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Aug 9 - Fog
A stark, elegiac account of unexpected pleasures and the progress of seasons
Fifteen years ago, Kathryn Scanlan found a stranger’s five-year diary at an estate auction in a small town in Illinois. The owner of the diary was eighty-six years old when she began recording the details of her life in the small book, a gift from her daughter and son-in-law. The diary was falling apart—water-stained and illegible in places—but magnetic to Scanlan nonetheless.
After reading and rereading the diary, studying and dissecting it, for the next fifteen years she played with the sentences that caught her attention, cutting, editing, arranging, and rearranging them into the composition that became Aug 9—Fog (she chose the title from a note that was tucked into the diary). “Sure grand out,” the diarist writes. “That puzzle a humdinger,” she says, followed by, “A letter from Lloyd saying John died the 16th.” An entire state of mourning reveals itself in “2 canned hams.” The result of Scanlan’s collaging is an utterly compelling, deeply moving meditation on life and death.
In Aug 9—Fog, Scanlan’s spare, minimalist approach has a maximal emotional effect, remaining with the reader long after the book ends. It is an unclassifiable work from a visionary young writer and artist—a singular portrait of a life revealed by revision and restraint.
Fifteen years ago, Kathryn Scanlan found a stranger’s five-year diary at an estate auction in a small town in Illinois. The owner of the diary was eighty-six years old when she began recording the details of her life in the small book, a gift from her daughter and son-in-law. The diary was falling apart—water-stained and illegible in places—but magnetic to Scanlan nonetheless.
After reading and rereading the diary, studying and dissecting it, for the next fifteen years she played with the sentences that caught her attention, cutting, editing, arranging, and rearranging them into the composition that became Aug 9—Fog (she chose the title from a note that was tucked into the diary). “Sure grand out,” the diarist writes. “That puzzle a humdinger,” she says, followed by, “A letter from Lloyd saying John died the 16th.” An entire state of mourning reveals itself in “2 canned hams.” The result of Scanlan’s collaging is an utterly compelling, deeply moving meditation on life and death.
In Aug 9—Fog, Scanlan’s spare, minimalist approach has a maximal emotional effect, remaining with the reader long after the book ends. It is an unclassifiable work from a visionary young writer and artist—a singular portrait of a life revealed by revision and restraint.
128 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 4, 2019
24 people are currently reading
2563 people want to read
About the author
Kathryn Scanlan
9 books128 followersKathryn Scanlan's work has appeared in NOON, Fence, Granta, and Egress. Her debut collection of stories, The Dominant Animal, is forthcoming from FSG Originals in 2020. She lives in Los Angeles.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 302 reviews
February 3, 2020
A strange book of erasure from a found diary. What works is seeing the shape of a year in the life. But the syntax might be what’s not working for me? I don’t know. Definitely worth reading because it is quite different. I just don’t know what to make of this one, what I am supposed to take from it.
June 24, 2019
"Ever where glare of ice. We didn't
sleep too good. My pep has left me.
D. & I out to cemetery toward
evening. Flowers frozen. We are
alone tonite."
Kathryn Scanlan’s Aug 9—Fog is a rearrangement of sentences taken from a stranger’s diary she found at an estate auction 15 years ago. Its author is an 86-year-old woman whose annals sweep five years — 1968 to 1972 — and five seasons. From what I deduced of the language, the speaker — let’s call her Joan — is a black woman. I sensed this from the use of African-American English — and also because our diction has an arcane, but distinct sound.
In pages of stanzas, we learn Joan, her friends, and loved ones are either unwell or in some state of danger or grief. Someone named Emma “didn’t get home”; Bayard is caught “living in the past”; Linda “had car accident”; Stella’s had things “taken, mostly antiques”; Ruth, fortunately, “came thru operation”; “Lightning hit & burned Charlie’s garage” — these spare glimpses speak to the perilous limbo of a black lower class. Poor health, trepidation, and pain begat by old age are sufferings Joan tries to evade with art and nature before the chapter of her own life comes to an end.
Some may not understand Aug 9—Fog nor be stoic enough to decipher its mad glamour — and it will be a shame because that is its charm. What Scanlan has done is give voice to a life that would have otherwise left silently. A life of a friend, of a stranger, of someone who is both dying to live and dying for a silver lining. The very haunt of Aug 9—Fog concerns the ways death finds us when we are most feeble, and here, death is an onslaught of maladies.
In a very eerie way, this book’s polarizing nature reminded me so much of The Incest Diary — which is the most controversial story I’ve ever read and enjoyed. After witnessing what Scanlan has performed given so little material, I’m as anxious as ever to see what she does with her new collection next year.
(Thank you, FSG, for gifting me this beautiful sphinx of a book; it certainly sunk its fangs in me.)
If you liked my review, feel free to follow me @parisperusing on Instagram.
sleep too good. My pep has left me.
D. & I out to cemetery toward
evening. Flowers frozen. We are
alone tonite."
Kathryn Scanlan’s Aug 9—Fog is a rearrangement of sentences taken from a stranger’s diary she found at an estate auction 15 years ago. Its author is an 86-year-old woman whose annals sweep five years — 1968 to 1972 — and five seasons. From what I deduced of the language, the speaker — let’s call her Joan — is a black woman. I sensed this from the use of African-American English — and also because our diction has an arcane, but distinct sound.
In pages of stanzas, we learn Joan, her friends, and loved ones are either unwell or in some state of danger or grief. Someone named Emma “didn’t get home”; Bayard is caught “living in the past”; Linda “had car accident”; Stella’s had things “taken, mostly antiques”; Ruth, fortunately, “came thru operation”; “Lightning hit & burned Charlie’s garage” — these spare glimpses speak to the perilous limbo of a black lower class. Poor health, trepidation, and pain begat by old age are sufferings Joan tries to evade with art and nature before the chapter of her own life comes to an end.
Some may not understand Aug 9—Fog nor be stoic enough to decipher its mad glamour — and it will be a shame because that is its charm. What Scanlan has done is give voice to a life that would have otherwise left silently. A life of a friend, of a stranger, of someone who is both dying to live and dying for a silver lining. The very haunt of Aug 9—Fog concerns the ways death finds us when we are most feeble, and here, death is an onslaught of maladies.
In a very eerie way, this book’s polarizing nature reminded me so much of The Incest Diary — which is the most controversial story I’ve ever read and enjoyed. After witnessing what Scanlan has performed given so little material, I’m as anxious as ever to see what she does with her new collection next year.
(Thank you, FSG, for gifting me this beautiful sphinx of a book; it certainly sunk its fangs in me.)
If you liked my review, feel free to follow me @parisperusing on Instagram.
May 16, 2019
This isn’t really a book, is it? Not in a way that someone would spend money on it, surely. Technically, yes, it’s formatted and published as a book, but realistically speaking it is 128 pages I was easily able to read in just under 15 minutes. This is beyond spare, beyond minimalistic, beyond bare bones even. It might work as a poetry volume, possibly, although it’s sparse even by those standards. Mood wise, again, might work for poetry. Otherwise, possibly, an experiment. But it doesn’t offer much to go on. This is essentially an old diary of an old woman that covers 1968 to 1972 in the least amount of words and details possible, mostly chronicling old age and the general winding down of life. Not only is there not really enough for a semblance of a coherent narrative, there is barely enough to evoke any sort of engagement. Maybe this is why diaries are meant to be private things intended for their owners only. Definitely didn’t work for me. Maybe it’s something for fans of poetry and flash fiction. But seriously…no book this size should be read in 15 minutes. Maybe I’m too much of a traditionalist. The book has some rave reviews, possibly from diarists or readers of the diaries of others. Concept fiction, like concept cuisine, essentially insubstantial. And in this case mainly sad. But really, it’s a privacy violation at best. Pass. Thanks Netgalley.
December 17, 2023
A tiny book that, for me, represented the deep unknowableness of another human life, but also the value of trying to know it.
In Aug 9 – Fog, Kathryn Scanlan takes a stranger’s diary discovered at an estate sale, and cuts away at it to create 110 pages of short, dissociated accounts of her life. The diary covered a period of four years, from 1968-1972, when the writer was in her late eighties.
Her life is an old person’s life – accounts of the comings and goings of family and friends, the deaths of acquaintances, her daily activities (she seems to be some kind of an artist or in any case a very crafty and artistic person, with frequent references to painting and, in a moment of stress, making a needle cushion), and reflections on nature and the changing of the season.
The diary itself was five years in one, with the same date repeated five times in different years across a two-page spread. But Scanlan has created a single year, running from winter through the seasons to winter again. It isn’t clear which years the observations come from, though some “stories” run across many pages. So it’s a fascinating project that at once reveals a forgotten life and renders it unknowable. What’s lost is lost, but what remains is still something.
The best thing is the writer’s voice, which is part vernacular American and part journal-writing shorthand: “Sure pretty out. Sure grand out. D. making a new piecrust. All better.” If such a cryptic style seems like it would be unbearable stretched out over a book, there are occasional surprising moments of lyricism: “Big snow flakes like little parasols upside down.” This is mixed in with the purely functional: “D. and V. got me pretty slippers for Mother’s Day.” “D. washed my head.”
Dark times come: “He called. Not so good. Bleeding again. Trying to knit pincushion.”
Though the diary covers four late years, there are hints of a whole life: “Took flowers out to cemetery. Mother 121 years.”
There’s simply so much in these few words. I read the book three times back to back. I want to know this woman. It’s unclear even who the people mentioned are and how they relate to her. There’s so little to hold onto. And yet it’s so rich.
“That puzzle a humdinger.”
“Freddy & wife came to dinner. She awful small and they are looking for stork.”
“Ever where glare of ice. My pep has left me.”
“Happy New Year. Brr. Brr. Brr.”
In Aug 9 – Fog, Kathryn Scanlan takes a stranger’s diary discovered at an estate sale, and cuts away at it to create 110 pages of short, dissociated accounts of her life. The diary covered a period of four years, from 1968-1972, when the writer was in her late eighties.
Her life is an old person’s life – accounts of the comings and goings of family and friends, the deaths of acquaintances, her daily activities (she seems to be some kind of an artist or in any case a very crafty and artistic person, with frequent references to painting and, in a moment of stress, making a needle cushion), and reflections on nature and the changing of the season.
The diary itself was five years in one, with the same date repeated five times in different years across a two-page spread. But Scanlan has created a single year, running from winter through the seasons to winter again. It isn’t clear which years the observations come from, though some “stories” run across many pages. So it’s a fascinating project that at once reveals a forgotten life and renders it unknowable. What’s lost is lost, but what remains is still something.
The best thing is the writer’s voice, which is part vernacular American and part journal-writing shorthand: “Sure pretty out. Sure grand out. D. making a new piecrust. All better.” If such a cryptic style seems like it would be unbearable stretched out over a book, there are occasional surprising moments of lyricism: “Big snow flakes like little parasols upside down.” This is mixed in with the purely functional: “D. and V. got me pretty slippers for Mother’s Day.” “D. washed my head.”
Dark times come: “He called. Not so good. Bleeding again. Trying to knit pincushion.”
Though the diary covers four late years, there are hints of a whole life: “Took flowers out to cemetery. Mother 121 years.”
There’s simply so much in these few words. I read the book three times back to back. I want to know this woman. It’s unclear even who the people mentioned are and how they relate to her. There’s so little to hold onto. And yet it’s so rich.
“That puzzle a humdinger.”
“Freddy & wife came to dinner. She awful small and they are looking for stork.”
“Ever where glare of ice. My pep has left me.”
“Happy New Year. Brr. Brr. Brr.”
January 27, 2020
This short book is what some people call an "erasure" project by Kathryn Scanlan. At an estate sale she found a diary (one of those "five year" diaries with room for a small amount of information for each of five years pertaining to a particular date) written by a woman who was given the book to write in by younger relatives. She was 86 when she began keeping it in 1968-72.
When Scanlan found the diary it was headed to the trash; it was falling apart, and yet something about it made her want to pick it up. Maybe it's the impulse any of us might have for reading memoir or autobiography, curiosity about how someone makes sense of of their lives. Sometimes maybe it's voyeurism? At any rate, she picked it up, read it and reread it many times over the fifteen years she had it before she published this book based on it.
When I first began teaching I discovered "found" poetry, which is like any found art, a claim of making art out of a found object. I gave my students sections of newspapers or magazines and asked them to choose a limited number of words they liked or found interesting from them, and using those words only, shape them into a (free verse) "poem." A few years ago I read the poetry of a woman who fashioned poems out of excerpts from slave journals. Another poet I heard made poetry from the biography of a minor American military general recounting his experiences from WWII. The process involved his taking a magic marker and "erasing" or "blocking out" all but the words that most interested him. He "made poems" out of the words he kept from the biography.
So, making poetry out of the mundane. That's Scanlan's project, and there's some poignancy that comes through. The older woman is not a professional author, but here's this diary, a book, and so yeah, she's an author! Not surprisingly, she writes in her diary of family, weather, food, church, and health. She writes, as she herself enters very old age, of the death of someone close to her. We don't see this diary, but only the "erasures" Scanlan employs to make poems (or short excerpts she doesn't claim a genre for, actually).
"No one to church. All home today. D washing feathers in her pillows."
"Sun shining then raining but clearing."
And then, after several pages on the declining Vern,
"Vern took worse. Passed away before D. got there. Seemed to just sleep away."
"A large funeral. Lots of flowers. Vern looked nice."
What we call literature usually suggests our reading of drama, moments of significance heightened by emotions, shaped by a knowing, remarkable (and "artistic," insightful) hand. But Scanlan has a light touch here, she gets out of the way and lets an "ordinary" elder woman speak simply of her life. The words she chooses from the diarist highlight what she cares most about and wants to share with us from her reading of it. I liked the idea of it, still, more than the writing itself, but I did like it.
I have one of those five year diaries from when I was in middle school. Maybe I can make something of it!
When Scanlan found the diary it was headed to the trash; it was falling apart, and yet something about it made her want to pick it up. Maybe it's the impulse any of us might have for reading memoir or autobiography, curiosity about how someone makes sense of of their lives. Sometimes maybe it's voyeurism? At any rate, she picked it up, read it and reread it many times over the fifteen years she had it before she published this book based on it.
When I first began teaching I discovered "found" poetry, which is like any found art, a claim of making art out of a found object. I gave my students sections of newspapers or magazines and asked them to choose a limited number of words they liked or found interesting from them, and using those words only, shape them into a (free verse) "poem." A few years ago I read the poetry of a woman who fashioned poems out of excerpts from slave journals. Another poet I heard made poetry from the biography of a minor American military general recounting his experiences from WWII. The process involved his taking a magic marker and "erasing" or "blocking out" all but the words that most interested him. He "made poems" out of the words he kept from the biography.
So, making poetry out of the mundane. That's Scanlan's project, and there's some poignancy that comes through. The older woman is not a professional author, but here's this diary, a book, and so yeah, she's an author! Not surprisingly, she writes in her diary of family, weather, food, church, and health. She writes, as she herself enters very old age, of the death of someone close to her. We don't see this diary, but only the "erasures" Scanlan employs to make poems (or short excerpts she doesn't claim a genre for, actually).
"No one to church. All home today. D washing feathers in her pillows."
"Sun shining then raining but clearing."
And then, after several pages on the declining Vern,
"Vern took worse. Passed away before D. got there. Seemed to just sleep away."
"A large funeral. Lots of flowers. Vern looked nice."
What we call literature usually suggests our reading of drama, moments of significance heightened by emotions, shaped by a knowing, remarkable (and "artistic," insightful) hand. But Scanlan has a light touch here, she gets out of the way and lets an "ordinary" elder woman speak simply of her life. The words she chooses from the diarist highlight what she cares most about and wants to share with us from her reading of it. I liked the idea of it, still, more than the writing itself, but I did like it.
I have one of those five year diaries from when I was in middle school. Maybe I can make something of it!
June 8, 2023
My god, this one sneaks up on you. That you can become so enraptured with this person's life from so little is really testament to Scanlan's utter genius.
These snippets of real diary entries from an unknown woman weave a gentle tale of the everyday; of family and friends; of loneliness and old age; and, ultimately, of death. It's beautiful and very moving and I just want to start again at the beginning.
These snippets of real diary entries from an unknown woman weave a gentle tale of the everyday; of family and friends; of loneliness and old age; and, ultimately, of death. It's beautiful and very moving and I just want to start again at the beginning.
June 10, 2019
A small, quiet experiment about a life lived. Day to day, storm to storm, death to death. A special artifact. I look forward to Scanlan's collection of brilliant short fiction!
April 11, 2019
This book just wrecked me. Throughout the reading, I found myself jotting down ideas and fragments for my own pieces of flash/poetry. The ending! So minimal and timeless and surreal and moving. Makes you want to walk outside and write about the weather. Unlike anything I've read. Can't wait to read it again once I have the physical copy. Wow.
February 24, 2023
Strangely, this review that I wrote back in August 2019 disappeared yesterday - Jan. 27. 2022. Scanlan found a diary at a yard sale, bought it, and inside were prosaic entries made by an elderly woman, about events in her life, the seasons, the weather, things to do. I remember it as fascinating and intriguing and that I would have liked to have read more. Scanlan did not write any of it, but she chose what entries to showcase and how to arrange them, and from that a picture emerges of a life. I remember writing that it seemed wrong to rate a book where not a word was written by the author. Actually, I think rating books is wrong all together. I wonder if the scribe of the diary would have rated her days and her life? I think not.
February 20, 2024
“Ever where slick. Another beautiful
white frost A.M. eyes got the
glimmer.”
And later.
“Ever where glare of ice. We didn’t
sleep too good. My pep has left me.”
white frost A.M. eyes got the
glimmer.”
And later.
“Ever where glare of ice. We didn’t
sleep too good. My pep has left me.”
August 9, 2019
I picked this up out of curiosity off the new book shelf in the library. It's small, has a linen cover, and the title is the same day as today. What are the odds?!
The author, Kathryn Scanlan, wrote this book using sentences and phrases from a diary she bought at an estate sale. It's one of those five year diaries that has a page for each day divided into five years, with space to write just a few words. The diary belonged to an octogenarian in a small Illinois town covering the years 1968-1972.
The owner of the diary never says a word about events outside her little town. Her world is made of people named Maude, Vern, and "D". The entries are short sentences like "That puzzle a humdinger," "Robin on nest today," "Sorted plastic containers." The book has a stoic tone, but for some reason it intrigued me. I wish I knew the name of the owner of the diary, but then again, I probably walk past her everyday.
Read it and see what you think.
The author, Kathryn Scanlan, wrote this book using sentences and phrases from a diary she bought at an estate sale. It's one of those five year diaries that has a page for each day divided into five years, with space to write just a few words. The diary belonged to an octogenarian in a small Illinois town covering the years 1968-1972.
The owner of the diary never says a word about events outside her little town. Her world is made of people named Maude, Vern, and "D". The entries are short sentences like "That puzzle a humdinger," "Robin on nest today," "Sorted plastic containers." The book has a stoic tone, but for some reason it intrigued me. I wish I knew the name of the owner of the diary, but then again, I probably walk past her everyday.
Read it and see what you think.
December 1, 2019
I love experimental books, ones that play with format and perspectives and such, so when I read the description of this work, I immediately went and got it from my library. This is a unique collection and rearrangement by the author of a real elderly woman's diary that spans 5 years. From reading other reviews, I'm not the only one who has struggled to classify this. I feel like poetry might feel the closest to it, but I'm not sure even then. Prose poetry maybe? I enjoyed this and I agree with another reviewer that it almost feels wrong to rate this on a 5 star scale; it wasn't written to be a book/prose poetry, after all. These are words from a diary, rearranged and presented in a new way by Scanlan.
I liked it. I really did like it, but something still did feel missing from it, which feels weird to say. I didn't want the author to, for example, start making words up and placing them in so I understand things couldn't be expanded upon but I still felt this weird sense of wanting more from this. I do think that Scanlan did a wonderful job of evoking that strange, surreal feeling of witnessing elderly relatives and friends trapped in a cycle of illness and declining health before the end all while the world keeps moving. Because things do keep moving, even while you're caring for and losing loved ones. I closed the book with a strange hollow feeling in my chest and thoughts of my grandma who I lost this year after a long struggle with dementia.
Still, even if not a 5-star read, I really do appreciate the way the author experimented and played with these already written words.
It's a short read. Maybe 20 minutes of reading while working on other things. Lots of margin space and one or two line pages, so if this is even remotely interesting-sounding, I would recommend checking it out.
I liked it. I really did like it, but something still did feel missing from it, which feels weird to say. I didn't want the author to, for example, start making words up and placing them in so I understand things couldn't be expanded upon but I still felt this weird sense of wanting more from this. I do think that Scanlan did a wonderful job of evoking that strange, surreal feeling of witnessing elderly relatives and friends trapped in a cycle of illness and declining health before the end all while the world keeps moving. Because things do keep moving, even while you're caring for and losing loved ones. I closed the book with a strange hollow feeling in my chest and thoughts of my grandma who I lost this year after a long struggle with dementia.
Still, even if not a 5-star read, I really do appreciate the way the author experimented and played with these already written words.
It's a short read. Maybe 20 minutes of reading while working on other things. Lots of margin space and one or two line pages, so if this is even remotely interesting-sounding, I would recommend checking it out.
June 8, 2019
2.5- this was such a smart intriguing idea and it was executed somewhat well for me but still left me desiring a little more. I think some will find what the book is telling and that’s amazing because it truly is a great swift little read but I was personally not a great fan of it, it’s so short and compact maybe I’ll revisit it in the future. Don’t be discouraged by my review not all books are for all people!
May 17, 2023
Wha… how did this get published?
January 11, 2020
2,5/5. Literacy experimentation where an author rewrite/edited pieces of an old diary she fund and turn it into fictional diary I guess... Original take but the result is a bit empty, the writing and the moment describe has a kind of melancholic beauty to them but it just isn't enough to make a good book!
June 17, 2019
This book had a great idea, but after reading it the only thing that I can say is it's so disappointing, I can't imagine anyone paying for this, it took 15 minutes to read while I waited to see my doctor and it left me feeling empty, like where was the rest of it.
I do not recommend it to anyone
I do not recommend it to anyone
May 11, 2019
Glad there’s room in the world for something like this. Quiet and small, but beautiful. A perfectly titled experience.
July 6, 2019
A strangely wonderful little treasure.
July 19, 2023
the fact that this was an erasure of an woman's diary living in rural illinois was what it initially drew me to it, and i feel it captured that lifestyle well! felt like i could have been reading my great-grandma's diary-their dog even has the same name! i liked that this was a study in simplicity and a snapshot into one person's life. however, i didn't feel like it really stood out to me in any significant way, and i just felt kind of neutral about it.
March 1, 2020
"little squirrel came this A.M. and he sure loves cornbread."
reminded me of my grandma; the song randy by big thief & one of my favorite movies, annie lloyd. this was so beautiful to me, i had a hard time reading it.
reminded me of my grandma; the song randy by big thief & one of my favorite movies, annie lloyd. this was so beautiful to me, i had a hard time reading it.
October 13, 2019
Scanlon found this diary by an 86 year-old woman at an estate sale. Then she refashioned it, keeping the writer's words, but cutting and rearranging her sentences. The diarist records changes in the weather, a friend's illness, making pickles, a humdinger of a jigsaw puzzle. It is sparse and short. It seems simple. It is wise. It attests to the complex beauty that is life. It made me smile. It made me tear up. Buying a copy for my nightstand.
September 13, 2024
One could say that Kathryn Scanlan (the artist) was so inspired by the diary of Cora E. Lacy, that she wanted to share her obsessive romanticization of it in a way in which others could empathize. And, this may be true.
But, it may also be true that this sparing collection reveals Scanlan's fragile sense of self, and her longing for external validation.
The book evokes a savior complex; she found it at an estate auction, in a box headed for the dump. She details how fragile it was, mildewed and crumbling. And then, obsessively, she reads it, rereads it, and rereads it again. She assumes the diarist's (Lacy's) voice. She says, the diarist ceased to be autonomous, "I don't picture her. I am her." She copied lines, cut them, and rearranged them... And, like that, the book ceased to be recognized as Lacy's, and became credited to Scanlan. Lacy's name was only referenced once in the entire book, in fine print beneath the copyright. It reads, "inspired by," rather than, "written by," despite all words, names, and events being directly lived and recorded by Lacy herself.
And, I'm sure it's easy to take on the life and voice of someone who is no longer "autonomous." Lacy was 86 when she wrote her diary in 1972 and is not here to read Scanlan's interpretation. But, to me, this work feels like a butchering of intentions, a cannibalization of one writer's voice by another's, and all we (the readers) are left with is bones.
But, it may also be true that this sparing collection reveals Scanlan's fragile sense of self, and her longing for external validation.
The book evokes a savior complex; she found it at an estate auction, in a box headed for the dump. She details how fragile it was, mildewed and crumbling. And then, obsessively, she reads it, rereads it, and rereads it again. She assumes the diarist's (Lacy's) voice. She says, the diarist ceased to be autonomous, "I don't picture her. I am her." She copied lines, cut them, and rearranged them... And, like that, the book ceased to be recognized as Lacy's, and became credited to Scanlan. Lacy's name was only referenced once in the entire book, in fine print beneath the copyright. It reads, "inspired by," rather than, "written by," despite all words, names, and events being directly lived and recorded by Lacy herself.
And, I'm sure it's easy to take on the life and voice of someone who is no longer "autonomous." Lacy was 86 when she wrote her diary in 1972 and is not here to read Scanlan's interpretation. But, to me, this work feels like a butchering of intentions, a cannibalization of one writer's voice by another's, and all we (the readers) are left with is bones.
Read
July 26, 2023I really can't rate this book, but I did end up thinking about it a lot. It is transcribed/arranged/curated portions from this falling apart diary the 'author' found at an estate sale. The woman who wrote in it was gifted the diary, so maybe didn't even want to write in it, and I believe it had a small space for every day to write. So, you had to cram in the most important or memorable parts of the day.
A lot of it is weather and people visiting, but as it goes on, we get more about people getting sick and dying. (The writer was in her 80s when recording her days.)
It just made me think about what we take away from our days, that even in a mundane life of an elderly woman, there were moments where she admired a sunset or the taste of a pie, but also . . . she never ever ever imagined anyone would read her words. They aren't written in such a way that she hoped someone would gain any insights.
So, it's just the little leftover bits of a life, written down and saved from the dust heap of oblivion by mere happenstance. I didn't get much from the actual words, except for the day the author wrote Mother 121, which I realized meant it would have been her mother's 121st birthday, and that hit some sad chord inside me.
A lot of it is weather and people visiting, but as it goes on, we get more about people getting sick and dying. (The writer was in her 80s when recording her days.)
It just made me think about what we take away from our days, that even in a mundane life of an elderly woman, there were moments where she admired a sunset or the taste of a pie, but also . . . she never ever ever imagined anyone would read her words. They aren't written in such a way that she hoped someone would gain any insights.
So, it's just the little leftover bits of a life, written down and saved from the dust heap of oblivion by mere happenstance. I didn't get much from the actual words, except for the day the author wrote Mother 121, which I realized meant it would have been her mother's 121st birthday, and that hit some sad chord inside me.
February 3, 2020
Fragments of a life: weather, family, illness, work, death. I read this book through twice and imagine it would be something one could keep reading and find a new glimpse of a life lived. In her author’s note, Scanlan says some of the phrases in the elderly woman’s diary this book is assembled from still return to her unbidden, and it is true the language is striking and many phrases have stuck with me: “Squirrel busy planting buckeyes.” “That puzzle a humdinger.” “Found condemned bridge & we didn’t cross it.”
Some pages have only a few words:
“Robin on nest today.”
“Terrible windy everything loose is traveling.”
Some pages have only a few words:
“Robin on nest today.”
“Terrible windy everything loose is traveling.”
December 25, 2020
My father has years worth of old journals. He has said a number of times that what interests him when he goes back to read them are not his supposed deep thoughts or feelings, but little details of life, like what was for dinner or who he ran into at the store or that he cut his finger while slicing carrots. This book brings that to mind, although it is more elemental with its references to weather and nature.
Just gorgeous and touching in its simplicity, which is exactly what gives it depth and timelessness.
A Christmas present that I read before evening.
Just gorgeous and touching in its simplicity, which is exactly what gives it depth and timelessness.
A Christmas present that I read before evening.
May 22, 2019
This isn't a novel, it isn't a novella, it isn't a lot of things. This is short and reads more like poetry than anything else. Thanks to net galley for the ARC. It's an interesting conceit to take someone else's writing and "collage it" to make it "your own" but it comes out more as an art project than literature.
July 24, 2019
Based on entries from an elderly woman’s diary over the course of four years, starting from when the woman was 86, Scanlan condensed and re-arranged entries from this diary to create a fictional year in the life of an unnamed narrator, whose entries are terse and sometimes semi-cryptic, but all in the voice of the original diarist.
January 26, 2020
I thought this was going to be a lot more unique or captivating than it was. But alas...
August 23, 2023
There's one entry in particular that deserves the 5 stars because I will always remember it. In describing a windy day, "everything loose is traveling"
August 31, 2020
Made me think of The Color Purple for some reason
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