Wednesday, April 14, 2010
The Women Who Raised Me by Victoria Rowell #2
In The Women Who Raised Me by Victoria Rowell, my favorite part of the book was Mrs. Rowell's descriptions. This one in particular was great. "Can we take your picture of you with your mother?" The Collinses asked in a matter-of-fact manner as though Dorothy [her mother] was still alive. I realized this would be the only photograph of me and my mother together, so I obliged with the stipulation that they send me copies. And they did. I stood in front of Dorothy's casket and looked defiantly into the Collinses' collective lens. Flash went the cameras." Rowell clearly has a gift for explaining things. This was during her mothers funeral, which she had learned of almost accidentally and decided to attend although she was unwelcome by her mothers' biological sisters. It was such an unusual and powerful situation to read about. To do that took guts. She felt it was her duty to attend the funeral so she did. Her recollection of the event for me, the reader was great. I could clearly see the character acting through this and felt the awkward wonder Rowell meant to give the reader.
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4/15/10 3short/4 entries
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to me that you say "when you've read one book about writing, you've read them all" and then in the next entry: "no two stories are the same"! I see your distinction, though. If you haven't read Eudora Welty's One Writer's Beginnings, you might enjoy it--it tells of her early experiences, and I don't remember it discouraging writers. Doesn't it seem odd for someone as productive and successful as King to say almost no one makes it? I think the writers just want to address the people who like the idea of writing, but not writing itself. Plenty of people make it as writers, though not necessarily as novelists or poets.