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Bee Ridgway grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts.
She attended Oberlin College (B.A.), then worked for a year as an editorial
assistant at Elle magazine. She studied literature at Cornell University (M.A. and Ph.D.) and has
worked at Bryn Mawr College
since 2001. She lives in Philadelphia,
PA. The River of No Return is Bee's debut novel. It publishes today.
The River of No Return - Bee Ridgway
So yep, I’m an American. In fact, thinking
about being American is how I make my living.
I’m a professor of American literature, and I spend my days teaching Moby-Dick to young Americans. But about two years ago I sat down and
started writing The River of No Return.
It’s a big, busty time travel novel, a genre mash-up that combines
adventure, romance, spy thriller, mystery.
It’s set in Vermont, in contemporary London and in Georgian
England. Its two main characters are
British. I surprised myself: shouldn’t a scholar of American history and
literature write an American novel?
Instead, a frothy tale of time-traveling Regency aristocrats, beautiful
medieval beet farmers and faceless corporate heavies from an ominous future was
flowing from my fingers.
I had tossed my academic hat aside, my hair
had come tumbling down, and I was tapping into fantasy. And if there’s anything Americans love to
fantasize about, it’s England
(not Britain – England). Of
course you fantasize about us right back, and always have. Brits have more to say about Yanks than Yanks
do, and Americans are fiercely protective of an idealized England that no British person
would recognize. The number of times an
American has yelled at my British partner for not enjoying tea would astonish
you.
This used to tick me off. I’ve spent years in both countries, I have a
pretty good grasp of the “real” Britain
and the “real” US, and I used to roll my eyes at the notions each nation
harbors about the other.
But that was a humorless mood. The fact is, fantasy is pleasurable and
admitting it keeps us honest and makes us more generous, in art and in
life. The fun house mirror that someone
else holds up teaches you to laugh at yourself. I am now a thoroughgoing fan of
the fictional versions of our two nations that we dream up between us. And there are always new ones. Remember that amazing Dr. Who episode where Britain
is zooming through outer space on the back of a white whale? Remember how I told you that I teach Moby-Dick? Our mutual and often absurd
fascination may not have had particularly savory effects on the world stage,
but the“special relationship” has made for some terrific popular fiction, going
back a long way.
If I may put my academic chapeau back on
for a moment, and regale you with some literary history? Some of the most archetypically “English”
writers bounced their portraits of Albion off America. Arthur Conan Doyle grew up reading American
penny dreadfuls: the first Sherlock Holmes story is largely set in Utah. Agatha Christie’s
father was American. P.G. Wodehouse spent vast portions of his adult life in America.
Frances Hodgson Burnett immigrated to the U.S. when she was sixteen. Rudyard Kipling married an American and lived
in Vermont
for four years – he adored it and was wildly prolific while there, writing The Jungle Book and reams of poetry.
I’ve chosen the “popular” writers of yesteryear to make this point, because
it’s the “popular” fantasies that we swap back and forth to this day. The Hollywood
and BBC portraits of one another that we love to hate . . . and hate to love.
So yep.
I’m an American, and I’ve written a fantastical novel about Britain.
My time-travelly Britain is
also – through a side window and around some corners – a portrait of America. I wrote the novel because it was incredibly
fun to do so. I enjoyed myself
thoroughly, wallowing in the alternative versions of reality that I had given
myself permission to explore. I offer it to you with a grain of salt (for
flavor), and I hope that you enjoy it, too.
The River of No Return is out today. For a gentle introduction to the novel, here's Bee talking about it on Penguin YouTube.
By:
Allen Capoferri,
on 3/30/2013
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Taken a some time ago, my daughter and I posing on a pier that became one of our favorite places to walk. I know I’ve this said before, but I really like the rustic look of this place.
I’d also like to wish a Happy Easter to those who celebrate it, and to those who do not, it is really a time of rejuvenation.
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Taken by my daughter while doing one of my favorite things.
I want to thank friends of Allen’s Zoo as we approach the end of the year, the response to my work still amazes me. I also want to wish everyone a very happy New Year and albeit a belated Merry Christmas. The holidays arrived before I knew it.
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By: JonathanK,
on 12/22/2012
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Today would have been Lady Bird Johnson’s 100th birthday. In honor of her and the season, we wanted to share one of Lady Bird’s Christmas recollections, as told to Michael Gillette in Lady Bird Johnson: An Oral History.
ENTERTAINING AT THE RANCH
As the first Christmas at the ranch approached, it was wonderful in a way, but we really hadn’t gotten the house fixed up very much. But we put a wreath on the front gate. We had all the family, and Lyndon assumed the role of paterfamilias. I guess it was just a few days before Christmas that we got everybody out there. Of course, the queen of the occasion—for Lyndon and for me, too—was his mama, but from the remaining children of Lyndon’s father’s siblings, all of those that were still living were there. There were at least three generations there. I think there were twenty-one of us in all. Lyndon sat at the big table that had arrived. All the leaves were put in. We had rolls of pictures made.
Did this family gathering reminded him of earlier ones when he was a youth growing up?
Oh, you know it had to be, and I’m sure that was exactly why he wanted to do it. He remembered all of those, and he wanted to assume the role and gather the clan. I just wish I had done better by it and had had the house all aglow with flowers and fat, comfortable furniture. There was our rather bedraggled-looking Christmas tree, which the children and I actually decorated together. It didn’t profit too much from our inexpert fingers. Then we took pictures by the front door, which had a wreath on it, too. It was a big picture-taking session, and I cherish every one.
My own family came to spend Thanksgiving with us at the ranch in 1953. Daddy and his wife, Ruth; my brother Tommy; and Sarah, his wife. Tony, the one with whom I felt the closet affinity of all, and Matiana. There were our children, sitting down crossed-legged, on the grounds in front of us, in the front yard of the ranch. I’m a little bit too plump, which doesn’t speak well for me. There’s a warmth in looking back and seeing Tommy’s and Tony’s faces, even if it is the occasion of a great big deer hunt and they have their kill propped up in front of them, and in seeing Daddy with his three children by the fi replace. I’m glad they shared this old house with us some.
Michael L. Gillette directed the LBJ Library’s Oral History Program from 1976 to 1991. He later served as director of the Center for Legislative Archives at the National Archives and is currently the executive director of Humanities Texas in Austin. He is the author of Lady Bird Johnson: An Oral History and Launching the War on Poverty: An Oral History.
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Image credit: From the Lady Bird Johnson: An Oral History, Original in the LBJ Library. Public domain.
The post Christmas at the White House appeared first on OUPblog.
By:
Allen Capoferri,
on 5/18/2012
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By: Tanya,
on 6/8/2012
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I hope that I can to justice to 13 Hangmen by Art Corriveau in this review. Not only is is a layered, complex story that spirals back in time like the image on the cover, but I enjoyed it so much that I tore through it, even sneaking off to read behind the shelves while I was at work and might get a bit over-enthusaistic while writing about it. Also, being a complex story, the plot takes a
Everyone got out of the house this weekend.
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By:
Paula Becker,
on 7/4/2012
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This photograph taken some time ago I felt deserved a second look.
Also..I’d like to acknowledge a nomination for the Beautiful Blogger Award. I’m deeply honored by the nomination because it comes from someone who’s photography and intelligently sensitive writings about photography and art set him way above the pack. Here’s a link to Munchow’s Creative Photo Blog. It’s well worth checking out.
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By: executivepublisher,
on 8/8/2012
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As has now been reported widely in the New York Times and Washington media circuit, Jonah Lehrer, the disgraced writer who fabricated Bob Dylan quotes, has now had his book publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, begin running digital adverts through the Google Adwords system, telling booksellers to send back copies of the plagiarized book, “Imagine.” But how can other writers stay clear of a similar fate? One way to ensure you don’t accidentally plagiarize material surrounding the constitution is to keep a clear chronology of events in place (on a piece of paper or iPad for reference) as you unfold your storytelling narrative around famous works of literature, which in this context must include U.S Constitutional materials. Here is a simple Chronology for the early Constitutional days:
DATES & EVENTS CHANGING HISTORY
1754 Benjamin Franklin urges Colonists to unite.
1765 Parliament passes Stamp Act, which taxes Colonists on all printed items.
1770 The Boston Massacre on March 5. Five Colonists are killed.
1773 The Boston Tea Party on December 16.
1774 The First Continental Congress meets in Philadelphia in September.
1776 Common Sense by Thomas Paine sold 400,000 copies to three million Colonists. Common Sense swept across the world to introduce the Rights of Man & a Republic.
1776 The Second Continental Congress meets in Philadelphia June 7; Thomas Jefferson submits Declaration of Independence July 2 which is approved July 4 and is publicly read to all America on July 8. 1781 President George Washington’s Farewell Address reminds all Americans how to preserve the new Republic.
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Taken during my morning walk.
Yesterday I had 50 minutes to kill so I went to the nearest beach. I looked out to the ocean and saw a whale leaping out of the ocean, blowing it’s spout, flipping it’s tail and flippers alternately. It’s flipper was nearly all white, brought to mind Moby Dick. I noticed people had gathered on balconies and at the far end of the pier to watch. Someone who’d been watching too stopped to talk to me. He said he’s been living here all his life and had never seen one so close before.
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 |
| Reading Level: | Mature Young Adult |
| Format: | EBook |
| Publisher: | Atria 8/14/12 Paperback |
| Parasols: | 4 |
 |
|
You can say I became addicted to the story. I've heard a lot of people hemming and hawing because of the theme of the book. But you know what to me it was like a fantasy. As much as women are independent and strive to be their own person, there is one tiny bit of us that wants to be wholly encompassed (or consumed in every way possible) by a guy. We want that bad boy with the tats who has his own fight club and is successful at it. There's something incredibly sexy with having a guy want to own you body and soul and isn't afraid to let everyone around them know it. Lot's of people will say that isn't a healthy relationship. Then again, what constitutes a healthy relationship? A peck on the cheek in the morning after coffee? Reading the newspaper with your partner before you both head off to work? Sometimes I think women want that tempestuous relationship (I know I did as teen, early 20s Had a very similar albeit dangerous relationship). Why is Twilight, 50 Shades, Bared to you so popular? I'm not a psychologist at all, but I think reading these books unleashes an inner fantasy. Women for some reason want to be taken cared of and in return wants to do the taking care of. Whether it's cleaning, cooking, or doing whatever needs to be done in the bedroom. Travis and Abby may not have the healthiest of relationships, but what they did have was fantastic.
Abby Abernathy is attending Eastern University to get away from her drunk mother and her down-on-his luck father. Who blames her for all the bad things that has happened to him. She attends with her best friend, America, who she hopes will keep her in line and away from the bad boys that she seems to attract. This Abby is turning a new page and will be a good girl. That is until she meets Travis "Mad Dog" Maddox. Who just so happens to be America's boyfriend's cousin. He's also a ragtag fighter in an underground fight club that he seems to be the king of. Once Travis has taken a liking to Abby it's no holds barred for him. That is until Abby finds herself attracted to Travis' fellow frat boy, Parker. A nice boy from a nice family who is looking to head to Harvard for medical school. Parker is everything that Travis isn't.
However, Abby has lost a bet to Travis and has agreed to stay with Travis for one month in his apartment. She agrees, but it becomes plain that Travis cooked up this bet as a way to keep Abby around (originally the hot water heater in her dorm broke so staying at Shep's and Travis' was a good idea). Abby finds her feelings conflicted for Parker and Travis. He dates with Parker have ended poorly because of Travis, so the two decide to wait until she is back in her dorm before going out again.
The beginning of the book is like a slow burn. You know that Abby is instantly and instinctively attracted to Travis, but she doesn't want someone like him. Once you figure out who Abby is and why this is no good for her you understand, but Travis' determination and stubbornness makes you root for him as well. I liked Parker, but I knew right off that he wasn't right for Abby.
One of my favorite parts of this book is Travis' nickname for Abby, Pigeon or Pidge. It just seemed natural and it was only for her. There are a ton of ups and downs and you wonder if these two are really made for each other. They both seem to enjoy drama and pain. Travis gets beat for a living and Abby is trying to escape her past which has to do with Vegas, mobsters and her sick father. (He's a former gambling legend.)
Another heart palpitating story. Some may not enjoy this book as much as I did, but like I stated in the beginning. It's a fantasy. Who doesn't want that bad boy who loves us with everything he has?
I'm definitely looking forward to Travis' version of the story. It'll be interesting to hear his take on things and now there is a movie in the works. I just hope they get the casting down. I have an idea as to how Travis looks, but it's not like any star, it's just something that I thought up in my own head.
By:
Allen Capoferri,
on 9/19/2012
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I realized I haven’t posted for some time. I wanted to let people know I’m alright despite the necessity of my energy being directed to less than positive things.
Anyway above is a moment I was able to get away and do what I love to do.
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Like the island of cyclops. Taken yesterday during my morning walk.
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By Louis René Beres
“The crowd is untruth.” –Soren Kierkegaard
Sometimes, seeing requires distance. Now, suffocating daily in political and economic rants from both the Right and the Left, we Americans must promptly confront a critical need to look beyond the historical moment, to seek both meaning and truth behind the news. There, suitably distant from the [...]
By:
nella32000,
on 8/17/2011
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Taken during me and my daughter’s walks. Note; our friend above is “boiling” mad.
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By:
Joe Sottile,
on 9/11/2011
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MEET ME IN THE STAIRWELL
PLEASE READ TO THE VERY END, IT IS BEAUTIFUL!!!'MEET ME IN THE STAIRWELL'
You say you will never forget where you were when
you heard the news On September 11, 2001.
Neither will I.
I was on the 110th floor in a smoke filled room
with a man who called his wife to say 'Good-Bye.' I
held his fingers steady as he dialed. I gave him the
peace to say, 'Honey, I am not going to make it, but it
is OK..I am ready to go.'
I was with his wife when he called as she fed
breakfast to their children. I held her up as she
tried to understand his words and as she realized
he wasn't coming home that night.
I was in the stairwell of the 23rd floor when a
woman cried out to Me for help. 'I have been
knocking on the door of your heart for 50 years!' I said.
'Of course I will show you the way home - only
believe in Me now.'
I was at the base of the building with the Priest
ministering to the injured and devastated souls.
I took him home to tend to his Flock in Heaven. He
heard my voice and answered.
I was on all four of those planes, in every seat,
with every prayer. I was with the crew as they
were overtaken. I was in the very hearts of the
believers there, comforting and assuring them that their
faith has saved them.
I was in Texas , Virginia , California , Michigan , Afghanistan .
I was standing next to you when you heard the terrible news.
Did you sense Me?
I want you to know that I saw every face. I knew
every name - though not all knew Me. Some met Me
for the first time on the 86th floor.
Some sought Me with their last breath.
Some couldn't hear Me calling to them through the
smoke and flames; 'Come to Me... this way... take
my hand.' Some chose, for the final time, to ignore Me.
But, I was there.
I did not place you in the Tower that day. You
may not know why, but I do. However, if you were
there in that explosive moment in time, would you have
reached for Me?
Sept. 11, 2001, was not the end of the journey
for you. But someday your journey will end. And I
will be there for you as well. Seek Me now while I may
be found. Then, at any moment, you know you are
'ready to go.'
I will be in the stairwell of your final moments.God
During the next 60 seconds, stop whatever you are
doing, and take this opportunity. (Literally it
is only 1 minute.) All you have to do is the
following:
Stop and think and appreciate God's power
By: Lauren,
on 9/29/2011
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By Louis René Beres
Apart from their obvious differences, all of the candidates, both Democrat (President Obama) and Republican, have one overriding chant in common. For each aspirant, every pitch is prefaced by sanctimonious appeals to "the people." Whether openly, or with a quiet nod to a presumably more subtle strategy, "I want to be the people's president" is always their conspicuously shared mantra.
This is not hard to understand. To suggest otherwise
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By: Keith Mansfield,
on 10/23/2011
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I’ve always disliked The West Wing, primarily because it peddles the myth of brave and decent politicians, always doing the right thing in difficult circumstances. In reality I suspect the public prefer not to think about the dirty deals and corrupt and seedy goings on behind closed doors, which makes The Thick of It more my cup of tea – maybe that’s the UK/US divide? Of course I’m not saying most politicians don’t enter the fray with the best of intentions, but they universally seem to disappoint and the longer they hang around, the more they disappoint. Power corrupts. Even the scent of power corrupts.
So full marks to Ides of March for telling the down and dirty, shabby story of how politics always seems to turn out. Last Wednesday I joined George Clooney, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Evan Rachel Wood on the red carpet for the UK premier. To really appreciate a movie, I try to read as little as I can about it beforehand, so I can watch at face value. Because of that I can admit my ignorance by believing we were likely to have some kind of retelling of the Julius Caesar story (by coincidence the play I studied for my O level Shakespeare), so I entered the Odeon Leicester Square confident of making the necessary connections between the film and the Bard. Not a bit of it.
The bfi (the British Film Institute in official lower-case letters) is a great institution and a former employer of mine, but their organization often leaves a lot to be desired. I ended up being sent to various spots around central London to collect my tickets, meaning I only reached the red carpet about one minute before curtain up. I ran past George Clooney being interviewed without noticing, sat down in my seat and then saw the whole shebang being projected on the cinema screen.
As part of the bfi London Film Festival, my old colleague Sandra Hebron (it’s her last year as Artistic Director of the LFF) called Clooney up on stage where he proceeded to share a few jokes and introduce various cast and crew. Then the curtains parted and we were treated to 101 minutes of an intriguing thriller, even if the expected links to Shakespeare were missing.
This is the fourth film Clooney’s directed. In front of the camera he plays Democratic presidential candidate Mike Morris, Governor of Pennsylvania and leader in a two-horse race with a Senator from Arkansas. What I loved about the movie was that it’s not The West Wing – it shows just how sordid the realpolitik can be, and all credit to Clooney he’s right at the heart of it. The Ides of March of the title refers to the date of the key Ohio primary, which will fall on 15th March and help decide the contest.
The US Primary system has al
By:
nella32000,
on 12/13/2011
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Taken yesterday while walking with my daughter.
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It began with John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008. The choice of this incompetent, unqualified, inexperienced, and stupid person as a vice presidential candidate called McCain’s judgment into serious question. Had the old war hero turned senile? How could he have put such a person a heartbeat from the Presidency? The mere thought of Palin in the White House was frightening. But McCain’s choice was far more than a scare—it insulted America and unleashed a wave of violence and racism that continues.
Never forget the crosshairs map Palin posted on her Facebook page. She urged her Twitter followers, “Don’t retreat, reload.” Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords’ face was in one of the crosshairs. On January 8, 2011, Congresswoman Giffords was shot in the head outside a Tucson Safeway supermarket. Fortunately she survived and is making a remarkable recovery. But America is still coping with the incivility and insults initiated by Palin and taken up by the Tea Party and Congressional Republicans.
The insults continued after President Obama was elected and took office. With exhortations to “take back our country,” the Tea Party, overwhelmingly made up of whites, spread its unsubtle racist message. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that “take back our country” meant take it back from the black guy who’s President.
Four days before the President was inaugurated, the tone was set by radio talk show bloviator Rush Limbaugh. On January 16, 2010, Linbaugh said, “I hope Obama fails.”
During the President’s first term, Congressional Republicans took up Limbaugh’s mantra, deciding to do everything in their power to destroy the Obama presidency by holding up, blocking, weakening, misrepresenting, and voting against everything the President and Democrats wanted to accomplish.
Republican senator Mitch McConnell stated the Republicans’ position quite clearly: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president,” McConnell told Major Garrett in an interview published in the National Review in October 2010. A month later, in a speech to the conservative Heritage Foundation, he repeated his position: “Our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term.” In another time, such a call of opposition to a sitting President would have been considered treason. But over the past two years, Republicans have, like obedient little soldiers, followed McConnell’s marching orders, turning their backs on their country and the people who elected them and abandoning their responsibility to participate in government.
Despite repeated attempts by the President to work in a bipartisan fashion, Republicans refused, becoming the “Party of No.” No to health care for all Americans. No to the President’s job creation bill. No to restoring regulations of the banks whose fraudulent practices caused the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression. No to repealing the Bush tax cuts that added billions of dollars to the deficit. No to taxing millionaires and billionaires so they pay their fair share. Last summer, Republicans’ political brinksmanship with the debt ceiling resulted in the first downgrade in the national credit rating in U.S. history. In carrying out Rush Limbaugh and Mitch McConnell’s dictum to bring about failure of the Obama administration, Republicans have made Congress dysfunctional and the economic recovery slower than it might have been had they spent more time working with the President instead of working against him. That President Obama has been able to accomplish so much despite Republicans’ intransigence is a tribute to his political skill, patience and intelligence.
Now we come to this election year and the line-up of potential Republican presidential candidates who are as insultingly unqualified as Sarah Palin. All celebr
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Allen Capoferri,
on 2/13/2012
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Taken about a week ago at my evening walk. Happy Valentines Day everyone.
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By: Elvin Lim,
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By Elvin Lim
Rick Santorum had a great night, but he would need to win 70 percent of the delegates moving forward to unseat front-runner Mitt Romney. That’s not going to happen, but it’ll be a painful road toward the increasingly inevitable. As late as it is in this game, powerful conservatives like Thomas Sowell, Rush Limbaugh, and Tony Perkins are still advocating for Rick Santorum and other non-moderate candidates. Every day they continue to do this, they make less likely confident predictions from outside the beltway that Republicans will come together in the fall against Obama.
The problem could go away if Rick Santorum bowed out, but he has absolutely no reason to. At worst he would be a Hillary Clinton — a serious challenger to the eventual nominee, someone who ran a very credible campaign, and the candidate all eyes will turn to first in the next nomination race. Since all the benefits accrue specifically to Santorum and all the cost is diffused across the entire party, the candidate is here to stay for as long as Romney has not clinched his 1144th delegate.
This means that Romney wouldn’t be able to turn to a frontal, undistracted campaign against Obama just when Americans check out, tune out, and head to the beaches in summer. Most Americans would have made up their minds about their vote by then, and there may not be enough time between September and November for the constant barrage of negative messages and psychological massaging to convince independents that Obama is so bad that he needs to be fired.
The Republican “establishment,” otherwise read as Romney’s supporters, fear this more than anything, and for the love of God — no pun intended — simply don’t understand why Tea Partiers and Southern evangelicals are continuing on the road to electoral perdition. Yet while resentments are building and intra-party strife is festering, it isn’t the moderate Republicans but the Rush Limbaughs of the world who are ironically assuming that an upper-crust, French-speaking Mormon from the Northeast who entered the one percent by way of Wall Street would be able to put Humpty Dumpty together again before the party faces Barack Obama. Hubris!
Next up are Washington, DC and Wisconsin. That means relatively cash-strapped Rick Santorum now has a windfall of a week and some to gloat over his victory in Louisiana, and consolidate the narrative that he is a credible candidate and the truly conservative alternative to Romney. Yet each time the Republican Party has thrown an anti-Romney candidate a lifeline — and doing so has been the leitmotif of campaign 2012 — it has deprived itself of one in the real contest that is to determine the eventual occupant of the White House.
All this is also to say that we are witnessing the maturation of American conservatism. For years observers have described liberalism as a bloated tent filled with too many strange bedfellows. But all we were saying is that it is necessary for a dominant ideology to co-opt many disparate factions in order to form a governing majority. Finally, American conservatism, nearly 60, is big enough to have its own internecine feuds played out in the public square (and not just in the Na
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Hi Leanne, Fiona, Antonio, Ray and Lakshimi, thank you!
Hi Elena and Cristian..thank you!
Thank you, Ken!
Happy spring, Allen.
: )
1. Both of you look dashing….the looks add to the rusticity of the place
2. Easter Wishes from Delhi, India.
3. I have been missing new sketches on this page.
4. I want to the be at the place in the picture
5. Thanks for going through this itinerary!
Hi Karen, thank you. Many happy returns!
That’s funny!
Thank you for your Easter wishes from Delhi.
It is beautiful at that place in the picture.
More sketches are coming up…
It was a pleasure going through this itinerary
Hi Shane, Lesley, SkyFox, Violetski, Wandering Muses, Quillan and Angela, thank you!
Thank you, Ryan and Steff!
^_^