Dedria A. > Recent Status Updates

This is an incredible book about a film director from a country I read about in newspapers but did not know about it.

What refreshment to be in a world I recognize vaguely. Set in rural France, these people have their own pace. Bruno reminds me of Louise Penney’s series on Chief Inspector Armand Gamache which is set in Montreal, Quebec so there is the French influence. Bit Bruno author even has an Isobel’e police officer. It’s a delight to be along for the build-up.

I love the character Marina and her adventures during the Russian Revolution. It lis such a realistic story —epic. I realize now how romantic is the message “Burn it All Down.” So much heartache, injury, death and the ones who get hurt first are the most vulnerable.

I love the story of enslaved people finding refuge in a swamp.

So I don’t know if I will ever finish this book. I got into an argument about it at the bar. Past the horrific opening scene I thought it was too tally but my friend said he learned so much climate science from it. So there’s that. I just may go back to it… sometime.

It is a great book that leaves a person with a bad feeling because of the details. The details leave no doubt. I do enjoy the point of view which is an nationalistic African American view. Also there is an index and so many familiar names. Many of the entertainers are just names. They do not dominate! That is refreshing.

So with fiction and non-fiction in the same book I am thinking that the style is like George Saunders novel, Lincoln in the Bardo.

The language is an achievement.

I keep reading but by bit. It has a lot of exposition and ideas.

In first 3 chapters, I like how he starts with this big event follows up with something dry and then goes to a person still grappling with the event.

This book by a detroit journalist is interesting. The stories are of different lengths. Remarkably, the title story is just one page long.

Had to stop reading this to read the author’s 2019 book, The Depositions, and was glad I did because in that essay collection he explains the genesis of Argyle. Not that it mattered; it was just nice.

What a beautiful book about the grim reality of life, death. A collection of new and sometimes already published essays, but to me all new because mostly I have read Lynch’s fiction, which I love. And now thru this book I learn the novella I love Apparition, is based on Lynch’s life. That makes the story twice as delicious.

In this sequel to my soul to keep, we are in another world, one I admit I like because the men go without clothing.

First. The Water Dancer is not a book you borrow from the library. Because those books have to go back in a date certain. Which means you have to plow through your reading. That is not what The Water Dancer is about. This book requires thought. And so it sets its own timeline. And won’t be rushed. More later.

The water dancer is an interesting read. A new take on the Underground Railroad. In the Colson Whitehead school of refreshing perspectives on an historical event.

So far it seems like this is a man’s book: make main character. It’s set in the south, in Virginia. During slavery. It reminds me of my manuscript, the one I am shopping around in that the main character loves his white father. My female character in Ohio loves her white mother.