After Visiting Friends by Michael Hainey/All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

After Visiting Friends is a memoir told like a mystery tale.  I thought it was very well written.

How important is good writing to a memoir?  I think it's very important.  I think it's like the old tale of The Pot of Broth (per Yeats) or Stone Soup (per Danny Kaye).  With creativity and writing skill you can make a lot out of a little.

On the other hand, in his memoir, Hainey himself writes that the secret of good writing is good reporting.  I know when I have talked to students I've said that a good term paper requires good research.  It is almost like a sculpture.  If you have plenty of information to work with, it's much to shape that information in a useful and aesthetic way (including by cutting things that don't fit your shape).

Hainey grew up with unanswered questions about his father's death, a loss he suffered when he was six years old. (Actually, there are so many intriguing little things about this short memoir that I could write for paragraphs about it:  At one point, Hainey speculates that he might have been a better man if his early loss had not been deepened by the secrecy surrounding it (I longed to know more!); in a publicity video on the Simon & Schuster website, Hainey, a fascinatingly soft spoken man, states that the memoir is really his parents' love story, a claim I'd like to see him prove).

Hainey includes many of his memories of his boyhood in the seventies on the northwest side of Chicago.  I think that there's no question that folks who've lived in Chicago, especially in this period, will enjoy revisiting some of the moments and places that Hainey visits in his quest for the truth which is also sometimes a sentimental journey. Hainey's father was a newspaperman and he is a magazine journalist and editor.  He's a good storyteller, and I both enjoy and respect that.  I think different kinds of readers will find different reasons to enjoy this book.

All the Bright Places is a YA novel.  Two teens have perhaps the "cute meet" of all time when they are both thinking about suicide and independently find themselves on the six story-high ledge of a campus bell tower.  One talks the other down and they find a great deal of meaning in their ensuing friendship/romance.  The boy, Theodore Finch, ensnares the girl, Violet Markey, in a road trip of sorts:  a Geography class assignment to wander the wonders of Indiana.  This proves to be charming, amusing and affecting and my favorite was the bookmobile farm they visited (but the farmer's backyard roller coaster was great fun, too).  This book reminded me of something I hadn't thought about for a long time but which I think is important: the stigma surrounding mental illness and the natural reluctance of those affected to be pigeon-holed in that category.

I've unfairly given both these titles short shrift because of time's winged chariot, etc.

After Visiting Friends by Michael Hainey/All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

After Visiting Friends is a memoir told like a mystery tale.  I thought it was very well written.

How important is good writing to a memoir?  I think it's very important.  I think it's like the old tale of The Pot of Broth (per Yeats) or Stone Soup (per Danny Kaye).  With creativity and writing skill you can make a lot out of a little.

On the other hand, in his memoir, Hainey himself writes that the secret of good writing is good reporting.  I know when I have talked to students I've said that a good term paper requires good research.  It is almost like a sculpture.  If you have plenty of information to work with, it's much easier to shape that information in a useful and aesthetic way (including by cutting things that don't fit your shape).

Hainey grew up with unanswered questions about his father's death, a loss he suffered when he was six years old. (Actually, there are so many intriguing little things about this short memoir that I could write for paragraphs about it:  At one point, Hainey speculates that he might have been a better man if his early loss had not been deepened by the secrecy surrounding it (I longed to know more!); in a publicity video on the Simon & Schuster website, Hainey, a fascinatingly soft spoken man, states that the memoir is really his parents' love story).

Hainey includes many of his memories of his boyhood in the seventies on the northwest side of Chicago.  I think that there's no question that folks who've lived in Chicago, especially in this period, will enjoy revisiting some of the moments and places that Hainey visits in his quest for the truth which is also sometimes a sentimental journey. Hainey's father was a newspaperman and he is a magazine journalist and editor.  He's a good storyteller, and I both enjoy and respect that.  I think different kinds of readers will find different reasons to enjoy this book.

All the Bright Places is a YA novel.  Two teens have perhaps the "cute meet" of all time when they are both thinking about suicide and independently find themselves on the six story-high ledge of a campus bell tower.  One talks the other down and they find a great deal of meaning in their ensuing friendship/romance.  The boy, Theodore Finch, ensnares the girl, Violet Markey, in a road trip of sorts:  a Geography class assignment to wander the wonders of Indiana.  This proves to be charming, amusing and affecting and my favorite was the bookmobile farm they visited (but the farmer's backyard roller coaster was great fun, too).  This book reminded me of something I hadn't thought about for a long time but which I think is important: the stigma surrounding mental illness and the natural reluctance of those affected to be pigeon-holed in that category.

I've unfairly given both these titles short shrift because of time's winged chariot, etc.

Miracle on Monhegan Island by Elizabeth Kelly

What an unlikely book!  No wonder it has not yet taken the world by storm!

I loved it.

I hate to try to describe the book's plot because I don't think I can do it justice. I think I read the book mainly because I had a professor who summered on Monhegan, and perhaps also because a book set on an island seemed appealing.  I didn't choose it because of its description because the story of a troubled family, narrated by its dog, didn't seem immediately compelling.

Three generations of a family live on Monhegan Island.  The grandfather is a pastor; the uncle is a painter; and the grandson is only twelve. Although the father is a pastor there's little that's mild about him and his sons frequently compare notes and speculate about their father's plans and intentions. He's a  master manipulator and they're a little bit afraid of him, too.

The story begins when the absent son/brother/father, Spark, decides that he has neglected his son too long, and must return home to try to grow/repair their relationship.  Along the way, he steals a purebred Shih-Tzu from the back of an idling Mercedes.

This is quite shocking to the dog and to Spark's companion, but Spark cheerfully insists he loves the dog already.  The dog, who narrates this tale, soon loves Spark in return.

The dog, now renamed Neddy, falls for Spark because he is sure that he can intuit that beneath Spark's sarcasm and banter is a wounded, sensitive soul who has buried his pain very deep indeed.

The charm of this book, in my view, is its narrator.  Is it interesting and entertaining to know what the dog is thinking?  It certainly is.  But Neddy has a very unique viewpoint, equal parts affection, concern, loyalty, and a sure sense of self.  Neddy is an avid and entertained observer of the family's dynamics, and seen through Neddy's loving eyes they become important and fascinating.

In the book's acknowledgements, the author thanks her agent for "letting me have what for" and thanks her editor for editing and offers as evidence of her devotion the news that she cut her favorite joke from the book at her editor's suggestion.

Kelly's humor and sensibility is what brings Neddy's irresistible charm to life. This is her third book: her others are Apologize! Apologize! and The Last Summer of the Cumperdowns. I hope she will write other books because the glimpse I've had of her view of the world is engaging.