Read Me In
Yes: Miranda is on her verandah.
Are there greater lines in the literary canon than these?:
“Max stepped into his private boat and waved goodbye and sailed back over a year and in and out of weeks and through a day and into the night of his very own room where he found his supper waiting for him—and it was still hot.”
— Where the Wilds Things Are, by Maurice Sendak
No, friends, there are not.
I trust you have all been giving the wild things what-for. And though it’s been nearly a year, I hope you will find me, like Max’s supper, waiting right where you left me—which is writing in my little studio looking out at Bonne Bay, and reading on my (rebuilt!—thanks, Steve Galliott) verandah.
I’ve read a lot of wonderful books over the past year.
Some of them I found here in the house. Like Linn Ullman’s haunting (it really is the right word) The Blessed Child. Brought, bought, left—who can recall? But it was my first dip into Ullman’s work, and it won’t be my last.
Other books I brought here, anticipating the dual pleasure of their words and this place. Like Krista Foss’s stunningly beautiful Half Life, and the incredible delights of Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love (perfection, I say—and the television adaptation is also marvellous). And then there was Bowlaway by Elizabeth McCracken, which made me laugh and read passages over and over, aching with awe and envy.
Some of the books I read here feel so particular to this space that the house would seem incomplete now without them. Like The Summer Book, by Tove Jansson. If I want to give this book to someone—and I do, and I have—or even read it again myself in any another location, I buy another (and another) copy. From now on, this house will have The Summer Book in it, and that is that.
But in summer 2022, my reading has been anchored by a big book and a long friendship.
My best friend of high school years, has become an a Bookstagrammer. Jenn’s posts are insightful and generous, and so is the community she’s entered and gathered. I always get a hit of joy in seeing them—along with excellent recommendations for reads and follows.
Jenn’s posts also remind me of all the books we shared in high school, and how reading and writing and our friendship were all braided together.
So when I saw @jenn_bookfiend posting that she had never read Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance, I messaged to ask if I could read along with her, and here we are. Or rather, she’s there, and I’m here—but we’re together in the best way.
People have urged me to read A Fine Balance for years. Yes, it’s long, but as my friend Ron said, it’s so good it’s worth the several shorter books you might have read in the same time. Besides, I love long novels. Which is good, as I am writing one. But I don’t think I was really deterred by its length—I just didn’t get round to it.
But that’s OK. Because—as I tell people who apologize for not having read my story collection—books don’t go stale. Books can wait for you to (re)discover them, in your own right time.
And sometimes with your own, right person.