Mama Like

We’ll Just Act Like Nothing Ever Happened

January 29, 2013 By The Well Read Hostess 5 Comments

Life goes on…

A little cancer (not mine), kids growing up, career progressing, family happy, beloved friends dying, new people washing up on our shores and folding into our lives, vacations, adventures. Life goes on. Even, as it happens, if I don’t write about it. Or particularly care to.

And then, one day. I do.

I had a conversation via email once, with a friend, about whether or not female authors can successfully write male protagonists. Mostly, I think we agreed – although my memory sucks these days – they cannot. You might think that’s sexist or narrow minded of me. But that’s what I’ve found. Until and behold: Liz Moore and Heft.

Mercy. Such a good book. And not just one, but TWO, count ‘em, TWO male protagonists. Shazam. If you told me that I would rate a novel about a teenage boy raised by a slightly off-center single mother in poverty and an obese shut-in depressive with delusions of grandeur so highly, I would have said, “HA! Not likely.” But I would have been wrong. I’ve recommend it to my reader people, and they agree. Best book of last year. It irritates me on Liz Moore’s behalf, yet delights me because it makes me feel like I know something they don’t, that this book wasn’t on all the Big Time “Best Books” lists. Because it is. It would also make excellent summer reading for high school students. I know something about that.

And one more thing: Junior Baby Love. JBL. Just saying.

Next. I’m so late to this particular party that it’s embarrassing because I showed up in my pretty dress and made a space for myself in the center of the room and started twirling and showing off my sparkly earrings and was all, “Check me out, you guys! Jonathan Tropper’s This is Where I Leave You! It’s so funny and so perfect and so quick and so sad and so authentic and so…what? Oh. Never mind.” Because every person at the party had already read it.

But in case you haven’t, that’s all true. And also, my dress is really pretty and my earrings are very sparkly.

Filed Under: Mama Like, On the Nightstand, Virtually Well Read Tagged With: Heft, Jonathan Tropper, Liz Moore, This Is Where I Leave You, Where the Hell Have I Been

Tits Magee – Back in the Saddle

September 28, 2012 By The Well Read Hostess 1 Comment

Oh Terry.

Not much I love more than a favorite writer writing about a favorite subject.

Unless it’s a favorite writer writing about a favorite subject and then throwing in a page mentioning ME.

She practically turns inside out in delight.

Terry Darlington has written a third book, Narrow Dog to Wigan Pier, to follow up Narrow Dog to Indian River and Narrow Dog to Carcassonne. I almost flew to England this summer in response to this:

Terry and Monica Darlington and Transworld Publishers have pleasure in inviting you to the launch party for their new book

NARROW DOG TO WIGAN PIER

At Aston Marina, on the A51 south of Stone, anytime between 4.00pm and 7.00pm on Saturday the 23rd June 2012.

Buffet, bar, visit the Phyllis May 2, signed books, whippets.

We have so much appreciated your kind interest in our wretched books and we hope we will see you at the lovely Aston Marina on Saturday the 23rd of June.

Chaste manly regards, love and muddy paws all up your jumper

From Tits Magee (to whom fear is a stranger), Monica X, Jim and Jess.

Alas, the launch coincided with my first day of summer vacation, and, as it turned out, a bad turn of health for my friend Terry/Tits. (Much recovered, thank you very much and pleased to report according to the website.)

The book arrived, with help from a friend in London, though, in good time, and there, on page 305, Mr. Darlington writes about his correspondence with The Well Read Hostess, when she tries to decide whether she likes his writing or not in his first book (she does, much). But I get ahead of myself, because page 305 is hardly the point.

Narrow Dog to Wigan Pier is more memoir than travelogue, but with the same stream of consciousness as in the earlier two books, and with the same dog love, but this time a touch more wistfulness. Not softer – definitely not, I still laughed out loud, and Darlington deftly weaves autobiography with modern day journey. It’s like a second act Bildungsroman. I admit it. I love the man. No worries, Monica. He’s all yours. He’s exhausting. I think I want to be one of your dogs in my next life. Maybe not the one who ends up hurt all the time.

Segue.

We have a plan.

It involves a boat. And I think about it all the time, even though it is a long way off. It is one of those gut-check plans. A double-dog dare kind of plan. Which brings me back to Terry Darlington. And his two dogs and his boat. Nobody was every sorry for going for it, in love, in family, in friendship, in business, on land, on the water, in life. Right?

Filed Under: Celebutaunt, Facts of Life, Mama Like, On the Nightstand, Uncategorized Tagged With: Narrow Dog to Wigan Pier, Terry Darlington, Vanity

Shhh….Mama’s Watching Her Stories

February 22, 2012 By The Well Read Hostess 5 Comments

You can dress it up any way you’d like, you can give it an upper crust British accent, you can serve it up with tea and scones, you can have it delivered at the ringing of a silver bell, and you can watch it all happen from a chintz upholstered divan in the drawing room while your ladies in waiting wait expectantly in the downstairs servants’ rooms, no matter…Downton Abbey is still a soap opera.

It might be on PBS, it might be produced by the BBC, it might be written by Julian Fellowes, its widespread appeal is not its fancy pedigree or clever wordsmithery or gorgeous scenery or cinemetography, its appeal is its soapiness. The Crawleys might as well be the Hortons or the Bradys or the Lords.

Oh, come on, now! We’d like to think we’re not the soap opera type, but you can’t really deny it. Intrigue, messed up family trees with branches that cross where they shouldn’t, evil plots, bastard children, rich people with too much time on their hands worrying about what to wear to dinner, poor people who suffer injustice after injustice, freak medical tragedies, people dying in flagrante delicto, cliffhangers…it’s all there!

And that’s why we love it. We just have to make sure everyone knows it’s Masterpiece Theater so we can admit it.

p.s. don’t say a word about Season 2, I’m behind.

Filed Under: Facts of Life, Mama Like Tagged With: Days of Our Lives, Downton Abbey, One Life to Live, Soap Operas