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Today, with her vivid reimagining of EM Forster's
A Room With a View in a YA novel she titled
Love, Lucy, April Lindner has returned me to that city of art—Florence, Italy. She has given me Lucy, torn between two cities and two boys, a father's demands and her own instincts. She has taken me to Fiesole, a village outside Florence where I traveled many years ago—a town that, in fact, became the setting of my favorite published short story.
It's all so clear, in April's book. I see the streets as if I am walking them, the red-tiled roofs as if I am up above them, that Arno as if I am Vespa-ing by.
And that first photo in this post, right down to the red bike, is a picture I took in back in September 2012, when I was researching my own Florence novel,
One Thing Stolen. That precise scene and angle, right down to the the red bike, is pictured on the back of April's novel.
We wrote our Italy novels at the same time. Worried them through together. Gave each other the support novelists need. Indulged in all flavors of gelato.
And so, April, it was a pleasure this afternoon to read your story, to find your gelato, your streets, your romance, and, of course, your music, in the pages of
Love, Lucy. Congratulations on another wonderful reimagining.
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Young Adult novel writers are putting their spin on historical fiction, covering historical mysteries, contemporary historical reinterpretations, steampunk, historical romances, and more.
As readers of this blog know, it has been a tumultuous time here—a sinking realization that not all the people you trust to get something right (or to do right) do. A sense of helplessness about a false newspaper claim. And so many friends stepping in to cry out against the injustice.
And while I will never be able to leave this cruelty behind—for it is not about me (about that I would not care) but about someone I deeply love—I did physically leave home very early yesterday morning to join friends at the Glory Days Symposium, an intelligent gathering of people who recognize that Springsteen does so much more than entertain. (One of my own—many—appreciations of Springsteen is
here.) I was proud to join April Lindner, Jane Satterfield, Ann E. Michael, and Ned Balbo on a storytelling panel, and deeply inspired by the conversations I heard along the way. I was happy to at last meet Mark Bernhard, an associate provost at University of Southern Indiana, who puts so much of himself into this event.
Mid-afternoon I slipped away to Asbury Park and walked the boardwalk alone. Sea and salt and time to be. A quick but essential exchange with my editor, Tamra Tuller. A funny, I-am-the-luckiest-mother-on-earth text carnival with my son.
Monmouth University, where the Glory Days Symposium was held, is a green campus, architecturally cohering and whole. At its center stands Wilson Hall, a Horace Trumbauer designed mansion originally built, in 1929, as the private residence of F.W. Woolworth Co. president Hubert Templeton Parson. In the summer of 1916, in a building lost to fire on this same site, Woodrow Wilson worked through his presidential campaign. If this Trumbauer building looks familiar to you, that's because it served as the set for the movie,
Annie.
I share above some images from the day.
My friends, the time has come. Tomorrow I will join April Lindner, Jane Satterfield, Ned Balbo, and Ann Michael for "Springsteen and Storytelling," our panel discussion. We're one of many
Bruce conversations that will be going on this weekend at Monmouth University as part of the Glory Days Symposium. And I'm so grateful to be given a chance to break away from my world for a moment, and to delve into this one.
Bruce and my bruised heart today have nothing to do with each other, but I feel the need to say this just now, while I have your attention (and I suspect that The Boss himself would agree with me on this one). For any one who might be checking in on this blog, for whatever reason you may be checking, please trust me on this:
Not everything journalists write—however well meaning those journalists may be—is true. And sometimes, even if we try very hard to get the record corrected, even if we cry, stomp, and offer to drain our bank accounts in the endeavor, we fail. We cannot achieve the only right result, which is the truth.For now, I am sharing this—the opening words of "Raw to the Bone: Transported Toward Truth and Memory by Springsteen's River Songs," the paper I'll deliver tomorrow.
Might as well start with “Shenandoah,” the old pioneer song that Springsteen and the Seeger Sessions Band transformed into sweet bitters in the living room of Springsteen’s fabled New Jersey farmhouse. “Shenandoah,” the tenth song on the We Shall Overcome/Seeger Sessions album, is music being made, as Springsteen himself has said. Music created in the moment, held between teeth, conducted with the frayed bracelet strings of an uplifted hand. It’s music hummed, hymned, and high in the shoulder blades, deep in the blue pulse of a straining vein. Patti’s lighting candles in the darkening farmhouse, as the band tunes in. The antique clock ticks. The thickly framed mirror doubles the volumes of sound and space. And now the Sessions band is elaborating, confabulating, and the Shenandoah roves.
Oh Shenandoah,
I long to see you,
Away you rolling river.
Oh Shenandoah,
I long to see you,
Away, I'm bound away,
'cross the wide Missouri.
What hasn't been said about Bruce Springsteen live? He sweats through to the bottom of his boots for you. He yields the microphone to little girls in pink cowboy hats who have the nerve to sing a sunny day. He talks about ghosts, and he pounds his heart for redheads. He plays "The River" for a soldier in Afghanistan and an obscure tune for a guy with a sign. He's already laughing with the Phillies crowd before he mentions the opposing team—stars in his eyes kind of smile, though, man, he's been going like this with his Wrecking Ball Tour for so long that you don't know how he's even standing, how he gets those guitars, one after another, strapped on, how the mike doesn't fly out of his grip. He bows his head beside Clarence Clemons's nephew, Jake, and you know he feels the uncle's presence like a prayer, and he is ageless, a stuck Catholic, a confessing romantic, a professor of truth, a scorcher and a crooner, still running, still dancing, still ad libbing, still performing. He's not out of breath, but you are, and he has the power (I'm telling you) to stop the rain.
I was there.That is what has not, until this moment, been written about Springsteen.
I was there. Having waited since I was eighteen years old. Having worked all those years to convince my husband. Having finally bought the tickets and made the announcement,
We're going, because I had an excuse,
this little talk I plan to give (thanks to April Lindner) at the Glory Days Symposium a few short weeks from now. I had to go. It was business this time. And besides, this girl is getting old.
Good Lord, it was better, it was richer, it was deeper, it was more hallowed than even I thought it could be. And I never sat down, though I had seats. And I danced—by myself and with the crowd. And I sang—hard and out loud. And late, late at night, walking back through the city with my husband and a couple of kids just out of school, I talked Old Springsteen Love with Young Springsteen Love, and let me tell you this: We spoke the same language.
The shard below, blogged in early August, is snapped from what I'd written in theory for my Springsteen paper, "Raw to the Bone." Every once in a while, in this life, I get it right. I was right when I danced Springsteen alone in my house, and I was right last night, dancing with Philly:
The music will rise through the soles of my feet. It will scour, channel, silt, and further rise. In the dark cavern of my hips it will catch and swish. Outside, perhaps, the stars have come up, and probably the deer have vanished, and maybe the cicadas are rumbling around in their own mangled souls. But inside, a river churns, widens, roars, and steeps, and I am dancing Springsteen.
Bruce Springsteen. Wrecking Ball Tour. Citizens Bank Park. Philadelphia. September 3, 2012.
I was there.
Yes, it has obsessed me, but it is done. "Raw to the Bone: Transported to Truth and Memory by Springsteen's River Songs" is written at last, and it will slumber now, until September, when I will have the great pleasure of joining April Lindner, Jane Satterfield, Ned Balbo, and Ann Michael at the Glory Days Symposium at Monmouth University. This blog will now return to its regularly scheduled (ha, I never schedule anything) program.
From the paper:
The music will rise through the soles of my feet. It will scour, channel, silt, and further rise. In the dark cavern of my hips it will catch and swish. Outside, perhaps, the stars have come up, and probably the deer have vanished, and maybe the cicadas are rumbling around in their own mangled souls. But inside, a river churns, widens, roars, and steeps, and I am dancing Springsteen.
By:
Beth Kephart ,
on 7/28/2012
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Could there be anything more thrilling (for a reader-rocker) than reading the beautifully researched, impeccably written David Remnick profile of Bruce Springsteen in the July 30 issue of
The New Yorker? The story is called "We Are Alive," and most everyone read it before I did, because my issue didn't arrive until late yesterday afternoon. I'd read pieces online. I'd read the raves. But yesterday, after a very long day of corporate work and minor agitations, I found a breeze and read the profile through. I didn't have to fall in love again with Bruce Springsteen; I've been in love since I was a kid. But I loved, loved, loved every word of this story. I would like to frame it.
(For those who haven't seen my Devon Horse Show photos and video of Jessica Springsteen, who is as sensational in her way as Bruce is, I share them
here.)
Perhaps my favorite part of Remnick's article was discovering the way that Springsteen reads, how he thinks about books. You don't get to be sixty-two and still magnetic, necessary, pulsingly, yes, alive if you don't know something, and if you don't commit yourself to endless learning. Reading is one of the many ways Springsteen stays so connected to us, and so relevant. From
The New Yorker:Lately, he has been consumed with Russian fiction. "It's compensatory—what you missed the first time around," he said. "I'm sixty-some, and I think, There are a lot of these Russian guys! What's all the fuss about? So I was just curious. That was an incredible book: 'The Brothers Karamazov.' Then I read 'The Gambler.' The social play in the first half was less interesting to me, but the second half, about obsession, was fun. That could speak to me. I was a big John Cheever fan, and so when I got into Chekhov I could see where Cheever was coming from. And I was a big Philip Roth fan, so I got into Saul Bellow, 'Augie March.' These are all new connections for me. It'd be like finding out now that the Stones covered Chuck Berry."
Next week, I'll begin to write my paper for
Glory Days: The Bruce Springsteen Symposium, which is being held in mid-September at Monmouth University, and where I'll be joining April Lindner, Ann Michael, Jane Satterfield, and Ned Balbo on a panel called "Sitting Round Here Trying to Write This Book: Bruce Springsteen and Literary Inspiration." I don't know if I've ever been so intimidated, or (at the same time) excited. I don't know what I have in me, if I can write smart and well enough.
But this morning I take my energy, my inspiration, from the friends and good souls who have written over the past few days to tell me about their experience with
Small Damages. We writers write a long time, and sometimes our work resonates, and when it does, we are so grateful. When others reach out to us, we don't know what to say. We hope that thank you is enough. And so, this morning, thank you, Alyson Hagy and Robb Forman Dew. Thank you, Tamara Smith. Thank you, Elizabeth Ator and Katherine Wilson. Thank you, Jessica Ferro. Thank you, Hilary Hanes. And thank you, Miss Rosella Eleanor LaFevre, who interviewed me a few years ago about
Dangerous Neighbors, and who has stayed in touch ever since. I don't even know how to say thank you for
3 Comments on Bruce Springsteen, Glory Days Symposium, and Thanks, last added: 7/30/2012
This one is a fairly new book, but I looked on Amazon and saw that it was listed at number #200,822 which isn't terribly bad, but I think a bump up is called for. I fell in love with this book and then forced it upon my sister in law, who also loved it. I present to you...
A modern-retelling of the classic, JANE EYRE, by Charlotte Bronte. I really enjoyed this update. I used to read Jane Austen fan fiction, even writing it about 14 years ago. But this is so far removed from fan fiction, it is really good story. It follows the classic, but then it takes modern times into effect and you get a very believable girl who falls in love with her employer. This was one of those books that you just wanted to savor every bit of it and don't want it to end.
From Goodreads:
Forced to drop out of an esteemed East Coast college after the sudden death of her parents, Jane Moore takes a nanny job at Thornfield Park, the estate of Nico Rathburn, a world-famous rock star on the brink of a huge comeback. Practical and independent, Jane reluctantly becomes entranced by her magnetic and brooding employer and finds herself in the midst of a forbidden romance.
But there's a mystery at Thornfield, and Jane's much-envied relationship with Nico is soon tested by an agonizing secret from his past. Torn between her feelings for Nico and his fateful secret, Jane must decide: Does being true to herself mean giving up on true love?
An irresistible romance interwoven with a darkly engrossing mystery, this contemporary retelling of the beloved classic Jane Eyre promises to enchant a new generation of readers.
As many of you know, we have been hard at work on Young Writers Take the Park—an opportunity for Philadelphia-area teens to submit their work for consideration for publication (and a public reading), to work with authors in an intimate workshop setting, to meet some of the best young adult authors living and working in Pennsylvania today, and to get to know the brand-new independent bookstore, The Spiral Bookcase.
Elizabeth Mosier, who has one of the best pairs of lit eyes on the planet (and a sophisticated critique vocabulary, I might add) helped me judge the many semi-finalists that were presented by the teachers (and friends) of Conestoga High School, T/E Middle School, Villa Maria Academy, Little Flower Catholic High School for Girls, and Penn Alexander. To all those who took the time to submit, and to all those who encouraged participation, we thank you.
We were unanimous in our selections. The winners are:
Celeste Flahaven “Untitled,” Villa Maria Academy
"Breeze rippled the tall grass and the flaxen heads of wheat bent to reveal golden undersides...."
Maria Dulin, “Prodigy,” Villa Maria Academy
"Take away anything, but you take away my music, my hearing, then you may as well take away my life."
Calamity Rose Jung-Allen, Penn Alexander
"Pudgy cats yowl in alleyways, deserted..."
Olivia McCloskey, “Goodbye,” Villa Maria Academy
"Will remembered sliding down onto the floor, his back against the wall, the phone clutched to his ear by his white-knuckled hand. That was the phone call that had changed his life forever."
Lauren Harris, “The Confessions of a Not-So-Only Child,” T/E Middle School
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Musehouse: A Center for the Literary Arts is everything it promises to be—"a home for writers of varying ages and levels of experience in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, memoir, and scriptwriting through workshops, conferences, readings, and special events." Let's focus on that word
home—the welcoming front porch, the long living room, the Stanley Kunitz wall art (oh, baby), the green-icing cupcakes (it being St. Patty's Day), and all those warm-hearted souls.
I first
wrote about Musehouse long before I had had a chance to visit. Last night I was honored to share the mike with
April Lindner (who wrote
Jane and has
Catherine forthcoming) and Doug Gordon, a writer I met in 1997 when we both won a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant (along with Justin Cronin, who went on to write
The Passage, among other things).
I met people last night whom I'd been hoping to meet for years, saw people I'd first met eras ago, and spoke at length with a young woman whose face I remembered from two long BEA lines. It was a fine night, a peaceful affair.
Many thanks to Musehouse. To learn more about the workshops and readings that are offered there, on Germantown Avenue, please visit the
web site.
Young Writers Take the Park — I kind of like the sound of that.
For the initiative and the daring and the perseverance, we have The Spiral Bookcase to thank—that new independent in Manayunk, PA.
We'll be joined that day by the greats—Susan Campbell Bartoletti, A.S. King, April Lindner, and Elizabeth Mosier. We'll be serenaded by local bands Melrose Q and Evan's Orphanage. And we'll have teen writers from throughout the area on hand for a special writing workshop, not to mention a special celebration of the winners of a teen writing contest.
(I'll be there, too, moseying around.)
Please click on the poster above and consider joining us. Please feel free to spread the news.
I have a big week on tap, and if I am less the blogger than usual, I ask for your forgiveness in advance.
First, my students are back from their spring break, and I'll be in my city reviewing their first three memoirs tomorrow. They have written spectacularly. They have gone deep. I need to give them everything I've got.
On Wednesday another beautiful thing is going to happen—I'll hop a train and head to New York City, where I'll be meeting Tamra Tuller, my Philomel editor, for the very first time. Tamra read my Berlin book this weekend (the first two-thirds, all that I've written). With her kind early thoughts she returned the essence of the book to me, in the way that only the most generous of editors do.
On Thursday I head back to Philadelphia to spend the morning at the Public Library Association conference, to be held at the Civic Center. Please let me know if you'll be there. By noon I'll be back on a train and headed to Chesterbrook, where one of my favorite clients is located. You know who you are, Charlene and Mike.
Late Thursday night we'll pick our son up from the airport (he's in Las Vegas as of this hour). I hope to spend a lazy Friday with him.
Saturday, I'll be at the Musehouse with April Lindner at a special event hosted by Doug Gordon. I'm so excited about this and I hope that those of you who live in the Germantown/Philadelphia area will consider joining us. Find out more by double clicking the poster.
Sunday we'll sadly be saying goodbye to our son as he heads back up to college to finish off his final semester. I'll cry a little, eat chocolate, no doubt, then start getting ready for the week ahead, which will include, among other things, Teen Day in Manayunk, which is shaping up to be
a super event.I hope your weeks ahead are full and rich.
By:
Beth Kephart ,
on 2/21/2012
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Many months ago, I received an invitation to read from
You Are My Only at The Spiral Bookcase, a new independent bookstore in Manayunk, PA. I was, of course, keen to meet the store's very dear owner, Ann. And I was thrilled to have a chance to support a
new independent (how many new independent bookstores do you know?) But how much more fun would be had, I thought, if I could be joined in the event by some of the best young adult writers around.
And so Ann and I talked. And so one thing led to another. And so it is with a great sense of anticipation and pleasure that I am sharing news of the inaugural
Teen Day in Manayunk, to be held during the afternoon of
March 24th. There will be writing workshops for teen authors. There will be a writing contest with winning entries (judged by Elizabeth Mosier and yours truly) appearing in the extraordinary teen-lit magazine
Philadelphia Stories, Jr. and on The Spiral Bookcase web; I'll also be excerpting winning work here. There will be marching bands and media coverage and appearances by some very special souls.
I encourage teachers, parents, and young writers in the Philadelphia area to find out more about the writing contest, workshop, and meet-and-greet by contacting Ann at
The Spiral Bookcase. I encourage the rest of you to consider spending time with some truly fine writers along the canal.
Here we all are. There we all will be.
Susan Campbell Bartoletti is best known for her nonfiction books, including the Newbery Honor-winning Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow (Scholastic) and the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Honor-winning They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of An American Terrorist Group (Houghton Mifflin). Her most recent titles include the novel The Boy Who Dared (Scholastic) and a picture book Naamah and the Ark at Night (Candlewick 2011), illustrated by the amazing Holly Meade. www.scbartoletti.com <http://www.scbartoletti.com> <http://www.scbartoletti.com>
Beth Kephart is the National Book Award-nominated author of thirteen books, including the teen novels Undercover, House of Dance, Nothing but Ghosts, The Heart Is Not a Size, Dangerous Neighbors, and You Are My Only; Small Damages is due out from Philomel in July. Beth, who is an adjunct faculty member of the University of Pennsylvania, blogs at http://beth-kephart.blogspot.com/.
A.S. King is the author of the highly acclaimed Everybody Sees the Ants, a YALSA 2012 Top Ten Fiction for Young Adults book, the 2011 Michael L. Printz Honor book Please Ignore Vera Dietz, ALA Best Book for Young Adults The Dust of 100 Dogs, and the forthcoming Ask the Passengers. Since returning from Ireland where she spent over a decade living off the land, te
Last night, my enormously gracious hostesses at St. Joseph's University—Ann Green and April Lindner—shared their students with me. Some had read
Dangerous Neighbors. Some had read
You Are My Only. All of them, many in the graduate program, spend their days thinking about words and writing.
I talked about the future of young adult literature. I also continued to talk about sentences. Why they matter. How they are crafted. What we put at risk if we, as a nation, a culture, foist only plots upon one another, and not song.
Yesterday on this blog,
I shared some of my own sentences in the making—a beginning place, a mid place—as well as a reminder of a NaNo
contest I am conducting. Last night, at St. Joe's, I read from that same
James Wood essay in
The New Yorker that I celebrated here not long ago—that lesson in beautiful writing.
Today I mean only to share these few words from a Pablo Neruda poem. These are simple lines, simple words. No pyrotechnics, no self-conscious gloss, no unnecessary intricacies. Good sentences, I am saying, don't have to be complex. But they must always be true.
From Neruda:
Only the shadows
know
the secrets
of closed houses,
only the forbidden wind
and the moon that shines
on the roof
By:
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on 11/6/2011
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Just a few things, should they be of interest:
Tomorrow evening, November 7, beginning at 6:30 PM, I'll be at the Haub Executive Center of St. Joseph's University talking about the future of young adult literature, reading from
You Are My Only, and convening (and cavorting) with some early readers of the book. A huge thank you to April Lindner and Ann Green, as well as to Jane Satterfield, who introduced me to April more than a year ago.
On Wednesday, November 9, starting at 7:00 PM, I'll be in West Chester, at the fabulous Chester County Book & Music Company (West Goshen Center) for a
You Are My Only reading. Last week I read from Emmy's chapters. That night I plan to read from Sophie's. Whatever happens, I'll be grateful to be inside this fantastaic independent bookstores. A big thank you to Thea Kotroba.
Finally—and this won't happen for a few months yet, but I'm so excited about it that I want to share early word—some of the very best in the business will be gathering at
The Spiral Bookcase, another indie!, in Manayunk, PA, next March 24 for an afternoon extravaganza of teen literature. We're still working out the details, but know this: Susan Campbell Bartoletti, A.S. King, April Lindner, Keri Mikulski, Elizabeth Mosier, and I will join together for an afternoon that promises to be all kinds of wonderful.
Yesterday, my gorgeous niece Claire called, as she will, from time to time. She had a school project on the docket, questions for my husband about his life in architecture, but I got to talk to her, too (it was part of the deal). Claire is the niece who shares her love of books with me. The sixth grader with a huge vocabulary and a very empathetic heart. She'd just acquired a handful of new titles from Borders. I sat on my deck, phone pressed to my ear, as she read the jacket flaps to me. Together, and quite craftily, we speculated.
Not long ago, at a cocktail hour, someone said, indicating me, "Oh, don't talk to her. She just writes kids' books for a living." It was half a joke, but I suspected it wasn't really. It was a prejudice I thought we'd snuffed, this ghetto-ization of YA writers. I think of dear Claire whenever I think of those who want to make YA books a lesser category. I think of the giants of the craft.
I'm going to be thinking out loud about the YA genre—the rise of fantasy, paranormal romance, dystopia, and steampunk, the ever-continuing importance of contemporary realism when handled by those who care about kids and about craft—during a few upcoming appearances. I'm going to be talking about what I think is next. In the meantime, I'd love to know what you think is next. What you think is necessary, what is called for. What trends are over and done for you? What stories do you miss? What books would you give my bright, loving, beautiful niece Claire, if you had the privilege of being her aunt?
Please let me know here. And please come, too, to one of the following events, where I'll be talking about all this and more, while also reading pages from
You Are My Only. I want to see you. Live, and in person. It's about time for that.
Wednesday, October 26, 4 PM - 6 PM
Rutgers-Camden Visiting Writers Series
Young Adult Lit: It's Not Just Kids' Stuff Anymore
(details
here)
Thursday, October 27, 7:30 PM
You Are My Only/Book Launch Party
Radnor Memorial Library, Radnor, PA
(details to come)
Monday, November 7, 6:30 PMYou Are My Only/Lecture and Reading
Haub Executive Center, St. Joseph's University
(details
here)
Wednesday, November 9, 7:00 PMYou Are My Only/Reading and Signing
Chester County Book & Music Company
975 Paoli Pike
West Goshen Center, West Chester, PA
Reading Level: Young Adult
Hardcover: 384 Pages
Publisher: Poppy/Little Brown for Young Readers, October 11, 2010
Parasols: 5
2 Comments on Jane, April Lindner, last added: 1/15/2011
I just finished April Lindner's Jane and I absolutely adored it. I was a bit meh at the beginning because the similarity to the original was a bit jarring and wondered how anyone could get away with that. The one think I liked about this book is that it didn't read like fan fiction. I know a lot about ff as I used to write some during my Austen/Firthaholicism. You can, if you dare, read it at Austen.com and I was just plain Laura because I was an original dwiggie. Long story.
Anyway, I've been meaning to reread Jane Eyre for a while and my friend Laura has never read it so I asked her if she'd like to read it together. Well then I chatted with Shana Silver and asked if she'd like to read it and she's in so I was wondering if anyone else would want to read this book. We could have daily check ins or I could post a chapter review or just create a post to talk about what we've read, what we like, don't like etc. I'd like to get some new people to Bronte, so if you've never read Jane Eyre, you're really in for treat. If you've only read Lindner's Jane, give the original a shot.
So just leave a comment if you're in. I'll create a list of people who are in and we can decide how many chapters to read per week, etc. I'm really excited for this. I hope you'll come along and enjoy the book.
*here is the link for my ff which was a spin off of When Harry Met Sally/Pride & Prejudice.
I called it When Fitzy met Lizzy. definitely read at your own risk, this was written in 1998! (much Mary Sue going on!) There is a running joke in the story, that you should pick up on right away. (It's not good, I originally wrote this for a certain Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine editor who was in London at the time...
This time, I begin at the back, with the featured book's final pages. I begin, in other words, with the author's note and acknowledgments folded into April Lindner's debut novel,
Jane, her modern-day retelling of Charlotte Bronte's
Jane Eyre. It's in the author's note that Lindner writes of being on Team Charlotte (Bronte, as opposed to Team Jane Austen)—of her love for Jane, the "freethinker," and for Mr. Rochester, "the sexiest guy in literature." It's in the acknowledgments that Lindner explains that her 21st century Mr. Rochester, a rock star named Nico Rathburn, was inspired by none other than Bruce Springsteen, the "rocker who has given me so much inspiration, solace, and joy, and who has served as a model of how an artist giving his all can truly work magic in the night. Without the soul-transporting music and electrifying stage presence of Bruce Springsteen and the legendary E Street Band, this book would not have been written. It's that simple."
I don't know why I tend to read the back of books first, but I do, and in this case, it was just what I needed to put Lindner's novel into context. Lindner's passion for
Jane Eyre is transparent in these pages. She is utterly true to the arc of the original—presenting us with a sensible young woman who finds herself taking a nanny job in the estate of a brooding, wealthy rocker. Strange things occur in this Rathburn estate (called Thornfield), and Jane's not the kind of girl any one would peg as the would-be girlfriend of a troubled-past rocker. But things unfold as they must, and soon Jane and Nico are deeply in love with each other—engaged to be married and just about to tie the knot when the terrible secret at the heart of Thornfield is revealed.
Those who have read the original
Jane Eyre will know what happens next, but it's fun to see just how Lindner pulls this all off—where she takes 19-year-old Jane, how she evolves the rocker, and how she gives this romance its final hopeful breaths. I read the book in a single sitting, intrigued by the premise and wishing that Lindner and I had together gone to a Springsteen concert, or two. I suspect she'd be a delightful, joyous companion.
Jane April Lindner
This is a retelling of Jane Eyre. I've never been a huge fan of Jane Eyre and I must say that I enjoy this retelling much more than the source material.
Jane Moore is a freshman at Sarah Lawrence, but after her parents die in a car accident, the stock they leave her turns out to be mostly worthless and she's forced to drop out. She finds a job at a nanny agency and given her quiet, plain nature and lack of interest in pop culture, she's assigned to the moody rockstar, Nico Rathburn.
The main criticisms I've read or heard of this book are that there's no spark and the love affair seems weird and rushed and that locking up the not-quiet-ex wife in the attic and some other plot points doesn't make sense in modern times.
I'm not going to fully disagree with either of these, although I bought the love affair much more in this version than in the original. I never saw the love between Jane and Rochester until Jane's like "I LOVE HIM!" and I was like "Really? I mean, I know you do because I know enough about this book to know that you two end up, but... really? Where did that happen?" I also have NEVER understood Rochester-as-romantic-hero. (I also don't understand Heathcliff.) I do, however, like Rathburn. Lindner goes to great lengths to make Rathburn more bark than bite, moody and secretive, but actually very nice, just protective of his family and privacy. In the end, he ends up being a bit more Darcy than Rochester (and Darcy's a man I can get behind.)
And... locking up your not-quite-ex-wife because she's schizophrenic and mental institutions are horrible places? They're nicer than a locked attic room, and come with trained medical professionals. That part and some others (just dropping out of school instead of loans? Haiti?) require a little more suspension of disbelief, but I gladly did it. Lindner follows the original fairly closely and not everything transfers well to the modern day. To make it work better, there would have to be huge differences with the source material, and that's not where Lindner chose to go.
So... final verdict? I actually loved it. I certainly liked it much better than the original and I just couldn't put it down. Knowing the original material, I didn't mind the really mind some of the wackier plot twists that I would have if it were a completely original work.
Very much love.
ARC Provided by... a coworker, who picked it up at ALA.
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So glad it was such a satisfying day - that you got the boardwalk walk in, and for the dueling texts with your brilliant son! (I can imagine you with head bent, hair falling over your right cheek, big smile on your face, at the pleasure of his words.)
Those are some great photos, and I'm glad you had time to breathe the salt air. I hope you had a great fest of texts with your son!