Edgy Mama

I admitted in one of my comment threads last week that I finished After Dark by Haruki Murakami a few weeks ago, and I liked it, but I just don’t know what to write about it. When I was an English Lit grad student, I would’ve come up with some erudite, though slightly righteous, analysis. Nowadays, I’m less concerned with being a lit crit and more concerned with finding the time to read great books.

After Dark is an extremely well-written and sometimes mesmerizing novel. I don’t think it’s for everyone, though. In fact, the whole magical realism sections of the book, where some gorgeous Sleeping Beauty character and her bed get sucked through the TV screen, just didn’t do it for me.

The primary story, tracing the hours of a night in a number of intriguing characters’ lives as their paths accidentally crossed, was pretty damn cool. The problem is that I wanted more. The novel ends, appropriately, as the sun is rising, but damn, I felt invested in these characters by then and felt like I got left hanging. As they say in writing circles, the author didn’t complete his contract with me, the reader.

So, after After Dark, I skidded off into the world of escapist fiction. I read Tess Gerritsen’s The Mephisto Club,and Michael Connelly’s The Echo Project, (both are out in paperback). Both of these writers fulfilled their contracts with me and gave me satisfying stories. However, both books are a bit like a peppermint candy–sweet, minty, satisfying, but the taste fades after a while, until only the barest scent of spice remains.

Right now, at this very moment, I’m reading Steve Almond’s new book, Rants, Exploits, and Obsessions (Not that You Asked). Somewhere in the distant past of this bloggie, I wrote a love letter to Steven’ Almond’s nonfiction masterpiece, Candy Freak. Since then, I’ve followed Steve closely. His short story collection, The Evil B.B. Chow, rocked my soul–made me laugh, made me happy, made me mad, made me want to chew on Steve Almond’s toes in gratitude.

This new book, a memoirish collection, makes me want to be Steve Almond, except still be me. I sit there, reading this book, thinking, “Wait, I can do this too. I do do this too already. I’m writing humorous little stories about my parenting life.” Then, I notice some particularly brilliant little line or twist or effing-hilarious riff, and I think, “I suck. I can’t do this. I can’t believe I’d even consider comparing myself to this guy. Mountain Xpress should fire my inarticulate heiney.”

For some reason, I seem to enjoy putting myself on this roller coaster.

I also read Steve’s blog on Babble. Babble, for the most part, tries to be an edgy on-line parenting mag, but really, like a lot of these sites, is more a vehicle for selling over-priced baby gear than promoting writers with rocking parenting stories. But they do have Steve. And you can bypass the “you must have this stroller that unfolds into a Corvette when your kid turns 16″ ads masquerading as stories and go straight to Steve. Mostly, he writes about how much he adores his baby girl, Josephine. And she’s pretty darn cute. He writes about the slavering devotion of Daddyhood, well, slaveringly.

So, what are y’all reading and what do ya think?

I’m still amazed that my eight-year-old can read. I mean really read, like books and stuff. She didn’t want me to pick her up at school today because she likes to read her chapter books on the bus as opposed to having to sit captive in the Mommy van while I pester her with questions about her day. Imagine that.

Anyway, I’ve been re-editing one of my short stories for submission. It’s a story I started writing about a year ago, and only now am I feeling somewhat confident about sending it out into the big, mean world of short story journals and magazines.

The story revolves around the relationship between a couple who are getting divorced because the husband is undergoing gender reassignment. I have a lifelong friend who did GR a couple years ago, so I know more than the average cat about this subject, although the story is NOT based on my friend. That said, this friend went from being my girl’s godfather to being her godmother, which was a bit confusing for the child. Although I think, for the most part, my girl’s forgotten “she” was ever a “he.”

So, I printed the story out for a final proofing, as sometimes I have to see it all on paper as opposed to on the computer screen. I did one editing pass, then left it on the dining room table, where I knew I’d see it later and, hopefully, be moved to do a second pass.

The dining room table is command central in our home. We have one room that is both kitchen and dining room. Everything gets tossed on that table. My girl does her homework there. My boy colors there. I do a lot of work there, especially phone calls. E-spouse, well, he eats there. But the three of us who spend the most time in the house pretty much live around that table. That said, I don’t know why I was surprised when I came downstairs and saw that my girl was reading the story that I’d haphazardly left there.

Gently, I wrested it from her grasp. She hadn’t read much, but already had lots of questions. Is the little girl in the story me? Why is the Daddy wearing a dress? Why are the parents mad at each other?

Got to give her credit for reading comprehension. She’s going to smoke the verbal SATs one day.

Luckily, this was not one of my more erotic stories. But now I’ve learned that, not only do I need to be careful about Internet surfing (she can read my computer screen from halfway across the room), but I need to think about what other reading material might be floating around command central.

The girl has asked me several times when she can read my horror/thriller novel, “Storm Mountain” (now out of print–sorry, dudes). I’ve told her she can read it when she’s 16. Though I imagine I’ll find a copy hidden under her pillow when she’s 10 or 11.

In the meantime, I told her she CAN read ALL of Mommy’s newspaper articles. I’m sure she’s thrilled about that opportunity.

So do y’all censor your kids’ reading material? On the web or in print or both? What if it’s written by you? And I’m not talking dirty love letters. Although I guess I’d better hide those, too.