I just received an email from one of my writing mentors, Winnipeg author Bea Fines. A few years ago I had the pleasure of reviewing Bea's collection of short stories, Neighbours, for my column in Forever Young.
This is what Bea said about The Old Love and the New Love:
"Well done! I enjoyed the book very much. I have always liked mysteries but never tried writing one. I felt that plotting was not my forte. I am impressed at how you introduce the characters, each one important to the plot, though it doesn't seem so at first. I liked the historical setting. I can remember reading about much of what was going on in Ireland in the daily appears. News then, history now.
"You never confuse the reader with too much or too many characters at one - something I always felt Agatha Christie did. You just give us enought to keep us intrigued. Love the inclusion of song lyrics. The Black Velvet Band keeps going through my head. Here's to a good launch!"
(Bea refers to some folk songs, in the public domain, which I quoted in the novel. It is always nice to be praised by someone whose opinion you respect. Thank you, Bea.)
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Thursday, February 2, 2012
The Old Love and the New Love, my new novel
My new novel, The Old Love and the New Love (Ottawa, Baico, 2012, IBN 978-1-926945-70-5, $18.95 pb)has just been published by Baico Publishing of Ottawa (baico@bellnet.ca)
The Old Love and the New Love combines humour, romance, history and action in showing how the past comes back to haunt us.
The plot:
When Cleo's old lover, Leo Phelan, whom she hasn't seen in a decade, turns up on her doorstep, she is flustered, not flattered. Should she invite him to join her and her husband, Andy, for dinner? Will Leo be the serpent in their Eden? Little does she know that Leo poses a different sort of threat. Gradually she realizes how tangled she is in the ties that bound them.
Here is an excerpt from the novel:
"Andy went out the door into the darkness. I pressed the button, heard the peeping start, and dashed over the threshold. Then a dark figure, his face hidden by a balaclava, sprang from behind the dumpster. Andy was hoisting the dog food bag into the box of the Suburban as the assailant caught him from behind in a choke hold.
"I set the cat food bag on the threshold to keep the door from closing, so the alarm would speed up in frequency and intensity. As the men struggled, I bent and grabbed the loose brick that I'd tripped on. I was about to aim it at the attacker's head when I saw that Andy was taking care of himself."...
The Old Love and the New Love is being launched on Monday, March 12, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the Emerald Plaza Branch of the Ottawa Public Library (in the Emerald Plaza on Merivale Road) All are welcome. Roger and I hope to see you there.
Monday, January 30, 2012
The Iron Lady - a review
A couple of weeks ago, Roger and I went to see The Iron Lady, with Merle Streep starring as former British Prime Minister (1979-1990) Margaret Thatcher. Streep demonstrates her marvellous versatility as an actor, and the movie fascinated me, but it was not a balanced look at Thatcher and her impact.
This blog contains "spoilers", so if you want to be surprised by The Iron Lady, don't read on.
The movie begins with a portrayal of Thatcher in her old age, suffering from dementia, entertaining delusions that her husband, Denis, who died in 2003, is still by her side. The time shifts back and forth from the senility sections to the highlights of Thatcher's career (or the low points, depending on your politics.)
Who wouldn't feel sorry for an enfeebled older person struggling to cope with daily life while aware that she is not in command of her faculties? Showing Thatcher as pathetic in old age evokes the viewer's sympathies, something that the portrayal of Thatcher at the peak of her powers doesn't. I found myself feeling sorry for the sad old woman, even thinking ahead to the day when I may be in a similar situation. Then I remembered the many seniors whose difficulties of old age were intensified by Thatcher's policies.
The massive demonstrations against Thatcher's policies are shown as film clips from the era, and look like amorphous, unfocused mobs because it isn't made clear when they took place and what provoked them. Those of us who remember the era know they were againstprivatization and cutbacks.
Also, I don't think the Brighton hotel bombing incident is historically accurate as presented.
Usually, a film about a controversial figure with a specific political philosophy would include a "corrective"; that is, another character who exemplifies the opposing viewpoint. The only such corrective in The Iron Lady is a brief scene in the House of Commons where the actor playing Michael Foote of the Labour Party speaks. The movie does not include, for example, any scenes of parents crying, "Thatcher, Thatcher, milk snatcher!" when Thatcher was education minister and cut the free school milk program. Nor does it show the plight of any coal miner's family during the miners' strike.
Nevertheless, Thatcher's actions, as presented through Streep, often speak volumes. The prime minister seems drunk on power as she gleefully encourages full tilt war on Argentina in 1982 over the Falkland Islands incident, thereby diverting public attention from her domestic policies and securing her re-election. Several scenes show her bullying attitude toward her cabinet ministers, which resulted in resignations and finally, her ouster as leader.
Early in the film, we see young Margaret raptly listening to her father, the owner of two small grocery stores, as he addresses a local meeting on the virtues of individual effort. Another scene shows teenaged Margaret and her dad joyfully reading her letter of acceptance to Oxford University. Her work worn mother, emerging from the kitchen, is glad, too, but won't touch the letter as her hands are wet with dishwater.
Margaret identifies with the parent who gets out into the wider world. Later, when young Denis proposes, she tells him that she can't be the kind of woman who is always at the kitchen sink, and that she feels it is important to make the best use of her life and her abilities. He agrees. While I can certainly relate to her feelings, I am also aware of many women who have fought their way into public life in order to make things easier for the unsung heroes whose work is ordinary, yet vital to society. Our own Agnes MacPhail, the first Canadian woman Member of Parliament, is just one of many.
Near the end of the film, a very elderly Thatcher summons up her independent spirit and gets on with a task that others have offered to help her with. All by herself, she packs up Denis's clothes, realizing that keeping them isn't helping her state of mind. She appears to seize control of her hallucinations and has a fantasy in which she bids him a fond farewell and lets him go down their front hallway towards the light.
At the end, dressed to go out to an appointment, Lady Thatcher is finishing a cup of tea, and instead of accepting her employee's offer to wash the cup, she takes it to the sink and does it herself. The end seems to suggest that, in extreme old age, Thatcher is applying her iron will to her own plight; also, that she is considerate of those who do the joe jobs. Perhaps old age is the great leveller, a time when people recognize their common humanity.
As a film about old age, The Iron Lady is compelling. As a movie about Thatcher's life and work - her policies and their impact - it is hardly a comprehensiven balanced view. It appeals to the eye, however, has some interesting cinematic/storytelling techniques, and is thought provoking.
This blog contains "spoilers", so if you want to be surprised by The Iron Lady, don't read on.
The movie begins with a portrayal of Thatcher in her old age, suffering from dementia, entertaining delusions that her husband, Denis, who died in 2003, is still by her side. The time shifts back and forth from the senility sections to the highlights of Thatcher's career (or the low points, depending on your politics.)
Who wouldn't feel sorry for an enfeebled older person struggling to cope with daily life while aware that she is not in command of her faculties? Showing Thatcher as pathetic in old age evokes the viewer's sympathies, something that the portrayal of Thatcher at the peak of her powers doesn't. I found myself feeling sorry for the sad old woman, even thinking ahead to the day when I may be in a similar situation. Then I remembered the many seniors whose difficulties of old age were intensified by Thatcher's policies.
The massive demonstrations against Thatcher's policies are shown as film clips from the era, and look like amorphous, unfocused mobs because it isn't made clear when they took place and what provoked them. Those of us who remember the era know they were againstprivatization and cutbacks.
Also, I don't think the Brighton hotel bombing incident is historically accurate as presented.
Usually, a film about a controversial figure with a specific political philosophy would include a "corrective"; that is, another character who exemplifies the opposing viewpoint. The only such corrective in The Iron Lady is a brief scene in the House of Commons where the actor playing Michael Foote of the Labour Party speaks. The movie does not include, for example, any scenes of parents crying, "Thatcher, Thatcher, milk snatcher!" when Thatcher was education minister and cut the free school milk program. Nor does it show the plight of any coal miner's family during the miners' strike.
Nevertheless, Thatcher's actions, as presented through Streep, often speak volumes. The prime minister seems drunk on power as she gleefully encourages full tilt war on Argentina in 1982 over the Falkland Islands incident, thereby diverting public attention from her domestic policies and securing her re-election. Several scenes show her bullying attitude toward her cabinet ministers, which resulted in resignations and finally, her ouster as leader.
Early in the film, we see young Margaret raptly listening to her father, the owner of two small grocery stores, as he addresses a local meeting on the virtues of individual effort. Another scene shows teenaged Margaret and her dad joyfully reading her letter of acceptance to Oxford University. Her work worn mother, emerging from the kitchen, is glad, too, but won't touch the letter as her hands are wet with dishwater.
Margaret identifies with the parent who gets out into the wider world. Later, when young Denis proposes, she tells him that she can't be the kind of woman who is always at the kitchen sink, and that she feels it is important to make the best use of her life and her abilities. He agrees. While I can certainly relate to her feelings, I am also aware of many women who have fought their way into public life in order to make things easier for the unsung heroes whose work is ordinary, yet vital to society. Our own Agnes MacPhail, the first Canadian woman Member of Parliament, is just one of many.
Near the end of the film, a very elderly Thatcher summons up her independent spirit and gets on with a task that others have offered to help her with. All by herself, she packs up Denis's clothes, realizing that keeping them isn't helping her state of mind. She appears to seize control of her hallucinations and has a fantasy in which she bids him a fond farewell and lets him go down their front hallway towards the light.
At the end, dressed to go out to an appointment, Lady Thatcher is finishing a cup of tea, and instead of accepting her employee's offer to wash the cup, she takes it to the sink and does it herself. The end seems to suggest that, in extreme old age, Thatcher is applying her iron will to her own plight; also, that she is considerate of those who do the joe jobs. Perhaps old age is the great leveller, a time when people recognize their common humanity.
As a film about old age, The Iron Lady is compelling. As a movie about Thatcher's life and work - her policies and their impact - it is hardly a comprehensiven balanced view. It appeals to the eye, however, has some interesting cinematic/storytelling techniques, and is thought provoking.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Lost in Yonkers at the Ottawa Little Theatre
Lost in Yonkers, by Neil Simon, is playing at the Ottawa Little Theatre from January 10-28, 2012. Last Wednesday evening Roger and I saw the performance and were very impressed.
The director explains in her program notes that this play, which opened on Broadway in 1991, is a "coming of age story in which brothers Jay and Arty are thrust into the stern care of their grandmother." The USA has just entered World War II and the boys' widower father, broke because of medical bills incurred during his late wife's illness, gets a job buying scrap metal, which requires him to travel all over the American south. He leaves his two sons, in their early teens, with his elderly mother who lives above the store she runs in Yonkers, NY. The boys don't know her or their aunts and uncle very well, because their parents decided when they got married to raise their children in a more loving atmosphere than that provided by the grandmother.
The director writes: "We find a story that is wonderfully crafted with laughs at every turn and enraptured with beautiful pathos." The play is a master work and the acting was excellent. The audience particularly liked the teenagers who played Jay (Thomas Nyhuus) and Arty (Ven Djukic); they never got a word or an action wrong, and were thoroughly convincing. The grandmother is the least sympathetic character in the play, but thanks to Charlotte Stewart's acting ability, the grandma came across as a multi-faceted personality. We could understand what had made her what she was.
We were delighted and surprised to find ourselves so well-entertained. Unfortunately, because it was a cold night, there were a lot of empty seats in the theatre. What a shame! People should jump at the chance to see this production of Lost in Yonkers.
The director explains in her program notes that this play, which opened on Broadway in 1991, is a "coming of age story in which brothers Jay and Arty are thrust into the stern care of their grandmother." The USA has just entered World War II and the boys' widower father, broke because of medical bills incurred during his late wife's illness, gets a job buying scrap metal, which requires him to travel all over the American south. He leaves his two sons, in their early teens, with his elderly mother who lives above the store she runs in Yonkers, NY. The boys don't know her or their aunts and uncle very well, because their parents decided when they got married to raise their children in a more loving atmosphere than that provided by the grandmother.
The director writes: "We find a story that is wonderfully crafted with laughs at every turn and enraptured with beautiful pathos." The play is a master work and the acting was excellent. The audience particularly liked the teenagers who played Jay (Thomas Nyhuus) and Arty (Ven Djukic); they never got a word or an action wrong, and were thoroughly convincing. The grandmother is the least sympathetic character in the play, but thanks to Charlotte Stewart's acting ability, the grandma came across as a multi-faceted personality. We could understand what had made her what she was.
We were delighted and surprised to find ourselves so well-entertained. Unfortunately, because it was a cold night, there were a lot of empty seats in the theatre. What a shame! People should jump at the chance to see this production of Lost in Yonkers.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
"Only a Novel"
While doing some research on Jane Austen and her works for my review of P.D. James's new mystery, Death Comes to Pemberley, I came across this quote from Austen's novel, Northanger Abbey. Novelists should commit it to heart.
"Only a novel"... in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour are conveyed to the world, in the best chosen language."
From Northanger Abbey, Chapter 5 (1818)
"Only a novel"... in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour are conveyed to the world, in the best chosen language."
From Northanger Abbey, Chapter 5 (1818)
Thursday, December 15, 2011
The Old Love and the New Love
Yesterday I received a Christmas present, a gift to myself, actually. The bound proof of my new novel, The Old Love and the New Love, arrived at Baico Publishing Company, 294 Albert St. Suite 103, Ottawa K1P 6E6, and I picked them up. A bound proof is the trial print-out of a book, a single copy complete with cover, a prototype - and the author's last opportunity to make corrections. Little glitches tend to creep in, no matter how conscientiously you copy-edit.
The Old Love and the New Love gets its title from a phrase in an Irish ballad, "The Hand that Shakes the Barley". The idea of writing an action/adventure/romance came to me several years ago when I was teaching a class called "Start a Novel" and found that among my students were three bright individuals committed to writing genre fiction; that is, category fiction rather than "literary" general interest fiction.
I decided to try my hand at writing something with more action and adventure than my earlier novels (although my four mysteries include suspense and tension.) I used as a starting point an exercise to stimulate the imagination that I have given my students. The exercise goes like this:
"A couple is having a pleasant evening meal at home when there is a knock at the door. On the doorstep is someone with whom one of the partners used to be romantically involved."
The aspiring writer who takes up the challenge must find a reason for the person to show up on the doorstep, and must consider how the partners will react, and from there, build a plot.
Obviously this work is not autobiographical, but is a work of the imagination.
I won't tell you the plot of The Old Love and the New Love, as I want you to buy the book and discover it for yourself, but I will share the back cover blurb.
"When Cleo's old lover, Leo Phelan, whom she hasn't seen in a decade, turns up on her doorstep, she is flustered, not flattered. Should she invite him to join her and her husband, Andy, for dinner? Will he be the serpent in their Eden? Little does she know that Leo poses a different sort of threat. Gradually, she realizes how tangled she is in the ties that once bound them."
The Old Love and the New Love will be published early in 2012.
The Old Love and the New Love gets its title from a phrase in an Irish ballad, "The Hand that Shakes the Barley". The idea of writing an action/adventure/romance came to me several years ago when I was teaching a class called "Start a Novel" and found that among my students were three bright individuals committed to writing genre fiction; that is, category fiction rather than "literary" general interest fiction.
I decided to try my hand at writing something with more action and adventure than my earlier novels (although my four mysteries include suspense and tension.) I used as a starting point an exercise to stimulate the imagination that I have given my students. The exercise goes like this:
"A couple is having a pleasant evening meal at home when there is a knock at the door. On the doorstep is someone with whom one of the partners used to be romantically involved."
The aspiring writer who takes up the challenge must find a reason for the person to show up on the doorstep, and must consider how the partners will react, and from there, build a plot.
Obviously this work is not autobiographical, but is a work of the imagination.
I won't tell you the plot of The Old Love and the New Love, as I want you to buy the book and discover it for yourself, but I will share the back cover blurb.
"When Cleo's old lover, Leo Phelan, whom she hasn't seen in a decade, turns up on her doorstep, she is flustered, not flattered. Should she invite him to join her and her husband, Andy, for dinner? Will he be the serpent in their Eden? Little does she know that Leo poses a different sort of threat. Gradually, she realizes how tangled she is in the ties that once bound them."
The Old Love and the New Love will be published early in 2012.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
John Donne's Christmas Sermon excerpt
I wish you a Merry Christmas with this excerpt from John Donne's Christmas Sermon, December 25, 1624:
"...God made Sun and Moon to distinguish seasons, and day and night, and we cannot have the fruits of the earth but in their seasons: But God hath made no decree to distinguish the seasons of his mercies. In paradise the fruits were ripe the first minute, and in heaven it is alwaies Autumne; His mercies are ever in their maturity. We ask Panem Quotidianum, our daily bread, and God never says, you should have come yesterday; he never sayes you must againe tomorrow, but today if you will heare His voice, today he will heare you.
If some King of the earth have so large an extent of Dominion, in North and South, as that he hath Winter and Summer together in his Dominions, much more hath God mercy and judgment together; He brought light out of darknesse, not out of a lesser light; He can bring thy Summer out of Winter, though thou have no Spring; though in the wayes of fortune, or understanding, or conscience, thou have been benighted till now - wintred and frozen, clouded and eclypsed, damped and benummed, smothered and stupefied till now - now God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the Spring, but as the Sun at noon, to illustrate all shadowes, as the sheaves in the harvest, to fill all penuries. All occasions invite His mercies, and all times are His seasons."
From Sermon Number LXXX (2) given at St. Paul's Christmas Day in the Evening, 1624.
"...God made Sun and Moon to distinguish seasons, and day and night, and we cannot have the fruits of the earth but in their seasons: But God hath made no decree to distinguish the seasons of his mercies. In paradise the fruits were ripe the first minute, and in heaven it is alwaies Autumne; His mercies are ever in their maturity. We ask Panem Quotidianum, our daily bread, and God never says, you should have come yesterday; he never sayes you must againe tomorrow, but today if you will heare His voice, today he will heare you.
If some King of the earth have so large an extent of Dominion, in North and South, as that he hath Winter and Summer together in his Dominions, much more hath God mercy and judgment together; He brought light out of darknesse, not out of a lesser light; He can bring thy Summer out of Winter, though thou have no Spring; though in the wayes of fortune, or understanding, or conscience, thou have been benighted till now - wintred and frozen, clouded and eclypsed, damped and benummed, smothered and stupefied till now - now God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the Spring, but as the Sun at noon, to illustrate all shadowes, as the sheaves in the harvest, to fill all penuries. All occasions invite His mercies, and all times are His seasons."
From Sermon Number LXXX (2) given at St. Paul's Christmas Day in the Evening, 1624.
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