Archive for the ‘Remembrance’ Category
Open Season on the Widow(er): More about Debbie Macomber’s “Hannah’s List”
Before I start into today’s blog, I want to first point you to the book review I just did at Shiny Book Review:
I had a hard time containing my rage and frustration after reading Hannah’s List. There are so very many things wrong with this book — and all of them start with the premise: why would a man who’s grieving get a letter from his dead wife (written as she lay dying) asking him to remarry forthwith because he should have children — as if children are owed to him in her view — and then give a list of three disparate women who, in Hannah’s view, would make her husband Michael an excellent second wife?
Most if not all of you know I am a widow, and thus, Michael the doctor’s plight is not unknown to me. Anniversaries are hard — the first one in particular, but they never get any easier, and grief has its own cycle — one that doesn’t obey any time clocks — that the widow or widower must endure.
Doctor Michael Everett, the hero of Hannah’s List, has been grieving for one year — apparently author Macomber thought this was just much too long for a vibrant man in his late-thirties — and we’re supposed to believe that Hannah, his wife, is a selfless, caring, giving saint for finding three women she thinks will appeal to her husband to succeed her after her death.
Excuse me, but when did this woman die and become God(dess)? I mean, isn’t it up to Michael — the widower — to decide when or even if to date again? And certainly, if he had the sense to pick Hannah in the first place and she was so damned good for him, why wouldn’t Hannah realize that he still has that good common sense that led him to her in the first place, so he’s still capable of finding another good woman by himself? And that he doesn’t need to be led by the hand in order to find someone else?
Some of the feelings Michael the widower had in this book didn’t ring true to me, either. From page 318:
How well she knew me, how well she’d known how I’d react once she left this world. But for the first time since I’d lost her, I felt not only alive, but — to my complete surprise — happy. I saw now that her letter had freed me; it’d given me permission to live. The letter, with her list, was a testament of her love.
Once again, we have the saintly Hannah, and the barely-thinking, barely-able-to-reason Michael — who is of all things a doctor and should understand at bare minimum what the grief cycle is all about — and I just don’t buy it.
Either this man had the sense he was born with to pick wisely once, so he can pick wisely a second time without being led by the hand, or he didn’t — but if he didn’t, he needs a lot more help than the manipulative, meddling Hannah could ever possibly give him.
There are not words for how much I profoundly disliked and despised this book, and I hadn’t expected to feel this way as I have enjoyed just about every other book Debbie Macomber has ever written — most especially the ones featuring scatterbrained angels Shirley, Goodness and Mercy. Those are funny, heartwarming and even healing books that make me laugh and think.
But all Hannah’s List made me think was this: open season on the widow(er). Because apparently Ms. Macomber does not believe a widow, or widower, can think for him or herself and must be led, kicking and screaming, back into life by the first available man (or woman, or alien, or whatever) who’s willing to take an interest before it’s too late.
Humph!
Research in progress to finish Michael’s fourth “Columba” story
I’ve been quiet this week, folks, partly because earlier this week was the sixth-year observance of my late husband Michael’s death. I don’t enjoy this — who does? — but I feel it’s important to do my best to remember his life, and what he meant to me (I do this every day, but try especially hard during this particular week), and re-dedicate myself toward this difficult, often frustrating and sometimes rewarding business of writing.
Michael left behind a fourth “Columba” story that is, at best, 1/3 finished. I know the title, which I will not share right now, and I know the circumstances Columba and her husband, the Duc d’Sanchestre, were in after they attempted to cross to his demesne but ended up somewhere else instead.
Complicating matters, I don’t have any notes for this story or universe — none whatsoever, unlike the “Maverick” universe (where there’s two completed stories there I’ve finished, and two novels I’m working on), which has plenty — all I have is the title, my knowledge of Michael’s writing style, and the completed 1/3 (or maybe 1/4) I have of the story to work with.
What I’ve done is figure out the setting — Michael has set this well, but I need to know how I can continue to describe it as it doesn’t come naturally to me — figure out some of what’s about to happen next, and because I know these characters very well (even though I’ve never written them before, I’ve read these stories over and over as they are outstanding), I believe I’ll be able to start writing the fourth story (or at least my continuation of it) very soon.
Very few authors have attempted what I’m doing — what I’ve already done to a degree with Michael’s “Joey Maverick” stuff — most especially in the realm of trying to finish in the same style as the original author . A husband-wife pair (or spousal unit pair, if you prefer), where only one is left to finish the work of the deceased, is even more rare — I know of Ariel Durant, the much younger wife of Will Durant, completing her husband’s work, and of a few SF authors (Leigh Brackett, C.L. Moore, perhaps Janet Asimov to a degree) working in their late husband’s universes by permission or actually finishing stories in their late husband’s style.
At any rate, it can be done, but it’s difficult and often frustrating — this is not the writing that comes easily to me, and it tends to block out everything else I want to do until I’ve gotten enough of it out that I can get back to my work — and that’s the main reason my blog is languishing at present.
Aside from that, I continue to submit stories, write more stories, and edit various things — so I’m doing whatever I can to keep my dreams alive.
I can only believe that Michael would very much approve.
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Note: Please, please go to eQuill Publishing and look for my late husband’s “Columba” stories — it’s not too late for his work to gain a following.
Here’s the link:
http://www.equillpublishing.com/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=13
Michael’s never-before-published “Columba” stories up at eQuill
This was a long time in coming, folks.
I’ve done my best to keep my beloved husband’s work alive since his untimely death in 2004. It has been a struggle, but I’ve managed to sell a few things now and again — my story “Trouble with Elfs” sold in ’07 (Michael added 10% to it, so it’s credited as a collaboration), “A Dark and Stormy Night” sold in ’05 (this was his story, which I’d added 10% to round it out a little), — after our first sale to the BEDLAM’S EDGE anthology in ’04 (“Bright as Diamonds, released in ’05).
But all this time, I knew Michael had three completed fairy-tale fantasy stories set in an alternate United States of America — technically, in the demense of Illinowa, where Princess-Coronet Columba had a great deal of distress trying to separate herself from all the drama of being royal. Columba, you see, wanted her own, independent life — she was a musician, and a mage, and a very strong woman, stuck in a life that wasn’t right for her.
Then she rescues a cat . . . and things dramatically change. The cat isn’t a familiar, quite — you’d have to read the stories at eQuill to understand what’s going on fully — rather, he’s the gateway to an unexpected romance between two lonely, complementary souls who are equal, but not the same.
Michael wrote these stories for me — the first, “Columba and the Cat,” was written in early 2002 after we became engaged to be married. The second, “Columba and the Committee,” was written to celebrate our marriage in June of 2002. Finally, “Columba and the Crossing” was written for our anniversary — our second, as it had been in progress for well over a year due to the vagaries of life (a move across country, some ill health for the pair of us, and trying to find work in a new, strange place). A fourth, “Columba and the Cromlech,” was in progress at the time of Michael’s passing in September of 2004.
I wrote the blurbs, checked over the Columba stories, and am pleased to offer them now for the very first time to the public. I also am pleased to announce that the fourth “Columba” story will be completed, by me, as soon as possible.
Don’t be put off by eQuill being an Australian e-book publisher, folks — they have a monetary conversion thing through PayPal that allows any currency to be used as far as I am aware. (I checked this before I placed any of my or Michael’s stories there.)
Please check out Michael’s author’s page at eQuill and the stories available for sale now:
http://www.equillpublishing.com/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=13
And if you wish to see my page at eQuill (so far only one of our stories is listed with me; the others are listed with Michael), it is available here:
http://www.equillpublishing.com/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=12
Thanks, and as Michael always said, “Good reading!”
Remembering 9/11/2001
It’s been two months now since I started my blog, but rather than talk about what I’ve managed to get accomplished in the past month, I thought it important to do something else.
Remember 9/11/2001.
We all know where we were on that tragic and senseless day; we all remember seeing the Twin Towers burn, the Pentagon get hit (but not critically), and remember the drama, heroism and self-sacrifice of the firemen and rescue personnel who flooded the New York city area afterward.
It’s now been nine years since that historic day, and yet, what have we learned as a nation?
We’ve learned that even the worst of tragedies can be exploited for political gain.
We’ve learned that crazy lunatics who call themselves “pastors” or “ministers” want to burn the holy books of other religions in order to somehow strike back at the terrorists who caused the Twin Towers to burn and fall.
And we’ve learned that the mainstream media will exploit even the craziest of idiots one way or another, while the diplomats and soldiers scramble to contain the damage the idiots can’t help but cause in their wake.
Somehow, I do not believe this is what anyone had hoped we’d be thinking about, nine years after the worst terrorist-caused disaster to ever hit the United States of America — and it’s sad, and beyond frustrating, that this is so.
The Terry Joneses of this world, who claim to be doing holy work, seem to be much more interested in the press clippings they amass rather than saving people’s souls or bringing anyone closer to the enlightenment of the Deity. That at least two other Americans have vowed to also burn the Koran, the holy book of the Muslim faith, on 9/11/2010 goes beyond shame, beyond any sense of retribution for what happened on 9/11/2001 — instead it appears to me to be all about the publicity, all about the fame, of those who would burn the Koran for gain.
Our soldiers overseas will have problems due to this — they are already having problems, from what Afghanistan Commanding General David Petraeus has said. And our State Department, which heads up our diplomatic branch, can only do so much to contain the outcry around the world — which is sad, considering we’re talking a very few crazy idiots who believe burning a holy work is a good idea.
But out of something this bad, this shocking, can come a slight silver lining. This week I heard representatives from both parties condemn this action in advance. President Barack Obama said that burning a Koran is a “recruitment bonanza for Al-Qaeda,” and conservative commentator and former Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin said that burning the Koran is a horrible idea; that it’s unAmerican. They are both right.
Diplomacy is the art of the possible. Yet the Terry Jones of this world make it closer to impossible; what a shame, and a complete and colossal waste, that Terry Jones and these others must grandstand on such a day of mourning for the world. Because it undercuts the sacrifice of those who died on 9/11/2001 when others must grandstand for shock value — and it makes the United States of America look like a bunch of unschooled, uncivilized morons.
At any rate, remember 9/11/2001. Remember the sacrifice of our brave men and women who died that day, and the self-sacrifice of the rescue personnel who flooded the New York city area, and the national outcry of mourning. And do your best to ignore the idiots, while saying a fervent prayer that the yahoos who’d rather burn the Koran to make whatever statement they feel they’re making do not end up getting a bunch of innocent soldiers, diplomats, and civilians killed.
Barb Caffrey's Blog 