Life Sentences by Laura Lippman
ISBN 978-0-06-112889-9
352 pages
Published by William Morrow/Harper Collins (2009)

Last year I read my first Lippman novel: What the Dead Know (read my review). I loved it. So when I saw that TLC Book Tours would be touring Lippman’s book Life Sentences, I knew I wanted to participate. Life Sentences is a thoughtful, character driven novel with a mystery (read my review) which will appeal to readers who enjoy mysteries, but also like literary fiction.

Browse inside the book.

A little bit about Laura Lippman:

Laura Lippman grew up in Baltimore and in 1989 worked there as a journalist for the Baltimore Sun. After writing seven books while still a full-time reporter, she left her journalism job in order to  focus full-time on fiction. The author of two New York Times bestsellers, What the Dead Know and Another Thing to Fall, she has won numerous awards for her work, including the Edgar, Quill, Anthony, Nero Wolfe, Agatha, Gumshoe, Barry, and Macavity. Learn more about Laura Lippman and her books on the author’s website.

I was thrilled when Laura agreed to write a guest post for my blog. Enjoy!!

*********************

copyright Laura Lippman (2010)

Thank you, Wendy, for letting me hang out at your blog today. It’s an honor. I may be dating myself, but I’d like to start by invoking a song from Gigi. The singers are Honore and Mamita, former lovers.

H: We met at nine
M: We met at eight
H: I was on time
M: No, you were late
H: Ah, yes, I remember it well
We dined with friends
M: We dined alone
H: A tenor sang
M: A baritone
H: Ah, yes, I remember it well
That dazzling April moon!
M: There was none that night
And the month was June
H: That’s right. That’s right.
M: It warms my heart to know that you
remember still the way you do
H: Ah, yes, I remember it well.

I’ve always inferred that the conceit of the song is that it’s pragmatic Mamita who is right about all the details, while it’s dashing Honore who has twisted everything. (“That’s right. That’s right.’) After all, he’s trying to charm her and she always gets the last word.

But – who says? When memories clash, how do we prove our case? Most of us just pile on more details, as if the vividness of a memory is proof. It’s not. It’s just proof that we are convinced of our memory’s veracity.

A few years ago, I was lamenting a lost sweatshirt, one with an insignia from one of my husband’s projects. It was lost in a taxicab in Ireland in 2006. On that detail, we were in agreement. But I said it had been embroidered with the name Project 2. (Forgive me for being vague. I am famously reticent about my somewhat famous spouse.) He said it was Project Previous. I said I was sure it was Project 2 because I wore it so often. He said that he would know better than I because it was his project, after all. We tossed details back and forth at each other. I remembered that the hem was frayed. He argued that established it was probably an older garment. I said that I didn’t get much swag from his work, which was why I had commandeered this particular sweatshirt. He said he wore it more often than I did. After all, he was the one who left it in the cab. We called the argument a draw.

A month later, he organized years of photos. There I was in Ireland. Wearing the mourned sweatshirt. And there was the Project 2 insignia, clearly visible. A better woman might have let it pass. I am not a better woman.

“OK, OK,” my husband said. “You win.”

“But it’s not about winning,” I told him. “We both thought we were right. In this case, I was. But that’s not important. What I want you to focus on is how sure you were, how adamant and impassioned you became. That proves that passionate faith in your memory doesn’t guarantee anything. If you can be wrong when you were so sure you were right, then isn’t there always the possibility that a memory is wrong?”

“Yes, but –” And he continued to argue, only this time the debate centered on why his error was understandable.

One of the hardest things a person can do is take a heart-felt memory and admit that it’s wrong, or riddled with invented details. Because if we are wrong about one memory, couldn’t we be wrong about all of them? And if we’re wrong about all of them – then who are we? That’s the story behind LIFE SENTENCES. A woman begins to pull on the threads of her life – and everything falls apart. It sounds terrifying, doesn’t it? But I’ve found that it also can be reassuring in a strange way.

And if you stop arguing based on memory, you’ll be amazed by how much time you save!

*************************

I completely agree!! Thanks for visiting my blog, Laura. It’s been a pleasure!

Visit more TLC Book tours of Laura Lippman’s novel:

• Monday, March 1st: Raging Bibliomania
• Monday, March 8th: Thoughts From an Evil Overlord
• Tuesday, March 9th: Wordlily
• Wednesday, March 10th: Shhh I’m Reading
• Monday, March 15th: Booksie’s Blog
• Wednesday, March 17th: The Book Zombie
• Tuesday, March 23rd: I’m Booking It
• Thursday, March 25th: pages turned
• Monday, March 29th: Luxury Reading
• Wednesday, March 31st: Cozy Little House

Lisa See’s latest novel, Shanghai Girls, is a story of a family…but mostly it is a story about two women, specifically two sisters. May and Pearl are living in Shanghai in 1937. They are “beautiful girls” – born into wealth with all the privileges that entails. But when their father gambles away their life savings, both girls are sold into marriage to pay off the debt. Forced to marry two Chinese boys who currently live in Los Angeles, May and Pearl still hope to remain in Shanghai, working as beautiful girls and living their lives unchanged. Within weeks, however, the Japanese invade China and the girls flee their home to find passage on a ship to San Francisco. What follows is a journey marked by fear, violence, and uncertainty. When the shores of America are finally reached, Pearl and May must get through the labyrinth of immigration before they finally are reunited with their husbands in Southern California. But life is not what they expected.

What’s the first impression you have of a new place? Is it the first meal you eat? The first time you have an ice cream cone? The first person you meet? The first night you spend in your new bed in your new home? The first broken promise? The first time you realize that no one cares about you as anything other than the potential bearer of sons? The knowledge that your neighbors are so poor that they put only a dollar in your lai see, as if that were enough to give a woman a secret treasure to last a lifetime? The recognition that your father-in-law, a man born in this country, has been so isolated in Chinatowns throughout his life that he speaks the most pathetic English ever? The moment you understand that everything you’d come to believe about your in-laws’ class, standing, prosperity, and fortune is as wrong as everything you thought about your natal family’s status and wealth? – from Shanghai Girls, page 135 -

See’s novel takes the reader from the lavish streets of Shanghai to the isolation of immigration services on Angel Island in San Francisco, to the hectic streets of Chinatown in Los Angeles; and spans 20 years of American history and turmoil. Narrated in the distinct voice of Pearl, the eldest sister, the story explores a woman’s role in a traditional Chinese family, the discrimination leveled against Chinese immigrants in the United States during the 40s and 50s, and the relationship between two sisters. Ultimately a secret which Pearl and May keep throughout their lives has far reaching repercussions which neither young woman could possibly have imagined.

As in her previous novels, See develops memorable characters and has a firm grip on the historical details which bring to life the Chinese community in California during the mid twentieth century. If there is a fault in the novel, it is in the middle section when Pearl and May settle into their new lives.  Detailed and methodical, the story slows here and becomes a bit plodding at times. See redeems herself during the last fourth of the novel when the tension rises and secrets are revealed which spark conflict between the two sisters. It was during these last pages of the novel where See completely enthralled me.

Readers who have enjoyed See’s previous work will not be disappointed by this latest effort.

Read more reviews through TLC Book Tours.

Read my TLC Book Tour post and enter a contest to WIN THE BOOK (contest runs through January 23, 2010).

FTC Disclosure: I received this book for review from the publisher through TLC Book Tours.

Many thanks to TLC Book tours, author Jennie Shortridge and Penguin Books for giving me the opportunity to read and review When She Flew (read my review). See all posts for this tour here.

A little about Jennie Shortridge:

Jennie Shortridge is a bestselling novelist with  four published novels to her credit: Riding with the Queen, (NAL 2003), Eating Heaven (2005),  Love and Biology at the Center of the Universe (2008), and now When She Flew (2009). Her nonfiction work has appeared regularly in magazines and newspapers, including Glamour, Mademoiselle, Natural Home, and others. The Seattle writer has been called “an accomplished and superior novelist” by the Statesmen Journal and “a writer to watch out for,” by the Rocky Mountain News.

When not writing, she spends time in the community helping kids and adults learn to write better, and in 2006 co-founded (with fellow Seattle author Garth Stein) a collective of Northwest authors whose mission is to create “connections 
between writers, readers, librarians and booksellers to foster and support a passion 
for the written word.” In 2009, they pledged to undertake several community outreach initiatives, including:  panel discussions and writing workshops with all or partial proceeds benefiting literacy programs in the Northwest; the development of community “pocket” libraries in unconventional places; and book club events to encourage community support of local libraries and independent booksellers.

To read more about Jennie Shortridge and her work, visit the author’s website.

When She Flew and PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder):

Shortridge’s 4th novel centers around a true story of a war veteran and his daughter living off the land in a forested park in Portland in 2004. One of the themes of the novel is the challenges faced by those people suffering from PTSD. In the novel, Shortridge dispels some of the myths surrounding this disorder…including questions around the ability to effectively parent.

I love novels which inspire me to learn more about a subject…and When She Flew motivated me to read a bit about PTSD. I was familiar with the disorder through some education I received as part of being a Search and Rescue volunteer…and in fact, had suffered a episode of PTSD myself following a search where I was part of the team who located a suicide victim. Fortunately, I received good support from people close to me and was able to resolve the psychological trauma I had experienced, although that particular search will always be with me.

The U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs defines PTSD as:

[...]an anxiety disorder that can occur after you have been through a traumatic event. A traumatic event is something horrible and scary that you see or that happens to you. During this type of event, you think that your life or others’ lives are in danger. You may feel afraid or feel that you have no control over what is happening.

Anyone who has gone through a life-threatening event can develop PTSD. These events can include:

• Combat or military exposure
• Child sexual or physical abuse
• Terrorist attacks
• Sexual or physical assault
• Serious accidents, such as a car wreck.
• Natural disasters, such as a fire, tornado, hurricane, flood, or earthquake.

After the event, you may feel scared, confused, or angry. If these feelings don’t go away or they get worse, you may have PTSD. These symptoms may disrupt your life, making it hard to continue with your daily activities.

PTSD is a medical diagnosis, established in 1980, defining symptoms that last at least a month after experiencing a major trauma.

The Gateway to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Information website provides some great national and international links to learn more about the disorder and to locate help or treatment if you are suffering from it. One site they linked to really caught my attention. Gift From Within is a non-profit organization which is dedicated to those suffering from PTSD, those at risk of PTSD and those who care for traumatized individuals. They develop and disseminate educational materials and other resources through their website, and maintain a roster of survivors who are willing to participate in an international network of peer support.

If you or a loved one has suffered from PTSD, I urge you to check out some of the resources available to you on line, or contact local resources for treatment.

**************************

BOOK GIVE-AWAY of When She Flew:

To wrap up my tour of this book, Jennie Shortridge has graciously agreed to give away a SIGNED copy of When She Flew to one of my readers. To enter the contest:

• Simply leave a comment on this post by 8:00am (PST) January 5th.
• Make sure you include a legitimate email address so I can contact you if you win.
• I will draw a name sometime on January 5th and announce the winner here on my blog.
• This giveaway is open to the U.S. and Canada.

Good luck!!

I was delighted to receive Maud Carol Markson’s newest novel Looking After Pigeon for a TLC Book Tour. There was something compelling to me about a five year old girl finding her way in the world after being abandoned by her father…and the book did not disappoint me (read my review). I was equally delighted when Markson agreed to write a guest post for my blog. Do you wonder where authors find inspiration for their books? I do. And so it was with great interest I read Markson’s words about how her writing seeks to find the truth in human experience and how that experience is a reflected in her characters.

A little bit about Maud Carol Markson:

Maud Carol Markson is the author of the novels When We Get Home, and Looking After Pigeon. She has taught writing at University of New Hampshire and Cabrini College and now lives in California with her husband and son, and her dog Molly, who is her constant writing companion. She can be reached at www.redroom.com and www.goodreads.com. Learn more about Markson and her work on her website: http://www.maudcarol.com.

***************************

Guest Post: Maud Carol Markson

Some writers find it very easy to write about themselves, but I am not one of those authors—I guess that is why I write fiction. And that is why I am submitting a somewhat modified version of the guest post that I did for Meg Waite Clayton’s 1^st Books blog.

From the time I was told I would never grow up to be an elephant, I decided instead to grow up to be a writer (of course, to the adults who knew me, both probably seemed equally implausible). I wanted to be the person who wrote all those books I loved as a child, and all those books that kept my father engrossed every night so that when I talked to him he barely heard me. I wanted to be the writer of the books that filled my local library shelves. There I would walk once a week in the summer, and sit among the books, in the air-conditioned stacks, staring at their covers as if they could reveal the magic within. And then stacking up my selection of books to carry on the walk home, where they bumped against my side, reminding me with each step of what awaited me when I actually opened their covers and read their pages.

Books are still magical to me. I look at novels not as a means to escape from myself (although, happily, they often serve that purpose), but as a means to discover myself. As a young child, I discovered aspects of myself and my world in the characters of Harriet in Harriet the Spy and Julie in Up a Road Slowly, or Kit Tyler in The Witch of Blackbird Pond. As an adult, I cherished other favorites. It is not that the authors of these books are writing about me, or even about someone like me. What they are doing is finding some truth in their characters and in the human experience.

That is what I aim to do with my own writing. I wrote my first novel, When We Get Home (Bantam, 1989), when I was pregnant with my son and anxious about being a parent for the first time. It begins with the line: “In my family we are all disposable,” and it was that line that ran through my head over and over again until the character that speaks that line emerged. And then the rest of her family soon followed—the father with multiple divorces, the step-mother, the brother who flees from one relationship to another. Perhaps I felt that in writing about a family that disintegrates, I could keep my own family safe from a similar fate. And so far, it has worked.

In my novel, Looking After Pigeon (The Permanent Press, July 2009), it was another line that echoed: “My mother named her children after birds.” What kind of mother gives her children bird names? How does growing up with such a name make us who we are? In this novel, five year old Pigeon’s father disappears, leaving her to face a new life in an uncle’s house on the Jersey shore. My father never left me as a child, and I don’t even have an uncle, much less one who owns a house at the beach. My older sister never got pregnant. But like my character, Pigeon, I do find memory an “odd thing.” I call it selective memory: we remember what resonates most deeply for us. And of course, we all to some extent want someone to look after us. So although these characters are not me, the way they experience the world is me. They all in some way reveal parts of who I am. And hopefully reveal parts of my readers as well.

Many thanks to TLC Book Tours, Francine Prose and Harper Perennial for putting Goldengrove into my hands for review. I read this book the first part of this month (read my review) and was completely sucked into Prose’s beautiful writing and the story of Nico – a thirteen year old girl growing up in the wake of her older sister’s tragic death.

Goldengrove is about loss, grief and recovery. It struck me that readers who have lost a loved one from unexpected death, especially when that loved one is a child, might find this novel difficult to read. Below are a couple of links to organizations which provide support to individuals dealing with this kind of loss:

The Compassionate Friends

The mission of The Compassionate Friends is to assist families toward the positive resolution of grief following the death of a child of any age and to provide information to help others be supportive.

Today more than 600 chapters serving all 50 states plus Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico offer friendship, understanding, and hope to bereaved parents, siblings, grandparents, and other family members during the natural grieving process after a child has died. Around the world more than 30 countries have a Compassionate Friends presence, encircling the globe with support so desperately needed when the worst has happened.

Griefworks, BC

Griefworks BC exists through a partnership between Children’s & Women’s Health Centers of British Columbia and Canuck Place Children’s Hospice.

Griefworks BC facilitates access to bereavement support when and where it is needed.

Book Information:

Title: Goldengrove, by Francine Prose
Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Harper Perennial; 1 edition (September 8, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0060560029
ISBN-13: 978-0060560027
Available wherever books are sold, including Amazon.

A little about Francine Prose:

Francine Prose is the author of fifteen books of fiction, including A Changed Man and Blue Angel, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and the nonfiction New York Times bestseller Reading Like a Writer. Her latest novel, Goldengrove, was published in September 2008. She is the president of PEN American Center. She lives in New York City.

Listen to Francine Prose on BlogTalk Radio (air date September 24, 2009)

To read more reviews of Goldengrove, visit the tour page on TLC Book Tours for links.

When I first learned about Ru Freeman’s debut novel A Disobedient Girl on the TLC website, I knew immediately I wanted to read it. I love literary fiction set in foreign countries, and the author’s background as a political activist and journalist interested me. I was not disappointed. A Disobedient Girl is an amazing work of literary fiction (read my review). Many thanks to Lisa at TLC who was instrumental in putting this book into my hands.

Ru Freeman was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka. She arrived in the United States to attend Bates College in Maine, and later returned to Sri Lanka where she completed her Masters in Labor Relations at the University of Colombo, and worked in the field of American and international humanitarian assistance and workers’ rights. Her political writing has appeared in English and in translation. Her creative work has appeared or is forthcoming in Guernica, Story Quarterly, Crab Orchard Review, WriteCorner Press, Kaduwa and elsewhere and has been nominated for the Best New American Voices anthologies in 2006 and 2008. A Disobedient Girl is her first novel. Read more about Ru Freeman and follow links to interviews with her on her website (I especially found this interview with Bookslut to be fascinating).

Other links to articles and stories by this author you might be interested in reading:

• A poignant article about the 2004 Tsunami which struck Sri Lanka.
• Jesse’s Story
• What Could Be Said About Pedris Road
• Ru Freeman has written many journalism and opinion pieces. Links to those articles may be found on her website on this page.

I was thrilled when Ms. Freeman agreed to write a guest post for Caribousmom. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I have. I was also ecstatic when I was asked to write a guest post for the author’s blog – you can read what I wrote by visiting Ru Freeman’s blog today.

*********************************

Thinking Aloud About Time and Space

By Ru Freeman

There is at least as much difference of opinion regarding work-space for writers, as there are types of writers. Some need vast chunks of time, others need vast expanses of space, still others need to be surrounded by books while a few want nothing but themselves and their computer, typewriter or pen and page. Having grown up in a small country, in a small house with lots of people in it – both permanent inhabitants and routine transients – I find myself unable to reconcile my need for space and quiet and solitude with the fact that all three of those things are luxuries for most people on the planet. And yet, lately, the writer that I am has been craving exactly what the activist in me scorns.

First, there has been the inevitable travel associated with the publication of a book. The people and event seeking activist rushes out with glee to book signings, readings, panels, classes and discussions. Any chance to be out in the world, to be involved with its shenanigans, to impinge upon its course in some way is manna from heaven to her. But the writer that I am cringes in horror. My new novel hovers, untended in the not so recent past, my essays and short fiction go untouched, deadlines pass before my glazed eyes as though they are part of someone else’s life, my blog is turning into an embarrassment, and my sole claim to fame is the maniacal update of my Facebook status with which, I apparently hope to restore my reputation as a writer. Ugh.

Then there is the matter of publicity. Gone are the days when a writer wrote a book, sent it forth to make its way in the world, turned her back upon it and set herself to the task of writing something new. In a culture where literature is placed and marketed just as strenuously as the latest beauty product or electronic gadget, the writer is as much a part of the book and its package as is its cover and content. I empathize with my publisher who has to tussle and wrangle alongside all the other publishers in order to make my career as a writer successful and rewarding. But in the end the writing, which was the reason for being out with a book in the first place, begins to take a back seat to the performance of being The Writer. There goes that other block of time, eaten up by emails and phone calls hither and yon to booksellers and publicists and event coordinators and festival organizers and series curators and reviewers etc. etc.

I would not trade in the position of being a published author for the one of being an unpublished one, but I wish someone had told me that there is no freedom quite as assured, for a writer, as that time when you are still writing that first novel. I would have used that time a little better. I might have written longer, revised more, taken a few more risks. Or perhaps I wouldn’t have. Perhaps, like most women, I would have rushed full tilt toward the future, rearranging the rest of my life to make room for the most pressing need of the day be it writing my novel or supporting a political campaign or helping a village raise its children. Perhaps where I find myself now is all there ever is, just the same as it is for anybody else; this present moment, its own reality and the challenge that we remember to be grateful while we try to make the best of it.

*********************************

Recently I was delighted to accept Lisa Tucker’s latest novel The Promised World for a TLC Book Tour (read my review). Described by Booklist as a “natural born storyteller,” Lisa is also the author of The Song Reader, Shout Down the Moon, Once Upon a Day, and The Cure for Modern Life. Her books have been published in twelve countries and her work has been featured in Seventeen, Pages, and The Oxford American.  She has advanced degrees in English and Math, and has taught creative writing at the Taos Conference and at UCLA.  Lisa currently lives in Pennsylvania. To learn more about Lisa Tucker and her work, please visit the author’s website.

When I asked for a guest post, Lisa graciously agreed to provide one. Given the subject matter of her book, I believe this is not only a timely post, but a poignant one.

**********************

Honoring a Loved One

by Lisa Tucker

Since The Promised World is about dealing with grief, I wanted to share with your readers something I wrote to honor someone I lost.  One thing I’ve learned over the years is that we never really get over grief, but talking—and writing—about the person we miss can really help. Thanks for inviting me to do a guest blog. 

The last time she visited, she was already sick. When she left, I walked around my house in a daze, inhaling the smells. In the kitchen, the odors from the supper she’d insisted on making the night before: salty grease from the fried chicken and okra, sticky sweetness from the strawberries and marshmallow yams. In the bathroom, the clean tang of her Avon astringent and body cream. And in the guest room, the vaguely floral smell that must have been her perfume, but seemed like the very scent of her.

Her name was Minnie Louise, a small-town Arkansas gal, but I called her Minna, because she thought it sounded French, mysterious. For years, we talked on the phone every morning, even when my husband and I weren’t getting along, even when I feared we’d end up divorced. Our relationship was one of the richest in my adult life, but whenever I told friends she was coming to visit me, they groaned. They all had mother-in-law horror stories. The very term mother-in-law seems to be only an occasion for jokes.

Did you hear the one about the mother-in-law who made a string of beautiful beads for her daughter-in-law, with a card that read, “Worry beads, for your busy little hands”?

I wring my hands; I also crack my knuckles, pick my nails, tear my cuticles. As a child these were embarrassing tics, but in Minna’s eyes they became signs of my sensitivity, of the harsh way she was sure the world had treated me. She respected me as a woman and a mother and a writer, and most important, she gave me back my position as a daughter. And I loved her with a child-like intensity that always wanted more.

********************

Read all the blog tours for this book and author:

Tuesday, September 1st:  Musings of a Bookish Kitty

Thursday, September 3rd:  Peeking Between the Pages

Tuesday, September 8th:  Fizzy Thoughts

Wednesday, September 9th:  The Eclectic Book Lover- review and author interview

Date TBD:  My Friend Amy

Friday, September 11th:  Serendipitous Reading

Monday, September 14th:  Cindy’s Love of Books

Tuesday, September 15th:  Booking Mama

Wednesday, September 16th:  Jenn’s Bookshelves

Thursday, September 17th:  2 Kids and Tired Book Reviews

Monday, September 21st:  Janel’s Jumble

Tuesday, September 22nd:  Caribousmom

Wednesday, September 23rd:  The Tome Traveller

Thursday, September 24th:  Books and Movies

Monday, September 28th:  A Sea of Books

Tuesday, September 29th:  GalleySmith

Wednesday, September 30th:  Shhh.. I’m Reading