November 3, 2023 • 29 mins
A discussion of Ann Patchett's latest novel Tom Lake as well her memoir Truth & Beauty about her deep friendship with writer Lucy Grealy. Elin Hilderbrand's latest novel, The Five-Star Weekend, is also discussed.
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Unknown (00:05):
There is no explaining the simple truth about life, you
will forget much of it, thepainful things you were certain
you'd never be able to let go.
Now you're not entirely surewhen they happened, while the
thrilling parts the heartstopping Joy's splintered and
scattered and became somethingelse. Memories are then replaced
by different choice and largersorrows. And unbelievably, those
(00:26):
things get knocked aside aswell. Until one morning, you're
picking cherries with your threegrown daughters, and your
husband goes by on the gator.
And you're positive that this isall you've ever wanted in the
world. Hello, welcome back tothe Red Fern book review. I am
(00:49):
your host, Amy Mair. And todaywe are going to talk about all
things and patch it. Now if youread it all, or even if you
don't, you've undoubtedly heardabout Ann. She is one of the
most celebrated authors ofcompassionate, temporary
literary literature. And I loveher. And my book club recently
(01:14):
chose her latest book, Tom lake.
So I thought it was a great timeto talk about her talk about
some of her other works. Look atTom lake. And then I picked up
another book by her that Ihadn't read yet, and wanting to
know a bit more about and it'scalled truth and beauty. And it
is a memoir about her deepfriendship with her best friend
(01:36):
Lucy Greeley, who is also wasalso an author, and a huge
influence on Anne and herwriting. And I think it gives a
lot of that story kind of tellsa lot about and and some things
that you might not know, thatwanted to look at. So before we
(01:56):
get into talking about an I wantto talk about, show I'm enjoying
and another book that I'm havingfun with this fall. Okay, so the
first thing I want to talk aboutwas the golden bachelor. I'm
sure a lot of you are tuning in.
(02:17):
And tonight when I'm recordingthis is the second episode and
I'm really excited. So thegolden Bachelor is the bachelor
series spin off featuring awidow or in his mid 70s, who's
looking for love. And his nameis Gary from Indiana, but he's
(02:38):
not from Gary, Indiana. And hehas a beautiful home on a lake.
He is He was married for 43years for the love of his life.
He has two grown daughters andgrandchildren. But he has no one
to share it with. So with thathe slips on his hearing aids in
the very first episode and goesout and meets the women. And the
(02:58):
women are a bit of a surprise. Italked to a few friends about
this and I kind of figured theywere gonna veer quite a bit
younger to get an audience. Butthey didn't the women age and
range from 60 to 75. And theylook great. There's a lot of
cleavage, kind of gossamerscarves, sparkles, and bangs I
(03:23):
think maybe bangs and Botox butsome bangs to kind of softly
frame their faces and yeah, soI'm rooting for him. And it's
kind of fun. So I will be tuninginto that. But okay, so the
first thing I want to talk aboutis Ellen Hildebrand. And she
(03:44):
Ellen, for those of you who knowabout her, she's sort of the
Queen of the beach read. Andwhile we have fall underway, and
this isn't kind of the time ayear you pick her up, I recently
read an article about her. Andit got me curious. So I talked
to my friend Teresa who I knowreads her, and she lends her
(04:06):
latest book to me, and it'scalled the Five Star Weekend. So
I have that book well underway.
And I'm really enjoying it and Ijust wanted to share a bit about
it and a bit about her and hereducational background ties in a
little bit with and so I thoughtthat was kind of interesting. So
what made me curious is that Iread an article that said she
(04:27):
writes the sort of fluffy booksthey're set on Nantucket. So
Nantucket is sort of the Muse,her muse, but they have depth
for the genre. So the charactersare well realized. The plots are
more complex, maybe then a beachread but at the same time, the
(04:49):
heart of the book is a beachread, it's meant to just you're
meant to just sort of curl up ina chair or Go to the beach and
dive in. So this book, I'll giveyou a little background on this
particular book. The Five StarWeekend is about Hollis Shaw,
who is life is seeminglyperfect. And she is in her
(05:15):
midlife. She has a growndaughter who she doesn't always
get along with. And she has apopular food blog called Hungry
with Hollis. And she's marriedto Matthew, who's a dreamy heart
surgeon. But they get into anargument one morning, and you
kind of get the sense that theirlife isn't perfect. And he is
taking off to go on a businesstrip. And he leaves a bit late
(05:41):
because the argument they had,and it's snowing outside, and
he's killed in the car accident.
So the police come to her door.
And she starts on, you know, youknow, journey of grief. And but
one of the things she's doing isshe's trying to reflect on her
(06:01):
life and survive it she readsabout something called a five
star weekend that anotherblogger has done, where she
comes up with this idea. And theidea is to organize a trip with
the best friends from each stageof her life. That's her teenage
years, her 20s or 30s and hermidlife and they all decide or
(06:21):
she decides to convene onNantucket, which is sort of
where she spent every summer ofher life. And actually, she grew
up there, the author spent someof her life there. But Hollis
grew up there and she's movedaway. So she lives in the Boston
area. So that's the setup. Andwhere I am in the book is I've
(06:45):
been introduced to each of thesecharacters that are going to go
on the weekend. And they're allpacking their bags and getting
ready to go. And I'm excited.
And it's you know, there's lotsof fun talk about movie stars
and clothes and food andNantucket, which has its own
(07:10):
mythology, but there is somedepth about loss and love and
longing. So it's kind of thatgreat intersection. So I'm kind
of excited because I was kind oflooking for an escape. So the
other thing that interested meabout Ellen is her background.
And what I find reallyinteresting is she went to Johns
Hopkins for undergrad, but sheends up oh, she first of all,
(07:36):
she lost her dad when she wasyoung. And she had spent every
summer on Nantucket with hersiblings. So really was her
heart and she loves it there.
But she ends up at the Iowawriters workshop, which is sort
of the Harvard of writing. Andthey offer an A very famous MFA
program, which is also where AnnWentz and her best friend Lucy
(08:01):
went. So it's very serious. AndI would say writers go there.
Poets, and she was there, butfrom the get go, she really
liked writing fun summer books,sort of. I don't know that beech
trees were really a thing at thetime. She's 54. Now, so I'm
(08:23):
guessing this is 30 years ago.
But just her books were lighter.
And so then her peers and Idon't know about our process,
but she would get kind ofridiculed for being superficial.
So she's in counseling, kind offeeling down for a variety of
(08:43):
reasons. Maybe she's frustratedwith the program, her personal
life. And her therapist says toher, Well, you must write about
Nantucket, because that's reallyyour heart. And so she starts
doing that. And now she'sconsidered the queen of beach
reads. And she's written about30 books. But a little aside, I
just read I've just discoveredher that her plans are is she's
(09:07):
gonna publish she publishesabout a book a year or sometimes
two. And she's going to publisha book in 2024. And then she's
going to retire and become abook influencer. So that's kind
of interesting. Anyway, ifyou're looking for something
kind of easy, or next time yougo away, pick that up. Okay, so
(09:28):
now over to something a littlemore literary. And let's talk
about an sow and patch it so Ifirst discovered her along with
most of you when she wrote oneof my favorite books of all
time, certainly in my top five,Bel Canto and bel canto is about
(09:55):
it was based on the JapaneseEmbassy hostage crisis also
called Lima crisis of 1996 97 inLima, Peru, and what she wrote
this book around 2001. And itfollows the relationships during
a hostage crisis in an unnamedSouth American country, between
(10:18):
young terrorists and theirhostages, who are mostly high
profile executives. And so whathappens is, there is a meeting,
it's like, there's a bigbusiness executive from Japan,
who's hosting an event at hishome in the South American
country. And there is an operasinger there. And it's this big,
(10:43):
beautiful night, fancy night.
And the hostages are sorry thatthese terrorists in this unnamed
country believe the president oftheir country is going to be
there. So they break in. But thePresident isn't there. But they
still go ahead and take everyonehostage. And they're looking
through, they're looking forransom. They want and they over
(11:03):
hours or days, they let most ofthe hostages go, but they kind
of keep the ones behind thatthey think that they can, that
will benefit them that will givethem something that they're
looking for with whether it'smoney or power or whatever. So
why is this book so great? Well,the writing is great. It's
literally lyrical. But I thinkthe beauty of it is it's super
(11:28):
scary and terrifying. Butthrough all this, there's two
love stories that develop. Oneis between the translator and
one of the hostages. And one isbetween one of the I think the
owner of the house, and theopera singer. And so it's just
kind of, it's beautiful, howthere's this tragic storyline,
(11:52):
and then a bit of StockholmSyndrome going on. And then the
music plays through the wholething. And bel canto literally
means beautiful singing. So thatbook was actually adds fourth
book, and I haven't read herfirst three. But she really she
was a published author, but noreally big deal. And then when
(12:15):
this book came out in paperback,things just kind of started to
open up for her. So there'sthat. The other book I want to
talk about of hers that I love,is state of wonder. And that
came out in 2011. And it is amodern take of on Joseph
Conrad's The Heart of Darkness.
(12:39):
And it's a beautiful book,again, also a little bit scary.
But it what it is, it's about adoctor, Dr. Marina Singh. And
she embarks on a Odyssey intothe Amazon. And she what she's
doing is she's trying to findher former mentor, who
(12:59):
disappeared while working on avaluable new drug. And so the
main protagonist has to confronther own memories of tragedy and
sacrifice, and then going intothe sort of unknown land. And
there's, in this land, she'llfind poisoned arrows and snakes,
there'll be scientific miraclesand spiritual transformations.
(13:22):
So I guess I had never thought Ididn't really think there was
much in common with bel canto atthat state of wonder, but I
think they're kind of is wherethere's a serious store,
storyline and kind of abeautiful storyline kind of
crashed together. But I likedthat too, because I really liked
the Heart of Darkness. And Ithought that was kind of fun
(13:44):
that they are very looselyrelated. I mean, there's like,
it's just the main premise of itis the same. But other than
that, this is a contemporarybook, and I just loved it.
Another book that was it was afinalist, I believe for the
Pulitzer is her more came out in2018 is the Dutch house. Tom
(14:10):
Hanks narrates that book onaudio. And I didn't love that
book. But people do love it. Andit's it takes place inside
house, a beautiful old home andit's these wealthy kids who are
grown and they had grown up inthis kind of eerie house and
(14:34):
think it's their mother hasdied, but they have to come back
to this house and deal with thisestate. And I don't know it just
wasn't it didn't. I didn'tdislike it, but I just didn't
love it like the other two.
Okay, so that brings me to Tomlake. So Tom Lake is this was
really interesting. So I have tofirst talk about my well This
(14:56):
has a lot to do with my bookclub. It was one of the best
discussions we've ever had in mybook club. And I'm still trying
to figure out exactly why. Butthe best discussion I thought we
ever had was we wrote this bookcalled Read this book called
min, the living about a hearttransplant. And it was a novel.
(15:17):
And it was about all it waswritten originally in French,
and it was about young boy, ayoung man who dies in an
accident, and then how his allhis heart and how it he, his
family ends up going through theagonizing decision to have his
(15:37):
heart transplanted in someoneelse. And it's all the steps
that go through for that tohappen and kind of the miracle
of transplantation. And it'sabout, it's kind of a medical
book. And I don't know, everyoneloved that. But this book, what
was interesting is, in myopinion, not much happened in
(16:00):
this book, but for whateverreason, we had a really great
discussion. So okay, let me justgive you a little overview on
what Tom Lake is about. So TomLake is, it's really a peaceful
novel, in many ways. Tom Lakerefers to a lake in northern
Michigan, where there is a kindof theater kind of camp that
(16:25):
takes place where they put onshows like summer stock theater
type place. And there's a womannamed Lera, Nelson. And she was
a rising kind of ingenue andcould have been a movie star was
kind of, in the very early days,like, had been discovered. And,
(16:46):
but it just never did happen forher and wasn't going to happen
to her. And so for a variety ofreasons, she ends up at summer
stock at Tom lake in Michigan,and she's just there for the
summer. And she's there to puton the play our town, which is a
famous play, and maybe you willknow about. But anyway, there
(17:10):
she falls in love with PeterDuke, who's also one of the
stars of the play, and they havethis big romance that you can
tell from page one is going togo nowhere fast and is sort of
about, you know, that big,young, kind of crazy
relationship you have in your20s. And but what happens is the
summer's over, and Lera goes onto live a totally different
(17:36):
life. And Peter Duke goes on tohave become the biggest movie
star of his generation. Sothat's kind of the setup for
that. And now a little than fora little bit more about the
book. It's the pandemic. AndLeora has three adult daughters,
Emily, who will one day takeover the cherry farm, and Maisie
(17:59):
is studying to be of that. Andnow who hopes to be an actor
like her mom once was, andthey've all come home for the
pandemic. So you can picturethat you remember what that was
like. And she's got her husbandwho he loves, she loves very
much Joe, and he's there. Sothey're all together kind of
back in the fold. And she foronce and for all decides to tell
(18:23):
the story of her love with PeterDuke. Now, her kids had known
about this person about thislove because Joe had
accidentally revealed that atsome point during their
childhood, and they used to havehis all his movies around and
would watch them. But she'snever really told the story. And
(18:46):
so now she's going to tell thestory. So that's the setup. But
I so Okay, a little bit more Ilistened to, like, have an
interview on CNN with and shejust said the point of this
movie or book was to talk aboutlove. And it wasn't to talk
(19:06):
about heartbreak because shesaid to get in line. There's so
many books about heartbreak, butthere's not a lot about quiet.
Happy love and how I think thepremise of our book is she wants
to show that her life could havetaken a different direction. And
she could have maybe gone on tobe a movie star. She could have
stayed involved with Peter. Butshe didn't. And perhaps this
(19:30):
life she has picking cherries isthe better life after all,
that's what she's trying toshow. So, okay,
so now over to my book club. I,I read this book, actually I
listened to an audio so MerylStreep does the audio, which was
(19:51):
awesome. So if a few of uslisten to that, and a little bit
about audio, I lose about 20%Since when I listened to audio,
so I don't remember everything.
And that kind of came up when Iwas listening to my book club
talk about the book, I couldn'tremember all the details,
because I just find it reallyeasy to let my mind wander. But
Meryl Streep does a great job.
(20:13):
It's like you're listening to aone woman play. She has three
daughters of her own. I justthought she did such a good job.
But not a lot happens in thisbook. And I remember thinking to
myself, Oh, if this wasn't anaudio, I'm not sure that I would
stick around finish the book.
But in our book club, it waspretty divided. I think everyone
(20:35):
kind of agreed. It wasn't andmost important book, and not a
lot happened. But most of usliked it. Some of us, like me
mildly liked it. But in terms ofour discussion, the first thing
we did was someone institutedthis rule, that for the night,
we all kind of were in a bigcircle. Whoever spoke, someone
(20:57):
had to then follow up and askthat person to questions. And
the negative thing about that isit didn't, the discussion wasn't
free flowing. There wasn't like,kind of that back and forth.
That happens in a natural enemyand discussion. But the
(21:18):
discussion was richer, andpeople that don't speak that
often didn't get talked over.
And everyone that talks a lot,you know, they kind of it just
kind of even things out and madethings a little more
interesting. So I like that. Oh,people found the relationship
(21:39):
that she had. Laura had with herdaughter's a little bit too
much. Some people liked it. Ireally liked it, it reminded me
a little women. And as I wasreading the book, I thought
about that famous photo in anoriginal copy of Little Women,
where Meg, Beth Jo and Amy arecurled around Marmee, as she's
(21:59):
reading to them think she'sreading to them, but they're
kind of circling her skirts, andsome of them are grown and
they've got their head at one, Ithink one of them has her head
in her lap. And that's kind ofwhat I thought it was like it
was sort of that greatrelationship. But I liked it
because I had also had aninteraction with one of my sons
(22:21):
Graham, who had just saidrecently over the summer, you
know, this is the first timeI've ever looked at you as a
person. And I think that'spretty normal. He's 20. And I
think that this is the same inthis book, it was that sort of
realization. These girls reallylooked up to their mom in ways
that Laura had never reallyrecognized before. But they also
(22:43):
were starting to see they wouldsee themselves in extension as
their mother but also seeingtheir mother as an individual
with a another life. So that'skind of an interesting thing.
Oh, people thought there was alot of implore on cherry
picking. So there's, and did alot of research on that. So if
you're interested in cherrypicking at all, you they talk
(23:04):
about the different varietalsand what happens and you know,
the temperature and that kind ofthing. So I thought it was very
authentic. someone readssomething that I thought was
really interesting. They thoughtthe mention of the pandemic,
because it takes place duringthe pandemic was very
triggering. And in thisparticular book, I did not find
(23:27):
that to be true. But in general,if there is a book set around
the pandemic, I kind of give ita second thought before I pick
it up, because I just don't wantto hear about it. And so we had
this big talk about that, like,what do you think readers in the
future will do when they lookback at reading books and the
pandemic? Will they care aboutit? We kept using the word
(23:48):
triggering, which I know is abrutal word, but will they be
triggered by it? And we sort ofthought you know that they may
not that they'll see it asinteresting, and they'll want to
find out more. And it brings tomind that I know one guest on
the show talked about if you ifyou've noticed world war two
(24:08):
novels are huge right now. Andit is partially because I think
they're pandemic adjacent. Theyshow people doing something hard
and harder than the pandemic.
And then it romanticizes a timewhere people are going through
hard times and there's forbiddenromances line spying. Women are
(24:29):
taking jobs that couldn't havenormally taken, but they got
through it. So that's just sortof an aside there, but I think
for those of us that have livedthrough the pandemic, we might
not might not want to revisitit, but I think in the future
people will, but that's justsort of a interesting thing. Um,
oh, and someone else broughttequila because in the end lime
(24:55):
and water because in The playour town, the characters are
supposed to be drinking waterinstead of tequila, which is
written in the script. But infact, they're drinking tequila,
because that was just sort of afun aside. So anyway, hopefully
that gives you enoughinformation to decide whether
(25:15):
you will read it. What I wouldsay is if you love and patch it,
you really need to read it. Ifyou don't love and patch it, I
think decide what you're lookingfor. If you're looking for fast
paced action, ditch it, ifyou're looking for kind of a
happy, calm, nostalgic book,this is for you, to the people
(25:40):
in my book club grew up in smalltowns, and they just loved it
for that reason, because itreminded them of their small
towns. So there's that. Okay, sonow over to talk about truth and
beauty. truth and beauty waswritten, oh, I'm not sure the
Euro was written. I think it waswritten around 2003. I need to
(26:02):
look that up again. But it is amemoir about Anne and her best
friend Lucy Greeley. And it'sabout that toxic, beautiful,
deep, platonic love. That can bethe hallmark of friendships that
we forge early in life or duringvery important parts in our life
(26:24):
where we're broken open, whetherit's just having a baby, or I
don't know, it's just a it'sit's a it's as deep as any
marriage, this friendship. Butit has some good things and some
bad things. So little about LucyGreeley, both these ladies went
(26:45):
to a Sarah Lawrence College inNew York. And Lucy was a star
there she was Irish. And Lucyhad a facial cancer. Growing up
ewig sarcoma, I believe. And shehad surgeries starting at nine
and she'd had many. So by thetime she got to Sarah Lawrence,
(27:08):
she was partially disfigured.
Like, when you saw her, youwould notice that, you know, as
an we'll write her face wassometimes kind of melting. And
so growing up, she was teased,and deeply insecure. But she
(27:28):
goes to Sarah Lawrence andreinvents herself, like many
people do when they go away touniversity. And she was an
amazing writer, and she had anamazing personality. And
everyone loved her on campus.
And according to and she, Ididn't really know and, and but
and knew exactly who she was,and I think and didn't even know
if Lucy really knew her, but,and kind of idolized Lucy. And
(27:50):
so then they both end up at theIowa writers workshop just like
Ellen. And actually, Ellen wouldhave been just behind them
because Alan's kind of mid 50s,and they're now current, or, or
Anna's late 50s. So they end upthere and think and sort of
(28:10):
arranged or one of them got intouch with the other through
mutual friends because theyneeded to find a roommate. So
when they first Lucy first seesand I think adds a little bit
nervous and Lucy just sort ofjumps into her arms like she's
meeting her lover on a bachelorhometown date. And that kind of
starts our friendship and theyjust become deep, deep, deep,
(28:35):
close friends sharingeverything. And Lucy's life is
crazy. She is late to havingboyfriends and having sex and
then she becomes superhypersexual. She parties she's
deeply insecure. She continuesto have surgeries a lot of their
(28:55):
friendship is about and kind ofsupporting Lucy through her
surgeries. But what happens isthey both plod along, go through
the Iowa writers workshop, andthey both get published. But
Lucy from the get go is the starand she writes a book called
(29:16):
Autobiography of a face and itis a memoir about her experience
with her cancers and hersurgery, her perception of
beauty and self, how sheovercame kind of her deep
insecurities but how and howthey still haunt her. There are
a series of interlocking essays.
(29:38):
And at this around this time andis getting published too, but
isn't sort of a big deal. SoLucy kind of becomes a big deal.
And in fact they decide I thinkthey are the same publisher.
They decide to do a book signingtogether and and talks about how
there was a book signing. Andlike 12 people showed up for her
(30:00):
and the room was filled withpeople supporting Lucy. But
around the time as in the end,this isn't really secret. Lucy
is going to end up dying of aheroin overdose, just as Belle
cantos kind of coming intopaperback or around that time.
So as her star isdistinguishing, and stars
(30:26):
rising. And what I thought wasreally beautiful and real about
this book was just how theyreally a deep relationship like
this, you kind of wonder whatAnn would have done or where her
career would have gone withoutLucy, and how influential she
was. But then also kind of theugliness sometimes of a deep
(30:47):
friendship, like it wasn'talways good. Lucy lies it was
demanding, she would getjealous, she would sort of
disappear and come back into herlife. But I really liked it. I
thought it was good. And Ithought it seemed like really,
really honest. But I wanted toread this quote, that I thought
(31:09):
was excellent. And it's sort ofabout their friendship and about
the role that writing took themboth and in Lucy's lives. And,
and writes, with each come torealize that no one was going to
save our lives. And then if wewanted to save them ourselves,
(31:31):
we had only one skill thatafforded us any hope at all.
Writing is a job a talent, butit's also the place to go in
your head is the imaginaryfriend you drink your tea with
in the afternoon. So with that Iwanted to conclude the latest
episode of The Red Fern bookreview and hope I gave you some
(31:55):
things to think about if you'relooking for something lighter.
Pick up an Ellen Hildebrand andalso pick up Tom Lake and I
really recommend the audioversion I thought was really
good for dog walks and longwrites so happy fall and I will
talk to you soon. Okay, thanksfor listening. Bye bye
There is no explaining the simple truth about life, you
will forget much of it, thepainful things you were certain
you'd never be able to let go.
Now you're not entirely surewhen they happened, while the
thrilling parts the heartstopping Joy's splintered and
scattered and became somethingelse. Memories are then replaced
by different choice and largersorrows. And unbelievably, those
(00:26):
things get knocked aside aswell. Until one morning, you're
picking cherries with your threegrown daughters, and your
husband goes by on the gator.
And you're positive that this isall you've ever wanted in the
world. Hello, welcome back tothe Red Fern book review. I am
(00:49):
your host, Amy Mair. And todaywe are going to talk about all
things and patch it. Now if youread it all, or even if you
don't, you've undoubtedly heardabout Ann. She is one of the
most celebrated authors ofcompassionate, temporary
literary literature. And I loveher. And my book club recently
(01:14):
chose her latest book, Tom lake.
So I thought it was a great timeto talk about her talk about
some of her other works. Look atTom lake. And then I picked up
another book by her that Ihadn't read yet, and wanting to
know a bit more about and it'scalled truth and beauty. And it
is a memoir about her deepfriendship with her best friend
(01:36):
Lucy Greeley, who is also wasalso an author, and a huge
influence on Anne and herwriting. And I think it gives a
lot of that story kind of tellsa lot about and and some things
that you might not know, thatwanted to look at. So before we
(01:56):
get into talking about an I wantto talk about, show I'm enjoying
and another book that I'm havingfun with this fall. Okay, so the
first thing I want to talk aboutwas the golden bachelor. I'm
sure a lot of you are tuning in.
(02:17):
And tonight when I'm recordingthis is the second episode and
I'm really excited. So thegolden Bachelor is the bachelor
series spin off featuring awidow or in his mid 70s, who's
looking for love. And his nameis Gary from Indiana, but he's
(02:38):
not from Gary, Indiana. And hehas a beautiful home on a lake.
He is He was married for 43years for the love of his life.
He has two grown daughters andgrandchildren. But he has no one
to share it with. So with thathe slips on his hearing aids in
the very first episode and goesout and meets the women. And the
(02:58):
women are a bit of a surprise. Italked to a few friends about
this and I kind of figured theywere gonna veer quite a bit
younger to get an audience. Butthey didn't the women age and
range from 60 to 75. And theylook great. There's a lot of
cleavage, kind of gossamerscarves, sparkles, and bangs I
(03:23):
think maybe bangs and Botox butsome bangs to kind of softly
frame their faces and yeah, soI'm rooting for him. And it's
kind of fun. So I will be tuninginto that. But okay, so the
first thing I want to talk aboutis Ellen Hildebrand. And she
(03:44):
Ellen, for those of you who knowabout her, she's sort of the
Queen of the beach read. Andwhile we have fall underway, and
this isn't kind of the time ayear you pick her up, I recently
read an article about her. Andit got me curious. So I talked
to my friend Teresa who I knowreads her, and she lends her
(04:06):
latest book to me, and it'scalled the Five Star Weekend. So
I have that book well underway.
And I'm really enjoying it and Ijust wanted to share a bit about
it and a bit about her and hereducational background ties in a
little bit with and so I thoughtthat was kind of interesting. So
what made me curious is that Iread an article that said she
(04:27):
writes the sort of fluffy booksthey're set on Nantucket. So
Nantucket is sort of the Muse,her muse, but they have depth
for the genre. So the charactersare well realized. The plots are
more complex, maybe then a beachread but at the same time, the
(04:49):
heart of the book is a beachread, it's meant to just you're
meant to just sort of curl up ina chair or Go to the beach and
dive in. So this book, I'll giveyou a little background on this
particular book. The Five StarWeekend is about Hollis Shaw,
who is life is seeminglyperfect. And she is in her
(05:15):
midlife. She has a growndaughter who she doesn't always
get along with. And she has apopular food blog called Hungry
with Hollis. And she's marriedto Matthew, who's a dreamy heart
surgeon. But they get into anargument one morning, and you
kind of get the sense that theirlife isn't perfect. And he is
taking off to go on a businesstrip. And he leaves a bit late
(05:41):
because the argument they had,and it's snowing outside, and
he's killed in the car accident.
So the police come to her door.
And she starts on, you know, youknow, journey of grief. And but
one of the things she's doing isshe's trying to reflect on her
(06:01):
life and survive it she readsabout something called a five
star weekend that anotherblogger has done, where she
comes up with this idea. And theidea is to organize a trip with
the best friends from each stageof her life. That's her teenage
years, her 20s or 30s and hermidlife and they all decide or
(06:21):
she decides to convene onNantucket, which is sort of
where she spent every summer ofher life. And actually, she grew
up there, the author spent someof her life there. But Hollis
grew up there and she's movedaway. So she lives in the Boston
area. So that's the setup. Andwhere I am in the book is I've
(06:45):
been introduced to each of thesecharacters that are going to go
on the weekend. And they're allpacking their bags and getting
ready to go. And I'm excited.
And it's you know, there's lotsof fun talk about movie stars
and clothes and food andNantucket, which has its own
(07:10):
mythology, but there is somedepth about loss and love and
longing. So it's kind of thatgreat intersection. So I'm kind
of excited because I was kind oflooking for an escape. So the
other thing that interested meabout Ellen is her background.
And what I find reallyinteresting is she went to Johns
Hopkins for undergrad, but sheends up oh, she first of all,
(07:36):
she lost her dad when she wasyoung. And she had spent every
summer on Nantucket with hersiblings. So really was her
heart and she loves it there.
But she ends up at the Iowawriters workshop, which is sort
of the Harvard of writing. Andthey offer an A very famous MFA
program, which is also where AnnWentz and her best friend Lucy
(08:01):
went. So it's very serious. AndI would say writers go there.
Poets, and she was there, butfrom the get go, she really
liked writing fun summer books,sort of. I don't know that beech
trees were really a thing at thetime. She's 54. Now, so I'm
(08:23):
guessing this is 30 years ago.
But just her books were lighter.
And so then her peers and Idon't know about our process,
but she would get kind ofridiculed for being superficial.
So she's in counseling, kind offeeling down for a variety of
(08:43):
reasons. Maybe she's frustratedwith the program, her personal
life. And her therapist says toher, Well, you must write about
Nantucket, because that's reallyyour heart. And so she starts
doing that. And now she'sconsidered the queen of beach
reads. And she's written about30 books. But a little aside, I
just read I've just discoveredher that her plans are is she's
(09:07):
gonna publish she publishesabout a book a year or sometimes
two. And she's going to publisha book in 2024. And then she's
going to retire and become abook influencer. So that's kind
of interesting. Anyway, ifyou're looking for something
kind of easy, or next time yougo away, pick that up. Okay, so
(09:28):
now over to something a littlemore literary. And let's talk
about an sow and patch it so Ifirst discovered her along with
most of you when she wrote oneof my favorite books of all
time, certainly in my top five,Bel Canto and bel canto is about
(09:55):
it was based on the JapaneseEmbassy hostage crisis also
called Lima crisis of 1996 97 inLima, Peru, and what she wrote
this book around 2001. And itfollows the relationships during
a hostage crisis in an unnamedSouth American country, between
(10:18):
young terrorists and theirhostages, who are mostly high
profile executives. And so whathappens is, there is a meeting,
it's like, there's a bigbusiness executive from Japan,
who's hosting an event at hishome in the South American
country. And there is an operasinger there. And it's this big,
(10:43):
beautiful night, fancy night.
And the hostages are sorry thatthese terrorists in this unnamed
country believe the president oftheir country is going to be
there. So they break in. But thePresident isn't there. But they
still go ahead and take everyonehostage. And they're looking
through, they're looking forransom. They want and they over
(11:03):
hours or days, they let most ofthe hostages go, but they kind
of keep the ones behind thatthey think that they can, that
will benefit them that will givethem something that they're
looking for with whether it'smoney or power or whatever. So
why is this book so great? Well,the writing is great. It's
literally lyrical. But I thinkthe beauty of it is it's super
(11:28):
scary and terrifying. Butthrough all this, there's two
love stories that develop. Oneis between the translator and
one of the hostages. And one isbetween one of the I think the
owner of the house, and theopera singer. And so it's just
kind of, it's beautiful, howthere's this tragic storyline,
(11:52):
and then a bit of StockholmSyndrome going on. And then the
music plays through the wholething. And bel canto literally
means beautiful singing. So thatbook was actually adds fourth
book, and I haven't read herfirst three. But she really she
was a published author, but noreally big deal. And then when
(12:15):
this book came out in paperback,things just kind of started to
open up for her. So there'sthat. The other book I want to
talk about of hers that I love,is state of wonder. And that
came out in 2011. And it is amodern take of on Joseph
Conrad's The Heart of Darkness.
(12:39):
And it's a beautiful book,again, also a little bit scary.
But it what it is, it's about adoctor, Dr. Marina Singh. And
she embarks on a Odyssey intothe Amazon. And she what she's
doing is she's trying to findher former mentor, who
(12:59):
disappeared while working on avaluable new drug. And so the
main protagonist has to confronther own memories of tragedy and
sacrifice, and then going intothe sort of unknown land. And
there's, in this land, she'llfind poisoned arrows and snakes,
there'll be scientific miraclesand spiritual transformations.
(13:22):
So I guess I had never thought Ididn't really think there was
much in common with bel canto atthat state of wonder, but I
think they're kind of is wherethere's a serious store,
storyline and kind of abeautiful storyline kind of
crashed together. But I likedthat too, because I really liked
the Heart of Darkness. And Ithought that was kind of fun
(13:44):
that they are very looselyrelated. I mean, there's like,
it's just the main premise of itis the same. But other than
that, this is a contemporarybook, and I just loved it.
Another book that was it was afinalist, I believe for the
Pulitzer is her more came out in2018 is the Dutch house. Tom
(14:10):
Hanks narrates that book onaudio. And I didn't love that
book. But people do love it. Andit's it takes place inside
house, a beautiful old home andit's these wealthy kids who are
grown and they had grown up inthis kind of eerie house and
(14:34):
think it's their mother hasdied, but they have to come back
to this house and deal with thisestate. And I don't know it just
wasn't it didn't. I didn'tdislike it, but I just didn't
love it like the other two.
Okay, so that brings me to Tomlake. So Tom Lake is this was
really interesting. So I have tofirst talk about my well This
(14:56):
has a lot to do with my bookclub. It was one of the best
discussions we've ever had in mybook club. And I'm still trying
to figure out exactly why. Butthe best discussion I thought we
ever had was we wrote this bookcalled Read this book called
min, the living about a hearttransplant. And it was a novel.
(15:17):
And it was about all it waswritten originally in French,
and it was about young boy, ayoung man who dies in an
accident, and then how his allhis heart and how it he, his
family ends up going through theagonizing decision to have his
(15:37):
heart transplanted in someoneelse. And it's all the steps
that go through for that tohappen and kind of the miracle
of transplantation. And it'sabout, it's kind of a medical
book. And I don't know, everyoneloved that. But this book, what
was interesting is, in myopinion, not much happened in
(16:00):
this book, but for whateverreason, we had a really great
discussion. So okay, let me justgive you a little overview on
what Tom Lake is about. So TomLake is, it's really a peaceful
novel, in many ways. Tom Lakerefers to a lake in northern
Michigan, where there is a kindof theater kind of camp that
(16:25):
takes place where they put onshows like summer stock theater
type place. And there's a womannamed Lera, Nelson. And she was
a rising kind of ingenue andcould have been a movie star was
kind of, in the very early days,like, had been discovered. And,
(16:46):
but it just never did happen forher and wasn't going to happen
to her. And so for a variety ofreasons, she ends up at summer
stock at Tom lake in Michigan,and she's just there for the
summer. And she's there to puton the play our town, which is a
famous play, and maybe you willknow about. But anyway, there
(17:10):
she falls in love with PeterDuke, who's also one of the
stars of the play, and they havethis big romance that you can
tell from page one is going togo nowhere fast and is sort of
about, you know, that big,young, kind of crazy
relationship you have in your20s. And but what happens is the
summer's over, and Lera goes onto live a totally different
(17:36):
life. And Peter Duke goes on tohave become the biggest movie
star of his generation. Sothat's kind of the setup for
that. And now a little than fora little bit more about the
book. It's the pandemic. AndLeora has three adult daughters,
Emily, who will one day takeover the cherry farm, and Maisie
(17:59):
is studying to be of that. Andnow who hopes to be an actor
like her mom once was, andthey've all come home for the
pandemic. So you can picturethat you remember what that was
like. And she's got her husbandwho he loves, she loves very
much Joe, and he's there. Sothey're all together kind of
back in the fold. And she foronce and for all decides to tell
(18:23):
the story of her love with PeterDuke. Now, her kids had known
about this person about thislove because Joe had
accidentally revealed that atsome point during their
childhood, and they used to havehis all his movies around and
would watch them. But she'snever really told the story. And
(18:46):
so now she's going to tell thestory. So that's the setup. But
I so Okay, a little bit more Ilistened to, like, have an
interview on CNN with and shejust said the point of this
movie or book was to talk aboutlove. And it wasn't to talk
(19:06):
about heartbreak because shesaid to get in line. There's so
many books about heartbreak, butthere's not a lot about quiet.
Happy love and how I think thepremise of our book is she wants
to show that her life could havetaken a different direction. And
she could have maybe gone on tobe a movie star. She could have
stayed involved with Peter. Butshe didn't. And perhaps this
(19:30):
life she has picking cherries isthe better life after all,
that's what she's trying toshow. So, okay,
so now over to my book club. I,I read this book, actually I
listened to an audio so MerylStreep does the audio, which was
(19:51):
awesome. So if a few of uslisten to that, and a little bit
about audio, I lose about 20%Since when I listened to audio,
so I don't remember everything.
And that kind of came up when Iwas listening to my book club
talk about the book, I couldn'tremember all the details,
because I just find it reallyeasy to let my mind wander. But
Meryl Streep does a great job.
(20:13):
It's like you're listening to aone woman play. She has three
daughters of her own. I justthought she did such a good job.
But not a lot happens in thisbook. And I remember thinking to
myself, Oh, if this wasn't anaudio, I'm not sure that I would
stick around finish the book.
But in our book club, it waspretty divided. I think everyone
(20:35):
kind of agreed. It wasn't andmost important book, and not a
lot happened. But most of usliked it. Some of us, like me
mildly liked it. But in terms ofour discussion, the first thing
we did was someone institutedthis rule, that for the night,
we all kind of were in a bigcircle. Whoever spoke, someone
(20:57):
had to then follow up and askthat person to questions. And
the negative thing about that isit didn't, the discussion wasn't
free flowing. There wasn't like,kind of that back and forth.
That happens in a natural enemyand discussion. But the
(21:18):
discussion was richer, andpeople that don't speak that
often didn't get talked over.
And everyone that talks a lot,you know, they kind of it just
kind of even things out and madethings a little more
interesting. So I like that. Oh,people found the relationship
(21:39):
that she had. Laura had with herdaughter's a little bit too
much. Some people liked it. Ireally liked it, it reminded me
a little women. And as I wasreading the book, I thought
about that famous photo in anoriginal copy of Little Women,
where Meg, Beth Jo and Amy arecurled around Marmee, as she's
(21:59):
reading to them think she'sreading to them, but they're
kind of circling her skirts, andsome of them are grown and
they've got their head at one, Ithink one of them has her head
in her lap. And that's kind ofwhat I thought it was like it
was sort of that greatrelationship. But I liked it
because I had also had aninteraction with one of my sons
(22:21):
Graham, who had just saidrecently over the summer, you
know, this is the first timeI've ever looked at you as a
person. And I think that'spretty normal. He's 20. And I
think that this is the same inthis book, it was that sort of
realization. These girls reallylooked up to their mom in ways
that Laura had never reallyrecognized before. But they also
(22:43):
were starting to see they wouldsee themselves in extension as
their mother but also seeingtheir mother as an individual
with a another life. So that'skind of an interesting thing.
Oh, people thought there was alot of implore on cherry
picking. So there's, and did alot of research on that. So if
you're interested in cherrypicking at all, you they talk
(23:04):
about the different varietalsand what happens and you know,
the temperature and that kind ofthing. So I thought it was very
authentic. someone readssomething that I thought was
really interesting. They thoughtthe mention of the pandemic,
because it takes place duringthe pandemic was very
triggering. And in thisparticular book, I did not find
(23:27):
that to be true. But in general,if there is a book set around
the pandemic, I kind of give ita second thought before I pick
it up, because I just don't wantto hear about it. And so we had
this big talk about that, like,what do you think readers in the
future will do when they lookback at reading books and the
pandemic? Will they care aboutit? We kept using the word
(23:48):
triggering, which I know is abrutal word, but will they be
triggered by it? And we sort ofthought you know that they may
not that they'll see it asinteresting, and they'll want to
find out more. And it brings tomind that I know one guest on
the show talked about if you ifyou've noticed world war two
(24:08):
novels are huge right now. Andit is partially because I think
they're pandemic adjacent. Theyshow people doing something hard
and harder than the pandemic.
And then it romanticizes a timewhere people are going through
hard times and there's forbiddenromances line spying. Women are
(24:29):
taking jobs that couldn't havenormally taken, but they got
through it. So that's just sortof an aside there, but I think
for those of us that have livedthrough the pandemic, we might
not might not want to revisitit, but I think in the future
people will, but that's justsort of a interesting thing. Um,
oh, and someone else broughttequila because in the end lime
(24:55):
and water because in The playour town, the characters are
supposed to be drinking waterinstead of tequila, which is
written in the script. But infact, they're drinking tequila,
because that was just sort of afun aside. So anyway, hopefully
that gives you enoughinformation to decide whether
(25:15):
you will read it. What I wouldsay is if you love and patch it,
you really need to read it. Ifyou don't love and patch it, I
think decide what you're lookingfor. If you're looking for fast
paced action, ditch it, ifyou're looking for kind of a
happy, calm, nostalgic book,this is for you, to the people
(25:40):
in my book club grew up in smalltowns, and they just loved it
for that reason, because itreminded them of their small
towns. So there's that. Okay, sonow over to talk about truth and
beauty. truth and beauty waswritten, oh, I'm not sure the
Euro was written. I think it waswritten around 2003. I need to
(26:02):
look that up again. But it is amemoir about Anne and her best
friend Lucy Greeley. And it'sabout that toxic, beautiful,
deep, platonic love. That can bethe hallmark of friendships that
we forge early in life or duringvery important parts in our life
(26:24):
where we're broken open, whetherit's just having a baby, or I
don't know, it's just a it'sit's a it's as deep as any
marriage, this friendship. Butit has some good things and some
bad things. So little about LucyGreeley, both these ladies went
(26:45):
to a Sarah Lawrence College inNew York. And Lucy was a star
there she was Irish. And Lucyhad a facial cancer. Growing up
ewig sarcoma, I believe. And shehad surgeries starting at nine
and she'd had many. So by thetime she got to Sarah Lawrence,
(27:08):
she was partially disfigured.
Like, when you saw her, youwould notice that, you know, as
an we'll write her face wassometimes kind of melting. And
so growing up, she was teased,and deeply insecure. But she
(27:28):
goes to Sarah Lawrence andreinvents herself, like many
people do when they go away touniversity. And she was an
amazing writer, and she had anamazing personality. And
everyone loved her on campus.
And according to and she, Ididn't really know and, and but
and knew exactly who she was,and I think and didn't even know
if Lucy really knew her, but,and kind of idolized Lucy. And
(27:50):
so then they both end up at theIowa writers workshop just like
Ellen. And actually, Ellen wouldhave been just behind them
because Alan's kind of mid 50s,and they're now current, or, or
Anna's late 50s. So they end upthere and think and sort of
(28:10):
arranged or one of them got intouch with the other through
mutual friends because theyneeded to find a roommate. So
when they first Lucy first seesand I think adds a little bit
nervous and Lucy just sort ofjumps into her arms like she's
meeting her lover on a bachelorhometown date. And that kind of
starts our friendship and theyjust become deep, deep, deep,
(28:35):
close friends sharingeverything. And Lucy's life is
crazy. She is late to havingboyfriends and having sex and
then she becomes superhypersexual. She parties she's
deeply insecure. She continuesto have surgeries a lot of their
(28:55):
friendship is about and kind ofsupporting Lucy through her
surgeries. But what happens isthey both plod along, go through
the Iowa writers workshop, andthey both get published. But
Lucy from the get go is the starand she writes a book called
(29:16):
Autobiography of a face and itis a memoir about her experience
with her cancers and hersurgery, her perception of
beauty and self, how sheovercame kind of her deep
insecurities but how and howthey still haunt her. There are
a series of interlocking essays.
(29:38):
And at this around this time andis getting published too, but
isn't sort of a big deal. SoLucy kind of becomes a big deal.
And in fact they decide I thinkthey are the same publisher.
They decide to do a book signingtogether and and talks about how
there was a book signing. Andlike 12 people showed up for her
(30:00):
and the room was filled withpeople supporting Lucy. But
around the time as in the end,this isn't really secret. Lucy
is going to end up dying of aheroin overdose, just as Belle
cantos kind of coming intopaperback or around that time.
So as her star isdistinguishing, and stars
(30:26):
rising. And what I thought wasreally beautiful and real about
this book was just how theyreally a deep relationship like
this, you kind of wonder whatAnn would have done or where her
career would have gone withoutLucy, and how influential she
was. But then also kind of theugliness sometimes of a deep
(30:47):
friendship, like it wasn'talways good. Lucy lies it was
demanding, she would getjealous, she would sort of
disappear and come back into herlife. But I really liked it. I
thought it was good. And Ithought it seemed like really,
really honest. But I wanted toread this quote, that I thought
(31:09):
was excellent. And it's sort ofabout their friendship and about
the role that writing took themboth and in Lucy's lives. And,
and writes, with each come torealize that no one was going to
save our lives. And then if wewanted to save them ourselves,
(31:31):
we had only one skill thatafforded us any hope at all.
Writing is a job a talent, butit's also the place to go in
your head is the imaginaryfriend you drink your tea with
in the afternoon. So with that Iwanted to conclude the latest
episode of The Red Fern bookreview and hope I gave you some
(31:55):
things to think about if you'relooking for something lighter.
Pick up an Ellen Hildebrand andalso pick up Tom Lake and I
really recommend the audioversion I thought was really
good for dog walks and longwrites so happy fall and I will
talk to you soon. Okay, thanksfor listening. Bye bye
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