Another day without internet.
Honestly, I didn't feel the need of internet before right now while writing this article. I have been so busy that maybe internet isn't becoming a priority. But well, let's see when can I get some wifi.
I do wonder what is new in the Roxette world. Only 2 days left till Per Gessle's "En vacker Dag" officially releases and then if there is any release of a single from it. Whenever I don't have internet, something super cool happens. Fingers crossed.
I also miss reading Kiwein's blog "Planet Kiwein" which has been updated daily since over 10 days now.
Let's talk about the song "Looking for Jane".
- Why Jane?
- Is Jane a person? Radio or The Jetsons?
- If Marie was singing it, why did it not become "Looking for James (or something)? Come to think of it, it's a nice concept, isn't it? Per did sing a demo and one can easily say that Marie-nailed-it!
- In "Room Service", Marie sings about "Jane" while Per sings about "Jefferson" - both names start with a "J". Yes, I couldn't think of a better excuse to make a point here.
That's all I can think of right now,
"Looking for Jane" - song of the evening.
Love and Peace
20/9/2017
Heather Marshall is a Canadian author of historical fiction novels. Prior to becoming a novelist, she worked in politics and communications. Heather lives outside of Toronto with her family.
Heather Marshall Standalone Novels
Looking For Jane (2022) — Buy on Amazon!
The Secret History of Audrey James (2024) — Buy on Amazon!
Words to Avoid When Talking About Children's Books
Two adults and two children's books today. I read Jessica Love's A Bed of Stars, a memoir of a camping trip the narrator took with her father. I'm going to have to be careful of my words in this blog, because it's much too easy to throw around words like cute and sweet. You won't hear me using "cute" or "nice" - they're words so vague as to have no definition. However, A Bed of Stars is sweet. It's a mellow memory, not a grand adventure, but remarkable for the narrator because of the enjoyment she felt sharing the night sky with her father from their place in the bed of his truck. (Another term you won't read here is "bonding experience" - years of editing high school yearbook sports pages spoilt those words for me - ugh.)
I also read Not Quite Narwhal, by Jessie Sima. This one just barely avoids nauseating cuteness - reasonable people may disagree. A unicorn is born under the ocean to a group of narwhals. He's not very good at swimming like a narwhal, but he tries valiantly. One day he discovers unicorns, and learns that he can be a very skilled land-based horn-bearing creature - but he misses his narwhal family. It's a clever juxtaposition and meditation on where we belong, and what happens when we belong to two places and neither at the same time. It's not a heavy-hitting message - as delicate as the artwork. There's a lot of gooey, treacly unicorn literature out there for younger readers, but this one is not that.
When Looking for Jane fell into my lap, I was a bit curious, but as soon as I opened the flap I wanted to read it. "Jane", as I was hoping, does not refer to a person but the widespread underground movement on college campuses in the late 1960s dedicated to helping desperate women end unwanted pregnancies. I watched an excellent documentary at the Cleveland International Film Festival (CIFF) last year. and at the same time as I was binge-watching the TV drama Cold Case this fall, I saw an episode ("Volunteers") that alluded to Jane's activities as well. The women of Jane are as impressive as the Freedom Riders - they risk incarceration to gather women, connect them with non-abusive medical doctors willing to perform the procedure, learn to perform it themselves, and set up cut-outs so that no one can identify each other, thus jeopardizing the system. According to their records, no woman ever died under Jane's care who had not arrived in serious trouble already. Anyway, really want to read this one!
Then there's this odd little item: What You Are Looking For Is In The Library. One of my co-workers told me she was reading it for an online book group she's in when she saw it on my pile of interests of the day. Since my card is still blocked, I gave it to her to check out. It's a smaller-sized book with a window and a cat on the cover - and it calls itself "a novel", title notwithstanding. Japanese author Michiko Aoyama tells a story about a librarian who can sense (as any good librarian should be able to) exactly which book each patron needs. What's not to like? I need to make a list of books about libraries, because they all sound enchanting, and as I believe in libraries as transformative places, this one would fit my worldview perfectly. Plus, I read so little Japanese literature - time to expand my horizons a bit!
First book of the year done. Sadly it was a waste of time.
What a disappointment.
I bought this book off the reviews and it does not stand up. At about half way, the book fell apart for me and the end caused the rest tumbled down like a house of cards. Actually I have the exact page, page 127, when everything goes wrong.
Evelyn shows up in Ottawa. I don't often get the chance to read novels that mention the city where I grew up. So when something like this happens, I sit up and pay attention. Until this point in the book it was fine. I was reading along, entertained enough to keep going. Then the author starts to describe Evelyn's route from Confederation park to Parliament Hill.
It's clear the author looked at a map or maybe spent some time in Ottawa but not enough to give an accurate description. I was completely jerked out of the story when she has Evelyn walks up Elgin street (correct) past the NAC (okay) and the cenotaph (okay). To "The spectacular castle-like silhouette of the Château Laurier looms large beside her, casting it's shadow over the street as she makes her way to the sprawling lawn outside Parliament Hill."
No.
I know downtown Ottawa. To get to Parliament Hill from Confederation park you do not walk past the Château Laurier. You will see it. Yes, it looms large and beautiful. To walk past it, Evelyn would have been on the east side of Elgin and walked the wrong way. If she didn't cross the street at the cenotaph she would have to walk down to Dalhousie, cross there, and walk back up (only then walking in the shadow of the Château Laurier). Elgin street ends at Wellington (the street that travels east-west in front Parliament Hill). Elgin branches east-west because it literally cannot go further north. The locks to the Ottawa river that link to the canal are right there. People not from Ottawa don't realize, and many from Ottawa forget, it's a cliff face behind Parliament Hill.
Evelyn should have been on, or should have made her way to, the west side of Elgin. The author could have mentioned her walking down the pedestrian mall of Sparks Street before turning north onto Metcalf. Or even just remaining on Elgin to Wellington.
Okay fine. This is a quibble but, as I said, it was enough to pull me completely out of the story and then the rest just falls apart. If it happened on the streets of Montreal, Vancouver, or Toronto - cities I have only visited - I wouldn't have noticed.
Then Evelyn somehow manages to meet the exact right person on The Hill to ingratiate herself into the core group of protesters. We then only get a few references to Paula later, as throw away asides. It's like Paula was fridged until the author remembered she should bring her up again. Evelyn becomes a Mary-Sue, always falling into the "right place right time" historical situations. Or in the case of her abortion work "wrong place wrong time" when it comes to police raids. It's telling that the author has a line from Evelyn to Nancy that Nancy always get the 'exciting' shifts.
I started to roll my eyes. It was then I noticed what I call, The Checklist. When the author gives us character trait information that reads like a diversity or social justice checklist. For example, why did we need to know that Evelyn was vegetarian (only to have her order a BLT in a later chapter)? What does this add to the character? It added nothing to the character. I find this to be heavy handed writing and it always shows. If it's not important to the character and plot, it doesn't need to be added.
Since I was over half way at this point I bullied through to the end.
Oh, that ridiculous contrived plot twist at the end. How frustrating. How annoying. I dropped the book in abject exasperation that once again, I am duped by a frankly absurd twist that is a twist for the sake of a twist. Not because it was properly foreshadowed. Not because it makes sense. This was what made me change my rating from "it was ok" to "I did not like it".
The small amounts of foreshadowing we are given are awkward at best. It would have been so much more interesting, so much more compelling, for Evelyn and Nancy to meet again to DISCUSS Margaret. Have Evelyn tell Nancy of their time together, to give her an idea of who Margaret was. To rekindle the friendship - because this novel reads as if the characters have no interaction outside of the chapters in which they interact. But no! The author had too large of a plot for their skills to write and didn't layer this surprise switch in properly.
Instead we get a saccharine ending that is unfulfilling and discouraging. The only good thing about finishing this is I can now leave a book about abortion in one of the free library drop boxes of my very conservative city.
