Ghost Written

Once again, I picked up a tell all, behind the scenes, pseudo-celebrity tale, The End of Normal by Stephanie Madoff Mack.  This was the story behind the great Ponzi schemer and notorious crook, Bernie Madoff.  More specifically, Bernie's daughter-in-law, wife of his son Mark, has written her tale, proclaiming her husband's innocence and the great tragedy that befell her and her family when Bernie came tumbling down.

Ms Mack has a sad story to tell and like many memoirs of late, it really needs more time before it can be properly told.  The writer's wrath and anger and vitriol at her horrible misfortune is too fresh.  I would love to read the book she would write in 20 years.  The book is way too angry, and I found myself actually feeling sorry for Ruth Madoff, who she paints as a horrible human being for no other reason than refusing to divorce her husband.

So, if you are interested in this chapter in American financial history, and a version of the story as told by a family member, it is worth reading. It is quite sorrowful (Ms Mack's husband cannot handle the pressure and commits suicide while he is home alone with their baby son.) and could easily be a primer on how to mourn and, again, as always, a testament to the healing powers of telling your story.

But more than anything it made me wonder about the profession of ghost writing.  I noticed after I was almost finished with the book, that there was a second author, a ghost writer, whose name was on the cover page inside.  I wondered what that would be like, to sit by someone who had a front row seat to history, and to talk with her and then piece together her story in a meaningful way: one that suited the teller of the tale, made sense, and was told with drama.  Anyone know how I can get a ghost writing gig? Or better yet, hire me to write your story? I would love to listen.

Most Talkative by Andy Cohen

This early review book that I got chosen to read seemed to be written solely to gossip about the Read Housewives series of shows produced and aired by Bravo Network.  Andy Cohen is the executive producer of many of these shows and has some sort of staring role in part of the shows.  Although I have seen teasers for them on Bravo (probably while watching re-runs of the West Wing) I have never watched any of them or been interested in any of them.

The first 3/4 of the book is about Andy's coming of age in real life and in the television industry.  Most of the book is funny and heartwarming.  He came of age in the 80's, about the same time I did, and he also came out at that time. His memoir concerning these early years and his rise through the ranks and his coming to understand his sexuality was really quite moving and powerful.  I have a close friend from this time who I imagine was also thinking and going through some of the same things as he came out.  I loved it.  I laughed aloud many times. I really felt a kinship with Mr Cohen.  

Of course, as you might imagine, the last couple of chapters, all about shows that I have never seen (nor do I want to after reading this) was not very interesting to me at all.  It might be to you if you watch them yourself or have seen Mr Cohen on a late night show he emcees.  I do recommend it, mostly for the for first parts of the book in which he grapples with his own life and how he plans to live it.

Once Upon a Secret by Mimi Alford

I needed some light reading before my trip home from Scotland.  I bought this book to keep me company, and it was so interesting I finished it before I even got onto the plane.

Mimi Beardsley, 19 years old, gets a job as an intern in the White House Press office. Within a few days of starting this prestigious job, she become JFK's lover. This affair lasts for over 18 months and ends when JFK is assassinated.

The story of Mimi's ringside seat to history is interesting enough, but the second half of the story, how she kept this secret for more than 30 years, is also very compelling.  It is testament again, to how telling our truth, our own story, is powerful and healing and of course how keeping secrets can nearly destroy us.

Writing is pretty good and it did keep my attention.  It is most likely available at the public library.

The Time Together by Carol Burnett

I'm so glad we had this time together

Just to have a laugh and sing a song

Seems we just get started and before you know it

Comes the time we have to say, "So Long!"

                  -from the Carol Burnett show

As a kid, I loved watching the Carol Burnett show on Saturday nights with my parents.  I was old enough to appreciate the zany humor of Carol and friends, especially the talented Tim Conway.  I laughed aloud along with my parents at Carol when she made fun of Gone with the Wind.  Her dress was made of curtains with the curtain rod still inserted.  The dress was  the classic television funny moment, and no one else but Carol could pull it off.  The dress now resides at the Smithsonian, testament to the wacky days of the Carol Burnett Show and her brilliant costume designer Bob Mackie.  

Carol tells many many tales of coming of age in the entertainment industry and all the people she met on the way up the ladder.  These stories are not literary feats or a great philosophy on life, rather just funny moments behind the scenes with some of America's most beloved entertainers and actors.  

It took me on a trip down memory lane.  Many of the sketches she writes about you can relive on youtube.  If you enjoy Carol Burnett, and want to take out a quick evening for some fun stories and funny reminiscences of a great comic lady, this would be a good book to pick up at the library.  I wonder if we could get her to host Saturday Night Live?

Meanwhile enjoy this old Carol Burnett sketch:

Alan Squire Publishing

I recently received an ER copy of a collection of personal essays put out by a small publishing company called Alan Squire Publishing.  I'll be reviewing this book in a few days, but before I get to that I want to share a bonus story that was included as part of the package.

Included with the book and the obligatory letter from the publisher was a 6 page photocopy of a newspaper story.  I blew it off at first.  One night as I was drifting off, it caught my eye and I became caught up in the story of the man behind this small press.  The newspaper article was from a 2008 edition of The Washington Post Magazine and was by an incredible feature writer by the name of Laura Wexler.

It seems Andrew Gifford the founder of Alan Squire Publishing was heir to the famous Gifford Ice Cream stores which all went out of business when Gifford's father left town with all the money.  Andrew was 10 years old at the time and never saw his father again.

Gifford was left with nothing and eventually found his way to a routine day job trouble shooting for the APA.  In the meantime, he always had this dream to publish books, and so using his own credit card he began to publish.  He has published three books now and has teamed up with the Santa Fe Writers Project to start offering a literature prize.

Thirtysomething Gifford also suffered from a horrible disease  called Trigeminal Neuralgia.  For 14 years he had a searing pain in his face.  Apparently this disease is also nicknamed the suicide disease because the pain is so horrific and apparently very difficult to treat.

So Gifford labors away at his day job, heir to a scandal that rocked the Baltimore ice cream world, and by night labors to produce good books and deals with searing and enduring pain.

The article I read recounted how finally he met a doctor who offered him a risky procedure to end the pain (brain surgery) and after all the years of the most painful existence you could imagine, he woke up after surgery to find his pain was gone.  Andrew Gifford went through a period of time after the surgery where he actually missed his pain.  He fingered the pills he used  to take. He mourned his missing pain like one might mourn a missing lover.

I reread that last page several times.  How could you miss your pain?  Is it true that we can become so attached to even the most horrifying life set backs that we actually miss them when they are gone?  I was amazed at Andrew's story and kept turning that idea over and over in my head.  How could someone miss a pain so awful that you feared breeze on your face or the feel of the shower on your skin?

The newspaper story did exactly what it intended to do.  My heart is very big for this young sweet man, and I hope that his business does well, and I intend to go out and buy and read all his books.  I am telling you to do the same.


Readers, this is the kind of guy we want to succeed.  So take a look at these books and ask yourself if you wouldn't like to read one or two of them. I don't mean to say buy these books cause you feel sorry for a guy who has had a rough life and is trying to do something to make himself a little piece of happy.   I am saying, the books are pretty good and we should patronize this guy because he is a good guy and he is trying to make for himself a little piece of happy.

At least request it at your public library so they will buy a copy of these good, good words.

JD Salinger 1919-2010*

I never really understood what was so great about JD Salinger's fiction. When I was a teen in the early 80's all the conventional wisdom pointed right at Catcher in the Rye. Groundbreaking! Shocking! Revolutionary! I picked it up at the library and read it quickly and prepared to be blown away. I was pretty disapointed.

"What's the big deal?" I thought. It probably was pretty revolutionary in 1951 when it was published, but I had already read the complete cannon of Judy Blume in which she writes quite frankly about all kinds of maturation issues and sexually explicit coming of age situations. I gobbled up Go Ask Alice an anonymous diary of a drug addicted teen. Holden Caulfield could hardly hold a candle to any of the heroines in my teen library.

In looking back, I realize that Holden Caulfield is a decidedly male protagonist with a male point of view written by a very male author. Most women comment that they did not particularly care for Catcher in the Rye either. I could not relate especially when I was 15.

What fascinated me about this book is the story of the author, JD Salinger. He hated publicity and after making it big with Catcher in the Rye and Franny and Zooey (which I couldn't get into either.) he disappeared and became something of a recluse. After a story in the New Yorker in 1965, he never published again. Who was this enigmatic man and why did he choose a life of seclusion?

His recent death and NY times obituary made mention of two memoirs published by two different women in his life. Joyce Maynard, writer and novelist, quit college at Yale and moved in with him at age 18 (while he was 53!). The affair lasted a mere 10 months and took Ms. Maynard 20 years from which to recover. She apparently saw the light and published At Home in the World which is her memoir of growing up in a dysfunctional family which led her to form a relationship with this unusual and controlling man.

Maragaret "Peggy" Salinger, his daughter, published her own memoir shortly after Ms. Maynard's hit the bookshelves. Peggy's coming of age saga Dreamcatcher was less focused on JD Salinger, but he haunted the background of her story throughout. Obviously Peggy has a much different perspective on her father and their relationship than Joyce, but the two women's stories are not incompatible and together make for a fascinating study of an eccentric man and a gifted writer.

At Home in the World is the more interesting of the two memoirs. Ms. Maynard is clearly a professional writer and knows how to tell a story and tells it well. I was fairly mesmerized by her and her life through the whole thing. Her JD was controlling and manipulative, but she was also quite stunted and ready to be controlled. It took her many years to recover. I think the most striking aspect of this story was Ms Maynard's own rise to fame as a reporter, writer and novelist. She lives the life I would love to live. She clearly has a gift, but no where in the book does she discuss a love of words and writing. For her it is always something of a burden or a chore. She can write, she is prompted and encouraged to write at a very young age (think stage parents for budding writers) and thus her career rises around her with some fanfare, but with no joy. I never felt like this path to the writing life was one I would ever take. Writing became simply her career and a means to an end. I doubt if the muse ever visited her. I learned a lot about writing and life simply from watching her live this forced march to writing fame.

Ms Salinger is clearly not the writer. She is compelled to tell her story in the same way Ms Maynard was but her story is awkward and changes styles frequently throughout. It fluctuated between an academic essay of her father's writing and how it parallels his life, and her own diary entries and letters. The first 100 pages or so were an explication of her father before she knew him: how the war and virulent anti-semitism must have shaped him. This part of the book will be especially appealing to you if you are familiar with his stories and novels, especially his early ones.

The next 200 or so pages are a blow by blow of all the steps and mis steps she took as a small child growing up in a recluse's home and the effects it had on her. The last 100 pages are how she got to where she is now. While her version has some merit, it is the most interesting when it intersects with Joyce's story. Somehow the two of them together can weave the tale of the enigmatic and troubled man.

For some reason critics have really bashed Joyce Maynard's memoir, accusing her of trying to cash in. In my opinion, so what? She has a tale to tell and she knows how to tell it. If that bothered JD Salinger maybe he needed to try a bit harder at being a recluse. Both these women have created timely narratives that should shed some light on Mr. Salinger and his life and work and also might teach a thing or two about writing memories.

*The editor is well aware that it is Women's History month and writing about JD Salinger is not exactly in keeping with the theme of the month. However, I do not particularly believe in marginalizing the history of women. It should be taught every month...just as African American History should be taught every month. So, given that JD Salinger is on my mind--he gets the first blog post of the month.

Stylized

The approach to style is by way of plainness,

simplicity, orderliness, sincerity."

--EB White

I picked up this fascinating history of one of the worlds most used and under-appreciated books just before the holidays when I saw it on librarything. Mark Garvey, the author of Stylized: A Slightly Obsessive History of Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, has long been fascinated by an old volume of grammar and style advice assigned to virtually every high school english student in the country at one time. Was it assigned to you? Where is your copy?

I found mine on a bookshelf near my desk quite easily. I read it a long time ago and had forgotten about it. Garvey's history gave me the engrossing back story and the controversies surrounding Element's publication. I read it aloud to my husband on our drive home from a family visit. EB White is easily one of the best writers of the 20th century and this book about his (and Strunk's) small volume of essays and grammar advice brought back memories for us.

The author of this history includes thoughts and ideas from writers who read and re-read Elements of Style in order to understand craft and language. The other treat was a collection of EB White's witty letters sent in response to his critics and admirers. Through letters, we catch a glimpse of Mr. White's elegant self-effacing style.

I pulled out my copy of Strunk and White and marveled over the book for the first time. Grammar and style no longer seem like dull tools but rather beautiful music to accompany any writer on the path to better prose. My 12th grade English teacher Mrs. Rose would be impressed.

April 2009 was the 50th anniversary of the publication of Elements in its current form. Pick up your old copy and peruse it. It doesn't get much more down to the marrow of writing than this slim volume. Incidentally, my 1979 edition is 92 pages including index. Current editions are up to 105 pages and have gotten rid of gendered language with which Mr. White may not have agreed. Strunk and White's Elements of Style has easily sold over 1,000,000 copies making it perhaps the bestselling textbook of all time.

Perhaps this will kick start your writing this year.