Marie White Small's Blog

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Stony Kill: A Novel

Marie White Small. SelectBooks, $16.95 trade paper (325p) ISBN 978-1-59079-3114

In Small’s sprawling, evocative debut, Joss Ellen Ryckman stops running from her past and, after the death of her mother, returns to her childhood farm in upstate New York. The book follows Joss as she navigates owning the Brooklyn bakery her mother started—which she’s been managing since she was 20—and then moving into the farmhouse. Small’s expansive prose spares no expense on powerful and descriptive details. Much of the book is spent in reminiscence as Joss spins endlessly in the revolving door of memory, comparing her life now with her childhood on the farm. Her memories circle mainly around her father, Big Paul, who called her “Paulie-girl” or “Boy-o” and had a set of expectations Joss is only now realizing she could never live up to. Among a larger cast of characters, past and present, the winding narrative follows Joss coming to terms with her own agency and realizing that the past doesn’t necessarily determine the future. Joss also decides to stop hiding from two family tragedies: one of her mother’s and one of her own. These haunting moments bookend the narrative and illuminate the raw edges of Joss’ experience. This deeply expressive book is a fine exploration of personal history and the significance of place as a means of finding oneself. (Oct.)

Valentines Day, the day of chocolates, sentimental cards, and romantic dinners is upon us once again. Frank and I are going to a comedy revue this evening. “Stand Up for Bernie,” at the River Garden in Brattleboro Vermont, will be a fundraiser for Senator Sanders’ presidential bid.

We’ve seldom celebrated Valentine’s Day. I was a florist for many years before I became a writer. There were always those who ordered two gifts: one for their spouse, the other for their other; HVD on both cards, and signed with love. Valentine’s Day was a commercial enterprise that often seemed to have more to do with an imposed obligation than love.

But this morning I pulled out some old Valentine cards I had tucked away in my desk. They were cards Frank’s mother had given to his father early in their marriage. Last year we cleaned out my in-laws house with fifty year’s of accumulation. We found a dozen pair of crutches, Christmas gifts we had given that were never used, letters, photos, and those Valentines.

They were a testament to how most marriages start, and though my in-laws’ marriage did not make it to the finish line, they stayed together for fifty-eight years. Three years ago Frank’s mom went in for a hip replacement, then on to rehab, and at last to a Residence Inn. She never went home again. She’d had enough.

Her actions were outrageous, though understandable. She wanted peace in her remaining years, though we all knew leaving my father-in-law would send him into a downward spiral—which it did. He died two years later, in his ninetieth year.

It was a sad business—their separation—the fallout in the family still reverberates. While we tried to remain neutral, Frank, his brothers and their families all realigned. Bonds that were tenuous were broken, and sadly still remain so, while others strengthened. The wastefulness of this is the tragedy; that we all still love one another, though for some it has been drowned out by the noise of too much unresolved.

It seems this is what breaks bonds more than anything else—issues that remain unresolved. Secrets, half-truths, and downright lies, along with the edges of boundaries that become broken and disrespected—these are not easily repaired, but repaired they must be in order for love to thrive. Despite my in-laws troubles, and my mother-in-law’s weariness of her husband, they still loved each other. He was unwavering about that. That is what I keep close on this day.

So Happy Valentine’s Day! Romance is wonderful, along with lovely dinners, flowers, and chocolate. We do that regularly without it being prescriptive. But we also show up on the bad days, the times when life is a bigger challenge. Not that we haven’t too often failed each other—that’s a given. But like many other committed couples, we go on.

I have come to believe that love, above all else, is about endurance.

Check out my website at www,mariewhitesmall.com

NIGHT OWL ALERT!

If you’re anything like me, staying up half the night, be sure to tune into WBZ AM (Boston) 1030AM on Saturday night at midnight, or if you’re in the Midwest at 2:30 in the morning on WCCO Minneapolis 830AM and listen to Jordon Rich and me chat about Stony Kill.

The Jordan Rich Show is one of the most eclectic on radio, featuring a smorgasbord of topics ranging from the arts, history, and health to pop culture, sports, politics and all important issues of the heart and soul.

Throughout the years, Jordan has interviewed best selling authors, international film and TV stars, musicians, entertainers, leading health care practitioners and local celebrities.

Hope you’ll tune in!

The Great Elf himself is a big fan of Stony Kill, and while he has hundreds of copies in his sack for his Christmas Eve travels, he hopes readers and gift-givers will help him out!  http://www.amazon.com/Stony-Kill-Mari...

Happy Holidays! Enter a Holiday Giveaway! All entrants will win one of two books!

https://giveaway.amazon.com/p/4bb4d26...

Come hear a reading from STONY KILL on Thursday, December 3rd at 6:30 p.m. and join in the discussion about Joss, Miss Euphrates, and Haley . . . the cast of characters who tell their evocative stories. Learn how you can receive a fee copy of Miss Euphrates’ Pies, the cookbook that demysifies many of the bakery delights featured in the novel.

Buy a copy of STONY KILL between Nov. 28th and Dec. 25th, then send the proof-of-purchase to marie@mariewhtesmall.com to enter our contest for a chance to win a signed copy of STONY KILL and a handsome PIE BOX! Sorry, pie not included.

We are in an American epidemic.

Children are accidently killing their siblings, their friends, a parent, or even the family dog every week in America. It happens in a flash. A toddler finds a hidden gun under a mattress; after all, access is eye level for a child of that age. They know exactly what to do. They have seen it on television, in games, and in videos. It is the observation of a repeated process that imprints in young minds—aim and press against the trigger.

But no child who pulls the trigger understands what happens next, including teenagers. They are not yet wired to fully comprehend the tragic consequences. A young boy’s sister stands in front of him. He squeezes the trigger, maybe because she is yelling at him, or taunting him, but more likely because pulling the trigger is irresistible—like cars—guns often symbolize control and mastery over a young person’s world. Whoever stands in front of that gun is alive in one moment, and dead in the next, and it can’t be undone.

Another tragedy and series of outcries are heard, but in the bigger picture, this death is just another incident of collateral damage in our politicized gun-toting nation.

Each and every gun tragedy is outshouted and outspent by groups and individuals who have been spoon-fed sound bytes about complex constitutional interpretation, with fear-mongering as their trump card. Whatever compassion for the families who will suffer for the remainder of their lives is short lived.

The Washington Post reports that a toddler, a child under three years old has killed or wounded either him or herself, or another person at least once weekly in 2015—and if past is prologue, we can expect a dozen or so similar tragedies before the new year.

But the toll is actually much higher.

Don’t kid yourself, in that moment of a child pulling the trigger and killing someone, both the victim and the shooter are blown away. The survivers and their families are, in most instances, forever down the rabbit hole with enough blame to go around for years.

But this is where fact and fiction merge in strangely American ways. In the end the question is this: how do we as a people stop the American penchant for violence? Where are the lines, the borders, the area of demarcation between acceptable violence and tragedy?

The answer is, of course, is that there is no such line, no border.

The real truth is that we are in a war with our deep-set American psyche: the lore of individual might and largesse, the importance of personal rights over the greater good, even if too many children are killing and dying in America.

At someplace in the back of our minds, we are each still conquerers of the vast American dream, like the old west with guns laid upon the bar. We are tough, fearless, and undaunted. We demonstrate that myth in every violent, bloody movie in which the quintessential American survives what real humans likely could not. Those kinds of heroes are rare. They suffer and are likely forever changed into strongly compassionate people.

Compassion is not absent in American life, but it is transitory and conditional. Why does it take a bullet to the head for people to change their minds about sensible and responsible gun ownership? What will it take to finally protect our children and to realize that none of us are irreplaceable?

Win a copy of Stony Kill, my debut novel and write a review on Goodreads!

https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sh...

On Wednesday, October 28th my cousin Lauren Horton, director of Westford, MA CAT-TV hosted Joyce Pellino Crane and me for an in-depth interview about Stony Kill. Watch it here!