Mudwoman by Joyce Carol Oates lasted through many lunch breaks and prep periods at school in May. Story told wonderfully.
Page 171: In the shivery water windblown clouds were reflected like fleeting thoughts.
Page 235: Insomnia is a shattering of the brain. Glittering puddles like slivers of broken glass in vast mudflats to the horizon.
Eudora Welty's The Optimist's Daughter was shorter but no less captivating. I found the book at the library's overstock book sale.
Page 109: "Adele has the schoolteacher's low opinion of everybody," said Miss Tennyson. (The truism of that quote made me laugh!)
Page 128: In the poorly lit park, the bandstand and the Confederate statue stood in dim aureoles of rain, looking ghosts they were, and somehow married to eachother, by this time.
Page 160: For her life, any life, she had to believe, was nothing but the continuity of its love.
May for me ended with The Daughter's Walk by Jane Kirkpatrick. I am lucky to consider myself a friend of Jane's. She is a wonderful writer and generous of heart. I've read many of her books and always feel enriched, learning life lessons alongside the protagonist.
Page 101: He disappeared the way a rock sinks to the bottom in a murky pond; one can't see it even though it's there.
Page 183: Snow fell like melting tears.
Look at that, two daughter stories in the same month. My first manuscript is about a daughter as well. It tells the mother's history through the daughter's discovery of it, and in so doing we learn the daughter's story as well.
In June I only finished one book: The Republic of Love by Carol Shields. (Well it is a bit longish, she says defensively. Except that it's not.) The story builds slowly towards a union that you know is coming, yet it surprises you in its fulfillment. Satisfyingly so. I loved the descriptiveness of the moments and the mermaids that she studied and through which she viewed her world. So much was too contextual to quote just a line.
Page 353: It's coming at her, it's about to pounce. The emptiness flowing toward her like a cloud of gas.
Page 364: Love renewed is not precisely love redeemed.
I find that I am reading less during the summer. No prep periods, plus kids home and all. I have so many books I'm looking forward to reading. My MIL lent me a stack, my daughter gave me a couple and so did another friend.
Take some time to read tonight.
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