Little, Brown and Company Publication Date: April 16 2013
From the publisher:
A mother and her daughters drive for days without sleep until they crash their car in rural Oklahoma. The mother, Amaranth, is desperate to get away from someone she’s convinced will follow them wherever they go–her husband. The girls, Amity and Sorrow, can’t imagine what the world holds outside their father’s polygamous compound. Rescue comes in the unlikely form of Bradley, a farmer grieving the loss of his wife. At first unwelcoming to these strange, prayerful women, Bradley’s abiding tolerance gets the best of him, and they become a new kind of family. An unforgettable story of belief and redemption, Amity & Sorrow is about the influence of community and learning to stand on your own.
Given the nature of the material, I was not expecting a light little tale of joy and contentment. The publisher’s description doesn’t really give you a sense of how extremely dark the first chapters of the book are, nor how awful the circumstances from which this family is trying to escape have been.
Amity and Sorrow are the names of the two daughters, the young girls Amaranth is trying to rescue from a particularly sordid religious cult involving emotional and sexual abuse, sexual exploitation of women and children, terror and bondage.
The first few chapters of the book are so grim I almost stopped reading because I was finding it more than a little stomach turning. I have trouble … a lot of trouble … dealing with pain and abuse of any living creature. But it’s worse dealing with children and animals. Amity and Sorrow are children and the degree to which they have both been horribly abused is never entirely laid out, but is certainly inferred with sufficient detail to make one feel that more detail would be over the top.
Just as I was about to close the book, it started to go in another direction, to a kind of redemption and restoration of light where there has previously been only darkness and fear.
It is very well written. For a first novel, it’s quite extraordinary. It would be exceptional even if it were the 20th novel, but what can only imagine what this author may produce in the future. The description is paralyzing in its ability to evoke raw emotion in the reader.
This is not a book for children. It’s also not a book for anyone who wants to keep his or her reading light. But, if you like to occasionally venture over to the dark side, visit the depths of depravity of which people are capable, try Amity & Sorrow. Although the theme of redemption is strong, the back story of despair, fear, and evil is equally strong … so make sure you’re ready for a trip into a nightmare.
It’s available in hardcopy, paperback and Kindle from Amazon and I’m sure from other vendors as well.
As long as I can remember, I have hated watching people make fools of themselves. I was probably no more than 6 when I found myself running from the room at one of many episodes of “Lucy” in which she does something humiliating.
Rather than finding it funny, I find myself identifying with the embarrassment. I can’t help but think how awful I would feel if it were me. Humiliation is a horrible feeling, often impossible to forget no matter how many years pass.
Humor that depends on embarrassing or making fun of people does not make me laugh. I love witty dialogue, literary allusion, puns. I love parody and all kinds of cleverness, but with the exception of villainous bad guys who more than deserve whatever they get, I never want to see anyone embarrassed. I hate cruelty, mental or physical and cannot watch it, even when I know it’s fake.
Not surprisingly, I was one of the kids who got teased and bullied. Way too sensitive. It’s 60 years later; I’m still too sensitive.
I first read Earth Abides by George R. Stewart more than 30 years ago. It wasn’t newly published even then, but it was new to me.
Unlike many other books I have read and forgotten, Earth Abides has stayed in my mind. I have returned to it again and again. I can recall it with remarkable clarity especially considering the hundreds of books I read every year, probably thousands since I first encountered Earth Abides.
Earth Abides is considered by many writers and readers of science fiction as a “foundation book” and is often cited as “the original disaster” story. A foundation book it is, but “original disaster story” entirely misses the point.
Earth Abides isn’t a disaster story, original or otherwise. It is a book of rebuilding, renewal and hope. The event that initiates the story is a disaster, a plague accidentally released from a laboratory that runs amok and kills off most of Earth’s human population. Some small percentage of earth’s population is naturally immune to the bug (as is true for all plagues) plus anyone who survived a rattlesnake bite has immunity.
The plague is the back story. The front story and theme of Earth Abides is the ways that humankind copes with the tragedy as scattered remnants of people gradually find each other. Individuals find others to form groups. Through marriage and the pressures of survival, groups become tribes. Most ailments of the old earth were eliminated by the plague. The vanished ailments are physical — the new generations are wonderfully healthy — and sociological. Archaic religious and social structures are shed by survivors who don’t remember what purpose they served or have any interest in preserving them. The new world has no room for bigotry, hatred or mental disease. It’s a small world, a new world with much to do. The strong and useful will survive, but the unfit cannot be allowed to reproduce. The world is too small to support those who cannot contribute.
Thus new civilizations thrive and increase. Ultimately, they repopulate the earth. The reborn world contains bits and pieces of what went before, but is redesigned in a new and presumably healthier way. The world is free of race hatred and religious prejudice, as well as most diseases.
The book was re-released in a 60th anniversary edition a few years ago, including an audio version with an introduction by Connie Willis.
Cover of the 1949 Random House hardcover edition of Earth Abides. Cover illustration by H. Lawrence Hoffman. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I have owned dozens of copies of this book. I usually keep an extra copy to give it to people who haven’t read it.
The complaint that the book is a bit preachy is fair enough, but so are many science fiction and fantasy books, including everything Robert Heinlein wrote and everything written by Anne Rice. Anne Rice is so preachy that some of her books are the straight stuff: no plot, no story, just preaching. George R. Stewart had, in my opinion, better points to make and gets a free preaching pass from me. Most writers, especially in science fiction, have points to make and it won’t kill anyone to ponder them.
It’s also important to remember that the book was published in another time and place. Many things that are largely accepted without a second thought today were revolutionary 64 years ago. In some parts of the world and in this country too, they are still revolutionary. We have moved on … to a point.
When the book was first published interracial relationships and rejection of formal religion were not accepted or tolerated most places. Attitudes have changed though there’s still more than enough racism, religious fanaticism and hatred to go around.
I’ve seen criticisms pointing out how out of date the book’s technology is. It wouldn’t matter if the technology of the world gone missing had been spot on accurate. Gone is gone.
Regardless of how advanced it used to be, whatever it was became insupportable on a depopulated earth. You can’t drive cars without gasoline and you can’t keep the pumps working without electricity. You can’t use telephones or computers when there’s no service. Satellites would circle the earth, but their signals would be received by no living person, so how would it matter? No batteries and no power, and it’s all over when the power is gone. As the book makes clear, the amount of time before the automated system stop functioning when there’s no one to take care of them is a few years — maybe — for even the most basic infrastructure.
After that, the world goes back to a pre-technological world, though not a pre-industrial one. Industry existed before electricity. There has always been wind, water and sun. And books remain, knowledge exists waiting to be re-deployed. Earth abides.
The world ends, the world begins. Earth Abides. Ish and Emma are the “mother” and “father” of the new tribe. Ish, in Hebrew, means “man” and “Eema” means “mother” which I am sure is not coincidental. It’s a wonderful story that suggests the human race has the capacity to not only survive, but reinvent civilization and make a better world. If you haven’t read this book, read it. It’s available in print and on Audible with a fine narrator. I cannot recommend it too highly. Earth Abides is timeless. As is the Earth itself. I discovered today there is an entire site dedicated to George R. Stewart –The EARTH ABIDES Project . The site contains pictures and other memorabilia. Definitely check it out!
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detection Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soulpublished in 1987 and 1988. It was originally intended to be a trilogy (The Salmon of Doubt was to be the third book in the series) but the author died before completing it.
I first read these when they were originally published. I have no idea how many times I have read them since, but I keep emergency copies of them on my Kindle in case I need a fix. I have had who-know-how-many copies in paperback, a couple of hard cover copies, and both books on cassette tape, CD, and now as Audible downloads.
I have listened to it so many times that you might think I’d grow tired of it, but I never do. Of all the books that Douglas Adams wrote — and I love all of them — this is my favorite.
Unlike the Hitchhiker series, the Dirk Gently books have plots and follow a linear timeline. They are bizarre, outlandish and hilarious, but are actual detective stories, albeit full of ghosts, gods and weirdness.
I love Dirk Gently. He’s wonderfully strange and finds things intentionally by accident. The “holistic detective,” his purposely random behavior produces results. He doesn’t know how he does what he does and he doesn’t actually like it, but he counts on it.
The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul was the book in which Adams introduced the idea that gods without worshipers fade away, that their powers spring from having followers. The idea was new and unique when the books were published in 1987 and 1988. Since then, the concept has been widely adopted by many authors and is now a staple in the fantasy genre.
Douglas Adams died suddenly and far too soon. I still mourn him, but his influence and books live on.
Douglas Adams left his fingerprints all over the fantasy genre. Although Dirk was not a magician, he had magic. Descended from him is a legion of magic-wielding detectives solving crimes around the world. Douglas’ proclamation that “The Gods live!” has become the backbone of more than a few well-known authors. An entire sub-genre of literature is peopled by immortals and gods from various Pantheons.
Douglas Adams got there first and got there laughing.
If you haven’t read “Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency” and “The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul” you should correct that omission as soon as possible. You don’t have to read them in order, but I think they are better that way although each book stands on its own. You’ll love the gods … gods of rain, gods of thunder, gods of every little thing … as they roam the earth, wondering what happened to all their worshipers.
We both like to listen to Web radio while we work. We were particularly pleased to discover that Radio Classique, which we listen to in Paris (at call number 101.1) is available on the Internet. (Go to the site, click on “En direct” and then choose “Haut débit” or “Bas débit” and it will begin.) The music is enjoyable and you can practise your French comprehension by listening to the news broadcasts or the occasional interview.
Garry and I love "A Little Romance." I've always wondered why it's shown so rarely. It's a gem of a movie, one of Hill's best. The story is charming, the settings are deliciously romantic, Olivier is Olivier -- and the two kids will make you nostalgic about being young. This was Diane Lane's screen début, by the way. If you can, see this one!
A friend asked me why I do this, why I blog. So I asked her why she plays golf.
We do what we do because we love it, need to do it, or both. Writing is like breathing. If I don’t write, I suffocate. My friend needs to compete, to be active. To play golf or she will suffocate.
I can’t begin to count the number of people who have told me they want to be writers, but don’t know how to start. They want me to tell them how. Because they asked the question, I’m reasonably sure they will never be writers. If you are a writer, you write. No one has to tell you how or when. You will write and you will keep writing because it is not what you do, it is what you are. It is as much a part of you as your nose or stomach.
I started writing as soon as I learned to read, which was about 45 minutes after someone handed me a book. It was as if a switch had been thrown in some circuit in my brain. Words felt right. Putting words on paper was exactly the same as speaking, but took longer. I didn’t mind the extra time because I could go back and fix written words. Being able to change my words and keep changing them until they said exactly what I wanted them to say was the grail.
I was awkward socially and my verbal skills were not well suited to my age and stage in life. I was not good at sports and no one wanted me on her team. In retrospect, I can understand why. But when I was a kid, it hurt. Games and other social activities let you become popular, make friends, and do those other things that matter to youngsters. I couldn’t do the regular stuff … but I could write and I could read and that gave me wings. I might be a klutz, but words let me build my own worlds.
I was consuming adult literature when I was so little that my mother had to run block with the librarian to make sure I was allowed to read whatever I wanted. I had to be told to stop reading so I would eat, sleep, or go outside. If I was writing, nothing could stop me. Some things never change.
If you are going to be a writer, you know it. Practice will make you a better writer, can help you understand how to build a plot and produce books that publishers will buy, but writing itself is a gift. If you have it, you know it.
Writers have words waiting to be written, lining up for the opportunity to get put on paper or into the computer. It may take quite a while for you to find what your special area will be, fact or fiction. However it sorts out, you will write, professionally or as a private passion.
There are many gifts. Talent comes in an endless number of flavors. If you have the soul of a musician, you’ll find a way to make music. The same with painting, photography, drawing, running, hitting a baseball or throwing one so that it just skims that outer corner of the plate at 96 miles per hour. Mathematics, engineering, architecture … creativity and talent are as varied as the people who use it.
Gifts are given to us. It’s up to us to use our gifts as best we can. Not everyone is gifted, Plenty of people would give anything for gifts that you may take for granted. What is easy for you may be impossible for most people.
So my advice to all hopeful writers is simple. Write.
Don’t talk about it. Do it. Write a lot, as often as you can, even if most of it is awful and you never show it to anyone. Sooner or later, you’ll find your way to where you should be. If you don’t write, it is your loss, but it may also be the world’s loss. You will never know how good you can be if you don’t try.
This blog is my way, in retirement, to find an outlet for the millions of words stuffed in my head, seething restlessly through my brain. Blogging is freedom in every sense. I have no deadlines to meet other than those I set myself. No editor is looking over my shoulder, I can write about anything and I have no word count to meet.
I hate golf. I can’t figure out why anyone would want to walk or ride around an enormous lawn hitting a little white ball. I can’t think of anything more boring … but I know a lot of golfers and they live for it. The rest of the week is just a pause between tee times.
So, if you don’t get why I write, that’s okay. You don’t have to get it. That I get it and can do it and other people actually read it … that’s enough for me. You do your thing, I’ll do mine. If I believe in anything, I believe with all my heart that we should all be what we were meant to be because that is the only route to any lasting happiness.
With camera in hand, exploring European lands, cultures, food, and drink...mostly with a plan, but sometimes enjoying the adventure of just getting lost.
