It should not be so hard to write both poetry and fiction. Both arts, after all, make use of the same materials, words and punctuation. Poems...
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In Blue Nights Joan Didion steadfastly refuses to explain away suffering, or to present neatly tied ends by the book's conclusion. What she does do, and with beautifully haunting prose, is share her journey of sorrow without glossing over its ravagings. She considers her readers intelligent enough to not want to insult them with the kind of half-truths which render any memoir dull and trite.
In Lucky Sebold writes of her rape, at the age of 18, with intelligence and candor, refusing to plunge into a well of self-pity. There is humor here, and a briskness of style which makes for an interesting, absorbing read.
If it's not what happens to us, but how we respond to the tribulations and traumas in life, then we have every reason to believe that Sebold will go beyond survival to become all the more strong because of these very sufferings.
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Deb Rhodes has commented on (2) products.
Blue Nights by Joan Didion
Deb Rhodes, January 25, 2012
In Blue Nights Joan Didion steadfastly refuses to explain away suffering, or to present neatly tied ends by the book's conclusion. What she does do, and with beautifully haunting prose, is share her journey of sorrow without glossing over its ravagings. She considers her readers intelligent enough to not want to insult them with the kind of half-truths which render any memoir dull and trite.Lucky by Alice Sebold
Deb Rhodes, September 30, 2011
In Lucky Sebold writes of her rape, at the age of 18, with intelligence and candor, refusing to plunge into a well of self-pity. There is humor here, and a briskness of style which makes for an interesting, absorbing read.If it's not what happens to us, but how we respond to the tribulations and traumas in life, then we have every reason to believe that Sebold will go beyond survival to become all the more strong because of these very sufferings.