Randy Susan Meyers

Books

Think Piece Tuesday: Books That Shook Me to the Core: Part 2

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WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN by Lionel Shriver

“I have a confession to make. For all my raggin on you in those days, I’ve become shamefully dependent on television. In fact, as long am I’m baring all: One evening last month in the middle of Frasier, the tube winked out cold, and I’m afraid that I rather fell apart—banging the set, plugging and unplugging, wiggling knobs. I’m long past weeping over ‘Thursday’ on a regular basis, but I go into a frenzy when I can’t find out how Niles takes the news that Daphne’s going to marry Donnie.”

It amazes me when an author has the guts to walk into the most untenable of situations (a mother unsure of her love for her extremely difficult son, a marriage cleaved by a child—that child committing mass murder) and open our eyes with the smallest of details, the

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Books That Shook Me to the Core: Part 1

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TENDER MERCIES by Rosellen Brown

“Then how peculiar and painful, to walk across the threshold of his own house and to reclaim it from the anonymous care of strangers.”

Anyone knowing me more than a minute knows that Rosellen Brown is one of my favorite writers. Tender Mercies should be a standard for a novel of tragedy told from two perspectives. Published in 1978, it holds up like the finest delicate china.

Laura and Dan’s lives are shattered when an accident rips the marriage and Laura’s body. Brown is able to throw you back and forth between Dan’s wrenching guilt and Laura’s frozen tragedy with astounding emotional close-ups that are almost too painful to read, too brilliant not to—Brown is a writer of unfathomable depth.

I’ve read this book about a dozen times.

CAUCASIA by Danzy Senna

“Before I ever saw myself, I saw my sister. When I was still too small for mirrors, I saw her as the reflection that proved my own

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Breaking Down Racial Reading Shelves

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Having just re-watched Carleen Brice’s brilliant video, “National Buy a Book by a Black Author and Give it to Somebody Not Black Month,” I figure it’s time I add to the effort to get rid of the African American Authors separate and in no ways equal sections in some bookstores. (Haven’t seen it in any Indie in Boston–anyone else?) According to those who know, sales are less for non-white authors, promotion is less, and crossing the reading divide from White to Black (as opposed to vice-versa) is less. So, let’s promote, folks.

First, I recommend CHILDREN OF THE WATERS by Carleen Brice. A drama about sisters (you all know I love sister-stories, right?) finding each other, but not easily, across the racial divides. Not giving away any more, but there is love, family tragedy, secrets, mothers hiding truth, dog-lovers, and more. A page-turner, this book is warm, and wonderful.

Second, CAUCASIA by Danzy Senna. Again sisters, this is the story of biracial sisters from a troubled marriage. Eventually, the sisters separate—one to each parent. This is a book that won’t let go. I’ve read it twice, and I bet I’ll probably read it again.

Third, hard for me to pick, I’ve loved every one of her books, JUMP AT THE SUN by Kim

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Which Characters Live in Your Head?

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Readers all have favorite books—book we re-read, books that encouraged us, inspired us, challenged us, and soothed us. However, I wonder, is there a difference between most memorable books, and the individual characters who stay with us far after we finish the last page? I think so. I’m not an academic scholar who can deconstruct … Read more