BOOK & BLOG

August 15, 2005

Book of the Week: Jeanne Stein’s The Becoming (Dec. 2004, ImaJinn Books)

Jeanne Stein’s The Becoming is a slim, small-press vampire book with a cover that may not strike your fancy. This is the kind of book I usually avoid, after several unpleasant reading experiences. Since I know Jeanne, I gritted my teeth and read her book. I’m so glad I did. This is a really, really good book. The protagonist, Anna Strong, is a bounty hunter who gets attacked in the course of her job. She wakes up in the hospital, badly beaten and raped; but she soon discovers that’s only the half of the change she underwent during the ordeal, which she doesn’t remember. Anna is a great character, Stein’s plotting is adventurous and original, and I think most of my readers would have a great time with The Becoming. Best of all, Stein is writing a sequel.

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I estimate that I did fifty-five loads of laundry this summer, and that may be my biggest accomplishment. What else did I do? Cooked maybe forty-five meals, ate out way too often, had lots of company – or at least it felt like lots – went to see my mother once or twice, and watched my daughter play lots of softball.

Summer used to be a separate entity. My schedule changed, my pastimes changed, my goals changed. Now summer is busier than Fall.

We’re taking some German guests to New Orleans for the weekend, and I wonder what they’ll make of it. They’ve been surprised several times in the past week by things I never anticipated. Turns out they imagined Arkansas would have a desert landscape (not). They’d never seen a raccoon . . . or a lizard. They are far too polite to tell what is missing that they are used to, so I’ll never know, and maybe that’s for the best. My middle son, who’d stayed with this family when he visited Germany, informed me the morning they were due that their house had been spotlessly clean. In all honesty, even if he’d told me weeks ago, I doubt our house could have matched that standard. “Reasonable” is all I aspire to, and that’s hard enough to achieve with teenagers wandering in and out, and three dogs in residence.

On the writing front, I managed to finish DEFINITELY DEAD, and to amend it when my editor sent me some suggested changes. I went over the page proofs of GRAVE SIGHT, and I should hold the printed product in my hand very soon. I tentatively began the next Harper.

None of this seems like much to show for the summer. Maybe I was unrealistic? Now, if the Fall just turns out like I planned . . .