Having gone through four consecutive difficult yet rewarding reads from foreign authors, I yearned for something American, and I found a winner in Alison McGhee’s Shadow Baby. The first person account is from the viewpoint of a precocious pre-teenage girl who has an impressive vocabulary, vivid imagination and thirst for knowledge. She is the daughter of a single mom estranged from the father of the child and her own father. In Clara winter, who uses the lower case for her last name because she hates winter, McGhee has created an enduring literary character that should stand the test of time. Clara befriends an old immigrant whom she wants to profile for a school report. A born writer, she composes reports of imaginary books she invents herself. She longs to know more about her origins, and intrepidly persists in the pursuit. The old-timer, a retired metal worker, helps her and, in his laconic way, teaches her a great deal. Here’s an example from the next to last page: “In my twelfth year I learned the importance of usefulness as well as beauty. I began to see consistency among that which is inconsistent. I came to understand the art of possibility. Those were the ways that the old man saved my life, and they are what he taught me. I was his apprentice, and he was my master.” The prose and dialogue are excellent. The 243 pages glide by. The setting is upstate New York, the Adirondacks, a small town near Utica, an area where the author grew up. McGhee has won several awards and teaches creative writing. Shadow Baby was her second of four novels. She has also written many children’s books. The 53 contributors who have rated Shadow Baby at Amazon forge to a consensus of four stars out of five. I agree, and wonder if that isn‘t high enough. The novel was a selection of the Today Show Book Club. It is a keen portrait of humanity, the best kind of novel in my estimation. Kudos.
I’m in shadow myself -- that cast by more successful authors. Checking my stats this morning at Amazon, I found that someone recently purchased a Kindle copy of Adjustments. Thanks, whomever you are. As I scanned the page I noticed my overall author ranking: 533,781, down from a high of around 400,000 about a year ago. Fortunately, my ranking among booksellers on the streets of Brooklyn must be high this week. I was almost certain the pictorials on art that Joan gave me yesterday would go fast, and they did -- all five of them. Complete strangers emerged from the shadows of my life and made purchases. My thanks, especially to Diane, who bought Killing, the third copy I sold since last Saturday. And two women I hadn't seen in a long time happened by: Joanne, who donated so many best sellers to me before she moved, and the other, whom I first met years ago at the Santa Rosalia feast and who, although she was not a reader, stopped to chat and wish me well many times thereafter. To my chagrin, I've forgotten her name, although I believe it too is Joanne. Even Bad News Billy showed. He had to go into the bank and ask that a $35 overdraft fee be dropped. He was told it was the last time he would be accommodated. That didn't stop him from purchasing the Oldies 5 disc I burned and Roger Corman's Swamp Women (1955) DVD, a terrible film that failed to thrust into the shadows the careers of Marie Windsor, Beverly Garland, Mike Connors and Ed Nelson.
Vic's 4th Novel: http://tinyurl.com/bszwlxh
Vic's 3rd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/7e9jty3
Vic's Website: http://members.tripod.com/vic_fortezza/Literature/
Vic's Short Story Collection (Print or Kindle): http://www.tiny.cc/Oycgb
Vic's 2nd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/6b86st6
Vic's 1st Novel: http://tiny.cc/94t5h
Vic's Horror Screenplay on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/cyckn3
Vic's Rom-Com Screenplay on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/kny5llp
Vic’s Short Story on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/k95k3nx
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