Liars and Saints

  Do we need another novel about baby siblings? Maybe not--but if that's the terrain Kevin Henkes wants to explore, I'm ready to go. Henkes's new book, "Oh Sal," opens with a little girl who is irritated. She can't tolerate the presence of the new baby, and it especially bugs her that that baby doesn't have a name. ("Get with it; make a choice, Mom." Sal wanted the name "Spritz"--after her favorite cookie--but her mother laughed at the suggestion. Derisive laughter! Annoying!) To complicate matters, Sal's obnoxious uncle arrives for a visit. This guy calls Sal "Salamander," although she has indicated her distaste for the nickname. Also, he doesn't have a present. When Sal asks about this, he rolls his eyes and says, "My ARRIVAL is the present!" Finally, Sal's favorite new undies are missing; they have images of poppies, along with the word "Poppy." They were a gift from Santa, not from Mom or Da...

 When I walk my baby, I notice that there are male commenters and there are female commenters, and I hate both groups. I hate the male commenters, because their response to a meltdown is to laugh uncomfortably and say, "Oh, I remember *those* days...." And then I feel I have to manage their useless discomfort--but in fact I have a screaming infant on my hand. I hate the female commenters because I find they like to offer unsolicited advice, in a passive-aggressive way. One might say, "Little girl, where are your shoes?" My non-verbal little girl cannot answer, and my own (repressed) comment might be: "Mind your own fucking business." Another might say, "You'll want to bring a transitional object next week, so your baby doesn't cry when I have to collect the tambourines." And I might say: "WANT? Lady, WANT has nothing to do with all this. I WANT to be in Crete...." But I suppose we're all doing our best. Mostly, I just use a ...

  Marc and I really liked "Catherine Called Birdy," which feels a bit like "Girls" for the Middle Ages. Young Catherine must marry to save her family's fortune. Around her, disastrous pairings are occurring. Her close friend has been promised to a nine-year-old boy, who has a little doll. ("The head is a turnip.") Catherine's dreamy uncle must commit himself to a much older spouse; the uncle has an actual love of his own, but financial needs create a demand for compromise. Catherine herself might end up with a man who likes oinking, as if he were a pig; he also seems not to mind rubbing poop on his arms. (He reminds me of Adam Driver, in "Girls"; Catherine seems like she is Hannah Horvath during the big "poop" scene.) Catherine is restless and acting up, so her brother, a monk, asks that she begin to keep a diary. It's this little assignment that begins to wake her up; she takes notice of the people around her, the aspects o...

  Mary Rodgers feels that her father, Richard, never repeated the triumph of "Carousel." ("You can start to hear him drying up around the time of  Flower Drum Song." ) Rodgers can't tolerate "You'll Never Walk Alone," but she likes the surrounding story, and she points out that the writers aren't really focused on Julie/Billy. They're focused on Billy as a father. The emotional heft of the show comes from Billy's attempt to form a bond with his offspring. ("My boy, Bill, will be sturdy and tall as a tree.....Like a tree, he'll grow...with his head held high.....") Mary Rodgers's insight is especially powerful because of her own thoughts about her own semi-monstrous father, whom she loved. (Also, Rodgers's book smartly dismisses criticism of "Carousel" as "the-musical-that-isn't-empowering." "It's about some bad behavior; it doesn't *advocate* bad behavior. Does  Sweeney Todd  ad...

 I recently took some midwesterners into Manhattan, and I was amazed once again by this strange city. A movie ticket is now basically twenty dollars, and it's likely there will just be a large hole in the screen--a hole!  And the hole will not inspire any kind of special announcement; no one will step forward and say, "Hey, we're sorry about that big hole." It's just part of the local color. Across the street, you can stop by a seedy kind of closet, stocked with NYC Christmas ornaments and bobble-headed plastic statues of Donald Trump. And these statues are available even at 2 AM. The closet never seems to close. By contrast, a bathroom is like a unicorn. "I need to pee," says one of my guests, and I say, "You actually can't do that, here, in this city. It's basically impossible. The bathroom problem is such a mess, it has inspired full-length episodes of call-in programs on NPR. One thing you could do is claim you're pregnant and having...

 Julianne Moore plays people who are not particularly strong; the people face obstacles; the obstacles grow and grow. At some point, the facade crumbles; good manners are tossed aside; something feral pops up on screen. Here are a few of the electrifying moments. A woman snaps at her husband, who refuses to acknowledge that dementia is "knocking on the door" ("Still Alice"). A woman breaks down because her spouse is dying, and the illness makes her consider how deficient she herself has been ("Magnolia"). A near-catatonic housewife sobs on her toilet as she confronts the fact that she can't "wear a nice face" for her child's party ("The Hours"). You might not think of Sarah Palin in this category, since Palin rarely cries in public. But Julianne Moore spotted something in Palin that others had overlooked. The embarrassing moments--the Couric interview, the reference to "Senator O'Biden," the allusion to Elizabeth I...

  Just a note in appreciation of Hilary Mantel, who died too soon. One of my favorite scenes in Mantel's work is the moment when young Mantel rejects a career in teaching. Paraphrasing: "I noticed something distressingly cyclical. Clever girls grow up to be teachers....who teach clever girls who grow up to be teachers....who..." I also like a memory she shares of the petty tyranny of classrooms. "My teacher observed me and asked,  Do you want me to hit you with this ruler ? ....And I couldn't begin to formulate a response...." Finally, I love Mantel's exciting antihero, Thomas Cromwell, who gets rid of Anne Boleyn simply because the murder is convenient. Cromwell needs to invent a grievance against Anne, so he decides that she has been adulterous. He casts his various enemies as the illicit boyfriends; these enemies once helped to bring down Cromwell's mentor, Cardinal Wolsey. "If they're not guilty of sleeping with Anne....they're guilt...

 One of my favorite movies is "Can You Ever Forgive Me?" A part of me can't believe the funding actually materialized. This is a story of a gay woman, no longer young, who has stopped taking care of herself. (It's not clear that she ever really gave serious thought to hygiene.) The woman is in no way heroic; in fact, she is a criminal. The crime seems to be in a low-stakes category; no buildings explode; no one is murdered. The woman, Lee Israel, just begins falsely attributing letters (fake letters) to Dorothy Parker. Lee Israel is an obviously gifted writer. She imagines Dorothy recovering from a bad party: "I sense I had too much to drink. Can you ever forgive me? I think, to save time, I might just print out new calling cards, and pass them out at the start of every meeting. And the cards will say:  Can you ever forgive me ?" Israel also writes from the voice of Fanny Brice. "I'm worried I have passed on my nose to my child. Should I add a *nose...

  My daughter is teething; this fills her with rage, so that she screams, DADADADADA! I understand. I have my daughter's emotional profile; both of us appear calm pretty much always, but just one moment of minor physical discomfort can send us into a tailspin. One of my husband's favorite questions for me is this: "Uh oh. You're not h-anger-y, are you?" I was listening to a podcast about the Golden State Killer, and one of the victims spoke about surviving. She said, "My mother had told me,  bad things will happen to you in life. It's inevitable. You must use your core strength and persevere. " I liked this very much--not the part about the killer, but about the mom's words--and so I have been urging Susie to use her "core strength." I have also borrowed from the lingo of Alcoholics Anonymous. "Easy does it." "One day at a time." In these moments, Susie seems to throw up her hands. Her face says, "Not THIS again...

 A little sister is a major event, so there is a body of work specifically about "the big sibling acting out." The big sibling can run away--as in "A Baby Sister for Frances." The big sibling can torment his sitter--as in Tomie dePaola's "The Baby Sister." "Peter's Chair," a sequel to "The Snowy Day," has Peter in a rage, because his baby sister, Susie, is soaking up attention. Peter's high chair has been re-purposed; it's now pink. (The book comes from an earlier era, with some rigid ideas about gender. That's not to say that the ideas are now dead.) Peter must shed his crib, his wall-paper; even a "toddler chair" seems to be on the verge of "going pink." Peter grabs it and throws a tantrum outside; it's only then that he discovers he no longer fits in the chair. Something seems to happen between the lines. Peter realizes he is a big boy; he can relinquish the chair. He can also play tricks; ...

 Elizabeth Strout gets linked with Hemingway; both writers use the white space to say things that words can't say. Famously, Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" looks at abortion from several angles--and yet the word "abortion" never appears in the text. In Strout's "Oh William," two people burdened by grief are on a trip together; although grief rarely gets named or addressed, it's lurking in every scene. Strout may win the Booker Prize within the next few weeks. Until her forties, she had never published a novel. Now, in her sixties, she publishes a new book every year. We're talking about five years in a row. "Oh William" has a narrator, Lucy Barton, whose husband has died. In mourning, Lucy hears from an *earlier* husband, William. William can be a chore; he wears his khakis too short, and he is palpably insecure about his job. Also, he has a slight mean streak; he finds exactly the right way to embarrass Lucy, then h...

 My husband is mourning the Queen; he sends me poems from the p.o.v. of a corgi, snapshots of a "regal" rainbow, "letters" from Paddington to Elizabeth. He has read extensively about the strange bus protocols that heads of government have swallowed (not by choice), in preparation for the funeral. My husband has read also about Anne, and how her role may grow, and he wonders aloud if primogeniture is still "a thing." He asks if we can pose for a selfie in front of an improvised "tribute" to Elizabeth; the tribute is in South Orange, and it's roses climbing up a streetlight. After the photo, Marc discovers the roses are *not* a tribute. They're just roses. The tribute part was a narrative that Marc had constructed in his head. "Of course," says Marc, "there isn't room in the funeral for *former* heads of government. If you're going to be invited, you have to control your country right now. The head of Turkey declined,...

 "Phantom" is shutting down, and "The Lion King" has a chance to become the longest-running show in Broadway history. (It's fighting against "Chicago," which seems to be doing all right.) "The Lion King" is a tremendously moving re-write of Howard Ashman's "The Little Mermaid." Although "The Lion King" lacks Ashman's wit and elegance, "King" still packs a punch. It has an intellectually hungry and naive young creature living under the thumb of an intimidating father. Like "Mermaid," "King" has a scheming Claudius-esque figure; the story is a battle between generous forces and greedy forces. Curiosity also has a role in both "Mermaid" and "King." Ariel can't help but explore shipwrecks and human colonies; these explorations cause Ariel to enrage her father. Little Simba, eager to be the "mane" event, visits the forbidden elephant graveyard; scolded by D...

  I really liked "Barbarian," which is a crafty horror movie, a movie with ideas. A woman arrives at an air-b-n-b in a terrible portion of Detroit; neighboring houses are falling down. Rain is pouring. The woman knocks and discovers that someone is already in her rental; it's Bill Skarsgard, the horrifying clown from "It." The woman believes she should leave--but where will she find shelter? There is a big convention in town; the guests are eating up all the hotel space.  An uneasy night follows; you aren't sure what Bill S. will do, and a malfunctioning lock becomes a major character (at least for a few minutes).  Just when the story can't get any more uncomfortable, an abrupt shift takes you to a coastal town, where Justin Long is driving along and arguing with his agent. One fun question is: how can Long relate to the Bill S. story? Additionally, Long is so likeable; he has been in frothy comedies with Drew Barrymore! Surely, Long's role in this n...

 A great treat of marriage is "inheriting" nieces; I think, at heart, I'm a woman in her early twenties, and now I can live my truth. My niece sends a text: "People speculate that the new Taylor Swift album was actually supposed to happen during Covid.  Lover  was going to be  Daylight , and  Midnights  would be the obvious follow-up." I have thoughts, immediately: "Midnight has been a theme of Taylor's for so long.  I wake in the night...I pace like a ghost.... Of course, there's  midnight.....You come and pick me up....no headlights...." I restrain myself; I do not send the follow-up in my head: " Phone lights up my nightstand, in the black.....Come here. You can meet me in the back.... " My niece and I have spent hours on "Sweet Home Alabama," "Pretty Woman," "Four Weddings and a Funeral," "Love Actually," "Country Strong." (Both of us think "Country Strong" is a weirdly f...

  One of my favorite writers is Anthony Horowitz; he worked on TV, and in the world of children's literature, for years, but he has recently switched to "adult thriller" territory. A great Horowitz idea is to take James Bond and fill in various gaps within the Bond story. Horowitz does this by sometimes using actual scraps from the Ian Fleming archives; Horowitz will build a novel around an abandoned Fleming story. (As an unhappy schoolboy, Horowitz found comfort in Fleming novels, and you can sense the love and admiration in the new writing.) The most recent Horowitz novel--"With a Mind to Kill"--imagines Bond at the end of his wandering. The British government wants Bond in Moscow, because nefarious Soviets seem to have a dangerous plot. So Bond disguises himself as a communist, and he tries to unearth secrets while also preserving his own life in tricky situations. There are "set-piece" moments: a battle in the Soviet subway, a showdown in the Berli...

  I understand that Elizabeth II remained silent while the British government did terrible things (over and over again). Still, I'm grateful to EII just for giving me "The Queen," which is: * a prominent film about a woman who is not twenty-five years old. (Despite winning the Oscar, Helen Mirren has spent ensuing years as "a wife," to Anthony Hopkins or Broadbent or Christopher Plummer.) * a film that passes the Bechdel Test. (Mirren walks with her mother, and the two discuss the monarchy; they don't discuss a male squeeze.) * a film with an excellent script. (That script! Peter Morgan understands people. He understands how so much communication happens via indirection. When Charles praises Di's parental commitment, he is really antagonizing his own mother. When Philip sputters about his son's marital sloppiness, he is really expressing self-disgust, in an awkward way. And when EII recalls Winston Churchill's guidance, she is showing off, but s...

 My spouse and I are obsessed with Ms. L, the Teacher in Our Life. Ms. L accepts a cranky Josh with open arms each day, and she somehow entertains him for six full hours. At the end of the afternoon session, she is beaming, ready to gush about J's "growing leg muscles" or "developing language skills." Ms. L sent a note to all parents: "I am not perfect, but I expect we'll have a great year together." I believe that Marc and I would--today--begin the canonization process, if we had any sway with the Pope. O brave new world....that has such people in it.....

 We're approaching the big vote on marriage equality, so I want to point out that there is one perfect portrait of marriage in the picture-book corpus, and it's "Mr. Ratburn and the Special Someone." Marc Brown didn't write this, but the story has Brown's spirit, Brown's interest in twisty plotting. Arthur the aardvark learns that his teacher, Mr. Ratburn, is to marry. A mysterious female, Patty, says Mr. Ratburn needs to choose flowers, and also, Mr. Ratburn is "too soft," in need of "toughening up." A tougher teacher would mean more homework--so Arthur decides to drive a wedge between Patty and Mr. R. (Surely Patty is the fiancee?) Scheming occurs; plots fail. On the big day, it's revealed that Mr. Ratburn is actually gay, Patty is "The Sister," and Mr. Ratburn's intended is Patrick, the friendly local chocolatier.  Arthur is fine with all this, but he really wishes Mr. Ratburn would make an exit from the dance floor...

  Recently, the NYT put a spotlight on three long-running shows: "The Simpsons," "SVU," and "Curb Your Enthusiasm." (Since "Curb" sometimes takes a few seasons off, people tend to forget it has been around since the President was Clinton. And yet....) Of these shows, "SVU" obviously has the number-one spot in my heart, and I just have to say I'm so sad about the departure of Rollins. Although Kelli Giddish was less flashy than some of her co-stars, I thought she was consistently plausible. I also thought there was real chemistry between Giddish and Hargitay--for example, it was interesting to see the two dancing around Rollins's tricky love life, or sort-of-avoiding the Aidan Quinn subject--and I think it's risky to excise all of this from the new season (or new seasons). Finally, I loved the grace notes in the writing. Rollins, a Georgia native, did not always have the enlightened views of her colleagues; Rollins also strug...

  I'm staying in a rental house, so I had to invent a new library for my kids. I generally have no advice about being with children, but I do have views on picture books, so here are (unsolicited) thoughts, below. To me, the particular season we're in is a useful starting point. Fall is the best of the four seasons, so it has yielded strong books: "Ghosts in the Attic" (Kohara), "In the Middle of Fall" (Henkes), "Arthur's Halloween" and "Arthur's Off to School" (Brown), and "Ten Spooky Pumpkins" (Grimly). Another guiding light for me is James Marshall. When Marshall died, several of his artist-friends contributed essays to a "tribute" book. My feeling is, if you're a writer/artist and James Marshall befriended you, then there is probably something worthwhile in your work. This thought has led me to "Epossumondas" (Salley), "Rotten Ralph" (Gantos), and "Where the Wild Things Are...

 Like a big part of the country, I'm mesmerized by Jennette McCurdy's memoir, which makes me think of "The Patrick Melrose Novels," by Edward St. Aubyn. McCurdy has a bizarre life to describe, but she also has a writer's gift for throwing light on little things that most people might miss. She is a natural. For example, she begins the book by asking why death-bed scenes seem to require big "life updates." McCurdy says, "It's almost like we think that an absence of major news is the reason our loved one is, now, in a coma; news might make the coma go away." The story gets better from here. At twenty, McCurdy thought she had the perfect tidbit to snap her mother out of her near-death stupor. "Mom!" said young McCurdy. "You'll be so proud! I'm now down to 89 pounds!" I'm not sure how anyone could stop reading. McCurdy goes on to describe how her mother would fetishize her own cancer; the mom would tell gruesome ...

 As we get closer to the pub date for "Oh Sal," my mind is on the picture-book artist Kevin Henkes, and his quartet of "Penny"  books. It's so hard to tell a story, and I think it's especially hard if you're using just a handful of words (appropriate for a child). "Penny and Her Doll" does the work very well, and it looks easy. The book is about a mouse who loves gardening; one day, among the roses, she learns that she has a package, a doll from her grandma. The bulk of the story concerns naming. The mice in Penny's life have ideas--"Pinky," "Smiley," "Buttons"--but nothing seems adequate. It's only when Penny spends time with the doll, and reflects on the words that she herself really likes, that she stumbles on a suitable, simple name: "Rose."  I think these characters and this story are unforgettable, even though so little happens. A child needs to make certain decisions on her own; this is how...

 I often think about the word "housekeeping" -- how it's not "house-improving," "house-reinventing." "Housekeeping" means that entropy is all around us. If you continuously pick up after small children, then you get to *keep* your house. Nothing actually gets better; it's just that the house still sort of resembles a house, if you are tireless and vigilant. Sometimes, I feel that I'm in a psychiatric hospital, because I spend my day talking to stuffed animals: Miss Bunny, Big Bear, and a large cat called Stephen Sondheim. Recently, my husband brought a plush lion back from a work trip, and he didn't even pretend to hand it to the kids; he gave it directly to me, and he said, "The name is Fuddle Wuddle." When Marc and I had a difficult school phone call, Marc said, without smirking, "I'd like to hold Fuddle Wuddle throughout this negotiation." What a shock to discover that FAO Schwarz has risen from the dead...

 I was lucky to pick up some good books in the past few weeks; if you're on the lookout, here are things I'd recommend: *"Heat," by Ed McBain. The word on McBain is that "saying this guy writes well is like saying the Colosseum is a decent building." Or something along those lines. A McBain novel is like a particularly strong episode of "Law and Order: SVU." Flawed cops struggle with an impenetrable mystery; as the story unfolds, we get snapshots of the private lives of our cops.  "Heat" occurs during a terrible spell of humidity, in August, in New York City. (The city is renamed "Isola.") Someone seems to have committed suicide after having switched off the A/C--but why wouldn't you want a cool breeze in this weather? At the same time, a cop is nearly certain that his spouse is cheating--and he makes some odd choices as he launches his investigation. Something I love is McBain's attention to ego; a certain scene centers...

 A writer generally has one story, and the story gets tweaked and repackaged several times over the course of one career. "Better Call Saul" is, in some ways, a retelling of "Breaking Bad." Once again, we have a pseudo-biblical conflict within a family; Walt did battle with his "brother," Hank, and Saul does battle with his brother, Chuck. Once again, we have Vince Gilligan having fun by inventing gargoyles. A memorable player in "Breaking Bad" was Ted Beneke, a privileged, idiotic, white guy who created problems for himself. He shows up as a slightly different person--"Daniel Wormald"--in "Better Call Saul." Although Wormald receives good advice from others, he seems determined to screw up his own life. Like Ted Beneke, Wormald pretends to hear reason, then acts just the way (the dumb way) he wants to act. Finally, I'm noticing a big theme: "the banality of evil." Toward the end of "Breaking Bad," Gill...