Review: Grace (Eventually)

Grace (Eventually) by Anne Lamott
Grace (Eventually)
Anne Lamott

Title: Grace (Eventually)
Author: Anne Lamott
Published: 2008
ISBN: 978-1-59448-942-6
Publisher: Riverhead Books

If I listed every quote which resonated with me in this book, I would be quoting the entire thing.

Anne Lamott’s writing speaks to me.  Her complete honesty, no doubt.  The way she speaks her truth about her life.  The words she strings together to make me understand how she feels.  I recognize myself in some of what she writes about.

That scared, mixed up woman who can barely keep herself going, much less be expected to do anything else.  The woman who panics for what appears to be no good reason to others, but is a very good reason to her.  Like, “OHMYGAWD, I have no money, I can’t buy the groceries I want, I’m going to have to move my books to the underpass, I’m going to DIE.  The world is going to END!”  Yup, that’s me.

Of course, in my clearer moments I know being poor doesn’t mean the end of the world or anything dire.  It just means no money, and reminding myself that the universe is constantly taking care of me, even when it’s hard to see through the panicked fog.

Her junk food binges in the essay titled “The Muddling Glory of God?”  Frequent flyer here.  Her fraught and confusing relationship with her mother in “Dandelions?”  I still have the scars.

And while I teared up over Anne’s life and the way my heart hurt for both of us, I keep thinking, “She lived through it.  She got to a good place in her life where she can afford groceries and lives in a nice home and has a wonderful community around her.”  I can live through it too.

She makes me think.  And then she makes me giggle as I think about how I might also panic because my dog ran off out of sight on our walk.  Although I think I’d be more worried about the rattlesnakes.

And while I was reading, I was reminded how oddly grace works in my life.  How, really, it’s not so bad.  How when I’m not paying attention and wallowing around in my own mire, grace comes along and does something unexpected.  Then I feel all right and ready to keep going.

If I could ask Anne Lamott one thing, it would be if she would be my life sponsor.  One of my tribe to hold me when my face is red from crying and snot is running over my lips.  One who will take my hand, look me straight in the eye, and say, “You will get through this.”

Her books have literally been life changing for me.  bird by bird taught me about the discipline of writing, of being creative, every day.  Whether I want to or not.  Grace (Eventually) reminds me to wait patiently for the grace which envelops me and takes care of me.  Reading Anne Lamott is like meeting a new, old friend with whom I could share an afternoon talking about the deep things in life, while cracking each other up.

Review: Familiar Spirits

Familiar Spirits by Leonard Tourney

Title: Familiar Spirits
Author: Leonard Tourney
Series: Matthew and Joan Stock – #3
Published: 1984
ISBN: 0-345-34372-7
Publisher: Ballantine Books

New words:  Termagant, quiddity

New terms:  Geneva Bible, witch of Endor

Favorite Quote:

... his manhood celebrated by the monstrous codpiece he wore. (p. 12)

Nits:  As in Low Treason, Matthew Stock is described again as Argus of the hundred eyes.  Not only do I doubt the reference as one someone of Matthew Stock’s class would recognize, the use of that description in a second book makes me cringe a little.  It smacks of either laziness, or “aren’t I a clever writer?”  And why does the magistrate go nameless the entire book?

Matthew and Joan Stock are back on home turf in Familiar Spirits.  The town of Chelmsford is caught up in witch fever.  The opening chapter is a description of the hanging of three people, one of them a witch.  Tourney gets this atmosphere right, describing the delight of the spectators and the business-like demeanor of the gaolers and hangman.

Being accused of witchcraft was a nasty business, a veritable catch-22.  To prove you weren’t a witch you would have to go through trials which would surely kill you, if you survived then you were definitely a witch and would be hanged (or burned).  Horrible stuff.

And, as is usual in witchcraft trials, suspicion falls upon everyone associated with the witch.  Especially after Ursula’s master dies all of a sudden, after her ghost has been seen in the window by the master’s wife.

Then, the master’s wife’s sister and her family are accused.  A mob forms to drive the witches out, etc. etc. etc.

Matthew takes nothing at face value and is perplexed at the ghostly sightings of Ursula, the death, and the burning of the barn behind the master’s home where Ursula was purported to have conducted her tricks.

Superstitious townspeople are all calling for righteous living to be returned to with a speedy witch trial and hangings at the end.  Only Matthew is unconvinced.  Not because he doesn’t believe in witches, but rather, because the testimony given in Ursula’s trial makes no coherent sense.

Against the wishes of the townspeople, including the aldermen, Matthew continues to investigate.   What he turns up is more sinister than witchcraft, and does not come from Satan.  One man’s cover-up kills two more innocent people and nearly gets his wife and in-laws hanged.

Although Tourney’s pseudo-Elizabethan continues to bother me, and this is a fairly straightforward whodunnit, I am still charmed by Matthew Stock, and his wife Joan.  In addition, there is the kind and stubborn Jane Crispin who speaks up in court for herself.  Something no woman would have done, would be allowed.  In fact, she states that she is doomed either way, so why shouldn’t speak up and address the absurdities of the witch trial?  Especially, the “specialist” who brings his assistant along because the boy has himself once been possessed by demons and can point out those who are also possessed.

I suppose these absurdities are no more absurd than some of the political yammerings we suffer through today.