Five stars!

Just discovered that Harriet Klausner, described by Time magazine as "one of the world's most prolific and influential book reviewers", has given Café au Lait five stars on the Barnes & Noble page! As far as I'm aware, this is the first review to go up on a bookstore site.

Thank you, Ms. Klausner! So glad you enjoyed it!

Hunk of the Month: Ralph Fiennes

Spiral Skies mentioned - actually, insulted - a British celebrity on her blog, and he dropped by to exchange some good-natured banter with her, causing quite a stir in that comment thread. I wrote there that I'd be mentioning Ralph Fiennes twice daily on my blog in the daft hope that he'd drop by here and cause some havoc. I was joking, of course (I'd be so lucky), but it reminded me that I've been again neglecting one of the raisons d’etre of this blog, which is to showcase hunks!

I've had a thing for 'Rafe' for ages. He starred in one of my favourite movies of all time, The English Patient. He was fascinating and terrifying in Red Dragon. Heartbreaking in The Constant Gardener. I didn't care for Maid in Manhattan but hell, I'd watch him in anything - he's that brilliant, that intense. No other actor, imho, quite manages his strange but potent combination of aloofness, sensuality, mystery, menace and almost-but-not-quite-boyish vulnerability. He has an aura of suppressed passion, or is it violence? He makes me a little - afraid.

• Born in Suffolk, England in 1962, he was the son Mark and Jennifer, the former a photographer/artisan, the latter a novelist.
• He's an 8th cousin of Prince Charles.
• He joined Britain's Royal National Theatre in 1987 and the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1988.
• He had an 11 year relationship with Francesca Annis, 19 years his senior, after being cast as Hamlet to her Gertrude (Hamlet's mother) in 1995. Being partial to younger men myself (aye, I married one), I totally approved!

Yum.

Snippet, courtesy Phyllis

Another Dorchester author, the lovely Phyllis Bourne Williams, author of A Moment on the Lips and By New Year's Day from the anthology The Holiday Inn, dropped by and, reading that I didn't have access to the Romantic Times review of Café au Lait, e-mailed it to me. Here's what she wrote:

"RT said: 'Even if the reader has never set foot in the Caribbean, the sights and sounds, perfectly described in this book, will make you feel like you're there. The story is one you've probably read before - girl meets boy, boy resists attraction, girl and boy give in to their feelings - but throw in some unexpected drama, and you've got yourself an entertaining novel.'

The rest is just a summary of your plot."

Thank you, Phyllis. As a writer yourself, you must know how much I appreciate this.

And another! One I can read, too...

I'm just back from my three day hiatus in a beach house in Toco (a remote seaside community on the north-eastern tip of the island) with two former colleagues and a handful of their students.

It was just what the doctor ordered - a complete break from routine, different spaces and faces, and a hike through the forest to a hidden waterfall and rock pool in Rampanalgas! It was goooooood to throw on the old backpack and plod through the rain, sodden leaves, mud and roots, thinking of nothing but the next foothold. It was liberating to plunge into the ice cold pool and swim around while the boys leapt screaming from a ledge high above the deep end. To watch the fish skulking in the dark shadows. To breathe clean, moist air smelling of mist and green things. To wade through the stream, to scramble over boulders and fallen trees.

The only casualty was my cell phone. I don't think Nokia designed it for hiking through pouring rain. I'm not burying it yet, though. My son had one that was famous for its miraculous recoveries after being repeatedly shattered and drowned.

I got back at sunset today, fired up the computer and what did I find? Another Google alert, and another review - one that I can read, too... This one is by Harriet Klausner, and a bit of research revealed a fascinating article about her from Time magazine.

Thank you, Ms. Klausner. You're my first, and hell, I'm happy.

First Review

Another Google alert just in. Romantic Times Book Review magazine has reviewed Café au Lait in its current edition. I think my blood pressure spiked when I saw this because... hell, it's a review. Reviewers have the power to diminish, depress and demoralize even seasoned, successful, acclaimed writers.

I clicked on the link, dread and hope combusting in my head, and to my relief found that they've given the novel three stars out of their maximum of 4 and a half - not stratospheric, but pretty decent. The review itself won't be up on their website for two months, and I've never seen that magazine here, so I can't read what they've said about the story. Don't know if I even want to. But I will - in two months, I suppose.

Grumbles & groans

I'm bombarded with the advice that an author must have a website. I understand the need for a web presence, of course, but what I don't understand is why a writer who has a blog needs to have a separate website. Isn't a blog a website?

I've looked at several writers' sites and most are quite basic, with some variation of the following:

• Their bibliography
• A synopsis of each book, sometimes with excerpts or sample chapters
• An author bio
• Contact information
• Some had a photo gallery
• An itinerary if the writer is doing tours and signings
• Links: to Amazon or wherever the books are sold, to the blog, and random others of the author's choosing
  

There is nothing there that can't be posted or linked on a blog. If I create a website, I'll simply be duplicating all the information on the blog. This pisses off the minimalist in me. In addition, the blog has the advantage of being user friendly: I manage it myself, update as frequently as I like, and it's wonderfully interactive. Managing a website, I understand, requires knowledge of html or some such voodoo.

I'm a stubborn PITA when I can't see the logic behind something that everyone insists is necessary. So I'm throwing this out there: Someone, anyone, please, please convince me why it is necessary for me to duplicate all the stuff I have on this blog onto a website.

[And it's not about the money. My son's job is building websites.]

Twisted meme

Did this meme back in May, but I got an idea from Karen's version. When she didn't like her responses to one question she just did a new set of (riotous) answers. So here I go again: How I'd answer if wishes were horses.

What were you doing 10 years ago?
I was a nun. Then I turned forty and decided to live a little.

Five things on your to-do list for today:
1) Buy new shoes. 10 pairs.
2) Meet with broker to discuss my stock portfolio.
3) Lunch with Yann Martel. He's interested in some kind of collaboration.
4) Teleconference with producers of Under the Tuscan Sun about a film deal for Café au Lait.
5) Leave for working vacation on Mustique with mysterious significant other.

What are three of your bad habits?
1) Collecting pink diamonds.
2) Men.
3) Wishful thinking.

What would you do if you were a billionaire?
I'd give it all away - well, most of it anyway.

What are some snacks you enjoy?
1) Frogs' legs.
2) Eels en brochette
3) Truffles. I've got my own pigs sniffing them out at a farm in France.
4) Escargot
5) Whipped cream served on hard - um - chests.

What were the last five books you read?
1) The Complete Works of Shakespeare
2) War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
3) Ulysses by James Joyce
4) Delta of Venus by Anais Nin
5) The Bible

What are five jobs you have had?
1. Body double for Beyonce
2. Owner-director of eco-resort
3. Writer on location for the National Geographic Magazine
4. Writer of obscure literary masterpiece
5. Writer of blockbuster popular novel.

Five places you’ve lived
1) Tuscany, Italy
2) Provence, France
3) Patagonia, Argentina
4) Harbour Island, Bahamas
5) In my head, mostly.

Religious meme

You fit in with: Taoism 100% spiritual. 20% reason-oriented.
	Your ideals mostly resemble those of the Taoist faith. Spirituality is the most important thing in your life. You strive to live by all of your ideals, and live a very intellectually focused life.
Take This Quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

Reality Bites

One of my writer friends recently received a review of his collection of short stories and although it was a mixed bag (from "part-gripping, part-lackluster" to "Stanford captivates with shocking plot twists and turns") the overall tone was negative. Several of the criticisms with regard to my friend's execution of the stories may well be merited, but I take issue with the reviewer's claim that although the stories are set in Trinidad and Tobago they provide no "insight into Caribbean history and culture". The events could have taken place in Anytown, USA, he claims.

This brings me to the whole question of people's preconceptions. My friend did not attempt to write a travelogue. He did not write his stories to acquaint foreigners with the culture and history of 'the islands'. He wrote about the violent crime that is right now tearing the fabric of his homeland to shreds. According to the reviewer, the stories "tell little of island life". Oh, really? What the reviewer means is that the stories tell little about his preconceptions of island life. In fact, the stories showcase the reality of life on this island right now; violence is an issue that Trinidadians confront every day, and I don't believe the writer should be chastened for omitting titillating cultural soupçons and historical tidbits from his stories.

Our similarities transcend our differences. Our struggles are universal. The reviewer himself says that "Stanford gives much more attention to exploring universal questions: What is right? What is wrong? What is justice?" If these are concerns that Anyone, from Anytown, USA can relate to, what of it? Why is this considered a flaw in the work? An American writer of similar stories would not be rebuked for his laser focus on the central issues. He would not be told to include more cultural and historical elements in his stories.

Criticize the writer's pacing, his prose, his characterization, his use of dialogue or whatever, I say, but please, don't censure him for not writing about limbo dancers drinking rum under coconut trees to pander to the assumed preconceptions of a 'foreign' audience.

Mating rituals circa 2008

In my mother's youth a boy who liked a girl and wanted to see more of her had to ask her parents' permission. In my teens we were a lot freer, but a boy would be on his best behaviour, bringing little gifts, saving seats on the bus, and generally trying to create a good impression. Now it's the turn of my thirteen year old niece, and courting has gone to the dogs.

I held this particular boy in my arms when he was a squalling newborn. His parents are family friends. His neighbours are another set of close family friends. Imagine my dismay when I heard that he had approached my niece with, um, amorous intentions. It was not the fact of his liking the girl that took me aback, but his approach.

Did he bring her a flower? A chocolate? Did he dedicate a song to her, as another little fellow did some time back? Maybe you're thinking that he wrote her a cute little note, something like the serviceable 'Roses are red, violets are blue...' Or just held her hand and stared into her eyes while building up the nerve to ask her to the cinema or something?

None of the above. He sauntered up to her in sailing class and just... popped the question:

'Hey, you wanna deal?'

I'm horrified. Horrified. What is puppy love coming to these days?