"Old Will Road" Hits Narrative Magazine

I think there are maybe three people I haven't yet told about my short story, "Old Will Road," featured as a Story of the Week in Narrative magazine. It hit the site on Mother's Day, and will remain accessible all of this week from their home page. (After that, click on the archives link and search for my name, down there at the bottom of the "T"s.)

Thanks to everyone for the wonderful emails and comments. I love that you love the story, and yes, I promise to give serious thought to giving these characters a permanent home via a novel.

Young Barred Owl

Steve took this photo of a young barred owl at the Francis Beilder Forest, an Audubon and Nature Conservancy bottomland hardwood sanctuary, near Charleston, South Carolina. The little guy's parents are likely nearby, and are probably still feeding him. He's not exactly a fatty, and looks like he could use an extra mouse or two!

New Logo for CLO

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has a new logo -- a yellow-bellied sapsucker. Love it!

Pete Fromm

I met Pete at Tomales Bay in late 2007, where he was leading a fiction workshop. We sat together at breakfast one morning, talking about the things we have in common -- or, rather, the things he and my husband have in common (swimming and wildlife biology). I liked Pete, and when I got home, picked up a copy of his memoir, INDIAN CREEK CHRONICLES, which I have since shared with my hairy wildlife friends.

Pete's got a Story of the Week in Narrative this week, "Peas," which you can access here. (If you're reading this after May 10, search the archives, instead.) I know you'll enjoy it as much as I did, so check it out and leave a comment on Narrative's board; it's definitely worth your while.

Olive Kitteridge

Just finished OLIVE KITTERIDGE, this year’s Pulitzer Prize-winner by Elizabeth Strout. The book is a set of 13 linked stories set in small-town Maine, and features as its protagonist a retired school teacher named Olive Kitteridge.

There is much debate among readers concerning Olive’s bristly personality – whether she’s gruff, maddening, loveable, sympathetic, or “blunt, flawed and fascinating.” One reviewer stated “Strout makes a reader feel protective, even tender, toward Olive…” but I could not disagree more. I found her to be heart breakingly mean-spirited, as she is in this scene with her husband, Henry:

It was Henry who bought the groceries now. One day he brought back with him a bunch of flowers. “For my wife,” he said, handing them to her. They were the saddest damn things. Daisies dyed blue among the white and ludicrously pink ones, some of them half-dead.

“Put them in that pot,” Olive said, pointing to an old blue vase. The flowers sat there on the wooden table in the kitchen. Henry came and put his arms around her; it was early autumn and chilly, and his woolen shirt smelled faintly of wood chips and mustiness. She stood, waiting for the hug to end. Then she went outside and planted her tulip bulbs.

I could cry, reading that.

In an interview with Robert Birnbaum, Elizabeth Strout says she doesn’t have a stake in readers’ reactions to Olive, but that she does have a stake in their reactions to the book. “I hope that even if they have a negative response to much of Olive’s behavior, they are maybe still drawn into this humanity that is underneath all of her actions.”

But it is difficult to find humanity in a woman who is cruel to her family, friends, and those in her community. Her favorite word seems to be “stupid,” as in “you are stupid, they are stupid, he/she/it is stupid.” So I do not commiserate when sad things happen to her, or when she at last realizes the value of what she has so consistently and cruelly dismissed. (In other words, lady, what goes around, comes around.)

Having said that, I don’t need a soft and fuzzy protagonist to appreciate a finely crafted novel. The writing is delicious, and all of the characters supremely drawn. Which, despite cranky old Olive, is to Elizabeth Strout’s credit.

Eucalyptus Visitors

Two birds new to our backyard yesterday: the western tananger (above) and the black-headed grosbeak (below). Both of these birds arrived ahead of a moderate cold front and significant rainfall (just over an inch). Steve took the pics from his upstairs office window.

We also think the hooded oriole is back -- heard him, but haven't yet seen him, as he/she is quite the hider-outer.