The Rent Collector by Cameron Wright

The Rent Collector by Cameron Wright, got good reviews on Amazon. But it was a miss for me. A serious miss.

The Rent Collector is about Sang Ly, a woman living in a garbage dump slum in Cambodia. She and her husband, Ki Lim, sort through garbage to survive.

Sang Ly isn't educated. She doesn't read. So I kept getting tripped up when her character would think things like: "I have been told that there is a specialized college degree that studies civilizations by sifting through layers of their trash." (page 23) and "How could I explain the illogical feelings swirling and swelling inside, forcing my action?" (page 30) and "administer a course of antibiotics" (page 40).

What? This from an illiterate woman living in a garbage dump slum?

I doubt Wright has ever lived in or near a garbage slum or known personally people who live there. Because he'd realize the people there aren't stupid, but they just aren't educated enough to know about specialized college degrees or be able to describe swirling, swelling feelings, or know that antibiotics have a course.

So Sany Ly's voice wasn't believable to me. Perhaps it's because I've lived near 3rd world dumps and known the people who lived there; seen glimpses of the world through their world-view. They taught me many things, truly, but it would be wrong for me to try to write their view by superimposing an educated voice on top of it.

I skimmed the rest of the book: Sang Ly learns to read and is inspired by great stories and great literature. All very noble. That's the message. Got it.

But it just didn't work for me. Any one really like it?

And one last thing: Where was the editor? There were way, way too many . . . . And then some---And then again . . . And then again---. It was like a car that kept braking for cats that kept darting in to the literary road and could never make it across town.

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline

Orphan Train by Kline was on my book club's reading list.

You can tell it's not Kline's first novel because it has a nice story arc. Develops well, not too fast, ends well, not too rushed. Good character development.

The most fascinating thing is that Kline takes something real: the orphan trains that brought kids west, adds fictional characters, parallels it with a fictional story of a young woman in modern-day foster care, and POOF!

Story, there you go.

A good solid summer 2014 read. I'll pass my copy on and not necessarily need it back.

So if you see a copy at Costco . . . . :)

P.S. I hear there's another book by the same title. So if this is what you are looking for, make sure you get the one by Kline.

Who knew you could write a mother's day poem about a lanyard?

In honor of mothers, children, and those blasted camp crafts, on this Mother's Day. Best read out loud (of course): 

The Lanyard - Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

Included in the book (OCT 2005), The Trouble with Poetry. 

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom

Just as I can only take so much Holocaust historical fiction, I can only take so much antebellum South  and slavery books. But again, it had been a while, and again, there was that book at Costco. (Costco tables make me pine for the book stores of old. I hope those stores come back. I miss them.)

So I read The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom, historical fiction of the antebellum south. You can find a good plot summary somewhere that would do it better justice than I could.

Plot: Good. Characters: good. I always like it when authors can tell the story from different character's points of view. Loved the portray of how the lives of the landowners and the lives of the slaves/servants intertwined. I thought the end was a little rushed, but there has to be an end somehow. For a first work of Grissom, pretty good.

Violence. There's violence. Skipped it. If it bothers you that there's violence and you can't skip it, pass on this book.

I'd actually like to read it with a book group and talk about some of the characters. I found Marshall incredibly pathetic, both "pathetic" meaning full of pathos and "pathetic" meaning despise-able. And there's conflict to discuss for sure, for sure.

Would I recommend it? Maybe. If the topic interests you, yes. I wouldn't put it on a "must read classics" list (like Book Thief, like These is My Words, and like Guernsey), but worth the time if you are interested or are looking for a decent read for this summer.