Perhaps the biggest perk of being in the book business, and of having lovely author friends, is that I sometimes get to read highly anticipated books early.
But today is the actual launch day for both Ruta Sepetys and Kelly Simmons, and so we need a little right-now hoopla.
My thoughts about Ruta and her book,
Salt to the Sea, are here, in this
vlog.My thoughts about Kelly and her book,
One More Day, are here, in
this blog.
My love and congratulations and best wishes to you both!
For months it has been raining in my kitchen. Whenever the clouds break, the water comes—through the roof, through the new ceiling, down the columns of new paint. The roofers say they're coming. I wait. I wait. And while I wait, storm by storm, I stand on a stool holding towels to the ceiling. 4 AM. 5 AM. Almost dawn.
Last night, while I was still in bed, I dreamed that the Beatles came to help hold back the storm. John and Ringo. (Paul was off getting married again and George was—absent.) Wearing white shirts, they sang their songs while they pressed old towels to the ceiling. When I woke at 3:30 they were no longer singing. It was up to me to stopper the storm.
Lucky for me, then, that I had ONE MORE DAY, the third novel by my friend Kelly Simmons, to keep me company. One toweled hand pressed to the ceiling, one hand cradling the book, my bare feet balanced on the old black stool, I read the last 100 pages of this novel from 4 AM to just right now, thinking, as I read, about all the conversations Kelly and I have had (during walks, over non-tea, in her house, in her yard, turning our turn-it-around bracelets on our arms) while this novel was in its stir. News of the first galvanizing surge of idea that sent Kelly to the page. News of the first electrifying email from Kelly's agent. News of the novel's sale to Sourcebooks. News of the story unfolding and again unfolding as Kelly worked through edits and revisions. News of
our shared excerpt moment in Main Line Today. Kelly was writing something new to her, taking risks, exploring the idea of the supernatural set against the backdrop of a mother's loss. She was onto something.
A few days ago, ONE MORE DAY arrived, courtesy of Lathea Williams, and I began reading at once. I am a fan of Kelly's work—her lovely sentences, her twists of humor, her insights into shame and longing. (Read my reviews of
STANDING STILL and
THE BIRD HOUSE.) ONE MORE DAY, with its limning of relationships and its multiplying secrets, is vintage Kelly with more than a soupcon of the otherworldly strange. A mother's kidnapped child returns for a single day. Ghosts appear—a grandmother, an old boyfriend, a childhood pet. The losses are real, the hurt is real, the secrets are real—but what is poor Carrie, the bereft mother, to think about these visitations? And what is her husband to think? Her mother? The police? The intruding newswoman? The neighbors? Libby, her friend from church? What are any of them supposed to believe, and what are we, the readers, to make of it all?
Whose side are we on?
Where do we come down on faith in things that rise up and then vanish?
I needed to know. I was so eager to find out that I didn't even notice that my suspended, book-cradling arm was shaking until I closed the book. Kelly, my copy is mottled with the unstoppered parts of today's storm. I hope you won't mind. I hope you won't mind, either, if I quote back to you my favorite passage in this book. You're so good at seeing this place we both call home. And you're so good at feeling that apartness that I, too, so often feel. And you're so good at writing sentences that sound just like this:
It was the type of neighborhood that was all proximity; you could turn left or right at any point off the boulevard and find a house that would inspire longing, part of your neighborhood technically, but not part of your world, with a quiet, lumbering grace that marked nobility, remove, other. Carrie was separate from all those people, she knew, and always had been. Not more deserving or less, just different from everyone else.
Congratulations, KellyKellyKelly.
Let me see, we kind of left off last week’s parade of Marvel event teasers, as it was beginning to get a little same-old, same-old, but here’s one that got hearts pounding on a Monday morning, a call back to the 1992 animated show that—along with Batman: The Animated Seris—helped start the whole of the comics industry. Or as Comicbook.com wrote:
Marvel has released their latest teaser image exclusively to Comicbook.com, offering the possible return of the early 90’s-era X-Men team. Anchored by Wolverine, Cyclops, Storm, Jubilee, Beast, Jean Grey, and lots (and lots) of pouches, the X-Men of the early 90s were one of the franchise’s most prevalent in pop culture. X-Men #1, published in 1991, still holds the world record for the highest-selling comic with almost four million copies sold, and X-Men the animated series, which ran from 1992 to 1997, still remains a fan-favorite take on the characters.
I’m sure you can hear the theme music now¯ esp. that”Whoop whoop whoop” at the end.
Last week MArvel released several other past event teasers, calling back to One More Day, Age of Apocalypse, Future IMperfect and even AvX, which is barely dry in our minds eye.
As you may recall, all of this is believed to be a teaser for next summer’s Secret Wars event which will bring back various Marvel universes to battle one another, just as DC’s newly announced Convergence event is expected to present THEIR multiverses in the arena.
Secret Wars vs Convergence — which side are YOU on?
That Jubilee is great.
Individuals who are concerned about Logan’s status in the Marvel U can sleep easier. Based on many of the teasers released he will be part of the summer event.
Say what you want…I loved the X-Men teams from the 90’s, the Blue/Gold teams. Marvel should take it back to the core teams from that era, adding Nightcrawler to make it just right.
X-MEN #1, first, was December ’91; and it sold nearly eight million copies, not four, as I recall the reports at the time.
-B
That X-men one might be more of a reference to the cartoon, which premiered in 1992, because that was the line-up of the cartoon rather than the expanded membership that was in the comic.