Sometimes book juries convene and read and talk and get things right, and this year the National Book Award judges cited three books that I loved for special recognition.
I am eager to read all the books on all the lists this year. But for now I want to celebrate the honoring of Patricia McCormick for her smart, powerful, daring
Never Fall Down (my interview with Patty will soon run on
Publishing Perspectives) and Eliot Schrefer for his important
Endangered. In nonfiction, the remarkable
House of Stone by Anthony Shadid is a most-deserving nominee. I have highlighted (in this entry) my own thoughts about these books, from posts produced earlier this year.
Yesterday afternoon and early this morning I sat, reverent, as I read Anthony Shadid's final book,
House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East.It isn't right:
his final book. We need Shadid, the Pulitzer Prize winning Middle East correspondent for the
New York Times who passed away just a few weeks ago on
his way home from war. (He was walking a mountain pass, there were horses near, he died, an allergic reaction). We need how he sees, how he teaches, how he loves, and how he writes. He is not replaceable.
House of Stone is breathtaking—gigantic in ambition, equal to that ambition, combustible and yet right in its mix of country history, imagined (or imaginatively
supplemented) familial history, personal yearning, poetry, politics, passion flowers. It recounts the months Shadid spent rebuilding his great-grandfather's estate in old Marjayoun, a dusty place where gardens grow in the country known as Lebanon. It gives us Shadid, newly divorced and with a daughter far away, seeking to resurrect the idea of home. It introduces the sarcasm and suspicions and ironies and odd camaraderie of a band of neighbors and fickle house builders. It memorializes a dying doctor who knows everything, it seems, about making gardens grow.
House of Stone is a book built of many parts, and yet it works seamlessly, sweeping foreigners like myself toward its quiet, exotic heart. There is war, and there is the pickling of olives. There is dust, yet flowers grow. There are age-old accusations and cautions about war. There is a father working so far from the daughter he loves but choosing to believe in days yet to come. There is Shadid's own sadness over those who have died too soon—by horse, by weakened lungs. Yes, horse. Yes, weakened lungs. It is nearly unbearable to read these passages, but they are so beautiful and holy that we do.
One passage, here. All of it this good:
The tiles returned one to a realm where imagination, artistry, and craftsmanship were not only appreciated but given free rein, where what was unique and striking, or small and perfect, or wrought with care was desired, where gazed-upon objects were the products of peaceful hearts, hands long practiced and trained. War ends the values and traditions that produce such treasures. Nothing is maintained. Cultures that may seem as durable as stone can break like glass, leaving all the things that held them together unattended. I believe that the craftsman, the artist, the cook, and the silversmith are peacemakers. They instill grace; they lull the world to calm.
Rest in peace, Anthony Shadid.
When my American Express bill came in this past month, something odd and spectacularly unprecedented occurred: I owed a mere ninety-nine cents. True, I have been so holed up here, so focused on work, that I've been operating as a blinkered horse, my eyes on the finish line (s), my mind shutting out all purchase-able distractions. Also true: Except when it comes to buying gifts (I buy many, many gifts) I have never been exactly profligate. Malls drive me batty. Excess crowds me in. My decorating aesthetic is whatever lies between homey and uncluttered, warm and just enough. My wardrobe features three pairs of jeans, some turtlenecks, some sweaters/coats, an occasional skirt, and some dresses, for when I have to wear dresses. My mother used to buy me my most interesting, most meaningful clothes. She passed away several years ago, and I never rose to the challenge.
(I do like shoes. By my count, I have too many shoes.)
Still, what I do buy is books—I buy a lot of books—in support of an industry, in specific support of specific authors. Thus, I rectified my no-buying spree yesterday by adding a number of titles to my personal library, all of them, I realize, falling into the nonfiction camp. That's nonfiction the way I define it, and not the way
John D'Agata wishes I would. (For more on the D'Agata controversy, I suggest you read the
Gideon Lewis-Kraus RIFF in the
New York Times.)
Among the titles that will (at one point) be reported on here are the following:
Rough Likeness: Essays (Lia Purpura)
Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work (Edwidge Danticat)
Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, death, and hope in a Mumbai undercity (Katherine Boo)
Winter: Five Windows on the Season (Adam Gopnik)
House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East (Anthony Shadid)
Istanbul: Memories and the City (Orhan Pamuk)
The Naive and the Sentimental Novelist (Orhan Pamuk)
This is a beautiful review and makes me want to read his book. His death was such a loss. Such a heroic man, who died trying to bring the world truth.
This passage made me want to rewrite everything I've every written. So sorry I didn't discover him sooner, but glad to have done so now. (Crap, I should rewrite that sentence.)