The Hounds of Spring

A question I’m frequently asked is, “Did you plan ahead?”  The answer is mostly no, but there are some yeses.  Around when the idea of writing this novel in the particular way I wrote it came to mind, I was immersed for the third or fourth time in E.M. Forster’s book Aspects of the Novel.  In it Forster outlines seven aspects he considers important in a successful novel: s tory, characters, plot, fantasy, prophecy, pattern, and rhythm.  He didn’t think a writer had to nail every one of these, but for a good novel, two or three should be done at least competently and if, of those three,  even one is done really well or in an original way that can be enough for a novel to rise above the rest.    With that in mind, and knowing my own preferences and limitations, I decided the wisest course would be to choose a plot that I was confident I would both enjoy pursuing and feel comfortable with: the “Jane Austen” plot, as I thought of it...

Recently I read before an audience a passage from The Hounds of Spring in which Poppy and her brother are discussing his upcoming talk with their mother about his being gay. As I read I could feel wheels turning in the heads of some of the listeners—most of whom knew me and my brother well enough to wonder: Is this really fiction? I don’t blame them one bit, I do the same thing.  We can’t seem to help wanting to know what is “real” and what is “made up.” And it isn’t only the people who know you either, an entire sub-group of biographers busily ferret out every little morsel of writer’s lives in the futile quest to draw the line between fact and fiction.   After the reading my nephew wasn’t buying it when I said the discussion between Poppy and Price wasn’t autobiographical.  As I looked into his skeptical eyes I forbore to remind him that had my real life brother come out at the time that this brother does in the early ’80’s, he would never have been born!...

Ok, so I’m attempting this stitch called a variation on the Honeybee stitch and it has 17 steps and takes six rows to accomplish  (after which the result really does look remarkably like some kind of wing.)  So far an exercise in two steps forward, three back, but I'm getting there.     Hey!  Wait a minute! This is a blog about writing!   The two, knitting and writing, have more in common than you might think. First, you have to acquire the basics.   Follow the guidelines.  Learn the forms.  Have a plan.  Accept the sweet tedium (weaving in ends, rolling skeins into yarn balls, going back to pick up dropped stitches, picking through commas, weeding out "filler" words like 'just' and pulling out vague pronouns like the over-used "it").  Knitting and writing require patience, dedication, concentration and fully embracing your OCD self.  Persistence is critical. Eventually there comes a moment when you realize ...

In the “The Jolly Corner,” a short story by Henry James, a man, returning home to New York after decades living abroad, feels that he is being watched by a ghostly presence and gradually realizes that it is the ghost of his own self, the person he might have become had he made different choices. Every life has many forks in the road, thousands every day, but a few stand out from the rest, tidal waves as opposed to mere heavy surf.   In  The Hounds of Spring  took a particular “what if” from my own life that I knew would so compel me that I wouldn’t quit until I found out “what happened.” And let me tell you, no one could have been more surprised than me by what I found out!  (You can find "The Jolly Corner" in Eight Tales from the Major Phase  by Henry James and it may well be available for free on line somewhere too.) The painting above is by Peter Milton, inspired by, you guessed it! The Jolly Corner!

Lately I’ve been thinking about the way we weave little narratives around everything we do in life as well as in fiction.   The Hounds of Spring  opens with Poppy letting the dog out then eating her breakfast.  During revisions I fretted that this was too dull.  At my first public reading the other day I was still fretting, I mean, who cares that Poppy eats yogurt and blueberries for breakfast?   Poppy cares and it's her story.  Breakfast and the way she starts her day was also the "way into" the story.  How we approach breakfast most likely is, in microcosm, how we tackle life.  We love telling people in great detail about what we eat for breakfast; it matters to us, so it should matter to the reader as well, no?   Most of the time our lives are banal, happily banal, I might add.   So it occurs to me that starting with breakfast and introducing Poppy as a contemplative person gives the reader an indication, early on, ...

That was the first reading and it went pretty well.   The turn out for our tiny village was immense!  Thirty or so people, which I suppose includes the three of us in our family and David and his wife Lindsey. I had counted twenty-five, which is exactly right if you subtract us.  I introduced David and he charmed his audience reading from The Faulkes Chronicles  -- told collectively by the children whose mother is dying of cancer.  Of course, there is sadness, but there is also an inordinate amount of joy as the family do all they can to make their mother's last days happy and comfortable ones.  So then it was my turn and I was introduced by my former fellow library trustee and dear friend, Pam Kellogg.  I read from the beginning of the book to page something-or-other because try as I might I haven't figured out what shorter passages I can read from here and there.  I also panicked and decided that I must have forgotten my reading g...

What I’m thinking is that books, of all the art forms, have a uniquely intimate relationship with the people who own and read them, sharing what I will call a weird immediacy .  Or is it a weird intimacy?   A reader can take a book anywhere and a book can take a reader anywhere, from crossing the Delaware with Washington to the peak of Everest to colonizing Mars and beyond.