Terrace Story by Hilary Leichter

 A young couple with a newborn in a cramped apartment invite a friend over, who opens a closet door onto a spacious terrace with a spectacular view.* It's the dream of anyone living in an overpriced city, and it's the start of Leichter's wonderful novel. The first part is about that couple as they invite that same friend over and over so they can enjoy the terrace, but it ends with a devastating act. The next section follows a different couple as they attend a funeral out in the country. The third is about a young woman who struggles heartbreakingly to connect with other people, and the last one takes place on a space station.

How these characters and spaces relate to each other is opaque; names are repeated, images recur, and connections are hinted at. It can have a destabilizing effect on the reader, but Leichter uses that to meditate on grief and loneliness, something the characters experience in different ways. Space -- the magical terrace, literal distance, an inability to communicate -- represents the difficulty in connecting with others, and the fragility of such connections. It's a melancholic novel but the payoff is gorgeous.

*Once again, marketers and reviewers label a novel as magical realism when it's really, really not. I fear I'm fighting a losing battle, though.

Peace in our Hearts

 

This bead embroidery project was inspired by The Beadshop's similar Intentional Heart project. A milagro of a dove is at the center of the ultrasuede heart and I added seed beads and metallic spacers around it, with a beaded picot stitch to sew together the front and back. As I sewed the edging I inserted two jump rings at the top of the heart. I have since added a small chain to the rings to hang the heart with the rosaries hanging by my bed, but if I ever want to wear it it I can easily replace it with a longer chain.

It's shaping up to be a terrible year, and because of the ridiculous amount of personal crap I'm dealing with, I can't fight back against the administration as I wish I could. But I can pray for peace and justice.

Book Round-Up: Supersized Edition

 The Witch of Wild Things by Raquel Vásquez Gilliland: A romance novel with a touch of fantasy. It has been advertised as magical realism, but it's not really that because of the efforts to make sense of and explain the magic. I liked the plot and the characters, but once again the melodramatic, YA-influenced style of writing kept me mildly annoyed. Occasionally, though, a different narrative voice shone through that was much more engaging. I may someday read the rest of the trilogy.

Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery: These really are a comfort-read for me. As a girl I was intrigued by the depictions of college from almost a century ago, although there was less of that than I remembered. And it was amusing to see Anne delude herself about Gilbert for almost four years; what an ending, though!

Ragnarok by A.S. Byatt: Another novella in the Canongate Myth series. Byatt relates the myths of the Norse gods through a young English girl who has evacuated to the countryside during WWII, and her version is beautiful, visceral, and bleak.

Swordheart by T. Kingfisher: This is the third of Kinfisher's novels set in the Temple of the White Rat world, after the Clocktaur books. Like all of her novels so far, it has wonderfully rich world-building, endearing characters, serious topics handled with a light touch, and plenty of humor.

60 Songs that Explain the 90s by Rob Harvilla: A fun series of essays on popular songs from the 1990s, linked thematically. The essays are more impressionistic than critical, and had me seeking out a bunch of songs I haven't listened to in years.

Paladin's Grace by T. Kingfisher: Kingfisher has feet of clay! The fourth in the Temple series and the first in the Saints of Steel subseries. These books qualify as romantasy, meaning the romance is the primary story, but unfortunately this romance did not interest me too much; the beats were just too similar to Swordheart. The fantasy part, on the other hand, was great, and will be continued in the next novel.

Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales by Heather Fawcett: A wonderful conclusion to the series. I'm 90% sure Fawcett wrote this in response to certain popular romantasy series out there, because while Wendell might be tall and a fairy king, but he is blond, genial, friend to the fairy equivalent of the working class, and kinda lazy, rather than dark and brooding. And when he has his big, angry show of power, and Emily points out that based on her research he will regret it, he's happy to take her advice. I hope Fawcett writes more fiction for adults.

Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart: An unexpected discovery in the little free library across the street from me, it's a thoroughly enjoyable romantic thriller with gothic elements and a dozen allusions to literature including Jane Eyre.

Paladin's Strength by T. Kingfisher: The second Saints of Steel novel had a much more interesting love story. And it was so much fun -- Nuns! Paladins! Gladiators! Bears! Really creepy golems!

Pretty Earrings

 These earrings are made from flower components in Wendy Ellworth's Monet's Garden Lariat:

I don't like lariats, so after making two of the flowers I spent a good amount of time trying to come up with another way to turn them into a necklace, but dissatisfied with every idea I had, I finally set them aside. I found them again a few weeks ago and decided the simplest (and funnest) thing to do would be to turn them into earrings. They are super fun to wear.

These cuties are two of Anna Lindell's Wildflower Bouquet Pendants:

The perfect use for two porcelain beads I didn't otherwise know what to do with.

Finally, I realized I needed a pair of small gold and ruby earrings to wear with certain necklaces. Easily remedied:

Well, except I didn't have a bunch of fancy ruby beads lying about, just lots of garnet chips.

The Husbands by Holly Gramazio

The paradox of choice can become a problem in online dating. With a prevalence of apps and a plethora of choices on those apps, some people struggle to make any decision at all, fearing the wrong choice. Others cannot settle down with the good choice they make, always looking for someone better. This is the plot of Gramazio's The Husbands, only the problem here isn't that Lauren can't stop swiping; instead, every time a husband enters her attic, a new one comes out.

This was initially big surprise for the single Lauren, who comes home tipsy from a bachelorette party to discover she has somehow acquired a husband. It takes a few trips up and down the attic stairs but she eventually figures out (sort of) what's happening, and eventually she delights in the opportunity to try out new men (and new lives -- each husband represents in effect an alternate universe). If one husband is too annoying or mean, she sends him up to the attic to fetch something and waits for the next one.

But after accidentally losing a husband she really liked, Lauren sets about trying to find the best husband, rapidly cycling though many of them as she sends them off to the attic for trivial faults, or because the world is a little too different from her original one, or because she can't shake off a general air of dissatisfaction. Rather than find the right life to settle into, however, she becomes increasingly lost and anxious -- the paradox of choice at its most extreme.

The parallels to online dating are obvious (hence my opening paragraph), but this is just one facet of a larger societal problem we have. As our technology advances and our ability to shape our lives and our environment increases, we become ever more focused on trying to make sure everything goes exactly as we want it to. Life doesn't work that way, though. No matter how much we might want to, we cannot control every outcome, we cannot plan for every eventuality, we cannot avoid suffering. It's a necessary part of being an adult to become comfortable with uncertainty, which is why I thought Gramazio's divisive ending to the story worked perfectly.

2 Necklaces and a Wrap

 My December Necklace, so of course I finished it in January.

It consists of three strands: African "Christmas" beads, turquoise crystal with a little red mixed in, and gemstone rondelles that remind me of a string of lights on a tree. I debated adding a pendant (maybe a Christmas tree), but this way I can wear it all year.

Pretty crystals with charms:

I got this strand of crystals a while back, and not knowing what to do with them I knotted them on a strand of novelty yarn. After some pondering I thought a cluster of charms, Candie Cooper-style, would make a good focal pendant. 

This wrap bracelet/very long necklace was made with the Pear Festival mix from The Beadshop.

I kept it simple but added some beads of my own for contrast -- opaque red faceted glass, ecru size 6 seed beads, bronze glass pearls, and a vintage button for the clasp. I can't wait to wear it (in the Spring, when I no longer need to wear oversized wool sweaters).

Book Round-Up: Where Did the Time Go Edition

It's been a hell of a month.

Murder by the Book: Mysteries for Bibliophiles: another collection of short stories published by the British Library Crime Classics, by authors well-known and forgotten. The stories were, for the most part, enjoyable. Some of the weaker ones highlight a problem with mystery short stories -- it takes a writer of great skill to create a satisfactory tale given there is little space for characterization and motive.

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu: I absolutely loved this brilliant take on race relations. It's written in screenplay form, about Generic Asian Man who hopes his stint on the procedural show "Black and White" (get it?) will allow him to become Kung Fu Guy, movie star. It's bitingly satirical but also moving as it addresses the immigration history of Asians (and how they are never considered Americans no matter how long they have been here) and, most touchingly, the role of parenthood.

The Annotated Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, annotated by Douglas A. Anderson: my paperback copy having long since fallen apart, I treated myself to this handsome book with the aforementioned annotations, essays on the creation and publication of The Hobbit, and oodles of illustrations by Tolkien himself and the illustrators of different translations.

Dreams Underfoot by Charles de Lint: I first read these short stories back in college? Law school? De Lint is considered a master of the urban fantasy subgenre; this first anthology shows the the development of his fictional city Newford (maybe Canadian, maybe American, maybe coastal, maybe not) and the various fairy denizens who are only rarely noticed by human residents. I had forgotten that some of these tales are straight up horror. I had not forgotten that de Lint has a chip on his shoulder about anyone one who lives a conventional life. Still, they are fun to read.

North Woods by Daniel Mason: another novel I loved. Taking place in western Massachusetts (where I grew up), it follows the history of a house originally built by a Puritan couple fleeing persecution and all the people who subsequently stay in that house, however briefly. Those people are all considered outsiders by society (some deservedly, most not), and Mason writes movingly about the peace they find in the house and its surrounding woods. It's fascinating to compare this to Richard McGuire's Here, which has the same concept but tells it in comic form.