelling. O'Farrell speaks in a lilting tongue here, befitting the setting. I found myself often stopping to re-read a passage because she is so insightful.

            My critique would be only that the plot line too easily comes together. Few surprises, and these not terribly profound. Touching, but not earth-shattering, which they don't always need to be. The nuanced novel is a joy in the hands of a nuanced writer. O'Farrell traffics in tortures of the heart and this story centers on the struggles created by simple misunderstandings. Although when it comes to family dynamics, is anything simple?

            Most impressive to me was the one character [oddly named Aoife as in Eve, Irish style] one of the three siblings whose relationship dominate the tale. She is an undiagnosed dyslexic. O'Farrell deftly depicts the way words formed mazes in her mind, through which she found it hard to find her way. And, like the amazing "The Reader" this character too would rather struggle through life than confess her despair, preferring to accept the opinions of family and friends that she was stupid, disorganized and belligerent, despite her obviously elevated intellect. In fact, I might have preferred the novel to center on this character and her difficulties, which was the best part.

            If you are looking for a touching but not hyper-sentimental tale with interesting characters and story line, one that once again reveals the fault lines in families, and in a repressive culture, "Instructions for a Heatwave" is good reading. 

            Available in hardcover or for your favorite e-reader. Happy reading.

"Colors of the Wheel" now available in paperback at select bookstores, Amazon and B&N, and for all e-readers. Perfect for book groups. Cheers.

The thing about Twitter

I found a writers' community at Twitter. Writers of all types and flavors. Editors. Publishers. Book reviewers. E-zines. Lit-zines. Indy book promoters. Strangers all, until that first reply, the retweet, the favorite. Suddenly, friendly acquaintances. Bonded by mutual interest. A world-wide community.

What I like best about a Twitter feed is the focus. We tweet about reading and writing. We share each other's recommendations, and frustrations. We delight in the discovery of great writing. We shout out: what are you reading this weekend?

Of course now and then, some members of the twitter feed talk about their kids. Their struggles for time to write. Occasionally I counsel or console. They do the same. Bonded by anonymity, we nonetheless care about each other. Strange, isn't it? I wouldn't know any of them if they sat down next to me at a cafe.

I wrote a blog for Women Writers Women's Books [@womenwriters] entitled Age: A Writer's Ally, which they tweeted to their universe, and suddenly I had followers in the UK and Canada, and all over the states. All sorts of writers and thinkers. They commented on my blog, I comment on theirs. We announce our book launches. We encourage each other's words. We applaud our small achievements and minimize defeats. Bonded through tweets.

They speak to me at home on the desk, on the road on the tablet, and at all times on the phone. We are constantly connected in some way, and in that, a truer community than others. Yes, I saw "Her" [a fabulous script.] I appreciate the potential artificiality of technology. But that's the thing about Twitter, it doesn't feel artificial to me. My Twitter crowd is thoughtful and courteous. We are kind to each other, more so I dare say than other communities jockeying for position.

Far more than the posturing on Facebook, the short-form posting is never intrusive. Tweets say you might find this of interest. Or not. I will not post a photo on your page or tag you in a compromising position. I will share in order to inform. You may read or not at your leisure. Respond or not. Or bless my thoughts with favorite status. That's all, no need to comment. No need to flex any muscles.

I don't concern myself with what's trending, that's a whole other sort of Twitter world. I prefer my writers' world. Discreet. Civilized and interesting.

I look forward to the latest tweets. I trust my tweeters. I look forward to followers. I learn something every day and I appreciate their brevity. Twitter works, for me.

And if you are one of my tribe, I will follow you and you can follow me, or not: @ocbookblogger.

Available now in paperback or e-book.
Amazon, B&N, select stores.

On Memoir by Dani Shapiro

Too well said not to share.
http://www.salon.com/2014/01/10/open_letter_from_dani_shapiro_dear_disillusioned_reader_who_contacted_me_on_facebook/

Memoirist/Novelist Dani Shapiro

New fiction by the great E. L. Doctorow

E. L. Doctorow

 Andrew's Brain. The tantalizing title of Doctorow's stunning new novel. Deceptively simple. Far from the sweeping works of the past, and like his more recent work, compelling, gripping, smart and readable. And, surprising. But I cannot say more without a spoiler.

A man named Andrew sits in an office speaking to a probing unidentified inquisitor/counselor about the life and loves of a man named Andrew. Needing, for reasons unidentified, to speak of himself in the third person.

We don’t know exactly where he is, or why, or why he is wherever he is or why he speaks to this person, but we know from the first that he despairs. Perhaps trauma. Perhaps PTSD. Perhaps merely one too many losses.

In this compact novella Doctorow presents a portrait of a man who has suffered much for what might otherwise be considered negligence. We discover early on that he lost a child with his first wife, and when his second much younger wife passes [we learn much later how] he brings their newborn baby to his former wife and her boorish husband, as if repayment, but in truth, in need of someone to care for the child, because he cannot. We’re not sure why not and the story hinges on this moment.

As Andrew recounts his tale, and all the nuances and details of his life and marriages, we meet a man conflicted and regretful, but also defensive. Questioning. A brilliant professor, he has to struggle through half his life before he begins to understand himself and, as the title suggests, the workings of his own brain.

But when did the brain become the mind, he asks? And the reader might ask the same, as he expounds on the workings of the brain, that organ that dictates to all others, including the heart. As the great DeLillo said in a recent commentary on Doctorow's writing, “...the reach of American possibility, in which plain lives take on the cadences of history.” Yes, Andrew’s monologue conveys a much larger meaning.

I admire every novel E. L. Doctorow has written, from the remarkable “Ragtime” and “The Book of Daniel” to the starkly chilling “Billy Bathgate” and the post-modernist “Homer & Langley” and “The March.” He has won just about every great literary award and still publishes enigmatic short stories in literary magazines like The New Yorker. I saw him speak a few years ago at UCI about science and humanity and he was truly spellbinding.

A new novel from this master is cause for joy and I can tell you that this late-life masterpiece will see a lot of publicity because, without spoiling anything, Andrew’s recitation suddenly places him into a political conflict of the most insidious nature, and while this story shift pulls you up short, it takes the novel to a higher plane. 

I must confess, I wanted more of the book, it was too brief for me, and the ending not satisfying in that way that novels wrap up and make sense, but of course, Doctorow leaves us to think for ourselves. What is the trajectory of our lives? How do we find ourselves in prisons of our own making? And what, or who, can alter that destiny? Read for yourself and decide.