Can Someone Help Me with "Language Arts?"

My head is spinning, Stephanie Kallos! I've just put down your latest novel "Language Arts," and I don't know what to think. I need a discussion group - quick! Beth Conrad? Andrea? Pat? You are the kinds of readers who could help me work through my feelings of enchantment one moment and visceral horror the next. I can only hope that the estimable Professor Elaine Newton will choose this for one of her next season's programs. http://artisnaples.org/education/lifelong-learning/critics-choice

 

 

One writer I know, when asked to write a blurb for this novel, said, "It was like yoga for my heart." I can't imagine a more perfect metaphor. Yoga can be a surprisingly strenuous workout one minute and then a path to deep peace and relaxation the next. Ms. Kallos has a gorgeous writing style that makes you sit up and say "whoa!" one minute, only to leave you sighing in peaceful contemplation the next.

So many of my friends have been teachers. This book is for you! The teachers in Kallos's story are wonderfully complicated, nuanced individuals, from one of the narrators, Charles Marlow, to his grammar school mentor, Mrs. Braxton (Brax the Axe), to the nun, Sister Georgia Maria Fiducia D'Amati. Like so many devoted teachers out there, these characters truly have no idea how much of an influence they've had on their charges.

Charles and his wife Alison are raising their son Cody whose life is severely limited by autism. Eventually the overwhelming stress of accepting their son's diagnosis, prognosis, and special needs, causes a deep rift in the marriage exacerbated by their disparate methods of dealing with Cody. At times I wanted to shake Alison and say, "listen to him, talk with him," when she appeared to be talking at Charles so often.

Communication, between those with and without verbal ability, is a major theme in this complex novel. It may even take more than one reading to arrive at a conclusion as to what actually happened. You'll need to read each chapter carefully to focus on who's doing the talking and which time period you're in but it will be well worth the effort when you witness the joy of people finally making connections.

Charles, now in his late '50's, reflects on his life in Mrs. Braxton's fourth grade classroom where he was the unlikely choice for teacher's pet because of his skills in the Palmer method of penmanship. He recalls his burgeoning friendship with Dana, an exceptional, loving child with learning disabilities for whom, in the prescient way of fate, Charles displays extraordinary patience and kindness, and we meet Alison, watch the courtship, and their early bliss with Cody as a precocious baby before he regressed into his illness.

If you've read Stephanie Kallos's exquisite debut novel "Broken for You," then you'll remember the experience of spending time with a thoughtful, gracious novelist, a writer who cares about her characters and their interaction with her readers. http://stephaniekallos.com/ In "Language Arts" you will meet an equally loveable group of people faced with unimaginable obstacles to the contentment we hope to get from life. How they handle these hurdles, learning to accept and forgive even when the transgressions seem unforgiveable, is a life-affirming reading experience.

Still, I'm not sure that I "got" it. Please, if you've read the book, let's talk.



Booker Prize Nominee - Us

http://www.usbydavidnicholls.com/

A novel about a marriage and family in free fall was probably not the best choice of reading matter for me last week as I sat at my brother's bedside in the Ohio hospital where he was being treated for multiple debilitating side effects from his cancer therapy. I witnessed a disparate group of folks, my nieces, nephews, in-laws, and medical personnel all coming together with a common goal, to see Alan well enough to walk out that door.

I suppose it was unfair of me to expect that same cooperation from the characters in Mr. Nicholls' engaging but disturbing new novel, one that he refers to on his website as a "tragi-comedy." I found the story more tragi than comedy but I loved Nicholls' writing style and the self-deprecating voice of the narrator, Douglas Petersen.

If there were ever two people less meant for each other it had to be Douglas, an introverted, bookish scientist, and the wild child, pseudo-artist, Connie. Lessons we all should have learned by now? Physical attraction will only get you so far in a relationship. At the end of the day you really need to like one another and Connie's dismissive attitude toward Douglas and his exacting personality wore on me as a reader. On Douglas? Not so much.

In fact, inept at emotional intelligence, Douglas failed miserably at sensing the growing divide between he and his wife until the night she told him she "might" be leaving him. Ouch! Such a passive aggressive way of lowering the boom after twenty years. Connie deliberately leaves the door open and Douglas, thinking that there's still a chance of keeping his family intact, plans an elaborate European tour to celebrate their son Albie's high school graduation and their soon to be empty nest.

Nicholls alternates chapters between the current trip through France, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain with Doug's reminiscences of past excursions he and Connie took when their relationship was still new, before the death of their baby girl and the birth of their son Albie, a child who seemed to shrink from his dad from his first breath. The stronger the bond grew between Connie and Albie, the more Douglas was pushed to the periphery of the relationship, confused and uncomprehending. This trip, he believes, is the last chance he will have get to know his son and save his marriage.

This is a wistful kind of novel. The humor, while not the laugh out loud kind, is sardonic and the situations are oh so recognizable. I found myself hoping beyond hope that all would come right for Connie, Douglas and Albie even as I recognized that what might seem "right" to me might just not be what's right for them. This is a lovely book, a worthy nominee for the Booker prize. Just don't read it when you're down or blue. You wouldn't be giving it its due.