The Book Shopper

Stories Within the Pages of Camus and Woolf

by Jim Simpson

On a recent trip to Books Again in Decatur, I picked up a 1964 hardcover copy of Albert Camus’ novel The Fall. I’ve always admired Camus, but admit to reading only one novel (The Stranger, as a college Freshman) and a few of his essays. I really should read more, and The Fall looks intriguing, especially since the copy I bought has a Honolulu Book Shops label on the inside back cover. Having never been to Hawaii, I’ve always thought of it as a lush tropical paradise where nothing ever goes wrong and everyone lives in a state of ambulatory bliss. But, like any scrap of land where human beings congregate, I’m sure Hawaii has its share of troubles --  Steve McGarrett would likely concur.

It was the inscription on the title page that really caught my eye: “Much Aloha!”, a drawing of an evergreen tree and “66” (perhaps a Christmas tree, the book given as a gift in 1966) signed, simply, “G.” Again, like most found objects in books, this makes me wonder: Was the book shipped to the States as a gift or given from one Hawaiian resident to another? Was it actually a Christmas tree or some secret family icon? Why read Camus in paradise? Then again, why not? I was reminded of Paul Theroux’s wonderful novel Hotel Honolulu with its unnamed main character -- a “writer in retreat” -- toting around a copy of Anna Karenina to keep people at bay, and describing Hawaii as “paradise with heavy traffic.”

The more I thought about it -- with Books Again’s feline mascot Eric rubbing my ankles -- everything made sense. Camus’ main character in the novel sits in an Amsterdam bar called Mexico City telling a stranger about his fall from grace in the gritty paradise of Paris, so it is only fitting that this copy of the novel has its origins in a bookstore in the lush Hawaiian paradise. Anyway, I can’t wait to dive into this book, following the narrator around and around in the Dantean concentric circles of Amsterdam.

Mini-review: Jamie Quatro's Decatur Reading

Reviewed by Jim Simpson

Book & Author: I Want to Show You More by Jamie Quatro (2013, Grove/Atlantic)

Where & When: Decatur Public Library Auditorium, April 8, 2013. Sponsored by the Georgia Center for the Book.

Attendance: ~50 people ranging in age from early 20s to mid-70s.

Her Work: On the surface Jamie Quatro’s fiction focuses on things most people would rather not talk about: sex, religion, death, infidelity, phone sex. But Quatro almost immediately pulls you in, writing with such intense clarity, intelligence, deep wit and beauty about characters who give themselves over entirely to the physical as well as the spiritual in their unfulfilled lives.

Throughout the connected stories, we follow a woman in her late 30s as she begins and ends a long-distance phone-sex relationship with a friend of her husband. The stories range from traditional to fabulist, casting an unflinching and brutally honest eye on the nature of judgment, guilt, faith, family and death, while seeking their reflections in forgiveness, redemption, doubt, and perseverance. This dualism is strikingly evident in the location -- all of the stories take place in and around Lookout Mountain, Georgia, a town straddling  the Georgia/Tennessee border (almost a fairytale land with whimsical street names), where Quatro lives with her husband and four children.

In “Decomposition: A Primer for Promiscuous Housewives”, a husband and wife are faced with the corpse of the woman’s would-be lover rotting in their bed after the long-distance affair has been broken off. Quatro compares the sense of loss and grief at the relationship’s end to the stages of decomposition: “III. Active Decay: in which the greatest loss of mass occurs. Purged fluids accumulate around the body, creating a cadaver decomposition island (CDI).” Reading this, I found it equally repulsive and hilarious, but I couldn’t turn away. In a nod to Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Quatro describes the dead lover with black goo oozing from its crumbling jaws. It’s a story that sticks with you.

“Ladies and Gentlemen of the Pavement” is one of the more fabulist in the collection, about a near-future marathon race where entrants -- depending on their running prowess -- are given (mostly phallic, mostly heavy) statues that they must carry in backpacks throughout the entire race. This was one of the more surprising in the book, and one I can imagine being studied and dissected and discussed at length in any graduate writing program workshop.

Two of the stories pay homage to Eudora Welty and Steven Millhauser in style (she couldn’t have chosen two finer writers to emulate), but with Quatro’s own unique twists.

What She Read: She remarked that this was her first public reading in Georgia, seemed understandably a bit nervous, but read well, pausing at just the right places. She read “Caught Up” and “Relatives of God” the first and last pieces in the book, and two of the shortest. Both reveal God in the produce aisle with the apples, as well as some heady sexual references, hence the dramatic pauses.

Stories Within the Story #4: Monastery

by Jim Simpson

Occasionally, I attend the Sunday teaching and meditation sessions at The Drepung Loseling Buddhist Monastery in Chamblee with my wife and daughter. Near the lobby there is a table loaded with used books, hardcovers and paperbacks covering all topics: contemporary and classic fiction, non-fiction, self-help guides, poetry, Buddhist writings and Christian Bibles. All books are available for purchase with a one- to three-dollar donation. I picked up a 1954 Scribners trade paperback copy of The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, one of my favorite novels and one I’ve read many times. What struck me most about the book was the sheer number of post-it notes stuck onto nearly every page -- the book appears to be exploding! Most of the notes refer to the symbolism of the drinking, the impotence, the fights, the bulls, the irony, the pity, and more drinking. But it was the final notation shown here that made me laugh.

Well?” indeed.

 

Editor's Note: Jim Simpson is an award-winning fiction writer and freelance music critic. A native of the wilds of Florida's Gulf Coast, he now resides on the scruffy fringes of Atlanta. He has been at work on his first novel for longer than he originally planned, and if all goes well the book should be in stores sometime before his death.

Stories Within the Story #3: The Bookmark

by Jim Simpson

I found this bookmark in a 1940s copy of the complete works of John Keats at the Book Nook on N. Druid Hills Road in Decatur. Written on the back of the bookmark are notes that mirror, to a much lesser extent, Keats’ own battles with ill health -- his issues, unfortunately, proved to be fatal.

I imagine this person reading Keats while on a cruise, jotting down helpful hints at combating seasickness. It's a good thing it was Keats and not Byron: “Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean — roll!” Also, I believe this bookmark is from the Borders Book Shop that was at the corner of Roswell and Piedmont, and eventually moved to the corner of Peachtree and Wieuca, finally closing a few years ago. (If any careful readers know for sure, please leave a comment.)

Stories Within the Story #2: Kudzu Antiques Market

By Jim Simpson

Located just down the street from the DeKalb Farmer’s Market, this antique shop features vintage clothing, furniture, vinyl albums, books, objet d’art, musical instruments, old-timey soda pop, jewelry -- you name it, you can find it here. I tend to seek out the books, naturally. I’ve found partial collections of the Harvard Classics from the early 20th century, French biographies from the late 19th century, and this:

A shorthand dictionary published in 1919. I’d always been intrigued by shorthand ever since a good friend took a class years ago, but I’d never studied it. Could this little book help me learn now after all these years? My own handwriting is so terrible, it probably wouldn’t be worth it. As I flipped through the pages, an index card fluttered out: “Margie -- I found this little volume at the Book Sale in the park - thought it might be ‘interesting’ if not helpful. John.” Another story. Which park? What Book Sale? Why would Margie find this ‘interesting’? Did John have ulterior motives?

Mini-review: Claire Bidwell Smith's Decatur Reading

By Jim Simpson

Where & When: Decatur Public Library Auditorium on January 8, 2013. Sponsored by the Georgia Center for the Book.

Attendance: ~100 people, many of whom were family and friends of the author.

What Claire Bidwell Smith Read: Nearly a dozen pages from her debut book, The Rules of Inheritance, a “grief memoir” as she calls it, about her life from the time she was 14 when both of her parents were diagnosed with cancer, until 2011. (The book was published in February 2012; this reading coincided with the paperback release.) The author, an Atlanta native who grew up in Sandy Springs, would be parentless by the time she was 25 years old. The book jumps around in time covering a period of roughly 18 years and is divided into five parts, following Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ five stages of grief. The excerpt she read takes place in 2003 when she is 25 years old and on assignment in the Philippines for Student Traveler magazine in Los Angeles. She is on her way to the remote island of Malapascua to dive with thresher sharks. This episode is one of many describing semi-dangerous and questionable decisions on Claire’s part (destructive relationships and alcohol abuse, to name but two) that she will later discover are subconscious attempts to bring her dead parents back in order to save her. This diving trip is a climactic event because, as she and her guide are descending into 80 feet of dark, shark-filled water, she suddenly cancels the dive and surfaces. With tears streaming down her face, she sits slumped in the front of the boat heading back to shore. “This is the very place -- with my tear-soaked face, at the front of this little boat in the middle of the great Pacific Ocean -- where I ind a truth that I will test over and over in my life. Nothing is ever going to bring either of them back.” Some parts of the book are almost too much to bear, but you find yourself forging ahead, cheering her on, hoping she will be okay in the end.

Why I Went: Claire and I have both written for the literary collective The Nervous Breakdown for six years, and I have always admired her writing.

Q & A: Questions ranged from those regarding grief (she is a licensed therapist), writing routines, the book title’s origin, to compliments about Claire’s delivery and voice during the reading. I thought she seemed a bit stiff and nervous, but that could be attributed to the hometown crowd and sheer number of family and close childhood friends in the audience; she seemed to be trying to keep her emotions in check, which makes perfect sense.

 
Question I Didn’t Get To Ask Because Time Ran Out But Asked Her When She Signed My Book: “I’ve never been to L.A., but I imagine there are a bunch of motorcycles around. Do you and your husband, (Greg Boose, a freelance/ghost writer) still go around touching motorcycles that don’t belong to you?” Claire responded, “Danger Touch? Not lately, but we were disappointed that it never caught on.” We were referring to a game she and Greg played during a cross-country correspondence (Claire in L.A., Greg in Chicago, the two meeting as writers for The Nervous Breakdown). He invented a game that involved taking cell phone pictures of his hand reaching out and touching strangers’ motorcycles on the street and sending them to Claire; she in turn would do the same and send them to him, and the person with the most “danger touches” would win the game.