Ann S. Epstein Writer

Books on Your Gift or Wish List?

If you’re looking for a holiday gift for someone or a great read for yourself, add these to your list:

From A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve.: “The coroner broadcast authority when he pronounced the Witch of the East ‘not merely dead, but really most sincerely dead.’” A probing fictional biography of the actor who played the Munchkin Coroner in the 1939 Hollywood classic The Wizard of Oz. Order on Amazon.

From On the Shore: “If you thought drowning was a Navy man’s biggest fear, you’re dead wrong. Fire’s your worst enemy.” An emotionally charged tale of an immigrant Jewish family in turmoil when their children rebel during WWI. Order on Amazon.

From Tazia and Gemma: “Thieves don’t just steal money or possessions. They steal hearts.” The heartfelt and suspenseful story of an unwed Italian immigrant who survives the 1911 Triangle Waist Co. fire and the daughter who seeks her father 50 years later. Order on Amazon.

What I’m Reading: The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich

My Amazon and Goodreads review of The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich (Rating 3) – Not Enough Rounds on the Watchman’s Shift. Louise Erdrich’s The Night Watchman, which tracks the lives of a Chippewa elder and his niece, was disappointing. I wanted more chapters (rounds) devoted to Thomas, the title character, and his fight against the U.S. Government’s Termination Bill to “emancipate” Indigenous people from their land. The novel is set in the 1950s, with an historical nod to the 1890s, but it echoes today. Erdrich makes clear what the Turtle Mountain clan will lose if the bill passes, namely a way of life that cohabits with nature, respects tribal wisdom, relishes language, and survives on irreverent humor and serious love. Erdrich wrote this book as an homage to her grandfather and her reverence for his strength and determination flow like spring sap through its pages. That said, the story of young Patrice is less compelling, even though hers ends on a hopeful note. Erdrich has a talent for weaving recurring characters within and across her books but in The Night Watchman, she is overextended. As a fiction writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I know that “killing your darlings” is hard, but necessary. Like the ghosts that populate her writing, however, Erdrich can always make these other characters come alive in future books. I just wish she’d given them a diminished role in this one.

A fight to save the Turtle Mountain clan from government termination masquerading as emancipation

Why writers read: “Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.” – Lemony Snicket (a.k.a. Daniel Handler)

Three Great Holiday Gift Books

If you’re looking for a book for someone on your gift list, including yourself, look here:

From On the Shore: “Gratitude to this country drove Shmuel’s decision. Also, a desperate need to escape his father.” An emotionally charged tale of an immigrant Jewish family in turmoil when their children rebel during WWI. Order on Amazon.

From Tazia and Gemma: “Let people think what they want, but don’t put the idea in their heads.” The heartfelt and suspenseful story of an unwed Italian immigrant who survives the 1911 Triangle Waist Co. fire and the daughter who seeks her father 50 years later. Order on Amazon.

From A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve.: “Judy Garland told Variety that the ‘little people’ got smashed every night.” A probing fictional biography of the actor who played the Munchkin Coroner in the movie classic The Wizard of Oz. Order on Amazon.

Need a Great Holiday Gift Book?

If you’re looking for a book for someone on your gift list, including yourself, here are three engaging novels:

From On the Shore: “There would be no way to notify his parents if he were hurt, captured, or killed. So be it.” An emotionally charged tale of an immigrant Jewish family in turmoil when their children rebel during WWI. Order on Amazon.

From Tazia and Gemma: “It’s worse to lie by what you say than what you don’t say.” The heartfelt and suspenseful story of an unwed Italian immigrant who survives the 1911 Triangle Waist Co. fire and the daughter who seeks her father 50 years later. Order on Amazon.

From A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve.:“Meinhardt Raabe didn’t want to be one of 122 nameless Munchkins. He was after a one-of-a-kind role.” A probing fictional biography of the actor who played the Munchkin Coroner in the movie classic The Wizard of Oz. Order on Amazon.

Amid COVID-19 Learn History Through Fiction: Halloween “Jollification” Banned During Spanish Flu

When Spanish flu cases spiked in 1918, then as now, revelers were warned not to trade their health-saving masks for Halloween masks. Street celebrations and indoor parties were prohibited. People were reminded that dancing was nonessential and that blowing horns spread germs and disrupted the sleep of the sick. State and city bans may have curtailed those seeking treats, but the number of tricks rose. Dallas police, for example, reported overturned bread boxes, an absconded horse, and a stolen piano. Read more about the deadly Spanish flu pandemic a century ago in On the Shore (1917-1925), a tale of conflict between generations in a Lower East Side immigrant family (see NOVELS).

Halloween during Spanish flu pandemic a century ago

Generations of immigrant family in conflict

To Show or Tell?

A truism of writing instruction is “Show, don’t tell.” Anton Chekhov admonishes “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” Ernest Hemingway exhorts “Show readers everything, tell them nothing.” But not every writer agrees with this advice. Alexandra Schwartz, interviewing novelist and playwright Ayad Akhtar (“Making a Scene,” The New Yorker, September 21, 2020), reports “Writers of the show-don’t tell school might worry about didacticism undermining artistry, but Akhtar has a different philosophy. ‘Telling is amazing — some of my best experiences have been being told stuff,’ he told me.” My view is that it depends on the skill and balance with which each form is executed. A skillful teller can be engaging; an endless monologue devoid of interaction. An inventive shower can be enthralling; the relentless hammer of action exhausting. As Francine Prose says of Alice Munro, “Needless to say, many great [writers] combine dramatic showing with long sections of flat-out authorial narration.” More thoughts about writing in REFLECTIONS.

Novelist, playwright, and autodidact Ayad Akhtar

Why writers write: “When I’m asked my advice for people who want to be writers, I say they don’t need advice. They know they want to be writers, and they’re gonna do it.” – R. L. Stine

What I’m Reading: A Plan in Case of Morning by Phill Provance

My Amazon and Goodreads review of A Plan in Case of Morning by Phill Provance (Rating 5) – Master of Intensity. In A Plan in Case of Morning, Phill Provance wields words, minces memories, and excavates emotions with agility. His amalgam of poems, prose, epigrams, and enigmas is filled with dreams and questions about youth, manhood, and the final accounting. Bubbling up from the flow of words is the push-pull of human relationships; anger bumps into love, tough rubs against tender, and hope flickers in the face of disaster. Provance has a gift for imagery. As a writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I savored creations such as “teeth a perfect replica of Nebraska” and “crow’s feet [that] cinch like drawstring bags.” This collection is intense; take it one entry at a time. Do NOT plan when you’ll read the next piece, just grab and wrestle with this roiling and rollicking volume when you will.

Why writers read: “The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading; a man will turn over half a library to make one book.” – Samuel Johnson

What I’m Reading: Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

My Amazon and Goodreads review of Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Rating 5) – A Father’s Caution and Pride. For years, I felt guilty that I delayed reading Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates after it came out in 2015. Now I’m glad I waited until 2020, when America is confronting its embedded racism with unprecedented intensity. The book’s impact on me was jarringly powerful in the aftermath of the recent deaths of so many Blacks at the hands of police, their disproportionate number of COVID-19 cases and mortality attributable to inadequate health care, the children unable to “attend” school virtually because they lacked access to the necessary technology, and countless other injustices. The statistics are long-standing, but awareness of their enormity by non-Blacks is new. I am among them. As the mother of an adult daughter, I have been especially haunted by the murder of Breonna Taylor. When her mother, Tamika Parker, described Breonna’s death as a slap in the face, I felt the blow. During my forty-year career in early education, I worked with Black children a decade younger than the son who Coates writes to, but I saw the same hope and fear in their faces. As a fiction writer (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I portray characters of diverse backgrounds, including Blacks, imagining the ever-present threats they face. Coates cautions his son, but also imbues him with pride and courage. This honest, painful-to-read book reminds me that I, that we as a society, have barely scratched the surface understanding the insidious effects of racism. We need to dig deep within ourselves and our systems to root it out.

Why writers read: “No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.” – Confucius

An Imaginary House

“Writing a book is like moving into an imaginary house. The author, the sole inhabitant, wanders from room to room, choosing furnishings, correcting imperfections, adding new wings” (“Labyrinths,” a profile of author Susanna Clark by Laura Miller, The New Yorker, September 14, 2020). I agree with Miller’s description, save one major modification. The book’s characters are also inhabitants. It’s true that the abode a writer creates is not a democracy; the final choices are made solely by the author. However, sometimes those other inhabitants persuade, insist, or nag the writer to make a different choice. Read more thoughts about writing in REFLECTIONS.

Why writers write: “You can make anything by writing.” – C. S. Lewis

Spread this Thread: It’s Spinning and Weaving Week (October 5-11)

I’m doffing my writer’s hat and donning my fiber artist’s cap (hence my social media handle ase.wovenwords) to announce that this is SPINNING AND WEAVING WEEK. Celebrated the first week every October, the event showcases the beautiful and utilitarian creations made on looms, wheels, and spindles. Cloth-making skills have been practiced for thousands of years using plant and animal fibers. Woven baskets date as far back as 27,000 BCE. Take time this week to appreciate the many types of cloth that adorn and protect our bodies, homes, places of work and entertainment, and havens of comfort and renewal. “I regard spinning and weaving as a necessary part of any national system of education.” – Mahatma Gandhi