I was born in 1957, the oldest of what would turn out to be five of us, and my mother needed help. In those days, she referred to Fanny as a maid. These days, I use the word housekeeper. But in the way that household help often is, Fanny was so much more. My favorite memory is our sitting on bar stools in the kitchen in 1966 waiting to find out if I would have a fourth sister or finally a brother.

In Maids, Abby Frucht‘s enchanting slim volume of 87 pages, we meet Ida and Della and Cynthia, and our childhood. From bullfrogs to brooms, from The Grenadines to Finland, from twin beds to the color of our skin, from then into the future and back again. The epigraph by Geoff Manaugh reads, “Every landscape reveals more of itself as you search it.”

This book is described on the back as being “in poetic form,” but I have to say I never once thought poems. Perhaps it’s the prose writer in me, but Maids reads (and I’m not alone here) like a collection of linked stories.

Whatever you call it, the short pieces, long sentences, and lack of commas were a masterful choice, conjuring a different place and time–the blur of childhood and the haze of young adulthood. The lack of commas in particular slowed my reading, often causing me to reread a sentence, after which I’d come away with a jolt of meaning I’d missed the first time around.

[C]ommas bug her because they cause a divide between halves of a thought parts of a recollection…”

In this excerpt from “What Is/Was Her Name Again The Pretty Maid From Finland,” note how the lack of commas contributes to that feeling of wait a minute, is she saying what I think she’s saying.

For instance once Aunt Stella said but when I got back to the telephone the caller was gone. Of course he didn’t say he was he wouldn’t why would he but I could tell by the sound of his voice he was by how he sounded when he asked is the house still available he was but all I said was excuse me for just one minute I need to get this same meatloaf we’re eating out of the oven but when I got back he’d fled he had hung up the phone he was extremely polite he was very well spoken I felt/feel lousy about it except I have to imagine it’s best for the neighbors.

Abby uses details to conjure people. From “Mirrors,” “the bottle of Windex she carries and the dangling rag.” And details to conjure time periods. From “Sheets,” “Swanson’s foil trays.” She uses repetition of themes and threads and language–all of which contribute to the cohesiveness of this book but more than that they create the feel of those mysteries that start in childhood and linger into adulthood and even now make us wonder. From “Occasionally,” “Also is it wrong to hope to imagine Cynthia’s feelings?”

I will leave you with this line from “Broom,” where the puppy Truman is watching the nightly sweeping. “It’s the thing he believes she is tussling with not the thought behind the spine of it…” The end of this story is pure delight.

Thumbs up. Maids out today from Matter Press.

How We Spend Our Days: Abby Frucht

What do you notice when you’re out walking?

I’ve been staying in the Barnhouse, in the rectangular-shaped Playroom with a circular window and stairs to a little square room with windows on all sides (a cupola). I lugged a small table up there and have been working like crazy to finish my novel–reading pages aloud and tossing them over the rail as I was done with them. One last quick read and off it goes.

We help ourselves to a stocked kitchen whenever it bests suits our schedule, and an amazing dinner is served family-style every night at 6:30.

I’ve taken breaks to walk–in the fifty acres of prairie and through town to Lake Michigan. (Of course, I took a break to watch the election–way to go, America!) I’ve met wonderful writers, musicians, visual artists. And I keep my windows open at night so I can hear the trains–their rumbles and whistles.

In each of the rooms is a stack of notebooks with messages from past residents written the night before departure–tomorrow night I’ll add my own.

*More photos of Ragdale from when I visited last March.

Christine Schutt

On structure echoing content:

Nothing then, nothing held its shape but blew away.  (52)

Dear Alice, you don’t have to tell the whole story. (79)

On the structure:

4 parts with 52 short sections, like memories (each titled for the subject of the memory)

• 17 in part I
• 12 in part II
• 9 in part III
• 14 in part IV

Polly Thayer's portrait of May Sarton owned by the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University

There is nothing to be done but go ahead with life moment by moment and hour by hour–put out birdseed, tidy the rooms, try to create order and peace around me even if I cannot achieve it inside me.

As the last days of summer float by, I feel like I’m swimming upstream against them, periodically climbing onto the river bank to put out the next fire. I don’t really think that’s what May Sarton meant by going “ahead with life moment by moment.” And, unfortunately, I’m not even in the same universe with putting out birdseed and tidying rooms. How can I have so much to do?

I’ve been printing blank weekly calendars from the internet and making lists, thinking about the best way to shape the mornings, afternoons, and evenings. On one of my lists from yesterday was “schedule time for reading.” You’ve got to be kidding, I say to my list. It’s come to this?

“That was what I was after–a daily rhythm, a kind of fugue of poetry, gardening, sleeping and waking in the house.”

I like fugue for its sense of interweaving of parts, for its writerly rhythm.

But at the moment I’m not sure fugue is going to get it done. In fact, what I need is a general to command the troops, to whip all these to-dos into shape. And less sleep. Maybe if I get up an hour earlier…

Just so you know, Eleanor Marie Sarton was born in Belgium in 1912. All of her quotes in this post can be found in  Journal of a Solitude, published in 1973.

How about the rest of you–how are your summers going?

and where I returned each of the eleven nights…

Winter 2011: Issue 15: Fiction this issue by Andrew Scott. Poetry by Jasmine V. Bailey and Mike Puican.

Tiny post. 

It’s kind of weird that the blog looks different depending on what you’re looking at it. Maybe it’s like the difference between paperback and hardback. What do you think?

In the past week, several different readers have commented that either they didn’t know there was a list of all the writers in the How We Spend Our Days series or that they didn’t know what I was talking about when I said an article was mentioned on the Updates page. So put your feet up and enjoy the Delta Rhythm Boys as you read about the 4 blog bones: the header with tabs is connected to the blog feed is connected to the right sidebar is connected to the footer….Did you know there are…

9 tabs currently on the header: home, about me, about blog, how we spend our days, my writing, reading list, literary journals, update, and click here. Sometimes you might notice a new tab that corresponds to a new interest or current obsession. If you hold your cursor over a tab on the header–for example, on tab #4 How We Spend Our Days, you’ll see that you have options to click on 1) how we spend our days, 2) past writers in the series, or 3) next writer in the series. Each one of these is a separate page.

Home is the feed of posts with the most current one at the top. About me and about blog –obvious    : )

How We Spend Our Days is the feed of all the posts in this series that posts on the first of the month. On the past writers page, there’s a complete list in chronological order of all the writers in this series. On the 8th of each month, I announce the next writer in the series on that page.

My writing is updated as something new is published. You can either see all categories at one go on the first page or go straight to the essays page, for example.

The reading list tab shows the on-going list of the books I’ve read, starting back in January of 2008, with links to a post if I’ve written one about the book. There’s also a page that shows the book I’m currently reading.

There are four pages for literary journals: general, current, some cool covers, and the One Story thank you to my commenters page. I update these pages when I have a free minute.

On the Update page, I list interesting articles about writing or the writers who’ve appeared on the blog, or new writers I’m interested in. I often list awards. This is an informational page, and you can tell just from the tab the last time I’ve updated it.

Finally, the click here page, which is the list of blogs I like to read. I’m also trying something new at the moment, which is to feature one of my favorite blogs for a month, hoping that you have time to visit that site.

On the footer, which is at the bottom of the blog feed, I have a few little odds and ends, such as a link to Facebook.

On the right sidebar, there’s the calendar that highlights the days I’ve posted. You can also hit the arrows and go to past months. Then a brief description of the blog, lists of my most recent writing on the web, a list of some of my and your favorite posts, another place to see what book I’m currently reading, blog stats, my most recent tweets (and how to find me on twitter), the very important SEARCH BOX in case you want to find out if I’ve ever posted on a book you’re thinking about reading or a writer you’d like to know more about. Then the list of categories, which is TOO LONG. I know. My next project. But even though I’ve only written two posts on William Faulkner, how can I not have his name there??? And finally, yes finally, the archives, where you can click on a month to see the posts from way back then.

So there you go. Have fun and thanks for reading!