5.19.2005
Sideways
I finished book #1, The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd yesterday and I have a few suggestions for authors, filmakers, and cultural gods out there.
1. Midlife crises don't always include adultery. Or do they? Someone?
2. Not everyone has a crazy and/or dead parent.
3. Vacations needn't be metaphors.
4. Oprah is important. She gets people to read, to lose weight, and to explore their feelings. That said, she is not the epicenter of all things. Please don't write with an eye to the book club audience. No matter what your agent says.
(spoilers here)
Despite my complaints I read the book quickly. I have a weakness for island and coastal settings (especially the non-tropical kind). Love stories still get to me. But this book wraps up in a way that irritated me to no end. No bang, no whimper, no nothing. Just what struck me as resignation packaged as a new beginning. If you're going to give a first person narrator a crazy religious parent, a dark family secret, and an affair with a CLERYGYMAN, then, please, don't end things realistically. Stick with the high drama.*
*See The Thorn Birds
1. Midlife crises don't always include adultery. Or do they? Someone?
2. Not everyone has a crazy and/or dead parent.
3. Vacations needn't be metaphors.
4. Oprah is important. She gets people to read, to lose weight, and to explore their feelings. That said, she is not the epicenter of all things. Please don't write with an eye to the book club audience. No matter what your agent says.
(spoilers here)
Despite my complaints I read the book quickly. I have a weakness for island and coastal settings (especially the non-tropical kind). Love stories still get to me. But this book wraps up in a way that irritated me to no end. No bang, no whimper, no nothing. Just what struck me as resignation packaged as a new beginning. If you're going to give a first person narrator a crazy religious parent, a dark family secret, and an affair with a CLERYGYMAN, then, please, don't end things realistically. Stick with the high drama.*
*See The Thorn Birds
