Jeff Klinkenberg

Jeff Klinkenberg has the perfect job for a writer, or, rather, a writer interested in everything Florida. By this, I mean that if a Florida writer loves seeing parts of Florida that most of us don't get a chance to see on a daily basis, loves meeting every-day-people who make their home within the confines of this strangely quirky state, loves to read books based in Florida, and want to write about all of the above, Jeff has the perfect job.

I first read Jeff's writings in the Tampa Bay Times when it was still the St. Petersburg Times. His Sunday columns describing anything and anyone from the ends of the Florida Keys to the northwest corner of the panhandle were - are - wonderfully written pieces on the nuances of whatever or whoever he's writing about.

Lately, I've been working my way through Seasons of Real Florida, one of his books where many of his previous columns eventually land. It isn't the first book of his that I've wandered into. The first time I'd picked up one of Jeff's books was while taking my first grad level class at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. Gary Mormino, recently retired, was one of USFSP's Florida Studies' founders, along with Ray Arsenault. That first grad class with Gary was the History of Modern Florida, a title my sons found amusing, to say the least.

"History? Modern?"

No matter, I explained. If it happened yesterday, it's history.

At one point, Gary asked the class to get hold of at least one of Klinkenberg's books, spend a good part of the week reading it, then letting the class know the following week what we thought. Gary even managed to hand out copies of Jeff's books so that students wouldn't have to track down copies.

"So, what did you think?" Gary wanted to know the following week. We were all amazed, amused, and fairly entertained by Jeff's writing. I'd read through Dispatches from the Land of Flowers. One of the first essay, titled "Good Times at the Desert Inn," begins with an order: "You got to have some of my chili!" The Desert Inn is located in YeeHaw Junction, or was when the article was first published in November 1994. Apparently, one could "spoon your chili,...munch your frog legs...(and) gaze in wonder at Beverly's rattlesnake skins..." (p. 17). It gets more interesting from there. After all, a state that can boast the likes of Miami, Orlando (with Disney World, et al), Tampa, and YeeHaw Junction, with its interesting people, must have something to it.

Another article in Dispatches... ("The last wild man"), is about Loren G. "Totch" Brown, an "Everglades folk hero and former prison inmate." Gary Mormino had his "History of Modern Florida" class read Totch's book; "The last wild man" added an extra layer to Totch's story.

Back to Seasons of Real Florida, the book that I'm finishing reading, Jeff mentioned other Florida characters you'll seldom read about in the history books: There's a clip on Clyde Butcher (Florida's answer to Ansel Adams), Ybor City's "Last Fish Monger" (who gave a recently murdered mobster's Christmas fish to a widow), and one on the "Black Seminoles."

In other words, if you want to read what Florida is like, beyond the big cities, pick up a book by Jeff Klinkenberg, or grab a Sunday copy of the Tampa Bay Times to see what he's writing about.

And Jeff, I have only one request: If you ever decide to retire, let me know. I want your job!

Read more at: Seasons of Real Florida by Jeff Klinkenberg
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



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Good sight to check out...

For anyone who loves to read, I have to recommend a good website. It's Goodreads. It's free to sign up, you can keep track of the books you've read, books you want to read, and what you're currently reading. You can post what you thought of a certain book so that when you're looking for something to reread, you can remember, "Oh, yes, I loved/hated that book." You can also get an idea others are reading and what they've thought of it.

Definitely a good site to check out, if you're a reader.

Anna Quindlen

After reading most of Anna Quindlen's books, I want to know this: How does Anna Quindlen do that?

Now, before you ask, "Do what?", here's the what: How does she managed to turn the most intense, earth-shattering experiences into a novel without making it earth-shattering to the world?

Huh?

Okay, let me clarify this. In each of her novels, the main characters are living their lives, flowing along like a gentle stream, when something suddenly, sometimes catastrophically, explodes their lives into a thousand pieces, while barely making a blip in the world around them. True, there are ripples in the water of their lives, as in real life: a car accident caused by a drunk driver doesn't affect simply the people in the other car who are hurt, it also affects the drunk driver's family, friends, and possibly coworkers. But in the overall scheme of things, these experiences and happenings don't have the larger scale impact of, say, the 9/11 attacks or the falling of the Berlin Wall.

I read my first Quindlen novel shortly after its release. In Black And Blue, Fran Benedetto is a nurse and a battered wife, married to Bobby, a New York City police officer, and the mother of Robert, a boy who has learned to keep quiet. The book tells how Fran's life is normal, at least to those around her. Her secret is the horrific abuse Bobby puts her through, forcing her to leave her job, pack a scant few items, and, with Robert, go into hiding in Florida, changing their names in the process. Now Beth and Robert Crenshaw, they live in a rundown duplex. Fran/Beth is now forced to work as a home health aid, rather than as a nurse, in an effort to stay under the radar. Eventually, though, Bobby finds her, savagely beats her, takes Robert with him, then goes into hiding, himself.

Yet, throughout the book, with its horrible undertone of abuse, Quindlen is able to write Black And Blue as calmly as though writing about the weather. It is in the words she chooses to use and the way she has Fran Benedetto/Beth Crenshaw tell her story that we learn feel and experience the undercurrents of Fran, Bobby, and Robert's lives, as well as the lives effected by being in proximity.

In One True Thing, the Gulden family come across as a loving middle-class family, replete with college professor father, homemaker mother, a daughter, two younger sons. On the surface, the Guldens seem so normal, living normal lives: daughter Ellen, whose voice tells the story, has finished college and taken a job in New York City, while her brothers live at home and try to finish school.

The event that rips the Gulden family's life apart is a cancer diagnosis. Ellen comes home for a few days to find that her mother has been ill for quite some time. Her father, who has to work and is unable to care for Ellen's mother, demands that she quit her job and move back home to care for the family, which understandably causes tension throughout the entire household. When Mrs. Gulden dies, Ellen is suspected of murder; she suspects her father killed her mother, but in the end, suspects the truth.

One True Thing is also written in such a way that the reader feels like part of the action, part of the family; it is almost as if Ellen is telling the reader personally, "Remember when you and I came home? This is how I saw it." The reader is there, digging in, experiencing the roller-coaster ride without realizing, at first, how high or low the ride is going. It is simply life at its most basic.

Quindlen's book Rise And Shine details a morning show anchor and her social worker sister, the "fighting Fitzmaurices," as the former's soon-to-be ex-husband calls them. Meghan Fitzmaurice utters two words that get her into trouble from the network. Soon, she is without a job, her husband has decided to file for divorce (apparently the weekend before Meghan mutters "f#*king a**hole" under her breath - but loud enough for the mics to pick up), her sister Bridget is struggling with work and an unplanned pregnancy while in her early forties...But what really explodes is when Meghan's son Leo is shot and left paralyzed while volunteering for the group where Bridget works as a social worker.

In Blessings, a teen-aged couple drives onto Lydia Blessing's estate late one night and leave a box by the door of the garage apartment where estate caretaker, Skip Cuddy, stays. In the morning, Skip finds the infant and decides to care for the child. Soon, Lydia learns of the infant; the story tells how the baby changes the lives she touches, without being aware of it.

Finally, I found Every Last One to be Quindlen's most startling novel. Mary Beth Latham is a mother who owns her own landscape business. Mary Beth and her husband have three children: a daughter and twin sons, one of whom becomes depressed. Mary Beth focuses on this son, but is soon blindsided when a boy who has hung around her family breaks in and murders her husband, daughter, and one son before taking his own life. The other son had been away with friends on a weekend trip; at first, since he wasn't at the house, he is temporarily considered a suspect. Mary Beth, who was also brutally beaten in the attack, somehow manages to survive.

Eventually, Mary Beth and her remaining son move in with friends, then sell the house that their family was destroyed in so that they can get away from the horrible memories, or, rather, as much as one can.

As with her other novels, Quindlen has taken Every Last One, describes a normal family living the normal life before having a horrific act destroy their lives. The remaining characters are now left to try to carry on while dealing with so much: the horrors they've experienced; the murderer's mother who calls Mary Beth, blaming her for the horrors of her son's actions; knowing that, while others around them will go on with their own lives, she and her son will have to reinvent their family while trying to heal.

Most of us have learned in English and/or lit classes that a story must have some obstacle that needs to be dealt with to be worth telling and to keep the readers' interest. The best authors - the ones we continue to go back to time and again - have learned how to do this. Anna Quindlen is one of those authors who can slip that obstacle in the way it appears in real life: one moment, life is normal, the next moment, it isn't. A spouse if abusive and the other spouse goes into hiding; a daughter comes home for a weekend, only to discover a parent's terminal illness; a mic is left open a second too long and a bullet finds its target; a pregnancy; a murder. Yet, after that obstacle, Quindlen shows us how those left to deal with the aftermath deals with it.

I seriously hope Anna Quindlen is working on another novel; chances are, it'll be a keeper.

Why this blog?

I am a writer. According to certain relatives, I was born, not with a silver spoon, but a pencil in one hand and a stack of paper in the other. It did take a while to crawl my way to my mother's typewriter; it has only gotten worse since then.

One thing I've discovered over the years is that most writers are also readers. At least the best writers are. It's rather difficult to become a better writer without reading; you never really grow as far as you can without combining the two. Imagine a child just learning his or her alphabet, learning to print out the letters, and never learning to read. That child might question why have letters? What's the use of learning to make a capital A look different from a lower-case z, if there's no reading? That would be silly. And yet, for a writer to never read is just as far-fetched.

Granted, not everyone who reads writes, other than what is required of his or her job. But for someone who writes full-time, reading is fundamental. No matter what our job is, we tend to wonder how others in the same line of work are faring. And while a good book might not tell you how that writer's life is going right this minute, it does give the reader a good insight to that particular writer's mind. Stephen King and Anna Quindlen come to mind; the former might have trouble trying to write One True Thing or Black And Blue, while the latter might have a totally different spin on Carrie or The Stand.

So, with this blog, I intend to explore the books I've been reading, the authors I enjoy, the stories I plan to read. I'll be posting my first book/author post in the near future; it will probably deal with Anna Quindlen, exploring her novels (mostly) and her books based on her articles.

One last thing: If you have a book you absolutely love, a favorite author, or a book that you feel people should steer clear of, please feel free to post a comment.