The Spoken Word

by E.V. Legters | Dec 20, 2017 | Necessary Madness

I’ve never opened a book without a pen. Audio books? Never! What would I do with my hands? My annotations are an elaborate system that fill most pages. My son calls them the rantings of a mad women. Maybe so. I don’t care. I am madly in love with my books.

But I’m suddenly in love with audio books, too. Having given myself time and permission to listen, I’m hearing so much more.

The change came while working with Talece Brown on Vanishing Point. We spent hours (with her on the West Coast and me in Connecticut, these hours were often in the middle of my night) deciding on characters’ voices and how to convey the novel’s core. Talece brought new dimensions to the characters I thought I knew so well, not only through dialogue but with a beautiful portrayal of the scenery of their inner and outer lives. She saw my story as a movie, and her vision shines through.

As we approached the release date, I finally heard friends singing the praises of audio books, how they enable them to make use of what could feel like lost time, commuting or doing chores. A few even say they’d never ‘read’ if it weren’t for audio books on their smartphones.

In a recent Facebook post, George Saunders recognized some readers, unable to figure out Lincoln in the Bardo’s format, had given up. I hadn’t given up, but intrigued by its 150-plus voices, his was my first purchase. I was rewarded. People came alive. Descriptions sung. Tough passages became crystal clear.

At the end of long reading and writing days, I don’t want to pick up another book but neither do I want to stop working. I’d been wanting to revisit classics, but who has the time with such steep stacks of new books? Enter audio books. Wharton, Woolf (Nicole Kidman’s To the Lighthouse!), D.H. Lawrence. And now I’m sampling new releases to decide which to read and which to hear. Which ones are calling you?

Finally, a revelation. About limitations. The limitation of having only my voice in my head, only my interpretations, my emphases, my biases. Listening to books by authors I’ve read more than once, I’ve heard – for the first time – lines and whole paragraphs I’d skipped over that are not only interesting, sometimes stunning, but crucial.

We writers can become more aware of rhythms in our own work by listening to the pulses of others’ being read out loud.

I’m not likely to join the ranks of audio-book junkies, but . . . while writing this . . . downloaded two more. Naturally, I hope you’ll give Vanishing Point a try:  http://amzn.to/2CB1Lv6

Wishing you joyous celebrations. And a happy exploration of the spoken word!

Illus: Google Images

A Hollywood Bikini Wax and Alexander Hamilton

by E.V. Legters | Dec 4, 2017 | Necessary Madness

Hello all. What a week politically. Here’s some distraction.

Curious what sort of story caught Reese Witherspoon’s imagination — she snapped up the movie rights — I picked up Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. Social misfit, physically-damaged Eleanor (“There was, it seemed, no Eleanor-shaped social hole for me to slot into”) first shares her brand new Hollywood bikini wax (I had no idea) but moves on to things like this:  “I suppose one of the reasons we’re all able to continue to exist . . .  is that there is always, however remote it might seem, the possibility of change.” Eleanor is delightfully capable of change. Honeyman’s quick, light prose has just enough fun and just enough suspense. You might see the movie, but read the book first!

Emily Fridlund is a friend of my own friend and priceless mentor, Gordon Mennenga. Her History of Wolves, long listed for the Booker Prize, is an excellent choice for a snowy winter night. The brilliantly observant 14-year old Linda copes with family love and family loss deep in the north woods of Minnesota. Linda’s mom implores her to ” ‘ . . . feel clean for a second, okay? Just feel good. . . . We’re starting over, you and me. I’m trying to get God on our side, do things different. So you can be a happy little kid again, got it? Can you just be a little kid for one second?’ I wasn’t sure what else I could be.” As I wrote on Goodreads, “Completely absorbing. Beautifully and honestly told.”

My own Connected Underneath is also story about family, and love, and the choices we make. Small stones create far-reaching ripples in the lives of wheelchair-bound Celeste, Theo, a single ex-biker dad, and his adopted daughter, Persephone. “[Theo] came to realize – we all come to realize – our search isn’t for family, exactly, but for connection, connections that will keep us, so we won’t drown, won’t fly off, something that will connect us underneath.”

And I’m going to throw this out there: Ron Chernow’s Hamilton — I know. A bit lengthy for this busy time of year, but, I’ve read nearly all the other Chernow biographies — astonishingly, they read like novels — and don’t know why I put this one off for so long. It provides fascinating insight into those Founding Fathers our politicians constantly evoke. Chernow gets to the truth about those early years of our republic, fraught with discontent and disagreement. We nearly didn’t make it, and yet here we are. Or, so far, here we are. Take a look — even if you’ve seen the musical!

These titles are readily available in all the usual places, but please support your local independent bookstores.

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