Souvenir books

A bookstall in Strasbourg.

My idea of perfect souvenirs to bring back from a vacation are books. (In second place come tea mugs.) Such books remind me for years afterward of my travels and the specific cities and shops were those books were purchased.

My recent river cruise from Zurich to Paris provided surprisingly little time for shopping, but still I was able to browse briefly at a few bookstalls along streets (bookstalls are something Europe has in abundance that the United States could use more of) and step into a couple of bookstores.

One of those stores was a small shop called Buchhandlung Heimes in Koblenz, Germany. The books all seemed to be in German, and when  a clerk asked if she could help me I told her that I liked bookstores and just wanted to look around. Then she led me to small case, with shelves about 18 inches long, where all the books were in English. Mostly these were books, printed in England, that I had never seen before or in editions I had never seen before. I enjoyed browsing and found two books I suddenly craved, finally settling for just one, An Unremarkable Body by Elisa Lodato.

Postcard showing Shakespeare and Company, Paris.

Once in Paris I knew I had to visit Shakespeare and Company, the famous English-language bookstore near the Seine. We left our bus tour of the city when it got close to that point, then stopped at the jaw-dropping Sainte-Chapelle and, after a sidewalk lunch, made our way to the shop. It has an incredible selection of books but also, or so it seemed, almost as many shoppers, many of whom weren't even speaking English. The two books I wanted were on the discount tables outside the store, Bamboo, a collection of essays by William Boyd, and a used copy of Willa Cather's My Antonia. The latter book was published a hundred years ago this year, so I had been looking for a copy of it.

As I made my purchase, the clerk asked if I would like the name of the store stamped inside each book. I said I did. Apparently I am not alone in buying books as vacation souvenirs.

Talking and traveling

A German village seen from the cruise ship.

Among the pleasures (or frustrations) of travel, especially foreign travel, is communication, both with natives and with fellow travelers.

Back from nearly two weeks in Europe, mostly Germany, these experiences are at the forefront of my mind, way ahead of castles, cathedrals and rivers (our trip was a river cruise down the Rhine and Mosel rivers, although we somehow ended up in Paris, where we cruised the Seine one evening). I noticed, for example, that just as for diners in restaurants a favorite topic of conversation is dining experiences in other restaurants, the favorite topic of conversation among my shipboard companions was other vacations and especially other cruises.

This was our third trip to Europe, so Linda and I thought ourselves experienced travelers, but we seemed to be mere rookies in whatever conversation group we happened to find ourselves. Dinner table conversation often seemed to be little more than listings of places the travelers have visited and the cruises they have taken. There was often a Can You Top This? air to conversations that I found frustrating, perhaps because I could so rarely top it.

I noticed that at mealtimes the passengers aboard our ship were of two kinds: those who sat at the same tables with the same people at every meal and those who, like Linda and me, sought out different tables and different companions. Some travelers were downright territorial about their chosen tables, chasing away anyone who dared to approach and inquire about seating. Such an attitude might be understandable for those who travel together and prefer to speak in a language other than English, such as a group of Portuguese-Americans aboard. Others, I would think, would benefit from meeting and mixing with other passengers.

There were nearly 190 of us aboard the ship, and at the end of our voyage many of them were still strangers, yet we had conversations with a surprising number, and a few even had the potential to become friends had we gotten to know each other better and lived closer together. I'm thinking of a couple from New York City, another from Atlanta and two women from one of the Carolinas. Our best conversation was with a couple from Minnesota (on a different cruise) whom we met when they sat next to us at a sidewalk cafe in Paris. We never learned each other's names but, boy, did we have a lot to talk about. I'm sure the staff was grateful when we finally parted because those tables were in demand.

I can recall only twice in our travels that long-term relationships resulted from accidental meetings. A young woman from Hawaii whom we met on a bus tour along the Columbia River in the early '90s continued for many years to send us postcards from her other travels. After her marriage, we lost touch. A missionary couple, from Canada to Africa, whom we met on a ferry from Dublin to Wales in 2005, stay in contact. But brief friendships, even those that last only for the length of a meal, have value, too.

As for communicating with the natives in Europe, that is not the challenge it once was for we Americans who speak only English. We had only one experience, that with a shopkeeper in Germany, with someone who did not speak English or at least refer us to someone who did. Yet that German woman and my wife seemed to communicate with each other perfectly.

Everywhere we went, even Paris despite its poor reputation, the people were extremely friendly. One waiter went out of his way to direct me to a bookstore in Paris. He explained its location in terms of Notre Dame Cathedral. "Let Our Lady be your guide," he said.

One of our guides explained that the secret to good service in Paris is to begin each encounter with the word bonjour. Not to say that is considered bad manners in Paris and may be met in kind. This can be difficult to remember for us Americans, who tend to want to get right to the point.

I was amused that often when I remembered to say, "Bonjour," the response I got was "Good morning." Obviously my foreign accent gave me away.

Thousands of unread books

Zaid's finest moment, however, comes in his second paragraph, when he says that "the truly cultured are capable of owning thousands of unread books without losing their composure or their desire for more."

Nick Hornby, The Polysyllabic Spree

Gabriel Zaid

Nick Hornby quotes Gabriel Zaid from his book So Many Books, the title of which describes a condition of he, Hornby and countless others of us share. Let us break down that quote phrase by phrase:

the truly cultured -- I like that because it is so flattering. It may also be true. Many other people consider themselves cultured, but are they, really? Not all culture is absorbed through reading, but much of it is.The truly cultured are, by Zaid’s definition, those who own more books than they can ever possibly read, however long their lifetimes. It sort of comes with the territory. Reading books makes us cultured, but simply owning books, lots of books, with hopes and dreams of getting around to reading them someday, helps, too. Those unread books demonstrate an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, as well as an unquenchable thirst for life.

capable of owning thousands of unread books -- That capability suggests both financial and physical resources, as well as a particular state of mind.   Not everyone would want thousands of books in their home. Once a book is read, they get rid of it. Once they realize they will probably never get around to reading a book, they get rid of it. They like their shelves free for knickknacks and pictures of grandchildren, and I have plenty of both but thousands of books, both read and unread, besides.

without losing their composure -- So what might Zaid mean by that? To me it suggests remaining composed enough to keep those books, even when one realizes they may never be read, even when one's spouse campaigns incessantly for downsizing, even when, as in my house, shelf space was filled to capacity years ago and books are being kept in boxes and in stacks.

or their desire for more -- Here lies the key. Some passions may decrease with age, but the desire for more books does not, at least not in my case. Just the opposite, in fact. I may be acquiring books at a faster rate than ever before. If I cannot read them, I at least can own them.

Our books, Hornby writes later in the same essay, "are the fullest expression of self we have at our disposal." This means not just the kinds of books we own but also their quality, their signs of wear, their organization or lack of same, their display, their usage and, of course, their number.

Irrational choices

The heart has no IQ.

In Deborah Meyler’s 2013 novel The Bookstore, Esme Garland is a young British woman studying art history in the Columbia University graduate program. She falls in love with the wrong man, a handsome economist from a wealthy New York family who is demanding, selfish, manipulative, sexually aggressive (as long as he is the one calling the shots), suicidal and maybe worse. Everyone who reads this book will be smart enough to know that Luke, the sensitive young man who works with Esme at the Owl Bookstore, is a better match for her than Mitchell van Leuven. But not Esme, who seems willing to accept any insult, any abuse if only Mitchell will love her. He doesn’t.

For most of the novel she is pregnant with Mitchell’s baby. He abandons her, returns to demand she get an abortion, accepts her decision to have the baby, pushes her toward a quick marriage, abandons her again. In a nutshell that is the story, except that the nutshell ignores the best part of the story, namely Esme’s job at the Owl and her relationships with her fellow employees, mostly men whose consideration for her and her pregnancy is so excessive it becomes comical. Yet these other men, including some homeless ones who hang around the store, demonstrate each working day that there are better men out there are than the depressed and depressing Mitchell.

Like Esme, Meyler is a young British woman with a college degree (hers is from Oxford) who moves to New York City and gets a job at an independent bookstore. So The Bookstore  is autobiographical up to a point. It is beyond that point where she demonstrates her skill as a writer of fiction.

Esme’s choice of Mitchell as a lover and possible husband is not the only illogical choice in the novel. In fact, there are so many that illogical choice becomes the novel’s theme. She chooses to have the baby even though it will interfere with her academic pursuits. The bookstore manager hires her even though he knows her to be pregnant. Some of those homeless men have housing opportunities but prefer to live on the street.

Life is all about choices, and reason isn’t always our guide when we make those choices.

The joy of browsing

There is enough money in the music and movie industries to ensure that we get to hear about most things that might interest us; books have to remain a secret, to be discovered only when you spend time browsing.

Nick Hornby, The Polysyllabic Spree

James Patterson is the only author I can think of whose books are advertised on television. Being practically an industry all to himself (and his various co-authors), he may be the only one who can afford to. Otherwise Nick Hornby is correct. New books that might interest us have to be discovered, usually by browsing in bookstores.

Oh, sure, some of us read reviews of new books. Others listen for the buzz from friends and acquaintances to learn which books are bestsellers and are deemed worth reading simply because other people are reading them. For the most part, however, interesting books are discovered in bookstores by those who browse.

This is not a bad thing. Those who browse are likely to browse past the prominent display of bestsellers to discover promising books they've never heard of, perhaps even by authors they've never heard of.

One way I measure the quality of a bookstore is by the number of books I find that I have never seen before and didn't know existed. I visit bookstores frequently and so have a good idea what's out there and which books have sold well. (Those that don't sell tend to disappear quickly, so it pays to browse often.) Finding appealing books I haven't seen before is something like a prospector discovering gold. I feel like I've found riches, even if my discovery costs me a share of what few riches I already possess.

Discovering something for ourselves, whether a new book or a new restaurant, may make that discovery all the more special to us. I am usually more eager to read a newly discovered treasure than a book recommended by a friend or sent to me for review by a publisher.

Short subjects

Charles Dickens

Before I put Our Mutual Friend back on the shelf, I have a few more comments to make about the last novel Charles Dickens completed before his death in 1870.

All-purpose adjectives

At several points in the book, Dickens chooses a single adjective to describe many facets of a scene or a newly introduced character. Here is one example: "The park was delightful, the punch was delightful, the dishes of fish were delightful,  the wine was delightful. Bella was more delightful than any other item in the festival ..."

This works the first or even the second time he does it, but by the time the above lines appear on page 315 the technique seems more the result of laziness than cleverness.

Editorializing

In the newspaper business, editorializing is the term we used to describe a reporter's  opinions being allowed to color a supposedly objective news story. In journalism that is a bad thing, although it seems to happen regularly these days. In fiction when a narrator adds personal comments to the story being told, it can be a good thing, or at least a very interesting thing. Here are couple of such comments made by Dickens:

An illiterate man discourages education for his children, but he has a son who secretly pursues learning. Here we find this comment by the author: "No one who can read, ever looks at a book, even unopened on a shelf, like one who cannot."

At the end of a longer discourse on good and evil, Dickens adds this comment about a big advantage good has over evil. "For, Evil often stops short at itself and dies with the doer of it; but Good, never."

Turns of phrase

Often Dickens writes something so good you just have to read it again, and then  again. Here are some examples:

"... a burglarious stream of fog ..."

"... cherubically strewing the path with smiles, in the absence of flowers."

"He was a slow sailer on a wind of happiness ..."

"Love is in all things a most wonderful teacher ..."

"... that good Christian pair, representative of hundreds of other good Christian pairs as conscientious and as useful, who merge the smallness of their work in its greatness ..."

Wow! That man could write!

Geography lesson, Dickens style

For Charles Dickens, taking long walks, usually at night, wasn't just exercise. It was also research. On his walks he passed places that later showed up in his novels. Throughout Our Mutual Friend some of his characters also take long walks, and Dickens himself probably took these same walks and saw the same landmarks. He knew firsthand how long these walks would take, and this passage of time is sometimes reflected in his narrative.

A couple of years ago I picked up a used copy of the Oxford Dictionary of London Place Names and have been wondering ever since how I might use it in this blog. Our Mutual Friend, loaded as it is with London place names, provides the excuse. So here is a small sampling of places Dickens mentions and what this dictionary says about them.

The Monument

"The wheels rolled on, and rolled down by the Monument and by the Tower, and by the Docks; down by Ratcliffe ..." In Old English Ratcliffe meant "red cliff. There is red soil in this area on the north bank of the Thames. The Monument was designed by Christopher Wren to commemorate victims of the Great Fire of 1666. The Tower refers to the stone tower of a fortress built in 1097.

"Over against a London house, a corner house not far from Cavendish Square ..." Like Cavendish Place and both Old Cavendish Street and New Cavendish Street, Cavendish Square was named for Lady Henrietta Cavendish Holles.

"Whosoever had gone out of Fleet Street into the Temple ..." Fleet Street, once known for its row of newspaper offices, gets it name from the Fleet River, which flows into the Thames. The Temple is "a house belonging to the religious Order of Knights Templar."

"'Mr. Boffin, I happened to be in Chancery Lane this morning ..." Beginning in the 14th century, the chancellor's office was located along this street. The building was demolished in 1896, some two decades after Dickens wrote this novel.

"At length, tidings were received by the Reverend Frank of a charming orphan to be found at Brentford." So named because of a ford over the River Brent. Later a bridge was built over the river.

Westminster Bridge

"Bradley Headstone and Charley Hexam duly got to the Surrey side of Westminster Bridge, and crossed the bridge, and made along the Middlesex shore towards Millbank." Surrey is a county south of London. Westminster Bridge was constructed between 1854 and 1862 and was new when Dickens wrote the novel. Westminster means "the west monastery." Middlesex, another ancient county, means "middle Saxon." Millbank refers to the mills that were once found along this area of the Thames.

"Being by this time close to Vauxhall Bridge ..." Named for a man named Falkes who had a manor house, the Vauxhall Bridge was an iron structure built in 1816. It was replaced with a new bridge in 1906. Dickens was referring to the former.

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Dickens knew a lot about London geography.

Keeping characters straight

Did you know that Dickens is estimated to have invented thirteen thousand characters? Thirteen thousand! The population of a small town!

Nick Hornby, The Polysyllabic Spree

The Wikipedia entry on Our Mutual Friend lists 19 major characters and 17 minor characters. That's a lot of characters to keep straight, for Charles Dickens himself as well as for his readers. Good writers have ways of keeping characters distinct from one another. Names alone are not enough, for we readers easily forget or confuse names. Something else is needed, a personality quirk for example,  to make one character stand apart from another.

Dickens, with so many individuals in his small town of characters, is a master. Sometimes, as in Little Dorrit, he gives minor characters distinctive speech patterns. In novels as in real life, it is often easier to recognize people by their voices. (Last week I saw an old friend but didn't recognize him until I heard him speak.)

Jenny Wren in a illustration from Our Mutual Friend

Odd names, easy to remember and hard to confuse with other names, is another trick Dickens used. In Our Mutual Friend we find characters named Bradley Headstone, Georgiana Podsnap, Pleasant Riderhood, Melvin Twemlow and Sloppy.

Mostly, however, Dickens relies on nicknames to keep his characters distinct in this novel. Not every character has a nickname, given either by the narrator or by other characters, but many of them do. Even the novel's title is a nickname. John Rokesmith, the main character, is referred to as Our Mutual Friend several times early in the book. Nicodemus Boffin, the man who bestows that nickname on him, is called Noddy by his wife, but more commonly he is referred to as the Golden Dustman because after a career shoveling dust he inherits a fortune.

Bella Wilfer, the main female character, is sometimes called the "boofer lady." That is how a boy says the words "beautiful lady." A girl who makes dresses for dolls is called Jenny Wren so often we forget that is not her real name. Mr. Fledgeby, painfully shy around women but ruthless in business, is called Fascination Fledgeby. Roger Riderhood is often called Rogue Riderhood, a name that suits him. But because he so often refers to himself as an honest man, the author prefers calling him the Honest Man.

We are never told the name of Jenny Wren's father. He is simply referred to as Mr. Dolls. When John Rokesmith, itself a false name, becomes John Harmon again and marries Bella, they have a baby always referred to as The Inexhaustible.

With so many characters in a novel with so many pages, I had surprisingly little difficulty telling everyone apart. The two characters I did confuse were two young attorneys, both without clients. One is Mortimer Lightwood and the other is Eugene Wrayburn. Neither has a nickname.

Separated by thin lines

Here, conveniently and healthfully elevated above the level of the living, were the dead, and the tombstones; some of the latter droopingly inclined from the perpendicular, as if they were ashamed of the lies they told.

Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend

Our Mutual Friend is a thick novel about thin lines. Throughout its  (in my paperback edition) 800 pages of small print, Charles Dickens ponders those narrow lines that separate the living from the dead and people of different stations and conditions.

His main plot involves the supposed drowning death of John Harmon, a wealthy young man returning home to claim his late father's estate. He was also to claim the hand of the beautiful Bella Wilfer as required by the terms of his father's will. Not wanting a bride who might marry him only for his money, Harmon fakes his death and returns as John Rokesmith, becoming secretary to Mr. Boffin, a man of modest means who inherits the house and the fortune in his place and then invites Bella to live with him and his wife.

So already we can what Dickens has on his mind. Harmon is dead, but not really. Will Bella love him and consent to marry him when he is a poor man? Will she be changed by living in that great house and wearing the finest clothes? Will the fortune change the Boffins?

These concerns are echoed in the novel's various subplots and in the lives of its many characters. Other men are dragged from the Thames presumably dead, yet they survive. Other characters seemingly die only to come back to life. There are even dolls treated as living persons and living persons treated as if dolls. References to death and tombstones return again and again in this novel that celebrates life.

Another young couple consists of a man and woman of different social classes, and that difference threatens to keep them apart. Another couple, the opposite of John Harmon, pretends to be wealthy when they are impoverished. One boy, raised in poverty, struggles to rise in the world, yet as he rises his character lowers. Another poor boy finds contentment in his situation and maintains his strong character as that situation improves.

This novel, the last one Dickens would complete (1865), is not a favorite of many readers because of its length, complexity and contrived plot. Yet there is much to admire here and much to think about. It makes a reader realize that those tombstones, even when not lying, do not tell the whole truth about those who lie below.

The trouble with reappearing heroes

I appreciate that I'm in a minority here, but I just don't get the appeal of the reappearing hero.

Nick Hornby, The Polysyllabic Spree

Nick Hornby certainly is in the minority. Most readers love reappearing heroes, which is why most publishers, before accepting a mystery novel from a new author, will ask if it is the first in a series. The smart writer will answer, "Yes, of course." Once readers acquire a taste for a new mystery novel , they want more of the same. More of the hero, more of the supporting characters and more of the same kind of story. Familiarity here brings not contempt but devotion.

Hercule Poirot as portrayed on television 

So what does Hornby have against Kay Scarpitta, James Bond, Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes, the reappearing heroes he specifically mentions? "My problem is that, when I'm reading a novel, I have a need ... to believe that the events described therein are definitive, that they really matter to the character."

Regarding a Dennis Lehane novel, he writes, "I get the impression Kenzie and Gennaro would struggle to distinguish the psycho killer they're tracking down in Prayers for Rain from the psycho killers they've tracked down in other books."

Hornby wants to be able to believe what he is reading, at least while he is reading it. The more tough cases fictional heroes have, the more difficult it can be to believe any of them.

In real life, a police homicide detective may have one or two baffling, book-worthy cases in a lifetime. A private detective will have none, because private investigators just don't investigate murders. Amateurs who try to get involved in murder investigations are strongly discouraged by police. If Miss Marple were in  the vicinity of as many murders as she is in Agatha Christie's novels, the police would consider one Jane Marple their primary suspect.

Further, if fictional heroes really got into as many harrowing, life-or-death situations as are described in their books, their luck would certainly run out long before the 10th or 20th book. And most would have post-traumatic stress disorder. Instead they can often be found relaxing, casually jesting with associates, when the next harrowing adventure begins.

No, reappearing heroes are not exactly believable. But most of us love them anyway, don't we?

No dull spots

Most stories, especially murder mysteries, have backstories. What happened before the murder, or as in Peter Heller's Celine, what has brought the hero to this point? How a writer handles backstory is one measure of that person's gifts as a storyteller.

Reading The Anatomist's Wife, Anna Lee Huber's first Lady Darby mystery (2012), on the strength of one very favorable review, I was most struck by how skillfully this author handles backstory. The murder happens on the very first page, so there is no prologue setting the stage for the murder. Nor, afterward, is there a long flashback, or even a short one. There are no interruptions in the narrative. Rather Huber fills in the blanks gradually, almost on a need-to-know basis.

Most of those blanks have to do with our title character, Lady Kiera Darby herself. She is a young widow whose husband, after an arranged marriage, was a man who dissected corpses and insisted that Kiera, because of her artistic ability, illustrate in detail those dissections. This came to light after his death. Even male participation in human dissection was controversial in the early 19th century, but the involvement of a woman was considered downright shocking, and after the murder of Lady Godwin at Kiera's sister's estate, Kiera is deemed by many of the houseguests to be the prime suspect.

Yet because of her knowledge of human anatomy, she is asked to assist a rakish Sebastian Gage in investigating the murder until the proper authorities can be brought to the scene. (The novel has an interesting discussion of the difference between a rake and rogue.) She detests the handsome, womanizing Gage at first (though we know she will eventually fall in love with him), but she agrees, and they make a good team. He possesses the charm for getting witnesses and suspects to reveal what they know, while Kiera has the ability to put pieces of the puzzle together.

Huber's story moves seamlessly along, the suspense building gradually. There are no lapses where the reader is tempted to cry out, "Get on with it, already!" The denouement goes on for four chapters, more than 40 pages, and this may seem excessive when we already know the murderer and that Kiera is saved. Yet there are still questions to be answered, and Huber makes these final pages fly by as quickly as any of the others in this novel.

The Wright stuff

One of the most amazing things about the Wright Brothers was that, though not twins, they seemed to share their genius equally. As David McCullough tells their story in his 2015 book The Wright Brothers, they were dependent upon each other, yet virtually interchangeable in researching the science of flight (most of what others had written on the subject proved useless to them), building the first self-powered airplane and then actually flying it. Each could do what the other did just as well, and although they had their arguments, they most often were of the same mind and never displayed a hint of jealously about the other, even when Orville had to stay behind to recover from injuries in a crash while Wilbur won wide international acclaim during a long visit to France.

Genius is the correct word. There was no luck involved, no dependence upon the work of others as some claimed at the time. While those others were building planes that couldn't fly, sometimes killing themselves in the process, the Wright Brothers carefully researched how flight might be possible. How did birds fly? How did kites work? How did gliders work? How might a heavier-than-air craft be powered? How might it be made to turn and then land safely? Using gliders and a wind tunnel, then finding a place, Kitty Hawk, where the winds were favorable and the sand insured a safe landing, the brothers did the research before they put their lives on the line.

While other would-be aviators invited crowds to observe their disastrous flights, the Wrights worked with few witnesses. Even when they were successful and would have appreciated a little press attention, newspaper editors scoffed and ignored them. Some were insisting human flight was impossible even after the Wright Brothers proved otherwise. Not until Wilbur took their plane to Europe and wowed nobility and peasants alike did the American press and the United States government start paying attention. And this was more than two years after that first flight at Kitty Hawk.

After that the brothers spent more time in lawyers' offices than in the air. In 12 lawsuits against those who stole their ideas and claimed them as their own, they won them all. Even then it was others who most profited from the invention of powered flight.

McCullough tells this story with his usual style that presents potentially difficult subject matter in a manner any reader can understand. He also widens the scope of the Wright genius to include not just the brothers but also their sister Katherine, the only Wright sibling with a college degree, whose support and ability at public relations aided their effort. Also, often ignored, there was Charlie Taylor, a mechanical whiz who was first hired to mind the bicycle shop while the brothers were away playing with airplanes but who soon became indispensable for his skill at building and repairing engines.

Mistakes or differences of opinion?

Reading and writing about Pushcart's Complete Rotten Reviews & Rejections has led me to reflect on my own long career, some 46 years, reviewing books. Have I ever been guilty of panning a book that later achieved greatness, or something close to that?

The closest I have come, in my memory, was my negative review of John Irving's The World According to Garp. I just didn't like the novel and said so, then was surprised, and more than a little disappointed, when it won critical acclaim, became a bestseller and was turned into a successful movie. I still think I was right and everybody else was wrong.

More embarrassing to me are those books I praised as literary achievements that went nowhere and soon disappeared from the scene. Two that come to mind are The Blue Nature by Suzanne Hamilton Free and This Heavy Silence by Nicole Mazzarella. I thought these novels, especially the latter, were terrific. When I checked Amazon today I found no evidence that either author has ever written a second book. The Blue Nature, published in 1989, remains available on Amazon, although they have just one copy left of both the hardbound and paperback. Several copies of This Heavy Silence, published in 2005, remain in stock. So it's not too late to get a copy of each. Once they are gone, I'm afraid, they will be gone.

I happened to meet both of those authors, Free before I wrote my review and Mazzarella afterward. Free was the wife of the pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Athens, Ohio, where my in-laws were members. I attended the church when in town and noticed the Rev. John Free's pretty wife sitting primly in the front pew. I believe I shook her hand at least once. I never realized the author and this Athens woman were one and the same until my mother-in-law sent me a clipping from the Athens Messenger, where I had once worked, citing my glowing review of The Blue Nature. Apparently I was the only reviewer who thought so highly of it.

As for Mazzarella, she grew up near Mansfield, Ohio, where I was working at the time I reviewed her book. I got to meet her at the public library when she made a promotional appearance there.

I don't regard my assessment of these two novels as mistakes, but just differences of opinion. More embarrassing, in retrospect, is my enthusiastic praise for This Way Madness Lies by Thomas William Simpson in 1992. I wasn't alone. Fay Weldon, Nelson DeMille and Stephen Birmingham also praised the novel. I didn't like Simpson's next novel, The Gypsy Storyteller, nearly as much, and I thought Full Moon Over America was terrible. He has had several other novels published since, but none has made much of a splash, to my knowledge. In fact, I didn't even know they existed until I did an Amazon search. If I was wrong about that first novel, at least I had some company.

Sometimes in my career I got it exactly right, I am proud to say. My high praise for Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove and Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels, both prize winners, turned out to be shared universally by critics and readers alike. A blurb from my review of Shaara's novel was carried in the paperback for years.