The Sound of Gravel, Flatiron Books, 2015. It’s dark outside and in the beginning of The Sound of Gravel. The polygamous cult in which Wariner is raised, 200 miles south of Juarez, Mexico, is a land of rural beauty and grinding poverty. Living off the land is not exactly working for the 30-odd families of […]
Book Review: Memoir: Ruth Wariner gives us a family portrait of polygamy Read More »
I almost didn’t go to see the new Queen biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody. The DJ said on the radio at the time. “As for a Bohemian Rhapsody review … well, the reviews are mixed.” After watching it, and being thoroughly moved, especially by the second half of the movie, I went back. I re-read the iffy
I finished Educated by Tara Westover and I enjoyed every minute of it, though the story’s villains — Westover’s parents and her brother Shawn — were unpleasant in the extreme, and slippery to the end. The story, which at the outset appears to treat mainly of the academic success of a child of radical unschooler
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I am in mourning because yesterday I finished Hell Bent, a book I was totally taken up with, totally lost in the author’s tale. And now it’s over, I can never visit that world for the first time again. Benjamin Lorr was at one time, if you like, a Bikram Kool-Aid drinker, who went to
Finishing Benjamin Lorr’s Hell-Bent, a Yoga Memoir Read More »
I have been reading Wild by Cheryl Strayed and have found in her a fellow-traveler in more ways than one. Not just someone who felt she had to go somewhere for spiritual exercise — in her case, a 1000-mile trek by herself on foot alone along the spine of the Sierras — but someone who
Going it Alone: Wild by Cheryl Strayed Read More »
To say I was a little bit apprehensive might be an understatement. The source of my fear wasn’t simply all that water, but something else.
Crossing the Seven Mile Bridge with a Range of Emotion Read More »
This is the attraction we came to Key West to see, the Hemingway Museum, Key West. This is a two story bungalow on high ground in the middle of the island. It was the family home of Hem and Pauline Pfeiffer, the woman who stole him from Hadley, and their two sons. Bad Pauline I
Looking for the Writer Within the Life: Hemingway Museum Key West Read More »
If you are planning to visit Hemingway bars where he drank when he lived on Key West, Florida, you have two stops to make. First To Captain Tony’s Captain Tony’s Saloon in Key West is a dark hole with tables, a guitarist, a bar tender and a gnarled tree pushing up through the ceiling like
Key West Bars Hold Fast to Hemingway’s Memory Read More »
We crossed into the Florida panhandle under cover of darkness last night, around 7 p.m. My last clear sight of Alabama — my only clear sight really since I fell asleep in the Expedition’s passenger seat in eastern Louisiana and missed Mississippi entirely — was the Battleship Alabama in Mobile, standing like a ghost to
Crossing into Florida, Land of Dreams Read More »
Today we’re setting off for Florida, and the idea has come to me to visit Key West and the Hemingway museum. Despite the fear of going over the Oversea Highway. When my daughter heard about the idea of driving to Key West she paused. “It’s a little bit of a tough drive,” she said. “Why?”
Braving Fear in order to set out to Key West and the Hemingway Museum Read More »
