Category Archives: writing

Our David, Shopsitter

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david hamrickI am home after more than a week away at various events and conferences. Stumbling in the door, I find the place looks immaculate and smells of peppermint and lavender. Our shopsitter David did some wonderful organizational innovations to the shelves–like alphabetizing, and sorting the memoirs by category. The whole place looks brighter, cleaner, cheerfully non-neglected. (Not how it’s looked the month previous, let me assure you.)

This is why we love having shopsitters. David, a Celti-phile friend from Jack’s Scottish trips, who with his wife Susan rescues cats in their North Carolina home, stepped in, looked around, and did stuff that we have either a) meant to get around to for ages now or b) never thought about doing because we are domestically impaired.

The kittens (four from the shelter, two from drop-offs, and one I found during my road trip and brought home) are playing amiably on their new seven-foot cat castle, assembled by Uncle David. The staff cats have had their fur brushed. The one-free-with purchase books have been reshelved by height and color.

Arriving home more brain-fried than a Walking Dead extra and planning to be in bed by 8 pm, I walked in to bookstore vibrant with the loving touches of someone who value books, cats, and people. That is a glorious thing. Thanks David!

(And thanks Susan for lending him to us and for coming over to help on Saturday!)

 

The Monday Book: THE SUPREMES AT EARL’S ALL YOU CAN EAT by Edward Kelsey Moore

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earl'sI read this book while at the On the Same Page Literary Festival in West Jefferson, NC. Five of us were featured alongside Edward Kelsey Moore as festival headliner, and he was FUNNYYYY!!!! His talk Thursday night not only held good writing advice, but a very humanitarian approach to life.

Which shows in his novel. Men rarely write such sure-voiced women, but he’s got the sassy, the scared, the secure and insecure down. His book is the kind of funny where you’re laughing until you’re crying, but then maybe you’re crying because you know the feeling the characters (Odette, Barbara Jean, and Clarice) are experiencing.

The voices of these best friends are so accurate, both in gender and in dialect. Take this little gem: “Something Mama liked to say: “I love Jesus, but some of his representatives sure make my ass tired.”

Yeah, this book is irreverent. As the women struggle with Big Issues like cancer, infidelity, and a few other lesser details, they clean up, lay down laws, and pretty much rock and rule. And come out with some humdingers along the way, like when Odette clear-headedly assesses why she’s cooking herself into a lather:

“Our annual January get-together was a long-running tradition, going back to the first year of our marriage. The truth, even though he denies this, is that the first party was an attempt by James to prove to his friends that I wasn’t as bad a choice of a mate as I seemed. Richmond and Ramsey—and others, most likely—had warned James that a big-mouthed, hot-tempered woman like me could never be properly tamed. But James was determined to show them that I could, on occasion, be as domestic and wifely as any other woman. I suspect he’s still trying to convince them.”

Knowing I’d be reviewing it, the phrase that kept asserting itself as I read was “life-affirming.” Or maybe that’s just a hyphenated word. Anyway, it’s an accurate description of what on the surface might be considered “latte lit” yet runs so much deeper than its genre. Like the author Lorna Landvik and a few others, Moore is a careful consumer of humanity (it was fun watching him watch people at the funder’s breakfast) with a kind-hearted approach to how the world works. It shows in his writing.

Two enthusiastic coffee mugs up for this sweet, fun, thoughtful read.