Retro Review: A Virtuous Woman by Kaye Gibbons

Boy meets girl

Boy and girl fall in love and get married

Boy and girl live happily ever after

That, my friends, is the basic outline for most love stories. But in well-crafted stories of true loves, the narrative goes above and beyond these three steps to something richer and deeper and makes a relationship compelling.

And compelling is the.love story in Kaye Gibbons novel, A Virtuous Woman.

A Virtuous Woman is told in two voices. One is that of Ruby, who is loving and genteel. She is only 20 years old when she meets Jack, who is 20 years her senior. Jack is a bit rough around the edges, not known for grand and sweeping romantic gestures. But he is very caring, the very opposite of Ruby’s first husband, an abusive lout.

Over the course of their marriage, Ruby and Jack, deal with both the good and the bad. They relish the good and try to survive the bad, their love and devotion rarely at a breaking point.

The chapters in A Virtuous Woman trade Ruby and Jack’s voices, making this novel more of a character study than one is plot driven.

As for Gibbons’ writing? It is simple but never lacks conviction. Her writing is filled with sentiment that is never maudlin. And it is sweet without giving the reader cavities.

I’m a fan of Gibbons’ work and A Virtuous Woman is a stand out decades after its initial release.

Book Review: Maid-Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive by Stephanie Land

Over the past few years I’ve read several books on what it is like to live in the richest country on low pay, back breaking work, while striving to make a better life for oneself and perhaps one’s family. Some of these books include Hand to Mouth by Linda Tirado, We Were Witches by Ariel Gore, The Broke Diaries by Angela Nissel, and of course, Barbara Ehrenreich’s classic, Nickel and Dimed.

I didn’t think I could handle reading another one until I came across Stephanie Land’s memoir, Maid-Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive. (Introduction by Barbara Ehrenreich)

Not quite 30, Land found herself leaving an abusive relationship with a young daughter in tow. What followed her was a nightmare of homelessness, deplorable apartments, low wages working as a housekeeper, and a very unpleasant journey through the so-called safety net when it came to acquiring government assistance. Unlike some fortunate souls Land lacks a supportive family who help her in her time of need.

Land decides to clean houses to support herself and her daughter while also attending college. She works for a local housecleaning company but also takes on freelance gigs. Not surprisingly, housekeeping is truly back breaking, horribly paid, and demoralizing. Some of her clients don’t see her fully human and worthy of respect. And then some of them just don’t see “her.”

Not making enough money to buy even the basic necessities, Land has to go on government assistance, a tangled weave that is often very difficult unravel with its endless paperwork and noxious questioning of Land’s eligibility and worthiness. If one earns a few extra dollars, one can find their benefits slashed or lose them in their entirety.

Keep in mind, not only is Land taking care of her daughter and cleaning houses, she’s also attending college. I just dare any reader to call her a slacker. She is the antithesis of lazy. In fact, due to my research, most people receiving some type of assistance are working and/or going to school. They are not cheating the system and most are not lazy losers.

But back to the book…

Maid is searing with brutal honesty. Land’s love and devotion to her daughter is undeniable as is her willingness to make a better life using various options. Her resourcefulness is both admirable and clever. I couldn’t help but root for her. Does she at times feel sorry for herself? Well, of course. She is human, after all. There certain times in one’s life when you just got to cry over your lot in life, and then you move on.

In the end people who are struggling like Land deserve respect, not empty pity or utter derision lacking any type of empathy.

In the end Maid convinces the reader to look beyond the stereotypes you may have swirling in your brain when it comes to the poor, anyone on benefits or those faceless, nameless heroes and heroines who make our lives much easier through their blood, sweat and tears.

Maid is a treasure of a memoir. Land should be very proud of herself, and I hope she keeps writing. I expect more from her. She’s one to watch.

Our Books, Our Shelves

One of the best books on DIY by the delightful Deborah Niemann. She’s a true inspiration!

Brag Book!

Great news! Rotaru Arthur Cristian e-mailed me to let me know he was very happy to see his interview posted at the Book Self.

And in other great news, Eytan Uliel, author Man Mission, adored my review and agrees with me that Hugh Jackman would be an ideal star if Man Mission is made into a movie.

Off the Books

Here is the exterior of my church First Unitarian Society of Milwaukee.

Book Marks

1. Jimmy Fallon wants your vote for “The Tonight Show” Summer Read.
2. Indian women are tapping into the power of writing memoirs
3. Libraries are cooler than you thought!
4. Yes, it is possible to jump from one genre as a writer to another.
5. The “Nickel and Dimed” life in the age of Amazon.
6. Why YA novels about royalty are huge best-sellers.
7. Printable color sheets showcasing amazing women and girl power!
8. How two sisters are sharing their love of bedtime stories via social media.
9. Libraries are drawing the line when it comes to digital books.
10. Milwaukee’s most mispronounced words.

 

 

 

Graphic and Novel

“Author! Author!” An Interview with Rotaru Arthur Cristian

Author Bio

“My name is Rotaru Arthur Cristian and I am a 20 years old student at the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest, Romania.

I was always very fond of writing and especially reading a lot of stuff on a lot of topics, which allowed me to deepen my knowledge in many different areas of life. One of my favorites was the self-improvement one and this was the beginning of ‘How to get the most out of life’.”

1. What inspired you to write a book?

The main thing that inspired me to write this book was primarily… reading other books. After reading many self-improvement manuscripts and taking notes after each one of them, I realized that even most of them had very good content (especially older ones), none of them was “complete”. Each dived into one aspect or another of this whole “improvement” area, but if you wanted the whole package you had to read the whole library.

2. Please describe your book.

“How To Get the Most Out of Life: The ABC of a Negotiator” is a self-improvement book which has the purpose of helping anyone who wants a positive change in his/her life.

The first thing that should be clarified about it is probably the title, more precisely the word “negotiator”. This book is giving a new meaning to this word, and this is probably the first thing that differentiates it from other books in the same area.

The manuscript goes through the main strategies of negotiation, and then it dives into a bit more advanced topics like body language and specific phrasing and signals.

As stated in the book, it is the maximum amount of useful information in the least amount of pages possible.

My goal while writing this book was to put together all the essential subjects of all the books that I read, thus creating a “beginner guide” to a better life.

Of course, after reading it you may want to deepen your knowledge in one of the subjects treated in my book by reading others which are more concentrated on that specific subject, but nevertheless I think that “How to get the most out of life” is the best starting point in being a better “you”.

3. What is your writing background and experience?

I was fond of writing ever since I was a kid, when I was creating small pieces of poetry and stories, but choosing a math/informatics high school and then following the courses of a cybernetics university didn’t give me the chance to truly cultivate this passion. However, it allowed me to better understand economy and people in general which lead me to write this specific book.

4. What challenges did you face writing this book? How did you deal with them?

I tried to get some feedback on my manuscript but because I am not famous yet it proved pretty hard to find people willing to read it. However, I managed to convince some people (including some directors and university teachers) and their response was very positive. It really boosted my confidence because apart from some minor constructive feedback, most of them were very fascinated.

Probably as any other author, I had my personal challenges while writing my manuscript, but probably the one that took me the most time to solve was the riddle. Yes, this book contains a well thought riddle that is for the smart and curious ones.

5. What has been the response to your book? What do want people to get from your book?

Being a relatively short book, I would love if people could get everything out of it. However, I know that is unlikely to happen, so I guess the core idea that I want people to be stuck with after reading my book is that every person can improve his/her life, no matter their background and social/financial status.

Even if some readers may consider that the things I taught in the book are not suited for their lifestyle (which is highly unlikely), I want them to know that there is always a way to get better. Maybe not my way, but a way.

6. What advice would you give to other writers? What advice were you given?

I think the most important advice that I can give to other writers is to never tell anyone about your manuscript until it is finished. People usually try to come up with new ideas which “fits better” and that is natural, but this is why you want to shape it the way you want, and after that you can ask others for opinions. Personally, I wasn’t given any -personal- advice before writing, because nobody knew I was doing it.

7. What are your future writing plans?

In the future I want to write a few more books on topics that I love and to get my book in front of as many people as possible.

Graphic and Novel

“We Interrupt This Blog For a Special and Important Announcement!”

Meet Charlotte Laws. To call her a “Renaissance Woman” is an understatement. She’s lived nine intriguing lives. Now she shares her story in her memoir Undercover Debutante: The Search for my Birth Parents and a Bald Husband.

Author Bio according to Laws:

“Charlotte Laws has authored best-selling books as well as over a hundred articles in noted publications, such as the Washington Post, Salon, the L.A. Daily News, Huffington Post, Gawker, Newsweek, and the Los Angeles Times.

 She starred on the NBC show The Filter and has been a weekly political commentator on BBC television for the past three years. She has appeared on CNN, Nightline, Fox News, MSNBC, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Late Show, and Larry King Live, and she has been the subject of articles by the Associated Press and in the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the New York Post, the Guardian, and the New Yorker, to name a few.  

 Laws was a Los Angeles politician for eight years and worked with the FBI. She has experimented with twenty-eight occupations, some of them quite unusual. She has been an executive director, an actress, a cab driver, a private investigator, a stand-up comic, a backup singer for an Elvis imitator, a city commissioner, and a bodyguard for a prostitute.  

 Laws penned the award-winning books Rebel in High Heels and Devil in the Basement, and she was voted one of the “thirty fiercest women in the world” by BuzzFeed.

 She has a doctorate from the University of Southern California as well as two master’s degrees and two bachelor’s degrees. She completed postdoctoral work at Oxford University, England.

 Laws is an internationally known animal advocate and anti-revenge porn activist (often called “the Erin Brockovich of revenge porn”).

 She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, her three rescue dogs, and an assortment of rescue hens.”

If anyone deserves some publicity from Bookish Jen it is Charlotte Laws, and that why it is an honor to publicize Laws’ memoir, “Undercover Debutante: The Search for my Birth Parents and a Bald Husband,“ which comes out on August 15, 2019.

According to Laws, her memoir is a funny and fast-paced read about her life and recently won an award from the highly-respected Publisher’s Weekly. You can pre-order Undercover Debutante: The Search for my Birth Parents and a Bald Husband at the Barnes and Noble website today!

The following is a brief blurb of her memoir:

“But who is this former Atlanta debutante who gave up riches for hardship, who gave up security to become a penniless single mom with an assault rifle pointed at her bed?  Undercover Debutante is a memoir about Laws’s young adult years in Los Angeles.

 Her adoptive dad was the Captain Hook of her existence, always ready to take a verbal swipe at her. Laws searched for her birth parents and learned that the dark world of devil worship had touched her family tree.

 She worked as a maid, go-go dancer, and private eye. She was held at gunpoint by one man and almost killed by another. She faced romantic heartbreak and sexual infidelity, dating an ‘unindicted co-conspirator’ and a clinically insane psychologist. She even had a crush on a dead guy. 

 There were celebrity adventures as well. She crashed star-studded award shows and private parties. She finagled past Secret Service. More than once. She interviewed the president and went on the worst date of her life with a well-known sex symbol whom later died from drug abuse.  

 Did she ever marry? Did she meet her birth parents? Did she learn what matters in life?

What’s the true story of America’s most endearing rebel?”    

Well, I don’t know about any you but I know I’m definitely intrigued by Ms. Laws and her memoir sounds like one hell of a ride and read.

To learn more about Charlotte Laws and her memoir, The Undercover Debutante, check out the following resources:

Charlotte Laws Personal Website

Undercover Debutante Website

Wikipedia Page

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