One of Three

Well, not quite sure what to name this post, so I'm just divin' on in.

I read gods in Alabama this weekend. . .twice. It was written by the gal who DID change her name on her social security card but the DMV lost her paperwork and arrested her and humiliated her and made her be near an unsanitary toilet. If you read my post the other day, then you know the story. Her name is Joshilyn Jackson, and she is a very, very good writer. The book is a very, very good book.

I tend to inhale books whole. . .like a first piece of pizza when you're really hungry. *Snap*--gone.

I read the book jacket first, then the foreward/aknowledgements/prologue/dedication/whatever they've got goin' on. THEN I read the first chapter. . .then I read the last chapter. . .then I read what's in between. Now, this drives my very linear husband absolutely slap up the wall. It comforts me.

I tend to get really, really, really wrapped up in a book, so I need to know a little bit of what is going to happen first. I have even, in my old age, taken to going to a website that tells you the end of a movie to see if I want to watch it or not. I don't care who says what. . .if the ending is not "happy" then I'm not watchin' it. That being said, I watched The Notebook with Tony last weekend. . .it has a very happy ending. *SPOILER* WARNING* DO NOT READ THE REST OF THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW THE ENDING OF THE MOVIE THE NOTEBOOK. Even though they both die in the end. . .they are old and have altzheimers and a bad heart and get to die simultaneously in the same bed holding hands. . .I only hope mine and Tony's passing is so painless and coordinated.

Movies, books, they affect me. . .I spend the next several days pondering plot points, details, twists and turns. I get very clear images of characters and settings in my mind. The first book I ever did this with was The Velvet Room by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. . .the next was Up a Road Slowly by Irene Hunt. . .I can pretty much name the books that have made a lasting impression on me, but I'll stop there.

Anyway--Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe was a movie that did that to me. . .and so was the book. And this book is a lot like that book. . .very southern, very dysfunctional family, very clear cut reasons for what happened to what and whom in a very murky way. I recommend it. Rated "R" for very colorful language, adult situations, and some descriptive violence. . .but if you need a good read--this is it.

Her acknowledgments cracked me up. . .and you know that's a good start. She says in them, "It's almost a given that a Southern writer needs a savage and spectacularly dysfunctional family, but I am afraid mine has failed me. Every one of them is disappointingly mentally stable and supportive. . ."

Go. Read. Enjoy.