Last week, I introduced a good friend to one of our best resources for fine literature and travel narrative in North Central Florida: Goerings Bookstore in Gainesville. As it is my habit to never leave an independent bookseller without a purchase, I looked through a half-dozen novels and narratives before coming across this one, touted as a “high-energy debut novel.” Recuperating at home from a medical procedure, I had the time to savor it. Had I looked closer at the backcover blurb, I would have noted the Gainesville setting, which made it more interesting to me as I read. The story, however, is about love and loss and change, about growing up and growing old. It is about the people, not the place, although life in the 1950s-1960s South shapes who they are and what they do. It reminded me of a Greek play, with pathos and irony, humor and wit. I had the luxury of not putting it down all day. The story resonates with feelings, both sharp and jarring and tender and warm. For all its sadness, enough joy shines through to make this a heartwarming tale. Enjoy.
{published May 1999, Rock & Gem}
“Nowhere on Earth has God been so lavish with rocks as Greece.” - Henry Miller
Â
Greece, from the window of an airplane, is an expanse of white in counterpoint against the sapphire blue sea and the endless blue sky. Is it any wonder the Greek flag is white and blue? It’s a wondrous display of geology in a setting where people have used stone for thousands of years for ornamentation and building. The place that brought us the first mineralogical text: “The Book of Stones,” by the philosopher Theophratus, student of Aristotle, who, around 300 B.C., grouped minerals into the categories of metals, stones, and earths. Classic geology abounds: the fabled mines of Laurium; the rising pinnacles of the Meteora; the volcanic caldera of Thira (Santorini). Where better for a rockhound to spend a vacation? Read the rest of this entry »
With a two hour long bus ride moments ahead of me, I had to find a toilet— fast.  I followed the signs to the bus station bathroom, and opened the door. I did a double take, as a man was standing there taking care of business. Yes, there was no sign on the door. Like other venues in Greece, this was a unisex bathroom, and the fellow didn’t bother to close his stall door. My stall, cluttered with paper and filth, contained an unfamiliar ceramic-lined squat hole in the floor, with two grooved imprints to show where you should put your feet. My sister Sally promised me adventure, and here it was: the infamous Turkish toilet. Read the rest of this entry »
Last year, my friend Phyllis introduced me to Jessica Speart, a mystery writer whose protagonist and stories parallel that of one of my favorite mystery writers, Nevada Barr. Jessica’s Rachel Porter is a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service officer in the Southeast, and knowing folks who work for the agency, the descriptions of bureaucratic red tape keeping corporate types in business wrecking the environment ring true. I’d started this book back in February and it got lost in drifts of stuff in the guest bedroom after our last guest departed. Unearthed today, I wrapped up reading the story, which pits bubbas against the Russian mafia, FWS, and the FBI. Set in Memphis, it’s an entertaining, breezy read with a parade of quirky Southern characters.
{published in The Women’s Voice, June 1998}
“Other countries may offer you discoveries in manners or lore or landscape; Greece offers you something harder – the discovery of yourself.†– Lawrence Durrell, Prospero’s Cell
With two sisters in residence on the sunny Ionian isle of Corfu, it was inevitable that I would eventually set foot on the fabled shores of Greece. Though I thought myself a seasoned traveler, I soon found myself thrown into a world where I constantly felt off-balance. My sisters led me through the journey, past culture shock and fear, to an understanding: an awareness of what it means to live as a Greek. Beneath the tourist façade, where organized groups seeking ancient splendor wrap themselves in a movable cocoon of safety, lies the real Greece, a resilient land where daily life has changed little over the centuries.
Read the rest of this entry »
