Jill Clement's Revisits Initiation and Duration of Her Marriage with 30 Year Age Difference

Jill Clement's second memoir, CONSENT, covers a lot of ground but the central focus is on the relationship with her husband with whom she was married for more than 40 years who was 30 years older than her. Jill was a 16 year old  art student when she first met, and then seduced, her 47 year old married art teacher. I have three words for this: statue tory rape. After reading this sensitive, candid and eloquently written memoir, I've softened having been smitten by Jill's eloquence and uncertainties, and by a love that deepened over five decades spent together. "Does a story's ending excuse its beginning? Does a kiss in one moment mean something else entirely five decades later? Can a love that starts with such an asymmetrical balance of power ever right itself?" What struck me was Jill's questioning her younger self. "Were my acts selfless, or was this the price I was willing to pay for my own eternal youth-to always be the younger woman?" There are admissions to Jill's vanity throughout her memoir. "Where did Arnold get his energy? From me, of course." She further concedes,"How does one grow old as the younger woman?"..."One doesn't.  I always looked fresher than he. If I gained a few pounds, he gained more. If my skin wasn't as taut as it once was, his was looser". But as she came into her 50s and Arnold into his 80s, the disparity reared its aging folds. "He looked helpless and blind and unbearably old, and I feared that the most difficult part of my life was about to begin." This proves true, nevertheless, her steadfast devotion comes to the forefront with tenderness and a vital, solid partnership. "All I knew was that he was willing to learn from me, that I had something to teach." The balance in the relationship felt to be a true partnership; supportive, loving and wondrous. Each shared with the other first. Jill to read what she wrote to Arnold, and Arnold to show her his artwork. Both provided the other encouragement and constructive criticisms. They were gifted artists who shared the other's passions. CONSENT isn't a soft love story, or unflinching tribute to an entirely redeeming relationship. Their union disrupted a marriage and family and fed Jill's illusions. "From time to time, he must have yearned to return to his former life-the three bedroom ranch house, the comfortable savings account, all that he had given up for me." Jill noted, "The illicit, risqué lifestyle sited my fantasies of how artists and writers should live." Jill ends her enthralling memoir circling back to their beginnings, "...his arm dangling over the side-the same position he was in when I went to seduce him 45 years before. I crossed the room and stood over him. He stirred and opened his eyes. There might be a dispute about our first kiss, but there could be none about our last." 

S Harvey's ORBITAL Extraordinary Exploration of Space Travel and Humanity

Samantha Harvey's Booker Prize (2024) winning novel ORBITAL is an exceptional literary achievement that elevates the reader into outer space. It contemplates life's achievements, big and small. Harvey's eloquence raises questions of what gives life meaning while placing the reader inside an international space capsule. The power of Harvey's writing shares the experiences of feeling weightless in space packed in with six fictitious astronauts whose thoughts traverse thousands of feet above earth back down to their connections with earth and ties to each other. This beautiful novel feels expansive and condensed. It's both limitless in its grace while floating through the capsule or walking outside in space. There's also a sense of confinement within their spacesuits and space shuttle. The narrative pulls at your senses as well, and it imbues a visceral sense of weigthlessness. The quietness of its revelations from each of the astronauts is profound in their breathtaking observations looking back at earth and stirring in their mundane yearnings. "They speak about things they miss-fresh doughnuts, fresh cream, roast potatoes. The sweets of their childhood." The brilliance of the writing juxtaposes opposing conceits. "Those hearts, so inflated with ecstasy; at the spectacle of space, are at the same time withered by it." One astronaut questions his own motive for space exploration. "He's never sure if man's lust for space is curiosity. or ingratitude. If this weird hot longing makes him a hero or an idiot, Undoubtedly something just short of either." Our home planet is the crux of diametrical conceptions. "The earth is once again a glass marble in the blackest space. Bereft and fragile now that its neighboring stars and planets can no longer be seen. And yet it is, at the same time, the opposite of fragile. There's nothing there on its flawless surface that could break, and it's as if there is in fact nothing there at all-the more you look at it the less substance it has and the more it becomes an apparition, a Holy Ghost." Without rancor or proselytizing, the insanity of a divisive, embattled earth is scorned. Borders and warring factions are deemed irrelevant if not foolish and self-destructive. "What use are diplomatic games on a spacecraft. We are one. For now at least, we are one. Everything we have up here is only what we reuse and share. We can't be divided, this is the truth. We won't be because we can't be. We drink each other's recycled urine. We breathe each other's recycled air." The warning message contained within ORBITAL is forceful in its simplicity. "The planet is shaped by the sheer amazing force of human want, which has changed everything, the forests, the poles, the reservoirs, the glaciers, the rivers, the seas, the mountains, the coastlines, the skies, a planet contoured and landscaped by want." Harvey captivates the reader within her orbit. This is a must read, stellar novel. 

Melinda's Top Ten Literary Picks A Mix of Fiction/Non-Fiction/Short Stories and Poetry for 2024

                     The Top 10 Are Listed in Alphabetical Order by Author's Name: 

1.    Taffy Brodesser-Akner's LONG ISLAND COMPROMISE - Patriarch's kidnapping takes collateral damage on all family members.

2.    Nonfiction Sloane Crowley GRIEF IS for PEOPLE - Beautiful reflection on the life of a friend who took his own life unexpectedly.

3.    Louise Erdrich - THE SENTENCE continues to prove her prowess as a literary writer of multi-genres in this novel: Native American Renaissance, social reform and philosophy.

4.    Percival Everett JAMES - revisionist take on Twain's Huckleberry Finn. 

5.    Nonfiction Matt Haig shares his history of depression and offers practical suggestions. 

6.    Henry Hoke's OPEN THROAT - The narrator is a savvy mountain lion living under the HOLLYWOOD sign

7.    Miranda July's ALL FOURS - Mid-40s female's road trip takes a detour and explores her sexual drive.

8.    Alice Monroe - RUNAWAY The runway queen of short stories struts her stuff in this collection.

9.    Paul Murray's The BEE STING - Irish family drama that cuts deep with a touch of magic and blarney.

10.   George Saunders - PASTORALIA  Short story collection that will resonate long after being read.

BONUS

11.   Jesse Nathan Poetry - EGG TOOTH - Try a sampling of poetry that has some bite.

    

M July's ALL FOURS-Outside the Box Marital Perimeters

Miranda July's audacious novel ALL FOURS is a liberating manuscript meant for peri-menopausal women on the precipice of losing their libido. It can also be described as a solo female road trip that takes a salacious journey into sexual yearnings. This innovative novel covers a lot of territory spanning sexual obsessions, marital strictures, friendships, celebrity, conformity and feeling free to yourself. It's driven forward by its 45 female, unnamed narrator married to Harris, with a young child, Sam. Our narrator is a semi-famous artist whose artistry remains a mystery as does the gender of Sam whom they both take great pains to not gender label. She tells one woman who refers to her child as her son. "How dare you sex label our child." Our semi-famous heroine was en route to NYC when just outside of LA she waylaid her lust for Davy, the handsome young man who cleaned her car's windshield. No one would guess that instead of going to New York for two and a half weeks I had hidden out 30 minutes away with a boy who worked at Hertz. That would be an absurd conclusion to jump to." That isn't the only preposterous thing she does. She spends $20K on redecorating the motel room she's staying in with the wife of her boy toy obsession. And, when alone, "I just luxuriated in my beautiful room, sleeping late and anointing myself and having orgasms and listening to music and eating only the foods that appealed to me: hot dogs and puddings and orange Popsicles.. "I didn't feel guilty. I didn't tiptoe or walk on eggshells...I was happy." But, then sometimes she thought to herself, "What are you doing? You're betraying your husband. You miss your child." Part farce, part fantasy and part a stirring rumination about commitments and fulfilling one's desire. While lying in Davy's arms she tells herself, " I saw us lying like this for the rest of our lives, profoundly married to other people but always knowing we could return to our shared world. This was what I had always wanted; he was real enough to love and love me back but not so real that I couldn't desire him." ALL FOURS opens news doors, explores new marital structures and encourages self-discovery and heralds solipsism. ALL FOURS is a ferocious and manic work of fiction that embraces aging women and encourages them to be uninhibited, unencumbered and fearless. Yes, I'm being judgmental and sexist in calling ALL FOURS a tour-de-force read especially geared towards women's book groups.  

I HEARD HER CALL MY NAME-Lucy Sante's Transition Memoir

Lucy Sante was an established and highly regarded author of nonfiction books and essays when she chose to  transition in her 60's. The journey to gender transitioning or body dysphoria is difficult to understand. It's best understood when explained by someone who has transitioned what it feels to be born into a body that doesn't conform with one's self-perception. Sante's writing is powerful when describing her mindset of hesitation and determination to transition. "Gender dysphoria had permeated my life...there seemed to be no domain unaffected by it...There was not a second of my life when I wasn't pinned under the klieg lights of self-consciousness. Even when I was alone I was being watched." Sante felt too ladened with unnecessary information from decades past, overburdening and underwhelming the reader.  She is most eloquent and poignant when emoting. "Once my egg finally cracked" and "the dam has burst. The weight of my secret could not be underestimated. I could fully measure its effects as they left me. I no longer felt timid; I didn't give a hoot about being judged. I felt like I owned my body, maybe for the first time." Unfortunately, she belabors the impact of her turmoil and detracts from empathizing with her emotional welfare before and after. As a critic, an award winning writer of nonfiction, contributing writer to "NY Review of Books" and editor, Sante's should have realized her writing required critical editing. Too much dwelling in her doldrums and detailing her either errant or non-existent social life makes the memoir excruciatingly arid. Her self-described Bohemian years spent among a few artistic celebrities felt forced and tedious. The memoir breakthroughs when she is expressing her heartfelt longing. "I wanted with every particle of my being to be a woman, and thought it was pasted to my windshield, and yet, I looked through it, having trained myself to do so." Sante has stated in recent interviews her concern for having come out now, it may be perceived as a ploy for publicity or as weakness on her part for waiting until public opinion to be more accepting. Her lifelong, obsessive worry of how she felt perceived overshadows her six decades, quelling her resolve. The photos depicting how she would have appeared had she transitioned over the decades were intriguing. Though I felt surprised, but relieved, her regret for years lost did not outweigh her current happiness ."It was what I should have been able to do long before, and at every point in between, but couldn't. Now that the world had shifted slightly, I was on the moving sidewalk at last. All the objections and hesitations-I was on the moving sidewalk at last; that I was too old; that I was dooming myself to loneliness;...that perhaps I didn't deserve to be a woman-faded away in the light of my resolve." I suggest reading Lucy's current interviews as they are more concise and enlightening than her over indulgent memoir. 

The SONG of ACHILLES-Old Drawn Out Greek Heroic Tale

Madeline Miller's novel The SONG of ACHILLES (SAC), deals with similar territory as in her follow-up best selling novel, CIRCE. Both are about an assorted cast of Greek Goddesses, Gods, demigods and their boy toy mortals.  Credit ACHILLES and CIRCE for appealing to readers who aspire to learn the circuitous connections and classifications mired in myths and Ancient Greek history. Both are a lot more interesting than the dry classics that many a teen has battled with such as the Iliad, Odyssey or tales of the Trojan War. Furthermore, Miller spins ACHILLES' saga from the narration of Patroclus, an-exiled prince who became Achilles' lifelong love into infinity and beyond. Still, Miller's epic tale suffers from insufficient editing and wagers on too long trolling through numerous infamous names and relationships. So too, the Ancient Greek War, assured to be a quick victory, morphs into a decade long running battle. Patroclus, a reserved loner in a new kingdom, is favored by the King's son Achilles. Achilles is a young adonis, and revered by all the other boys. The two form a bond from a young age that continues throughout their lives. Achilles chooses Patroclus to receive training for battle alongside him under the guidance of a benevolent centaur Chiron. The years spent in a secluded forest under Chiron's tutelage were the most interesting as they learn to adapt in nature's habitat and flourish into adulthood.  Here the two first consummate their blossoming attraction. At its core, this is a love story between Achilles and Patroclus despite its many epic challenges. Achilles' mother, the sea-nymph Thetis loathes Patroclus as he threatens to diminish Achilles' legacy of greatness. She poses various obstacles to their relationship. There's also the war against Troy which calls both Achilles and Patroclus to fight in the war with the Greeks against the Trojans. The war broke out after the abduction of Helen who was married to the King of Sparta and considered the most beautiful woman in the world. The sieges are bloody. Achilles proves his prowess  on the battlefields although the prophecy of his death looms overhead. Patroclus' skills tending the wounded are revered. Amidst the anguish of war, treachery and the wrath of various Gods against mortals, the devotion  between Achilles and Patroclus endures and makes the mounting miseries and myriad of players palpable. Patroclus' voice from beyond the grave bestowed a poignancy towards the ends that otherwise was missing. Reading SAC is more rewarding than reading cliff notes on the Trojan War and more of a lark than memorizing surmountable mythical and historical names. But, not nearly as tantalizing as consuming nectar or ambrosia.  

Alice Munro RUNAWAY-Munroe is By Far and Away Masters the Short Story Form

Alice Munro (b. Canada  1931-2024) is one of the most honored and revered writers of our time. Among her many accolades ar the Nobel Prize in Literature (2013) and the Man Booker International Prize (2009). She is considered one of the finest writer of short stories and her collection RUNAWAY received the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize (2004).  The stories in RUNAWAY all share her skill for investing the reader into her characters and their world. Her clear, descriptive prose create female heroines that feel real and self-reliant, although in the lead story "Runaway" a wife's brief sojourn to leave an unhappy marriage ends abruptly with a change of heart. It is the elder woman who is the central character and retains a steely resolve when confronted with the brutish husband. The experiences in both women's lives are felt by the reader which is one of Munroe's writing gifts. Another pleasure from her reading is the surprising whimsy that propels many of her female characters. There's a sense of adventure and thrill to what will happen next and a calming sense that everything will turn out as intended. You can argue that men are delegated to the women in her stories but they too are fully drawn characters whom we get to know and understand. The setting of the stories in RUNAWAY stretches from the present to earlier in the 20th C and she navigates the landscapes of the eras in her stories which can traverses decades within a story. The final story "Powers" differs from her other stories in what may be her swan song. The narrator  is disjointed and interrupted by a "decisive person" who may be a caretaker or spouse. It may also indicate her backing away from her writing which has brought so much pleasure to this reader. Monro did stop writing after RUNAWAY was published.  As with all her elegant stories and novels, Munro has runaway with my imagination and awe for everything she has ever written.