Tag Archives: Joanne Guidoccio
Book Review: While We Were Watching Downton Abbey
Three women and a concierge. All residents of the Alexander, a historic apartment building in downtown Atlanta. Each with their own story and set of problems.
Indebted to her husband for his generosity and financial support, Samantha Davis lives a life of routine and self-imposed expectations. Each morning, she wakes up and renews “her vow to make Jonathan Davis happy, his life smooth, and his confidence in his choice of her unshaken.” In addition to the beauty maintenance and hours of volunteer work, Samantha also includes a “much-dreaded-but-never-complained-about weekly lunch with her mother-in-law. Which would last exactly one hour but would feel more like three.”
Claire Walker is seeking a fresh start. In between “sixteen years of single parenthood on a shoestring” and caring for aging parents, Claire managed to write two Highland romances. After her daughter left her college, Claire sold her house and rented a studio apartment in the luxury high-rise. She gave herself exactly one year to write the breakout novel that would launch her career to the next level.
Divorced with two children, Brooke MacKenzie struggles with daily sadness and frustration as she watches her plastic surgeon husband take up residence with his reconstructed new girlfriend in another apartment of the Alexander.
Under normal circumstances, these women would never meet, let alone become friends. But with Edward Parker’s gentle prodding, they meet on Sunday evenings for weekly screenings of Downton Abbey, the period drama that has sparked a worldwide frenzy. I enjoyed revisiting many of the episodes and watching as the women peeled back facades and forged friendships.
Some of my favorite scenes from While We Were Watching Downton Abbey…
“When the doors slid open, she nodded as regally as she could and then swept out of the elevator, channeling not just Scarlett O’Hara, but Downton Abbey’s Countess Cora, Lady Mary, and the dowager countess all rolled into one.”
“He allowed himself to wonder why he’d turned being a concierge into the god-damned Holy Grail. Just like Downton Abbey’s Carson and even Mrs. Hughes, he’d given everything up in the service of others. How could he let all those sacrifices be for naught?”
An excellent read and beautiful tribute to the transformative power of friendship.
Book Review: The Magician’s Assistant
The novel opens with two short definitive statements. “Parsifal is dead. That is the end of the story.” Unique but not unexpected from best-selling author Ann Patchett.
In The Magician’s Assistant, Parsifal turns out to be a gay magician, successful rug merchant and AIDS sufferer who has just died of a ruptured aneurysm while holding hands with Sabine, his assistant and wife of less than a year. Shock intermingles with grief as Sabine discovers the rude surprise delivered posthumously in Parsifal’s will: His mother and two sisters whom he always spoke of as dead are alive and well in Nebraska.
Lonely and paralyzed with grief, Sabine becomes involved with the Fetters women. She leave sunny California and ventures out to the bleak, wintry plains of the Midwest. There, she peels back the layers of her late husband’s life and starts her own healing process. At night, she is visited in her dreams by Phan, Parsifal’s Vietnamese lover, who provides guidance and reports on the afterlife.
As the members of Parsifal’s family seek her help, she realizes that she is no longer just an assistant. Using her new-found strength and confidence, she is able to work her own brand of magic and unchain her husband’s family from a painful past. Dot, Parsifal’s mother, often comments on her ability: “I don’t mean to compare, but you’re a lot better at this magic stuff than he ever was…you’ve got something extra.”
Published over fifteen years ago, The Magician’s Assistant addresses several social issues, among them homosexuality and abuse, that are still relevant today.
Movie Review: The Big Wedding
Awkward. Vulgar. Tedious. Predictable. A crowd, but no pleaser. The reviews were definitely not kind.
But I couldn’t resist a film with such heavyweights as Robert DeNiro, Susan Sarandon, Diane Keaton and Robin Williams. And while I agree it wasn’t the best film of the season, it certainly wasn’t the worst wedding comedy on record.
The Big Wedding is based on the Swiss/French film, Mon Frère Se Marie, released in 2006. In the original film, the adopted Vietnamese son of a well-to-do divorced Swiss couple is preparing to marry. The son’s biological mother, long out of the picture, travels to unite with her son for the wedding. To appease the traditional Vietnamese mother, the entire wedding party pretends the adoptive parents are still married.
In The Big Wedding, adopted son (Ben Barnes) is Colombian and has two siblings: an attorney with marital problems (Katherine Heigl) and a doctor saving his virginity for marriage (Topher Grace). The virtuous Catholic mother (Patricia Rae) arrives with her other child, the sexually precocious Nuria (Ana Ayora). Add in Robin Williams as Father Moinighan to officiate the ceremony and all the ingredients for a chaotic farce are in place.
At barely ninety minutes, the film does not require a major time commitment. But I would wait for the DVD.
Book Review: What Now?
Having recently discovered Ann Patchett’s wonderful novels, I was pleasantly surprised to learn she had also written a stirring essay based on her commencement address at Sarah Lawrence College.
Less than one hundred pages in length, What Now? can easily be read in one sitting. Using anecdotes from her own life, Patchett offers many simple truths and life lessons that will inspire anyone at a crossroads, not just newly-minted graduates.
As a recent retiree, I recall facing the What Now? question many times during the year before and after my official retirement. I could easily identify with the relief that Patchett experienced when she finally received a college acceptance letter. And I agree that having an answer to that annoying question was even more meaningful than the actual acceptance itself.
I was amused by the incident that led to an unexpected encounter and friendship with Alice Ilchman, the president of Sarah Lawrence College. And Patchett’s comment: “Sometimes circumstances at hand force us to be braver than we actually are, and so we knock on doors and ask for assistance. Sometimes not having any idea where we are going works out better than we could possibly have imagined.”
While Patchett appreciated the education she received from Sarah Lawrence and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she was also grateful to the nuns who taught her throughout her elementary and secondary years. So many wonderful descriptions: “Receiving an education is a little like a garden snake swallowing a chicken egg: it’s in you but takes awhile to digest”; “I learned modesty, humility and how to make a decent white sauce”; “In a world that is flooded with children’s leadership camps and grown-up leadership seminars and bestselling books on leadership, I count myself as fortunate to have been taught a thing or two about following.”
The road to best-selling author is never a linear one. In Ann Patchett’s case, she “batted around like a shuttlecock after graduation” and when she ran out of money, took a job as a line cook. Getting fired, graduate school and more detours until she realized that “What Now is always going to be a work in progress.”
Movie Review: The Impossible
On December 26, 2004, a tsunami struck Southeast Asia killing over 230,000 people in fourteen countries. Images of that huge wave coming out of nowhere have been imprinted into our collective memories.
In The Impossible, director Juan Antonio Bayona focuses on the real life survival story of Maria Belon. Naomi Watts delivers an outstanding performance as the British doctor on vacation with her husband Henry (Ewan McGregor) and sons Lucas (Tom Holland), Thomas (Samuel Joslin) and Simon (Oaklee Pendergast). I was impressed by all the actors, especially Holland who captured the bravery and determination of Maria’s eldest son. I am surprised he wasn’t nominated for an Oscar.
In the opening scenes, we meet and get to know the central characters. The siblings squabble on the airplane. Henry shares his workplace issues. Maria offers to resume her medical practice. And then we watch, fascinated, as the wind picks up, a page is ripped from Maria’s book, Lucas chases his ball, and birds fly quickly away. Palm trees start falling and then the huge wave descends.
At first unsure about the film’s direction, Bayona wanted to focus on Maria’s heroics. But while speaking with Maria, she stressed that it was all due to luck.“If anything I did was heroic, what would that mean for the others who weren’t so lucky?”
Inspirational and uplifting!
Book Review: Hemingway’s Girl
While researching Ernest Hemingway’s personal papers, Erika Robuck discovered a photograph of the famous author on the dock in Havana, surrounded by poor fishermen and a young Cuban girl.
The image of the intense young woman stayed with Robuck. Later, she channeled that memory into Mariella Bennet, the independent and fearless protagonist of Hemingway’s Girl. Born of a Cuban mother and white father, this feisty young woman takes on the responsibility of supporting her widowed mother and sisters after the untimely death of her beloved father.
When the novel opens, Mariella is scurrying between odd jobs and occasionally betting on boxing matches. After meeting Hemingway, she secures a position as maid at his house in Key West, where he lives with his second wife, Pauline, and their children.
Mariella is unlike the other women in Hemingway’s life. While she is drawn to the larger-than-life Hemingway, she is determined not to cross any lines or become another of his cast-off girls. Mariella’s life becomes even more complicated after meeting Gavin Murray, a WWI veteran working on the overseas highway. Torn between her desire for Hemingway and her blossoming love for Gavin, Mariella struggles with many of her decisions.
While reading, I had to constantly remind myself that this was not a factual account. Erika Robuck has succeeded in skillfully integrating Mariella into Hemingway’s world during the 1930s in Key West.
Highly recommended, especially if you have read The Paris Wife by Paula McLain.
Creating Characters
Yesterday, twenty of us gathered at Symposium Restaurant for a workshop with award-winning author J.K. Coi. Having written several novels in the urban fantasy, contemporary and paranormal romance genres, Coi is best known for creating compelling characters that “leap off the page and into readers’ hearts.”
Some of her tips…
1.Strong characters will offset weak plots.
2. Allow your characters to have flaws. There is no tension or growth in a perfect character.
3. Keep in mind that believable does not translate into realistic. Inject an element of fantasy to entertain the reader.
4. Make your character so unique that they couldn’t be dropped into any other book.
5. Feel free to make tweaks and twists that readers will appreciate, but not throw them out of the story.
6. Avoid cliches but respect reader expectations. If you must deviate, add humor or provide an appropriate back story.
7. Character-driven books have depth and are more memorable than plot driven stories.
8. Give your characters complicated relationships.
9. Secondary characters are there only because they have a purpose. They should not be more interesting than the protagonist.
10. Use other characters to reveal the protagonist’s blind spots.
11. Figure out the intricacies of the characters before starting the novel.
Coi also provided us with information about Romance Writers of America and Toronto Romance Writers.
Thanks to Cindy Carroll of Guelph Write Now for organizing this event.
Asking Rhetorical Questions
“Are any of you being hosed?”
Brian Patton’s question took us all by surprise. It was not the preamble we were expecting from the seasoned Toastmaster, but as Brian continued with his speech, it quickly became apparent just how effective that initial question really was.
That is the power of a rhetorical question.
Often asked for effect, a rhetorical question can emphasizes a point, present a challenge or serve as a call to action. Brian’s question immediately engaged all of us and forced us to actively listen instead of passively sitting back and absorbing very little.
Some well-known rhetorical questions include…
“Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution?” (H.L. Mencken)
“Aren’t you glad you use Dial? Don’t you wish everyone did?” (1960s television advertisement)
“If practice makes perfect, and no one’s perfect, then why practice?” (Billy Corgan)
On the lighter side (From House M.D.)
Dr. Cameron: Why did you hire me?
Dr. House: Does it matter?
Dr. Cameron: Kind of hard to work for a guy who doesn’t respect you.
Dr. House: Why?
Dr. Cameron: Is that rhetorical?
Dr. House: No, it just seems that way because you can’t think of an answer.
While crafting rhetorical questions can be challenging, toastmasters and writers should not shy away from this effective literary device. Consider the following tips:
1. Use these questions sparingly. If you have too many rhetorical questions in a speech, you can overwhelm and confuse the listener. One well-worded question in the introduction will give the audience members enough time to digest the information that follows.
2. Provide the answer to the question. While the question isn’t meant to be answered by the audience, it should be answered by the toastmaster who follows up with relevant material.
3. Hook the audience with a rhetorical question instead of an emotionally charged statement. For example, if you are trying to rally support for an anti-bullying campaign, you could ask: “How many more children must be bullied before we take action?”
Fun Friday
Joanne Guidoccio 