Always the Young Strangers by Carl Sandburg

In Galesburg, feelings about Carl Sandburg run deep. I’ve only lived in Galesburg for six years, so my relationship with Sandburg comes from growing up in the Chicago area, where there are frequent references to Chicago as the “City of the Big Shoulders” and “Hog Butcher for the World.” I’ve always admired Carl Sandburg as a poet.

Each year, the Galesburg Public Library hosts a community read, encouraging people in the area to read and discuss the same book. This year, thanks to a grant from the Galesburg Community Foundation, we are celebrating Carl Sandburg’s book Always the Young Strangers. I was interested to read it, having heard strong statements about Sandburg and his relationship to his hometown from many people since I moved to Galesburg.

I’ve heard people say that Carl Sandburg was ashamed of Galesburg and did not have good things to say about it. That’s certainly not the impression I got from reading Always the Young Strangers, a warmly nostalgic look back at the Galesburg of his youth, full of fond memories and stories. He acknowledges the restlessness of youth and the conflicted relationships we have with the people and places who influence us in our childhoods:

What came over me in those years 1896 and 1897 wouldn’t be easy to tell. I hated my home town and yet I loved it. And I hated and loved myself about the same as I did the town and the people. I knew then as I know now that it was a pretty good home town to grow up in. I came to see that my trouble was inside myself more than it was in the town and the people. (p. 377)

Sandburg is a powerful writer, able to conjure up vivid images of life in Galesburg in the late 1800s. For example, he writes about doing laundry in Illinois in the winter:

In a blowing wind I pressed wooden clothespins to fasten bedsheets, shirts, drawers, handkerchiefs, stockings, and diapers on the rope clothesline. Often I found the clothes left in the basket had frozen stiff. Coaxing those frozen pieces of cloth to go around the rope for a wooden pin to be fastened over them was a winter sport with a challenge to your wit and numb fingers in Illinois zero weather, with sometimes a wild northwest wind knocking a shirt stiff as a board against your head. (p. 40)

In Chapter Eleven, “Learning a Trade,” he tells of going about Galesburg taking jobs and looking for a trade. He perfectly captures the monotony of one job in this passage, which reads almost like a prose poem:

When I took a job washing bottles in a pop bottling works one summer I didn’t expect to learn a trade. I knew the future in the job was the same as the past. You washed the same kind of bottles in the morning and afternoon today as you would be washing in the morning and afternoon tomorrow, and yesterday had been the same. You could see the used bottles coming in and the washed bottles going out and it was “Here they come” and “There they go” from seven in the morning till six at night. (p. 250)

Sandburg heard the railroad horns all Galesburg residents are familiar with, and economic times were bad when he was growing up. His recollections strike notes that resonate with us in today’s rough economic climate:

There was a note of doom and fate about the big railroad whistle in those Hard Times months. For years we had heard it at seven in the morning, at twelve noon, and at one and six o’clock in the afternoon. Now it blew at eight in the morning and twelve noon only. It was the Hard Times Clock saying, “Be careful, watch your pennies, wait and hope!” (p. 51)

Sandburg speaks with great affection for and admiration of his parents and their lives as Swedish immigrants in America. He also speaks of how Galesburg shaped him: “In those years as a boy in that prairie town I got education in scraps and pieces of many kinds, not knowing that they were part of my education.” (p. 230)

If you are interested in a detailed and intimate picture of life in a small American town in the late 1800s, and especially if you are interested in Galesburg history, I recommend Carl Sandburg’s Always the Young Strangers. You may learn a few things about Galesburg, Carl Sandburg, and yourself.

Drowned by Therese Bohman

This book was quite suspenseful, and I literally read it in just a few days because it kept me on the edge of my seat. It is the story of a young girl named Marina, with mental issues of her own, who travels by train to visit her older sister Stella, who is living with a much older, famous author named Gabriel. The two sisters haven't seen each other in quite some time, so their relationship seems odd and forced. Then you throw in the boyfriend, and the hairs on the back of your neck start standing up because you realize that something isn't quite right with Gabriel.

This is not a long novel, as the author doesn't spend a lot of time on things that don't matter - she gets right down to it and makes every word count. The scenery in the Swedish countryside where this is set is described beautifully, and the psychological suspense is a real treat. There are some graphic sexual scenes that are a little, how shall I say this, disturbing, but other than that, it is a good read.

Struck, by Jennifer Bosworth

Submitted by Easton, teen reviewer:

Struck is an amazing novel. The mind of the author is so complex. It tells the story of a girl named Mia who lives in Los Angeles. This book is for people who enjoy romance, thrills, complex plots, and interesting characters. Here are some small hints:

• A prophet
• seekers
• lightning
• post-apocalyptic
• earthquake
• Los Angeles

Read the book!!

Struck will be in stores May 8, 2012.

Stuff by Randy O. Frost and Gail Steketee

Do you know someone who hoards? Chances are very good that you do. According to Randy O. Frost and Gail Steketee, studies show that between 2 and 5 percent of the population hoards. That’s between six and fifteen million Americans.

Frost and Steketee are the authors of Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things, a fascinating look at the compulsions that make people hoard. Whether we are savers, collectors, or compulsive cleaners, none of us is completely free of the impulses that drive hoarders. In Stuff, we are introduced to individuals trying to overcome their hoarding problems as well as individuals who do not recognize their issues.

It can be a fine line between collecting, saving, and hoarding. The authors describe hoarders as engaging in something “that causes them distress or interferes with their ability to live.” They also quote The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which defines hoarding as “the inability to discard worn-out or worthless objects even when they have no sentimental value.”

I found it very difficult to stop reading Stuff. The case studies are fascinating. One woman, Debra, felt it was her mission to be the keeper of magazines and television shows. She spent hours taping shows that she never watched. “seeing them didn’t interest her; preserving them did.” After a serious car accident, her major concern was that she couldn’t go home to program her videotape recorders. It is not uncommon for a hoarder to save so many recipes from newspapers and magazines that the kitchen is so cluttered he or she can no longer cook.

As part of her therapy, Debra was sent a postcard containing only her address and a stamp. She was asked to throw the postcard away and record how she felt. Days after receiving the postcard, she insisted that she was not ready to throw away the postcard. Another woman, Irene, described how she felt after throwing away a five-year-old ATM envelope containing notes on how she spent the cash on odds and ends. “When she threw the envelope into the recycling box, she began to weep. She said, ‘I realize this is crazy. It’s just an old envelope, but it feels like I’m losing that day of my life.’”

The authors speculate that our consumer society has contributed to hoarder problems. They note that “Forty years ago, facilities for storing unused personal possessions were virtually nonexistent. … In March 2007, the New York Times reported that self-storage unit rentals had increased by 90 percent since 1995 and more than eleven million American households rented outside storage space.” However, there is a distinction between people who acquire and save things and people with saving habits that negatively affect their lives.

Hoarding is a serious disorder. It affects not only the hoarder but family, friends, and neighbors. Therapy has mixed results. If you are interested in the psychology and science of hoarding and examples of hoarding behavior, I predict you will find Stuff a fascinating read.

Faith Bass Darling's Last Garage Sale by Lynda Rutledge

I really enjoyed Faith Bass Darling's Last Garage Sale--so much so that I stayed up to finish it with the clock edging toward midnight and my alarm ready to wake me in 6 scant hours.

It is the last day of 1999 in Bass, Texas, and Faith Bass Darling wakes with the sure conviction that God has instructed her to sell her possessions on what will be the last day of her life. So she drags out to her yard five generations of family heirlooms including Tiffany lamps, a Louis XV clock, and a Spode china set and begins to dispose of them to a growing number of bargain-hunters. Throughout this remarkable day we learn Faith's story--the one told by the heirlooms and their provenance (both real and re-imagined), and the one told through the memories of Faith, her daughter, and a few friends.

And yet can these memories be trusted any more than the stories of the histories of the heirlooms? It seems unlikely, given that Faith, suffering from Alzheimer's, has begun to "sundown" and experience a past and present all jumbled together. In her more lucid moments Faith questions who we are without our memories and wonders why she can't keep the ones she wants and get rid of others.

Meanwhile, the others, trying to decide whether or not Faith needs rescuing, experience their own crises best summed up by this line I so hope makes it to the finished publication unchanged: "squinting hard for signs of the wandering Faith." From Claudia the one-time Buddhist daughter to Father Fallow the Episcopalian priest, each of the characters faces an examination of faith and Faith.

In turns funny, heartbreaking and surprising, Faith's garage sale is one worth visiting. This book is due out in May 2012.

Crucible of Gold by Naomi Novik

I love the Temeraire series from Naomi Novik. It is set during the time of Napoleon; in addition to naval fleets, each country has dragon fleets as well. That is the only "fantastical" element of the series. The intelligence of the dragons and their relationships to their captains and crews is captured in a fun and interesting way.

The first book in the series is a wonderful read, and I enjoyed the first few sequels as well. I was not quite as thrilled with Victory of Eagles and to a certain extent Tongues of Serpents (the fifth and sixth books in the series). Crucible of Gold seems to be getting the series back on track. We get to enjoy plenty of interaction between Temeraire and his Captain, Laurence. The plot meanders from Australia, to the open sea, to the Incan civilization and Brazil.

I find the dragon Iskierka even more annoying than Temeraire does, and there was a bit too much of her in this book for my taste. I really miss Temeraire's formation mates, especially Maximus and his Captain, Berkley. I have high hopes of seeing a lot of them in the next book in the series. Anyway, I definitely recommend the whole series if you've not yet read His Majesty's Dragon.

After Annie by Michael Tucker

Herbie Aaron, the main character in Michael Tucker’s book After Annie, is not a likeable guy. He drinks, he smokes pot (while driving), he swears, and he fooled around on his dying wife Annie. Herbie and Annie are actors. Years ago, they starred in a hit television series together. Annie is now in the hospital, dying of cancer.

Despite the fooling around, Herbie and Annie are soul mates. Their daughter Candy thinks, “Her mom and dad have always inhabited a world unto themselves. When she was a little girl, it was like they were surrounded by a protective circle, a magic bubble that she could never penetrate.” The book opens as Herbie stops in a bar to drown his sorrows. He meets a girl – an interesting girl. Olive is an actress, bartending to make a living. When he visits Annie in the hospital, he tells her about the bartender. Annie insists that he ask Olive to come see her. Annie and Herbie have that kind of relationship.

Once Annie dies, we follow Herbie, Candy, and Olive as they deal with loss and changes in their relationships. Each struggles to find a path forward. Herbie decides to perfect his golf game. Olive gets a part in a production of Uncle Vanya. Candy works on her relationship with her boyfriend Maurice, who is the same age as her father.

After Annie is the first novel by actor Michael Tucker. They say you should write what you know, and Tucker appears to have done that. He and his wife Jill Eikenberry starred in the television show L.A. Law in the late 1980s-early 1990s. Eikenberry successfully battled breast cancer. This is an actor’s novel, and it shows. The situations feel real and the dialog rings true.

After Annie is a short book and a quick read. It’s not profound, just a brief glimpse over a few weeks into the lives of several people learning how to cope after a great loss. Readers of literary fiction are likely to enjoy this book.