Big Bird

Around this time last year The Dude (see blog post May 3rd for more on The Dude) was waiting to hear from his first choice college and feeling fairly nervous, and among the many random things I said to distract him from the omnipresent nervousness was, “The Fosters are having steak and lobster for Thanksgiving Dinner. They don’t like turkey. Can you imagine that?”

I fully expected The Dude to chuckle politely at the Foster’s expense, but instead he exclaimed, “Cool! Can we do that? I hate turkey.”

Appalled. Dumbfounded. Horrified. And those were just my initial reactions.

“What sort of American are you?” I sputtered. “It’s downright unpatriotic to reject turkey on Thanksgiving. What would Ben Franklin say?”

“He’d say, ‘Dude, you’re right. Save a turkey; eat a bald eagle.’” he replied. The Dude is a bit of a history buff, and he was correct: Ben Franklin fought hard for the turkey to be our national bird, not the eagle.

“Ben Franklin lost that debate,” I continued. “That’s why we eat turkeys on Thanksgiving. It’s practically a requirement for citizenship.

“Madsy hates turkey,” The Dude continued, bringing his little sister into the argument.

“Madsy is a vegetarian and doesn’t count,” I fired back. My militant-non-meat-eating-locavore daughter dines on mashed potatoes and “Squanto Patties,” a.k.a. veggie burgers, on Thanksgiving.

“Dad hates turkey,” The Dude said.

“Dad would eat an armchair if you put enough gravy on it,” I fired back, a point which The Dude conceded.

“I think it would be so cool to come home from college for my first Thanksgiving and have steak and lobster,” The Dude said wistfully, which of course was the kiss of death for me, the turkey lover. I’m a real sucker for The Dude’s wistful tone. So right then and there I promised that for his first home-from-college Thanksgiving Dinner, the Maine State Crustacean would rule.

Even the militant vegetarian locavore, in spite of her job (more on that irony, later) was pleased.

“We need to support local lobstering families,” she said.

“Bugs,” I sniffed, referring to the local slang for lobsters. A.k.a. “slobbers.” A.k.a. prison-feed. Yes, it is a little known fact that back in Maine’s colonial period (when we were probably still part of Massachusetts) lobsters were so plentiful that they washed up on the shores and needed to be regularly swept away. In Thomaston, the site of one of Maine’s earliest prisons, inmates were forced to clean them off the beaches each day, boil and eat them. Apparently they became so sick of lobster they staged a rebellion.

Something which I am contemplating.

Don’t get me wrong: I love a good lobster in drawn butter. Outside, on a sunny Maine summer day. With boiled corn, potato chips and maybe even some steamed clams to start. You cook it all outside, so those smelly shelly fish odors drift overhead, instead of steaming up the house and soaking into the curtains.

Thanksgiving is not supposed to smell like a wharf. It’s supposed to smell like roasted poultry, stuffing (ooooh, stuffing!) and savory … things. Sage. Cranberries. Nuts.

In addition to the wonderful aroma a turkey affords, comes the absolute best part of the holiday: turkey sandwiches. My mother makes the best turkey sandwiches in the world, on white bread, with plenty of salt and full-fat mayo. I know friends who also put leftover stuffing (oooooh, stuffing!) and cranberry on their sandwiches, which I can appreciate but will pass on, thank you. You eat these behemoth sandwiches with ruffled potato chips while watching one of the Thanksgiving specials on television, like The Sound of Music, or The Ten Commandments, with the NRA’s very own Charlton Heston playing Moses.

“What are you going to tell Bob?” I asked The Vegetarian. She blanched. My daughter works for a farmer out of New Sharon, Maine: Bob, the Turkey Guy. Antibiotic-free, walkin’ around, big white turkeys. I am loathe to call them “free range,” because when you drive past the turkey farm in New Sharon, where hundreds of the birds lounge in a packed dirt yard behind a high, wire fence, there doesn’t appear to be much ranging going on, although they could. A bit. Bob’s turkeys appear to mostly sit, peck each other, and gobble grouchily.

“He’ll wonder why we’re not buying a bird from him,” she mused. She is going to be at the local farm the day before Thanksgiving, helping pass out some 250 enormous, freshly “dressed” (the polite term for “slaughtered”) birds to people who ordered them in advance.

Well, we certainly wouldn’t want to hurt Bob’s feelings, so Mom, the Turkey Lover, came up with the perfect solution. I ordered a large turkey breast from Bob, explained that’s all we were cooking for the holiday, and on Wednesday, the day before we carve (or rather, dissect) our Thanksgiving Lobsters, I’m making my favorite dinner. With mashed potatoes. STUFFING. And cranberry sauce.

Not the Big Bird, but it will suffice. And the point of the whole day, anyway, is to welcome home the ones you love. Such as The Dude.

I am so grateful for him, as well as my hard-working vegetarian daughter who reminds us all how important it is to Know Thy Farmer and support local businesses. For my non-picky omnivore husband who would indeed eat an armchair, without complaint, if it were properly seasoned. For all my fabulous memories of my extended family with decades worth of Thanksgiving recipes and traditions and stories (like the year my mother dropped the cooked turkey on the floor and my abuela slipped in the grease and there they both were, sliding, sliding … ) For Ben Franklin, Turkey Bob, Squanto … and stuffing. Above all, stuffing.

My Girl: Barbie

When I was growing up, I loved Barbie.

I know, I know, this is SO not politically correct. Barbie is not anatomically accurate. Her waist is too thin and her boobs are too big and her clothes are too fabulous. She sends a nefarious, subconscious message to our girls and gives them all Cinderella complexes and eating disorders. She corrupts their values so they are hell bent on living materialistic lives and working solely to obtain wonderful wardrobes and fun sports cars.

Barbie is perfectly positioned to ruin a girl’s self image. Barbie is the great destroyer of everything we want our smart, healthy girls to be.

Now, back to why I loved her …

I played for hours with Barbie, and her friend, Midge, who, in retrospect, I believe was of mixed race origins. Midge had coffee-colored skin, freckles, and brown/red hair. I don’t know how I ended up with Midge in my collection, because she quickly became a “discontinued” doll. I suspect my Hispanic mother slipped her into my box of Barbie stuff, no comment required, and I loved her as much as I loved the pale, blond dolls.

I was a girl who heard, daily, that I was smart and going places. I would be the first in my family to go to college. I would have a career, and help make the world a better place. My mother filled my head with these messages as she simultaneously bought me Barbies and filled my case with the tiny, little-bound-feet stiletto Barbie shoes. The impossibly tiny belts. The glittery body sheaths.

Here’s what I never played with: baby dolls. I abhorred those fat, pink, bald plastic babies that you pretended to change and feed. I mean, please. Boring.

Barbie, on the other hand, had a job. She and her girlfriends got up every morning, put on their swell outfits, jumped into their fast car, and zipped off to work in Manhattan. They didn’t have any kitchen supplies: they ate out at exotic restaurants every night. They danced until dawn on the weekends, and their conversations revolved around the fascinating people they met: not burping, teething, or strolling. Barbie was not a mother; she was a professional. And for the record, my Barbie did not date a sugar stick like Ken.

She dated G.I. Joe.

Now, she didn’t live with Joe. Oh, no. The “guys” (owned by my brother) lived in their jeep on the couch, while Barbie and girls set up camp under the coffee table. You see, Barbie liked guys, a lot, but didn’t need a man to complete her. She was perfectly happy picnicking with Joe and the Dudes every once in a while, but please, boys: stay on the couch. Us girls are having way too much fun right now.

What can I say? Long after I put Barbie aside, I went to college, worked at a bunch of interesting jobs, married (someone who is neither a male model nor a Green Beret) , became a mother (and discovered that while changing and burping is NEVER interesting, loving a child is extraordinary) and continue to develop my career. I doubt Barbie had much to do with my life choices, but having a strong mother sure did.

Author Tanya Lee Stone’s new book, The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie, has just been released and I can’t wait to read it. It’s gotten great reviews, and I look forward to seeing what others have to say about my girl, both the good and the bad. For more info, visit the author's website at: http://www.tanyastone.com/index.php?id=51

Finesse Bullying

A friend whose daughter is applying to college this year shares this chilling tale:

As they compiled a list of schools to visit she suggested that her daughter check out an all-women’s college. Her daughter has been attending a co-ed, public school.

“I told her that many women have chosen all-female colleges because they feel they offer an empowering, supportive environment. I mentioned that often, women feel constrained from speaking out in classes where often the boys/men dominate the discussion.”

Her daughter snorted. Contemptuously, I might add.

“Yeah, right. Let me tell you something, Mom. Guys don’t care if girls raise their hands in class. Other girls care. Guys don’t put you down and shut you up. It’s the other girls in the room, who want to keep you in your place.”

According to my friend, her daughter, who is a good student and speaks up in class frequently, has been getting hisses, catcalls and exaggerated “eye rolls” from a cadre of girls who sit behind her. One girl in particular … who, ironically, is a straight-A student who affects the look and language of a character right out of the CW … will often mutter, “Just. Stop. Talking,” whenever my friend’s daughter participates.

The friend’s daughter (let’s call her Jane; not her real name) has gone to the teacher and asked, “Do I speak too much in class?” and been assured she does not. The teacher has been made aware of these behaviors and is on the lookout for them, but it’s a big room and she herself has not heard these comments. Jane doesn’t want her seat changed, because that would require moving someone else and possibly calling attention to the situation. Jane certainly doesn’t want her mother intervening by calling these girls’ parents. She wasn’t even happy that her mother told the teacher what’s been going on. So … the status quo prevails. At this point, Jane still speaks up in class and takes the hits.

But for how long?

If the only result of all this is that Jane doesn’t apply to Smith this year … well, no biggie. There are plenty of colleges out there and at most of them women outnumber men anyway. If another result is that Jane learns to distrust girls … well, that’s unfortunate, especially because as an adult, womens’ friendships with each other can be such a lifeline.

But there’s another part of this that has such far reaching implications for Jane. Because when her mother discusses this situation with her, Jane isn’t angry. Jane isn’t wheeling around and telling these girls to f*$# off. Instead, Jane is ashamed. Jane doesn’t want anyone to know it’s going on. Deep down, Jane is wondering what’s wrong with her, since these girls are criticizing her.

Basically, Jane is being bullied, but with such finesse and subtlety that it’s hard to pinpoint or punish. The bullies themselves would probably be shocked if anyone told them that’s indeed what they’re doing. These are girls who in fact think very highly of themselves. One has actually been known to comment, “I mean, don’t you think we’d be a great subject for a T.V. reality show?”

Meanwhile, every time Jane absorbs a comment and does nothing, it’s like drinking a slow acting poison that you gotta know has a corrosive effect on her self esteem.

Jane will probably never jump off a bridge or hang herself in her dorm room, but she’ll learn to question herself. She’ll eventually learn to shut her mouth. And she’ll learn to turn her pain inward, instead of speaking up for herself. And that’s going to have implications for all her relationships, both male and female.

We think of the bully as the big mean kid on the playground picking on the skinny shy guy. Or the Regina George “Mean Girl,” who is blatant and over-the-top grotesque in her cruelty. Or the college student posting intimate videos of his gay roommate. We can identify and punish and fight back against that “big” stuff.

But there’s a subtler game being played here which only the kids are fully aware of, and it’s no less damaging.

Rhinoceros Hide

“I like criticism, but it must be my way.”
Mark Twain

Yesterday was the first day of moose hunting season in Maine. As our family drove home from the western mountains where we had hiked amid idyllic foliage, we passed pickups from which giant moose racks poked from the back. In one parking lot, a moose hung from a hook, over a giant scale, surrounded by a posse of men and boys splashed in the blaze orange of vests and hats.

In addition to wondering about my own stupidity for hiking during hunting season, I felt a kinship with those moose. In my world, with a new novel set to launch in March, it’s the start of the reviewing season. Only instead of hunters toting guns, I’m in the crosshairs of critics. My publisher has just shipped the ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies, a.k.a. galleys, a.k.a. bound paperbacks still containing typos) of the novel to reviewers, and before long the all-powerful-opinionated horde will take aim at my baby.

Why would a sane person subject herself to this? Better to pin a sign on my back that reads “Kick Me” and walk down a middle school hallway. Or walk into an Irish pub in Boston wearing a Yankees hat. Either would be quicker, and less painful.

The simple answer to this question is: I don’t have a choice. Publishers do this because they believe they publish good books, which will get good reviews, which will result in $$$ for all concerned. This is, after all, a business.

Of course, reviewers don’t see themselves as members of some publishing house’s publicity staff. They see themselves as arbiters of taste and culture. Rendering a “service” to readers. Separating the wheat from the chaff.

Picking winners and losers, more like. Anointing and condemning. Caesar in the coliseum, deciding: “Thumbs up? Or thumbs down?”

Brrrrrr.

Like most writers, I love reading good reviews of my work. I bask in the sunshine of critics' compliments. I take them seriously, and allow myself to believe them.

And like one of my favorite writers, Mark Twain, I have nothing but the utmost contempt for critics who don’t “get” my writing, and publicly display their ignorance by publishing a negative review. Twain said it best when he wrote:

“The critic's symbol should be the tumble-bug: he deposits his egg in somebody else's dung, otherwise he could not hatch it.”

Exactly. Keep your hands off my dung! I want to scream, when someone dares to suggest that my book is less than perfect. I mean, I know it’s less than perfect. I just want them to write that it’s a little less than perfect; not a lot less.

Of course, as a critic himself, Twain was not above eviscerating a fellow author. Granted, James Fenimore Cooper was long dead when Twain wrote "Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses," so one could argue it wasn’t a “review” but rather, “literary criticism.” Whatever. It pretty much ruins the guy. You simply can’t read The Deerslayer or Last of the Mohicans again. Not without laughing until tears roll.

I suppose, as an author, it doesn’t reflect well upon me that I find this essay, which mocks another’s work, hysterically funny, but of course, at the time Twain was redefining the canon. While wearing a humorist’s disguise. “I’m glad the old masters are all dead, and I only wish they had died sooner,” he wrote.

Here’s the thing: I don’t mind being reviewed by smart people who read carefully. Even if they don’t love my book (sob!) they might have criticism which will help me write a better book next time. The problem is when a reviewer gets major things wrong … like characters’ names and basic plot facts. That’s when you tremble, because they wield power, and power in the hands of the poorly informed is … bad.

It’s also out of my control, so: time to dress for the season. For hiking in the woods, it’s blaze orange during the next few months. Otherwise, it’s the Rhinoceros Hide coat. Because if anyone other than my mom, my best friend, or my dog reviews my book, I’m gonna need to be wearing some thick skin.

Our Right to Read

Imagine going into your public library to pick up a copy of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, only to find that it’s not available. Not because another patron has taken it out: because it’s been removed from the shelves. Permanently.

Maybe you’re not the questioning sort, so you figure what the heck, I’ll just find another classic … how about … F. Scott’s Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby? But then you discover that’s missing, too. Disappeared from the collection and struck from the catalogue.

The list goes on: John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Even Harry Potter is gone. Hemingways are missing. Nobel prize winners (I’m thinking of Beloved by Toni Morrison, one of my all-time favorite books) are not to be found. Heck, you can’t even find a decent Jodi Picoult novel (although they’re readily available at most airport bookstores.)

If this scenario seems ridiculous and unlikely let me tell you: there are people in our country who are actively working to make this a reality. Every book, and every author I’ve mentioned here, have been targets, numerous times, of book banning. If you don’t believe me, ask the American Library Association. This is National Banned Books Week, and the nation’s librarians have a lot to say about our national right to read.

Just last week this issue raised its ugly head. A fellow named Wesley Scroggins out in Missouri called upon the powers-that-be in the Republic, Missouri schools to ban Laurie Halse Anderson’s young adult novel, Speak. He described it as “soft pornography.” He objected to the novel’s portrayal of dysfunctional families and insensitive teachers. I don’t know … I guess he thinks authors should only write about happy families and classrooms run by the Teacher of the Year?

Speak is a moving, empowering fictional account of a girl who is raped the summer before her freshman year in high school. She is emotionally scarred by this event, to the point where she can barely speak. It’s a story about how she ultimately deals with her attack and finds her voice again.

It’s not easy to read. But it treats, sensitively, an important topic. The author has received countless letters from girls, thanking her for writing this novel, which helped them cope with their own sexual assault traumas. When I read this book it confirmed my own decision to write for teenagers. It’s possible, through fiction, to touch young readers in ways that help them, and move them. Laurie Halse Anderson is one of our best YA authors out there.

Luckily, there is an army of teachers, writers and librarians out there ready to take on the Wesley Scroggins of the world, and while the citizens of the Republic, Missouri school district still haven’t taken any action regarding Speak, they’ve sure heard from a lot of people who strongly approve of the book. Librarians, especially.

And if there’s one thing I know, Wesley, you don’t want to make a librarian mad.

Every day this week, in honor of Banned Books Week, I’m going to recommend a recently banned Young Adult title. Thanks to Wesley, I’ll start with: Speak.

Picking up Strangers

Here’s my favorite metaphor for writing: it’s like driving on a foggy night with the headlights on. You can only see a few feet in front of you, but if you keep on driving and focus on the road ahead, you eventually reach your destination.

I’m one of those writers who knows the end of my story from the outset, so driving in the dark with a destination in mind is the perfect metaphor. When I’m in the thick of it, plowing steadily forward through a new book, the only thing that keeps me on track when it all feels too big or too much to write, is the road before me. I focus on the scene on the immediate page: the particular word to describe the tables; the smell of the place when the character walks through the door; the color of her hair.

Then, some damn fool steps in front of the car, waving his hands.

We’re not talking about a distracting bystander, or a sketchy hitchhiker one can easily justify whizzing past. Oh, no. This dude steps in front of the moving vehicle. Go on, hit me, he dares. Or, do the unexpected thing, the risky/brave/out of the box thing, by pulling over, and letting me in.

I’m currently writing my third novel, and for the third time this has happened. And if past experience is any indicator of what’s to come, if I let this stranger in, I’m in for a ride I didn’t expect.

In my first book, Brett McCarthy: Work in Progress, the guy I picked up was Mr. Beady. He walked into the story as a minor, random octogenarian who was friends with the main character’s grandmother. A few chapters after he got into the car, he was practically a member of the family. He was an important foil; a source of great comic relief; and ultimately, a hero upon whom a major plot development hinged. Who knew, when he showed up for dinner one night carrying a bag of corn chips, that he’d be there for the climax?

In my next book, Jersey Tomatoes Are the Best (March 2011), I began with a single narrator, a girl named Henry, and before I knew what was happening her best friend was elbowing her way into one scene after another. When Henry made plans to travel to Florida and leave her best friend behind, I commented to my daughter, “My editor isn’t going to like this. The best friend is about to disappear.” My daughter, who at 16 has way better instincts about writing than her mother, disappeared into her room, returned with an armload of books which she tossed on my bed, and said, “You need a two-narrator novel. Here are a few good examples.” The final version of Tomatoes is told from two alternating points of view, and the twin “voices” in the book are an important theme.

And now, I’m back in the driver’s seat, this time cruising with my narrator through Lewiston, Maine, and I’ve taken him to a strange little place where I planned to introduce him to a girl … when another girl walked in. She’s short. She’s got a gold stud in her nose and blue eyes that my narrator says “unnerve” him. I’d planned to have her show him into the other room, then leave, but then … he followed her. I realized he’s going to follow her further, beyond the other room, all the way to the end of the novel. I don’t know where she was when I was outlining this book last winter, but a couple of days ago she arrived, standing boldly in the headlights, waving her arms ….

I think I have to let her in. And see where the journey takes us.

Tee Dah!

A writer friend urged me to celebrate every little good thing in this business because there are always plenty of bad-writing-days and setbacks to discourage us. I've taken her advice to heart, and often pop open a nice bottle of wine on evenings after I've completed a new chapter, or heck ... even written a decent paragraph. If several writing friends have had good news ... a manuscript sold, a good review, a productive day of writing ... we like to get together for a mini celebration.

So I guess right now it's a champagne moment, because not only has Knopf released this wonderful cover for my next book, Jersey Tomatoes Are the Best, but a talented young man (Jasper Lowe of Thompson Street Productions) has just completed a book trailer for the novel. These are very "big" good things, if you ask me.

They are also time consuming things which, frankly, have very little to do with the actual process of putting words on paper and writing a story. Jasper and I went round and round discussing small details, correcting typos, tracking down the right "actresses" for the video and the right person to do the voiceover. Everything takes longer than you think it will, and before you know it you're spending a LOT of time promoting a book instead of writing one.

When I write, I have to sink down into the world of the story and shut out all the ambient noise of my "real" life. I can't answer the phone or think about errands or make out the grocery list, and I have to set aside HOURS to read passages out loud and "get" my narrator's voice in my head. I'm trying to find a metaphor for this place where I have to travel, imaginatively, and I guess I can most closely liken it to stepping into a padded, soundproof box, alone, and waiting for a video to begin playing.

Facebook, Twitter, press releases, book trailers, blogging, author signings and appearances are diametrically different activities. What's more, the type of person drawn to the latter seems awfully different from the type who enjoys the former. How are we supposed to do this, authors in the brave new world of social media? It seems to require a split personality, at least professionally.

I asked author Robin Brande, who has published two young adult novels (Evolution, Me, and Other Freaks of Nature; Fat Cat) how she balances her role as writer with her role as marketer and she said after wrestling with the topic herself and asking other writers what they advise she's concluded that the most important thing for her to do is write the next book. She said adding a hundred followers on Twitter is much less important than making sure the book she's working on is the best it can possibly be. Sure, we can't ignore social media, and we can tweet and blog and friend a bit ... but the lion's share of our energy has to be directed at the next book.

So ... Jersey Tomatoes won't be out until March, 2011, but check out this wonderful video which Jasper Lowe created for it:

Book Trailer

I'm going to sign off, and return to my padded writing cell.