Carole Bell > Recent Status Updates

“My parasol is tipped with steel, by the way,” she said. “It’s sharp as a razor’s edge. I was in no danger in that place, and I certainly didn’t require rescuing.”
[love that]

‘Norman was always imbued with a curious, subconscious feeling that he would somehow be found out; that he was not as clever as he should be; that he was in some way wanting. Nothing makes people cling to the conventional like a fear of being found out, Sir Gabriel. It pervaded every aspect of our lives. He was afraid of the smallest unconventionality..

I cannot but feel that the welfare and happiness of a real cat should take precedence over a fictional mouse. But I cannot persuade the Treasurer to share my point of view.

FROM COLUMBUS TO PLYMOUTH ROCK, EUROPEANS KNOW THE STORIES of how they discovered this land. As Indigenous peoples we know the stories of how the land was formed, because that is how long we have been here.

What we think of as the antebellum or Deep South was built on the land Southern lawmakers fought for and won in the Indian Removal Act. And in 1830, the South had an additional 21 votes in the House, because enslaved people—who of course could not vote—were counted toward Southern states’ representation. Without those 21 votes, the bill would have never passed.

I wrote this book because I believe the American public needs to understand that the legacy of colonization is not just a problem for Indigenous peoples, but a problem for our democracy. And, selfishly, I wrote this book because the story lived in my body and I needed it to come out.

I’m an audiophile and romance fan who’s skeptical of self help gurus. Of course I loved this book about a podcast producer navigating romance and the questionable advice of an influencer turned life coach. ****

“Tell me the truth—do you think somebody who hasn’t had success can appreciate the kind of work that you’ve put in with your career? You told me you wanted somebody who was not going to resent your work. Do you think somebody who isn’t driven can understand why you’re so driven?”

Innocent clients are also harder to represent in a fundamental way. They are unpredictable. Guilty clients will lie, deny, blame others. They have a certain limited register of reactions. Innocent clients, caught in their nightmarish predicament, cannot be counted on to be rational, because they have understandably lost all faith in reason as a governing principle of the social world.

one resident in fifty in Marenago County is African-American. Although Mr. Smith is a registered Republican, Jackdorp tried to use a peremptory on him, but bungled the legal requirements established by the US Supreme Court to inhibit the nationwide practice of prosecutors—me included, frankly—who back in the day used to challenge all Black jurors when another African-American was charged.

He had an educated way of talking. I could have talked like him if I’d wanted to, but I never did like it when a man stopped using the language of his upbringing. If you were to talk like a white man you might forget who you were.

As long as he thought I was a poor man he’d be scared of me. That’s why I kept my wealth a secret. Everybody knows that a poor man’s got nothing to lose; a poor man will kill you over a dime.

California was like heaven for the Southern Negro. People told stories of how you could eat fruit right off the trees and get enough work to retire one day. The stories were true for the most part but the truth wasn’t like the dream. Life was still hard in L.A. and if you worked every day you still found yourself on the bottom.

In those long decades, which seemed to span centuries, I had been brutalized, ripped off, lied to, pursued, and kissed in kind, but as rarely as an orchid blooming in winter was I given what I needed without asking.

I don’t always love Mosley’s depiction of women but I adore this scene of Fearless Jones and his girlfriend Bonita.
“My… my mother?” “You better believe it. She told you to come see me, and then, when you said no, she come herself. Now, take your red bag and your silver ass home and I might call ya when me an’ Easy finish our business.”

[King’s sidekick Mel is one of the best and most disturbing parts of the King Oliver series.]

“Anything one man does that another man understands can be defined as language,” Melquarth quoted. “I read that once in an article on philology. I was looking up poisons but found that instead.”

“Whoever you are,” I concurred, “you have to love what you do or you end up hating yourself.”

“When I was in Rikers they broke me. Broke me like a china plate.” Effy knew when to be quiet. “They tore me down,” I confessed. “I thought I was tough, but everything I knew and believed in just slipped away.”

This is getting interesting.

I thought I had uncomfortable relationships with exes but Iris Sparks and Mike Kinsey are exquisitely awkward (and well written):

“We didn’t do it,” Iris said immediately. “Don’t be deliberately stupid this early in the morning,” said Kinsey irritably. “It’s bad enough to have you back in my life even for the brief amount of time I hope it’s going to take.”

Reading for the second time. Just a great.

“Olivia knew that, in their eyes, all their hard work had been worth it. She would be the one to achieve everything they hadn’t been able to. Their daughter, their only child, was a product of their wildest dreams. Their daughter, their only child, was a product of their wildest dreams.”

Wow. This is feeling cathartic. .

When a main character is a parade of red flags!! “It’s the lying and weird behavior that is a red flag for me.”

Great writing. And I hate it:
In a rom-com, this would be the black moment beat, where I’m forced to look inside myself to understand my failings so I can grow into the partner Seth deserves. But I don’t think that’s what this is. Understanding my failings was never the problem. It’s the growth I can’t hack.