Motherless Soul Reading

I had a reading at a local retirement village this past week. I won't mention the name of the establishment because I learned that there appears to be a retirement home circuit among writers. Authors attempting to market their books can be a bit overwhelming to some of the staff. The Activity Director told me, “My name must have gotten out there somehow. I get about six calls a day.”

The reading went very well. I had eight people in attendance, which is a perfect amount for the type of reading I like best. We sat in a circle. I read three excerpts and between the readings I talked about some of the concepts in the book and about the process of writing.

My book doesn't appeal to everyone because its plot deals with past lives and that idea conflicts with the religious beliefs of some people. (I've heard that from a couple of reviewers who declined to read it.) At first glance a North Carolina retirement home seems to be a poor choice for an appearance, since most are associated with churches. But my book is a novel and I think the majority of people recognize that novels are places where readers can get lost in fictional lives.

This particular home is Moravian, but that doesn't mean the residents are all members of that church. Retirement homes are no different than any other large groups of people. The residents have a variety of backgrounds and interests. In the group that attended my reading there was a former chaplain, a woman who had once been hypnotized, and a writer who had spent her career as a journalist. The writer had lost her sight, but still enjoyed audio books. She also had a finished novel she had never sent out. I think she liked my reading. Of all the people in attendance she was the most involved in the conversation.

I always enjoy hearing the opinions and stories of the people who attend my readings. The reason I enjoy doing readings is because they are give and take events where I can learn as well as share my experiences.

Interview on Monica Brinkman's blog talk radio show

Check out my interview on - Monica Brinkman blog talk radio show

The topic is Mother/Daughter relationships.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

I'm about halfway through the audio version of Kathryn Stockett's novel, The Help. The book has some of the strongest characters in any of the books I've read recently. I love that about it.

I grew up in East Orange, New Jersey and was in high school when the Newark riots occurred. I suppose coming of age in that environment is one reason why race relations has always been a subject of interest to me. Two of my short stories dealt with the subject: Clay in Alaska Quarterly Review (1989) and Child By Design in Eclipse (2006). But even now race is still a complex, fascinating, and sometimes disturbing subject. My children were in high school during the nineties, in Greensboro, NC and although things had come a long way some of the same issues still existed. And they still exist today, even with Barack Obama in the white house.

The Help is set in Jackson, Mississippi during the Kennedy administration and it is about race relations. Skeeter is a young white woman from a wealthy farming family. She is part of the country club society, but she doesn't quite fit in. She is tall and hates her hair, among other things. Apparently this low opinion of her appearance has affected her confidence. She has rarely dated and has given up on that aspect of her life. She's decided to become a writer and to help her achieve this goal she has chosen to document what it is like to be a maid from the viewpoint of the local help.

I love the fact that Skeeter's goal is to be a writer. Adding to the civil rights discussion that is going on at the time is only a byproduct of what she wants. But she was raised by Constantine (an African American maid) and, in many ways, was closer to that woman than to her own mother. She seems to be a decent person with an open mind. At the same time she's turning her back on white friends who have been good to her over the years. I love the complexity of what Skeeter wants from life and I feel I know her.

There are other wonderfully developed characters in The Help, including two of the maids, Aibileen and Minny, who join in Skeeter's project for reason that are just as complex and fascinating as Skeeter's reasons. There's also a young white woman, Celia, who is from a poor background. She puts an entirely different spin on the subject of race relations and on the desires of women in general.

So far, the men in The Help are not as interesting as the women. They have been mostly secondary characters up to this point. But there is one in particular whom I think will become more important as I get further in the book. That's only one of the things I'm looking forward to finding out in the second half.