Dear Edward

It would be reassuring to know my circuitous journey with Ann Napolitano's 2020 novel Dear Edward sounds even marginally similar to a journey one or more of you have had in your life with a book. If that's the case, please make a comment here or otherwise reach out to me. The story of my journey with this book will make this post longer than my norm. I hope you'll indulge me. 

June 2: I'm drawn in immediately by the intriguing epigraph, then fully immersed for over 100 pages. I stop reading just before Act Two begins, although the book's three act structure is not clear to me until my subsequent sittings on June 3 -5. (Important: As has been my practice for over sixteen years, before starting, I'd read no reviews of the book and purposefully avoided even glancing at the book jacket or reading the blurbs on the front or back cover. My intent since beginning this new-to-me practice in 2010: To enter every reading experience as a tabula rasa so that my opinion of what I read is - as near as is possible - entirely my own.)

June 3-5: The masterful way Napolitano executes the central conceit of her book - toggling between a flight from Newark to LAX vs. Edward's life from twelve-sixteen - captivates and propels me through all three acts over four consecutive reading days. The author's muscular but unshowy prose prompts me to copy numerous passages. Particularly poignant are the "Dear Edward" letters that Edward's uncle had been hiding from him, letters that Edward discovers about halfway through the book, thanks to help he gets from his friend and next-door neighbor Shay. As I finish the book on June 5, I'm uncertain about the epilogue. I decide to postpone writing an entry in my book journal or publishing a blog post about the novel until I'm closer to deciding how the epilogue has landed with me. In the meanwhile, I give it the highest possible rating on Goodreads, i.e., five stars. 

Early a.m., June 12: Still unsure about the epilogue, I begin - but don't complete - my book journal entry. A few excerpts = "...a moving and straightforward novel; one of the best of its type I've finished in a while...", "...I was riveted without exception...", "...excellent...".

Later a.m., June 12: Book in hand, I attend a meeting and unexpectedly run into a friend whose taste in literature I hold in high esteem. I mention having recently finished Dear Edward and ask if she's read it; she says no. But her unfiltered flip dismissal catches me off guard. "A book club book, mainstream". The plot now thickens a little. Given my lingering uncertainty about the epilogue, I start questioning myself, wondering if five stars was premature. Did I perhaps miss some glaring author missteps or overlook some cliched bestseller/mainstream tropes?    

June 13: Book journal entry - part 2 - starts when I copy the jacket, adding my usual {bracketed} asides to help cement key plot points in my mind. And then a peculiar thing begins to happen. I start finding flaws in the novel, ones that did not occur to me as the propulsive page-turning story swept me along. There is little doubt that my conversation on June 12 is contributing to my shift. This troubles me. Am I that malleable? My book journal entry remans incomplete. Final sentence that day: "Unsure where I'll go next when I attempt to finish this (now) ambivalent entry."

June 24: It's now been almost three weeks since I finished Dear Edward, with my waffling continuing to block me from completing my book journal entry. But the story and Napolitano's delivery of it will not leave me alone. Each time I re-read a copied passage or sentence, I am moved anew.  

A.M. June 25: I meet that same friend and discerning reader for a discussion about a different book. When the notion of time as a construct arises in our discussion of that book, Dear Edward comes back to me full force. I vaguely recall the final sentences of Napolitano's novel - in the epilogue - which takes place when Edward is nineteen. Didn't this gifted author skillfully allude to that same construct in the closing? I re-borrow the book from the library just to be sure. And here it is; we're now approaching the end of my circuitous journey:

"Shay is the girl wearing pajamas with pink clouds on them the first time he entered her room, and she is the woman who will give birth to their daughter ten years from now, and she is the young woman, her face wide open, offering him everything. Edward hears his brother's voice inside him; Jordan tells him not to waste any time. Not to waste any love. He watches Shay lean in his direction, and when she kisses him, she blots out the entire sky."  There's much more where that came from; I plan to share more with you in a near-future (and shorter) blog post about this exceptional book, one I've now concluded is worthy of the exclamation accompanying a five-star Goodreads rating: "It was amazing!"    

P.M. June 25: Book journal entry completed. A book club book? I'm still unclear what that actually means. Mainstream? Perhaps, but who cares? Would this unapologetic snob - one who fancies himself a fan of literary fiction - recommend it? Without question. End of journey.

Reflections from the Bell Curve: A Hard Book Can Be Good To Find 

        

    

76 vs. 67

The last time I reversed the digits of my age to use in a post was early in my blog's lifespan when I published 61? or ... 16? in July 2011. Months ago, a faithful reader stumbled across that relic in my archive, prompting me to re-visit this particular thought experiment, especially because it will be easier to recall specifics of my life from a distance of just nine years vs. forty-five. I hope you'll join me today and have some fun with this, regardless of the way your reversed digits fall. 

(If you are someone who journals and you retain your old ones, why not take a peek and see what you were up to at that earlier point in your life? That is, provided the reversal sends you back in time. If the reversal instead sends you forward, why not conjecture what you'll be up to at the older age the reversal places you? For those in double digit territory - 33, 55, 77 - or those with a "0" as your second digit, use your imagination. You don't expect me to do all the work, do you?)

* At 67, I started my own book club. Next January, the club will celebrate its tenth anniversary. And in September of this year, the club will reach another milestone - our 100th book. 

* Over the span of my 67th year, with a good friend's help, the first critical phase of a long-postponed project - my daughter recording eight of my original songs - was finished. The completed CD with overdubs, mixed and mastered, was held off for release to coincide with my 70th birthday. Directly below is a link to Bandcamp, a music site you can visit if you'd care to listen to one or more of the tunes. Lyrics are included. 

Til There Were Two | Patrick Barton

* At 67, I met the young man who would become my son-in-law approximately five years later. He is a welcome addition to my family and now the father to my beloved grandson.

Please join me in this thought experiment. When I'm 78, I'll try to remember to repeat the experiment a third and final time; forces my hand to project forward to my 87th year. a more daunting prospect for sure.  

Reflections from the Bell Curve: 61? or...16?  

Words for the Ages, Line Forty

"The older I get, the less I need."

Since the 2017 inception of this series, I've been on the lookout for terse lyrical phrases like that, words that are able to stand on their own, i.e., they're not dependent on the rhymes accompanying them to complete the thought. The lyric above - from a 2025 Mary Chapin-Carpenter song entitled Girl and Her Dog - satisfies those simple requirements. I've never been overly concerned about selecting lyrics that might strike others as capital "P" profound. For me, the most critical element is how well a lyric succinctly captures an essential and timeless truth. That is, are these words for the ages? 

The essential truth of those eight words struck me almost from the moment I first heard Carpenter sing them. Then as weeks went by, a question - one even simpler than the lyric that prompted it - would not let me go. What do any of us really need? I decided then that any lyric reminding me of Abraham Maslow's groundbreaking work on the hierarchy of needs is clearly worth memorializing here, profound or not. 

And that brought me full circle back to a central motivation for starting my blog fifteen+ years ago. From the start, I've aimed these reflections at the 98% of us who do not reside on either far end of the bell curve. We are neither fabulously famous nor we will ever end up in jail. We have more in common than not. We want to love and be loved. We want to take care of our families. We want to make a small difference in the world. We enjoy many of the same things. Those are the things I try to write about here - most of the time - hoping to engage you in some fashion.    

Maslow's hierarchy of needs - Wikipedia

Father's Day Gratitude

In your view, which traits help make a person well suited to being a parent? How much does the person's gender factor into your thinking. i.e., how much do the traits shift in your mind, father vs. mother?

Had someone had asked me that same question in my younger years, I suspect my answer might have been tied to things my own solid parents had shown me, traits reflecting prevailing cultural norms of the time. My mother = a loving and devoted caretaker of her children and our home; my father = a hard-working, dependable provider. 

Later in life, considering my own suitability as a potential father, my thinking evolved. Although I aspired to be a reliable provider like my father, I fully embraced my wife's wish to have a life outside our home. I knew also that I wanted any children we had to expect the same level of unconditional love and intense devotion to their care as my mother had shown me.     

It's quite clear to me how well suited my son-in-law is as a parent. He already shows my young grandson all that my parents showed me and all that I hope I showed my daughter as she grew up. In addition, my son-in-law's gentle temperament - unlike my father's or my own more combative tendencies - models a kinder, more gracious way of living. Without question, this one trait alone - if he follows his father's lead - will help my grandson better weather the challenges life will hurl at him.

On this Father's Day, I'm grateful for the example my son-in-law is showing to my favorite little man in the world.    

My Trimming Turmoil

The more time I spend trimming my six-hour class on the Beatles down to ninety minutes, the more I wonder why I offered to do so in the first place. Much ado about nothing, you say? Oh, I beg to differ. Using just one incomparable Beatles song as a focal point, indulge me as I lay out a few of the unpleasant dilemmas facing me while constructing my final playlist for the presentation I'm doing about a month from now.  

* If I choose not to use And Your Bird Can Sing how to best demonstrate how advanced the Beatles were with respect to guitar harmony?   

* If I do use And Your Bird Can Sing as my selection from the British version of Revolver, which of the equally important songs from that breakthrough album do I scuttle? Eleanor Rigby? Taxman? Here There and Everywhere? 

* Is a compromise in order with respect to And Your Bird Can Sing? That is, can I instead use that piece of musical magic and say it was from the vastly inferior American toss off LP called Yesterday and Today? If yes, how much time do I devote to making a distinction between the American and British versions of all the albums before Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band? And then, what other Beatles ephemera do I leave out while rhapsodizing on their endlessly influential oeuvre? 

There's more where this came from, honest. If I began describing my turmoil about Abbey Road and what I'll play from that gem in this truncated class vs. what was included in my longer offering, you might begin to worry about my mental health. The White Album? If you still have any pity left for this unadulterated Beatles geek, please don't go there.     

 

Who's Cooking?

Though I have biases like everyone, for the most part, I consider myself reasonably open-minded. That said, I'm providing the Wikipedia link below to help you decide if what I'm about to confess makes me guilty of ethnocentrism.

Ethnocentrism - Wikipedia

With respect to restaurants specializing in ethnic cuisine, I'm less confident about what I'm about to eat when folks preparing my meal appear to have no trace of the ethnicity in question. Call me ethnocentric and read no further if you choose, but before anyone reports me to the PC police, hear me out. 

I don't necessarily need to hear Italian spoken by cooks in an Italian restaurant, but for me, it is preferable to hearing Russian or German. Now because I speak only English - admittedly bolstering my ethnocentric bona fides - I struggle to differentiate some languages from others. However, if any Polish or Slavic speaker working as a cook in a Mexican, Thai, or Lebanese restaurant stumbles across this post, allow me to respectfully suggest you stay silent when encountering me - or some equally prickly individual - as a customer. Even we monolinguists can usually pick out blatant auditory clues and, in my case, it could start me wondering if my meal is going to pass muster. Sorry in advance if this offends you.   

The ethnicity of cooks in a diner? A less cut and dry matter. Given the number of choices on a typical diner menu, a United Nations contingent would be necessary in those kitchens to fully satisfy my narrow requirements. However, to be painfully honest (what have I got to lose at this point?), I will almost always bypass a diner not featuring spanakopita. And I also pay attention to the name of the diner's proprietor when advertised, on the lookout for first names like Stavros or Eleni. Another technique? I listen when a diner's proprietor pronounces gyro.  If I hear something like "jiro" (hard "J" and long "i") instead of something close to "yiddo" (rhymes with "kiddo"), that could signal my last trip to that particular diner. I love my spanakopita too much to take chances. Same goes for my pasta primavera and all those other yummy ethnic dishes that have been passed down through generations of folks who originated the dish in the first place.    

Being Truly Tested

Over the span of your longest-lasting relationship, what has been the most serious test of the strength of your bond with that person?

Like most folks who have been together a long time, my wife and I have been tested more than a few times over our almost half-century together. But reading A Marriage at Sea (2024) brought into clear focus the difference between the tests most of us face and the kind of test that only the sturdiest of bonds can hope to endure.

Author Sophie Elmhirst's background as a journalist perfectly suits this tale of super-human resilience. In her debut, Elmhirst never raises her voice because it's unnecessary to do so. What Maurice and Maralyn Bailey faced during their 117 days adrift on a rubber raft in the middle of the Pacific Ocean needs no fanfare. I can't imagine an attentive reader being unmoved by this remarkable story.

  

Battling With Tears

Would you describe yourself - as I do - as introspective? If so, would you also say - as I would - that you frequently struggle to hold back tears? I've wondered most of my adult life about the link between these two temperamental traits of mine.  

I've known people I would describe as introspective that don't appear to struggle as much as me with tears. How often do you encounter folks like this? Though not proud of it, I'm obliged to admit I'm a little jealous of people like this. And though I never have, more than once I've been tempted to ask these folks to share a strategy with me. This is especially the case following an episode when my tears just don't seem to want to stop.  

Who knows? Maybe a few of those introspective folks will read this post and offer me some help. Even better, maybe the help offered to me will also assist one of you who sometimes fights the same battle as I do.