TBR: A Brief Natural History of Women by Sarah Freligh

TBR [to be read] is a semi-regular, invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released/forthcoming, interesting books who will tell us about their new work as well as offer tips on writing, stories about the publishing biz, and from time to time, a recipe.

 

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

 

A Brief Natural History of Women balances anthropology and imagination in its exploration of women through their lovers, friends, family, grief, work, and everything in between. A post-Roe book that recalls the bad old days pre-Roe.

 

 Which story did you most enjoy writing? Why? And, which story gave you the most trouble, and why?

 

I really, really loved writing “A Brief Natural History of the Girls in the Office,” a story that I’d fooled around with for a long time before I hit on food and the collective “we” as a way to condense the lives of these women into a few paragraphs while still paying homage to their fierce sense of community.

 

“A Brief Natural History of the Automobile,” hands down, gave me fits. I started writing it in 1998, on a gigantic PC, and finished it in 2021 on my Mac Air. That’s how long it took for it to present itself to me.

 

 

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

 

It was mostly highs, honestly. I submitted it a few contests where it was a finalist or a runner-up. I sent it to Allison Blevins at Harbor Editions at her request and she accepted it a few days later. I was thrilled --- I loved working with Harbor on my chapbook, We, published in January 2021.

 

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

 

“Don’t get into too many habits,” advice courtesy of a Famous Writer during a keynote address at a long-ago writers’ conference. Many participants were shocked because this is the exact opposite of what we’re told to do. But think about it: Rigidity, inflexibility are often the very things that keep us from writing. A good fifteen minutes daily is better than a bad three-hour, once-a-week binge.

 

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

 

That it became my safe place during the pandemic.

 

 

How did you find the title of your book?

 

I felt like I was writing all these weird little pieces that had little or no thematic unity and then I wrote “A Brief Natural History of the Girls in the Office,” and I understood the about-ness of the book and knew what my title needed to be.

 

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book?

 

I do not recommend “Melinda’s tuna noodle casserole crusted with Saltines” that she inflicted on the girls in the office. Blech.

 

*****

 

READ MORE ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: www.sarahfreligh.com

 

ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR TBR PILE: https://www.amazon.com/Brief-Natural-History-Women/dp/1957248130/ref=sr_1_1?crid=17KSQMER4VAPM&keywords=sarah+freligh&qid=1687798011&sprefix=sarah+fre%2Caps%2C136&sr=8-1

 

READ A STORY FROM THIS BOOK, “A Brief Natural History of the Girls in the Office”:

https://milkcandyreview.home.blog/2022/10/06/a-brief-natural-history-of-the-girls-in-the-office-by-sarah-freligh/

 

 

 

TBR: Hedge by Jane Delury

TBR [to be read] is a semi-regular, invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released/forthcoming, interesting books who will tell us about their new work as well as offer tips on writing, stories about the publishing biz, and from time to time, a recipe. 

  

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

 

Hedge is about a woman trying to pursue her own passions and happiness while being a good mother to her children. Maud is a landscape historian who leaves her marriage in California for a project on a Hudson Valley estate, where she finds new love that’s quickly uprooted by her daughter’s secret struggles.

 

Which character did you most enjoy creating? Why? And, which character gave you the most trouble, and why?

 

In the second part of Hedge, Maud returns home to Marin and begins restoring a garden at the Presidio of San Francisco. The project’s donor is a reclusive artist named Alice, who has left her former life behind and lives in isolation on the Pacific Coast. She’s both tough and vulnerable and deeply connected to the wild landscape. I loved spending time with her, learning about her past and why she left it behind. A harder character to write was Maud’s husband, Peter, because he’s the easy antagonist in the first part of the book and I needed to find my own understanding of his behavior.

 

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

 

My first book, THE BALCONY, a novel-in-stories, came out with Little, Brown and I had a wonderful editor. But it became clear early on that Hedge wasn’t a good match for her, so we parted ways. It was painful! Around the same time, the brilliant Leigh Newman contacted my agent, looking for novel manuscripts for a new publishing venture. (I’d worked with Leigh before when she edited one of my essays.) Leigh connected with Hedge and had a vision for editing it, and I felt the universe was telling me: Jump! So I did, and I’m so glad, because this led me to Zibby Books, which has been a great home.

 

 

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

 

Don’t forget why you write in the first place and make sure you nurture that reason no matter what happens with the work when it’s out of your hands. We spend so many hours of our life on the page. Make those hours matter.

 

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

 

Maud’s elder daughter, Ella, is keeping a secret in the first part of the book. When I understood what was going on with her, I was shocked, as if someone else had written it!

How did you find the title of your book?

 

The first draft of Hedge took place at Monticello. (Eventually, I needed to dump Thomas Jefferson.) When the Monticello gardens were restored, a hedge was grown to conceal Mulberry Row from the house, hiding the reminder of enslavement on the mountain. That draft of Hedge was quite different from the final book, but when I moved the novel to New York, I brought the hedge with me!

 

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book? (Any recipes I might share?)

 

Maud and her daughters are living near an orchard in the Hudson Valley and they spend an afternoon making jam and pie. Here’s a great cherry pie recipe from the New York Times!

 

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1013181-twice-baked-sour-cherry-pie

 

 *****

READ MORE ABOUT THIS PUBLISHER: https://www.zibbybooks.com

 

ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR OWN TBR STACK:

https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=jane+delury+hedge+bookshop.org&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

 

 

 

TBR: Swimming with Ghosts by Michelle Brafman

TBR [to be read] is a semi-regular, invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released/forthcoming, interesting books who will tell us about their new work as well as offer tips on writing, stories about the publishing biz, and from time to time, a recipe. 

 

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

 

SWIMMING WITH GHOSTS is set in June 2012. The magical and slightly cultish River Run swim club is alive with the spirit of fun competition when a perfect storm brews between team moms and best friends, Gillian Cloud and Kristy Weinstein. The ghost of family addiction has turned up, forcing them to face their unresolved childhood trauma. Real sparks fly on the night of the derecho—a freak land hurricane—which sweeps through Northern Virginia, knocking out power for days, igniting a tinder box of family secrets that threaten to destroy the lives Gillian and Kristy have worked so hard to create.

 

Which character did you most enjoy creating? Why? And, which character gave you the most trouble, and why?

 

The same character I enjoyed creating was the one who gave me the most trouble! I loved writing Gillian Cloud, the uber swim mom who cannot relinquish control over every aspect of the River Run Manta Rays swim team, even after her youngest child is too old to compete. Her antics are ripe for satire. That said, her obsession with the pool is rooted in her family history. River Run is a sacred space for Gillian because it was the only place where her charismatic, alcoholic father did not drink to excess. So she is really clinging to this oasis.

Gillian was tricky because my beta readers kind of hated her controlling, Ms. Fix-it behavior. The more I dug into the source of her vulnerability, though, the more human she became to my early readers. That’s what I love about writing. Those moments of grace.

 

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

 

The book went out on submission in March of 2020, when we were all trying to figure out life in a global pandemic. The novel got no traction. That low lasted for a couple of  years. In February of 2022, a publicist from Turner Publishing asked me to blurb one of their novels, and throughout the course of our correspondence, I discovered that Turner had hired a fabulous new acquisitions editor. He totally understood what I was up to with this novel and bought the book quickly. That was a high!

 

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

 

Ask someone to read your work aloud to you. My husband read me late drafts of my first two books, and over my son’s winter break from college, he parked himself in my office and read me Swimming with Ghosts. They both uncovered plot, character, and continuity issues I couldn’t see as well as smaller things like word repetition and pet gestures and verbs that should probably only be used once in an entire novel! When I’m listening to someone read the book, I can also hear when my rhythm is off and which hinky sentences need fixing. I do love the intimacy of the exercise, and I often read for my writer friends.     

 

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

 

The story’s hopefulness. At first, I was focused on rendering a world where parents were working out their stuff in their kids’ arenas, but as I got to know the nature of my characters’ troubles, I realized that they, we, I, have the capacity to transcend our most troubling family legacies. And I’m sure rooting for all of us to do so!

 

Who is your ideal reader?

 

I’m always surprised by who reads my books, which is part of the fun of putting a story out into the world. I suppose my ideal reader is someone who enjoys a little suburban satire, someone whose life has been impacted by any form of addiction, and maybe a parent who has experienced one of those “I think I went too far” moments that can materialize in any kid-related arena, be it the River Run pool, a hockey rink, or ballet studio.

 

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book? (Any recipes I might share?)

 

Whoopie pies! This treat actually serves as a plot point in the book. When tension and competition rears its ugly head between Gillian and her best friend Kristy, Kristy swipes the dessert and the affection of one of the younger swim moms.

 

Link to recipe: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/10016/whoopie-pies-i/

 

 

*****

READ MORE ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: www.michellebrafman.com

 

ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR TBR STACK: https://www.amazon.com/Swimming-Ghosts-Novel-Michelle-Brafman/dp/1684429544/ref=sr_1_1?qid=1683118757&refinements=p_27%3AMichelle+Brafman&s=books&sr=1-1

 

 

READ AN EXCERPT OF THIS NOVEL: https://turnerbookstore.com/products/swimming-with-ghosts (below image of cover)

 

TBR: Junk Shop Window by James J. Patterson

TBR [to be read] is a semi-regular, invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released/forthcoming, interesting books who will tell us about their new work as well as offer tips on writing, stories about the publishing biz, and from time to time, a recipe.

 

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

 

Junk Shop Window is memoir with a twist. Part memoir, part speculative fiction with a Twilight Zone vibe. Breaking down barriers between the comical and the scholarly, between memoir and creative non-fiction, in the service of informative  (and hopefully entertaining) story telling.

 

 

Which essay did you most enjoy writing? Why? And, which essay gave you the most trouble, and why?

I most enjoyed writing the three Hermes pieces. All my life I have been careful to make note of the individual contributions strangers and chance encounters have made in my personal story, and by invoking the messenger god Hermes, I feel I was able to give voice, form, and meaning to those encounters.

 

“The World of Yesterday” essay was the longest and most difficult to write. In attempting to resuscitate the mores, deeds, tragedies and triumphs of my elders now long gone, I found myself forging links between their personal histories, my own, and the world stage upon which we have all taken part, however humble those contributions have been.

 

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

 In my writing I have always found reprieve, solace, and encouragement in Hemingway’s advice to stop when you’re on a roll, so that when you pick it back up again you resume your work with some  momentum. It works.

 

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

 What surprised me while writing Junk Shop? I had a plan to make the book, at least in part, a series of profiles of individuals whose impulsive/compulsive behaviors became their professions, whether it’s sitting down, unconsciously, to write, make art, or build furniture, etc., but once I started typing, it rather became an expose of my own compulsion to do the same thing.

 

How did you find the title of your book?

 

The title Junk Shop Window came about from an off-hand remark my wife, poet Rose Solari, made one afternoon while she was arranging bric-a-brac atop one of our living room bookcases. When I asked what her concept was, she said, “I’m kinda going for that junk shop window effect.” I was in the middle of surveying about a dozen books that came out around the centennial of the beginning of World War I, and it hit me that after that war, the debris, rubble, and remnants of that destroyed world had become the iconic symbols of  modern art, and I’ll reference that revelatory moment in the essay, “The World of Yesterday.”

 Sometimes the road to publication is truly the road less taken. An essay collection doesn’t take shape until you lay them all out on the floor and ask yourself, what have I done?

 

 Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book? (Any recipes I might share?)

Here's a recipe for true Canadian butter tarts, mentioned in the “World of Yesterday.” (Recipe courtesy Theresa Butcher, Lakefield, Ontario)

 

Butter Tart Filling:

 

1/2 cup lightly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup corn syrup

1/4 cup butter, melted

1 egg

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup raisins

 

Directions:

Combine all ingredients but the raisins

- sprinkle raisins in single layer in pie crust cup, premade is fine

- fill 2/3 with filling mixture

- bake at 425 for 12-15 minutes

- let cool completely on wire rack

TaDa! Enjoy!

 

*****

READ MORE ABOUT THIS PUBLISHER: www.alansquirepublishing.com

ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR OWN TBR STACK: https://bookshop.org/p/books/junk-shop-window-essays-on-myth-life-and-literature-james-j-patterson/18967388?ean=9781942892342

 

READ AN ESSAY FROM THIS BOOK, “The Memory of Tomorrow”: https://www.marylandliteraryreview.com/current/the-memory-of-tomorrow/

 

 

 

TBR: American Ending by Mary Kay Zuravleff

TBR [to be read] is a semi-regular, invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released/forthcoming, interesting books who will tell us about their new work as well as offer tips on writing, stories about the publishing biz, and from time to time, a recipe.

 

 

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

 

American Ending is a poignant reminder that everything that is happening in America has already happened. This immersive novel weaves Russian fairy tales and fables into a family saga set in the coal mines of Appalachia in the early 1900s. The challenges facing immigrants—and the fragility of citizenship—are just as unsettling and surprising today as they were 100 years ago.

 

Which character did you most enjoy creating? Why? And which character gave you the most trouble, and why?

 

The main character, Yelena, gave me the most trouble. I’d never written a historical novel, and it was hard to stay inside her head and the era that constrained her.

 

Viktor Gomelekoff, Yelena’s love interest, was the most fun, because I based him closely on my beloved maternal grandfather. Sickly his whole life (because of his years as a coal miner), he outlasted my other grandparents and his sense of humor and tolerance stood out in his community. You could tell him anything, and people did.

           

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

 

Early on, the publisher of my first three books rejected this one, then my agent withdrew, saying my book “didn’t match the one in her head.” Fortunately, nearly every writer I know was struggling with her agent and/or publisher—I didn’t want that for them, but it made my situation feel less personal. The agent I found asked for a rewrite, and she didn’t want to show it to big publishers, which still puzzles me. But she found Blair, a woman-owned independent publisher in North Carolina, and Robin Muira, the editor there, had some smart ideas about making the book less episodic and more dramatic. That meant another rewrite without any promises. Still, I know good editing when I hear it, and I dove back in with great results—Robin bought the book! My experience with Blair has been so validating—they picked the title and came up with a stunning, dramatic cover of a dancing wolf, which gives the flavor of Russian fairy tales along with the danger and gritty humor in the book.

 

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

 

This was my first historical novel and the first time I reached into my family for stories. I wrestled with the constrictions of history, writing critically about the Old Believer Russian Orthodox religion (my cousin is currently the priest of that church), and portraying “my” people in good and bad lights. When I bemoaned about this to a group of writers who included Sarah Boxer, she said, “It seems like the struggle is the substance.” That became my mantra for this novel!

 

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

 

I planned to write about four generations of women in the same family—and I wrote many pages about subsequent generations—but Yelena’s story was the richest broth. She kept demanding my attention.

 

How did you find the title of your book?

 

I had many titles, mainly Yelena for the main character and narrator, and Buried Sunshine, another name for coal. As soon as Blair bought the book, they said a committee was working on a different title, which makes a novelist nervous, but I gasped when I read the email announcing their title: American Ending is better than any title I thought of. In the opening pages, Yelena’s mother asks the children before their bedtime story, “Russian ending or American ending?,” and that refrain haunts Yelena’s life. In their Appalachian town, boys go into the dangerous coal mines at ten, and girls are married off at fourteen, giving birth to more babies than they can feed. The tension of the novel is between what Yelena imagines for herself and what America delivers.

 

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book? (Any recipes I might share?)

 

If I may quote Alice McDermott on my book “Oh, and the food. Gorgeous!” There’s blintzes, skansa (like a cheese Danish), kielbasa sausage, loaves and loaves of bread—from sweet paska to coffee-infused black bread—kapusta (cabbage) soup, and everything pickled, especially cucumbers and beets. Paska is like a sweet challah, which they top with a braid of dough to represent the Trinity. Here’s my grandmother’s recipe for paska, published in the Erie, Pennsylvania, paper in the 1950s!

 

*****

 

Read more about this book: https://www.americanending.net

 

Order this book for your own TBR stack: https://www.politics-prose.com/book/9781949467994

 

Read an excerpt from this book, “Russian Ending or American Ending?”:

http://www.graceandgravitydc.com/from-the-attic/russian-ending-or-american-ending-by-mary-kay-zuravleff#:~:text=In%20Zuravleff%E2%80%99s%20Russian%20Ending%20or%20American%20Ending%3F%2C%20the,is%20at%20their%20apartment%20watching%20their%20two%20children.