Magnificent review

Thanks to About.com Contemporary Literature for a review of A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage that makes great claims for the book. The full review by John M. Formy-Duval is here.

Some clips:

It is seldom that a novel from a small university press can compete with the offerings from the big houses in New York. A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage may be the best novel this reviewer has read this year. Its quality and story-telling remind one of The Adventures of Roderick Random, Great Expectation and The Grapes of Wrath among others. The winner of the 2012 "Ferrol Sams Award for Fiction," A Death has the potential to become a classic American picaresque novel.

One wishes, however, that this novel will not get shunted into the regional box and be seen only as a Southern novel. Its themes and the power of its language, the forceful flow of its storyline and its characters have earned the right to a broad national audience.

(Note: There is a minor error where Pip is referred to by the full name of the protagonist in Great Expectations...)

New interview link

In answer to a request for another link: the WSKG interview has now shifted into archives and on-demand play. You may find it here, accompanied by an article by Bill Jaker, or else you may go to the full list of "Off the Page" shows with Mr. Jaker here. It's an hour-long show, so we had time to discuss and read from A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage, answer a couple of emailed and called-in questions, and read from The Throne of Psyche, The Foliate Head, and the forthcoming-in-November Thaliad. Related link: opening chapter of the novel at Scribd.

Sunday afternoon with Armide

Today I went to see Lully's Armide at Glimmerglass Opera with painter and singer (Aida chorus) Yolanda Sharpe and was better pleased overall than I was the last time around, when I was pleased in part only. It was interesting to see a Baroque French opera with a good deal of dancing (although the elderly lady sitting next to me slipped sideways into sleep during the dancing, she dozed gently and did not snore.) The semi-transparent set designs inspired by Persian illuminated manuscripts and calligraphy were lovely, and the scattered lights that showed through at times pleasantly echoed the bits of crystal sewn onto the ladies' bright jewel-color skirts. Some voices were better than others, and some minor things felt distracting--what did the bit of gender-bending with some of the over-effete poses of the men versus the mannish hair (striking compared to the pretty bunheads of her ladies) of Armide add, and why? The Quinault libretto (story drawn from Tasso) was fanciful enough that the idea of it being the Seelie Court and the Fairie Queen kept tumbling through my head. Certainly the dancing courtiers appeared close kin to the trooping fairies with their aristocratic ways and fine processions. Or perhaps, given the invocation of demons, it might be the Queen of the Unseelie Court. She would knock down her world when angered! And of course pop it up again when she felt the desire for another go-round with the handsome Renault. Press images here.

Afterward we went to the Pavilion and heard a great number of songs and set pieces, and I enjoyed myself thoroughly. I am wishing that they would make more use of Yolanda some year; she has a rich voice and much training, though she is tethered to SUNY-Oneonta, where she is an art professor. It would be a great thing for Cooperstown and Oneonta audiences, as she is so well-known and active in both places, especially after her recent recital to benefit the food bank.

Aunt Myra

Parasailing granny does it again (PHOTOS) May 16, 2011 3:33 PM Destin Log staff reports FROM PREVIOUS YEARS: OH, CHUTE! 92-year-old has a blast with birthday parasail Myra Morris celebrates her 94th birthday with style in Destin. The South Carolina native has been parasailing with Captain John of Gilligan’s Parasail every year for her birthday for the past seven years. Morris and her eldest granddaughter, Robin Morse of Hattiesburg, Miss., got a bird’s eye view of Destin. Morris was in town celebrating her birthday on May 12 with 17 relatives from Mississippi, South Carolina and Canada. from thedestinlog.com

My lovely Aunt Myra died early in the morning on Thursday. Myra Dean Hopkins Morris was the dearest, spunkiest, sunniest, most delightful person one could know. She could charm teens as easily as old friends, get them smiling and laughing even when they meant to do no such thing at all! I don't remember work ever being mentioned by her, but she retired as an editor for the Army Infantry Board; her husband was my mother's brother, my Uncle Hugh, and like my other male relations of that generation, was a war veteran. Even in old age, Aunt Myra would dress in jewel colors like a tropical bird. One of the last times I saw her, we brought in our pile of just-purchased shoes from a discount store in Asheville so she could try them on for a lark--she always loved shopping for shoes. She could make a little episode like that into something that made you laugh and the tears spring to your eyes. If Yeats was right that we must choose between being the maker of our art or of our lives (and while he meant poets, it applies to everybody), then she was a master: of life. Even though she was ready to go on to the next one--being bent by the aches and crookedness of 95--she made this life shine for everybody around her. I can just imagine her flitting through the galaxies like a bright bird, making the stars laugh.