While I’m away from blogging, I’m sharing some of my favorite books from my bookshelf of “signed books.”
Okay, another friend, though I didn’t know her at the time I read this book: The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst. A man’s wife dies, and he wants to know what happens…so because the dog was the only witness, he tries to teach it to talk.
“Here is what we know, those of us who can speak to tell a story: On the afternoon of October 24, my wife, Lexy Ransome, climbed to the top of the apple tree in our backyard and fell to her death. There were no witnesses, save our dot, Lorelei; it was a weekday afternoon, and none of our neighbors were at home, sitting in their kitchens with their windows open, to hear whether, in that brief midair moment, my wife cried out or gasped or made no sound at all. None of them were working in their yards, enjoying the last of the warm weather, to see whether her body crumpled before she hit the ground, or whether she tried to right herself in the air, or whether she simply spread her arms open to the sky.”
Here’s a piece that Carolyn wrote for this blog about the thorny issue of whether one can write about their kids’ lives.
And here’s an interview with Carolyn about the book.
And here’s a tantalizing tidbit: I’ve been reading her new book in progress in my writing group, and it is FANTASTIC!!