Tell the Wolves I'm Home (Carol Rifka Brunt)

"You can't open the book of my life and jump in the middle," Captain Mal Reynolds protests in a Firefly episode. But you can open Carol Rifka Brunt's Tell the Wolves I'm Home and come pretty close to mine.

I do this most of the time. Read a book and write about what it makes me feel, rather than nitpick characterization or analyze it using Foucault's discourse of power. I'm going to do it again now. Warnings for emotions spilled in the guise of dissecting a text. Warnings for potential incoherence.

Still there?

June, the book's protagonist, is coming to terms with the death of a beloved uncle, Finn. He is her mother's only sibling and he and June are more friends than relatives. They have a special bond. He brings her to galleries and restaurants and medieval festivals. They talk about art and movies and things important to them. They are more friends and soulmates than uncle and niece. Despite the fact that we only see Finn as June remembers him, their relationship is carefully detailed and preserved. But Finn has another life that he has kept from June. It is the late eighties; not much is known about AIDS. But after Finn's death, June meets Toby, and begins to realize that she is not the only one who misses and grieves for her uncle.

I don't know if my appreciation for June's story stems from how lucid the writing is or if it is only lucid to me because nearly every page seems familiar. The way June resents how she is 'just the niece,' not the one that the guests would console at a funeral. The way she wonders whether she knew Finn at all, or if it had been Toby she had been discovering through Finn. The way she constantly looks for her uncle in every thing and every place. Ms Brunt ushers us into June's head and makes sense of her emotions. The narrative reserves its shining moments for June and Toby, as they stumble through their fledgling friendship and try to gain what they had lost when they lost Finn. But, again, I am reminding you: I am the unreliable reviewer today.

The novel doesn't forget the premise it sets out. Grief is not insular. It can heal and unite, though I may be doing the text a disservice when I lay that out in such simplistic terms. Still, June slowly sees beyond Finn and Toby to others around her who are also dealing with the loss in their own way. June's relationship with Greta is a strong sub-plot that neatly ties back into the main thread. It is a coming-of-age novel and a family novel as well.

It is by no means perfect; that much I can admit. The prose can get bogged down by over-articulation, too much tell than show at times. There is a bit about art at the end that I am not a fan of. I don't mean to nitpick but the resolution over Finn's painting -- an important device throughout the story -- just seemed too far-fetched to me that it almost soured the reading experience. Almost. But whatever its faults, Tell the Wolves I'm Home was still one of the most moving reads I've come across this year. I will not be reading it again.

---

It has been ten years. Happy birthday, Uncle.

The House of Silk (Anthony Horowitz)

The buzz about the book is this: it's the first novel that bears the seal of approval from the Conan Doyle Estate (see the little gold circle to the left). When my friend Oz gushed about it, I knew I had to read it as well. In tone, mood, and characterization, Anthony Horowitz's The House of Silk feels every bit like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes mysteries, only longer. I don't think fans will be disappointed with this new adventure at all.

Dr John Watson's familiar voice opens the book, keeping the glamour alive. I'm no expert on Holmes, but I find that his tone is eerily on point. Dr Watson hints at two mysteries. The first involves a certain Flat Cap Gang in America and an art sale gone wrong. The second takes place closer to home with a darker, more sinister air and sends Holmes and Watson on the trail of the titular House of Silk.

I love that The House of Silk contains a number of references to the original stories. It certainly adds to the idea that this, too, belongs to an older time. Other elements I enjoyed were the inclusion of a more sympathetic Inspector Lestrade and the uh, more pronounced expressions of friendship between Holmes and Watson. Of course, these all take a backseat to the mysteries themselves, which alternately depict grim vignettes in dark places and thrilling Hollywood-type rescues.

If there are any additions to the familiar Sherlock Holmes tale, I think it would be Horowitz playing up to the more modern expectations of what a mystery-suspense story should do. When reading the older Sherlock Holmes adventures, I feel that we're not really supposed to figure out the details ahead of our protagonists. There will be red herrings, there will be clues, but you will never get enough to put them all together. Snakes as murder weapons, when there have been no previous mentions of them. Dusty knees whose significance only Holmes knows. But I think the way mysteries are structured now, inviting readers to come to their own conclusions by laying enough crumbs to follow, makes for a more engaging reading experience. We get the chance to play armchair detectives along with our heroes. Mr Horowitz certainly does that in The House of Silk. He gives enough, withholds enough, so that when the truth is revealed, you get that lightbulb moment instead of feeling excluded from the heavy thinking.

I kept a running commentary with my friend, texting her my theories, which turned out to be true. Was I disappointed? Just a tiny bit. I figured if I could figure it out, then surely it shouldn't have been all that hard for Holmes, right? But one thing that saves it is that as in his older mysteries, Holmes keeps his cards close to his chest. He doesn't reveal much information to Dr Watson anyway, so I shouldn't really blame the good doctor for not jumping to the right conclusions. A better explanation is that the action builds at a good and steady pace that what matters are the mysteries of the moment, not the larger picture. If this is the direction where Mr Horowitz is taking Sherlock Holmes, then I am up for more.

Giveaway: Digital Copy of All's Fair in Blog and War

Lately, I've been going on and on about my recent writing endeavors. It was an exciting learning experience for those of us who participated. Well, thanks to that same romance class, my classmate and good friend Chrissie Peria has published her own novella called All's Fair in Blog and War! It's a light and fun read that's got travel, blogging, and of course, romance.

Book Description:

Five Cuevas @5travels
Three guesses to where I’m going next. Starts with an M. Ends with a U. Has a lechon named after it. #travel

Travel blogger Five thinks she has hit the jackpot when the Macau Tourism Board invites her over for an all-expense-paid blogger tour in exchange for blogging about Macau. But while she happily signs up for the trip, she didn’t sign up to be travel buddies with the infuriating Jesse. Will her dream vacation turn into a nightmare junket? Or will falling in love be on the itinerary?

Interested? Head over to Smashwords to buy her novella! Or you could simply share with me what you think is the most romantic location in the world. The first three people to comment on this post (see mechanics below) will get a Smashwords coupon.

Mechanics:

1. Answer the following question:

What do you think is the most romantic place in the world?

2. IMPORTANT: Leave your email address so that in case you win, I can email you the code.

3. You may only enter (and win) the contest once. Multiple posts/comments will only count as one entry.

4. The first three commenters will get a Smashwords coupon that will allow them to download a copy of Ms Peria's All's Fair in Blog and War.

5. The coupons are only redeemable until August 15, 2013.

6. This contest is open to all readers.

7. Giveaway ends once all three slots have been filled.

EDITED: All three codes have been claimed! Thanks to Rachelle, BenJ, and Bliss! Giveaway is officially over, but don't let that stop you from enjoying All's Fair in Blog and War. :)

Nowhere But Home (Liza Palmer)

I heard of Liza Palmer's Nowhere but Home from Chachic's Book Nook. Intrigued by the pretty cover, I checked out the premise and realized instantly that this was a book that I needed to read. The protagonist, Queen Elizabeth (Queenie to friends) Wake, has spent most of her adult life moving from place to place. She's never settled in anywhere, especially since her temper and exacting culinary demands keep on getting her fired. Finally, she decides to move back to her hometown. North Star hasn't exactly been a safe harbor for the Wake women and now it's going to witness how Queenie confronts her ghosts.

The small-town girl who leaves home to find herself in the big city is a familiar trope, but Queenie's story has just the right amount of uniqueness and familiarity to it that I kept on reading. Her sister Merry Carole, who had an unsavory reputation after getting pregnant early, has never quite shaken old rumors, even as her son is named starting quarterback of the town's prized football team. Her old flame Everett Coburn -- the one who got away and broke her heart in the process -- is back again and looks eager for another shot. Her new job has her cooking final meals for convicted criminals, their last request before dying. All these elements made for a smooth yet very compelling read for me.

What really pulled me in were the final meals that Queenie would cook. Ms Palmer begins each chapter with notes of what Queenie is eating (Chapter 4 when she comes back defeated to North Star aptly notes 'Crow'), reminding us how food is an institution, especially in small towns. Food that unites a family, food that forgives a wrong, food that heals a soul. Queenie was given the burden of cooking for anonymous criminals and she made sure that these men and women were given some moment of peace before they died. I thought those scenes were very powerful images that resonated with me.

It's not too heavy on the romance and I like it that way. Ultimately, I think it is about Queenie coming to terms with her past: her family's reputation, her life decisions, her mother's death. Personally, I thought the romance part was like a sugar flower on the side of an already satisfying cake. It wasn't a bad sugar flower when you stop to consider it, but it wasn't the reason why I kept on reading this book nor did it seem to be very important to Queenie's journey. It had its heart-tugging moments but none as striking as those that Queenie faces on the job. Ms Palmer won me over with Nowhere but Home, and I hope to read her A Field Guide to Burying Your Parents next.

In My Mother's House (Joni Cham)

The strained and complicated relationship between mother and daughter comes to a head when Nina, the dark-skinned and introspective child of Chinese immigrants, returns to care for her ailing mother. Joni Cham's In My Mother's House peels back the layers of a Chinese family in the Philippines. Mother and child stand as opposites: Le Bi wishing that her daughter becomes more Chinese in appearance and in manner, Nina accepting another culture and language as the emotional divide between them grows.

There are so many things about the Chinoy experience that this review may completely miss or misinterpret. But what the author deftly does is to include the readers into her protagonist's experiences, regardless of how much they know about Chinese-Filipinos. I found Nina's recollection of her middle-class upbringing an almost Proustian experience; I had to stop to savor my own memories that Ms Cham's writing would manage to dredge up. Key here is Nina herself, the self-proclaimed 'Rat' of her family, silent and lurking and painfully observant. The protagonist notes small details, like '... the image of words written on red sheets hanging on walls, remembering how as a child, she had sat among the pieces of paper fluttering in the wind from the ceiling fans (p42),' she writes. Or, describing an uncle, she notes his 'perpetually smiling mouth with dried saliva on is corners and a voice made raspy from years of tobacco-smoking (p72-73).' The narrative has a tendency to meander from present to past as if we're floating along Nina's stream of consciousness but she keeps the readers well-anchored, careful about which piece of her relationship with her mother Le Bi she will reveal in each chapter.

Ms Cham relies on metaphors and images to build the story. The first is the rat, after Nina's birth year and the physical parallels that Nina draws to this creature. At an early age, Nina has accepted that she is not her mother's favorite, preferring to stay in the background or in the company of her beloved Yaya Pasing, who has turned into the maternal ideal in her life. Another is the odor of her mother's house, stale and suffocating. Scent is a strong element of the book. It is a point of struggle for mother and daughter in the beginning of the story, but throughout the novel it symbolizes the insular lifestyle that Le Bi clings to and hints at the divisive turning point in their family's lives.

This is not the Chinese-Filipino equivalent of The Joy Luck Club. Far from that. It is not filled with obscure Chinese references and rituals from the old country. It is not festive or warm, though there are moments of light and release. It may start as a slow read, but keep to it. The conclusion is moving and forceful, as startling and as deceptive as a rat behind the walls.

Tooth and Claw (Jo Walton)

One of the best things I love about reading is when I encounter a book that is so unexpected in approach and tone. Although it may tackle familiar themes of love and courtship, class equality, revenge, and moral obligation, Jo Walton's Tooth and Claw explores them through a different lens, creating a truly remarkable and entertaining reading experience.

Jane Yolen sums it up quite accurately when she calls it 'the Pride and Prejudice of the dragon world.' In this story, the Dignified Bon Agornin dies, leaving his gold, property, and body for his family. The consumption of dragonflesh strengthens dragons and Bon's eldest son Penn, a parson, understands that his three younger siblings would need their father's body. But when his wealthy brother-in-law takes more than his share, this sets in motion events that will have heavy consequences on the mourning family. The tale follows the Agornin siblings: Penn, who is struggling with the repercussions of hearing his father's deathbed confession; ambitious Avan, who wants what is rightfully his; Selendra, whose brush with an unwanted suitor may have ended her chances for a favorable marriage; and Haner, who is witness to the many injustices within her brother-in-law's household.

I half-expected to read about dragons upright and human-sized. But Ms Walton never let us forget draconian anatomy and physiology (or at least as we have imagined them through the centuries). In fact, she utilizes certain physical characteristics to set the conventions of her particular world. For instance: dragon maidens have golden scales that will blush pink or red when a male dragon is too near, thus making the loss of the virtue an untenable disgrace. Another characteristic worth noting is that those who are in service have bound wings. Dragon-servants are all required to have bound wings, though some families allow for looser bindings for those they have grown to trust. Parsons too, like Penn, are required to bind their wings. With circumstances like this defining Tiamath society, it is hard to imagine the characters as anything less than their glorious, natural states.

Still, it works. Despite the strangeness of the circumstances, the book dives into the issues that divide a family and a society. I was more drawn to the female dragons' plights (Selendra and the intricacies of her courtship and Haner with her changing views), though that doesn't mean that the male dragons' stories are any less exciting. I just wish I could have read more about Haner and the abolition movement, which I thought was an important theme but was not as thoroughly explored as Avan's lawsuit and political pressures. Ms Walton's world was just that rich that I kept on wanting more even when I reached the final page.

I've been eager to read this since I saw a review on io9 many years ago, but it kept on slipping my mind. I finally got a copy from Celina's Books and Magazines, and I couldn't put it down. It was an amazing read from start to finish -- delightful, layered, and distinct.

Independence Day Giveaway Winners

Last Independence Day, I hosted a book giveaway for signed copies of Unseen Moon by Eliza Victoria and In My Mother's House by Joni Cham.

The winners are:

For Joni Cham's In My Mother's House:

For Eliza Victoria's Unseen Moon:

Congratulations, Tin and Monique! I'll contact you soon. I hope you enjoy your new books!

To everyone else, thank you very much for joining!

Scribbled: revelations from #romanceclass (Part 02 of 02)

More things that I have learned from Mina's #romanceclass:

Revelation #5: Research is key. I checked the tide tables and lunar calendars so that everything was legit. (I'm an astronomy hobbyist, so things like this are interesting to me.) I didn't want anyone to say, "You know, if you're in Boracay in mid-March and there's a new moon, the tide would have risen too high for them to be walking along this particular stretch of Station 1 at 10 in the evening."

Even if I am Aklanon, I still tried to double-check my info. All the places mentioned in the novella are places that I had previously visited but I found myself asking a lot of questions. Has it changed since I was last there? I'm situating a particular event there; is that even possible? Research helped me clear up my assumptions and allowed me to remain within the realms of reason.

I realized that it wasn't about how accurate I was at replicating real life, but how I can make the story feel like a realistic experience for the reader.

Location, location, location! This made research fun. 

Revelation #6: It's challenging to make authorial intent and reader expectations meet. It was particularly challenging for me since I tried writing from a male perspective! My beta readers and editors are all different, which means they also have different views on how guys should act and behave. Their insights and observations had me questioning myself a number of times throughout the writing process. Believe me, even after the final chapter had been written, I still have the same questions. Never-ending fears!

So why did I persist in writing a male POV? I believe this particular story called for it. I don't think it would have worked if I had written from my LI's point-of-view, because I think that would have been a bigger challenge for me, so much that I was likelier to get her voice wrong than to get it right. I also didn't want to switch genders; I thought a guy would have been too unsympathetic in the LI's role. There was far too much power in that role (at least in my story) that making the role masculine would have tipped the balance. So it wasn't just a whim. I wanted to try telling this story, and this to me felt like the best way to do it.

Revelation #7: I got by with a little help from my friends--and not just from the writing group. A lot of this I wouldn't have done without my reluctant consultant Da Kyong, whom I met at just the right time.

I'm not in my twenties anymore, so I was pretty lucky that I spent part of the summer hanging out with fresh college graduates, most of them sociology and anthropology majors. They treated me like an ate, so in a way I felt that I was getting in touch with the sort of people my MC would befriend. I was able to visit several small collections and exhibits thanks to them; in fact, the Anding Torres collection in my novella is patterned after a collection inside a university library, one that I would not have had access to if it weren't for them.

Revelation #8: Writing is hard work, but it shouldn't be all about hard work. I'm glad that I still greatly enjoyed this whole process. It really tested and inspired me and I'm going to try applying what I learned to my still-unfinished mystery. So thank you again, Mina! No matter what happens to this one, I have really learned a lot. Someday I hope to see a novella of mine on a shelf next to yours.

Megan Meade's Guide to the McGowan Boys (Kate Brian)

This month's quick fix came courtesy of Kate Brian's Megan Meade's Guide to the McGowan Boys, an unassuming little read that was fun from start to finish.

The titular character is an army brat, shuttled to different places because of her parents' jobs. (Incidentally, this comes a week after my niece's best friend, herself an army brat, leaves for a different state.) Megan's parents are heading to South Korea and they give her a choice: come with them or stay stateside with her dad's best friend's family. Megan wants to complete the last two years of high school in one place, so she picks the latter. But it's not exactly the easiest of decisions, because the McGowans have seven boys. It's both a challenge and an education for only-child Megan, and even her sporty, tomboyish ways aren't enough to win over her new family. And that's not even counting her complicated crush on Evan.

(First off, I didn't quite get why Megan chooses to stay with the McGowans. Her argument against moving to South Korea is primarily fueled by her desire to stay in her current high school in Texas. I mean, if she still has to move either way, then why pick the strangers, right? Oh, I forgot... seven boys. Fine, I might just pick the same way, but I'm also much older and this would probably be highly inappropriate.)

Okay, now that I got that off my chest...

The book itself is a pretty good distraction from life's other surprises. It doesn't pretend to be more than it is and delivers a solid story about fitting in, family relations, and male-female relationships. The fish-out-of-water trope is used quite effectively. It also provides a good backdrop for all the issues that are tackled in the book. From dealing with resentful 'siblings' to challenging the high school queen bee to even befriending a person with Asperger's, the book introduces conflict that seem to grow organically given the story's unusual circumstances. What's more, Ms Brian knows how to resolve these issues. Even if there are plenty of them in the story, they don't seem too overwhelming and they're all addressed by the time you close the book.

Because I didn't see it mentioned in the book, here are the McGowan boys, according to their order of birth: Sean, Evan, Finn, Miller, Doug, Ian, and Caleb. Ms Brian gives each of the boys (well, save for the youngest two) distinct personalities so it isn't difficult for the reader to identify them.

Even with all these colorful characters around her, Megan holds her own. She's upfront and bullish, but she can also be caring and sensitive. She's an interesting lead who refuses to be overwhelmed by her situation -- most of the time. That said, the climax seemed completely unlike her. I understand that the drama was needed -- it is the climax, after all -- but her decision and the subsequent resolution both seemed weakly realized. Still, all in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Despite its ups and downs, I admired the way the plot carries Megan from one challenge to another and encourages her to face them with her brand of tenacity and determination.

Scribbled: revelations from #romanceclass (Part 01 of 02)

Early this year, I took an online #romanceclass under Mina V Esguerra. Her challenge for the class was pretty straightforward: write a contemporary romance novella in less than a year. But I wasn't sure how far I was going to go with it. At that time, I was already writing two separate stories. One was a cozy mystery; the other, a contemporary romance. Although the latter seemed to be a good fit for the requirements of the class, I wanted to experiment with a plot that had intrigued me before but never got around to writing.

Fast-forward to five months later.  I religiously attended the first couple of face-to-face meetings but when it became apparent that I wasn't going to finish my Act 1 on schedule, I skipped the rest. Good thing Mina reminded us that it was okay to continue the class; I started really buckling down to work with about a month left. Thanks to Mina's class, I realized so many things:

Revelation #1: I liked having so much time devoted to plotting. I've always done outlines.  But while my previous outlines were written in very general strokes, writing things down as class assignments made them seem set in stone. I tried to work out my plot and my character's motivations early on. That way, I had enough time to puzzle out (and solve) the loopholes and pacing dilemmas that would always plague me while writing.

My #romanceclass notes. I broke things down into chapters and decided

what each chapter's purpose was to the story. Look, muffins!

Revelation #2: Forced (daily) writing time worked for me. When the deadline was looming, I cut myself from the internet every 11PM so that I could have 1 hour and a half of uninterrupted writing. Then during my last week of writing, work eased a bit, and I could now keep my file open from mid-morning until late at night. I forced myself to finish before work deadlines came in. The result? I finished the novella in 27 days.

My friends and I used a chart to track our progress and it was very helpful for me to note how many words I had been writing each day and how close I was to finishing the novella. I would usually set different deadlines for myself. Once I noticed that my daily word count had an interesting pattern (today, 1k words; tomorrow, 1.5k words; the next day, back to 1k). It became almost like a game to make sure I met the night's output. (Sorry, I'm OC-OC that way.) Or I'd tell myself I'd finish certain scenes first (today, first fight; tomorrow, kilig). Whenever I felt my eyes drooping, I'd just push myself to just meet whatever personal goal I had set myself for the day.

Revelation #3: I like writing with friends. I felt that I wasn't in this alone. We cheered each other on. We brainstormed for solutions. When there were days that I felt depressed about my writing, all I needed to do to feel better was to see how far my friends' works have progressed.

Revelation #4: I didn't write straight. Sometimes I skipped around. It was my way of moving on when I was stuck. And because there was a plot outline to follow, I knew where to take my characters without losing the flow. Of course when I was tying things together, I had to re-read and double-check. But that was an easier task to me than forcing myself to finish a scene that I wasn't feeling.

It's hard to capture every little bit that I learned from class. Trust me, this isn't even half of it! I'll gather the rest of my thoughts and just post my other realizations soon.

[EDITED: Part two here.]

Giveaway: Signed Copies of In My Mother's House and Unseen Moon

Today, as the Philippines celebrates its Independence Day, I decided to give away some signed books by Filipino authors. This day always makes me reflect on my heritage and culture, so I thought it was only fitting that I help bring two fantastic works (which are not yet readily available in our local bookstores) to your doorstep:

First is In My Mother's House by Filipino-Chinese author Joni Cham. The book was awarded the Special Jury Prize in the Novel Category (Premio Jose) at the Premio Thomas: UST Quadricentennial Literary Prize.

From a quote by J. Neil Garcia:

Here is an incisive and at times merciless unpacking of a troubled mother-daughter relationship, complicated by the heady cultural dynamic attending “Chineseness” and all that it implies in a morally repressive, ritually pious and middle-class Philippines.

In My Mother's House is only available via Central Books, which has three branches in Metro Manila.

Next is Unseen Moon by another multi-awarded author and poet, Eliza Victoria, whose genre works move between the realms of horror, science fiction, and fantasy.

From Amazon:

Ghosts in a mansion. A home invasion. A group of friends haunted by a murder. An unlikely friendship, a dead body in an abandoned house. Unseen Moon (ebook edition) collects four suspenseful stories by award-winning author Eliza Victoria.

Unseen Moon is available as e-book on Amazon and Smashwords, though the digital version only contains four stories. You can get a print version from Amazon that includes the fifth story, "The Viewless Dark" or you can win it here.

Both books are not only signed by their respective authors, but also come with a special bookmark each.

Mechanics:

1. Leave a comment telling me more about the last book you read that was written by a Filipino author.

2. You may only enter (and win) the contest once. Multiple posts/comments will only count as one entry.

3. Winners will be drawn randomly. There will be one (1) winner for In My Mother's House and one (1) for Unseen Moon. Prizes will be distributed randomly as well.

4. The contest will run until June 22 (Saturday), and will be announced then. (Sorry, I don't have people's email addresses so you'll have to visit the blog again to find out if you've won.)

5. This giveaway is only available to residents of the Philippines. Prizes will be shipped out using the courier of my choice.

6. In case the winner doesn’t respond within a week of the announcement, I reserve the right to draw a new winner.

7. If you don't win, well... do yourself a favor and read another Filipino book when you can! Hooray for Filipino novels!

The Girl with Glass Feet (Ali Shaw)

Summer in the Philippines can be unforgiving. Eventually I start wishing for sandy beaches or colder climates, so I didn't hesitate to pick up three books that had winter settings sometime last March. Call it wishful thinking. One of those books was Ali Shaw's The Girl with Glass Feet.

The Girl with Glass Feet's St Hauda's Land delivers just what I had expected: a northern setting of ice and bog, harshly cold but also strangely magical. Deep within this icy archipelago (I am never sure if it's meant to be a country in itself) are magical things: a pale glow in the woods, albino creatures, tiny winged animals. It's also the setting of a love story told in multiple perspectives, mostly through the eyes of Midas Crook, a reclusive photographer, and Ida Maclaird, a tourist who never left. Not that she could: St Hauda's Land is slowly transforming Ida. An icy splinter has begun to spread and turn her feet into glass.

There's a deep sense of melancholy in the narrative. Mr Shaw's words fall heavy, as you would imagine Ida's feet to be within her thick boots. He also has a gift for description: 'In the curve of her instep wisps of blood hung trapped like twirls of paint in marbles (p62).' or 'He thought of Evaline, and white dragonflies skimming by a river, and husks of the larvae bodies they had left behind in the reeds and green stalks, and the way back then he'd thought love had been hatching (p 123).' Instead of marching into the fairly straightforward and unforgiving fate awaiting Ida, the language uses flashbacks and details to make the plot richer. In a way, this also hides some of the book's weaknesses. Readers never fully understand why this is happening to her. I would have been fine just chalking it up to the general logic of magical realism, but given that the source of her malady was already tackled, I thought that eventually we would get some explanation as to why it even started in the first place. Unfortunately, I didn't get that. Or if it had been explained, I must have missed the significance of a few lines within the flowery prose.

The characters' isolation is self-imposed. It's as if the remoteness of St Hauda's Land has pushed them away from most kinds of physical and emotional attachments. Each one is flawed and hungry and weighed down. Even Ida, whose demeanor and perspective has often been positive and open, has moments that lead her to shun contact and dependence. When she meets Midas, the two of them recognize the similarities in their characters, despite their obvious contrasts.

But what really kept me reading was the transformation of Midas and Ida as people. Their relationship was both sudden/glacial, realistic/surreal. Strange. There were so many things that I loved about The Girl with Glass Feet but I don't think I'm ready to reread it any time soon. There is already some bitterness, sharp like an icy crystal splinter, working its way into me.

A Month of Perry Mason

I've been very busy with three jobs (plus running an eighteen-month long role playing game and the occasional freelance writing gig) that my blog posts have been few and far between. I've still been reading, of course, but I'm not having much luck with the part where I sit down to write a review. Currently, I'm in the middle of Eowyn Ivey's The Snow Child, Elizabeth LaBan's The Tragedy Paper, and Joni Cham's In My Mother's House, but since I read on the go (i.e. on the bus or while waiting for a meeting), I usually take a shorter pocketbook with me.

That means I've been reading a lot of Perry Mason books the entire month of April, in no particular order. I just grab whatever's on top of the pile and move the one I've just read to the bottom. Here's a rundown of some I've finished lately:

The Case of the Moth-Eaten Mink - one of my favorite Perry Mason mysteries so far. It starts out innocently enough, with a botched hit-and-run. But soon Mason finds himself in the middle of a cop killing. It transported me to the era when these books were actually written. There was a certain gravity to this book that stood out from the others. Not only that, the case felt bigger than Mason and for once made me think he might not have all the faculties to solve it.

The Case of the Curious Bride - A newlywed gets herself in a sticky situation when her first husband shows up and subsequently gets killed. Add to the mess a spineless husband and a controlling father-in-law and Mason has a mystery that got complicated too fast too soon. An enjoyable mystery that ended with an exciting courtroom scene.

The Case of the Borrowed Brunette - I would have liked this a lot better if I hadn't disliked one of the characters Perry was helping. I'm used to characters lying, cheating, stealing, betraying. But in this book, I felt that her dishonesty was so unnecessary that it made me frustrated. Still, I thought the book's premise (an actress is selected to live in an apartment and give the impression that she's someone else) was a pretty good hook.

The Case of the Stuttering Bishop - I didn't care for this one a lot. Maybe the whole stuttering assumption/logic was just lost on me so I wasn't too invested in the idea from the very beginning. I wasn't attached to any of the characters and I was in a hurry to finish the book.

The Case of the Counterfeit Eye - another favorite. It's classic Perry Mason, with all its red herring evidence and interesting characters. The mystery is peppered with fake eyes, planted evidence, old flames, murders, secrets and lies -- basically the things that complicate a Mason mystery and deliver a thrilling read.

The Case of the Gilded Lily - Mason's client hopes to protect his wife and beat a blackmailer but things go from bad to worse for him when the blackmailer ends up dead. Mason steps in to help and uncovers the real culprit but it felt that it came from left-field. Della Street does a good job of voicing out my concerns this time: it really felt that Mason's methods bordered on illegal. But (again) I'm no lawyer, so I wouldn't know what was legal and what wasn't.

I have about eighteen books left and I'm not even remotely tired from all the Erle Stanley Gardner I've been reading. But ask me again a month from now. I wonder what I'll have to say then!

The Case of the Velvet Claws (Erle Stanley Gardner)

I got hooked on Perry Mason mysteries because my dad was a fan of the TV series starring Raymond Burr. When I was younger, Papa always talked about how this lawyer could solve even the most complicated of problems. I was in high school when I read my first Erle Stanley Gardner mystery, but only started collecting them in college. Unfortunately, there are so many mysteries to read and they're not as readily available as Agatha Christie's or Raymond Chandler's work. What few books in my library were bought at Goodwill Bookstore or Booksale. Recently though, a friend of mine generously lent me her collection, enabling me to read the very first Perry Mason mystery, The Case of the Velvet Claws.

It's a case filled with blackmail, adultery, double-cross, and murder. Harrison Burke is at a hotel during a robbery, but he's not alone. He's with the already-married Eva Griffin, who asks Perry Mason to handle a tabloid that's threatening to run this story. Mason digs a little deeper and discovers that not everything is what it seems.

It's hard to write a review of such a classic work. You can't fault Mr Gardner's characters for being stereotypes when these were some of the tropes that helped define the genre. Instead I'll just note what differences I found between this first case and his later works.

I found him more hot-headed and impulsive here. When I usually read about Perry Mason, I get the sense that he knows how his clients will react or how the prosecution and the police will attack. Since he's often able to anticipate these movements, he manages to pull some tricks out. I'm no legal mind nor am I a chess player, but Mason's strategies are always entertaining and exciting to a layman like me. While Velvet Claws still had its twists and turns, I felt that Mason wasn't on top of the situation this. There was an unusual amount of blind faith -- and dare I say it, naivete? -- in his client that complicated things for him as well. It humanized Perry Mason a bit: from a man who could manipulate seemingly impossible cases to someone who made mistakes every now and then.

I also got a bit of insight into Della Street's past. Usually Della is just described as Mason's efficient secretary (and to shippers like me, a little bit more). But in the first few pages, Mason recounts things we don't know about Della: "You're different. Your family was rich. Then they lost their money. You went to work. Lots of women wouldn't have done that (p15)." Della doesn't appreciate the stroll down memory lane so the subject is dropped. I would love to read more about Della's personal life and while I haven't finished all the Perry Mason books, I still harbor hope that I'd come across more information in the later books.

Also missing for me this time was the presence of the ubiquitous court scenes. Most Perry Mason books work by-the-numbers for me: 1) Client approaches Mason for help; 2) Mason asks detective Paul Drake to investigate; 3) Client is implicated in a murder; 4) Police investigates and a case is filed; 5) Case is tried. Most of the Mason magic is revealed during the court trial, but it is largely absent in Velvet Claws. Even without this, the mystery is revolved to much satisfaction. By-the-numbers, I tell you: 6) Mason solves the mystery and lives to fight another day.

Filipinas Heritage Library Turns a New Leaf

Let me indulge a little: I attended my first poetry reading on the grounds of the Filipinas Heritage Library's old Nielsen Tower home. That was 13, 14 years ago, and had no idea that the library was still fairly new. The reading began after dinner, later than I had anticipated, but somewhere I found the courage to step to the mic and read about old women falling in love. It was one of those times when I felt 'adult,' staying out late and talking to all these other artists and poets and writers as if I could belong in their company. At around 10, my uncle picked me up and we walked to the old Greenbelt mall where the driver had parked the car. It was a short walk, but that was one of my favorite moments with him. Only upon reminiscing now do I realize just how many details of that night I still remember.

Since then, I've visited Filipinas Heritage Library a few more times. It's a special library dedicated to books and other materials authored by Filipinos or about the Philippines, with a focus on history and culture. For the past 16 years, it was housed at the Nielsen Tower, but just recently until its very recent move to the Ayala Museum.

The new FHL logo looks like an open book. It features the Ayala Museum facade on the left and the Ayala Foundation colors on the right.
I was lucky to be one of the few invited to the FHL re-opening last March 18. There's a new energy in the air. It's more than a physical change. FHL is keeping up with the times and has taken on a digitization project to place history at one's fingertips.

The inclusion of the Filipinas Heritage Library into the museum is a significant step in the right direction. The move not only helps make the museum a center for culture in Makati, but it's also in keeping with FHL's pursuit of scholarship and access. With new programs and efforts in place, it's evident that that FHL is serious about becoming ‘the contemporary space for the contemporary researcher.’

If you’re new to FHL, head to the Ground Floor of the Ayala Museum to secure a library pass. Admission is P50 for students and P100 for professionals, though serious researchers may want to get an annual membership that includes admission to the museum for P1,000. Leave your bags (especially if they’re larger than 10″ x 7″ or if they contain food and drinks) at the entrance. Don’t worry; FHL will provide you a bag for your valuables and other personal materials. A librarian will then accompany you to the 4/F, where a special elevator will take you straight to the library on the 6/F.

The elevator to the new FHL
The re-launch included a tour of the new premises. The library is cozy; the space was said to be converted from an executive office. I counted about 13 workstations for students and researchers. The library is WiFi-ready and tables come with inconspicuous electric sockets to allow laptops and other electronic devices to be plugged in. There's also a conservation lab where they treat damaged materials.

FHL has over 10,000 books on Philippine culture and history
FHL also houses rare books from as early as 1608, maps, microfiches of rare publications (though you can find the rare books collection on the 3/F). A photograph archive can be accessed at http://www.retrato.com.ph. Over 1,000 digitized songs can be heard at http://www.himig.com.ph. FHL also allows researchers access to an online union catalog of Filipiana materials from over 100 library-members nationwide, through http://www.librarylink.org.ph.

The Atiz book scanner, the only one in the country
The digitization of old books is already underway. The new Atiz book scanner is equipped with two DSLR cameras that can scan a page in seconds and produce high-resolution images. The images are then turned into flipbooks through partnership with Trade Channel Philippines. According to the librarians, a 400-page manuscript can be scanned in two hours, excluding editing.

FHL is making it easy and accessible for us to learn more about our history and culture with just a few clicks. But don't take my word for it. Visit the Filipinas Heritage Library soon, and rediscover our nation’s rich heritage through the extensive Filipiniana collection there.

(Thank you very much to FHL for inviting and welcoming us.)

–
Filipinas Heritage Library
6/F Ayala Museum, Makati Ave cor Dela Rosa St, Greenbelt Park, Makati City
Hours:
9:00 AM – 6:00 PM (Tues-Fri)
10:00 AM – 7:00 PM (Sat)
Tel (632) 757-71117 loc. 36
Fax (632) 757-3588
asklibrarian@filipinaslibrary.org.ph

That Kind of Guy (Mina V. Esguerra)

Author Mina V. Esguerra is on a roll these days. Her previous self-published books Fairy Tale Fail, Love Your Frenemies, and Interim Goddess of Love have been released under Summit Publishing. She's just finished the sequel to Interim called Queen of the Clueless, currently available on Amazon. She's also giving out talks and workshops for budding writers. With her familiar characters and engaging writing style, it's no wonder that her books are getting new fans every day.

While some of her books have reached near local cult-favorite status, not too far behind is her solid offering, That Kind of Guy. I think Ms Esguerra does best when she works with older characters. They seem to me a little more well-rounded, a little more flawed, a little more realistic. That Kind of Guy follows playboy Anton (best friend of the lead character in No Strings Attached) and Julie, a self-admitted manang (though it literally means 'older sister,' it is used to refer to very conservative women). Julie thinks that a so-so first date was the last she'd see of Anton. But to her surprise, the charming and outgoing guy pursues her, even attending Christmas dawn masses for her. Despite their differences and her preconceived notions of him, it is easy to see how they made a connection. Ultimately it is Julie's ideas of how her manang self stacks up against Anton's past hook-ups, how she feels that she's treated differently than those other girls, that puts their relationship in jeopardy. In an almost masochistic exercise, she keeps a journal of Anton's past hook-ups as a way to reassure herself of her decision.

In Julie, Ms Esguerra fleshes out a different kind of manang. The term usually conjures images of the spinster schoolteacher sans makeup or the pious churchgoer in long skirts. Julie is none of those. Perhaps she has a manang's candor, opinionated and unafraid to let people know. She has her own kind of confidence. But if it hadn't been mentioned many times over in the book, manang would be one of the last things I'd associate with her. For me, a manang's uncompromising old-fashioned values extend towards most every aspect of her life. Clearly based on her actions in this book, Julie was far removed from my definition. But what's important to note that despite this, she still regards herself as a conservative woman. She feels that she is less adventurous or less sexually aggressive than the norm. It's a surprising revelation and one that makes me rework my own definitions of the term.

But that's what the novella is getting at. We are so hung up on labels that we tend to box everything else that way. Anton was a playboy, therefore he was expected to act this way. Or Julie was a manang, therefore she was expected to act differently. In his Course in General Linguistics, linguist and literary theorist Ferdinand de Saussure rejects the idea that a word corresponds to one set object and acts as a symbol for that object. For him, language is a sign-system that connects the signifier to the signified, from one idea to another concept. But a reader's interpretation of the word 'playboy' varies. Jacques Derrida came up with term differance to convey that the way meaning shifts between signifier and signified. The word has a field of meanings: "The written sign can break its 'real context' and can be read in a different context regardless of what its writer intended. Any chain of signs can be 'grafted' into a discourse in another context." As Julie discovers, her expectations of Anton fail her because she expects him to act in one set way. Language, as with human nature, shifts.

If I have a minor complaint about the whole book, it's that in No Strings Attached, I had a different impression of Julie's social life. She hung out with Dante and an intellectual, academic crowd. In That Kind of Guy, she's almost like a social wallflower whose real friends pre-Anton were barely mentioned. Maybe their absence helped reinforce the manang stereotype. Or maybe their inclusion would have been confusing in a short novella that is already full of secondary characters. I'll never know, but I missed them. (Fine, I missed Dante.)

That Kind of Guy also contrasts two different dating styles. Again we go back to the idea of labels: the bad guy and the good guy. The book plays along with reader expectations and then twists them at the end so we see what can be emulated in the 'bad' guy and what is flawed in the 'good' one. On two separate occasions, I found myself defending why Henry was the poorer choice of the two.

I read this so many months ago but I can still remember how hooked I had been. I was in a car running errands and I could not put this down. (And from the looks of this ultra-long review, I'm still quite hooked!) As much as I love Ms Esguerra's other books, ones like No Strings Attached and That Kind of Guy are the ones that draw me the most.

With In My Mother's House Author Joni Cham

Last Sunday, I had the pleasure of meeting up with author Joni Cham, who brought me a copy of her prize-winning debut, In My Mother's House. It was awarded the Special Jury Prize in the Novel Category (Premio Jose) at the Premio Thomas: UST Quadricentennial Literary Prize. The book was launched, among others, as part of DLSU's centennial celebration.

Proudly posing with her work

Book signing! Not her first and definitely not her last

At Little Tokyo
The novel tackles the strained relationship between a Chinese mother and a daughter raised in middle-class Philippines. I'm only a few chapters into the book but Joni, who has an MFA in Creative Writing from De La Salle University, is already showing how talented and capable she is in handling the nuances of her story.

In My Mother's House is published by Central Books for DLSU. It's available at all Central Books branches:
SM Megamall
5/F Building A
Mandaluyong

G/F Phoenix Bldg.
927 Quezon Ave., QC

Ever Gotesco, Manila Plaza Mall
Recto Ave, Manila
To know more about Joni and her debut novel, visit her blog at http://soyoufound.me or email her at sanapakaininmoko@yahoo.com. You can also follow her on Twitter: @pakainin.

A.D.

When I was much younger, my mother taught me that history was divided in two. BC meant 'Before Christ.' But because 'Anno Domini' was too complicated for me to remember, we settled for the mnemonic After Death.

In 2003, I learned to separate my own history by that defining year. What came before, what followed after. There are certain hollow places that cannot be filled in a year, in ten. I will still chase after Vienna. I will still cry when I hear a familiar Beatles tune play. But with the old dreams and the old hurts are new ones, crowding and insistent. It is ten years A.D. Just because it's gotten easier doesn't mean that I don't find it hard that you're gone.

How They Met and Other Stories (David Levithan)

I'm in love with David Levithan's How They Met and Other Stories. Consider this:

C'mon, you've seen the movie: As soon as the headstrong girl announces she's not going to fall in love, you know she'll be falling in love before the final credits. That's the way the story goes. Only it's not going to be my story. I am taking my story in my own hands. I don't care for the way it's supposed to go. Some people find happily ever after in being part of a couple, and for them, I say, good for you. But that's no reason we should all have to do it. That's no reason that every goddamn song and story has to say we should. - "Miss Lucy Has a Steamboat," p48

Or:

What do I know about love? Not much--that's the safe answer. Even when I think I have a grasp on it, something comes along to make me realize I don't know anything at all. - "the escalator, a love story," p78

In this collection of stories about love, David Levithan defines abstractions with the familiar, even the mundane, and then turns the mundane into springboards for some three o'clock epiphany. There are so many facets explored here: friendship, sex, obsession, heartbreak, gay love, straight love. Even with the overboard of romance in a collection like this, Mr Levithan keeps his characters from becoming cliches. They can be heartbreakingly honest. They can lie with conviction. They are confused. They are certain. He also takes us through different perspectives and narrative styles, ensuring that the writing is always fresh and never static.

The two stories that I mentioned above are some of my favorites, but they're not all. Others are "Starbucks Boy," "Flirting with Waiters," and "Without Saying," but even those I didn't mention shone with their own charm. It's testament to an author's skill when he can get a straight thirtysomething female reader empathizing with a gay teenager without feeling out of place or disjointed.

I've had How They Met and Other Stories for months now, but I'm glad I got to finish it before Valentine's. David Levithan must be cringing at being turned into a cliche, but this was just exactly what I needed to read. Love that's bitter, love that's sweet, and its other intersections in between.

Pleasure and the romance novel

In his The Pleasure of the Text, Roland Barthes cites two kinds of experiences when it comes to reading. The first is plaisir or pleasure; the other, jouissance, translated as 'bliss' (though in Jacques Lacan's work, the word is untranslated because it goes beyond enjoyment; Wiki references orgasmic). According to Barthes, the text itself begins simply: letters, words, sentences. But as we read it, we start to connect it to different thoughts and emotions. We bring something else to the text.

The book of love is long and boring, Peter Gabriel sings
Reading Marla Miniano's From This Day Forward, for example, made me recall similar weddings, similar failed loves, and the smooth feel of a shapeless gold dress I had to wear the last time I was a bridesmaid. Reading Lauren Willig's The Mischief of the Mistletoe for the nth time never fails to bring that kilig feeling when I imagine how the characters look like and act towards each other. Or at least that's what I think it means when Barthes says that this is where the pleasure part comes in. The language is innocent and as readers, we bring something else to cover it. We attach something else to the text that we're reading. In a way it's also something that can be controlled. (Also, I'm probably simplifying this in ways that will make my Lit professors cringe.)

The jouissance part, or the bliss, that's the tricky one. It's an action, not just a state of mind. This is the text that unsettles you, the reading experience that becomes unbearable. Pleasure is for the masses; jouissance is undiluted, uncontrolled. When I read about jouissance in critical text, I always go hot damn, what was the last novel that made me feel that?

Anyway, this post really isn't about jouissance more than it is about the simple pleasures I feel when I read a good romance. I don't really mention this a lot, but I can hear a soundtrack in my head. Doesn't matter if it's anachronistic, like Snow Patrol's Signal Fire when I'm reading about Mau and Daphne in Terry Pratchett's Nation. Or seamlessly complement the narrative, like Red House Painter's Revelation Big Sur for Sweethearts. I know a lot of writers who write with music in the background or pick out playlists for their own books (check out Libba Bray's here). In a way, this connection with music is what triggers my pleasure centers and make me feel like this most of the time:


Happiness is contagious

This year, I believe, will be my year of pleasure and the romance novel: to make connections and attachments between words and images, whether I am a reader or a writer. May awareness and emotion visit us with every turn of the page.