I’m taking it as an auspicious beginning to 2022 that my inability to read a novel and sometimes even finish non-fiction that persisted throughout 2020 and 2021 has possibly ended.
I think I must have found author Cherise Wolas on Instagram through another literary writer, Paul Lisicky. Her “Little Stories” she publishes on her posts are third-person vignettes to accompany the works of photographers and artists she shares there. I highly enjoy them, and they make me think of when I wrote Pet Prose stories on this blog in 2017 (except dogs and cats wrote those stories, right?).
I bought this novel and her other one at Brazos Bookstore in late 2020. Even though I wasn’t reading anything–in fact, it may have been the month I poured a full range of emotions into a short story I was writing–I knew that when I could read again, I wanted the books at hand.
I don’t do book reviews, but The Family Tabor checked off all the right boxes (good writing; smart, layered characters from multiple generations; tension; compelling backstory; complicated family dynamics) to keep me reading. In fact, after I finished the novel, I reread the last three chapters, not because I didn’t understand them, but because I didn’t want to let the story or its characters go.
Looking forward to reading The Resurrection of Joan Ashby sooner rather than later–a promising development in my reading habits.
I think the sign of a good book is when the reader feels a sense of loss on coming to the end of the narrative.
We need more stories!
I have now read THREE NOVELS this year. I’ve already passed last year’s fiction reading. Yay! But now I have to get back to my own stories. I thought about taking the entire month of January off from writing, but my characters are not that patient.