I love that someone took the time to paint these boxes instead of painting around them. And, I love the happy colors: very different from the usual murals and graffiti art you usually find around here. This mural is long gone, replaced by another one and I am so glad I snapped this picture. (picture quality way better if you click to enlarge this image).
Things I should be doing: grading papers, writing a midterm exam, cleaning the kitchen, getting dressed for goodness sake.
Things I want to be doing: drinking Guinness, eating those chocolate covered oreos in the fridge, running away from home.
What I am doing: reading this and eating leftover mac and cheese.
See, being a mom is just so fucking hard sometimes. Waa Waa Waa, I know! But, things have been rough around here lately. Everyone is passing this mild but annoying cold back and forth, A has been nursing all night long every night for a few weeks and is a bit more than miffed at my attempts at night weaning and L has had, every morning this week, hour long tantrums. Except this morning when it was two hours and she wouldn’t even be placated by dense and chewy homemade pink pancakes. Gaaaa! They are both incredibly needy right now (instead of a one year old and an almost four year old I feel like I am parenting 3 month old twins) which is fine in theory. But, in reality it is impossible to fetch one off the bunk bed ladder which she suddenly refuses to climb down, find the socks she threw in a fit of rage and wants on her feet NOW all the while nursing the little one while frantically feeding my face with toaster waffles and gulps of steaming hot earl gray. If I close my eyes now I am afraid I will sleep for years.
Things I should be doing: attending to L’s demands for help because she needs to feel coddled right now, enlist D’s help in night weaning A because I cannot do it alone, eating real healthy because I must keep my energy and mood up, take suggestions and advice from wise friends and strangers, ignore remarks such as “this too shall pass” because even though it is true it is not helpful, eat maybe just one chocolate covered oreo.
I am not sure how long the site was down, a couple days at most, but we are now back to our regularly scheduled programming….
(and as always, click to clarify this image)
I like to tell myself that this blog is really a sort-of writing exercise or some kind of personal journal made public and that I don’t really care if people read it or not. But, in my heart of hearts, I do care a bit. So, I love getting comments. I know by looking at the stats now and then that people come and visit this site. Still, it makes me really happy when someone takes the time to leave a comment for me.
Because Carrie asked me to write a bit more about Last Night at the Lobster in a recent comment, instead of answering in the comment section of that post, I thought I would dedicate another post to that book.
I heard about this short novel on NPR. I was driving and listening to the radio (All Things Considered?) and caught the review. It was gushing. It made this novella sound like the best thing ever written—well, perhaps I exaggerate—but it made me really want to read this book. It’s the story of a thirty-something Red Lobster manager named Manny who recently found out his restaurant will be closing due to low profits. He has worked there forever and is very proud of the work he does and his staff. At first it sounds silly, a book set in Red Lobster but it isn’t because O’Nan treats his characters, especially the likable if ordinary Manny, with respect. Manny has a life outside of the restaurant but he also has a puritanical work ethic that means he works diligently and seriously. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have an affair with a waitress or get to know his staff personally. He has been hired to assistant manage an Olive Garden and will be taking a handful of his best employees with him. But on the night the book takes place (it takes place over something like 12 hours) Manny will be saying goodbye to the Red Lobster once and for all. Because of a bad snow storm and the fact it is Christmas eve, the night is slow and it gives Manny plenty of time to think about his life at the restaurant and beyond it. The restaurant is a symbol of his place in society and life and its closing is more traumatic than he is willing to let on.
All that being said, it is really not so much the story or plot but that writing that makes this book fantastic. If you have ever worked in a restaurant you will see the details are spot on (the frantic rush followed by the dull lulls, the side work, the division between the floor staff and the kitchen staff, the floating hostess, etc). Manny is compelling because he is at once an “every man” and so singular and interesting. It is such a thoughtful book full of very quiet but poignant (gosh, did I really just say poignant) observations.
Or something like that.
Maybe you will read it and hate it or like it for different reasons. I am confident in recommending it. Has anyone else read it? Or, read anything else by O’Nan?
In other booky news I am in the middle of a bunch of young adult books for review including a YA historical fiction work about Elizabeth I. Also for review an examination of the Jewish mother stereotype (oy vey iz mir, don’t get me started), poetry by a local writer, and personally I am back to powering through Yehoshua’s The Liberated Bride after taking a short break from it.
It really has been a while since I have reviewed any books here. I have been reading as much as always but mostly books whose reviews will be published somewhere that is not here. I have eight books slated for review in February alone plus an author interview. Everything has a deadline but I don’t always read them in order and so it can get a bit confusing. Plus, I have a new textbook I am needing to read to see if I want to use it in a class and it is about 750 huge pages. Normally I am excited to have so much reading before me but I have just felt tired lately (not getting much sleep around here due to various viruses floating around the house plus the teething of molars, yada yada yada). Then, I got derailed by re-reading The Big Rumpus by Ayan Halliday which is just not as good as I want it to be.
One book I read quite a while ago was Last Night at the Lobster by Stuart O’Nan and I just love this book. It is hard for me to describe its goodness: it is succinct (a novella!), realistic, well-written. The story takes place in a Red Lobster on Christmas Eve during a snow storm and succeeds in making the most mundane premise really compelling.
Another recent favorite is All Shall Be Well; and All Shall Be Well; and All Manner of Things Shall Be Well. Which is a debut by Tod Wodicka. I was attracted by the title and the story is good, too. See my review here.
I am writing more and more reviews of children’s literature at Kidsreads.com. Here is a recent review of an adventure story.
Too soon it will seem like I have nothing to read and then I will be asking you to share suggestions again.
Powered by WordPress
