Summer Reading

{Lorna Landvick | Sauk Centre, MN | 5.14.11}

It has been months since I've picked up a book that I couldn't put down.  Partially because my time is so limited and partly because my concentration has been shot to crap (I can't seem to follow a really complicated plot line these days - as evidneced by the fact that the last book I read was The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and it took me about 4 months to complete.).  But a couple of weekends ago, my mom and I went to see Minnesota author Lorna Landvick speak in my hometown. 

I forgot how many fun - and free - things small towns offer.  And before you get your panties in a bundle, I know that living in The Big City has a lot to offer, too, but sometimes it seemed like the drive to whatever event was going on always tipped the scales toward not doing something.  So, we left the kidlets with my dad (who, for his own sanity, I'm sure, rented the Justin Bieber movie for Abby.  She watched it twice before we got back.) and  the two of us ventrued out into the rain for a mother-daughter book adventure.

For the record, I am love to hearing authors speak; I find learning about other authors writing processes helps me to hone my own skills.  And I am partial to Minnesota authors - I think they are some of the best writers out there.  Usually I like to have read at least something by an author before I go and listen to them speak, but on this occassion I have to say that I hadn't read anything.  Not one measly page, not one book review.  I knew who she was; when I belonged to my Mom's book club years ago, they read one of her books (I'm still not quite sure why I didn't participate in that reading/discussion). 

Lorna Landvick was funny...as in, forget that I'm in a cozy coffee shop with 15 other people, laugh out loud (and mabye even snort out loud) funny.  She talked about her acting career in L.A., and while she was waiting for that to take off, her temp jobs (she actually had a temp job cataloguing Hugh Hefner's movie collection - no ears or bunny tail requred).  She talked about a peace march that she went on that lasted 9 months.  She talked about her subsequent move back to Minnesota from the West Coast, her writing career and the charecters in her books.  She talked about some of the famous people who have read her novels (Arnold Schwartzeneger read one after he was recovering from surgery and Ashley Judd called to tell Lorna she wanted to play a charecters in one of her books that had been optioned for a movie.).  Each of her storeis was sprinkled liberally with wit and humor.

So when I picked up Patty Jane's House of Curl last week, a book about two sisters who open a beauty salon in Minneapolis in the late 50s and 60s, I was expecting Lorna's voice to power through.  I was anticipating all the wit and humor she showered on us during her talk. 

I got Lorna's voice; I got the wit and the humor.  But I also got a healthy dose of sadness.  There was an underlying ribbon of melancholia that I had not been prepared for.  It worked, though, that delicate balance between light and dark, without having one overpower the other and making the charecters unbelieveable or their relationship with each other and the charecters around them seem fake.  The relationship between Patty Jane and her sister Harriet withstood the best and worst times in their lives - love and lost husbands and babies and drunk parents and drop-down-drag-out fights and always a sisterly bond that surpasses everything else and the womanly gossip that comes with getting your hair done.   It made me thankful for my own sisters (and my sisters-in-law and my almost-maybe-someday-sister-in-law).  Like Patty Jane and Harriet, their joy is my joy and their pain I feel in the deepest parts of my bones.

So...Summer Reading Reccomendation #1:  Patty Jane's House of Curl by Lorna Landvick. Even though I dragged it out for about a week because I just did not want the story to end, it's a pretty quick beach read.  This afternoon I am off to Hill Avenue Book Co and the Spirit Lake Library to find my next summer read.  And if you'd like to share your summer reading suggestions, I'll take them!