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What I’m Reading: Violeta by Isabel Allende

My Goodreads and Amazon reviews of Violeta by Isabel Allende (Rating 3) – Mechanical Realism. Violeta by Isabel Allende is an epistolary novel written by a 100-year-old woman to someone we learn midway through the book is her grandson. (This revelation is not a spoiler; Allende creates neither mystery nor curiosity about the correspondent’s identity.) Spanning a century from the Spanish flu to COVID, the book promises to explore a woman’s evolution from spoiled rich girl to women’s rights activist. Alas, this opportunity is squandered. Instead, readers slog through a dispassionate chronology of marriages and affairs, motherhood, business acumen, national horrors, and global tragedies. Violeta is emotionally flat. She has no lasting regrets, no festering wounds. Her joys are evanescent, her victories vicarious. Allende, known for writing mesmerizing novels of magic realism, has instead written an expository account of the abuses of an unnamed right-wing Latin American regime. Readers meet a multiplying cast of characters, but only a few are memorable. As a writer of historical fiction myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I know that to entice readers to imagine themselves in another time and place, an author must immerse them in the lives of fully imagined people. Allende’s Violeta keeps both characters and readers at a distance.

A monotonous recitation of 100 years of history

Why writers read: “A good book is an event in my life.” – Stendhal

Bad Dad Tale: Feel Bad? Too Bad!

The dad in Akhil Sharma’s An Obedient Father rapes his 12-year-old daughter and decades later, when she comes to live with him because she’s broke, thinks about raping her daughter. He feels bad about his badness but too bad for this family rapist. For the story of another bad dad, read The Great Stork Derby, based on an actual contest in which a husband pressures his wife to have babies for cash and, fifty years later, learns the true value of fatherhood. Read more about the book in NOVELS.

“Feeling bad” not an excuse or apology for raping daughter & granddaughter

Toronto, 1926: A husband pressures his wife to have babies for a large cash prize

New Novel THE SISTER KNOT to be Published

My novel The Sister Knot will be published by Vine Leaves Press, my fifth book with them! The Sister Knot unravels the fraught but resilient female friendship that endures despite the damage of childhood trauma. The story is told from the dual perspectives of World War Two orphans who survive on Berlin’s streets by cunning, theft, and prostitution. Brought to the U. S. by a Jewish refugee agency, their lives diverge when one is adopted and the other ends up in a group home. Frima, the adopted girl, appears to live the American dream. Yet later in life her trajectory reverses course. By contrast, Liane’s years are a downward slide. Not until middle age does she turn her life around. The novel follows their seesawing relationship through school and work, marriage and motherhood, incarceration and death. They drift apart or fight, but always come back together. Two sculptures that Liane makes for Frima — “Sisters” in childhood and “Knot” as they enter adulthood — represent the unbreakable tie between these unforgettable women.

The book will be released in April 2024. Meanwhile, you can look forward to reading my next book, One Person’s Loss, in just three months, on September 22, 2022. And a three e-book collection of On the Shore, Tazia and Gemma, and The Great Stork Derby will be available as Love, Loss, and Secrets on June 14th. It can be pre-ordered or you can purchase individual print and electronic copies of each book now. More on all my books in NOVELS.

WWII orphans often formed their own “family” groups

Why writers write: “The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.” – Albert Camus

Bad Dad Tale: Com-icky

Movie director Woody Allen’s sexual behavior with his daughters is not the stuff of comedy. At age 56, he had a relationship with the 21-year-old adopted daughter of his then partner, Mia Farrow; they later married. He was also accused of molesting the young daughter he and Farrow adopted together. Allen continued to work, but his reputation never recovered. For the story of another bad dad, read The Great Stork Derby, based on an actual contest in which a husband pressures his wife to have babies for cash and, fifty years later, learns the true value of fatherhood. Read more about the book in NOVELS.

51-year-old Woody made woo-woo with his 21-year-old stepdaughter, a social no-no

New Microfiction: Feline Believer

I’m delighted that 50 Give or Take has published another piece of my microfiction. Check out the story, Feline Believer. Watching birds is instinctive for cats, who regard them as easy prey. Cats often “chatter” when they see a bird. Why? Experts theorize that cats make this chirping sound as a means to mimic their prey, entice it to come closer, or possibly even hypnotize it and make it easier to catch. Is it possible that the sound we hear is actually felines praying? For links to my other microfiction, flash fiction, and longer pieces, see SHORT STORIES.

A daily dose of microfiction in your inbox

Bad Dad Tale: Washed up Man, Washed Out Father

In Rabbit, Run by John Updike, Harry Angstrom, a.k.a. Rabbit, is equal parts terrible husband and father. A washed up ex-high school basketball star who can’t face adulthood, he has an affair and abandons his wife, a recovering alcoholic, which causes the entire family to fall apart. For the story of another bad dad, read The Great Stork Derby, based on an actual contest in which a husband pressures his wife to have babies for cash and, fifty years later, learns the true value of fatherhood. Read more about the book in NOVELS.

Bad Dad Tale: Tattooed Avenger

The father of Lisbeth in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series by Steig Larsson is an ex-Soviet spy and crime boss who beats his wife nearly to death and is an even worse father. His daughter’s revenge: She becomes a vigilante hacker. For the story of another bad dad, read The Great Stork Derby, based on an actual contest in which a husband pressures his wife to have babies for cash and, fifty years later, learns the true value of fatherhood. Read more about the book in NOVELS.

Modern technology and old-fashioned grit bring down a daughter’s evil father

My Former Life: Child Star

Some of you know that before retiring to write fiction full time, I worked for over forty years as a developmental psychologist at the HighScope Foundation, an early education nonprofit in Ypsilanti, Michigan, where I was the Senior Director of Curriculum Development. HighScope recently celebrated its 50th anniversary and Detroit Public Television produced two short documentaries to honor its work. I was interviewed as part of that process and appear in both videos. The first is a 5-minute HighScope Overview Video about the Foundation’s educational philosophy and practices, and the second is a 3-minute HighScope Historical Video about its origins and ongoing international impact. Watch and learn. Just as a good manuscript editor helps bring voices and images to life on the page, a skilled documentary videographer enlivens talking heads and photos on the screen. Kudos and thanks to Matthew Winne.

Best selling book on early education published by the National Association for the Education of Young Children

Bad Dad Tale: Who’s Crazy?

In Edna O’Brien’s Down by the River, a work of fiction grounded in history, 14-year-old Mary is raped by her father and, after a failed abortion attempt, is forced into an insane asylum where religious fanatics insist she have the baby. Her father avoids prosecution. In another history-inspired bad dad story, The Great Stork Derby, a husband pressures his wife to have babies for a large cash prize and, fifty years later, learns the true value of fatherhood. Read more about the book in NOVELS.

History bears out the truth of O’Brien’s novel

Bad Dad Tale: Heavenly Father?

After losing his lucrative New Jersey bank job, John List, a deeply religious man, decided it was better to kill his family than have them go on welfare and turn away from God. He shot his mother, wife, and three children, then escaped to Colorado, changed his name, and remarried. He was finally caught 18 years later. Asked why he didn’t shoot himself too, List said that those who killed themselves couldn’t go to heaven, whereas if he lived and confessed to God, he’d be forgiven, get into heaven, and be reunited with his family. For the story of another bad dad, read The Great Stork Derby, based on an actual contest in which a husband pressures his wife to have babies for cash and, fifty years later, learns the true value of fatherhood. Read more about the book in NOVELS.