Essays by Ann Patchett

   By Kate Phillips

 

As a reader, I always love finding books that appeal to me. As a writer, I am twice as pleased when the authors also provide masterclasses within their books.

        Masterclasses take place when performance artists and musicians work one-on-one with students. Writers don't generally have this option, but I have found some books to be masterclasses for characters, backstories, plots, settings, voice, and/or creativity.

 
        I adore essays. The best are elegant affairs filled with truth and wisdom.

Want proof? Read any of Ann Patchett's in her latest collection—especially "The Getaway Car: A Practical Memoir about Writing and Life," "The Sacrament of Divorce," "This Dog's Life," "The Wall," "Love Sustained," "The Bookstore Strikes Back," "This is the Story of a Happy Marriage," and "The Mercies."

While I love these essays and most of the other fourteen published with them, I hate the title of the book: This is the Story of a Happy Marriage. It just sounds smug—and the essay it's based on is not. In fact, Patchett left a very unhappy marriage, see "The Sacrament of Divorce," and swore she would never remarry, but her plans go engagingly awry a dozen years later.

If I hadn't read a rave review of this book by someone I trust, I never would have picked it up—and I would have missed this Masterclass. I think the paperback (and the hardcover) should be reissued/renamed as My Getaway Car. That grabs interest without putting too many people off. Who hasn't wished for a getaway car at some point in his or her life?

In "The Getaway Car," Patchett shares how she became a published author. She always knew she was a writer, but it took a while to support herself with just her words.

A college class taught by Allan Gurganus, who assigned a story a week, is the basis for her career. "Ninety percent of what I know about fiction writing I learned that year. Write it out. Tell the truth. Stack up the pages. Learn to write by writing. Slowing down was for later, years later. We were to keep going at all costs…Had I wound up with a different sort of teacher, one who suggested we keep an ear cocked for the muse instead of hoisting the pick, I don't think I would have gotten very far." (page 28)

Patchett paid her dues. She worked as a waitress after completing the Iowa Writers' Workshop. "With so much time for thinking and so little time for writing, I learned how to work in my head…I was going to make up a novel…the novel was going to be my getaway car." (page 39) Patchett is the author of six novels to date.

"This Dog's Life" made me laugh as Patchett states, "I have believed that happiness and true adulthood would be mine at the moment of dog ownership…[She adopted a puppy named Rose, but people just said she must want a baby badly.]…Being a childless woman of childbearing age, I am a walking target for people's concerned analysis. No one looks at a single man with a Labrador retriever and says, 'Will you look at the way he throws the tennis ball to that dog? Now there's a guy who wants to have a son.'" (pages 75-76)

In her essay "The Wall," Patchett recounts her training and tests to get into the Los Angeles Police Academy. "Love Sustained" illuminates the caretaking side of love that takes grit and gumption. "The Bookstore Strikes Back" tells the tale of opening a successful local bookstore despite Amazon and the naysayers. And "The Mercies" highlights friendship and caring through decades.

All of these essays reveal the allure and strength of this art form whether Patchett is celebrating the truth about love, her grandmother, her husband, her dog, books, friends, and fate.

These essays are the story of a now happy writer's life.

 

         

My Writer's Survival Kits

By Kate Phillips

        I never leave home without my basic writer's survival kit—at least one book, a pen, and a notebook.

In my purse, I carry at all times a pocket-sized version of The Writer's Life: Insights from the Right to Write by Julia Cameron, 6" x 4", and Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg, 4.5" x 3", along with a pen and small notepad so I can write anywhere, anytime I have a few moments whether waiting for someone in a restaurant, before a movie, or at a dentist's office.

        Watching people in these places is a great way to capture details to use later describing characters. Overheard conversations can lead to plot twists or essays. However, if I'm not inspired by my location, I randomly open either of these pocket-sized books, read a page or two, grab my pen, and start scribbling down thoughts.

        In my car, I keep pens, a full-sized notebook, and two books—The War of Art: Break Through Your Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield and Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman—in case I don't bring my purse with me and find myself with time on my hands. This happens once or twice a week.

        If I know I am going to have time to write, I bring my lovely black damask-print tote bag always stocked with half a dozen pens, a full-sized notebook, and The War of Art by Steven Pressfield as it never fails to motivate me so I always want it nearby. I then add whatever book(s) I am currently reading. These books are as essential as the pens and notebook because reading sparks my writing. I don't have time to wait for my muse. I meet her on the pages of my notebook.

Frankly, there is never enough time to write. These small pockets of time and my writing kits are what make my writing life possible on busy days.

        I wish more writing books were offered in pocket-sized versions. My top choice would be, not surprisingly, The War of Art. Other books would include: The Writer's Home Companion edited by Joan Bolker, Ed.D., For Writer's Only by Sophy Burnham, Zen and the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury, and Telling Lies for Fun and Profit by Lawrence Block. I could go on, but these would make a great start.

        If they were pocket-sized, I would always have my favorite writing books with me—a portable cheering section supporting me as I write every chance I get!

           

Reads for Writers: The Dirty Life & Fifty Acres and a Poodle

By Kate Phillips

       

In honor of spring, I am highlighting city authors who moved to farms. One never planned on changing from an out-till-dawn-having-fun writer in New York City to an up-before-dawn farmer in upstate New York. The other grew up loving Green Acres and simply dreamed of a farm of her own.

In The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food, and Love, author Kristin Kimball shares "the story of two love affairs that interrupted the trajectory of [her] life: one with farming—that dirty, concupiscent art—and the other with a complicated and exasperating farmer [she] found in State College, Pennsylvania."

For Kristin it all began with an appointment to interview a farmer growing organic crops six hours from Manhattan for a possible article. Mark, the long-legged 14-hour-workday farmer, had no time to talk during daylight so he promised her an interview that evening. In the meantime, she could help one of his assistants hoe the broccoli.

Kristin's impressions of Mark were: "First, this is a man. All the men I knew were cerebral. This one lived in his body. Second, I can't believe I drove all this way to hoe broccoli for this dude."

The farm work didn't stop there. That evening, Kimball, a 13-year vegetarian, helped slaughter a pig. Her outlook and life changed. After sleeping at a hotel, she was back at the farm at dawn for pancakes and a double helping of homemade sausage. Then she was off to rake around the tomato plants until almost too sore to move as Mark took the pig carcass to a butcher.

She spent the rest of the day following Mark from task to task until she finally begged him to sit down for an hour as she was leaving the next day. While sitting together on an oak log and answering her questions, Mark realized he had found his wife. It took Kimball a bit longer to fall in love, give up her city life, and become a farmer, too. They found a farm of their own and started from scratch.

The Dirty Life spares no details on the hard and filthy work of farming. It is a matter of life and death for crops and animals so people can eat well. As fast as farmers work, there are always more chores than time. The big upsides are seeing the farm come to life as crops are planted, livestock is born, buildings are repaired and put to use followed by the harvesting of gloriously tasty food they produce, sell, and enjoy eating fresh every day. Despite the dirt, pus, blood, manure and exhaustion, Kristin Kimball cannot think of a more rewarding life. Her book is a superbly written tribute to farming, family, and community.

If the reality of farming is too much for you, Fifty Acres and a Poodle: A Story of Love, Livestock, and Finding Myself on a Farm by Jeanne Marie Laskas might be more your style. Pets play the leads on this farm.

The author owns a sick cat named Bob and a small mutt named Betty. After a friendship turns to an unplanned romance, she discovers her fiancé, Alex, always wanted, much to her dismay, a standard Poodle. As fate would have it, an eight-month-old Poodle named Marley comes into their lives.

Jeanne and Alex live in nearby houses in Pittsburgh, but they spend Sundays driving around farm shopping as Jeanne has a farm dream based loosely on Green Acres. One day they find the perfect farm complete with a studio so Jeanne has an inspiring place to write. They make an offer and, after an excruciating delay, they find themselves the owners of it.

Moving to a farm doesn't make owners farmers. There is a lot to learn. Luckily, neighbors are quick to lend a hand, but the mistakes made along the way are funny, embarrassing, or  even near-death experiences.

On the plus side, Alex takes to a tractor like the deer take to the multiflora rose bushes growing all over the place. He is happy farming on weekends after working in the city as a doctor during the week.

The fifty acres are soon filled with more than a Poodle—dogs: Wilma and Sparky; barn cats: Walter and Irving; horses: Cricket and Maggie; and mules: Sassafras (Sassy) and Skippy. Plans are made to add sheep and goats as well as a garden, a pond, and a greenhouse. Then two daughters join the family. Along the way, Jeanne writes deeply about writing, solitude, growing pains, and love which she also captures in two follow up books: The Exact Same Moon: Fifty Acres and a Family and Growing Girls: The Mother of All Adventures.

This is her dream of farming that came true.