A great part of my writing past is about to see the light of day on October 1.  For twenty-five years, I have been layering and reconstructing the novel now known as Pieces of Paris (which my long-time editor claims is my best work so far).  My original title, back in the eighties, was Paddle on the Right, named after a humorous canoeing incident in some river in Missouri where my husband and I capsized.  That scene has long been axed, and the novel has evolved to such an extent that it has gone through at least ten titles.  However, one thing remains.  The question: “What do you do when you find out you are married to a stranger?”

I am not talking about a dangerous stranger, a criminal, or any kind of person with a “shady” past.  I’m talking about a fairly familiar phenomenon.  We never know who the person we marry is in a complete, eternal sense.  As my heroine’s father says, “Why shouldn’t a good marriage be an endless process of exploration and discovery?”

I didn’t know that this book was emotionally biographical.  I was just confused about a lot of issues in my life that had never been resolved.  Alone with my three children most of the day and many nights while my husband worked, or was away, I began having flashbacks to these issues and experiencing long suppressed anger and feelings that had been been put to rest.    In my efforts to deal with these, I entered a sort of twilight life where I existed in the present, but my mind was caught up in the past.

Annalisse Childs, my heroine, has a very dramatic, passionate past, just as I did.  However, hers is full of different and far more interesting issues.  Once a European concert pianist, she is endeavoring to partner her idealistic husband of four years in his “Walden” experience on a farm in Southwest Missouri.  To his credit, Dennis knows nothing of her past except that she grew up on a farm in Wisconsin.  Because of tragic memories Annalisse has no intention of revisiting, she has cut music out of her life.  But, bit by bit, the pieces she once performed in Paris, accompanied by their ecstatic and terrible memories are the thin edge of the wedge.  Once she goes back to the piano, she cannot help the flashbacks from recurring.

As her husband witnesses the transformation of his stoical, practical wife into someone who makes public scenes, cries in closets and basements, and yet clings with superhuman tenacity to his heroic version of reality, he feels as if the ground beneath him has crumbled.  What should he do?  Does he have anything in common with this woman?  Why does she suddenly hate farm life and express a desire to sit up all night in Paris discussing the Opera?  Where is their marriage headed?

As nearly everyone who has read this manuscript has noted, Dennis is a thinly veiled version of my husband David.  Both are truly one-in-a-million amazing men.  And hopefully, reading the account of the hairpin turn in the fictional story will cause you to think deeply about your own relationships, and be filled with the kind of deep-seated well-being that accompanies the truest kind of love.

A MOMENTO: Pieces of Paris is now available for pre-order on Amazon.  Anyone who pre-orders and e-mails me (through my website http://ggvandagriff.com) a copy of their confirmation and snail mail address will receive a sterling silver charm of the Eiffel Tower! Deadline is the end of August.

EXAMINER CONTEST: The winner of the three copies of The Last Waltz are: Wendy Pop, Mary Deborde, and Kristine Armstrong!

by G.G. Vandagriff

As a writer struggling to write her own "ensemble series," featuring only four characters, I can definitely tell you that Michele Ashman Bell is a gifted writer! In her Butterfly Box series (Hometown Girl is #2), Bell deals with a crowd of five women, best friends since High School. In her opening chapters, we are introduced to each of these characters effortlessly, until we not only know them apart, but know all the angst that they let their friends see, and a lot that we can guess at. This is a great achievement.

When the book narrows down to one member of the ensemble, Jocelyn, who has decided to move from St. George to a tiny town in Washington state, she seems to regress in the maturity and capability she demonstrated when she was home with the "girls." However! Do not be fooled! Though Jocelyn seems to struggle overmuch with problems that seem small compared to conquering world hunger, balancing the budget, and redeeming the world, there is a good reason for her seeming lack of perspective.

Jocelyn is dealing with problems in her past that occurred in this very locality—her grandmother’s house–years before. And, though it seems absurd that a beautiful girl of 31 would be so inexperienced with the male sex, take it from me, there is a very good reason for that as well.

Once the horrible tale is told, we are introduced to another of Bell’s brilliant strengths. She can write romance like nobody’s business. She avoids all known clichés and draws you in to her character’s heart in such a way that you feel loved down to your toes. This is a wonderful strength, surprisingly unusual in today’s world of literature. Since this is another weak spot for me, I appreciate her skill immensely.

In my last post on why I read what I do, I promised to share a few of my favorite beginnings of my favorite books.  I have been derailed by way too much work, but that is another story…

My favorite beginning, hands down, of any book I’ve ever read is the beginning paragraph of The French Lieutenant’s Woman, by John Fowles.  The bad news is that I gave my copy to my daughter as part of her “classics collection” and don’t have access to it at the moment.  However, the image created by that paragraph was of a woman seated on the quay somewhere in England, looking off in one direction with a gaze that captivated the male protagonist to such an extent that it provided the springboard for an entire novel.  I loved the novel, but my favorite part of it was that image, which I still see in my mind, it was so evocative.

My favorite current mystery writer is Earlene Fowler.  Her books are clean, her characters so addictive that you’ll read her books again and again, just to be in her world accompanied by them.  This is the first paragraph from my favorite of her books, Steps to the Altar (Berkley,2002)

Late at night when the dreams woke him, he would lie in the dark and try to forget the faces of the people he’d watched die.  Memories of them exploded in his brain, popping and flaring like star shells launched from cannons.  With a sick compulsion, he counted off their lives like a human rosary.

End of same chapter, same book:

He never expected Aaron to die.  He never expected to fall in love.  He never expected to find grace.

My favorite modern epic storyteller is Herman Wouk.  He begins his unmatched saga of World War II,The Winds of War (Pocketbooks, 1971), thusly:

Commander Victor Henry rode a taxicab home from the Navy Building on Constitution Avenue, in a gusty gray March Rainstorm that matched his mood.  In his War Plans cubbyhole that afternoon, he had received an unexpected word from on high which, to his seasoned appraisal, had probably blown a well-planned career to rags.  Now he had to consult his wife about an urgent decision; yet he did not altogether trust her opinions.

One of my very favorite modern literary writers is Anne Tyler.  In my second favorite book of hers (I can’t find Accidental Tourist), The Ladder of Years, she begins her strange tale with an unforgettable character sketch:

This all started on a Saturday morning in May, one of those warm spring days that smell like clean linen.  Delia had gone to the supermarket to shop for the week’s meals.  She was standing in the produce section, languidly choosing a bunch of celery.  Grocery stores always made her reflective.   Why was it, she was wondering, that celery was not called “courduroy plant”?  That would be much more colorful.  And garlic bulbs should be “moneybags,” because their shape reminded her of the sack of gold coins in folktales.

Can’t you just see Delia and the produce department?

Now for the CLASSICS:

Favorite Modern Classic opening paragraph:

When it came to concealing his troubles, Tommy Wilhelm was not less capable than the next fellow.  So at least he thought, and there was a certain amount of evidence to back him up.  He had once been an actor–no, not quite, an extra–and he knew what acting should be.  Also, he was smoking a cigar, and when a man is smoking a cigar, wearing a hat, he has an advantage; it is harder to find out how he feels . . .

(Seize The Day, Saul Bellow, Fawcett 1956)

Favorite Nineteenth Century Classic opening paragraph:

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.  We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further outdoor exercise was now out of the question.

I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped finger and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie , the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.

(I cheated–two paras in this one!  You guessed it: Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte)

And to round things out, how about a visit to “the wine dark sea”–yes, the opening paragraph of Homer’s Odyssey:

This is the story of a man, one who was never at a loss.  He had travelled far in the world, after the sack of Troy, the virgin fortress; he saw many cities of men, and learnt their mind; he endured many troubles and hardships in the struggle to save his own life and to bring back his men safe to their homes.  He did his best, but he could not save his companions, and ate the cattle of Hyperion the Sun-god, and the god took care that they should never see home again.

(Now we know why the Odyssey is a classic!)

I am apologetic about the Fowles, and feel guilty for not including any Russians, but then, I don’t think Tolstoy of Dostoyevsky were ever really known for their first paragraphs.

Last night I was in the mood for a good book That doesn’t happen often when I’m writing under deadline pressure.  But, I just wanted to read, nothing else appealed to me, and I badly needed to relax from “deadline tension.”

The book I chose was one I had bought several months ago and though I had dragged it through Europe and up the California coastline, I had never as much as cracked it open.

I only made it halfway through the second chapter, and decided that that’s all I was going to read.  At one time, I might have had more patience, but these days my leisure time is too valuable.  I turned out the light and went to bed clutching Nebudcannezer (I’ll have to look that up one of these days)  my purple fuzzy monkey my husband bought me because it makes me feel like I’m holding my newborn grandson, Micah.  But I didn’t go to sleep immediately.  I am a writer, so naturally I pondered the question:  why didn’t I want to continue that book?  It had a potentially good plot, was very well written, was clean and wholesome.  Then it came to me.  It was ordinary.  Being an eccentric myself, I seem to have no patience with the ordinary.  I have to be grabbed in the first paragraph.  And then, to sustain my interest, I have to have a unique setting, complex (even flawed) characters with quirks, and, in general, the unexpected. 

This may sound like I’m a thrill seeker, and perhaps I am after living on a steady diet of mysteries for many years.  But my favorite mysteries were cozies, so I really don’t think it’s thrills I’m looking for.  I recently read an agent’s blog who said that she was so tired of reading excellently written manuscripts that just didn’t resonate with her, because they followed such an expected pattern.  She always knew how the characters were going to respond in any situation.  After reading that, I made sure my characters were even more unexpected than usual!

To sum it up, what I look for in a good read is:

1.) The unexpected

2.) Characters who are so real that they literally become part of my lfe.  I think about them even when I’m not reading them, and when I finish my book I am always sad because important people have gone out of my life.  I will often read the book over and over.

3.)Settings that are rich with detail that I will enjoy discovering more about as I read.  I am a traveler, and when I’m living life in Provo, I like being an armchair traveler.  That doesn’t necessarily mean foreign travel, just somepace unique that leaves its print on the characters and influences them in speech, dress, or ourtlook on life.  As a writer, I am always on the lookout for such setttings, and enjoy making them “characters” in my books.

4.)Beautiful writing.  Not writing that calls attention to itself, but writing rich with metaphor and simile, great nouns, and as Rachel Anne Nunnes says “fresh verbs”.  I like rich writing that flows like honey, comforting something in my soul, making me feel like I am not alone in there—that someone else sees beyond the surface and describes it in a way that connects with me.

Not much to ask, is it?  In my next blog, I’ll share a few of my most favorite pieces of writing.

Happy reading this summer!

Before I begin to describe my roadtrip with my sister there are a few things you need to know.  We are "Gibson Girls" and share a few traits that made my husband e-mail us that when apprised of our coming, half of Santa Barbara was evacuated:

1.) Due to various causes, both Buffy and I have acute short term memory loss.

2.) We have trouble reading maps or following directions, and my rental car didn’t have enough power to run my GPS.

3.) Any kind of electronic device immediately absorbs the "Gibson Curse" when we try to use it.

4.) We were both very tired.

5.) Whenever we have a problem of any kind, our immediate response is to burst into gales of laughter until tears are running down our cheeks.  (On a prior roadtrip, this phenomenon was illustrated by our behavior following my receipt of a ticket for going 90 in a 70 mph zone.)

So our roadtrip started in Irvine, CA, as we headed for the Getty Villa (museum) in Malibu.  We got there fine.  Our troubles started when we decided to use the IPads they provided for us with a guided tour of the villa and its statues.  We simply could not figure out how to use them.  After several patient guards helped us, we were still in the dark.  The Gibson Gremlin had definitely made an appearance.  We stood in the middle of the villa, choking with laughter as we tried to bring up the sculptures we were looking at.  Finally, I succeeded in bringing up the Roman statue of Hercules.  However, the dialogue was in Spanish!  More laughter!  After a cursory view of the Getty’s Roman treasures, we decided to eat.  I had a plate of cheeses, raisin toast, and nuts and dates.  It was delicious!

Then we were on our way to Santa Barbara via Highway One.  Neither of us had ever made the drive before, and it was absolutely spectacular, reminding me much of the terrain in Greece.  I told my sister that this was her European trip. Highway One is definitely the long route and we arrived in SB at around five o’clock to find that we had no reservations in the hotel I had reserved on Saturday.  The hotel was also a vast disappointment.  Instead of a "mountain retreat with a view of the coastline and city of Santa Barbara", it was in Goleta, hard up against the Highway 101.  Had we had a scenic room, our view would have been of the highway.  There were also ominous sounds from the roof they were repairing.  The desk lady told us in no uncertain terms that we had no confirmed reservations, we realized I had somehow messed up.  Taking Buffy’s laptop, we sat in the lobby and looked up the hotel on Priceline (very good rates, if you ever travel).  Then and there we made a new reservation, and carrying the computer to the desk lady, showed her our confirmation number.  Finally realizing we were sisters and not Lesbians, she became very helpful.  First she upgraded us to a garden deluxe room.  Then, at our request (there was no elevator) she put us in a first floor room.  And she figured out exactly what we had been up to in the lobby (to make sure we got the best rate) and laughed.  We could barely stifle our own laughter at our coup.  The Garden Deluxe Room, turned out to have a short hedge outside our sliding door which almost, but not quite, screened us from the parking lot.  Our patio was four feet square with two plastic chairs.  We dissolved into hysterics.  My sister refused my invitation to sit out there and luxuriate.  "I don’t want to inhale gas fumes".  I spent the next interminable hour confirming our Carmel reservations which I had apparently not done either.

Then, dinner.  The desk recommended Toby’s which turned out to be a sleazy joint across the freeway.  We consulted our map, and noticed a restaurant called "Fresca."  It had a nice ring, so we endeavored to find it using the map.  After dozens of wrong turns, we stumbled on it by accident.  We had turned up trumps.  Outdoor heaters, a guitar-playing minstrel, and wonderful fresh food.  We especially enjoyed our desert which was layers of chocolate mousse in a goblet,interspersed with some kind of Italian sweet cream which we are determined to find the recipe for (we are writing a cookbook).  After this triumph, we slept well.  The next day, we visited the town which has parking places limited to 75 minutes on the street.  We dashed between stores and reparking the car.  That was an adventure, because we kept going the wrong way on one way streets.  Nevertheless we found an Italian shoe store with a half price sale, a Nordstrom’s with a wonderful cafe, and an Italian pottery shop that was uber expensive but had "picnic ware" in melamine which was portable and cheap.  I indulged.  I swear it looks genuine.

By two thirty we were on the road, and on the road, and on the road.  We thought we would never get to Carmel.  We arrived only 10 minutes (at a surprisingly nice hotel/resort, cheaper than the room the night before.  Bless priceline)before the 8:00 massage I had scheduled for both of us in my room.  We barely had time to strip.  But the massage was absolute heaven.  I had arranged for roomservice dinner beforehand, knowing that we would be limp noodles afterwards.  So we ate a steak dinner in bed, and then went to sleep.

The following day was superb.  We ate breakfast at a very small and friendly cafe and Buffy was able to watch the final moments of the US soccer game which the owner had recorded.  Then we strolled and ended up in a linen store (with Italian linens!) where the owner bonded with Buffy because she used to live in SLC (my sister is a graduate of the U).  She told us about a state park, not 10 minutes away.  Mostly to curb my spending in all the wonderful Carmel shops, we decided to give it a try.

It was magnificent.  I swear that Pt. Lobos State Park off Hwy One just outside Carmel is the most beautiful place on earth.  More beautiful than any place I saw in the Greek Isles.  Clear aquamarine water, cliffs covered with wildflowers and Monterrey Pines (you know the ones that grow horizontally), rock formations in the sandstone that looked like whales, sea lions, picturesque fog creeping over the surrounding hillside that was covered with green flora.  We hiked and my hips didn’t even hurt!  It was definitely serendipity–the best part of our trip.

That night we ate in a snazzy restaurant, dressed to the nines, with Buffy’s son, who wears dreadlocks and jeans and lives in a commune in Santa Cruz.  Peter is the most loving and gentle creature alive–just born a generation too late.  His love for his mother was overwhelming, and he was so glad to have a great meal that didn’t come out of his garden.  We told him that if anyone gave him trouble about his hair, we would say he was a rock star.  He said, "And you’re my groupies?"  We were flattered!

Back to our room to pack.  We had to leave at dawn to avoid the LA traffic when we got close to home.  Peter drew directions for the fastest trip on the paper table cloth.  We left at 7:30 AM, and aside from a disastrous trip to Carl’s Jr. where most of my burger ended up on my white shirt, we made the trip smoothly, arriving at 2:30 pm in Irvine.

The Gibson girls obviously have a guardian angel.  We don’t know who it is, as we derive most of our crazy genes from our father, but we suspect a third great grandmother who crossed the plains with nine wagons without her husband.  Thank you, Vira Ann!

By GG Vandagriff

I simply cannot praise this book enough. H.B. Moore has done the nearly impossible: she has created a protagonist who is also the antagonist, and made us love and care about him. She has demonstrated with consummate skill how a man, raised in righteousness, can be drawn into wickedness by the belief that he knows a better way of doing things than his leaders. In my mind, this book is what the Victorians called “An Awful Warning” to anyone who thinks they have a better way of doing things than the way that is ordained of God.

Heather shows the “domino effect” of how one seemingly small sin can bring about our ruin. In the scriptures, this method of destruction by Satan is called “the flaxen cord” that becomes the chain that leads us down to hell.

This is the method described by Wormwood in the Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis, told with one of the most well-known characters in the Book of Mormon.

I must confess that Alma the Younger has always been my favorite character. I identified with him when reading the Book of Mormon the first time, for I rejoiced that God could take such a sinner and make a mighty prophet of him. When my 60’s lifestyle boyfriend, David Vandagriff was investigating the church, I had him start reading the Book of Mormon with the dramatic appearance of an angel to Alma and the Sons of Mosiah. When another member of our family was casting about in darkness, this scripture passage was recreated in his own life, causing an experience that changed his life.

I expected this book to deal mostly with Alma’s years as a judge and preacher, however it doesn’t. It faces squarely the problem of Alma’s fall from grace. Heather explained to me how fast she was able to write it, and I have a theory that her hero was sitting on her shoulder whispering his story into her ear. It is that good and that believable.

The characters are real and richly developed. I can’t do better than to say this book is an exquisite read.

Alma The Younger

Covenant Communications

ISBN 978 1 60861 020 4

Our main reason for returning to Florence was to Cosimo and Elisabetta, who have become dear friends.  However, there was one thing I hadn’t been able to accomplish on my last visit.  I hadn’t been able to attend the Puccini concert in Lucca in the chapel where he was baptized.

Cosimo was dear enough to drive us there (together with his faithful Adriana in his new Fiat!).

He was a dear and handsome as ever and I warned him severely against Hollywood.  The drive through Tuscany was lovely, and when we arrived at Lucca, we had to park outside and take a spooky passage under the city wall.  Cosimo had never been there and was almost freaked out by an entire city with no cars or scooters!  We quickly found the chapel and then had a bite of Pizza.

The Concert was thrilling.  They sing different arias every night, and I wish we could have stayed an entire week to hear all my favorites.  The soprano was superb, and the tenor smooth and obviously talented, but didn’t have the lung capacity to compete with the piano and the soprano!  But it was molto enjoyable.  I was thrilled, and determined right then, that a future trip must include Milan and La Scala and an entire Puccini opera.  He was such a genius.  His music stirs the soul in a way that I can’t describe.  It feels inevitable, as though we knew it well before we entered mortality.  It soothes and then exalts.  And to hear it where he was raised as an infant was a tender experience.

By the time Tuesday 5 am rolled around, we were indeed ready for home.  The flight was difficult, especially the 6 hr. layover in NYC, but I slept from there to SLC, from SLC to Provo (my son informs me that I snored), and once I found my bed I did not wake up until Thursday morning.

My grandchild was born sometime during that time period.  My sister called for a report.  I found I couldn’t remember the baby’s name, I was so deep in sleep.  I said, “It’s something like Milo or Malachi.”  Now, of course, I have memorized it and it takes me only a second to remember that it is uh, um, ah! Micah!!  The pictures Buffy has sent of Jack cuddling with him are making me way too anxious to see him next Saturday!

On the last day of our cruise, I looked at the back of my hair, which I had been growing out for six months after a really bad haircut.  It was finally almost one length in a neat bob.  People had even been known to compliment me on it.  However, it needed a slight trim in the back.

Thus my meeting with Kristina, the self-acknowledged genius with hair.  “Why they cut it this way?” she said, after combing me out following my shampoo.  I shrugged and said, “I just want a trim.  No layers or anything.”  I guess it was the language barrier. Like I said, she was a Macedonian.

After fifteen minutes of furious snipping, my sixth month’s growth lay on the floor.  In the back, my hair is not half an inch long.  At the crown, it is perhaps two.  I have become GG the poor waif.  “See?” she proclaimed, “I am the genius!”

Someone at dinner (everyone was there for a change) said, “GG did you cut your hair?”

I began to have separation anxiety and had to take a tranquilizer.  I thought it was because we were approaching the end of our cruise, but now I think it was a belated reaction to my haircut.

The debarkation went like clockwork the next morning.  Once we hit the pavement, I was forcibly reminded that we were no longer being coddled but were at the mercy of the Italians, Venetian Italians, who are different than Florentines.  Someone forgot to get out of bed and come to man the ticket booth for the vaporettos.  An entire ship was unloading and most of us had no plan to spend 80 Euros (120 dollars or so) for the short trip to the center of town.  However, after wilting in a long line, I thought of my father  He left me a small inheritance.  Would he let me stand around for over an hour waiting for someone to open a booth to buy a ticket or would he spend the 80 Euros?  I made up my mind.  I told David we were taking a water taxi.

Our hotel turned out to be vintage 1950 with an elevator!  A small bar, a walled garden outside our room, and a very peculiar sit down shower completed its idiosyncratic charm.  We were out exploring Venice in no time.  I think David has lost his heart.  I tried to warn him, but he was not prepared for the glorious pastel baroque splendor of the magnificent city.  That day, my father also paid for a glorious Murano glass beaded necklace and earrings in the traditional Venetian blue and gold.

And what is Venice without Vivaldi?  Of course, there was a concert, our concierge said.  Right on St. Mark’s square in a little chapel there.  After a dinner that had nothing to recommend it except expedience, we journeyed to the chapel where we had a third row seat of the most magnificent “Four Seasons” I have ever heard.  It was a lovely evening.  Venice redeemed herself.

The train to Florence the next morning was amusing owing to the fact that our seats were in the middle of a group from the cruise.  Unfortunately, they hadn’t enjoyed it much, which was completely past my understanding.  I reassured them that they would love Florence.  (I wonder if now they are cursing me).

When we walked out of the train station, I swear it was as though we had never left.  The scooters, the traffic, the tourists were all there.  But so was that vitality which captured my heart six months ago.  Elisabetta ran all the way down the stairs at our B & B to greet us with many many kisses.  We went upstairs and talked like friends who hadn’t seen each other for years.  She had given us our same room.

Our first stop was, of course, the central market where my father bade me buy a lot of things, most of which were gifts, but David finally broke down and allowed me to buy a set of Tuscan salt and pepper shakers.  (I am in hopes that this is the beginning of a slippery slope.  I have loved Tuscan dinnerware since I came of age.)

Now it is twilight of our second day.  I am sitting on my balcony under the blue, blue sky and a soft breeze is blowing.  We have been for a long, long Italian luncheon at our favorite restaurant on the Arno, followed by a stroll through our favorite museum,  I am sorry to report that last night I had yet another fall (and was raised by no fewer than seven Florentines).  My hips are not in the best of shape, so we had a nap.  What can I say?  We were tired and slept til seven,  Time is precious here this visit, but I know that I will be back.

I’m having separation anxiety.  Shortly we go down to our final dinner on the Princess.  Even though I’ve been sick and sore most of the time, it has been magnificent.  This is the experience of a lifetime.  And if it weren’t for my Crazy Ladies,  I never would have done it.  What a debt I owe them!

They have never been far away and I have spent a lot of time writing because that is one way I relax.  Having your meals prepared and your cabin cleaned while you just sit and write away is my idea of a heavenly vacation.  Not to mention all the splendid side trips.

Happily, I will be revisiting my journey for many months to come as I compose my Crazy Lady adventure surrounding this cruise.  That’s one of the greatest things about being a writer—you can share your dreams with your readers and everyone you love.