“That Old Cape Magic”
A false note at the beginning was much more costly than one nearer the end because early errors were part of the foundation.
58-year old, Jack Griffin is a grumpy former screenwriter turned college professor who “has been trying for a long time to understand and resolve his almost pathological resentment towards his deceased parents.” The only child of two Ivy-League educated parents who spent their lives teaching at a college in the “mid-fucking-west,” Griffin has spent his entire life trying to get away from his parents to no avail. They occupy his thought process and influence his opinions even though they’ve been reduced to ashes in urns stored in the trunk of his car. Read more 
“We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves”
Once upon a time, there was a happy family – a mother, a father, a son, and two daughters. The older daughter was smart and agile, …..and very beautiful. The younger was ordinary. Still, their parents and their brother loved them both.
Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austin Book Club recently had her sixth novel, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves published – a book so full of surprises that writing a book review is difficult and challenging without giving away details that shouldn’t be told. Suffice to say, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves is a powerful story that will break your heart but also make you smile for the ending is so amazing, so touching, and so perfect that tears will come to your eyes. Read more
Organic Beans by Fig Food Co.
FIg Food Company was started in 2009 by Joel Henry whose company’s mission is to improve the health of people and the planet by promoting the consumption of plant-based food. The company makes, sells, and distributes nine organic and kosher 100% plant-based soups (in microwavable BPA-free pouches) that are low in sodium and offer a healthy alternative to the sodium-laden canned soups on supermarket shelves. But, what most people don’t know is Fig Food Company also sources, sells, and distributes eight types of ready-to-eat organic beans with no added salt, preservatives, or flavorings. Just organic beans and water so the flavor is simply delicious beans. Read more
“Eleanor and Park”
He loved how much they loved each other. It was the thing he thought about when he woke up scared in the middle of the night. Not that they loved him – they were his parents, they had to love him. That they loved each other. They didn’t have to do that.
16-year old Parker “Park” Sheridan lives in a suburb outside Omaha, Nebraska with his parents and younger brother, Josh. Next door are his paternal grandparents (his maternal grandparents live in Korea where his mother is from). A tight-knit family, the Sheridans “were practically the Waltons” although Park feels somewhat disconnected from the love fest his parents share between themselves. Read more
“Tenth of December”
George Saunders is a master short story-teller whose talent is skillfully displayed in The Tenth of December, a collection of ten short stories that was recently published (2013). A writer who seems to be writing about the mundane aspects of life – work, buying a puppy, planning a birthday party, or picking the kids up from school – Saunders is, in fact writing about the big picture: parenting, corporate greed and power, entitlement, human rights, mental illness, and despair. With George Saunders, there is always a message that says something about our culture and what we value and that’s what makes his short stories so thought-provoking, hilarious, and often heart-breaking. Read more
“Pastoralia”
Pastoralia is a collection of six short stories by George Saunders, a professor at Syracuse University who teaches creative writing in the MFA program, and a writer of essays, short stories, novellas (a narrative that is longer than a short story but shorter than a novel) and children’s books. Published in 2000, Pastoralia is Saunders’ second short story collection (the first being CivilWarLand in Bad Decline published in 1996) and my first introduction to his work. After reading Pastoralia, I was blown away and had several thoughts: Read more
“The Whore’s Child”
Readers often ask me who my favorite writers are and although the question is tantamount to asking what my favorite foods are (there are many; where should I start?), I usually answer “Jonathan Franzan, John Irving, and Richard Russo” because the trio represents an elite group of writers whose prose never fails to keep my interest. Each author has his own writing style but they all share the traits of great writers – sentence fluency, character depth, memorable word choice, and an interesting story to tell. Read more
“Into the Wild”
…a challenge in which a successful outcome is assured, isn’t a challenge at all.
In September, 1992 a young man’s decomposing body was found in an abandoned bus in the Alaskan wilderness by a group of hunters. The young man was Christopher “Chris” McCandless (who was also known as Alex Supertramp, a trail name he bestowed upon himself), a 24-year old adventurer who had spent the past four months of his life hunting and foraging in an interior part of Alaska known as the Stampede Trail. When the world learned McCandless was from a well-to-do family in Virginia and an honors graduate of Emory University, people were confounded and perplexed as to what would cause a prosperous, young, well-educated and smart man to lead a nomadic life that would ultimately lead to his untimely death. Read more
Farro: An Ancient Grain in Modern Times
Whole grains seem to be a big topic of discussion these days in the two camps who tend to be the most boisterous in the foodie world. On one side are those who extol the nutritious benefits of eating a diet rich in whole grains and on the other side, a group who insists they don’t know what to do with whole grains and that grains take too much time to cook. All good points but at the end of the day it’s the whole grain proponents who have the winning argument because whole grains really are better for our bodies and the latter arguments can be overcome with education and careful planning. But, the most important reason to eat whole grains is the taste which can be nutty, buttery, slightly sweet, or earthy, depending on the grain. Read more
Five Chimneys
We lived to resist and we resisted to live.
Five Chimneys was written in 1947 by Olga Lengyel, a 38-year old survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau who wrote the book as a memoir; a personal account of the year she spent in a concentration camp. In 1944, Olga was living in a small city in Transylvania (which was part of Hungary at the time) with her husband, Miklos Lengyel, a surgeon, their two sons, Arvad (11) and Thomas (9), and her parents when they were told they were being deported to Germany. Read more
Paddock Post 