Blame Her! She Started It!

My blog today is going to take a bit of a backward glance as I introduce you to an author who was one of the greatest influences in my early life as a mystery writer. That author is the late Ruth Rendell and, although I have read every single thing she ever wrote, the book I am recommending today is The Water’s Lovely.

Way back in the 1980s I knew I wanted to be a novelist. I had no idea how one went about making this a career choice. I decided I wanted to focus on Christian publishers and so I wrote The Josiah Files.

Set two hundred years in the future, it was my look at the future of the church and culture. It remains the only book I haven’t re-edited and put up as an eBook for your reading pleasure. I guess the reason for this is that if I were writing that book today, it would be a very different book. So much has changed in my life and my faith, so I have left it there, as a testament to what I used to believe. But, at the time, I wrote what my heart told me to write.

(Oh, here’s a little aside - I like to say that I invented the eReader. It’s true! I did! Sort of. In my book I had people reading books and newspapers from what I called hand-readers—small devices that they carried with them, and to which books and newspapers were remotely "sent" to them. Wifi as we have come to know it, hadn't been invented yet.)

After the book came out and no more book contracts were forthcoming in that planned trilogy (another story), I decided that I needed to change genres completely. Because, you see, I always read mysteries. I have always read mysteries. Even as a child. My favorite mystery writer during the time of my early writing career, was Ruth Rendell. I had my name on the library list long before her next Inspector Wexford novel was set to release. (And sometimes I was even first!)

I read her Inspector Wexford books. I devoured her non-series psychological suspense. I immersed myself in her books written under her Barbara Vine pseudonym. And her short stories. I love her short stories.

A few weeks ago I saw her book The Water’s Lovely in a second hand store. I immediately picked it up. It had been years since I'd read that book, and with my old brain, it would might just be like reading a new book, I reasoned. Well, the second reading has been just as satisfying as the first. I have decided to re-read all of her books and stories.

I love the way she gets into the minutia and detail of every character she describes. I can turn to any page of the book and give you an example. Here’s just one:

She was a little thin woman of forty-something with stick-like legs and bony feet thrust into blue flip-flops. The flip-flops which would have been passable with a sundress, looked very strange with a check tweed skirt and a red sweater…

There is an old crime in The Water’s Lovely.  Ismay and Ismay’s mother Beatrix believe that young Heather, Ismay’s sister, was responsible for the death of her step-father when the young woman was just a child. It was one of those family secrets that no one ever talked about. Not once. I am not giving a spoiler here, all of this is in the first chapter.

Now the sisters are grown and living in the first floor of an apartment, and their mother and aunt lived above them.

Rendell goes on from there, in her twisting turn way of delving into each character’s psyche backstory, motivation, fears and loves.

There is nothing light or whimsical about a Ruth Rendell story, and yet she achieves a certain Stephen King like reliance on quirky characters to people her story. In this story, that honor goes to Marion, and to a lesser extent Beatrix.

Just to whet your appetite, here is the first line of the book -

Weeks went by when Ismay never thought of it at all...

Here's an interesting NPR tribute to her. Click here.

What are some of your favorite Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine books?

NEXT TIME: Singer/songwriter Steve Bell, long overdue in this blog of mine, and his newest CD Where the Good Way Lies.

A Look Back...

One year and twenty-seven reviews ago I started this blog. I had long wanted to write a review blog, but a number of things held me back. First of all, my own writing schedule was pretty heavy, did I really have the time? And what about the money? It doesn’t take a rocket-scientist of a financial planner to tell you that taking time away from a paying gig (writing novels) to a non-paying gig (writing a blog) might not be a good idea from a career-making standpoint.

Plus there were other considerations. If you’re one of those people who research online “trends” you may have heard that “blogs are on the way out” people just don’t read them anymore. Really?

If you do decide to go against the odds and write a blog, conventional wisdom says that to increase traffic you must update it several times a week.

So, in an era where people don’t read blogs, and if they do, they want two or more entries per week, and of course, it won’t pay anything, I decide to come out with a twice-monthly book review blog.

But it’s what I wanted to do, and I haven't regretted it for an instant. (I think I have blogged about this very thing when I reviewed Big Magic.) 

I decided early on that I wanted 'I Like It' to be a recommendation blog rather than a review blog.  I refuse to give zero star reviews and write scathing comments about books I don’t like. Authors get enough dumped on them. This would be a blog where I would only recommend books worthy (in my opinion) of four or five stars. If you and I were talking books over a cup of coffee these are the ones I would suggest.

After a few postings, the blog morphed into something else entirely. And I changed the mast head to reveal this: A Blog of Personal Endorsements and My Journey With Them.

An old friend of mine keeps after me to write my memoir. I guess I’ve always been a bit reticent to share “everything” with “everybody.” (It’s why I write fiction, after all!) I’ve always admired people who can be candid about their lives —Anne Lamott comes to mind, as well as Brené Brown and Elizabeth Gilbert. What they write truly inspires me, but I guess I can't be that candid. People will have to read between the lines of my novels or glimpse my own spiritual journey through what I recommend here.

A third thing happened as I began this blog journey. I decided not to make it about books alone, but about other forms of media. Music has always been a very important part of my life, so how can I not write about how the music of Carrie Newcomer and Steve Bell (still to come! I’m working on a review of Where the Good Way Lies.) Music has shaped me and comforted me, especially music that tells a story.

And video—how can I not recommend that you glimpse a bit of God’s creation in Moving Art, and science vs. humans in the haunting movie Ex Machina.

I began a year ago with William Kent Kruger’s Ordinary Grace. That was intentional. For a number of years now I have been on a journey away from writing Christian fiction. My publishers wanted things I couldn't write. And then I read Ordinary Grace - a faith novel about a very real family and their struggles. I thought, Christian fiction doesn’t need to be sappy everyone-saved-at-the-end type of book. I could write about real people struggling with real problems. At that same time my own faith began shifting, and Kathy Escobar’s (who has become an online friend of mine) book, Faith Shift really helped me to see that I wasn’t alone, and that I was okay.

I have also had the comment—Why don’t you stick to one kind of book? Make this a "spiritual memoir” blog or a “mystery/thriller” blog. Because, you know, you really can’t have both.

I can have both, because I read both. I usually have a nonfiction book on the go as well as a novel. Here’s how I read a novel: every day, my eyes glued to the pages, reading fast and far into the night. Here’s how I read nonfiction: slowly, a chapter a day, meditatively with my morning coffee and often writing notes in the margins.

Some have also asked me, do I review only independently published books or do I stick with a traditionally published books only? Actually, I don’t give two hoots who published the book. I never mention publishers in my reviews. If it’s well written and has affected me personally, I’ll review it and recommend it

. 

So, there you have it. A year into this blog and I've no intention of stopping.

 I thank all of you who have sent me emails with suggestions of books to read. 

Here's what's on tap for the future: - Steve Bell’s Where the Good Way Lies, Searching for Sunday by Rachel Held Evans, the music of Richard Shindell, Rob Bell’s controversial book, Love Wins, as well as The Shack (the movie will be out soon!) and on the thriller side of things: The Couple Next Door, and The Water’s Lovely by Ruth Rendell. 

In two weeks: The mysteries and thrillers of the late Ruth Rendell, who profoundly influenced me as a beginning mystery writer. I am now re-reading The Water’s Lovely and will be writing about that next time.

How Well Do You Really Know Your Neighbors?

Heres what happened when I started reading Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris: I opened it up on my Kobo and began. Three hours later I was still at it. I picked it up in the morning, after having dreamt about it, I am sure, and after picking it up several times during the night to read hidden under my covers so as not to wake my husband.

I drank my morning coffee with the book opened beside me. It wasn’t until the very last page that I was aware of the breath I’d been holding. It’s that good. It’s what I’m recommending this week.

What makes it good is the ever escalating suspense, from the carefully controlled first chapter where we meet the couple, Jack and Grace to the horrific ending.

Jack is smart, good looking, a lawyer who specializes in helping abused women. And, oh, he’s never lost a case. How lucky is Grace to be his wife? Grace, to all appearances is the perfect wife, always beautifully turned out. They live a huge and gorgeous home and host lavish dinner parties. Too good to be true. 

It is.

Behind Closed Doors is something I am calling a “psychopath captive prisoner story,” which is just the name I’m giving to this genre. If this genre has a real name, someone please let me know.

I think part of our fascination with these types of stories is that we like to think of ourselves as Macgyvers able to get out of any scrape and situation. I would do it this way. No, I would do it that way. As I read Behind Closed Doors, I wanted to yell at Grace. Why don’t you try this? Wouldn’t that work?

We have read the stories, seen the news about the horrific true tales of children kept in closets for years, of women imprisoned in dungeons to be repeatedly raped. These horrific events make us want to hug onto our children more closely, and keep hold of those we love with tight arms. It’s one of the more horrible of crimes that people seem to be capable of.

And it is also reflected in our fiction.

Room by Emma Donoghue is the story of a mother raising her son within the confines of a room where they are being held captive.  It has also been made into a movie.

Do you remember Flowers in the Attic, that YA book from a number of years ago? It was immensely popular with young people, and when my teen daughter brought it home back then, I read it, too. It's about a family of children who are hidden away in the attic by a mother intent on getting the inheritance which is hers only if she doesn’t have children.

There are more in this genre. Stephen King’s Misery is a tale which is not soon forgotten by those who read it.

I even had a "captive prisoner" novel in The King James Murders.

I will close this brief analysis with a look at the short story The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. I remember reading this years ago, probably for a school assignment, and it still holds onto its fearfulness. This short story is about a woman suffering from some undiagnosed illness, and whose husband keeps her in a room with yellow wallpaper - which eventually drives her insane. It’s a great psychological suspense tale and you can read it in its entirety here.

I’d love to hear some of your favorite captive-prisoner stories.

In two weeks: On the one year anniversary of I Like It, I take a brief look back.

Four Important Reasons to Read Thrillers

Today on "I Like It,' I am happy to recommend the mystery/thriller, The Long and Far Away Gone by Lou Berney,

After all the nonfiction memoirs and books of spirituality that I have recently reviewed here, some of you may wonder how I can shift so easily into the thriller and mystery genre. My intention when I began this blog has always been to recommend some media that I especially enjoyed. So yes, I read nonfiction, but I also read mystery and thriller. I enjoy the books, mostly literary novels, I read for my book club. I enjoy poetry. And I enjoy thrillers. I like to read widely. I especially like to read stories. And so should you.

Here’s why:

1. Because you’re more than one kind of person. I’ve been to book signings when pastors (don’t know why it’s always pastors, but it's been only pastors who have said this to me) have picked up my novels, turned them over and have said,  “I only read spiritual books. I don’t have time for anything else.” I'm sorry to tell them I'm never impressed by that. I’m more impressed by a minister or busy person saying they escape into a mystery after a busy day.

2. Because escapism isn’t a bad thing. If it was, we wouldn’t go on vacations, take holidays, spend time kayaking, sailing, sitting by the ocean, walking in the woods or playing with Thomas Trains on the floor with our kids or grandkids (or neighbor kids.) We do a heck of a lot of things in the name of escapism. It’s good for re-charging the brain. I’ve always enjoyed mysteries but I began reading them in earnest in th 1980s when I was taking university courses. The courses were heavy, the reading material heavy. I needed something to get my brain to relax, to get it to move into an  opposite directions. Sometimes you just need to “think differently” to recharge your thinking.

3. Because you learn things. Plain and simple. You will learn new things. With every new setting, and every new story you pick up small and surprising details - even what kind of wine to serve with what kind of main course (something I just learned.).

4. Because stories are how we change. For the most part debate never changes our opinions about much of anything. Measured and carefully thought out arguments don't really change us. Apologetics doesn't change us. And as we know from this past election cycle, even a presentation of facts doesen't change us either. Stories do. That's why we're a people of stories from sitting around the campfire at night and bragging about the day's exploits, to sharing one's innermost secrets. Here's a link which supports my point.

So that's why I would challenge you to pick up a mystery, a thriller, a well-written one—even if you’ve never read one before. The one I am recommending today would be a wonderful place to start! The Long and Far Away Gone deftly weaves two long-ago stories together and will have you guessing and loving the characters. Wyatt wonders how he was the only teenager who managed to survive a massacre at a local theater in 1986. As soon as he could, he left that town, became a private investigator, vowing never to return. 

Until the story begins. 

That same summer of 1986, Julianna becomes separated from her beautiful older sister Genevieve at the state fair. The older sister was never found. The case was soon closed, all trails and clues gone cold. But Julianna has tried to keep it alive by yearly meetings with the police. It has haunted her. She has gone over every second of that last State Fair visit. 

Both Juliana and Wyatt need closure. Both want to move on. Neither know how.

I will tell you no more. Go out and buy it. You will not be able to put it down. And maybe, just maybe, it will change you, even just a little bit. 

Next time, another mystery/thriller: Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris.

When Everything in Life Should be Highlighted

This week I am endorsing a book about getting older, gaining wisdom, and growing closer to God. The book is Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life by the Franciscan Fr. Richard Rohr who is with The Center for Action and Contemplation.

Before I read this book I had never fully appreciated or understood that there were two parts of life. You work hard when you're young and then you get to sit around in rocking chairs when you get old. It's been strange for me - navigating this thing called "aging." I spent an awful lot of my early life obsessed with my "career", and "making it" as a mystery author. I am slowly letting go of that dream. And it's okay. I can finally say it's okay. This book helped me a lot. I highly recommend it to anyone who is on the other side of 50.

Our culture is obsessed with what Rohr calls, “first-half-of-life thinking.” Books, the web and magazines abound with self-help checklists–how to get ahead in your career, how to manage your money, how to chose the right spouse, how to prepare for your job interview. These are necessary. It’s good and important to set up house and home and family, but our culture revels in it to the detriment of “second-half-of-life thinking” which is about suffering, loss, giving, and the gaining of wisdom through these life experiences, and sharing.

In most all cultures—except our own—the aged are revered. It’s where we get the word “elder” from. I’m always amused when fresh-faced young missionary men come to the door wearing name tags which proclaim them as “elders,” and twenty-somethings are elected to the “elders” board at a church. Really?

We’ve gotten these things completely turned around in our thinking and and Rohr’s book attempts to set things right again.

Since I am a definitely a woman “of a certain age,” (or maybe even beyond—ahem), I found myself quite interested in his book and read it twice. I’m sure there will be more readings, for there is much to learn as I travel on this journey.

He explains something that most of us know - that is that when we are younger we see things in black and white—things are either “right” or “wrong.” And that’s it. We sometimes surprise ourselves when we are older and things become more nuanced, more gray, more light, more shadows, more bright spots. The elderly person who continues to see things in black and white only, is still lodged in “first half of life thinking.”

As I went through this book I began highlighting portions of it as I read. Now with me, I’m not actually highlighting with a pen. Lately I’ve been read most of my eBooks either on my large-size iPhone or on my Kobo eReader. With both, I have the ability to “highlight.” But it got rather ridiculous when there was so much good information that I found myself highlighting every single page. 

I'll share a few random quotes and thoughts and things I learned from Falling Upward:

-He writes: “The first half of life is discovering the script and the second half is actually writing it and owning it.” Or more simply, the first half of life is building and the second half is living.

-Rohr admits that it’s quite possible to live your whole life and never get past “first-half-of-life” thinking. The movie Grumpy Old Men  comes to mind. Grumpiness, as well as clinging to the first-half-of-life achievements and possessions - yes, it is quite possible to grow old and not to be wise. I think of King Midas in Greek mythology hoarding his gold to himself, or Gollum’s My Precious in Lord of the Rings.


Rohr writes,

The supposed achievements of the first half of life have to fall apart and show themselves to be wanting in some way or we will not move further. Why would we? 

- I remember a poster I once saw - He who dies with the most toys wins. Rohr would characterize this as first-half of life thinking for sure. The wise person sees no need for “toys” whether physical accumulations or the black and white emotions which characterize youth. The wise person will give all his toys away. Not necessarily the physical things - although those, too - but the spiritual things gleaned and learned through the suffering of growing older, the experience of death, of loneliness, of failing health.

-He calls the path to this growth a “downward path.” I found this to be quite different than all the first-half-of-life self help where one is to strive to make it up the ladder of success. True spiritual growth comes from going down the ladder, falling off of it at times, and maybe staying at the bottom rung and helping those who are stuck there. The Bible seems to echo this:

 He who gains his life shall lose it. This biblical advice runs counter to everything we are taught in our culture.

-You cannot grow up until you have experienced weakness, until you know what it is to suffer. 

It is when I am weak that I am strong - 2 Corinthians 12:10 

I’m currently reading another book which is reminding me very much of Falling Upward, and that book is The Time of Your Life by Margaret Trudeau. She is the mother of our prime minister here in Canada and during the 1970s was married to our then prime minister, Pierre Trudeau. A week ago I heard her speak here at our local university. She is an amazing and gracious woman who has struggled most of her life with mental illness. She says that she didn’t really “find” her life until she was over 50, and Rohr would maintain, that’s just about right. At some point I will be reviewing The Time of Your Life for this blog.

I will end with this quote from Rohr’s book:

Once your life has become a constant communion, you know that all the techniques, formulas, sacraments, and practices were just a dress rehearsal for the real thing—life itself—which can actually become a constant intentional prayer. Your conscious and loving existence gives glory to God.

An ancient native American proverb says that “No wise person ever wanted to be younger.”

IN TWO WEEKS: More mystery with The Long and Far Away Gone by Lou Berney

A Time To Weep

This week, I was all set to recommend and write about Richard Rohr’s book Falling Upward, and then the election happened. Life seemed to turn on a hinge. So, instead, I am recommending that you listen to a series of podcast sermons by Rob Bell entitled Learning to Lament.

Like many of you, my first reaction last week was horror. How can this be? How can it be that people voted for someone so immoral, so self-serving, so obviously opposed to everything I stand for as a Christian?

What really broke my heart was something that started early on in the electoral campaign, the endorsement of Trump by so many “leaders” in the Evangelical Christian church. One so-called “minister” (minister in quotes) said that if you don’t vote for Trump “you will have to answer to God.” There were churches this past Sunday who “praised God” for the “miracle” of the election.

Through the past few years all of this has led me away from the evangelical Christianity I grew up with and on a search towards a very different kind of faith, as yet un-defined.

I want to share here what I wrote the day after the election:

Today is a day of grief for me, a day of lamentation. It is already afternoon and I cannot stop crying - for our Muslim brothers and sisters, for our Hispanic brothers and sisters, for women who've been sexually assaulted, for married women whose adulterous husbands have left them for younger, prettier versions of themselves, for our black sons and daughters. 

I also weep for the unborn babies- because during the past administration, the abortion rates have appreciably fallen. (Google it. It's true). I am pro-life. And I'm scared. I am so afraid for this fragile environment that God has entrusted us with. I cannot stop crying because our LGTB friends can now go back inside to live in fear. I weep because now there can be even more suicides among young gay people.

If I had sackcloth I would cover myself in it, hide beneath it. God help us.

Today, exactly one week later I am endorsing Rob Bell’s five-part podcast sermon series entitled Learning to Lament. 

I first listened to the series last spring. Today they make even more sense. 

Here is the computer link for the sermons, but it might be easier simply to go to your podcast app and do a search for Robcast. There are five talks in the series and they released last May. If you have listened at all to Bell, you know how he can break down the most profound of biblical passages and doctrines into simple to understandable  thoughts.

He begins by explaining that the Book of Lamentations (in the Bible,) is a series of poems about a grief for a nation.

It was written at around 500 BC when Israel was being taken captive by Babylon. Their land was no longer theirs. You know those pictures you see on the news of families fleeing from Syria? That’s what it was like. Families, babies, all of their stuff in carts and on their backs and on their animals, heading away from their land, their farms, the soil they tilled. The poems were written while they trampled through the rubble. It was a time for lament, a time for weeping. They had lost their land. They saw no hope.

Bell points out that from the very beginning, the nation of Israel was to be a different kind of people. While all the rest of the tribes were intent on crushing their neighbors and capturing their land, Israel had a higher calling. They were to bless their neighbors. It was right there in the beginning with the promise to Abraham, that through the nation of Israel, "all the nations on the earth shall be blessed."

They were to be a new kind of people, Bell explains, who moved through the world and blessed other people, a people who care for others rather than trying to exploit them. They were to be, as Bell says, “a light to all humanity.”

Over and over there was the command to take care of widows, orphans, and immigrants, over and over it says to show hospitality to strangers. I can't stress that enough. 

As the years passed, something happened. The prophets were the first to notice it. Bell calls them “the first voices of social justice in the world.” The people, the nation, their kings and leaders were corrupted by power, money and control. What started at the top made its way finally down to the ordinary person on the street.

Remember the famous story of Sodom and Gomorrah? Their sin? The reason the city was totally destroyed?

Here it is: "'Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy."

Arrogant? Overfed? Unconcerned? Withholding help from the poor? The needy? Does this sound all too familiar? The prophets connected the military downfall of Israel with how they cared for the 'least of these.' Familiar?

America has just elected a president who by his own admission (and Google all you want folks, it’s all there), does not care for "the least of these". 

It is a time to lament.

Maybe reason will come later. Maybe compromise and working together will come later. But for now, it's a time to weep. 

In two weeks: Falling Upward by Richard Rohr

Of Mothers and Daughters

Today I am taking a look at that most fundamental and personal of relationships, the bond between mother and daughter. Blue Mercy by Irish novelist Orna Ross is the book I am recommending this week.

At the heart of this story is Mercy, the stunning and beautiful mother who has written her own memoir entitled Blue Mercy. It becomes the task of daughter Star, to unravel it, read it, and maybe get it published after Mercy’s death. Problem is, Star has a much different recollection of growing up. Star spent much of her childhood overweight and in the shadow of her enchanting mother’s urges to make her something she was not.

There are more than two generations in this story, however. It begins with the mystery and tragedy of Mercy’s father’s death. Accident? Murder? The result of his lingering illness? Will we ever know the truth? That becomes the backbone of the story.

This family saga moves effortlessly from Ireland to California and back again and from the past to the present without ever confusing the reader.

Once I had opened the first page of this novel, I was drawn in. It has been more than twenty-five years since I was in Ireland, but suddenly I was back there. I could see it. I could hear it. I could feel the fog, smell it. Ross is a master at setting.

What sets this mother/daughter saga apart is a betrayal at its core. To avoid spoilers, I won’t say any more than this, but it is a betrayal on the most personal of levels.

I can’t end this review without mentioning the writing itself. Here are just a few example of Ross’s wonderful prose.

Where I should have had a core, I only had a space.

We walked up the lane in gathering darkness, two feet by two crunching on the gravel.

In describing an Irish fog bank:

Throughout the summer it stayed there, off shore on the water, about 1,000 feet thick, As night fell, it would move in, filling the spaces between our homes and in the morning, as the sun climbed, it would obligingly roll back out to sea.

…a body that wanted to claim space, but also to disappear.

The liquid of the lake is in the air, and so is the clay of the mountains.

Are you in a bookclub? This is an excellent ‘bookclub’ selection.

Many of my own novels deal with mother, daughter relationships - even my new mystery series has this at its core. Ross and I aren’t the only ones.

Here is a Mother’s Day online list of mother/daughter books.

The first on this list is White Oleander by Janet Fitch, a book I absolutely found myself submerged into, and really is much like Blue Mercy in theme and writing. Again this one about a beautiful mother and plain daughter. Highly recommended.

The next on the list is Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, again a book I read an loved.

Years ago I read The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan and remember totally enjoying this piece of life.

And Beloved by Toni Morrison

Here is another list - this one on my favorite place: Goodreads. In two weeks: A look at spirituality for the two halves of life in Falling Upward by Richard Rohr