My new book, The Greening:At The Root, is now available on Kindle.
I don’t own a Kindle myself, yet. But I’m beginning to see the light. Though no electronic gadget will ever supplant my love of genuine page-turning, there’s no denying that e-books are, if not the way of the future, at least the way of the moment.
So, for those of you who like to travel light and still pack a whole library in your carry-on, you can now find another one of my books on the endless virtual shelf.
Enjoy!
Karen Thompson Walker’s debut novel The Age Of Miracles takes off from a simple premise, the sort of “what if?” that has inspired science fiction writers for decades. What if the Earth’s rotation slowed? What if, gradually, but unmistakably, the sunlit days grew longer, the dark nights correspondingly longer, and cooler?
From this seed of possibility any number of mutant futures could be imagined. In these days, when young adult dystopian fiction is the leading edge of publishing trends, such a plot could have been milked for a franchise by a writer less concerned with exploring the subtleties of human nature under stress. But Walker, a deft and capable plot spinner, is also a thoughtful and caring observer of the paradox of human existence. Just because we know we’re doomed doesn’t mean we have to believe it.
Through the eyes of the 11-year-old narrator Julia, a lonely girl in Southern California, we see the hairline cracks in society widen as the days lengthen to 30 hours, 50 hours and beyond. When the government steps in to try to impose order on a world which no longer runs on clock time, the divisions between schools of thought lead to irreparable fractures in families and communities. However, no government can impose order on the natural world, and as the food supply and all living things including plant life are imperiled by the slowing, a miasma of gloom settles over much of the world.
But of course, to a lonely girl with a crush on a boy, all the world’s problems are mere background. Up to a point.
Walker’s brilliance shines in the way she shows her young protagonist coming to terms as she navigates not only the ordinary uncertainties of adolescence, but the terrifying new normal of loss.
For a while as I was reading the book I almost lost heart. I usually get my fill of depressing ideas reading the daily news. But I stuck with Walker, hoping she might have some miracle planned for the ending. And even though she didn’t give me the candy-coated over-the-rainbow finish I might have chosen, she left me with a lot to think about.
As her sensitive and warm-hearted heroine recounts the tale from her perspective as an adult, the story is saturated with the sense of “if we’d known then what we know now,” a common enough phenomenon among those who’ve experienced the bittersweet sensation of 20-20 hindsight. By pointing out the amazing beauty of the world which vanished during her lifetime, Julia reminds the reader that that same amazing world is still here now. We might even still have a chance to save it if we don’t kill each other off first.
Many of us live in a state of constant expectation, looking for miracles or waiting for them on the horizon of some afterlife. But in the meantime we overlook the everyday miracles with which this planet is blessed. Sunrise daily, starlight, trees and birdsong, breezes and butterflies, babies of all kinds. Music.
We already live in an age of miracles.
Shuffle the deck of time and space.
Stir in a cup of memory, a teaspoon of hope.
Add two cups of terror,
one stick of courage and a teaspoon of tears.
Beat in two or three hearts.
Bake in moonlight until shimmering with stars.
And there you have it. A recipe for an adult novel by Neil Gaiman.
In the last thirty years the dean of darkly romantic graphic comics and adult fairytales has proven that he can write about anything. Love, torture, family dynamics, urban decay, pastoral bliss, you name it. And all with the lyrical touch of a natural bard.
In his latest novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, touted as his first “adult” novel after years of putting out works mainly for young readers, Gaiman returns to his strong suit. The Ocean is a mythic tale of childhood fear that reinterprets the trope of the evil nanny, setting it in terms of interdimensional magic and horror.
Gaiman so vividly captures the sense of peril that lurks beneath the supposedly carefree time of childhood that I found I couldn’t read it just before going to bed. I made time for daylight reading in order to finish it the first time. Then I had to go back and reread the last two chapters to run my mental fingers over the scar. It’s not a story I’ll forget.
But most of all I want to remember the ending. Gaiman writes with a poetic lyricism that makes me stop every few pages to savor a line, an image: “The cloudless sky was splashed with stars beyond all counting.”
The Ocean at the End of the Lane is probably not a book for young readers. But anyone who has survived being young can relate to the seven-year-old protagonist’s struggle to understand what is happening and to find a way to stop the threat to himself and his family.
Gaiman balances the darkness in his novels with an almost palpable sense of security. As the little boy recalls being in the home of the wise woman who helps him: “I felt safe. It was as if the essence of grandmotherliness had been condensed into that one place, that one time.”
Not every child is granted such a gift of emotional safety. We live in world where monsters prey upon children every day. The world changes constantly; still it hasn’t changed enough.
Gaiman reminds us that there is work to do, but he does more than that. He sprinkles stardust to light the path out of darkness. He invites us to explore “patterns and gates and paths beyond the real.”
But you might want to bring a flashlight.
Much as I admire Melville, I’ve never been passionate about fishing.
But I do think there’s something at once mystical and primal about the attempt to catch a creature you can’t quite see.
However, when I recently watched the film version of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, I wasn’t motivated by any high-minded appreciation of the spiritual dimensions of the sport of fly fishing. I saw that Emily Blunt was in the cast. That was enough for me.
It didn’t hurt that Ewan McGregor was also in the film, playing a socially challenged Scottish fisheries expert. I went into it expecting a modestly entertaining film and was pleasantly surprised. I even learned a bit about salmon, a thing I wouldn’t have thought possible after my years in Seattle.
The somewhat far-fetched plot revolves around a project financed by a fabulously wealthy Yemeni sheikh whose dream it is to make salmon fishing possible in the Yemen.
If you are like me, your knowledge of the exact location of the Yemen is sketchy at best. But if you guess that it’s mostly hot and dry, that’s close enough to be getting on with the movie version. The film ripples along, bubbling smoothly over the bureaucratic and logistic hurdles of the proposed project, and casting a wry light on the cynical political posturing that goes on far from the salmon beds.
I enjoyed the movie so much that I promptly went out and read a copy of the novel by Paul Torday on which the film was loosely based. Operative word: loosely.
The first half of the novel is more or less faithfully followed in the screen version. Yet as the plot becomes more complex, and the shadows lengthen, the novel winds up with a significantly different outcome. Not altogether bad. But not the soft-focus, convenient dramatic turning point, uplifting emotional payoff that typifies the usual indie rom-com. Instead, the novel ends with an air of possibility. It’s like a Zen exercise in faith.
The charismatic Sheikh Muhammad whose philosophical conversation is reminiscent of the cryptic stylings of Yoda, remains the calm center in spite of the gathering storm of media nonsense. Among the many truisms he utters is: “Without faith there is no hope and no love. Faith comes before hope, and before love.”
I thought about that one for a long time after I closed the book. I’d like to think that inside every devoted fisherman there is that element of faith that precedes love. But then, maybe that’s just the fisher in me dreaming of salmon in the desert.
There’s a gentle mist falling outside on this cool September day. It’s not the steady rain the garden needs, barely enough to soften the air, lower the temperatures, and dampen the birdbath. But it’s a soothing kind of benediction after the bright sun and insistent breeze of the last few days. The tiny drops hardly make a sound as they fall.
It was a quiet summer here in D.C.. After last summer’s record-breaking heat and dramatic derecho it’s been kind of a surprise to have so few crashing thunderstorms. Perhaps Mother Nature felt She’d made her point last year.
The memorable moments of each season, each year, hold our attention only until the Next Thing comes along. We are creatures of limited attention spans, and easily diverted by shiny spectacle and the continuous rain of catastrophic events around the world. The work of repairing and renewing is constant. Some lament the loss of what cannot be restored. Others see new possibilities in every change.
The ability to rebound after loss or injury is one of humankind’s most encouraging qualities. I love it when people don’t fold in the face of adversity, or stop learning after they leave school, or stop caring after their hearts get broken.
Sometimes beauty is born from wreckage.
Not long after I moved to Seattle I read Stephanie Kallos’s wonderful novel “Broken For You.” The story, with its Seattle setting and compelling characters, deals with the difficulty of recovering from tragedy, a common enough theme in much literature, but the way Kallos used the medium of mosaic art as a metaphor for transformative healing really spoke to me. All my life I’ve been drawn to mosaic works, especially those which breathe life and beauty into otherwise drab surfaces.
In Philadelphia, for instance, whole blocks have been transformed by the quirky thought-provoking mosaic murals of artist Isaiah Zagar. Using broken bits of mirror, ceramic and glass to create uplifting designs in formerly neglected inner city neighborhoods, Zagar was a pioneer in the field of public art made by and for the people, unsubsidized by government or corporate sponsors.
Such gifts of beauty, produced by the patient process of putting together tiny pieces of color to make something hopeful and inspiring, help us to heal and deal with the continual barrage of violence that threatens our world. It can be a little overwhelming sometimes—the hurricanes, the floods, the crazed gunmen. The instinct to run and hide is strong, and perhaps vital to our continued existence.
But just as vital is the instinct to pick up the pieces and rebuild, to reach out to the hurt and lost and help find the way to a brighter day. Humanity is a big puzzle. Sometimes it’s hard to know where you fit in. Sometimes you have to step back to see the big picture. And other times you just have to start by picking up a little piece and doing what you can where you are.
While recovering from another losing battle between me and the Microsoft Word system that rules my computer I recently read Robin Sloan’s Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, a literary pick-me-up about book lovers, computers, and the curious obsessives who thrive in the shadows of secret libraries.
What’s not to love, right?
Mr. Penumbra’s, as the name suggests, explores the uneasy interface between old school wisdom keepers and the new technocracy, with its wide open, full-throttle approach to problem solving. The story unfolds somewhere between genres, being neither a conventional mystery, nor a whiz-bang thriller. Some critics have compared it to recent novels such as Erin Morgenstern’s delightfully atmospheric The Night Circus and Neal Stephenson’s weighty Reamde. Yet, although the plot includes a hint of romance and a suggestion of immortal aspiration, it’s more Encyclopedia Brown than Thursday Next. The geek protagonist is a Leonard, not a Sheldon.
In truth, the soul of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore has less to do with technological or magical wizardry than it has to do with the clunky magnetism of age-old fonts.
That’s right. I said fonts. And this is where the Word Warrior in me lifted her shield and sword and embraced the cause.
A good book is a fine thing, but a great font is a rare and precious tool. Unfortunately the Word version on my computer thinks it knows what’s best for me when it comes to fonts. Anyone who has tried to format a document using Microsoft Word has probably grappled with the maddening “helpfulness” of its system. Sometimes, in my dark moments, I long for a typewriter. But then, I never did learn to type, so the computer is really a much better tool for me. If only Word wouldn’t keep second-guessing what I’m trying to do.
Ah well. As they say, if uppity technology is your problem, you don’t have problems.
However, if you, like me, find yourself in need of a lift after a vexing session with your computer, you could do worse than dip into the pages of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore.
And, bonus happy points: the cover glows in the dark. Oh yeah. That’s technology anyone can love.
My current fave nightstand book is a small square chunk titled “The Garden Book,” which might seem unimaginative as titles go, but trust me, like the library in Terry Pratchett’s Unseen University, it’s much bigger on the inside.
The book (published by Phaidon) offers an illustrated survey of 500 of the world’s most influential gardeners. There are 500 photos, each accompanied by a tantalizingly brief paragraph about the designer or the garden.
Those who have never attempted to make a garden from scratch might be bored already, but for those of us with calloused hands and dirt under our fingernails, this book offers a stunning, inspiring, and humbling glimpse at the breathtaking scope of gardening ambitions.
Some of the gardens included are famous, others not so much. Some are modern, severe and tightly controlled. Some are wildly romantic, lush and drunk with blooms. There are examples of amazing artistry, such as Chris Parsons’ dew garden, a work of ephemeral beauty created by brushing a design on a dew-soaked lawn. Other effects take years to achieve, such as the cloud hedge at Schoten Garden in Belgium.
Anyone who has waited years to see a particular plant reach its peak will marvel at the patience and vision of some of these gardens. Of course, not all of us have the resources to produce anything on the spectacular scale of La Reggia di Caserta, with its nearly two-mile-long canal and water-staircases in Naples. But then, that garden was built to impress kings. We who simply aspire to produce a pleasant spot for an al fresco lunch may be content with more modest achievements.
I’ve been gardening so long, I sometimes wonder why I can’t seem to do a better job of it. Yet no matter how boldly I start out in January, planning and plotting, by September the decline is unmistakable. Some years it’s drought. Other years bugs, or blights, or heat, or cold, or fill in the blank with the personal melt-down of your choice. And, of course, the clock is ticking the whole time. You can tell yourself there will be another spring, another summer, but, you know, immortality isn’t as easy as it looks on the big screen.
Yet, in this respect, my little garden book offers a kind of sustaining perspective. Among the many gardens depicted are some whose best days were many centuries ago. Not much is left of Apadanus Palace, the once-magnificent garden showcase of Darius the Great in Persepolis. Around about 1450 B.C. Darius’s terraces and reflecting pools were the talk of Persia, yet now only the stone stairs and a few pillars remain as evidence of his personal paradise.
The fleeting nature of, well, Nature, is both its charm and its ineffable mystery. And now it’s September. The days grow shorter. The angle of the sun casts long shadows across the garden, gilding the bright leaves, the russet grasses. There’s a different kind of energy in the air as autumn begins its mellow drawing in. Somehow, even though the garden is winding down, I feel excited already about the next season.
It’s like baseball, only better. In gardening, everyone wins.
Willows don’t get much attention in late summer. They usually get a brief spotlight entrance in early spring, when they race into leaf before most other trees have gotten out of bed.
But for me the charm of the willow doesn’t let up, even after all the headliners of spring—the flowering cherries and plums and dogwoods—steal the show. Long after those prima donnas have vanished behind their rather ho-hum summer foliage, the willows retain their unmatched grace and style. Whether swaying in the lightest breeze or backlit by the sun, willows can light up a landscape.
As an urban gardener I appreciate the subtle power of “borrowed scenery,” the Japanese landscape concept in which small gardens are designed to take advantage of the beauty surrounding them. In the country this can mean framing a mountain view, or an open vista to a pastoral scene. In the city, where plots are small and houses close together, such grand scenery is less likely to be available, although some cities, Seattle for instance, enjoy an abundance of mountain and water views.
Still, the idea behind the borrowed scenery strategy is that the beauty of a given yard depends not only on the work you put in yourself but the choices that your neighbors make. I’m grateful to the gardeners on my block, whose thoughtful tree and shrub selections provide an endlessly variable and interesting backdrop for my own small garden.
Cooperation and consideration are the rootstock of good neighbors. I take my hat off to the gardeners who plant nice things by the sidewalk, who replace boring lawns with vibrant combinations of colorful foliage and blooms, who cherish the amazing trees in their yards.
And a special tip of the trowel to the visionary neighbors who planted a wonderful willow tree in their backyard years ago. That green curtain lights up my world.
Leaves have already begun to fall in my backyard. The sunflowers are still smiling on their ten-foot-stalks, seemingly unaware of the change in the tilt of the planet, yet the leaning season has begun, when autumn exerts its downward pull on all the growing world.
There’s something strangely invigorating about the autumnal shift. Perhaps the shortening days, the cooler nights, are meant to remind us that the clock is ticking.
Mother Nature’s countdown is stately and subtle, but the message is clear. Our time on Earth is finite. Whether or not Earth itself is finite is another question, one hotly debated in environmental and scientific circles. But for those of us who take a more abstract, romantic view of life, the possibilities for Earth’s future offer a ripe area for speculation.
In my new alt-fantasy series The Greening, I imagine a slightly less dystopian vision than some. I’d like to think that future generations won’t be condemned to live in a dark dank world overrun with mutant cyber-human hybrids whose idea of a good time is drinking themselves to death in some seedy bar. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, if that’s your cup of tea. But as for me, I’ll take the road where the jolly innkeeper isn’t a psychopath.
The first volume of The Greening trilogy starts At The Root, where all forests begin. The tale centers on the struggles of a young woman who sets off on a quest to find her missing father and stumbles into a world of magic and mayhem. But really, at its heart, it’s about growing up and finding your way through the forest. And, like a ten-mile hike in the great Northwest, it’s more fun than it sounds.
I floated an earlier version of this story out on the web for free last fall, as an experiment. I learned some things from it. One of which was that the story I wanted to tell was too big for one volume. And that I wasn’t content with an e-book only project. This slowed the process considerably, as it led to more extensive editing and design considerations, but now, here we are, and the paperback is in stock at Amazon. An e-book version will follow in the coming months.
So, if you’re looking for something leafy, green and not too filling for your leisure reading, consider a walk in the Green Wood.
Okay, it’s mid-August. If you haven’t got any ripe tomatoes by now either you’re not trying or you live in Seattle.
I used to dream of ripe tomatoes when I lived there. Yet it was nigh on to impossible to coax the plants to fruition, not for lack of sunshine, which is abundant to the point of ridiculous in August. But the night temperatures drop so low that tomatoes sulk and seldom achieve the sort of shiny overflowing pulchritude that comes so easily in the Mid-Atlantic region.
This summer marks the first time in seven years that I’ve not only grown my own, but had enough to give away. However, I’ll say this for Seattle: they know how to make the most of the tomatoes they get.
In the past decade of so, with the spread of social networks and the ubiquity of the devices in which they fester, there’s been a rapid proliferation of events engineered to bring together carefree young people, and those grown-ups who refuse to abandon all silliness even after they land a real job. Flash mobs were one of the first successful examples of this sort of phenomenon. Large groups of people would gather, as if spontaneously, to sing and dance, “Glee”-style, in public places. As the popularity of this sort of thing grew, it was perhaps inevitable that professional organizers would come up with a profit angle.
But what does this have to do with tomatoes, you ask? Put on your goggles and swimsuit and I’ll tell you.
It appears that we live in the golden age of the Tomato Battle. Young folks these days, not content to make lemonade out of the lemons which life hands them, have found a way to make merry with leftover tomatoes. In cities all across America and abroad, savvy marketers have put together those two staples of outdoor summer fun, the beer garden and the tomato garden, to make an unholy mess. Coming soon to a city near you.
Actually, the most recent Tomato Battle in D.C. took place indoors, and, judging by the photos, was a kind of sedate affair compared to a full-fledged tomato battle royal. The Tomato Battle organizers understand that you can’t run a good battle without ammo. They anticipate going through 100,000 pounds of tomatoes in the upcoming Seattle Tomato Battle, scheduled for this coming Saturday, August 17th, at the Pyramid Alehouse. They also understand that the key to success in any tomato fight is timing. Thus the beer garden opens three hours before the first tomato flies.
The organizers have thought of everything. They assure participants, and all those who object on principle to the idea of playing with food, that all the tomatoes used in the battle were already damaged (aka “rotten”) and thus could not have been used to feed the hungry. This disclaimer fits with Seattle’s firmly held convictions about keeping priorities straight: save the environment, help the helpless, then party like there’s no tomorrow.
And, since Seattle is not known as a tomato town, there’s also a note in the fine print to acknowledge the contingency: “In the event of a tomato shortage we will hold a giant mud battle. The event will go on as planned but with mud instead of tomatoes.” Good to know.