annsepstein@att.net

What I’m Reading: Home for the Bewildered

My Goodreads and Amazon review of Home for the Bewildered by Michelle Tobin (Rated 5) – Doctor, Heal Thyself. Set in a Michigan state psychiatric hospital in the mid-1970s, Home for the Bewildered by Michelle Tobin captures the confused minds of its residents and the personal floundering of Dr. Dorothy Morrissey, the young psychologist who is better at helping them than working through her own dilemmas. Tobin skillfully creates a diverse group of patients, each dealing with trauma, often originating in childhood, that interfere with their ability to function as adults. With compassion and competence, Dorothy helps her charges take steps toward insight and improvement. In the process of treating them, she also faces her own difficulties with her strict Catholic family and her ambivalence toward a boyfriend they deem unacceptable. As a novelist myself, who likewise delves into the human psyche from multiple points of view (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page, I admire Tobin’s ability to endow each character with a distinctive voice, and to evoke empathy for them, no matter how challenging their personalities. With engaging storytelling and emotional honesty, Tobin’s Home for the Bewildered leaves readers with a clear vision of how the past leaves an indelible mark on us and how we can nevertheless move forward to live satisfying and meaningful lives.

Facing the past to find a way forward

Why writers read: “If you want to learn something, go to the source. Dogen, a great Zen master, said, ‘If you walk in the mist, you get wet.’” – Natalie Goldberg

Famous Friends: Taylor Swift and Kanye West

They started as friends, feuded, and attempted to repair their friendship until West interrupted Swift’s speech at MTV Music Video Awards saying, “I made that bitch famous.” Since then, the barbs have flown back and forth. Given Taylor’s financial success and fandom, she appears to be winning that battle. Read The Sister Knot about two resilient women, orphaned in WW2, who defy fate to sustain a lifelong friendship. A compelling novel about the power of sisterhood. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.

Taylor Swift and Kanye West evolved from friendship to public feuding

Two resilient women, two separate journeys, one lasting friendship

Famous Friends: Frog and Toad

In the Frog and Toad picture books by Arnold Lobel, Frog and Toad are constant friends. The quirky pair do ordinary things and also embark on grand adventures. Whether they are flying kites or chasing after a missing button, these pals charm young readers and the adults who read with them. Read The Sister Knot about two resilient women, orphaned in WW2, who defy fate to sustain a lifelong friendship. A compelling novel about the power of sisterhood. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.

Amphibian amiability and adventures

Two resilient women, two separate journeys, one lasting friendship

Famous Friends: Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf

During their six-year friendship prior to Mansfield’s death in 1923, the two authors encouraged each other to produce some of their best work: Mansfield’s stories and Woolf’s distinctive novels. Mansfield wrote to Woolf, “We have the same job” and are after “the same thing in our writing.” Read The Sister Knot about two resilient women, orphaned in WW2, who defy fate to sustain a lifelong friendship. A compelling novel about the power of sisterhood. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.

Mansfield and Woolf each wrote their best work with mutual encouragement

Two resilient women, two separate journeys, one lasting friendship

Famous Friends: Joe Louis And Max Schmeling

Boxers Louis and Schmeling had a media-fueled rivalry in the 1930s. Louis, an American Black athlete, beat Shmeling, who Hitler called an Aryan hero. Neither man liked being a political symbol. They reconnected after World War II and remained close friends. Schmeling even helped pay for Louis’s funeral in 1981. Read The Sister Knot about two resilient women, orphaned in WW2, who defy fate to sustain a lifelong friendship. A compelling novel about the power of sisterhood. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.

Boxers Joe Louis and Max Schmeling preferred being friends to rivals

Two resilient women, two separate journeys, one lasting friendship

Famous Friends: Winnie Foster and the Tucks

In Natalie Babbit’s Tuck Everlasting, 10-year-old Winnie is friendless until she meets the Tucks at a spring whose waters can grant immortality. Winnie learns a lifetime of lessons in the few days she spends with Tucks. Read The Sister Knot about two resilient women, orphaned in WW2, who defy fate to sustain a lifelong friendship. A compelling novel about the power of sisterhood. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.

Winnie Foster finds friendship in Tuck Everlasting

Two resilient women, two separate journeys, one lasting friendship

Famous Friends: Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King

Media mogul Winfrey and broadcast journalist King met in 1976, while working at a Baltimore television station. One day, when a snowstorm hit and King couldn’t get home, Winfrey invited her to spend the night. They connected immediately and have been best friends ever since, which they attribute to mutual honesty, enjoying each other’s company, and the ability to communicate, even without words. Read The Sister Knot about two resilient women, orphaned in WW2, who defy fate to sustain a lifelong friendship. A compelling novel about the power of sisterhood. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.

Winfrey & King communicate, even without words

Two resilient women, two separate journeys, one lasting friendship

What I’m Reading: Beautiful World, Where Are You?

My Amazon and Goodreads review of Beautiful World, Where Are You? by Sally Rooney (Rated 5) – Ruminative People. In Beautiful World, Where Are You? Sally Rooney introduces readers to four flawed but engaging characters: Eileen, Alice, Simon, and Felix. At times they connect; at others, they glance off one another. Their behavior is kind, but sporadically cruel. They are competent, even talented and successful people, who are nevertheless self-doubting and dissatisfied. Hence the title. Rooney captures the emotions we unleash on ourselves and others, whether calculated or beyond our control. As a novelist myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I’m a big fan of Rooney’s signature style, that is, ruminative characters. Here she portrays them through obsessive interior monologues and most notably in the correspondence between the two women. Beautiful World is a deep study of love and friendship. How we depend on them, how we question their sincerity. The answer to the title’s question isn’t belabored but quietly emerges in the pages of Rooney’s honest and thoughtful book.

Interior monologues and epistolary dialogues answer the book’s title question

Why writers read: “Think before you speak. Read before you think.” – Fran Lebowitz

Famous Friends: Audre Lorde and Pat Parker

Lorde and Parker were both Black lesbian poets, mothers, activists, and cancer patients. Beginning in the 1970s, they wrote each other regularly, grappling with the issues we confront fifty years later: social justice, women’s rights, and critical race theory. Read The Sister Knot about two resilient women, orphaned in WW2, who defy fate to sustain a lifelong friendship. A compelling novel about the power of sisterhood. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.

Poets Lorde and Parker were decades ahead of their time

Two resilient women, two separate journeys, one lasting friendship

Famous Friends: George and Lennie

In the friendship between George and Lennie in John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men, the former is the latter’s master and intellectual superior. Yet the imbalanced pair share mutual affection and responsibility, leaving an indelible impression on readers. Read The Sister Knot about two resilient women, orphaned in WW2, who defy fate to sustain a lifelong friendship. A compelling novel about the power of sisterhood. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.

An unequal but moving friendship between George and Lennie in Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men

Two resilient women, two separate journeys, one lasting friendship