Today’s post by author Latayne Scott of our sister blog, Novel Matters | @NovelMatters

A dear friend once told me that people must “once and for all, give up the doctrine of coincidence.” What he meant is that when unexpected incidents or ideas happen to occur concurrently or in proximity to one another, you must reject the idea that such things were random and should instead look for a divine hand, and divine messages.

Such a coincidence happened to me recently. I’ve been exploring the idea that the building of faith and character comes in three phases (and, in my own life, in the midst of painful experiences.) The middle phase is one in which victory seems absolutely impossible.

The “co-incidence” of ideas—or perhaps, a collision of concepts –came when that idea of the phases collided into a passage I was reading from The Odyssey. If you’ve not read it lately (or at all), it is the very essence of great novel structure: a good person has everything, loses it and even seems to become beyond hope of ever regaining it.

In the middle of the story, a great monster, the Cyclops, has eaten some of his men and when the hero Odysseus sails away from him, the beast roars out at him across the waves:

Hear me, Poseidon. . .grant that Odysseus, who styles himself Sacker of Cities and son of Laretes, may never reach his home in Ithaka.

But if he is destined to reach his native land, to come once more to his own house and see his friends again,

let him come late,

in evil plight,

with all his comrades dead,

 in someone else’s ship,

and find troubles in his household.

But when Odysseus does get home, all is set right. He dispatches the spongers who have been trying to seduce his wife, regains his estate, and lives happily ever after.

But—the satisfaction of following him through all his troubles (as indeed the curse of the Cyclops came true), comes exactly BECAUSE he lost everything – except hope.

Here’s the great truth that hit me: The greater the obstacles, the greater the rotund and satisfied feeling we have at seeing the resolution. That’s a timeless idea.

What novel have you read lately that overcame obstacles in such a satisfying—shall we say epic?—way? 

About Ariel Lawhon

Ariel Lawhon is the co-founder of She Reads, novelist, blogger, storyteller, and life-long reader. She lives in Texas with her husband and four young sons (aka The Wild Rumpus). Ariel believes that Story is the shortest distance to the human heart.

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Today’s post by author Samantha Wilde

Samantha Wilde

Here’s something I rarely tell people. It’s as true as a story can get and as close to the heart. When I wrote my first novel, I wrote with mixed motives.

Here’s the story I tell: I wrote This Little Mommy Stayed Home during my first son’s naps. He napped one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon. I wanted to write the book I wanted to read! It came out of me in a rush. In a way, I couldn’t not write it. A funny, honest, rueful tale about the first nine months of new motherhood and the cataclysmic effects of a baby on a marriage and on identity spilled onto the page in a comic voice that I hadn’t used before in my other (unpublished) novels.

Here’s the story I don’t usually tell: My husband and I, even before my son’s birth, often talked about our ideal families. Heatedly discuss fits the mark better than talk! I wanted a large family, he wanted a small family. I wanted six children, he wanted two children. A compromise wasn’t out of the question, but neither of us showed signs of budging. He wanted two children and not a single kid more. I wanted six and not a single kid less. Our ideas of family came from our own childhoods and deep, important, profound dreams about the meaning of family and our own hopes for the good life.

My husband had several valid reasons backing up his perspective, chief among them financial concerns. He very much wanted to have the funds so that each of our children could have the best education. He’s a professor; education makes a difference in his life every day. At a certain point in our ongoing dialogues, he suggested the possibility of me (the stay-at-home parent, the really, really wanting to stay-at-home parent), earning money for these “extra” children. Well, how do you make enough money to send four surplus kids through college while staying at home to take care of them as children?

When I sat down to write my first novel, I had a creative drive and a passion for my story. AND a little voice in the back of my head that said, maybe this could sell. You could write at night and still stay home. You could write for babies.

I often think how funny it would be to make a sign on cardboard: will write for babies. I have a sense of humor about this situation. I also have three children now and a husband who graciously, lovingly, made room in his heart and plans for our third. But I still carry this ancient dream with me, as old as I am, as early as any memory I can think of–me, the mother of a gaggle, a gang, a team, a party’s worth of children. Dreams heavily rooted inside of us, made from the fibers of our heart, don’t surrender easily.

At the inception of my new novel, one of the main characters, Nora, wants to have a baby and can’t. The woman she envies, Cynthia Cypress, gets pregnant and Nora’s green-eyed monster comes out in force. This feeling of envy, baby envy, is so common and so powerful that friendships often end because of it. I try very hard not to envy mothers with many children! The story of I’ll Take What She Has, a story of motherhood and friendship and envy—also a comic novel—is about finding your own green grass inside of the messy complications of friendship and love.

Do I hold out this little hope that one of my novels will top the charts and sell millions before my eggs dry up? I sure do. In the back of my mind, I write for that dream of family. In the front of my mind, I just write. I count my blessings: one, two, three. I put the rich, juicy stories in the novels. Part of what I love about fiction is that in writing it, I get to control the outcome—unlike life. And yet fiction teaches us how to live. My characters had to grow up and grow into the mixed up beautiful lives they were given, uncover the green grass they were standing on all along. Me too. I got to grow up with them.

About Ariel Lawhon

Ariel Lawhon is the co-founder of She Reads, novelist, blogger, storyteller, and life-long reader. She lives in Texas with her husband and four young sons (aka The Wild Rumpus). Ariel believes that Story is the shortest distance to the human heart.

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Today’s post by Ingrid of Edible Tapestry | @EdibleTapestry

Today we have a recipe inspired by this month’s book club selection, ORPHAN TRAIN, and created by chef Ingrid of Edible Tapestry. We thought it fitting to provide this for the She Reads book clubs that will meet throughout the month to discuss the novel. We hope you find the book and this dish equally delicious!

I’d intended to make a savory dish for May’s book selection as my last two guest posts were very sweet. The point of my collaboration with She Reads, however, is to create a recipe that is inspired by incidents in the book and the characters that they are centered around.

It was a dish from character Niamh’s own poignant culinary recollections that I decided must be the May recipe, despite the fact that I kept thinking someone really needed to cook that poor girl a dinner of fried chicken and mashed potatoes with creamed corn and collards. But the memory of her gram rolling yellow dough for a rhubarb tart while a goose roasted in the oven was such a source of comfort to her–the thing she uses to get through some difficult moments in Orphan Train. Her life, filled with strife from an early age, moves from one period to another with very few moments of tranquility. All she wants is to feel to safe. This vision of Gram bustling around her kitchen in County Galway momentarily calmed her and was the perfect inspiration for this recipe.

I was stubborn about this idea of mine. Rhubarb has been hard to find. The farmers in our area tell me it won’t be ready until next week. But one, Jane from Garnet Creek Road, said hers was ready and available for purchase. Look at these beautiful stalks.

I added a cup of diced strawberries for sweetness and color, but the rhubarb takes center stage in the tart, unlike the berry sweetness of a strawberry rhubarb pie. I used turbinado sugar which made a deep, rich burgundy filling. I loved the look and taste but white sugar would make a filling of a brighter color. For convenience, a prepared crust can be substituted for the Flaky Yellow Crust I have included in the recipe.

Ingredients:

Flaky Yellow Crust:

1 c. all-purpose flour, plus additional flour for rolling

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. sugar

6 T butter, cut into pieces

1/2 tsp. white vinegar

1 egg yolk

2 T ice cold water

Rhubarb Filling:

3 c. fresh rhubarb, sliced into half inch pieces

1 c. fresh, diced strawberries

2 c. sugar

Pinch of salt

1 T all-purpose flour

1 T butter

Method:

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine all filling ingredients.

Bring to a simmer over medium heat.

Cook 20 minutes until thickened and reduced, stirring frequently.

To make the crust, sift together the salt, sugar, and flour in a medium sized mixing bowl.

Cut in the butter until the mixture resembles lumpy beach sand.

Add the egg yolk, vinegar, and water.

Mix just until the dough comes together. It happens very quickly. Over-mixing will make a tougher dough. Pat the dough into a flattened circle on a floured surface.

Dust the surface with flour. Roll into a circle large enough to fit inside a tart dish or pan.

Roll the dough up on the rolling pin to transfer.

Unroll it into the tart pan.

Fold the excess edges under to form a thick crust or trim it off.

Prick the bottom of the dough.

Chill.

When the filling is ready, pour it into the prepared crust.

Bake for 35 minutes.

Cool 30 minutes at room temperature, then chill thoroughly before serving to allow the filling to firm.

About Ariel Lawhon

Ariel Lawhon is the co-founder of She Reads, novelist, blogger, storyteller, and life-long reader. She lives in Texas with her husband and four young sons (aka The Wild Rumpus). Ariel believes that Story is the shortest distance to the human heart.

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Today’s post by Doubleday editor, Melissa Danaczko | @mad2034

Note: I’ve had the great pleasure of working with Melissa since she acquired my forthcoming novel, THE WIFE, THE MAID, AND THE MISTRESS, for Doubleday last September. I know a bit about her editorial style but very little about her personal reading tastes. So I invited her to share some recommendations with us today: one novel she edited, and one she didn’t. Melissa has kindly offered to give a copy of PARLOR GAMES to one lucky reader. Simply leave a comment on this post if you’d like to be entered in the drawing.

Book I edited:

I have a weakness for unreliable narrators, so when Maryka Biaggio’s debut novel, PARLOR GAMES, first hit my inbox, I put it at the very top of my submission pile. Part Becky Sharp, part CATCH ME IF YOU CAN’S Frank Abagnale, this historical romp chronicles the life and times of May Dugas, a beautiful con-artist whose escapades spanned the Gilded Age and took her all around the world.

The novel is framed by a trial occurring in 1917 where an older May finds herself accused of extorting money from a friend—a charge that our alluring protagonist vehemently denies. Fearful that details revealed during this trial will be twisted to make her look like the bad guy, May entreats the reader to hear her version of events. She promises a truthful account, but it’s immediately clear that we’re dealing with a woman who knows how to spin a story, cover her tracks and get what she wants.

May takes on an intimate tone, drawing us into her confidences in such a way that readily explains why so many men (and some women) fell prey to her charms. I have to confess that it’s so fun to be in May’s orbit that it was only after one faintly disquieting revelation after another—about how she’s seduced and swindled, enchanted and entrapped—that I realized the full extent of her transgressions.  She would certainly like us to believe that this is a tale of an innocent corrupted by an unfair world or that she did it all to support her beloved family, but regardless of whether or not the reader buys into these claims, it’s hard not to root for (or at the very least, respect) May as she traipses across countries, hearts and the law.

In a sense, it’s even harder to believe that this novel is based on a true story. As Maryka recently wrote in a blog for Huffington Post, we say that the truth is stranger than fiction so often that it’s become a bit cliché. And yet, it’s a cliché that I find myself constantly gravitating towards in my reading—both for work and for pleasure.  Although very fine plots and characters in historical fiction have been the product of pure invention (after nailing the period detail of course), there is almost a voyeuristic appeal in reimagining a life already lived. Here, we see a glamorous existence lived just a step ahead of the law–until, that is, May’s past catches up with her.

Book I didn’t Edit:

The novel that I didn’t edit falls into a very different category, but features a style that could also justifiably be called unreliable—if only because it’s narrated by a child who bears witnesses to events that she can’t fully comprehend even as she faithfully recounts the sensory detail.

NoViolet Bulawayo’s WE NEED NEW NAMES (on-sale 5/21) opens in a Zimbabwe shantytown in 2008. 10-year-old Darling and her friends spend their days stealing guavas and playing games like “Find Bin Laden”—scenes that so perfectly capture the universal preoccupations of childhood. This coupled with the powerful, pretense-free narration by Darling exposes the distance between how these children see the world and the harsher reality that an adult reader can intuit.

Their homes have been destroyed and the schools shut down amidst political upheaval; deep, gnawing hunger and AIDS have become so ubiquitous that they’re hardly worthy of description but operate forcefully in the background. Luckily for Darling, her aunt lives in America, and the young girl has placed all her hopes in this sparkling country without fully realizing what she’ll sacrifice or the challenges she’ll face when she finally moves to Kalamazoo, Michigan.

The book has two distinct parts, and although America stands in such stark contrast to life in Zimbabwe, the bigger gulf is between Darling’s expectations for America and what she experiences once she’s actually there. This is not to say her life in America is marked by tragedy or exploitation that sometimes accompanies this type of novel. Instead, humorous moments mingle with nuanced observations and Bulawayo shifts the tonal register so expertly as Darling navigates the pitfalls of both assimilation and adolescence that it’s an even more gripping read than if there were high-octane drama involved.

Questions of identity and alienation definitely loom large in this novel and there are scenes punctuated with violence and heartbreak, but the characters and plot never feel like part of a message while Darling’s point of view is pretty much pitch perfect to my ear. The only point where Bulawayo breaks this spell is in a powerful chorus-style narration that gives voice to not only those from her country and continent but the full-spectrum of immigration.

Following in the tradition of other novels of displacement, but with a beguiling rawness that’s uniquely its own, WE NEED NEW NAMES is a beautiful and haunting book that provides an intimate window into one young woman’s experiences, overturns preconceived notions and entertains in equal measure. It’s a book that will stay with me long after the last page.

About Ariel Lawhon

Ariel Lawhon is the co-founder of She Reads, novelist, blogger, storyteller, and life-long reader. She lives in Texas with her husband and four young sons (aka The Wild Rumpus). Ariel believes that Story is the shortest distance to the human heart.

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Today’s post by author Lisa Cullen | @LisaCullen

We’ve got a copy of Lisa’s debut novel, PASTOR’S WIVES, up for grabs today. Just leave a comment on this post and you’ll be entered to win!

Lisa Cullen

If you’d told me five years ago I’d publish a novel and shoot a TV pilot in the same month, I would have laughed.

If you’d told me they’d both be about faith, I’d have laughed so hard I’d have the hiccups for hours.

No one I know would describe me as religious. I was raised Catholic and practiced into my 30s, but Catholics—we’re private about our faith. Forget the yells and bells of more expressive denominations; we barely manage to mumble the liturgy in Mass. We don’t thumb the Bible on the subway. We don’t praise Jesus in polite conversation. We’re outed once a year by that smudge of ash on our foreheads.

And yet.

In 2008, my mother died. She died after a long and valiant battle with cancer, each step of which my siblings and I witnessed in ever heightening despair. Nine months later, our father died of a broken heart.

My parents were the root of my faith. My father was a former Catholic priest who removed the collar to marry my mother, who had in turn converted from Buddhism. They taught me all I knew of faith and love. They remained devout till their last. As I sat weeping by her bedside at the hospital, my mother said to me: “Remember this. You are not alone. You always have Him.”

When they died, I felt forsaken.

I quit my job as a staff writer at Time magazine, and my career in journalism. Inspired by an article I had written for Time, I began Pastors’ Wives, a novel about three women whose lives were defined and dictated by faith, married as they were to pastors at a Southern evangelical megachurch. I imagined their dreams and frustrations, their trials and triumphs.

After the novel sold to Penguin/Plume, I wrote a TV pilot inspired by my father called The Ordained. It’s about a priest who becomes a lawyer in order to protect his family, a New York political dynasty. It was bought by CBS last fall, and we just wrapped shooting in April. We’ll find out in mid-May if it will be picked up for series.

We writers have the great privilege of writing through our issues. My crisis of faith led me to write stories that, in their recording, led me to a kind of peace.

But I’d gladly trade that for just one more sunset at the Jersey shore, joking and laughing with my family, holding my parents’ hands.

Lisa Takeuchi Cullen was born and raised in Kobe, Japan. Her father was a Roman Catholic priest from Philadelphia, sent by his religious order to a provincial city in southern Japan where he met Cullen’s mother—she converted, he left the priesthood to marry her.

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Lisa Cullen was a foreign correspondent and staff writer for Time magazine, covering social trends, news, arts and business in the U.S. and Asia. Her first book, Remember Me: A Lively Tour of the New American Way of Death, was about the year she spent crashing funerals and was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick. She now writes novels and develops television pilots. Pastors’ Wives is her first novel, and Lisa recently sold a pilot about a former priest who becomes a lawyer to CBS. Production on the first episode of The Ordained is now in production.  Cullen lives in New Jersey with her husband and two daughters.

Learn more about Lisa Takeuchi Cullen and Pastors’ Wives at www.lisacullen.com. Readers can also friend Lisa on Facebook, become a fan on Lisa’s Facebook author page (LisaTakeuchiCullen), or follow her on Twitter (@LisaCullen). 

About Ariel Lawhon

Ariel Lawhon is the co-founder of She Reads, novelist, blogger, storyteller, and life-long reader. She lives in Texas with her husband and four young sons (aka The Wild Rumpus). Ariel believes that Story is the shortest distance to the human heart.

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