This month, I read some more books by John Graves - I'd checked out everything my local public library had in late April in advance of a presentation about his Goodbye to a River near the end of that month.
The Last Running was a short story originally published in The Atlantic Monthly in June 1959. It was reprinted a number of times thereafter, including as a stand-alone book in 1974 with black-and-white drawings by John Groth. In his annotated bibliography in John Graves and the Making of Goodbye to a River: Selected Letters, 1957-1960 (read in April), Graves describes it as "Cowboys & Indians, spinoff from the digging in regional history that was part of my homecoming to Texas. Possibly the best of my few short stories, certainly the best known of them." Set in 1923, it features the reunion of an old Comanche named Starlight with a Texan named Tom Bird, who pursued him in the late 1860s after a horse raid that resulted in the Comanches murdering a Texan and his wife and two children.
This story, along with excerpts from Goodbye to a River and other selections of Graves' writings, some previously unpublished, were compiled into the 1996 anthology A John Graves Reader. Graves makes it clear in the preface that he often revised the works, both unpublished and previously published, for this anthology. Notes at the end of each of the 22 pieces in the book indicate the provenance. It's hard for me to pinpoint a favorite, but one story that stuck with me was "Fishing the Run' (originally published as "Going Under" in Texas Monthly magazine in March 1981), about a fishing trip on the Brazos not far from his home near Glen Rose (which isn't far from my home) with his 15-year-old youngest daughter, with a scary ending that makes one realize we're all getting older.
The last book by Graves that I checked out was Texas Rivers, published in 2002, with photographs by Wyman Meinzer. This book was a compilation of six articles first published in Texas Parks & Wildlife magazine over about three years, beginning in March 1999. That month's article was on the Canadian River, and in his annotated bibliography in John Graves and the Making of Goodbye to a River: Selected Letters, 1957-1960 (read in April), Graves noted that "this piece was done to large extent out of books and from talking to knowledgeable people, with some field trips. It came out reasonably well." Graves acknowledges the people who helped him in an introduction. The other rivers covered are the Lower Neches, the Pecos, the Clear Fork of the Brazos, the Llano, and the Upper Sabinal. I'm only really familiar with the last two, from trips to the Hill Country. The large photos are quite stunning, especially the double-page bleed spreads. I just wish that some of the photos that were printed quite small had been made larger. There's also a two-page bibliography at the end of the book.
I also realized I had one more book introduced by Graves at home: Landscapes of Texas: Photographs from Texas Highways Magazine, published in 1980. I forgot to make a note of what Graves wrote about this book in the annotated bibliography in the book mentioned above, but I think it was because the book was simply listed, as he wrote a number of introductions for similar books. Entitled "Some Notes on Texas Landscapes," the introduction takes only ten pages in the book - there are 130 pages of photographs, followed by two pages of photo credits. The photos are divided into sections for East Texas, Texas Gulf Coast, West Texas, Panhandle Plains, Central Texas (which is everything not in the other areas, including the Hill Country). I appreciate that every photo has a caption.
The Great Dinosaur Sleepover by Linda Bailey, illustrated by Joe Bluhm
When my son was about two-and-a-half years old, he was obsessed with dinosaurs. Playskool Toys had a line of plastic toys called "Definitely Dinosaurs," some of them distributed by the Wendy's burger chain, and my son had a number of them - and he could remember and pronounce the names, such as Apatosaurus (which was blue).
This book reminded me of those long-ago days. Jake is supposed to have a dinosaur-themed birthday sleepover party - but his guests all get the flu. But in the middle of that night, he awakes to find three dinosaurs - including the difficult-to-pronounce Pachycephalosaurus - watching a "hilarious" dinosaur movie on the downstairs TV. They came for the party!
I didn't realize until reading another review that there's a T. rex hidden on most of the spreads - and a subtle message about not leaving others out of the fun. I disagree with another reviewer who down-starred the book because of the word "gobsmacked." Author Linda Bailey is Canadian. The omniscient narrator uses the word, not any of the characters, and I for one appreciate picture books that introduce a few new vocabulary words to children. It can't be any harder a word than the names of some of the dinosaurs!
This is a great book (with a fun ending) that any dinosaur fan (kid or adult) will love. I can't wait to give it to my great-grandsons.
This is a great book (with a fun ending) that any dinosaur fan (kid or adult) will love. I can't wait to give it to my great-grandsons.
Speak to Me of Home by Jeanine Cummins
This story of three generations of women - Puerto Rican Rafaela Acuña y Daubón Brennan, Ruth Brennan Hayes, and Daisy Hayes - was one I found hard to put down each day (as I do most of my reading in my daily half-hour on an elliptical trainer).
Spanning seven decades (1953-2023) and multiple locations (Puerto Rico; Trinidad; New Jersey, St. Louis, Missouri; and Palisades, New York), the book jumps back and forth in time and place, but the chapter headings signal the reader of both.
Rafaela is the privileged daughter of a government official - until her father is disgraced, and she has to take a job on a USA military base in Trinidad. There she meets her American husband Peter Brennan, and marries him even though her heart belongs to another. They start their family in Puerto Rico, but move to Peter's hometown of St. Louis when their youngest child, Ruth, is seven. Rafaela encounters prejudice there, and her marriage founders.
Ruth goes to college in New Jersey where she also encounters prejudice - but in reverse, from Puerto Rican students. She falls in love with two different men, but ends up marrying an Irishman, Thomas Hayes - who dies when Ruth is 38, with three young children, Vic, Daisy, and Charlie (later Carlos) to raise.
The story begins with Daisy at age 22 in Puerto Rico. She's in an accident in the height of a hurricane, and Ruth and Rafaela need to get to her. That does happen near the end of the book, but first we get all of their compelling backstories.
You also learn a lot about the secondary characters - Rafaela's parents, her sister Lola, the family cook Priti and her son Candido, Peter and Ruth's brother Benny, Thomas and Ruth's other beau Arthur, and Daisy's brothers and cousin Stefani, Benny's daughter. I want to know more about these characters and could see a sequel to Speak to Me of Home some day.
This novel makes me want to visit Puerto Rico. and it makes me want to read more of Jeanine Cummins' books, especially American Dirt.
This novel makes me want to visit Puerto Rico. and it makes me want to read more of Jeanine Cummins' books, especially American Dirt.
