by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Mar 27, 2009 | craft of writing, novels, reviews |
Before and After by Rosellen Brown was published in 1992. I read it in August of 2006 and gave it to everyone I knew for Christmas. It’s about a marriage and a family. It’s narrated in alternating chapters primarily by the husband and wife, Ben and...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Mar 3, 2009 | marriage, reviews |
As I was reading Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates, I felt as if I were looking through a peep-hole into another couple’s marriage. An amazing feat since it’s written in the third person. Listen to the inside of Frank’s head: “Intelligent,...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Jan 26, 2009 | life, reviews, truth |
I made it. Quit my legal career when I was pregnant with child number three and sick, falling more and more behind on everything with each tick of the clock. For whatever reason, there was no voice, from inside me or from anywhere else, encouraging me not to...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Jan 22, 2009 | craft of writing, Dani Shapiro, reviews, time |
Starting with the prologue, in which the narrator calls on the spirit of Vladimir Nabokov, time is everywhere present in Dani Shapiro’s Fugitive Blue. I read the novel in January of last year so time is playing with me and my memory as well. “Nabokov did...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Jan 14, 2009 | reviews |
One of my favorite things about William Faulkner’s Light in August is the language. His use of repetition is soft and alluring and draws the reader in. “He stepped from the dark porch, into the moonlight, and with his bloody head and his empty stomach...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Jan 10, 2009 | essays, reviews |
In 1980 Janet Sternburg wanted answers to the question of why other women write and “how they see their lives and their work.” Thus was born The Writer on Her Work. “It was a first,” writes Julia Alverez in the introduction to the...
