STILL LIFE WITH BREADCRUMBS

TITLE: STILL LIFE WITH BREAD CRUMBS
AUTHOR: ANNA QUINDLEN
Pages: 272
Date: 02/02/2014
Grade: 5-
Details: Received from Hutchinson
            Through Nudge
Own

Rebecca Winter used to be famous for her photographs. A picture called ‘Still Life with Breadcrumbs’, showing the leftovers of a dinner party the morning after, made her name both in artistic circles and it the woman’s movement. But that was ages ago, when she was still married to a man who turned out to change wives every ten years.

Now aged 60 Rebecca is worrying about money, something she can’t really remember doing before. With her fame in decline and her work no longer selling it is getting ever harder to find the money to pay for her apartment in New York City, contribute to her mother’s nursing home costs, her father’s accommodation and all the other drains on her ever dwindling resources. Letting her apartment for a year while renting a small cottage in rural New York State seems the perfect solution. Except that she hadn’t expected the cottage to be quite as primitive as it turns out to be, nor the countryside as lonely as it is.

A racoon taking refuge in her attic brings Rebecca in contact with Jim Bates, a roofer who takes care of the roon problem and slowly coaxes the photographer out of her self-imposed solitude. It is through Jim and other locals that Rebecca comes to recognise that life at 60 is far from over, that new opportunities lie just around the corner if you’re willing to open your eyes and mind to them and that happiness is anything but the exclusive right of the young.

It took me a little while to get into this story and, more specifically, Rebecca. For a while I just wanted to take this woman by the shoulders and shout at her; remind her that she was 60 years old and should have gotten a hold of herself and her life years ago. This feeling dwindled as the story continued because Rebecca’s journey is both fascinating and thought-provoking. It was a delight to watch as she slowly opens herself up to the possibilities represented by a new environment, new people in her life and a new perspective on the world around her.

At first glance the writing in this book seems distant, unemotional, because the story – like Rebecca’s pictures - seems to concentrate on the minor details, without putting them in their larger context. It is only as the story progresses that it becomes clear that the reader and Rebecca are on a similar journey. In her photographs and in life Rebecca has always concentrated on details so small that it became impossible to see the bigger picture. Her year in the middle of nowhere and her contact with Jim, Sally, the owner of an English teashop and Tad, a professional clown, force her to look at the bigger picture and the beauty that can be found when you take in the whole. The reader’s journey is the same. As all the small details of Rebecca’s life slowly come together it becomes possible to appreciate the woman for all that she is rather than despair about her for one or two minor idiosyncrasies.

This is a book about encountering new opportunities and having the courage to embrace them, regardless of what stage of your life you happen to be facing. This is true for Rebecca, who has to reinvent her life, the way in which she has approached photography and rethink her ideas about age and love. It is also true for Tad, who uses Rebecca’s example to pursue his own dream and it is true for the dog Rebecca adopts even though she is not a dog person.

On a side note I should probably add that the few chapters written from the dog’s perspective are probably among my favourites in this book, a close second to the following passage, which ties in nicely with my early reservations about Rebecca and her story.

“(...) she realized she’d been becoming different people for as long as she could remember but had never really noticed, or had put it down to moods, or marriage, or motherhood. The problem was that she’d thought that at a certain point she would be a finished product. Now she wasn’t sure what that might be (...)”

It is very appropriate that Rebecca is a photographer since this is a story about perspective. Just as it is possible to change the picture you capture with your camera it is possible to alter the way you approach life, provided you’re prepared to adjust your default settings and take a risk.

This a sparsely written story with a powerful message; life is what we make of it, regardless of age or circumstance. If we are willing to look at the world from a different perspective we might just find that opportunities are available to us where we least expect them.

MRS POE

TITLE: MRS POE

AUTHOR: LYNN CULLEN

Pages: 336

Date: 06/10/2013

Grade: 4.5

Details: Received from Gallery Books

            Through NetGalley

Own/Kindle

The Blurb:

“1845: New York City is a sprawling warren of gaslit streets and crowded avenues, bustling with new immigrants and old money, optimism and opportunity, poverty and crime. Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” is all the rage—the success of which a struggling poet like Frances Osgood can only dream. As a mother trying to support two young children after her husband’s cruel betrayal, Frances jumps at the chance to meet the illustrious Mr. Poe at a small literary gathering, if only to help her fledgling career. Although not a great fan of Poe’s writing, she is nonetheless overwhelmed by his magnetic presence— and the surprising revelation that he admires her work.

What follows is a flirtation, then a seduction, then an illicit affair . . . and with each clandestine encounter, Frances finds herself falling slowly and inexorably under the spell of her mysterious, complicated lover. But when Edgar’s frail wife Virginia insists on befriending Frances as well, the relationship becomes as dark and twisted as one of Poe’s tales. And like those gothic heroines whose fates are forever sealed, Frances begins to fear that deceiving Mrs. Poe may be as impossible as cheating death itself.”

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“A writer and his demons. A woman and her desires. A wife and her revenge…”

If you are going to write a novel about a historical figure it is hard to imagine a more fascinating person than Edgar Allan Poe. He of the dark twisted tales, who married his teenage niece, and was apparently determined to alienate the very people who admired his poetry and tales.

How different a character Frances Sargent Osgood is. She may be a poet, like Poe, but whereas his poems are created to shock and scare, hers deal with flowers and are beautiful. No wonder she is surprised when Poe confesses to admiring her poems when they first meet.

In modern times most people would understand how a woman like Frances, abandoned by her philandering husband, might fall for a man like Poe and act on that attraction. In New York of the 19^th century such understanding was rare. In a time when women still became the property of the men they married any close contact between a married woman and a man other than her husband was frowned upon, if not condemned. Although there appears to be, at least in this book, a double standard in this regard. While Frances friendship with Poe is cause for scandal, nobody appears to raise an eyebrow at the way Rufus Wilmot Griswold pursued her.

Before Frances meets Poe she is convinced she dislikes the man. She doesn’t like or approve of his poem “The Raven” and fails to understand why it would be so popular when it is so very dark. However, upon meeting Poe, Frances can’t help being attracted to the man, even if it is against her better judgment.

“I knew that I should dislike the man, should fear him, should keep my distance at all costs. I knew that I would not.”

In the society in which they live their attraction to each other could never lead to a happy ending, and despite their best, if somewhat awkward, attempts at secrecy, rumours about the two of them soon spread.

When Frances befriends Poe’s wife Virginia a curious but ultimately dangerous game kicks off. Is Virginia pushing Poe and Frances together with her insistence on contact with Mrs Osgood or has she a far more sinister game in mind?

This is a fascinating book. As a story of doomed love it would have been a great read if the two characters had been fictional. The fact that both Poe and Frances are real historical figures and a possible affair between them something which has been speculated about since their own days, only makes this story more interesting.

Because of the circles in which Frances and Poe moved, the reader is treated to glimpses of a host of famous names: Miss Louise Alcott, Mr. Walter Whitman, Mr. Herman Melville, Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson, to name but a few, all make fleeting appearances. The expansion of New York City is another part of the story that makes for interesting reading. It is hard to imagine farmland and hills where nowadays we only see buildings and flat land. And the emergence of things we take for granted these days – Morse code and Central Park for example – puts this story even more firmly in its historical context.

The writing in this book is beautiful. In fact, it is easy to imagine that this book might be written by Frances herself; it sounds like a work written by someone who loves words and beauty and has a talent for combining the two.

This is a heartbreakingly beautiful story about love and loss as well as a thoroughly good read. The combination of poetic writing and an at times very dark story-line, means that the reader is thrown from pure awe at the skill of the author to pure horror about what is actually taking place. This is a book well worth reading, regardless of whether you’re a fan of Edgar Allan Poe and/or Frances Sargent Osgood or not.

It is as if producing a creative work tears a piece from your soul. When it is ripped completely free of you, the wound must bleed for a while.”