#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream
Farm Pond
Somewhere near dawn I am asleep yet feel a kiss on my cheek. I don’t really wake up. I just dreamily wonder. When my alarm wakes me, I realize it was Frank, who left early for a flight. I could not open my eyes. It’s so sunny today and warm again, and no rain. Charlie must wait for his walk, as I am driving my grandson to school today. A chance for storytelling all the way. I have two clients and work on writing and this is so engaging. Also work on my taxes which isn’t engaging, but I make some progress. In the late afternoon I go for a bike ride and end up at Farm Pond for a sunny swim. The water is cool, not cold and I am one of the few swimmers out there. I finished listening to a memoir, “Clear Springs,” by Bobby Ann Mason, and loved the ending. She NAILS the ending, and that’s my true test of a great book. No surprise it was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. The ending is wonderfully novelistic and satisfying and poignant. I highly recommend it. Tonight a quiet house with everyone momentarily gone. After dark, a request, to go on a starlight stroller ride. I take him, and we listen to the crickets and for the owls who don’t come.
Publisher's summary
Pulitzer Prize Finalist
From acclaimed author Bobbie Ann Mason, her Pulitzer Prize-nominated memoir chronicling three generations of her Kentucky lineage, spanning a century in the life of an American family.
"Mason gets to the heart of a whole generation.... She can write the hard truth about home, love, loss.... Immensely satisfying." (New York Times Book Review)
People love and remember the novels of Bobbie Ann Mason because they ring so true. This dazzling memoir has the same power. In it, Mason tells the story of her own family - a multilayered saga of three generations, their aspirations, their conflicts, and the ties that bound them to one another.
Spanning decades, Clear Springs gracefully weaves together the stories of Mason's grandparents, parents, and her own generation. The narrative moves from the sober industriousness of a Kentucky farm to the hippie lifestyle of the countercultural 1960s; from a New York fan magazine to the shock-therapy ward of a mental institution; from a county poorhouse to the set of a Hollywood movie.In the process of recounting her own odyssey - the story of an isolated girl who dreamed of distant places - Mason depicts the changes that have come to family, to women, and to heartland America in the 20th century. Ultimately, Clear Springs is a heartfelt portrait of an extended family, and a profound affirmation of the importance of family love.