Author Archives: wendywelch

The Monday Book – No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood

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Yet another guest review by Janelle Bailey, retired Literature teacher.

I picked this one up when learning it had been shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

This is a very unusual and interesting book in format: nearly all brief paragraphs, connected sometimes and others not at all, to what precedes or follows, and unfortunately my reading of it felt similarly, then, disconnected and disjointed in some futuristic, technologically driven way that I cannot quite describe. But ultimately, I think it did its job and well, given that seemingly matches, to a degree the content of the book–how connected but really overwhelmed we all are by so many pushes and notifications, so many screens, so much media, and more.

The main character is an influencer of sorts in some “portal” of a platform, where she has been elevated to this esteemed position and with great expectation. But she is also just a common soul trying to make sense of it all as well.

And then at the book and story’s core is the birth of her niece, her sister’s daughter, and with a very rare disorder, likely Proteus Syndrome, as the author’s notes support. And so here the story being told and the reality of the author’s own life and these challenges are blurred together to, in yet another book, blur fact and fiction, it seems.

When I read this book again I will do so less to finish it than to savor it, a few passages a day, stretching it across plenty of savour and thinking time, as I now believe it would be better digested. And I am not certain that I really “got it all” the first time like I will the next.

It presents many a profound idea, including this one: “Why were we all writing like this now? Because a new kind of connection had to be made, and blink, synapse, little space-between was the only way to make it. Or because, and this was more frightening, it was the way the portal wrote” (63).

GOOD MORNING

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Molly LOVED being an only child after our last FELV (feline leukemia) foster died, so we felt the wee bit sorry for her when Mama and Suzi arrived within a week of each other. Molly—who does not have FELV—rolled her eyes and went out the cat flap.

Mama went upstairs and established my office as her domain. Suzi went under the bed and emerged a couple of days later to fall hard for Bruce, our big pit bull baby. By the end of the day they were sharing his dog bed.

Bruce and Suzi

Not wanting the FELV twins to go out, we ended up doing surreptitious midnight-and-morning door openings for Molly. The neighbors must be convinced by now that we’re dealing drugs, but it kept Molly happy, and we could hear her scratching if I worked from the kitchen, so let it ride.

Yesterday morning dawned mild and glorious, a balmy breeze promising spring. Molly wanted out, and right behind her went Bruce. It took me a minute (I was on my first cup of coffee) to realize why Bruce had eight legs. Suzi was quite literally walking underneath him.

Crap. Well, the weather was mild, so I left the door open to ease tiny Suzi’s use of the heavy cat flap. A minute later I heard the flap and figured it was all good.

Nope. That was Mama, making a break for it.

Day was breaking, which meant the chickens were waking. It is our custom to put scraps for them each morning, so first thing they do is come running up to the back porch. They appeared on the horizon just as I was trying to coax the somewhat bewildered Suzi back inside. Mama took off to chase the chickens, then turned tail and went up the nearest tree when they chased her. Don’t get between a chicken and breakfast.

Suzi dove for cover under our porch as Molly sat nearby, cat-laughing with her tail tucked around her paws, eyes in slits. The chickens feasted, then went off to dig up the yard.

I taped the flap up so Suzi could come back inside once things calmed down, then went to gather eggs. One of the chickens followed me—after all I am the bearer of scraps. When I went into the house and began to glass eggs, I heard something come through the open hole that had been the cat flap. When I turned around, one of the chickens stood in the kitchen, watching me preserve eggs in the lime solution of a large glass jar. I could see the thought bubble above her head: So that’s why they keep disappearing!

Chasing the chicken out, I almost ran over Suzi trying come back inside. She retreated, shrieking, and I heard a purr: Molly was watching. I’m surprised she didn’t have a bowl of popcorn at her side, because the bubble above her head clearly said, Best. Movie. Ever.

We left the flap taped up. The chickens did not try again; I feel certain the little white hen told them what we were doing to their children, and they are plotting.

Suzi came in of her own accord. Mama eventually was coaxed down from the tree and carried inside, safe from the horrible flying things who clucked in an unpleasant way as I passed them with Mama in my arms. She shrank against me.

Molly sat outside on the porch awhile longer, in case there was a sequel.

How’s your morning going?