<p>^I think the twist, if you want to call it that, at the end of “The Girls in Their Summer Dresses” was that both the man and the woman acknowledged that they were more comfortable hanging out with friends than they were when they were alone together.</p>
<p>^^Great observation, NJTM!</p>
<p>The book that affected me the most is To Kill a Mockingbird. I have read a lot of great books over the years, but To Kill a Mockingbird remains my favorite because of the influence it had on me as a reader. I always enjoyed reading when I was little, but my reading wasn’t diverse. School reading assignments were okay, but being required to read a book took some of the joy out of them. To Kill a Mockingbird was an 8th grade assignment. My teacher did a great job leading us in discussion and making us think about the book. We had a wonderful book discussion and I got excited about what else I could read. It opened the door for me. I have watched the movie, but have never reread the book. I wonder if I should? </p>
<p>Yes, but I also somehow felt that she was pushing him to misbehave with her insecurity. Maybe it’s because I’ve been married over 25 years to a guy who likes to look, but as far as I know as never strayed. I’ve certainly talked to many men, not just my husband, who feel that men are pretty much hardwired to admire physical looks even when their brain knows better. So to me the twist, was that this was the moment they went from being perfectly happy with each other, to not. You feel like years later they will say this is when it became clear the marriage wouldn’t last. </p>
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<p>^^^ I agree. “The Girls in Their Summer Dresses” made me sad. While I have no doubt the man finds his wife lovely also, I doubt it’s enough to save a marriage. I think the wife only makes arrangements to meet the other couple because their morning has gone so badly. </p>
<p>I agree that A.J. hopes nothing more than that Maya picks a man who loves her enough to look no further. In contrast, Daniel probably loves Ismay but he never “thinks she is the only person in the room.” I get the impression Lambiase will rectify that.</p>
<p>We just went to a wedding and the groom looked at that bride like he had just been waiting for the moment to become her husband. It was lovely to watch. I understand exactly what A.J. means. (Or as Ismay notes at A.J.'s wedding: “And A.J. is so happy. Watch that lucky ■■■■■■■ try not to cry.”)</p>
<p>*Just read mathmom’s post and agree:</p>
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<p>^^^ Exactly!</p>
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<p>Yes! That one stands the test of time. I have read To Kill a Mockingbird several times and have never been disappointed. </p>
<p>I enjoyed Philip Pullman’s commentary that accompanied the podcast of The Beauties: </p>
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<p>Back to Leon Friedman for a minute, I have to amend my earlier comment about A.J. not recognizing him as a fraud. In Kathryn Cope’s Reader’s Guide, she notes that A.J.’s inclusion of “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” along with his note that the story “always reminds me of the time Leon Friedman came to town,” indicates that A.J. was perfectly aware that Friedman was as mythical as Leonidas W. Smiley.</p>
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<p>Seems like what Leonora Ferris did was unethical, although I understand why she did it. Are there degrees of right and wrong when faking a memoir? </p>
<p>mathmom’s link (here it is again: <a href=“Anthony Godby Johnson - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Godby_Johnson</a>) provides a good frame of reference for this question. The Anthony Godby Johnson fraud seems awful to me—almost like the exploitation of a child, even though the child in question never existed. It gets worse when you learn that the real author used one of her former student’s photos and later married a possible pedophile…ick. </p>
<p>But what about something like A Million Little Pieces? Is that more acceptable because it was partly true rather than a complete fabrication? It sure made Oprah mad! <a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/27/books/27oprah.html?_r=0”>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/27/books/27oprah.html?_r=0</a></p>
<p>If an author is presenting a story as truth, then it should be true. If it is partially true, then that information should be stated. I love the beginning of the movie American Hustle where they state “Some of this actually happened.”</p>
<p>I invest time and emotion when I read a book. I want to know the truth about what I am reading.</p>
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Completely agree, Mary13.
I didn’t read “A Million Little Pieces”, but I would feel manipulated and used by a fabricated memoir.</p>
<p>It is interesting how well Zevin dealt with this issue. Should AJ and Amelia know about the mythical story? I don’t think so. </p>
<p>I agree that made up memoirs don’t sit well with me, but unless other people have much better memories than I do it’s pretty clear to me that most memoirs are full of invented material! I don’t really get the attraction of memoirs and have read very few of them.</p>
<p>Maybe I’m nuts, but I’d rather read a “memoir” that includes some graceful fabrications than the kind of book that spews venom about people in the author’s life. I’ve known people who told stories that were probably not entirely true, and some of those stories were pretty darn good.</p>
<p>Amelia and A.J. (assuming he knew) were surprisingly blasé about the deception. It seems unlikely that two people in the book industry would be so forgiving, since questionable memoirs are generally a source of controversy. Of course, as mathmom and NJTheatreMOM point out, every memoir is probably questionable—it’s the nature of the beast. I don’t have a problem with that—that is, with the embellished memories of people like James Frey or Jeannette Walls—but complete frauds like Anthony Godby Johnson or Leon Friedman take it to another level.</p>
<p>Here’s a particularly egregious fraud: <a href=“Holocaust Memoir Mostly Fiction: Author”>Newser | Headline News Summaries, World News, and Breaking News;
<p>I’m linking it because the author’s lawyer argues, “whether the story is true or allegorical, it is nevertheless ‘a cry of suffering and an act of courage.’”</p>
<p>This is similar to Leonora Ferris’ defense that her book is acceptable because, “All the things in it are still emotionally true even if they aren’t literally so” (p. 152). In my mind, that’s a weak defense because the same is true of a novel, so she could have labeled her work as fiction and it would still have expressed “emotional truth.” The only reason to label it a memoir is to increase sales.</p>
<p>The funny twist here is if the author in the link, Misha Defonseca, had come clean and sold her book as fiction, A.J. wouldn’t have read it: “I find literary fiction about the Holocaust or any other major world tragedy to be distasteful—nonfiction only, please” (p. 13).</p>
<p>I wonder what books A.J, has in mind when he says he doesn’t like literary fiction about the Holocaust or any other major world tragedy. That’s a pretty broad indictment.</p>
<p>One book that I can think of in that category is “Fatelessness” by Imre Kertész, Kertész was in a concentration camp, but his book doesn’t present itself as, “these are my memories,” it presents itself as, “this is what happened to a boy like me.” A very powerful and amazing book.</p>
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<p>I’m not sure that I think someone like James Frey is on higher moral ground than Leon Friedman. One tells small lies (and thinks he’s telling the truth) and another tells big lies (and knows he’s making it up). Neither one is telling the truth. I knew something wasn’t right with Leon Friedman from the get go. The guy’s behavior was just off.</p>
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<p>No one has tackled this question yet–it’s one I find interesting.</p>
<p>I’ll take a stab–in general, I think “people” make a bigger difference on who we are than “place”. If Maya had stayed with her mother, her life would have been much different. It’s tough for single mothers–especially those who don’t have support and resources (Maya’s birth mother’s status wasn’t clear). I wonder if Maya’s intellect would have been nurtured if she had been reared by her birth mother. A teacher would probably have noticed and encouraged Maya given that she was so bright, but if Maya’s mother was working full-time to make ends meet, she might not have had as much time nor had the resources to allow Maya to flourish the way A.J. did. </p>
<p>As far as place–I think being from certain places can sometimes have an impact on a person. I have lived on an island like Alice Island and I always find it interesting that lots of the local kids go off to college and graduate and so many of them are pulled back to the island. It seems like the island has a pull on the people who grow up there. It isn’t everyone, but from my (admittedly a small sample size) observations there’s something besides family that brings people back to live on island. I know that’s not the case in the small town where I live now–kids go off to college, start careers, get married and very few come back. While my town itself (population 5,000) doesn’t have many employment opportunities, there are definitely opportunities in the greater metro area. But even for those kids who end up in the general area, not many come back to town.</p>
<p>Well all we know about Maya’s mother is that she had attended Harvard and didn’t seem to have a supportive family. I know in my dh’s family - his sister dropped out of U of Chicago, had a baby, came home and lived with his parents for a while, and eventually was able to move out and live in a rent supported apartment on her own. Son did fabulously at Rice and is now a grad student at MIT. So I think her mother could still have nurtured her intellect assuming she’d been able to get on her feet. We don’t really know enough about why she was in such despair. But she does seem to have had good instincts about where to drop off the child! I think place makes a difference as well, I think my kids, especially my youngest, were influenced in a good way by the diversity of our town (economic as well as ethnic and racial.)</p>
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<p>Yes – like when he had trouble spelling his own last name for the autograph, LOL!</p>
<p>This made me laugh, too:</p>
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<p>Leonora Ferris ought to get her money back from that casting office. :)</p>
<p>Re the question, “Is it the people or the place that make the difference?”, I think there’s an important third element, which is nature (or genetics, or however you want to term it). As the child of two gifted parents, Maya already had a leg up. She might have excelled under a number of different scenarios, although certainly ending up with A.J. gave her a boost in the reading/writing department. </p>
<p>I think that people and place intertwine. Maya’s mother Marian wants
It seems to me that Maya has a chance at those things if adopted by the owners of the book store (long shot, at best). For example, I have a friend in the competitive ice skating world: she reads (though not like my book club friends :D) but her focus is not on books. Now if you want to know ice skating costumes, choreography, coaches, you’d be “among people who care about those kinds of things.” If Maya exhibited precocious athleticism and her mother yearned for that to be nurtured in her, then perhaps a bookstore would not have been the best choice. Yes, you can have the best of all worlds but Marian does not know the owner(s) of the bookstore and people tend to gravitate toward their interests. Yes, a long shot but a long shot that worked in the book. </p>
<p>I think it is mostly people who make the difference. Another bookstore owner might not have done so well by Maya. The right type of shoe store owner might have made a fantastic parent.</p>
<p>This curmudgeon absolutely adores bookstores (although I perhaps like libraries even more), but I think The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry romanticizes bookstores to a cloying degree.</p>