Bookish

February 22, 2010

Meg Tilly - yes, that Meg Tilly - in Houston

Chris Pizzello/AP Tilly in 1998, surrounded by the rest of The Big Chill cast, celebrating the 15th anniversary of the film.

We remember her as a novice nun in Agnes of God and a limber young thing in The Big Chill.

But former actress Meg Tilly, who turned 50 on Valentine's Day, has been a writer for the last 16 years. The mother of three - the father of her youngest, Will, is actor Colin Firth - lives in Canada with her husband, Don. And though she says she's retired from acting, look for her in two new episodes of sci-fi series Caprica.

Tilly comes to Houston Wednesday (Feb. 24) and Thursday (Feb. 25) to read from her novel Gemma, a book with such graphic subject matter that no one under 15 will be admitted to the readings.

Gemma is a 12-year-old girl who is raped by her mother's boyfriend and then kidnapped by one of his friends. The kidnapper, Hazen, takes Gemma on a road trip, locking her in the trunk of his car during the daytime and sneaking her into crummy hotel rooms at night.

I interviewed Tilly for a story that will appear in the Chronicle on Wednesday. Here are some snippets from that conversation.

Q: Some of the scenes and language in the book are extremely graphic. Why?
A: What I didn't want to do is whitewash Hazen. This guy is a violent pedophile, a sexual obsessive. To dumb him down, to use different language, minimalizes what victims of this type of situation have gone through.

Q: You were sexually abused as a child. Is the book based on your own experiences?
A: I wasn't kidnapped, but there were a lot of pedophiles tromping through our lives when I was little.

Q: Was writing Gemma therapeutic for you?A: I write things that I have to write, that I'm compelled to write. But I'm also a lot like Gemma. I like happy ever after. I don't even like scary movies.
..................

Tilly will discuss Gemma at two Houston Public Library locations: 6-8 p.m. Wednesday (Feb. 24) at the Central Branch, 500 McKinney; and 6-8 p.m. Thursday (Feb. 25) at McGovern-Stella Link Library, 7405 Stella Link. Must be at least 15 to attend. Information: 832-393-1313.

Posted by Maggie Galehouse at 10:40 AM in Author Appearances | Comments (7)
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February 21, 2010

Keeping the Feast

C. Owen Franklin Paula Butturini.

Reviewed by Maggie Galehouse

Paula Butturini and John Tagliabue met in Rome in the 1980s when they were working as foreign correspondents. Both had grown up in Italian-American families. Butturini took notice of Tagliabue when he made a delicious risotto for their circle of friends.

Their courtship played out against the crumbling Communist governments of Eastern Europe.

But when Butturini was beaten in the streets of Prague while covering a story for the Chicago Tribune, their troubles had just begun. A few weeks later, Tagliabue was shot in the lower back while on assignment in Romania for the New York Times. Multiple surgeries and complications from the surgeries plunged him into a deep depression, something he had suffered from earlier in his life. Around the same time, Butturini's mother, who also struggled with depression, committed suicide.

Keeping the Feast: One Couple's Story of Love, Food, and Healing in Italy is Butturini's memoir of those difficult days, along with recollections of earlier years in Connecticut with her family.

Q: Each chapter of the book starts with a happy childhood memory and then shifts to later years when you and John were working in Europe. Why did you organize it this way?
A: I couldn't just write every awful thing that happened to us. And nobody could have read it. I needed the break, and I realized the reader needed the break ... When you look at what happened: John is shot. Seven operations. Septicemia. Then my mother's suicide. ... Focusing on times when awful things weren't a part of my life was helpful in getting out of the downward spiral. And food was helpful in getting us all back on track. We both came from families that were happy at the table.

Q: What is it about food that is so restorative to you?
A: You know how when some people hear a song, it immediately brings back high school? For me, it's food or taste that evokes that very strong emotion. For people who have nice memories of meals and time together, it's such a fundamental thing. People who can't eat or don't eat are really ill.

Q: When John's depression was at its worst, you stayed grounded by shopping for fresh food at an outdoor market in Rome and preparing meals for the two of you. Can you describe that time?A: We lived three minutes from Campo dei Fiori, a busy public piazza. I went there every day, and it was my lifeline to normality. I would talk with the vendors, talk with old women and ask, "What do you do with these vegetables?" They had weird greens and things that might not be grown in the States. I learned how to make so many new things.

Q: What else have you learned about coping when loved ones are depressed?
A: The key thing here is that depression may run in families, but not everyone in a family suffers from it. I wanted John's two kids and our daughter to be totally conversant in the whole thing and to see that not talking about things doesn't mean they go away. None of them shows great signs of having the same problems, but should they, I wanted them to understand that we'd all work on it together.

Q: Both you and your husband were physically harmed doing your jobs. Did either of you ever consider a new profession?A: Neither of us wanted to stop being journalists after we were hurt. But neither of us were keen to get thrown back into violence again. By 1991 or '92, not long after John's injury and recovery, the Yugoslav crisis began and he was sent to cover that. It was sniping in the streets that set off the flashbacks that ended up bringing on the depression ... But the thing is, we were foreign correspondents during the best years. So many amazing things were happening, you do have to take the good with the bad... I remember being someplace completely bizarre with the Pope, in the mountains in Peru. We were at this Incan fortress and on top of this pile of rocks was a little old-fashioned black phone. I picked up that phone as a United Press International correspondent and had a direct line to the UPI in Washington, D.C.

Q: Early in the book, you describe what your family calls a "wool-eee" -- from the Italian "voglie" -- which is a deep impulsive hunger for a special seasonal feast. Now that you live in Paris, do you have any French wool-ees?
A: We have a fabulous baker in the neighborhood a couple of blocks away. He makes this bread called pain du Clichy. It's sort of a sourdough bread. Kind of an old-fashioned free-form loaf. Really crusty. It's to die for. That sort of has taken the place of pizza bianca, which I talk about a lot in the book. Pizza bianca is pizza dough not shaped in a round, but in a big, long rectangle maybe 8-10 inches wide. They just put a little olive oil, salt and rosemary on it. Just out of the oven ... that was the snack.

Maggie Galehouse is the Chronicle's book editor.

Posted by Maggie Galehouse at 12:21 AM in Chronicle Book Reviews | Comments (0)
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The Information Officer

Reviewed by P.G. Koch

In The Information Officer, Mark Mills summons up Malta in 1942 as German planes with near-sloppy nonchalance carpet bomb the island.

The British send back antiaircraft fire in rationed bursts, their handful of Spitfires needing replacement, their submarine fleet pulling out. It's war, but one viewed from the rooftops, where boozing Brits stationed on Malta watch with wincing resignation as the dockyards and airfields vanish into yellow-gray dust.

Part of that tight community, Max Chadwick is in charge of conveying news to the troops, which soon includes disturbing evidence that a British officer might be killing local dance hostesses. He reluctantly starts a covert investigation, anxious not to shatter morale or provoke Maltese outrage. But word seeps out, and when orders to desist come from above, Max looks for help from the attractive Lillian who works for the local paper.

Readers are also privy to regular diary entries from the rapist-killer, who reflects on his past with chilling detachment. It's an awkward device, but the sense of this monstrous ego lurking behind the façade of someone Max knows does what it needs to do. A tense paranoia takes hold, especially as events seem to break the killer's way.

The final action, cloaked in a massive bombardment, depends on the reader's mental map of Malta. The writer tried hard to lay this out, but with so much information that none of it, sadly, sticks.

The sense is more of being stuck in ground-shaking purgatory than speeding toward a thriller's denouement, but the description of being bombed is so good it almost doesn't matter.

P.G. Koch reviews regularly for the Chronicle.

Posted by Maggie Galehouse at 12:17 AM in Chronicle Book Reviews | Comments (0)
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Local Book Events: Feb. 21-27

• Bilingual poet and writer Marie Delgado Travis will be the Honored Author of the Year, noon-6 p.m. today (Feb. 21) at the Houston Hispanic Book Festival at the Hilton Houston Southwest, 6780 Southwest Freeway. Information: 281-558-3052.

• Adam Haslett reads from Union Atlantic, 4-6 p.m. today (Feb. 21) at Brazos Bookstore, 2421 Bissonnet. Information: 713-523-0701.

• Stacy Aab will read and sign Government Girl: Young and Female in the White House 7 p.m. Monday (Feb. 22) at Blue Willow Bookshop, 14532 Memorial. Information: 281-497-8675.

• Three Houston poets, Ken Jones, Mike Alexander and Larry Thomas, will read from their works, 7:30 p.m. Monday (Feb. 22) at Coffee Groundz, 2503 Bagby. Information: 713-874-0082.

• David Eagleman will discuss and read from the new paperback edition of Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives , 7:30 p.m. Tuesday (Feb. 23) at Murder By the Book, 2342 Bissonnet. Information: 713-524-8597.

• The Assistance League of Houston holds its annual Books & Brunch event featuring authors Lester Smith, Merrill Bonarrigo and Katherine Center 9:30 a.m. Wednesday (Feb. 24) at The Junior League, 1811 Briar Oaks Lane. Information: 713-526-7983.

• Meg Tilly discusses her book, Gemma, at two Houston Public Library locations this week. Tilly appears 6-8 p.m. Wednesday (Feb. 24) at the Central Branch, 500 Mc-Kinney; and 6-8 p.m. Thursday (Feb. 25) at McGovern-Stella Link Library, 7405 Stella Link. Must be 15 or older to attend. Information: 832-393-1313.

• Barry Lynn reads from Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and the Economics of Destruction, 7-8:30 p.m. Wednesday (Feb. 24) at Brazos Bookstore, 2421 Bissonnet. Information: 713-523-0701.

• Donald M. Kehn reads from A Blue Sea of Blood 5-7 p.m. Thursday (Feb. 25) at River Oaks Bookstore, 3270 Westheimer. Information: 713-520-0061.

• Amber Benson will sign and discuss Cat's Claw, 6:30 p.m. Thursday (Feb. 25) at Murder By The Book, 2342 Bissonnet. Information: 713-524-8597.

• Poets Rebecca Spears, R.T. Castleberry and Stella Brice read from their works, 7-8:30 p.m. Thursday (Feb. 25) at Brazos Bookstore, 2421 Bissonnet. Information: 713-523-0701.

• Hannah Dennison will sign and discuss the third Vicky Hill mystery, Exposé!, and Kate Carlisle will sign and discuss her second bibliophile mystery, If Books Could Kill, 4:30 p.m. Saturday (Feb. 27) at Murder By The Book, 2342 Bissonnet. Information: 713-524-8597.

Posted by Maggie Galehouse at 12:00 AM in Local Book Events | Comments (0)
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February 18, 2010

Literary tattoos

contrariwise.org Tattoo of a line from The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie.

This summer, Penguin Books will release a handful of popular titles with covers designed by tattoo artists.

Among them, Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding; Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee; and From Russia With Love by Ian Fleming.

We do judge books by their covers. Of course we do. And maybe Penguin will be able to bump up sales with some fresh ink. They're banking on the fact that the college crowd will pay more for a classic book with a cool look.

The new covers reminded me of a great Web site I drop in on from time to time, contrariwise.org, that's filled with photos of literary tattoos. Not on book covers -- on bodies.

The tats pictured draw from James Joyce, Salman Rushdie, Sylvia Plath, John Donne and others.

Anyone out there have a literary tattoo they'd like to share? Send us a photo!

Posted by Maggie Galehouse at 05:03 PM in Tangents | Comments (1)
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February 17, 2010

The most amazing untrustworthy reading chair ever

My dad had a special chair where he read the newspaper every day.

The Eames lounge chair and ottoman.

It was a black swivel lounge chair with a matching swivel ottoman. My sisters and I took turns draping our bodies, stomach-down, over the ottoman. We used our hands, which dangled down to the floor, to push off sideways, spinning the ottoman as fast as we could. Occasionally, my dad looked up from the Democrat & Chronicle, his green eyes framed by square, wire-rimmed glasses. We were spinning so fast he was just a pleasant blur.

Decades later, covering home design for the Chronicle, I discovered that my dad's reading chair was a knock-off of a famous chair built by Charles and Ray Eames in the mid 1950s. The Eames lounge chair has long been a fixture in architectural offices. You can still by new ones from the original manufacturer, Herman Miller, but they'll cost you: $3,000-plus. I could never afford one, I thought.

But after I published a story about the chair in the newspaper, a couple emailed to say they'd bought an Eames lounge chair in the 1980s -- one with black leather cushions and a dark, Brazilian rosewood frame -- and we're looking to sell it. Did I know anyone who might want to buy it?

Well, me, of course. I had always wanted a chair like my dad's. He had died a few years earlier and buying the chair for a mere $1200 seemed like a sweet tribute and a wise design investment.

The first mistake I made was putting it in the family room, where it got a lot of traffic. Everyone wanted to sit and spin in it. Four year-olds, 75 year-olds, everyone. One night, a very sweet babysitter sat down and broke it. She was devastated. And we were, too. We had never spent so much money on a chair. All we asked in return was that it hold us -- and our guests -- in a sitting position.

It had failed us.

And then glue failed us. My husband and I tried numerous glues to fix the part of the frame that had broken off. Way back when, the Eameses had designed a special machine to heat and bend layers of wood, which helped create the curved bodies of some of their signature furniture pieces. But we didn't have this machine. We had Gorilla Glue from Home Depot. And drilling holes into the wood simply wasn't an option. That would be like mending a tear in the Mona Lisa with duct tape.

We tried to glue the chair back together every few months. We'd get excited when it seemed to work, and then our moods would crash along with our bodies when the frame gave way and sent us tumbling to the ground. Then we'd shove it in an upstairs closet and forget about it for awhile.

But last weekend, we glued it with a special epoxy usually used for boats. It stuck. We brought the chair and ottoman upstairs to my study, where it wouldn't see so much sitting and spinning. My sister and her husband and kids, who were spending a few days with us, encouraged me to try it out. I was paralyzed by laughter and fear. It felt like a set up. Maggie sits down, chair breaks, Maggie falls, family laughs about it for 40 years.

But eventually I sat. And it didn't break. And it didn't break after the men lounged around in it. And it didn't break when each of the kids sat back and gave it a whirl.

So there my reading chair sits, untrustworthy but beautiful. And beckoning. I've got a date with it later, when I plan to start one of two books I must finish by the end of the weekend.

How long before l sit back without hesitating?

How long before I crash to the ground?

Continue reading "The most amazing untrustworthy reading chair ever"

Posted by Maggie Galehouse at 03:09 PM in Tangents | Comments (4)
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February 16, 2010

What is your belly button saying?

Fotolia

We speak with more than our mouths.

In a fascinating new book on body language -- You Say More Than You Think, by Janine Driver with Mariska Van Aalst -- the authors argue that even our belly buttons can give us away. In their words:

The Belly Button Rule: Our first relationship with another human being is marked with a tiny little circled scar in the center of our body ... The direction our belly button faces reflects our attitude and reveals our emotional state. When we suddenly turn our navel toward a door or an exit or simply away from someone, we subconsciously send the signal that we want out of the conversation and perhaps even out of the interaction. (Call it "navel intelligence.")

Belly Button in the Boardroom: Let's say you're sitting round a conference table, having an intense discussion about strategy. Suddenly you see one of your employees angling his/her navel in a new direction during a discussion about revenue numbers. That shift may indicate a hidden emotion, a difference in opinion, or a lack of interest - thus yielding you a perfect Probing Point.

Belly Button in the Barroom: If you are looking to approach someone new, check the position of his/her belly button to gauge openness. When two people have parallel belly buttons, this suggests they want to keep their conversation private. On the other hand, those angled away from each other - even if their heads are facing each other - are open to others joining them.

Posted by Maggie Galehouse at 12:00 AM in Tangents | Comments (2)
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