Book Review
Sixteen seconds is a very long time.  Time it yourself.

On July 5, 1970, an Air Canada flight crashed with 109 passengers on board.  For sixteen seconds of that flight, the passengers knew that they were going to crash.  There were no survivors.  Ms. Fishman's mother, Rita, and two younger sisters, Carla and Wendy, were on that flight.  In that moment, it became just her and her father, when once they were a family of five.

The author contacted me last month and inquired if I'd be interested in reading her book. After reviewing the website for her self-published memoir Repairing Rainbows, I was worried about the responsibility of reading such an important topic and reviewing it.

But, I shouldn't have worried.  Although it is an incredibly tough topic, the book is written easily and as though it's being told in conversation.  It establishes quickly the close-knit family that they once were. Even the dedication page pulled me in. Dedicated to her mother and two younger sisters, it lists each of their dates of birth and dates of passing of July 5, 1970. But for her father, there is something unique that intrigued me - his date of birth is listed, but there are two dates to signify his passing. One for the date of the horrific crash taking more than half his family in one moment, and the second for the date of when he actually passed 29 years later.

The author had essentially lost her entire family on the day of that crash.  As she phrased it, "officially" losing her mother and two sisters, and "unofficially" losing her father.  The story is one that captures her growth from the young girl on "that day," into who she is now, and the steps she needed to take in order to live.  She didn't want to simply exist, and nor would her mother and little sisters wanted that.  I also think that even though she felt the presence of her loved ones in simple and small things that surrounded her in her day-to-day life, her littlest sister, Wendy, probably would have been the most adamant and made her presence known even more had the author not taken the steps move forward in her life -- what a personality in Wendy!  But her father became broken, struggling and only existing.  His decisions were not ones that he would have made before, and the author is open and honest in her frustrations.

I went through the entire range of emotions throughout this book -- shock and numbness when the news was relayed, the complete horror and despair at the sounds of sadness and misery emitting from her broken father, to anger at Air Canada for their complete lack of sensitivity for the families of the victims.

And then I found something else I kept asking.  How can a book about such a tragic event in history that affected so many people's lives be such an incredibly hopeful story about life with a powerful message?  I anticipated feeling the sadness and frustration on what happened, but this book is about so much more than tragedy -- there is family, love, hope, and most especially, choice.  That decision to simply exist or to actually live life.  While her father couldn't move past that terrible day, she did so that she could establish her own place, to continue the legacy of her mother and two younger sisters with her own family and with her husband who has his own amazing story to share.  This is a powerful reminder to enjoy all of our own distinct places in life -- and how we can either choose to live it, or we can simply choose to have life pass us by.  I am incredibly grateful that I had a chance to read this, and feel privileged to be able to share with you an interview with the author.

Author Interview

Lynda Fishman is a trained clinical social worker who has spent the last 20 years as a camp director and runs her own day camp, Adventure Valley.  She has published articles and training manuals on leadership, teamwork, bullying, trust, childhood heath and wellness, communication and customer service.  This is her first full length book.

Q- What made you truly decide to write this in November 2008? You had already been contacted by another author, but you wanted to tell your story yourself. What was it that finally made you decide that the time to tell this story was now?

A- Our family business (summer day camp) was finally on solid ground, and for the first time in my adult life, I really didn’t have anything pressing to do. For me, too much time to “think” can be emotionally risky. I also know that I thrive on being busy. In fact, I believe that the greatest gift we can give to ourselves is a project or activity that keeps us busy and is pleasurable at the same time. As soon as I realized that I had plenty of free time, I decided to start writing the book that I had written over and over again in my head for so many years.

Q- Next to family, clearly, you have devoted your life through your day camp to help others, and this is your life’s passion. As a clinical social worker with twenty years of experience, are you interested in, or have you already done counseling work for the families of airplane crash victims or any other catastrophes?

A- Running a large summer camp has given me the chance to meet and get to know an enormous number of individuals and families. I have never worked with any families of plane crash victims, but in my role as a camp director, I’ve had the opportunity to provide support and counselling to many people struggling with a wide range of issues, loss, trauma or crisis.

Q- You’re very open to the signs that people talk about receiving and feeling from their loved ones who have passed on, and you have also experienced this yourself. The skeptics are always out there -- being a clinical social worker, how do you distinguish between actually seeing signs from loved ones, to simply wanting to see something?

A- Having combined my clinical training with my life experience and spirituality, I believe that we can and should choose HOW to look at any situation, no matter what it is. We can choose thoughts that are inspiring and empowering – thoughts that make us feel good. We can think about ways to persevere and overcome, or we can become victims. We can think about our life as a gift, or we can view it as a punishment. We can go through life with determination and zest, or drag ourselves through every day as if we are tied to a ball and chain.

I choose to look at life through rose-colored glasses. For me, that means I choose to take a favourable view, even if I have to grasp at straws to find a glimmer of positivity. I will find a way to focus on the positives, look at the bright side, expect the best, and somehow remain optimistic.

I choose hope instead of despair.

I choose acceptance as opposed to judgment or rejection.

Forgiveness feels much better than holding a grudge.

Recognizing opportunities to learn and grow outweighs the burden of guilt and regret.

Truth and honesty are way easier than lies.

I choose gratitude and appreciation rather than greed and jealousy.

I choose happiness for others, instead of envy.

I much prefer being upbeat and joyful, compared to down and miserable.

I choose to smile.

I choose to laugh.

I choose to live.

Looking back and reflecting on that time as a thirteen year old, when my whole life came to a disastrous halt, I now understand and fully believe in the power of choosing our thoughts. After losing my mother and two little sisters in a plane crash, I was able to move forward, taking baby steps, because I chose hope. I refused to give up. I replaced fear and panic with hope and dreams. I never let go of my trust and faith in the future. I found positive things to focus on. I avoided miserable people. I admired the colours of flowers, trees, birds and rainbows.

I really listened to songs, finding words and messages that were happy and meaningful. I watched movies with happy endings, and read feel-good books.

I spent time around animals noticing their joy and appreciation for everything – a walk in the park, the chance to play, a bowl of kibble.

I don’t live in a dream world. I am not naïve. I’ve enjoyed tremendous personal and professional success. The life lessons I share come from well earned experience. And I do live by the words in Carole King’s song, Beautiful:

You've got to get up every morning

With a smile on your face
And show the world, all the love in your heart
Then people gonna treat you better
You're gonna find, yes you will
That you're beautiful as you feel

Q- Do you feel that airlines today have changed from their approach to sensitivity in dealing with the families of victims then they were forty years ago?

A- I believe that nowadays, media and technology have empowered individuals, so that big companies have to be very careful about how they deal with people, particularly in crisis situations. There is finally a zero tolerance for bullying. The airline industry now uses PR firms to guide them in doing whatever they have to do to appear compassionate and caring in their responses.  

Q- Have you had any responses of your book by Air Canada?

A- One of the senior executives of Air Canada ordered the book from the Repairing Rainbows website in early July and had it shipped to his home. However, I have never heard from him or from any executive at Air Canada. I have received numerous “confidential” emails from Air Canada flight attendants, ground employees and even a few pilots, with consistently compassionate and supportive messages.

Visit the author's site at Repairing Rainbows. 

Happy reading,
Coffee and a Book Chick

Book Review
I read the first few pages and I was suddenly afraid.  Afraid to put this down even for a quick break because it deserved my complete focus on it, each tortured character demanding that I listen to their voice, their story.  I didn't want to miss a thing, no matter whether disturbing or unsettling, and I certainly didn't want to forget a single moment that the characters experienced.

I received The Gin Closet from the author, Leslie Jamison, and am upset that I couldn't read it sooner than when I first received it.  I was trapped within so many commitments, both in my professional and personal life, that it wasn't until this week that I could devote the time it truly warranted.  I was flying out to Minneapolis for a meeting, and the author's copy came along for the flight.

The book is told from two perspectives in the first person:  Stella and Tilly.  Stella is the daughter of a high-powered immigration lawyer, Dora, and the granddaughter of Lucy, who in her ailing years reveals a secret that no one has talked about.  There is another, a daughter of Lucy's that has never been spoken of.  Stella, broken though she may be, is determined to find this aunt, someone named Matilda who goes by Tilly.  When she finds her, Tilly is surrounded by empty bottles of gin in a run-down trailer in the middle of the desert.  But it's something that Stella can grasp onto in the mired sadness of her life -- again, maybe someone she can try to help.  She convinces Tilly that they should pack everything up, get her dry and sober on the trip, and move together to San Francisco, where Tilly's son is a rich banker with plenty of space in his home, and plenty of his own quiet grief to share. Stella and Tilly really almost are the same person, their experiences painfully different and similar all at the same time.  Is that possible?  It almost felt like I was reading a song:

It was a closet, not the bedroom.  I could see dim shapes:  bottles glinting on the floor and the ghostly ribs of a turkey carcass. There was a small stool tucked into the corner.  I could pick out flies buzzing in the blackness.  The mess rotted quietly, like a festering wound.  I pulled a chord.  A naked bulb sparked dirty light into the dark, showing an inflatable mattress covered with plastic bottles:  empty handles of gin, too many to count.  The air reeked like a drunk's breath.  There was a pink blanket bunched into one corner, the kind of candy shade a child might choose. (p. 94)

I felt guilty as I read this book -- each character's troubled story touched me and I felt ashamed that I was enjoying reading about their terrible miseries, rooting though I may have been for them to overcome their tragedies.

This is a story of grief, sadness, isolation.  There were scenes that were uncomfortable and troubling but they were real, completely authentic and believable to each character, and I never felt tricked into any part of this story -- I was a willing reader who wanted a happy ending, but instead I got life's truth.  Leslie Jamison's debut will render you speechless and amazed, and leave you thinking about it for days.

Please read this. Visit Leslie Jamison's site by clicking here.

Author Interview

I was so excited that Leslie Jamison was not only kind enough to do an e-interview, but also to answer the questions so quickly in time for today’s post (I sent my questions to her last night and I received a response this morning!).  Take a look through the below Q&A -- it was an absolute pleasure to read this book and interact with the author:

1.  This is such a beautifully crafted story.  Every writer always says that they've written since they were a kid, but when do you feel that you felt more comfortable with writing, when the words on the page felt like they were honest and true?

When I graduated from my MFA program in 2006, I was working on a novel that wasn't anything like this one. It was totally concept-driven, about a strange social reality museum, a bit low on the plot, and (I'm not sure what this means) full of male characters. In any case, I never felt at home in its world. I always felt as if I were forcing or twisting emotions into existence on the page. I was working long hours at desk jobs in New York and feeling bitter about it. Then I moved to LA to begin taking care of my grandmother, who was dying, and found I couldn't keep writing that first novel anymore. I just couldn't. There was no energy or inspiration left; the will to write it had dissolved because the book didn't feel important enough. I started writing scenes from my own life instead, without any sense of where they were headed--scenes of caretaking and familial strife and reconnection--and these launched the book on its path. I don't say this because I think that powerful writing has to come from real life, but because I do feel it needs (for me, at least) to flow from an emotional vein that feels urgent. And I think it was important I wrote those early scenes without a clear sense of the larger whole they would fit inside of. I didn't have ambitions for them, I just wanted to get them down.

 2.  Who do you feel helped to shape you and your writing?

Some of the writers who've been most important to me: William Faulkner, Virginia Woolf, Richard Yates, Mary Gaitskill, Cormac McCarthy, Marilynne Robinson, Charlie D'Ambrosio. But it's my mother who has shaped most deeply the way I try to imagine the lives of other people. She's informed, more than anyone else, my sense of what empathy might look like--the forms it might take--and I want my writing to be an extension of that. I think it has to be.

3.  What contemporary authors do you feel maintain that authentic storytelling, regardless of how disturbing or unsettling an image may be?

Cormac McCarthy and Richard Yates are really great examples of what it means to maintain authenticity in telling violent stories. McCarthy's are often literally violent--the frontier of Blood Meridian or the post-apocalyptic ravages of The Road--while Yates offers domestic landscapes so withering in their emotional dysfunction you get the feeling of carnage. In both authors'  work, I often find myself hungering to turn away, unsure whether I want to bear another moment of someone's suffering---but I trust, at all moments, that I'm being a told a story whose end I won't regret arriving at. This trust glosses the unnerving moments with faith--not that there will be a happy ending, but a sadness worthy of attention.

4.  There are so many social issues in the story from anorexia to alcoholism -- how did you know which issue should be associated with a character?

This is a great question; I feel like it gets at the heart of the book. I thought of the species of disorder in the book--anorexia, addiction, sexuality--not as "social issues" to be attached to characters, but as expressions of selfhood that found their origins in consciousness. So they began inside each character, but found their rhymes--clearly, painfully--across the other characters with whom they shared the unhappy little domestic sphere of the novel. The realm of the body becomes an essential vocabulary for suffering in the book, and this notion—the body as language, as visceral utterance—is what connects many of the novel’s disparate “issues” in my mind: suicide and alcohol and anorexia. These women articulate pain by starving or drinking or selling themselves. I wanted to look at their physical damage as a kind of self-inflicted alchemy—something that could turn unseen despair into visible communication—and one of the biggest emotional challenges for me, as a writer, was to empathize with these self-destructive impulses without glorifying them. 

5.  What is it about us as people that you feel makes it difficult to be close to each other?

A big question; not sure it's one I'm qualified to answer! But of course I'll go ahead and say something anyway. I think that there's an intense feeling of inadequacy that makes it hard for many of my characters (let's stick to them, for now) to love as they'd like to love---the inadequacy feeds a hunger for love that can't ever be fully satisfied, and this desperate seeking of love sometimes distracts from giving it. Of course the two are always intertwined: loving, and wanting to be loved. What am I saying here? I suppose that the trick is to find a balance that gives more than it takes.

6.  What's next for you?

I am working on a novel about the 1979 Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua.

Note from Coffee and a Book Chick
I'd like to personally thank Leslie Jamison for being so engaged with the book blogging community -- I love it when an author is personally involved with their work and you get a feel that their involvement with all of us is more than just something that they "have to do."  Many, many thanks.

INTERNATIONAL GIVEAWAY

I’m excited to offer this book up internationally -- to enter, simply leave a comment to this post and also include your email address.  You don’t have to be a follower of my blog, but as I always say, I love feeling the love.

Random.org will pick the winner and I’ll ship out the book to you no matter if you’re in the US, Canada, or overseas -- I really want this book to go into a true book-lover’s hands.  Winner announced next Thursday, allowing one full week for participants to enter in to receive this copy.

Happy Reading,

Coffee and a Book Chick

I requested to review Anna Quindlen's Every Last One for the Crazy Book Tours with a little bit of hesitation -- I wasn't sure how I would feel about this book since I was one of the few people who wasn't the biggest fan for Quindlen's very popular book, Rise and Shine.  I know, I know.  I was one of "them."

Last weekend, I was on another flight coming back from Boston and I had just finished Raven Stole the Moon.  I closed that book on the flight and thank goodness, I had Every Last One in my carry-on bag.  Most of you all know that I cannot stand being on a plane when I've finished a book and then I'm stuck in the air with nothing to do but deal with all the "Bobs" out there.

In this recent Quindlen release, Mary Beth Latham is married with 3 children and lives in the suburbs.  Her husband is an optometrist and Mary Beth owns her own landscaping business, and although a bit flawed, life is, for the most part, good.  Ruby, her oldest daughter is going to go off to college soon, and her twin boys have just entered high school -- Alex is incredibly athletic and popular, and Max is musically-inclined and a loner.  Their house in the neighborhood is beautiful.  They have two cars.  They have a dog.  Life is...fine.

I opened up Every Last One and the first 100 pages threw me a bit for a loop -- I was drawn into it, but I just couldn't figure out why.  Mary Beth's voice was so removed, almost like she was looking at her life through a camera and filming it -- distant, sad, disconnected.  Usually something like this would frustrate me, but I couldn't stop reading it.

And then the last half of the book happened, and I will not give one hint away.  It's good.  It's really, really good.  I couldn't read certain pages without tearing up or my throat closing over, and I shuddered and gasped at everything.  I cannot in good conscience give a thing away.

Anna Quindlen has written with such an effortless manner to leave you completely stunned.  With cunning ease, she has drawn you into the lives of one family in one town.  And how quickly any one of us could be them.

Do not pass by this one.  Pick it up.  Drink it in.  Hug your family.

Happy Reading!

Coffee and a Book Chick

I'm thinking about a very good friend of mine who lost her wonderful father this weekend.  This post is dedicated to him, and to all those who leave too early, including my mother.

I fell asleep on the floor in my mother's sewing room the night before her memorial.  Sometime during the night, as I crafted the words to speak at her service, I must have rested my head on the pillow I had placed on the floor, vaguely hearing the rumblings of family and neighbors preparing for the next day.  When I woke up early the next morning, I couldn't see, and I pushed myself up, slow panic creeping over me as I ran my fingers over the carpet, searching for my glasses.  Somehow, they must have fallen off, and I didn't want to stand and then step on them.  Frustrated, unable to locate my glasses, I sat up, squinting my eyes and turning my head, hoping that I'd be able to visualize an outline of them reflecting from the morning sunlight.  Nothing.


My mother passed away at 7:43 in the morning on Mother's Day, 2004.  The drive back to Baltimore that day seemed unreal, passing by street vendor after street vendor selling red roses for the day.  Sun was bright.  Car was stifling.  Sleep was behind my eyes after driving 6 hours with my sister to get to my mother and be with her one last time.


A quick question crept through my subconscious that morning of the memorial, how will I read my eulogy without my glasses?  I put my hands flat on either side of me, determined to push myself up and find them, when my left hand slid slightly beneath the stuffed chair, and my fingers brushed over something metallic.  I drew my hand back, then slowly ran my hands, feeling the familiarity and the relief of my glasses.  Neatly folded, placed underneath the stuffed chair, out of reach of my clumsy feet clomping all over the room, which I tend to do when I just wake up.  I probably put them there, sometime in the middle of my sleep-induced tears and crumpling of paper.  I must have.  I must have slipped them off, folded them up properly and made sure to stick them the furthest place under the chair that I possibly could.  I must have.  My mother certainly couldn't have helped guide me to put them away, just as she always had as I was growing up...

So shortly after my mother passed away, though, I was doubting, then believing everything.  During her time in the hospital, after she succumbed from one infection to another following a successful heart transplant, I began to wonder if maybe I was beginning to get a little loopy, or if I was starting to really and actually...believe the things I secretly always thought were usually a part of..fiction.  I wondered if it was the hospital drugs that made my mother somehow sense a little girl by her bed who caressed her hand and tell her she would be okay.  And was it a sleepy morning dream when an old man told my mother things weren't ready just yet?  Both times, It was only me in the room, in the uncomfortable hospital chair by her bed.  Maybe, was it possible, that she was...in between?  I didn't dare acknowledge it, didn't dare speak it, even though it crept up my back and tingled at the back of my neck.  My sister was much more accepting of this, but I was simply afraid.  In between our world, and the next.  I was mad, too, feeling injustice at how young she was, at only sixty short years.  What I do know now, and remember with a sharp intensity, was what everything felt like at that time and for that first year after she passed, which seemed to prick my inner compass when I least expected it, to remind me more assuredly to believe that there was something...afterwards.


It could just be coincidence that different radio stations began to play one specific song that was reminding me of my mother.  Weird, though, since the song was more than a few years old, and no longer really popular.  Maybe it's coincidence that I started to notice things more because I was so sensitive, or to sound kooky, could I be so sensitive now and in tune to an afterlife because someone I loved had just left?

The book, Final Gifts, helped me after she left.  Written by two hospice nurses, Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley, who began to see a trend in their patients who were getting closer and closer to leaving this life to go the next, they found a startling consistency.  Patients oftentimes began to experience and see things that no one else in the room would see, and they believed that they would ultimately make the choice of when they would move on.  Doctors would write it off to the multitude and variety of drugs coursing through the patient's body, but these two women with 20 yeas of experience, felt that they were bearing witness to something different.  Through them, I began to understand how my mother expressed her comfort and her hope in those beautiful moments when she was walking between two worlds.  My faith in this reassured me and helped me to understand all of the undoubtedly weird, unnerving, and most definitely fun, moments when I knew that my mother was with me, and I knew that she was communicating with me.  I felt comforted by this and each page reminded me that no matter how terrible the moment is when your loved one leaves, they unquestionably pass to a different world, where pain isn't felt, and they have left behind their heavy and sick bodies to move into a world that is full with peace.


Remember everything around you when your loved one passes.  Do everything you can to remember the dreams that you have, write them down to help you always remember.  This is their way to communicate, to tell you that they are good, all is well.  When my mother's best friend, Sonia, was in a hospice three years later, my sister and I sat by her bed, the room suddenly became unnaturally quiet.  Throughout the quiet of the still room, the small radio by the bed somehow seemed to be getting just a little bit louder, unseen fingers gently turning the knob.  My mother's song began to play in that room at that exact time.  I don't believe at all in coincidence. She was there, in that room, readying her best friend for the journey to the next world.

I have only slipped away into the next room, I am I and you are you.  Whatever we were to each other, that we still are.  Call me by my old familiar name.  Speak to me in the easy way which you always used.  Play, smile, think of me. All is well. ~Henry Scott Holland

Dedicated to all who have passed and to all who remain to remember the journey.

Please visit www.graceprotzman.com or www.digitalgraces.com for artistic images.