Archive for Readings

A Recent Tree, and a passage from SMALL RAIN by Garth Greenwell

April 30, 2025 / / 2 comments

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For almost no reason, a recent tree in my daily wanderings with Echo:

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And here’s a lovely passage from a book I was listening to this morning as I walked in a wooded spot. The book is Small Rain by Garth Greenwell, and it is extraordinary by every possible measure. It is, essentially, about a man who enters a hospital with a serious illness. I’m 80% through it and he is still there, still stuck with needles and tubes and connected to machines, all the indignities and anxieties, the strangeness and the mathematical inevitability of that world. But here he is remembering something, a beloved oak that fell on his property, onto his house, and the crew that came to take it away. 

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These brilliant creatures, I thought as the workers clambered around the trees; these brilliant creatures, they stand up for so long and then they lie down. The oak that fell was dying already, it turned out, it was rotten inside, straight through the trunk. The woman had apologized to me for not flagging it in her inspection; sometimes it takes a long time before they show signs, she said, a tree can be dying for years, decades, and you’d never know. It was beautiful how they died, in the wild, in forests; as they rotted and the wood softened more animals took shelter in them, more insects feasted on them, even after they fell they served a purpose, enriching the soil, they had long lives and long deaths. And there was so much we didn’t understand, the way they communicated through intertwined roots and fungal networks, their huge lungs moving oceans. It wasn’t hard for me to imagine them sentient, ensouled, the only religion that has ever really made sense to me is the worship of trees.

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JFK Quote: “If a Free Society Cannot Help the Many . . .”

February 25, 2025 / / One comment

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I came across this quote in Greil Marcus’s book: Folk Music: A Bob Dylan Biography in Seven Songs. 

I’m posting it here so I don’t lose it. 

Seems timely, don’t you think?

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“If a free society

cannot help

the many who are poor,

it cannot save the few

who are rich.”

— John F. Kennedy.

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Upon Wanting “The Third Thing”

February 13, 2025 / / No comments

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If I’m honest, I think I’ve always wanted the third thing.

And now here in the gloaming of my career, I’ve come to understand that that wanting, that longing, has been at the core of my discomfort as a writer.

Foolish or not, I wanted more from the world.

Of course, it applies to every aspect of life. 

I first heard it explained in this way via a brief video, which I believe featured Ryan Holiday, the philosopher and writer. Some months later, I tracked down his book, The Daily Stoic, co-authored by Stephen Hanselman.

A week ago I Googled “the third thing” and found this entry from a 2020 Daily Stoic email:

You want it, don’t you?

That “I told you so.” That “Thank You.” That recognition for being first, or being better, or being different. You want credit. You want gratitude. You want the acknowledgement for the good you’ve done, for the weight that you carry.

What you want is what Marcus Aurelius has called “the third thing,” because you’re not content enough with the doing. “When you’ve done well and another has benefited by it,” he writes, “why like a fool do you look for a third thing on top—credit for the good deed or a favor in return?”

Now, “fool” is a strong word, but the point stands. Why can’t the deed be enough? Was a pat on the back really the reason you decided to value the truth? Is that why you helped someone? Did you leave a big tip to that waitress or driver who was clearly struggling so they’d run out and thank you—or did you do it because you knew that it was right? Do you take your lonely stand because it will look cool, or because it was unconscionable to you to throw in with the mob?

You don’t need a favor back. You don’t need to be repaid. You don’t need to be acknowledged. You don’t need the third thing. That’s not why you do what you do. You’re good because it’s good to be good, and that’s all you need.

 

Aurelius and Holiday are focused here on daily life. Holding a door open for someone. Shoveling a neighbor’s driveway. Pausing to let a car enter into a busy traffic lane. The little things one does or does not do in the course of a day. 

Why do we do it? For the accolades?

And aren’t the accolades, when we stop to think about it, irrelevant?

But professionally, I confess that deep down I’ve always hungered after it. The acclaim, the attention, the invitations & engagements. We all want to be seen, I think. And for a writer, that means to be read. Plus, of course, to be praised & loved by those same readers.

While I’ve had a long career, in which I’ve enjoyed many rewarding experiences — fan mail, school visits, awards — I’ve never achieved that highest level of success. By and large, the third thing has been elusive.

Maybe the lesson here is that there is always a third thing, no matter what you achieve? So many artists experience that nagging dissatisfaction. That great Peggy Lee song, “Is That All There Is?” I could listen to it and nod all day long.

I realize that I have nothing to complain about — there are so very many aspiring writers who would love to enjoy my success — but I’m trying to share a little nugget of wisdom I’ve learned along the way, or at least something I am trying to learn. 

I’ve always wrestled with it. Ego is the enemy. The wanting is the thing to distrust. Despite being an actively published author for 39 years, I don’t feel like a success. However, I tell myself, that can’t be the measure of my happiness, or my worth. Wishing for the dubious third thing.

That’s the outside stuff. The part that I have no control over. The awards and accolades and articles and interviews that don’t come. All the stuff that isn’t me, isn’t in my domain: that’s not why I do what I do. 

I am trying to let go of that third thing.

Trying to get my mind & heart right.

Trying to do the work in front of me. Be my best. Write as well as I can. Control what I can control. Feel peace and contentment and gratitude.

And let go.

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To sign up for the Daily Stoic email, click here. 

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ON WRITING: A Closer Look at the Dialogue in TOM LAKE by Ann Patchett — But Absent the Spoken Words

November 10, 2024 / / No comments

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The other night, in a Level 1 writing class for adults that I guide for Gotham Writers, we were talking about dialogue. I asked the students to try an exercise where they wrote only the spoken words, nothing else. No attribution, no exterior description, no stage directions, no interior thoughts.

Focus entirely on what’s said out loud.

Later I asked them to go back and include those missing features, a strategy that builds awareness of the available tools, turning that spoken conversation into a fully rendered scene that readers can picture in their imaginations. And also, hopefully, help my students notice the power of all the unspoken messages that are delivered outside of, and beyond, what’s (merely) said out loud. 

Coincidentally, after that class I came across a sweet little stage direction while reading Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake. I underlined it, as is my habit. I put a star in the margin. It’s the bit about Emily and the fork (below), which struck me as brilliant. And I thought: that’s it, that’s some of what I was trying to convey. 

What follows represents one way of looking at a scene from Chapter 10, omitting all the spoken words.

I want your focus to be on all the small ways that Patchett brings this conversation to life. The attribution, of course. The way the narrator offers a deft but significant touch on the entire scene: she is clearly telling us this story, coloring it in for us. There’s the stage directions: Maisie’s arms tightening across her chest, Benny’s hands on Emily’s shoulders, Joe holding up his hand, etc.  Additionally, there’s that one key passage where our narrator, Lara, muses on the dresses and quilts (interior), and the closing paragraph (exterior) that’s pretty much straight description. 

You can also locate a conversation on a miniature golf course — or move it to a coffee shop — or shift that same conversation to a walk along the shore. One thing is clear: we don’t want to have an entire book of two people talking at the kitchen table.  A different setting can make all the difference.

NOTE: This particular conversation is set in Joe and Lara’s farmhouse kitchen, involving their three adult daughters, Nell, Maisie, and Emily, along with Benny, a neighbor who is Emily’s fiance. Hazel is the dog. 

The three dots represent any spoken passage, of any length, contained within quotation marks. 

 

TOM LAKE, pages 142-144: Dialogue without Words

“* * *,” Emily says.

“* * *,” Joe asks, teasing her. “* * *.”

Everyone is waiting now. Hazel is waiting. Emily opens her mouth but nothing comes out.

“* * *,” Benny says

Joe shakes his head. “* * *.”

“* * *,” Emily says.

We should have one night that is not about the future or the past, one night to celebrate these two people and nothing else but we’ve blown it. “* * *,” I ask her.

Emily tips back her wineglass. She drains it. “* * *.”

I am making our three daughters quilts from my grandmother’s dresses, from their grandmother’s dresses and my dresses and the dresses they wore when they were children. I started collecting the fabric when I was a child because even then I knew I would have daughters one day and I would make them quilts. My daughters will give these quilts to their daughters and those daughters will sleep beneath them. One day they will wrap their own children in these quilts, and all of this will happen on the farm.

“* * *,” Emily says. “* * *.”

“* * *,” I say, but that’s a lie. These children we’ve never spoken of? We want them very much. We long for them.

“* * *,” Benny says, his voice quiet because all of us are silent. “* * *.”

Joe holds up his hand. “* * *.”

But Benny doesn’t stop. His voice comes without drama or demand and still, he keeps talking. “* * *.”

“* * *,” Joe says.

“* * *,” Maisie says.

“* * *.”

“* * *,” Joe says. “* * *.”

“* * *,” Nell says. “* * *.”

“* * *,” Joe asks. “* * *.”

“* * *,” Nell says. “* * **.”

Maisie tightens her arms across her chest. “* * *.”

Emily sits down on a kitchen chair and Benny stands behind her, his hands on her shoulders. We are all so tired.

Emily picks up a fork and balances it on one finger. She looks at nothing but the fork. “* * *.”

Nell reaches across the table and takes her sister’s hand, and Joe, Joe who never walks away from us, goes out the kitchen door. He is standing at the edge of the garden, his back is to the house. He is looking at the trees.

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ADDENDUM: Readers can click here to see the full dialogue that’s missing in this post, plus a few more observations from me, as I struggle to understand how this writing-thing works.

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Huckleberry Finn — Archetypical Boys — and a Scene from My Upcoming Novel, SHAKEN (ages 9-13)

August 1, 2024 / / No comments

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I’ve been on a good reading streak lately. You know the feeling. These times when you keep picking up good books and your mind feels engaged, buzzing with ideas and perceptions. I read Percival Everett’s new novel, James, which is Everett’s version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, told from Jim’s point of view. A brilliant book. It led me to reread Huckleberry — it had been decades — which was also profoundly interesting, a book  wholly deserving of its place in the canon of American Literature. Not perfect, nope, but foundational in so many ways. 

Jim and Huck on a raft on the river.

It’s all right there.

Sidenote: 2007 saw the publication of Jon Clinch’s debut novel, Finn, which focuses on Huckleberry’s father. I remember loving this dark, gritty tale when it first came out — we meet Huck in this one, too — and now I feel that I need to revisit it again.

Anyway, that’s three supremely talented writers, like gold diggers seeking riches, working the same deep vein: that great fictional character, Huckleberry Finn. The distilled spirit of the American boy. Or, at least, one version of that boy.

In a similar way, I think of Ramona Quimby as a classic type of American girl. A powerful archetype, for Ramona is the most imitated character in all of children’s literature.

 

 

 

 

Inspired thus, and perusing the internet, as one does, I came across this illustration of Tom Sawyer by Norman Rockwell:

 

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The image jarred something loose in me, because I have a similar scene in my middle-grade novel, Shaken (Macmillan, September 2024). There’s a boy sneaking out of a bedroom window late at night. Sure, I could look no farther than my own childhood to come up with that idea. But there was something else at play. Something deeper and more resonant. 

I should note here that the neighborhood boy in Shaken was inspired, directly, by my childhood friend, Jimmy Kuhlman, AKA, Jimbo Ku. But I now realize that the “Jimbo” in my story was also inspired by Twain’s depiction of Tom and Huck. All those characters (living and fictional)  flicker around the essence of the archetypical American boy, the mischievous & resourceful rapscallion. In my book, I wanted that character to represent a sense of freedom, which was something missing from Kristy’s mindset: a wildness, an openness . . . a touch of Huckleberryness.

Looking back, I understand that I treasured those qualities in my old (and still current) friend. He had an undeniable energy and rebellious intelligence. A rule-breaker. I wanted this character to enter Kristy’s world and leave her enriched and transformed. He’s just that kid in everybody’s neighborhood who is a little bit different. More alive, more free, more daring.

I sensed that those qualities were absent from Kristy’s highly-scheduled, goal-oriented routine. Today I look around and suspect that those qualities are missing from the life of so many young people. There’s just not enough time to muck around. Which is too bad, because so many good and valuable lessons are learned from just mucking about.

Here’s an excerpt from the moment when Kristy first notices — really notices — her next door neighbor. It is late at night and she is sitting on her front porch while the world sleeps. Or so she thinks:

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This was where Kristy sat huddled under a fleece blanket late one evening long after her parents had gone to bed. Sleeping was still a problem—it never got back on schedule—especially since she no longer exerted herself physically with sports. Kristy used to fall into bed dead-tired; now she had become nocturnal, like a bat or a bandicoot. On this night, Kristy wasn’t doing anything in particular. Just being. Enjoying the silence, the body’s quiet, late autumn’s brisk, crisp, sharp aroma of decay.

This was something new, the post-concussed version of herself, Kristy 2.0. Up all hours of the night, not busy, not active, not even restless really. The fall fragrances soothed and comforted her in a way they never had before—the smell of rotted plants and leaves and acorns: dark, rich, woody. Kristy sat content as an owl perched on a limb: watchful, alert, still.

A soft noise came from the neighbors’ house to her immediate right. The Sullivans. A second-story window shivered up almost soundlessly, but not quite. Dark curtains billowed. And a black-booted foot stepped out onto the front roof. A bent figure hunched through the opening and, once outside, carefully lowered the window shut. It was the skinny boy next door, the youngest of them all, sneaking out of his house. Interesting. Kristy felt like a spy, as if she were witnessing a minor felony, something that she wasn’t meant to see. The night whispering a secret into her ear, the moon lending its stolen light.

What was he up to?

His name, she knew, was Jimmy. They had never talked, not much anyway, though his family had moved in nearly two years ago. Though roughly the same age, their paths rarely crossed. He wore a private school uniform and rode the bus to get there. There were four or five Sullivan children—it was hard to get an accurate census—one of those sprawling families with an ever-changing assortment of cars cluttering the driveway. Teenagers coming and going. Young adults. Sometimes they even parked on the front lawn. The family had moved up from the city, Kristy believed. Two and a half hours on the train and a galaxy away.

The boy moved to the edge of the roof, rubbed his hands against his jeans. Then he leaned dangerously out over the black nothingness and, with one hand, grabbed hold of a drooping tree limb. He swung so freely, so effortlessly—like a gibbon brachiating through the forest. Kristy took a sudden intake of air when he dipped to a lower branch, wrapped his legs around the trunk for momentary purchase, then dropped to the earth as if he’d done it a hundred times before.

A lone car traveled down the empty road, casting long shadows with its headlights. The boy stepped close to the house into the shadows. The beams swept across the grounds like searchlights in a prison movie. The danger passed.

Even if the boy glanced in the direction of Kristy’s porch, he almost certainly would not have seen her, wrapped in the deep-blue fleece blanket pulled up to her neck. He furtively moved to the sidewalk and into the street, long strides and calm confidence. He carried something in his right hand. What was it? In answer to her question, the boy lowered a skateboard to the street and stepped onto it. He pushed off—one, two— smooth as silk over glass. With a practiced gesture, he pulled a hoodie over his head and disappeared into the night.

Where was he going, now in the witching hour, while all the world slept? To meet his friends? To party in the woods? To see his girlfriend? Or maybe he was like Kristy, awake because he was lured outside by the autumn air, a nocturnal creature of the dark. A fellow bandicoot. Maybe he couldn’t sleep. Maybe home was too hard. It was a puzzle that Kristy couldn’t solve. Not yet, anyway.

She longed to follow him into the dark.

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For 7th-grader Kristy Barrett, soccer is life. It has always been at the center of Kristy’s world. Her friendships and self-worth, her dreams and daily activities, all revolve around the sport. Until she suffers from a serious concussion and has to set soccer aside for an uncertain amount of time. Kristy begins to struggle in school, experience stress, anxiety, and panic attacks which ultimately bring her to some questionable decisions . . . and the care of a therapist as she suffers from post-concussion syndrome. It’s a story about identity, therapy, new friendships, making mistakes and, finally, coming true to one’s ever-evolving self.

 

SHAKEN will be published on September 10th, 2024. It is available for pre-order. Thanks for reading.

 

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