It's all in the timing...

Greetings, Colleagues—

Hope you all got lots of Halloween treats (and tricks if applicable) yesterday!  :-)

On a more sober note, I'd like to flag a story on the front page of the Style section in today's Washington Post (11/1/14): "Mourning in America: A New Internet Way of Remembering the Long Departed."   While well worth reading on its own merits, its timing is especially fitting for two reasons.

First, as most of you probably know, Halloween was originally called All Hallows' Eve--literally, the day before All Saints Day, a major feast in the Christian calendar. And that, along with the companion Nov. 2 observance of All Souls (perhaps better known to us as Mexico's "Day of the Dead"), is an occasion to reflect on loved ones we have lost (and, for believers, "the communion of the saints").

Second, and more pertinent to our group: The story is about a site launched just last month—The Recollectors: Remembering Parents Lost to AIDS—which was co-founded by Alysia Abbott, who wrote the memoir we're currently reading:  Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father. While the article is certainly no substitute for the memoir, it gives a good thumbnail sketch of why she wrote it (and, if you'll pardon my tooting my own horn, why I scheduled it for this particular week).

Hope to see you at the Tenleytown Library this Wednesday for that discussion.

Cheers, Steve

Intriguing Sleuthing

Re the upcoming reading, Martin Murray has written a biography of Peter Doyle that required quite a bit of intriguing sleuthing.

Review of a new biography of Tennessee Williams

Can only suffering — and alcohol — produce great literature?

 

The Outsider Art of Tennessee

Lost Stories by Capote Are Published

Thanks to Ernie for altering us to the news and supplying this link.

Diaries Neither Black Nor White

John has asked me to post a link to the webpage he cited during our discussion regarding the authenticity of Roger Casement's "Black" Diaries. The author Sean Murphy argues quite reasonably that whether they are forged or not is still an open question. Read for yourselves and decide!

Alexander Lives!

The Guardian Reading Group dedicated last month to a discussion of Renault's "Alexander Trilogy". There's an interesting post there by Sam Jordison, who also has a blog of his own entirely devoted to Alexander called The Second Achilles.

Diaries and Trains

Some of us wondered why Roger Casement kept his Black Diary. Oscar Wilde had this to say about diaries: "I never travel without my diary.  One should always have something sensational to read in the train." The quote appears in Brian Lacey's informative chapter on Roger Casement in his book Terrible Queer Creatures (Dublin, Wordwell, 2008).