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“They Went Left” by Monica Hesse

August 29, 2021 By Patricia Hruby Powell Leave a Comment

Germany 1945. The war has ended. The concentration camps have been liberated and Zofia Lederman, just released from Gross-Rosen death camp, is searching for her brother, Abek. She knows that the rest if her family—her parents, grandmother, and aunt—were all sent to the gas chambers when they all arrived at the camp, in “They Went Left” (Little Brown 2020) by Monica Hesse.

Zofia, 18, accompanied by a young Russian soldier, travels through Germany to her home in Poland, hoping to find Abek there. No Abek. Clearly the apartment was occupied by the enemy during the war. She finds her old neighbors unsympathetic. Anti-semitism has not been erased by the atrocities that occurred during the war. She eludes the soldier and sets out for Germany in search of Abek who she’d promised to protect.

Eventually she finds herself in a displaced-persons camp, but Abek is not here. Nearly everyone at the camp is searching for someone. One young woman searches for her twin sister, having been separated after surviving medical experimentations by the Nazis. A former heiress is becoming a farmer and waits to marry a fellow worker in a simple ceremony before finding their way to the new state of Israel. Enigmatic Josef assists at the camp and drives Zofia to another station where her brother just might be or might have been seen.

Zofia places notes requesting information about Abek everywhere, questions everyone, sending out a broad search net. And waits. Having suffered trauma and cruelty in the camps, she is not healthy, either physically or mentally and her reality becomes distorted. But she is alive.

Will she heal? Or will she succumb to mental hallucinations? Her memories are not reliable. Just as she begins to wonder, the reader, too, comes to understand that she’s an unreliable narrator. She is surrounded by so many others, also in crisis. This is the aftermath of the war and each character wonders what a new normal might become for themselves. Throughout her search Zofia is attracted to the mysterious Josef but Josef protects himself behind a thick veil of secrets. Love could be an antidote, but who is this man?

Zofia comes to believe that love is a decision. You can decide who to love. The displaced people support each other, giving moments of joy within the story, such as the wedding of the farming couple. Will one couple’s solution work for Zofia or will she have to find her own way? The book ends with no overall happily-ever-after, but there is hope. It is an authentic outcome, surely.

Monica Hesse’s raw and powerful, and well-researched story, is relevant today. Do consider reading it.

Patricia Hruby Powell is the author of the award-winning Lift As You Climb; Josephine; Loving vs Virginia; and Struttin’ With Some Barbecue all signed and for sale at Jane Addams bookstore. She teaches community classes at Parkland. talesforallages.com

“A Sitting in St. James” by Rita Williams-Garcia

August 9, 2021 By Patricia Hruby Powell Leave a Comment

Rita Williams-Garcia’s “A Sitting in St. James” (HarperCollins/Quill Tree 2021) is set in Louisiana, 1860, before Southerners believed their way of life could actually be shattered by a civil war.

The story opens with a bit of Creole bayou history—a culture created by a mix of Indian, French, Spanish, and African peoples. We jump to Sylvie, a young French aristocratic orphan, post Revolution in Paris, 1793, who agrees to marry the under-educated but land-owning and slave-holding American, Bayard Guilbert. One page-turn later, the despicable Madame Sylvie Guilbert is now a widow, upholder of fashionable old ways, and the matriarch of a failing plantation in St. James parish, Le Petit Cottage.

Think: “Gone With the Wind” (time and approximate place) meets “Twelfth Night” (love matches and sly humor) meets “Bridgerton” (sexual identities and love matches), in a world where enslaved people are not seen as human.

Madame’s personal Black servant, Thisbe, named by Madame after a dog, shows the lowly experience of a house-slave (who gets no Sunday off), unable to visit her parents in the slave quarters (who do get Sunday off), who sees nothing, hears nothing, yet—actually observes everything.

Madame’s middle-aged son, widower Lucien, has one living white child, Byron, who is a gay cadet on holiday-leave from West Point who has brought home his lover, cadet Pearce—an easy going Northerner who will inherit his adoptive parents’ fortune. Oh, and Lucien has a gorgeous Black enslaved daughter, Rosalie the recognized half-sister of Byron, who Lucien intends to marry off to a wealthy Black plantation owner’s son, Laurent, to save his own family plantation, Le Petit Cottage. But our Guilbert family is a bit scandalous for the upstanding Black family. See what I mean about the Shakespearean aspect?

The real fun begins when Jane enters. She’s the mannish daughter of a white Creole high-society mother and English father. In today’s parlance we’d say, she was on the spectrum. Madame is tasked to educate the “impossible” girl who has been bribed to learn ladylike protocol against the threat of shooting her beloved horse, Virginia Wilder, who she rides wildly throughout the mornings. Jane shines a light on the ridiculousness of Madame’s manners and protocols and her exchanges with Madame in the hands of Williams-Garcia are uproarious. Jane is most definitely a lesbian in a time when such a thing was so scandalous (and illegal) it couldn’t be mentioned.

Byron (the gay grandson) is betrothed to the lovely clever plantation neighbor, Eugenie, who is not submissive. Eugenie befriends the unique Jane, and for her part has no interest in having sex with her betrothed—after their requisite son is born.

The title refers to Madame’s sitting for a portraitist, LeBrun, who is related to a famous French court portraitist, making the sitting a high prestige venture—for Madame. There is much interacting between this diverse cast—so many secrets to be discovered, with sometimes fascinating outcomes. This epic and masterfully-told tale is a must-read.

Research for Writers

July 25, 2021 By Patricia Hruby Powell Leave a Comment

WRITING TIPS

RESEARCHING FOR FICTION AND NONFICTION

by Patricia Hruby Powell

Whether we write fiction or nonfiction, we need to research. It’s a bit more challenging nowadays, with many of us sheltering at home, but it’s still completely doable.

What if there’s a scene in your story involving a goat? You don’t know any goats? Ask on Facebook who has goats. Visiting goats is an outdoor activity that you could do, whatever sheltering you’re practicing.

What if you’re writing about a boy who finds the entrance to the Amazon Rainforest in his attic? You must research the rainforest and its peoples and how to find nuts filled with nutritious squirming larvae. If that boy lives in New Bedford, Massachusetts, because your plot requires a place important to the historic whaling industry, look online for a New Bedford museum. Contact the museum. Speak to an expert. (More on experts to come).

If you can’t visit the Amazon, Google Earth the city of Manaus, Brazil, and work outward from there.

Those suggestions cover my unpublished novel—WAITING FOR RAIN. (I have two unpublished novels. But I didn’t give up. I kept writing and improving my skills until I found a niche in narrative nonfiction, and now I’m expanding upon that niche).

Books and Libraries

Begin your research on the internet. Print articles about your subject, including the bibliographies. Maybe a detail in an article will guide you to the slant you’ll want to take on a nonfiction project. Or you might realize the plot you’ll use for a novel, picture book, or graphic novel.

Using the listings in your bibliographies, search your local libraries via computer; also use keywords or subject headings. For me, “libraries” include not only the fabulous public library system in my town of Champaign but all other Illinois Libraries as well, which anyone can access at https://www.library.illinois.edu/search-tools/. Every Illinois citizen is entitled to a library card for checking books out from this extensive system. Alternatively, your public library can connect you to Worldshare: Libraries Worldwide for specific harder-to-obtain resources. Once you might have collected a mountain of books from your library yourself. Now you can request books and pick them up curbside or from a “hold shelf.”

Read those books. If you come across necessary, obscure, or fascinating facts and they’re marked by a superscripted number, refer to those numbers in the footnotes, “Notes,” or “Endnotes,” which will give a source. And if that fabulous fact was not marked by a superscripted number, fear not. You can do a little Sherlock Holmes work in the Notes section. Is there a quote in the text that’s abbreviated in the Notes and given a source? Work forward or back from that endnote and speculate on the source for your fabulous fact.

Notes at the back of the book are probably divided by chapter, which in turn will direct you to the source used by the author and found in the bibliography, if there is one. That source might well be a primary source. If the source is secondary, get whatever book or item that source may reference, and see if it holds a citation to the primary source. It’s good to use both primary and secondary sources.

Primary and Secondary Sources

Primary source – a document, first-hand account, or other source that constitutes direct evidence of an object of study.[i] “Direct” is the keyword here. This might be an “account” or quote or description by your subject; it might be a newspaper article or letter about your subject, contemporary to when it happened. Such sources are “first public accounts,” which also include autobiographies, diaries, interviews, oral histories, birth and death certificates, photos, and artifacts such as clothing or furniture, to name a few. These intellectual and emotional “properties” bring you close to your subject. Visiting Emily Dickinson’s home in Amherst, Massachusetts, I saw her white dress. What an emotional zinger! She wore it. I felt almost as if I were facing the reclusive poet herself.

Secondary sources – a book, article, or other source that provides information about an object of study but does not constitute direct, first-hand evidence.[ii] Authors of secondary sources have interpreted, discussed, or analyzed primary sources. Newspaper and magazine articles after the event, biographies, history books, and dictionaries are secondary sources. And they are valuable.

Both primary and secondary sources could be factual or not. So you must read a whole lot on your subject to be able to discern the “truth.”

Internet

Just as readers must evaluate books they must also evaluate internet sources. Here are a few dependable sites and internet “avenues.”

The Library of Congress owns “collections”—archival materials including photos, theater programs, letters, and much more. When researching Loving vs. Virginia I depended on this extensive site for finding photos to be published in that book. For my upcoming book about Martha Graham I used the Martha Graham collection for primary sources—in particular, concert program notes, which spoke of Martha’s performance intentions, costuming, and lighting as well as critical reviews contemporary to her performances.

The New York Public Library also has “collections.” The Martha Graham Dance Company has just given a load of its archival material to the NYPL, including Martha’s letters to composers, “outlines” of dances, old films of her early works, and much more. The bad news: It will take years for the library to digitize these materials, and traveling during the era of Covid-19 is problematic. The good news: Covid-19 has brought a million Zoom experiences, thus providing new paths to research.

Due to the pandemic, the Graham Company is Zooming premieres of Martha’s past dances, which are accompanied by live and recorded “chats.” I started asking small polite questions during those chats and increased my presence little by little. I’ve now contacted the present director of the Graham Company. We’ve scheduled an extensive conversation together. Like that director, other experts also chat and I’m developing relationships with them. I mention this here to say, follow leads. Use your imagination to get to leads. I fancy I’m a latter-day Sherlock Holmes. Research is fun.

University and museum archives, often available online, contain interviews with all kinds of people. Interviews with your subject are important primary sources. (How to conduct the personal interview requires its own article).

The online thesaurus is invaluable. Dig deeply—the words you choose must be carefully analyzed, considered. Also, by linking from one possible word to another (online) you might find a new way to describe what you were initially looking for. This is good.

Slang dictionaries are useful, particularly for historic fiction and nonfiction. Again, if you find a word once, keep looking. You want it to be authentic. Not everything you find is accurate. Use books written contemporary to the time and within the universe of your subject. While writing Struttin’ With Some Barbecue: Lil Hardin Armstrong Becomes the First Lady of Jazz (Charlesbridge 2018) I found the memoir Really the Blues (Random House 1946) by jazz player Mezz Mezzrow. Mezz and Lil were contemporaries, both working as jazz musicians. Mezz loved slang so much he included an outrageous glossary of slang in his book. And because I know jazz musicians, I know that they are big-time slang users. But you must be sure that any particular phrase was used during the era in which you’re writing.

Wikipedia, although useful, has its drawbacks, mainly having to do with “authority.” Anyone can write and/or edit a Wikipedia article. Still, I print those general articles (and file them under “Articles”) to refer to later. By the time I’m writing, because I’ve read so extensively, I’m pretty certain of overall facts about my subject. If there are discrepancies—and there always are—keep reading and try to ascertain what is accurate. Flag inaccuracies. The point being that it’s important to find several references for any fact you want to use.

Wikipedia might be the first article you read about a subject. You’ve printed it and highlighted potentially useful sources from its footnotes. Consider the Wikipedia article about Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who is one of nine “characters” in my (as yet unnamed) Women’s Suffrage Project. As I write about Stanton’s relationship with Susan B. Anthony through the years, I can check that Wikipedia article for the years of her children’s births, which are listed on the first page. I can show Susan B. Anthony visiting Elizabeth and caring for the “correct” baby. Which boys were outside playing?

Historic weather reports can offer pithy details. For Loving vs. Virginia, I looked up the Richmond County, Virginia, weather for July 10, 1958—where and when Richard and Mildred Loving, a white man and a black woman, were sleeping five weeks after they married. The hot humid night helped set the tension for the scene. The police, without knocking, entered their house and arrested them.

Google Earth, as I mentioned before, can help you visit a place. Look around. If your setting is historic you’ll have to depend on photos, newspapers, historic newsreels. Searching is not always easy, but if you take your time, it’s fun. Go from site to site. Who knows what pithy detail will arise?

Photos

You should take photos throughout the research process. I use my phone to snap bibliographies, documents, museum artifacts. Collect your photos in files on your computer. You’re never sure what you’ll need. If you’re writing an illustrated book, it could be helpful to pass these photos to your editor who can pass them to your illustrator. They’ll be grateful.

As with conducting interviews, how to properly collect photos for a book to be published requires an article of its own. But start with the Library of Congress database. You’ll need to find out if the photos you want to use are in the public domain. If not, who owns them? The creator? What will they charge you?

Experts

To find experts, start your search with the internet. Then follow where it leads you. Experts can be found at museums, historical societies, science institutions—all over the place. Use website “contact” links. Email or telephone your expert. While researching Loving vs. Virginia, I phoned the curator of the Tappahannock Historical Society, which was near my subjects’ home in Central Point, Virginia. I wanted details about the “whites only” section of the local movie theater in order to write a scene about Richard and Mildred on a date. The curator not only described the urine-smelling stairway to the black section, but why that was. It “made” my scene. He directed me to Cleopatra Coleman, an expert on the one-room schoolhouses of the day that were supported by the Virginia Baptist churches in the area where the Lovings lived. One expert leads you to the next. You get the idea.

Another way to find experts is to read acknowledgements in the back of books to see who is being thanked for what—experts supply an abundance of information and there’s an abundance of experts on limitless topics.

Which doesn’t mean that experts are always correct. My expert reader for Josephine informed my publisher that Josephine was born in East St. Louis, Illinois, rather than St. Louis, Missouri. I felt confident that she was born in St. Louis, so I endeavored to obtain Josephine’s birth certificate. I contacted the county courthouse in St. Louis, which can usually be done via email. I paid the required small fee. Well, darn, I received a letter saying that the records for those particular years of St. Louis births had all been destroyed in a fire. Sherlock Homes doesn’t give up. Josephine’s thirteenth “adopted” child and her one-time manager, wrote a biography of Josephine describing the hospital in which Josephine was born, the address she and her mother went home to, her grandmother’s address, her aunt’s address—all in St. Louis. That thirteenth child was a family member. I trusted him with this information.

Which reminds me to say, keep constant track of your references. I learned the hard way and had to re-re-research Josephine. Some people use Scrivener or Evernote to maintain their sources. Being an old-fashioned girl, I include mine in my manuscript Endnotes, a feature of Microsoft Word.

Finally, if you’re writing outside your culture, you’ll need to do more exhaustive research. You’ll need an expert reader at the least and, as the times change, you might need a collaborator.

End Benefits

I personally love research. I often start writing and continue to research as I realize I need more information. Or perhaps a new collection has just been released to the New York Public Library. You will find pithy details that will wake up and deepen your writing. Almost certainly, you’ll find your next subject.

Patricia Hruby Powell, who writes in Champaign, Illinois, is comforted by her husband and her Tree Walking Coonhound. And really she’s pretty happy, maybe in part because she feels she’s connecting young people to their emotional hearts and helping them build empathy. At least she’s trying to do that. You can reach Patricia at phpowell@talesforallages.com or at talesforallages.com

[i] https://tinyurl.com/y6vtrm2b

[ii] https://preview.tinyurl.com/y86hq3dn

“Bones of a Saint” by Grant Farley

July 18, 2021 By Patricia Hruby Powell Leave a Comment

Author, Grant Farley, takes from his own life growing up in northern California in the 70s for his debut novel, “Bones of a Saint” (Soho 2021). Fifteen-year-old RJ is a clever and irresistible “bad boy” who lives in a trailer and cares for his younger siblings while their mother works hard for low wages. RJ is especially protective of his disabled brother, Charley. And when Charley becomes endangered, RJ steps up.

The dead-end town of Arcangel has been ruled for generations by a gang, the Blackjacks. The gang spends its energy enlisting the poorest young people to continue its criminal legacy. The police turn their heads. Heck, members of the gang are police. The Blackjacks have left RJ alone—until now.

Ed the Head says, “The Blackjacks are POed at that old city dude for buying the Miller place. He stole their best flatland hangout.” The Blackjacks decide that RJ must drive the old man out of his newly purchased home.

RJ has one friend, Manny, who’s pretty different from him, but they’re both poor and live under little supervision. RJ says, “I’m skinny and he’s fat. I’ve got five younger sibs and he’s got four sisters. I lost my dad when I was three and his sister Theresa killed their mom just getting born…” His information comes out fast, succinct, and unique.

So RJ sets out to drive out the old man, Mr. Leguin. But he likes him. Clever RJ tells stories, but the old man tells better stories. They entertain each other and convey information by metaphor.

RJ’s mostly-Catholic world view is pretty much summed up here: “Mr. Sanders, with his Canterbury Tales, he taught me about pilgrims that lived in a past that went back hundreds and hundreds of years. And Father Speckler, with his New Testament, he preached about a future that won’t come until forever and ever, amen. Neither way does me any good now against the Blackjacks. All I can do is live in my own here and now.”

RJ knows he could disregard the Blackjack directive. He also knows there would be big consequences. He says, “Maybe God made free will just for His fun. If God cranks the world up and lets it go without knowing where it’s headed, well that’s got to be a whole lot more fun for him.” Free will or fate. Catholics side with free will. Hope you get an idea of the unique and fabulous voice here.

The story twists and turns and Mr. Leguin delivers information to RJ which just might help the teen escape his rough circumstances and release the town from the grip of the Blackjacks. Know any clever young readers who want to read a unique voice? Or such an adult?

Patricia Hruby Powell is the author of the award-winning Lift As You Climb; Josephine; Loving vs Virginia; and Struttin’ With Some Barbecue all signed and for sale at Jane Addams bookstore. She teaches community classes at Parkland. talesforallages.com

“Love is a Revolution” by Renee Watson

June 27, 2021 By Patricia Hruby Powell Leave a Comment

Sixteen-year-old Nala attends her cousin’s activism group and falls for Tye, who is acting as MC in “Love is a Revolution” (Soho 2021) by Renee Watson. Nala likes music and parties and fun. She wants to spend the summer watching movies and trying new flavors at the creamery. But she also wants Tye. So she changes her narrative a bit, claiming to be an activist.

Nala regularly visits her grandma at the elder residency, but she tells Tye she’s doing a service project at the elder residency. “Maybe my lie could turn into the truth.” Maybe she could exhibit photos of the residents in the common room. It’s a little predictable, but it takes quite a while for Nala’s “doing good” to take place and the journey is interesting.

Out on a date, Nala marvels at how good Tye is—while she is living a lie. She doesn’t really like herself too much and yesterday this caused her to be upset. She held it back, then says, “The thing about tears. If you don’t cry them, they come out in other ways or just wait for another time. And here they are.” And now she’s crying in front of this amazing boy. Tye is so nice, he works to comfort her. She wonders if she deserves this.

In certain ways Tye is not totally honest—such as how about how he’s feeling. He’s always “fine” even when he’s not. Nala says, “Sometimes you have to acknowledge what’s hurting you. How else will you ever heal? We sit and sit, letting the sadness sink in, holding each other and watching the boats sway and sway until the sun has vanished…” Nala clearly has something to teach Tye.

Nala tells her aunt she intends to go to college—but does she? She makes a list: “4 Things I want to study in College (If I go): 1. Maybe Communications 2. Maybe Photography 3. Maybe Business 4. Maybe there’s a course on How To Be Yourself.”

Her aunt is pressing her to write her personal essay for college admissions. JT, a contemporary and usually a pain in the neck, says, “Maybe you are writing it for your aunt Ebony and not for yourself.” Yep, she has to find out who she is—she realizes this.

This love story about a plus-size African American girl will speak to many young readers about love, self-love, honesty, and coming of age.

“Ana on the Edge” by A.J. Sass

June 6, 2021 By Patricia Hruby Powell 2 Comments

Twelve-year-old Ana-Marie Jin is the National Juvenile Girl’s Figure Skating Champion in “Ana on the Edge” (Little Brown 2020) by A.J. Sass. Ana trains in the Bay Area, lives with her supportive mother, and has a devoted best friend, Tamar. Ana is progressing so quickly she must leave Tamar behind and train with her coach Alex at a rink across town.

Ana is determined to do so well in competition that she’ll bypass Regionals and progress straight to Nationals, in order to save her single mom a load of expenses. Her mom works three jobs in order to pay the huge expenses of the sport. A Russian super-star choreographs Ana’s new free skate. Alas, it’s princess-themed and danced to sweet lyrical music. This just isn’t Ana’s thing. She’s a strong powerful mover. Ana doesn’t tell anyone how disturbing this choreography is to her.

New skater, Hayden, a transgender boy who has recently come out, arrives at the rink. Ana introduces herself as A and Hayden thinks she’s a boy. Ana likes this, so she doesn’t correct him, as they develop their friendship. “I am a girl,” she thinks to herself. But she doesn’t identify as a girl exactly. “If I’m not a girl, then . . . what?”

She gets her hair cropped very short and Hayden’s whole family thinks she’s a boy. She stands Tamar up a couple of times, in order to see Hayden, which, of course, strains her BFF friendship.

Ana is not exactly nailing her new lyrical skate dance. Her choreographer advises, “Feel the music. Become the princess.” Anna quips to herself, “What does she want me to do, sprout a crown?” And then the costume arrives. A sequined dress! She hasn’t performed in a dress since she was a little girl. And it costs thousands, as does the choreographer. She thinks, “I’m a strong skater who lands jumps on perfectly timed crescendos.” She’s all about “speed and power instead of portraying a delicate character.” She can’t tell her coach, her mother, Tamar, and especially not Hayden about her feelings.

To me that’s a weakness in the plot. Why can’t she question Hayden who has just recently come out? Why would she think he wouldn’t understand a situation similar to his own? But I go along with it because the identity crisis is so intriguing. And I’m sure there are young readers experiencing something similar to Ana’s.

So there’s no one she can confide in, but she does some great thinking, like: “Maybe I’m not a boy like he thinks, but it doesn’t feel right to call myself a girl, either. I need to find a word that describes this in-between feeling.” And if the reader doesn’t already know, you learn about non-binary identity as A does.

Thank heavens for A’s supportive mother, even if she is presently confused. Is there a young person you know who might benefit from this story by “expert” A.J. Sass, whose pronouns are he/they and has medaled in U.S. Figure Skating?