National Book Festival, Continued

I spent the afternoon at the National Book Festival in the presence of three amazing writers, each with wildly different books, who spoke as if they had met the night before and calibrated their talks to include one specific theme, telling our stories. Women's stories. Black women's stories.

Margot Lee Shetterly is an awe-inspiring speaker. She teaches in Charlottesville, Va., and I admit to envying any student who lands in one of her classes. But of course she was there to discuss her remarkably successful first book "Hidden Figures." All the stars must have lined up just so for Ms. Shetterly. She admitted that she was dumbfounded to discover that her publisher had a bid on the film rights for the story before the book had even been written! And, unlike so many of her predecessors, her experience with the film industry was rewarding and actually fun.

Surely there is no one reading this who isn't familiar with the story of the women, the "human computers," who worked at NASA during the cold war, helping to put a man into space. Kathryn Johnson, Mary Jackson, Dorothy Vaughn, were tops in their classes at historically black universities like Hampton Institute, Virginia State, and Wilberforce in Ohio. Their untold stories are now known around the world. Ms. Shetterly was coy about what she's working on next but I can tell you, whatever it is, it will be a must read.

I have been following Jesmyn Ward since she brought me to my knees with her National Book Award winning "Salvage the Bones." http://bit.ly/2xcEnCM What a special delight to find that she was being interviewed by my favorite book reviewer, Ron Charles of The Washington Post.

 

 

Apparently he, too, was blown away by this young woman's work. He compared Ward's new novel, "Sing, Unburied, Sing," to Toni Morrison's "Beloved," without batting an eye. Once again Ms. Ward writes about folks in the margins, on the edge, people whose stories would be missing from history without her clear-eyed focus on their grace, strength, and character. Single mothers, grandparents acting as parents, and imprisoned fathers, people whose circumstances are beyond most of our comprehension, are the subjects of Ward's books. They may not be easy to read but they are necessary if we are ever to develop empathy for our fellow wanderers on this earth. I started it yesterday. Will keep you posted.

 

And what does one say about that bad feminist and difficult woman, Roxane Gay? A standing room only crowd laughed knowingly at her political jabs (take that you hillbilly elegist) and were perhaps just a bit taken aback by the smattering of four letter words that she let rip. But what else can Gay do with her anger? Well, she can write. And that she does. I reviewed her memoir "Hunger" not too long ago and can tell you that any time she puts her pen to paper Roxane Gay will tear your heart out.

 

The point is that only she can share her story, a not unfamiliar one that involves rape and its aftermath. Only she can tell you why she ate and ate, avoiding her family's efforts to intervene as her body bloomed. She does not want our sympathy or even our understanding. Writing was the catharsis that likely saved her life. Don't tell her about diet and exercise and don't offer prayers. She's comfortable with herself now, thank you very much. Roxane Gay is a force to be reckoned with. Look for her next work to be in graphic novels.