Initially, this parklet on the edge of downtown was named “Meeting Place Park” for the sculpture in its center. Later it was renamed in honor of Kay Struffolino, a long-time Cary resident and active volunteer with the town’s parks and recreation and the cultural arts.
The Meeting Place is a ceramic sculpture house by Danish artist Nina Hole (1941-2016) commissioned by the town. Building and firing it involved 36 volunteers and 175 hours over three weeks from mid-October to early November 2012.
From the town website: Her method of using slabs as modular building blocks enable her to make very larger sculptures which she raku fires in situ wrapping the structure in a blanket of high temperature refractory fabric that acts as the kiln during the firing. She uses a number of assistants and considers the process, including the stimulating communal experience of working with a group of people, as important as the final product. Fired through the night, the spectacular effect of the glowing form as it is unwrapped is the peak moment of the event.
In this dramatic series, a group of young women with diverse backgrounds work in an elite brothel run by Mrs. Kukk aka Madame K. The setting is an elegant villa in Tallinn, Estonia, beginning in October 1939. Foreign Ministry Counselor, Mr. Metsla, friend and suitor to Mrs. K., is instrumental in moving the brothel to this house. Their clients include Baltic Germans and then high-ranking Russians. New girls are added, the war intensifies, dark secrets are revealed, and events at hand take on a deeper, somber tone.
The 10-part series is in Estonian with subtitles and presents yet another facet and face of WWII. Recommended!
READING: CARRYING ON AFTER A SUDDEN DEATH
Us, After: A Memoir of Love and Suicide by Rachel Zimmerman
When Rachel Zimmerman’s 50-year-old husband, without any warning, jumped off a bridge, she was both devastated and worried for her two daughters, ages 8 and 11. Seth was a noted and driven robotics professor; Zimmerman a seasoned reporter who worked for the Wall St. Journal at one time.
Trained to be observant, Zimmerman becomes hyper focused on looking for answers to why he did it: contacting experts, raising many questions, and, along the way, excavating the layers of their courtship and their marriage. Simultaneously, she embraces parenthood and seeks to be both mother and father to her girls.
In part, the book is an exploration of one’s public persona versus one’s private self, Seth’s especially, but also her own. A no-holds-barred discussion of their lives, it describes how she and her resilient girls re-surface and re-engage with the world. It is raw reading at points, but ultimately uplifting as this threesome moves forward. (~JWFarrington)
After our wonderful week in Sweden, we enjoyed ten more days in Maine. The air was cool to chilly, there was an occasional stiff breeze, and we felt that fall had already arrived. We left behind our view of the ocean water, our favorite botanical garden, and good friends. At our last dinner, we tucked into one more lobster roll—lobster makes Maine Maine.
Back home in the Triangle Area, we had several days of constant rain, an unnamed tropical storm which flooded southeastern parts of the state, and then a return to sunshine and 80 degrees.
Carolina sunrise
READING–WAR FICTION
AMERICAN CHARM AND DONUTS FOR SOLDIERS
Good Night, Irene by Luis Alberto Urrea
Luis Alberto Urrea (nytimes.com)
One might rightfully query, do we need yet another historical novel about WWII? There are many good offerings out there. I too wondered, but I ended up being captivated and engrossed in Good Night, Irene.
Inspired by his mother’s experience in the Second World War, Mexican American poet and novelist Urrea focuses on the Red Cross clubmobiles, something I’d never seen referenced before. These vans or buses traveled around Germany and France and even to the UK where soldiers were based, serving up American warmth and charm along with coffee and donuts. Two young women, Irene from New York. and Dorothy from a Midwest farm sign up, not having an inkling of what they will see and experience in their tour of duty.
Irene is escaping an abusive fiancé, and Dorothy is in it for the adventure. With their vastly different backgrounds and life experience, they are an unlikely pair. But they become close friends and each other’s strong support amid challenging living conditions, occasional bombs, and the sounds and sights of battle.
Urrea is a wonderful wordsmith. His descriptions of battle conditions and these women’s travels and travails are punchy, graphic, and simultaneously mesmerizing and haunting. Named by NPR and others as one of the best books of the year (2023), it received high praise from critics and is well worth reading. Recommended! (~JWFarrington)
BRINGING THE LIBRARY TO CHILDREN
Miss Morgan’s Book Brigade by Janet Skeslien Charles
Janet S. Charles (simonandschuster.com)
You may have noticed that libraries and librarians feature in recent fiction and nonfiction. Examples include The Personal Librarian about J. P. Morgan’s librarian, The Library Book (fire in the Los Angeles Public Library), That Librarian (dealing with book banning), and The Paris Library, also by this author.
Jessie Carson, nicknamed Kit, was a young New York children’s librarian, chafing under the constant correction of her work by her boss. In 1918, she applied and was accepted for a 2-year post to France to create children’s libraries in war torn Blérancourt in northern France. CARD (Le Comité américain pour les régions dévastees) was started by heiress Ann Morgan, daughter of J. P. Morgan. Young women, usually affluent ones, volunteered and were assigned to serve villages that had been destroyed. They lived not far from the front midst the noise of guns and the sight of injured soldiers.
With no intact library structure and no chance of one anytime soon, Kit and her compatriots improvised. They visited women and children camping in huts and other makeshift shelters bringing them food and provisions. Initially, Kit created a roving story hour taking books to the children, reading to them, and coaxing traumatized adults to sample a book.
Linking Kit’s experiences to the present day is Wendy Peterson, an archives librarian and aspiring writer who becomes intrigued by a newsletter published in 1918 from Blérancourt and the CARD project. Her determination leads her to dig deeper into the archives to ferret out the story of these women and Kit’s groundbreaking work in establishing an actual children’s library. (Note, in the France of that day, a library dedicated to children was a radical proposition.)
Charles’ work is refreshing; it unearths yet another aspect of wartime service. It’s a novel of relationships among colleagues, lofty goals, and coming-of-age, both for Kit Carson in the early 20th century and for Wendy Peterson in 1987. Midst the horrors of 1918, friendships are fostered, some goals realized, and strong support provided to these French communities. Thanks to my friend Alice for this recommendation! (~JWFarrington)
Here are two books I read recently. One is literary fiction by an author I know from previous works. The other is a romance which is clever, humorous, and just fun. The Chief Penguin and I also made our second visit to the botanical garden this week, so I offer a few comments on it and their new sculptures.
WAR’S AFTERMATH: GRITTY, TRAUMATIC, ISOLATING
Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips (my summer list)
Author Phillips (nytimes.com)
Jayne Anne Phillips won the Pulitzer Prize for Night Watch, a post Civil War novel set in West Virginia. The events take place in 1864 and 1874 as various chapters focus on different characters. Principals are 12-year-old ConaLee who ministers to her catatonic mother, Eliza; Dearbhla, their older neighbor and sometime protector; and Night Watch, a partially sighted employee of an insane institution. Earlier chapters depict The Sharpshooter midst the horror and gruesomeness of battle in 1864.
Abused and controlled by Papa, a drifter who moved in them and took over, ConaLee and Eliza are deposited at an insane asylum where they beg shelter. Here, Eliza masquerades as Miss Janet and ConaLee as her maid. Gradually, they adapt and know and become known by Night Watch, Weed, a boy who hangs around, and Dr. Story, head of the asylum.
This graphic complex novel, based in part at a historical institution, deals with poverty, the trauma of war, and loss, the loss of tangible property, the loss of loved ones, and the loss of personal identity. Who am I really? Or if I know my name, what is my role or place in this now war-ravaged world?
Initially, I found this novel challenging. The battle in the wilderness section was especially hard reading and, for me, lacking in enough concrete details. I set the book aside for a few days, and then, re-engaging, found it to be found it rewarding and hopeful. Phillips also wrote Quiet Dell and Lark and Termite, novels I read for book group discussions. Recommended! (~JWFarrington)
MEETING YOUR PERFECT MATCH
The Soulmate Equation by Christina Lauren
Romance novels are big sellers these days; it’s a hot genre. Even the once staid New YorkTimes Book Review now has a monthly romance column.
While browsing fiction in one of my favorite independent bookstores, I kept encountering tags protruding from various shelves. Each read something like, “Looking for Romance, try [name of an author.]” Being curious, I followed a few of the leads and ended up near Christina Lauren’s books, an author unknown to me. It turns out Lauren is the pen name of two women, one named Christina and the other Lauren, and they have published several highly praised titles.
The Soulmate Equation is funny and fun. On a whim, statistician Jessica Davis submits a DNA sample to a new firm, GeneticAlly. They claim to find and match you with the best person based on certain of your genetic characteristics. A single parent of 7-year-old Juno, Jess is mainly focused on being a good mother and staying financially solvent. When her test results show she has a 98 percent compatibility match with Dr. River Pena, the company founder, an aloof and arrogant man, she is decidedly not interested. How their story unfolds despite their seemingly disparate personalities and lifestyles is witty, swoon worthy, and heartwarming. This is one for the beach!
GORGEOUS BLOOMS
COASTAL MAINE BOTANICAL GARDENS
Pink dahlias
Our time in Maine would not be complete without several visits to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay. Opened in 2007 and now in its 18th season, the gardens cover 300 acres with some shoreline along Back River. It’s the largest garden complex in New England and a top attraction in Maine. Each year, there are new flowers to see, new areas have been planted, and this year, new signs enhance wayfinding. This week, the dahlias were especially lovely.
Fiddlehead fern metal sculpture
The gardens also feature works of sculpture, some on loan and others more permanent installations. Besides the giant wood trolls installed several years ago, two fiddlehead fern metal sculptures adorn one area. These were created by Shane Perley-Dutcher. Perley-Dutcher is a mixed media artist from the First Tobique Nation in New Brunswick. Copper in color, with the metal partly woven like a basket (echoing the work of Wabanaki weavers), these pieces are a great addition. They stick up above the greenery to be viewed from a distance (see header photo) and can be seen up close. You can also sit inside the fern!
In this post, I offer three books I’ve read recently. One is Doris Kearns Goodwin’s conversational inside scoop on the 1960’s as experienced by her and by her spouse, Richard Goodwin, politico, speechwriter, and occasional sounding board for both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.
Judith Jones was a book editor who received little acclaim in her professional life for the outsize role she played in bringing to the fore literary figures like Anne Tyler and sensing the market’s readiness for cookbooks by noted chefs such as Julia Child. Sara Franklin details her career.
Lastly, for a change of pace, a mystery with archaeological and mythical roots. Meet archaeologist Ruth Galloway, if you haven’t already, in one of this long series of mysteries by Elly Griffiths.
INSIDE POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE 1960’S
An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960’s by Doris Kearns Goodwin (from my summer reading list)
Richard Goodwin (politico.com)
When Dick Goodwin reaches 80, he and Doris, his wife, make a project for the weekends of going through his 300 boxes of speech drafts and memorabilia from his working life in the 1960’s. Dick Goodwin, a consummate wordsmith who worked with two presidents, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, was able to translate their distinctly different styles and cadences into memorable words.
He traveled with JFK on the campaign trail in 1960. He drafted noteworthy speeches for him and later for LBJ on civil rights, Latin American policy, and the like. Politics was in his blood, and he was both ambitious and brash, resulting in the occasional clash that might have been career-ending. Goodwin also developed a close friendship with Robert Kennedy, a relationship that bugged Johnson who had little love for RFK.
Looking back on events that took place fifty years ago, Kearns Goodwin shares their mutual recollections, their years of disagreement about Kennedy and Johnson, and how the passage of time softens bitter memories. More than a decade younger than her husband, Kearns Goodwin was a White House Fellow who worked with Johnson somewhat when he was president. After his presidency, she became especially close to him helping on his memoirs and on what became her first book.
This work is a marvelous inside look at presidential and personal politics in that tumultuous and consequential decade, the 1960’s. I, like many of my readers, came of age in high school and college during those years. This trip back refreshed my memory about some monumental events and provided the messy back story behind others. As Doris Kearns Goodwin and her husband review his voluminous files, she offers up recollections and details of her own experiences in a way that is conversational and very accessible. I enjoyed too her portrait of a long and fruitful marriage. Highly recommended!! (~JWFarrington)
NOTABLE KNOPF EDITOR
The Editor: How Publishing Legend Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America by Sara Franklin
Judith Jones in the kitchen (nytimes.com)
In her lifetime, Judith Jones was frequently overlooked, dismissed, or just tolerated by the male publishing heads for whom she worked. Even publisher Blanche Knopf initially had Judith doing her scut work and only reluctantly let loose the apron strings. To her credit, Jones rescued The Diary of Anne Frank from the reject pile, edited Anne Tyler and John Updike’s works for decades, and both discovered, mentored, and guided chefs and cooks the likes of Julia Child, Claudia Rosen, Marcella Hazan, and Edna Lewis from recipes on paper to finely wrought noteworthy cookbooks.
Jones was both a traditionalist and a maverick. She was deemed “a lady” and she wanted marriage and children. At the same time, she discovered that besides her early love for poetry, she was passionate about food and cooking. To her dismay, she and husband Dick Jones never had children, but to her delight they routinely cooked together and explored new ingredients and new recipes. She found her métier in the publishing world and worked extremely hard; in fact, she became the primary breadwinner. Jones also developed relationships with many of her authors that went beyond the professional to genuine friendships. These were life-enriching for her and Dick.
As someone interested in both publishing and food, I was engrossed in Judith Jones’ story. I came of age and married in 1970; Franklin’s account of the cookbook authors Judith worked with was, for me, a walk down memory lane. I was in my first post-college job when Mastering the Art of French Cooking, volume 2, was published. My librarian colleagues were ordering copies and wondered if I wanted to buy one also. I assented, and quickly, some of Julia’s recipes became household favorites: her elaborate beef bourguignon and Potage Magali, a tomato rice soup with a hint of saffron, to name just two.
Later, I put Marcella Hazan’s Italian cookbooks to hard use, and Madhur Jaffrey’s Invitation to Indian Cooking became a must purchase after an Indian cooking class. Other additions to my cookbook library included A Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis and later books by Julia Child and Jacques Pepin. Jones was on the scene at the right time as cooking and food in the U.S. expanded to other cultures. She very successfully translated the recipes of these talented chefs for the home kitchen. Recommended! (~JWFarrington)
ARCHAEOLOGICAL MYSTERY
The Night Hawksby Elly Griffiths
Author Griffiths (thebookseller.com)
For a change of pace, I picked up The Night Hawks, a recent entry in Griffiths’ Ruth Galloway Series. A few years ago, I read the first book in the series, The Crossing Places, and liked it enough to acquire and read the second one. This is #13 and I really enjoyed it, racing through it in the space of 24 hours! The Ruth Galloway series runs to fifteen books, and Griffiths has said that #15 is the last one she plans to write.
Ruth Galloway is an archaeologist living and working in Norfolk, England. When bodies or strange bones are found by the local police, DCI Nelson calls her in to consult. In this book, a Bronze Age body washes ashore which attracts the interest of the local amateur metal detector group known as the Night Hawks. Subsequently, there is what appears to be a murder-suicide at a very remote country farm. Add in a local myth/folk tale about a huge black dog who is a harbinger of death, and it’s a complex case with numerous strands to untangle.
While The Night Hawks is a mystery, the principal characters, Ruth, Nelson, and others, are well-developed and intriguing. The relationships between them evolve as the series proceeds, adding to the satisfaction of a story well told. Recommended!
Note: Header photo taken at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens by JWFarrington.
