Riverman An American Odyssey by Ben McGrath

This tale took me by surprise. It’s a non-fiction modern mystery about an unconventional traveler who’s lasting impact on those he meets along his way becomes poignantly clear.

Dick Conant had paddled his canoe thousands of miles along American waterways until by providence, on Labor Day 2014 he skirted past author Ben McGrath’s Hudson River home in Piermont, New York.

McGrath, like dozens he would come to meet, found something about Dick Conant and his self-directed quest to be unforgettable. They met a few times before Conant continued on his latest endeavor; to canoe from Canada to Naples, Florida.

The book includes a map of the many waterways Dick Conant navigated throughout his life, as well as photos of the man and his own journals. During his exploits, he took on the famous and the lesser known bodies of water and didn’t limit himself to just rivers. He traveled The Ohio, The Allegheny, The Mississippi, The Yellowstone, The Missouri, The Snake, The Holston River, The Timberidge River, The Mobile River, Lake Pontchartrain, The Gulf InterCoastal Waterway, Matagorda Bay, and ultimately The Hudson and Chesapeake Bay.

There is a quiet power to the story and I’m able to imagine the same was true of Dick Conant.

 

On The Road by Jack Kerouac

After reading ‘On the Road’, I definitely caught the breeze of a free-wheeling, music-loving lifestyle wherein the characters feel deeply and live wildly.

I had difficulty choosing excerpts from Kerouac’s gorgeous, hopeful, yet at the same time, dingy prose. My words don’t measure up to the seamless stream of the author’s pen. So in the place of my weak attempt at conveying why I found enjoyment in this American odyssey, I rely on these passages. Read the book and see if the words and characters don’t roll into your head as the wheels roll across the continent.

“And here for the first time in my life I saw my beloved Mississippi River, dry in the summer haze, low water, with its big rank smell that smells like the raw body of America itself because it washes it up.”

“Great beautiful clouds floated overhead, valley clouds that made you feel the vastness of old tumbledown holy America from mouth to mouth and tip to tip.”

And he hunched over the wheel and gunned her; …We were all delighted, we all realized we were leaving confusion and nonsense behind and performing our one and noble function of the time, MOVE.”

“Then we started down. Dean cut off the gas, threw in the clutch, and negotiated every hairpin turn and passed cars and did everything in the books without the benefit of accelerator.” …”In this was we floated and flapped down to the San Joaquin Valley. It lay spread a mile below, virtually the floor of California, green and wondrous from our aerial shelf. We made thirty miles without using gas.”

“Dean’s California-wild, sweaty, important, the land of lonely and exiled and eccentric lovers come to forgather like birds, and the land where everybody somehow looked like broken-down, handsome, decadent movie actors.”

And I now see how Natalie Merchant’s rambling musical poetry of ‘Hey Jack Kerouac’ gave me glimpses of the exploits of Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty long before I eventually found author Jack Kerouac for myself.

Hey Jack Kerouac, I think of your mother
And the tears she cried, they were cried for none other…

…Hey Jack, now for the tricky part,
When you were the brightest star, who were the shadows?…

…You chose your words from mouths of babes got lost in the wood.
Cool junk booting madmen, street minded girls
In Harlem, howling at night.
What a tear stained shock of the world,
You’ve gone away without saying goodbye.

Natalie Merchant / Robert Buck
Hey Jack Kerouac lyrics © Christian Burial Music

10,000 Maniacs’ In My Tribe 1987

‘Dissolution’ The First in the Matthew Shardlake Series

‘Dissolution’ is author C.J. Sanson’s debut novel featuring Master Matthew Shardlake, an attorney who serves the infamous reformer Lord Thomas Cromwell in the year 1536. I confess to not knowing very much about the Reformation period other than what I learned on Masterpiece Theater and films like ‘Anne of A Thousand Days.’ My Catholic grammar school history classes were, not surprisingly, willing to skip those significant chapters in church history.

The Reformation period is arguably just as much of a central character as Shardlake, his protege Mark Poer, and the cast of monks and servants at the struggling monastery at Scarnsea where the story unfolds. The historical backdrop is that of King Henry VIII and Cromwell’s relatively swift process of dismantling and closing the giant machine of monasteries that dominated England’s economy.

Tasked with investigating the gruesome murder of one of Cromwell’s commissioners at Scarnsea, Shardlake’s loyalty to The Reformation and belief that the enormous wealth of the monastery system will be equitably divided becomes as murky as the dangerous surrounding marshlands used by smugglers and a cast of nefarious suspects.

Matthew Shardlake is haunted by personal losses, his own physical deformity and he often admits to being confused, exhausted and fearful. It’s a refreshing portrayal of how hard it has always been to be a hero in times of corruption and conflict. Some things never change.

Looking for more? There are seven titles in the Shardlake series; Dissolution, Dark Fire, Sovereign, Revelation, Heartstone, Lamentation, Tombland.

 

The Boys In the Boat by Daniel James Brown

image from the bibliophage.com

A non-fiction story that could have been penned by script writers from back in the day. Let’s see, first we’ll set the scene during the start of the Great Depression. Add in a bunch of mostly working class/downright poor heroes to compete for college degrees and championships in a wildly popular upper class gentleman’s sport and oh, yes add an epic showdown with Adolph Hilter!

The University of Washington Rowing Team’s pride and ongoing rivalry with University of California Berkeley is just the beginning of the athletic triumphs the author Daniel James Brown brings to life. I had no idea of the immense popularity of rowing in those days. Throngs of folks lined shorelines, boarded boats and even rode trains that traveled back and forth along the race course to watch their teams compete. And the fervor seemed to be more intense the farther east you went – all the way to Poughkeepsie NY and back to Oxford and Cambridge for what they simply refer to as “The Boat Race.”

There is plenty of time taken to describe the craftsmanship that went into making the racing shells, the hardships many of the men endured, and the intense competition to be one of the nine chosen for the Varsity boat. All done while the reader more and more anxiously waits for the next race to begin!

No spoilers here, however as each race takes place the intensity and pressure to succeed increases. The author quietly fills us in on the enormous efforts taking place in Germany as the Third Reich wakes up to the idea that the Berlin Olympic Games could serve as the perfect backdrop to fool the world for just a little longer. The boys in the University of Washington boat certainly have something to prove to the Nazis, to the rest of the world, and mostly to themselves.

 

 

 

Same Kind of Different As Me by Ron Hall & Denver Moore

The Word says God don’t give us credit for lovin the folks we want to love anyway. No, He gives us credit for loving the unlovable. The perfect love of God don’t come with no conditions. – Denver Moore

Just finished this true story co-authored by two men who’s lives could not have started out more differently. Spoiler alert…they find a common bond of faith and hope when an exceptional woman touches both of their lives, and the lives of many others.

The book shifts authors in quick chapters between Denver Moore, a black man who lived a pitifully poor and oppressed life in modern day southern United States to Ron Hall a college educated white man who blythely finds a beautiful devoted wife and stumbles into a wildly successful career as an art dealer.

Deborah Hall is the woman who has faith in her unfaithful husband, and exceptional faith in finding hope and promise at Union Gosel Mission in Fort Worth Texas. There, Miss Debbie sees potential for change when Ron and most others see despair and just a place to volunteer and maybe score points to get into heaven.

The story inspired and challenged without being dramatic or saccharine. It rings true and truth is a beautiful thing to share.

The story was made into a film in 2017.

Kitchen Yarns keep rolling

Currently enjoying Kitchen Yarns Notes on Life, Love and Food by Ann Hood. This author has taken the essential premise of eatprayreadlife.com and effortlessly written a book around it. Part memoir, part cookbook, Kitchen Yarns is an Italian American girl’s story from a tiny Rhode Island kitchen, to a career as a world traveling flight attendant, through two marriages, motherhood and lots and lots of cooking of comfort food in between.

Thanks to Jan O for this little gem. My own New York Irish mom learned well from her Italian friends and family to make her own spaghetti sauce (we didn’t call it gravy), similar to ‘Gogo’s Sauce’ page 151. This book’s table of contents will have your mouth watering, so don’t read while hungry!

 

 

 

Author Spotlight: Colette

The Collected Stories of Colette, edited by Robert Phelps

A quick review of a collection of short stories seems fitting. Spoiler: I only scratched the surface of this 600 page collection. I see it as a refreshing dip into Colette’s intimate, detailed and uniquely lovely look at life and love. Thirty-one of the 100 little tales appear in this volume translated into English for the first time.

The Colette, SidonieGabrielle Colette keeps company with other talented artists who have no need for a second name. Think Austen, Hemingway, Moliere.

I was enchanted and entertained by these richly simple vignettes. Just consider some of the titles, ‘Cheri’, “The Pearls,’ ‘My Goddaughter’, ‘The Saleswoman’, ‘In the Boudoir’, ‘What Must We Look Like?’, ‘Sleepless Nights’

Colette masterfully employs a rare writing style of Dialogues for One Voice. Seven little gems of conversation written and revealed to the reader through only one side. Par exemple from ‘My Goddaughter’.

"Is it you who's calling me, Godmother? I'm here, under the stairs."
"...?"
"No, Godmother, I'm not sulking."
"...?"
"No, Godmother, I'm not crying anymore. I'm done now. But I'm very discouraged."
"...?"
"Oh, its always the same thing, for a change. I'm mad at Mama. And she's mad at me, too."
"...?"
"Why 'naturally'? No, not 'naturally' at all! There are times when she's mad without me being mad back -it depends on if she's right."
"...!"

This dialogue style makes the brain work differently, but when it is so naturally written it takes little effort to understand the unwritten voice in the conversation.

Colette is perhaps most famous for authoring ‘Gigi and the Cat‘, which served as the inspiration for Lerner & Loewe’s musical adaptation of another singular named work, ‘Gigi‘. With an all French cast, the film feels authentic to the author’s vision and to the era. It is a warm and colorful romp through Paris following the many intricacies of love, love affairs and the stages of love through the eyes of the old and the very young.

à la prochaine.

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

This book was published in 1998 as a memoir of author Bill Bryson’s decision to hike the Appalachian Trail. He subtitles the story, ‘Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail’, and he manages to interject a fair amount of information about the US Forest Service history, geologic and mining history and lamentations on environmental destruction due to mining and acid rain.

The characters Bryson interacts with are all overshadowed by his colorful hiking buddy, Steven Katz. ‘Katz’, with his health issues, and overall approach to life feature prominently and Bryson has traveled and written about his adventures with Katz before in ‘Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe. Theirs is a weirdly symbiotic relationship on which Bryson burnishes the rough edges to softly here. Note: I strongly recommend against watching the movie version with Robert Redford and Nick Nolte. It misfires again and again and I’m sorry Mr. Redford, but I’d like those two hours of my life back!

The book recounts Bryson’s quest from purchasing gear, to reading up on the many deadly dangers that hikers can, and have, encountered. Bears, and how to avoid being mauled to death, is a topic that comes up quite a few times. The book would have been richer if Bryson had included a better time frame from chapter to chapter, giving the reader an appreciation of the demands of the trail, section by section. The map at the beginning of the book is helpful, but no surprise, I would have liked to see more detailed maps and routes! Another of Bryson’s justified complaints is the lack of good maps for the hiker back in 1998. Access to a good map is always one of the keys to a good travel experience, whether on foot, wheels or from your armchair. Here’s an interactive example of how far we’ve come in 22 years courtesy of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) and National Park Service using ESRI’s Arc GIS Online mapping technology, and a big disclaimer: While useful, this map is for general reference purposes only and not intended to replace the more comprehensive and accurate A.T. printed hiking maps, available from the Ultimate Appalachian Trail Store.

If you are interested in the history of the AT, Bryson does a good job introducing the reader to the two men primarily responsible for bringing the trail into being. He introduces Benton MacKaye, a regional planner who first proposed the trail’s concept in 1920, to Myron Avery who worked to complete the project. Once again, The Appalachian Trail Conservancy is a good place to learn a lot more.

Only one in four who attempt to through-hike the trail succeed the 2190+ mile endeavor. It’s a hike I don’t have on my bucket list, but one that inspires me just the same.