Where Do You Hang Your Hammock?

 By Bella Mahaya Carter

She Writes Press     2021

352 pages     Self-Help

The subtitle of the book is “Finding peace of mind while you write, publish, and promote your book.” It speaks to the anxiety writers experience as they attempt to get noticed in the cut-throat publishing world. In the last two novels I read, Strange Love by Fred Waitzkin and The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz, the protagonists were both authors who were suffering severe anxiety over stalled careers and unpublished writings. I approached Where Do You Hang Your Hammock? with those two books in mind.

Here is the publisher’s description. “In Where Do You Hang Your Hammock? seasoned coach and author Bella Mahaya Carter shows writers how to use their present circumstances as stepping-stones to a successful and meaningful writing life, navigated from the inside out. It encourages writers and authors to rethink their ambitions (which may be fueled by the tyrannical demands of the ego) and trust in their heartfelt purpose and values in the journey to becoming, or continuing on, as authors.

Many writers believe their self-sabotaging thoughts are trustworthy and true. They take rejection personally. They surmise that if they don’t achieve their goals they have failed, and lose sight of who they are and what matters most.

This book is for writers looking for inspiration and for authors daunted by the publishing process, who might lack the requisite author platform to get published the way they dreamed, or whose careers may not be unfolding as expected. It aims to be the friend and trusted expert writers turn to when hijacked by their own thinking. Ultimately, it reminds authors that they are infinite creators.”

First, and most clearly, this is not a “how-to” with researched steps on getting a book published. It is more about how to get your mind and spirit focused on your writing first before focusing on getting published. Carter says, “My hope is that Where Do You Hang Your Hammock? will encourage readers to lean in to their work and their lives with greater freedom, curiosity, and celebration.” In other words, Carter’s book is spiritual in focus. She is a creative writing teacher, author, and empowerment coach, and this work reflects her own life’s search and achievements as well as her career empowering other writers.

The book is divided into five parts: dream, nourish, write, publish, and promote. Within each section are short, numbered chapters followed by  journal-writing prompts. For example, following a chapter entitled, A Ritual to Solidify Your Intentions, the journal prompt is “What do I have to give to my writing? What do I hope to receive from my writing? What are my writing intentions.” I really appreciated the journal prompts, and I also valued the way in which she included spiritual growth suggestions in the part entitled “Nourish.” I got a kick out of the journal prompt in the section on “Promote” which asks, How can I bring joy to my book launch?

The intended audience may be a bit of a question. I think both the protagonists of Strange Love and The Plot could have read Where Do You Hang Your Hammock? as they worked toward the next steps in their careers. I might suggest this book to a student planning a writing career or a person plotting a retirement plan for something she always wanted to do. Perhaps my sister as she writes the stories of her life.

Bella Mahaya Carter’s website. She sponsors online writing circles that would be valuable for people with stories to tell. You can find information on her website.

Strange Love

 By Fred Waitzkin

Illustrated by Sofia Ruiz

Open Road     2021

133 pages     Novella

Where to begin with this strange, unusual, but wonderful novella? What else to expect from Fred Waitzkin!

First a description. The narrator is a middle-aged American tourist vacationing at a remote fishing village on the spectacular Pacific coast of Costa Rica. He becomes enamored with a beautiful Costa Rican woman named Rachel, who owns a small restaurant in the village. When he got acquainted with her, he lied and told her that he was a well-known author, not a washed-up writer from New York, working as a pest exterminator. During his visit, they meet daily, their romance deepening, and she tells him the story of her life, hoping that he will turn it into a novel.

The narrator returned to New York to work his exterminator job and visit with a friend, but he returned to Rachel and the coastline. Early in the relationship, he had mused: “My words were running past me, promises to a stranger beside me. Did I actually love this unusual woman that I hardly knew? Was it the magic of the place or the despair of a last chance slipping away, or just the nonsense of an old man trying to outrun his considerable failures?” But after his return to Costa Rica, he realizes that he loves this woman and wants to spend his life with her. He knows for sure that her story will become his next novel.

Interspersed with the spare writing and the equally spare plot, Sofia Ruiz, the illustrator, has placed significant art, which adds greatly to our understanding of the novel. The sketches of Rachel are so incredibly beautiful, we understand the  narrator’s love and desire for Rachel. Will she return to New York with him? That question is never answered, but we end the novel hoping that their lives will be intertwined forever.

Strange Love is a book that I probably would not have purchased or taken off the library shelf.  Curiously, I was much more interested in the details of the narrator’s work as a pest exterminator than I was with his love affair. Additionally I wish that Waitzkin had fleshed out some of the characters better; a lot remained unsaid. For example, Rachel’s mother remained an enigma. I wanted to know more about her. Additionally, much more detail could have been added to the setting.

I read and reviewed Deep Water Blues, Waitzkin’s 2019 exploration of another Caribbean paradise. It is a book filled with tragedy. Strange Love is equally as intriguing as Deep Water Blues, and I did value reading both. They are books that can be read in one sitting, but they both leave the reader pondering their significance. 

Here is a You Tube interview with the author. Also his website.

The Plot

 By Jean Hanff Korelitz

Celadon     2021

336 pages     Psychological Fiction

I was looking for something totally immersive to read following several weeks of reading self-help, thought provoking, introspective stuff. Boy did I get it with The Plot. In a brilliant piece of writing, Korelitz gives us  two stories in one—the story of the author Jacob Finch Bonner and the way in which he came to write Crib, his hugely successful novel, and then we also get bits and pieces of the actual novel.

Several years ago, Jacob Bonner had one critically acclaimed novel, but his next two novels couldn’t even find a publisher. When The Plot begins, he is teaching at a poorly-ranked MFA program in Vermont where he encounters an arrogant student, Evan Parker, who submits a few pages of his novel in process, which he claims is going to be a bestseller. Although he is terribly put-off by Evan and his condescending self-assurance, Jacob begrudgingly agrees that the novel has potential.  

Jacob looks for Evan Parker’s novel a couple of years later and realizes it has never been published. A little online snooping brings him to the shock that Evan is dead—having died a few months after Jacob had him in class. So, using the few pages Evan had submitted for the class, Jacob writes the novel that never was, titled it Crib, and it becomes an overnight sensation. Jacob suddenly is famous, doing book readings and interviews all over the country, signing a movie contract with Stephen Spielberg—even meeting the woman who becomes his wife. But then anonymous, threatening messages begin coming to him accusing him of theft. Jacob decides to try to find the person who is threatening him by journeying to Rutland Vermont, Evan Parker’s home town, to track down the culprit.

The Plot is so skillfully created that I found myself reading chapter after chapter, as quickly as I could. Jacob’s agony over the deception that he feels he has concocted is palpable. As the plot moves toward the climax, I began to suspect who might be sending him the threatening messages, but Jacob never comes to that realization until it is too late.

What makes The Plot so fascinating is not only the “plot,” which in itself is terrific, but the moral dilemma presented. Who owns plot ideas? Can a plot be stolen, or are ideas alright to just float in the creative atmosphere? We have all read books where we question, “Have I read this book in another setting?” or “Wow! This is a lot like __________.” But the question of The Plot is that the originator of the book idea is dead. Now, is the plotline available? Is that really stealing?

The reviewer for NPR questioned whether Korelitz did her complex plot justice or if it just fell flat. I really did enjoy the book, was proud of myself that I figured out who was threatening Jacob, and was shocked by the novel’s resolution. The NY Times reviewer, on the other hand, called the book a “spectacular avalanche” and says that The Plot is Korelitz's “gutsiest, most consequential book yet.”

Korelitz is the author of You Should Have Known, which became “The Undoing” on HBO with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant. While I loved “The Undoing,” The Plot was the first of her novels that I had read. Here is her website. Also, here is a You Tube interview with Korelitz that I found very interesting

Maybe You Should Talk To Someone

 By Lori Gottlieb

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt     2019

415 pages     Memoir

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone is an eminently readable look at the life of a psychologist. Lori Gottlieb is a journalist as well as a psychologist. Consequently, she has very skillfully integrated her own story with narratives about her relationship with her therapist as well as her relationships with several of her patients. The book is part memoir, part non-fiction psychology lesson, and part instruction on how to conduct therapy.

She begins with the story of the breakup with her boyfriend, who remains nameless. He has decided that he doesn’t want to parent another child, and Lori has a pre-adolescent son. They were on the verge of being married when he springs this decision on her. She asks what caused him to wait so long to broach the topic. He says “it never felt like the right time to bring it up.” She goes on to say, “When my therapist friends hear this part of the story, they immediately diagnose him as ‘avoidant.’ When my non-therapist friends hear it, they immediately diagnose him as ‘an asshole’.” Her shock and grief are so complete that she realizes that she needs to have some psychological therapy.

Gottlieb has an ingratiating writing style that leads us through her therapy with Wendall, thinking that he can help her through this crisis in her life. She soon learns that she is in therapy for more than just crisis management, but there is much more that she wants to learn through her sessions with Wendall. Some of the skills she witnesses while with Wendall can be carried over with her own patients. She finds herself growing both personally and professionally through her therapy. A quote from the journalist Alex Tizon becomes very appropriate as she grows. He believed that every person has an epic story that resides “somewhere in the tangle of the subject’s burden and the subject’s desire.”

To that end, Gottlieb tells the stories of several of her patients. She says that she has woven several cases together to tell the stories of a television executive, a woman turning 70 and fearing for the future, and a young woman facing death from cancer. Each of these stories is fascinating and revealing. I found myself reflecting on my own life situation as I read about their life situations, their therapy, and their futures. Each of these characters is eminently relatable and likeable. On the subject of likability, the reviewer in Slate has this to say.

“It is this exact question of likability that fascinatingly presents itself throughout the book, a meditation on the fact that we all consider ourselves to be the protagonists of our own stories, despite our flaws, a fact that must be abundantly apparent to our therapists. Early on, Gottlieb, struggling to remain patient with the television executive, reminds herself that “there’s something likeable in everyone,” a very therapist thing to say. But as we delve further into the process, she starts to unpack this idea of likability in greater depth, particularly in how it relates to herself—to her own self-perception as a patient and a person in the world. In doing so, Gottlieb simultaneously argues that likability matters much less than any of us think—“In therapy we aim for self-compassion (Am I human?) versus self-esteem (a judgement: Am I good or bad?)”—and acknowledges that we still all want to be liked just the same. Even Gottlieb asks her therapist, sheepishly, if he likes her. This smaller stuff may be clinically irrelevant, but it still matters.”

I was fascinated with Maybe You Should Talk to Someone on several levels. The book was extraordinarily interesting, and I found myself devouring chapter after chapter. My relationship with Gottlieb and her patients surprised me, and when the young patient dies, I cried, remembering my own grief experiences. In our book group discussion last evening, our friendships deepened as we each related our own stories, our own concerns, and our own therapy sessions. We ended the evening even more convinced that our friendships were deep and sincere, and the book group would remain the high point of our month—every month.

Lori Gottlieb’s website. On the website is a terrific Ted Talk about changing your life.

 

The Clover Girls

 By Viola Shipman

Graydon House     2021

416 pages           Fiction

 Viola Shipman has a great ability to capture the reader’s attention right off the bat. She did so in The Summer Cottage when the protagonist arrived at her childhood summer cottage in Saugatuck, Michigan. I related to the book immediately. The same thing happened when I began The Clover Girls, when the author used the words of an old camp song, “Land of the Silver Birch.” I was immediately hooked. How did the author know the song I used to teach when I was a camp counselor?

                                        Land of the silver birch,
                                           Home of the beaver
                                                 Where still the mighty moose
Wanders at will.
Blue lake and rocky shore
I will return once more
Boom diddy-ah da, boom boom

Boom diddy-ah da, boom boom

The plot centers on four girls, Elizabeth, Veronica, Rachel, and Emily who were best friends for all the years they either attended or were counselors at Camp Birchwood in Glen Arbor Michigan. Now, many years later when all are middle aged, they are invited back to the camp by Emily, who is dying. She asks them to repair the friendships that had been broken by perceived betrayal by spending a week together at the camp, and then she dies. The very wary women are not at all the idealistic girls they were when they were campers, but they return to the camp in honor and memory of Emily. Each have existing life challenges that they are facing, and they also have memories about how their friendships ended. Each had remained Emily’s friend, but the group friendship has been over for many years. The Clover Girls tells the tale of how their love and respect for each other is renewed. Additionally, the three remaining Clover Girls each use this retreat time to gain an understanding of their own personal struggles, and at the end of the week, their lives begin to be transformed. One reviewer told readers to “Grab a glass of sweet tea.”

I have spent quite a bit of time trying to understand why The Clover Girls didn’t particularly resonate with me, and I have come to the conclusion that I have just read too many introspective books lately, and I have thought too much about what I’ve been thinking. The need of the Clover Girls to use the week at camp to come to terms with their life issues just seemed like too much after I had journeyed through The Girl in the Red Boots, In Praise of Retreat, Dusk, Night, Dawn, and Faces. It wasn’t the fault of the book, the author, the Clover Girls, the setting, or the plot. It was me. (I think I need to read a good mystery.) Don’t let my musings deter you from reading this beautifully written meditation on friendship, middle age, life challenges, and forgiveness.

 The author Wade Rouse didn’t appear on my radar until I was offered a copy of The Summer Cottage in 2019, and I realized that it was a novel about Saugatuck, Michigan, one of my favorite places. (I absolutely loved The Summer Cottage.) Rouse writes his novels using his grandmother’s name, Viola Shipman. He and his husband spend their summers in Saugatuck, and all of his novels have Lake Michigan settings. Rouse has a very unique ability to get into the life space of women, and all of the protagonists in his several best sellers are women.

My book club had the great good fortune to Zoom with Rouse when we met to discuss The Summer Cottage last month, and several of us are going to hear him in a live book reading of The Clover Girls in June. This book comes out tomorrow.

Wade Rouse’s Viola Shipman website. 

They Better Call Me Sugar

 By Sugar Rodgers

 Akashic     2021

190 pages     YA Memoir

The Shortlist

I must begin by saying that I had no idea who Sugar Rodgers is, nor could I have named the sport she plays when this book came from the publisher. But I quickly found out as I began the book that Sugar Rodgers is a WNBA basketball star, who has been a star athlete from a very early age.

TaShauna Rodgers was born in 1989 into a large family in Virginia, headed by a strong-willed, purposeful mother. The neighborhood was rough but the family was resilient and bonded. TaShauna has always gone by the name, Sugar, hence the title of the book. At a very early age, Sugar showed great promise as an athlete, whether it was golf, football, or basketball—at which she excelled. She was the first of her family to attend college, where she was a basketball star, and now she plays basketball for the Las Vegas Aces.

The memoir is filled with anecdotes and memories from her childhood on, written in short, easy to read chapters. Although the writing a bit disjointed, the reader is left with insight and inspiration, particularly regarding the influence of her mother as well as the mentors who understood her potential and her strength of will. She says in closing, “My personal education has been one of knowledge gained from a never-ending list of people and life experiences. I cannot dismiss any of the impact that those interactions have had on me. They have all participated equally in creating my success. The positive people in my life and the negative ones—any way you look at it, they were all good for me. My haters are my motivators and my supporters are my lifeline.”

The most poignant story in the book is about the time as a young girl when her sister was in jail, and she went to visit her. The reader could feel the emotion radiating from the pages as she described putting her hand on the glass in an attempt to reach her sister, while speaking to her on the phone. Yet they were all smiling. A pivotal moment in her life.

I would recommend They Better Call Me Sugar to young teenage girls who are seeking a role model or girls who are interested in sports careers. It will resonate and inspire them.

Here is the Kirkus review.

The Girl in the Red Boots: Making Peace with My Mother

 By Judith Ruskay Rabinor PhD

She Writes Press     2021

271 pages     Memoir

Can a mother be both loving and selfish? Caring and thoughtless? Deceitful and devoted? These are the questions that fuel psychologist Dr. Judy Rabinor’s quest to understand her ambivalence toward her mother. Her book, The Girl in the Red Boots, was published yesterday. I have been pondering how and why it landed so heavily on my heart and mind.

Each child in a family has a different relationship with his/her mother. Rabinor asserts that the type of relationship you establish with your mother in early childhood lasts throughout your life—particularly if it is a mother-daughter relationship. Rabinor is an expert in eating disorders and many of the stories in the book deal with young women who were her patients as they explored their relationships with food. She discovered that many of those relationships to food were governed by the young women’s  relationships with their mothers. While dealing with them, she was able to explore her complicated relationship with her own mother and relates how she finally came to a resolution after many years of struggle.

She says in the prologue: “Stories are great teachers; they have to power to heal. The tales from my office and my life may help you untangle your stuck places and develop compassion for yourself and, possibly, for your mother.” She begins each section with a story suggestion to guide readers in their thinking as they read that chapter. She guides the readers to look inward as they grow in the understanding of their own relationships and their own family histories. Her narrative is a powerful memoir as well as a self-help guide.

Rabinor remarks that one of her mother’s best quotes was “You’ll be fine! Everything will work out—you’ll see.” Oops! I remember several times I said the same thing to my daughter. She goes on to say that what she yearned for was her mother’s genuine empathic presence. My own mother was very busy and most likely I had moments when I wished for more of my mother’s presence. On the other hand, my mother had a career at a time when most mothers were stay-at-home, and I was very proud of that. If I were to have this discussion with my sisters, I know that each of their stories would be different. Judith Rabinor is just my age, so perhaps the book resonated so well with me because some of our life experiences were similar, although I don’t have as many negative feelings about my mother as Rabinor had about her mother.

In one passage that reverberated with me,  she asked women at a convention to introduce themselves by saying a very revealing sentence or two. Here is an example. “I’m Julie, daughter of Ruth. I was welcomed to the world of womanhood by Ruth, queen of secrets.” After much thought, I created my introduction: “I am Miriam, daughter of Evelyn. I was welcomed to the world of womanhood by Evelyn, whose goal in life was to please her husband.” Much discussion could follow.

I found The Girl in the Red Boots to be a very challenging and revealing book, and I would recommend it to people as they seek to define or redefine their lives. The Kirkus reviewer called it “a contemplative, cleareyed study of family dynamics.”

Judith Rabinor’s website.