The Librarianist and You Could Make This Place Beautiful

Amy kicks off Season Four of the podcast with a discussion of the literary novel The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt and the memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful by poet Maggie Smith. The Librarianist is the story of retired librarian Bob Comet. Hoping to fill a void in his life, he volunteers at a senior's centre.  Amid a community of strange peers, Bob reflects on his past and his character is revealed. You Could Make This Place Beautiful is a firsthand account about the breakdown of a marriage and the rebirth of a person. Told through gorgeous prose, the memoir is sad, funny and hopeful. Amy also discusses the Netflix comedy Fisk and the podcast I've Had It.

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Good bones. Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and I've shortened mine in 1000 Delicious, ill advised ways 1000 deliciously ill advised ways I'll keep from my children. The world is at least 50% Terrible. And that's a conservative estimate, though I keep this from my children. For every bird, there's a stone thrown in a bird. For every love child, a child broken, bad, sunk and Lake. Life is short, and the world is at least half terrible. And for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children. I'm trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor walking you through a real shithole chirps on about good bones. This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place Hello, welcome back to the Red Fern book review. I am your host, Amy Mair. And I'm happy to welcome you back to the podcast, and the very start of season four. I'm so excited to be here. And I've spent all summer researching and reading and every time I watch a show, listen to a podcast or read a book, I think about you the listener and whether what I'm reading or listening to would be something that would be of interest to you. And so what we're going to do today is a bit of a book report of sorts. I'm going to talk to you about a couple of books that I read over the summer months. And also I'm going to talk to you about a show which you may have, in fact watched and a podcast that I'm enjoying. And so the books that we're going to read today are the first one is The Librarianist by Patrick DeWitt. And the second one is a memoir, called You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith. And that's Maggie Smith, the poet and not the actress from Downton Abbey, or Dame Maggie Smith. And the poem that I read at the top of the podcast is Maggie's most famous poem that actually changed her life and probably led to was the final straw in her marriage. So we'll get to that in a minute. But let's start by talking about some things that I enjoyed listening to and watching over the summer. So the first thing I have to start with is Fisk. And if you haven't already seen it, please watch it. It's on Netflix. It's super fun, quirky, to say the least comedy about a sad sack corporate lawyer. And she's just been fired from her job and Sydney and doesn't really know what to do. And she's also recently divorced. So she goes to a recruiter and ends up getting a job working for a very odd law firm called goober and goober, located in Melbourne, Australia. So this is just a super fun comedy following Helen tutor, tutor Fisk is her name. So that's her last name, the show is her name. And it stars kitty Flanagan who wrote this show alongside her sister, and she's a big star in Australia. I'd never heard of her before. But she's a comedian. And I would say this is a bit of the office meets Boston Legal. And each episode is a bit of a standalone where the very small quirky law firm has equally quirky clients. And it's a brother and sister team Gruber and Gruber, that run the place. And the man is kind of a grump. And the woman is she lost her license to practice law. So she's just the office manager and just kind of in everybody's way, and my favorite character is a guy who basically is the receptionist but calls himself the webmaster, which is a super outdated term and just uses this all the time. And I was talking with my friend Mia who is married to an Australian and I was telling her I was like I just love this so much and I think I love it more than the average British comedy. And she said, Well, that's because it's, it's more and mature. So kind of with the Australians, nothing's off limits. And I think you'll, I think you'll really enjoy it from Helen wears like a super baggy brown suit every day. It looks terrible on her. And she does it just because it's easy, and she doesn't have to worry about it. And downstairs from her office, there's a super cute cafe. And one day she was being a bit obnoxious to somebody in the cafe who happens to be the owner. And so now she gets banned from there and can never get her morning coffee. So there's kind of a running gag that everyone else has to kind of go get her coffee every day, whether it's a client, or someone else who works in the office. So check that out if you want to laugh, and there is a season two. Netflix hasn't bought it yet, but I'm sure that they will. So I'm looking forward to that. Okay, so the next thing I want to talk about is a really fun podcast called I've had it podcast. And it stars two best friends from Oklahoma City, Jennifer Welsh, and Angie pumps, Sullivan pumps as her nickname. They've been friends for 23 years. And they are kind of Bravo TV stars. There's, they have a show, and I'm not sure if it's still running. But it was called Sweet Home Oklahoma, starring Jennifer Welsh as an interior designer just kind of talking about her daily life. And, and she would make appearances as her best friend. And they're just really funny. They swear a lot. And they make a lot of fun of their middle age, mom life. And they just complain the whole time about whatever they can complain about the PGA, they think the whole thing needs to burn to the ground. They complain about televangelists. They hate the word. Bless your heart. They hate that term. And they think true crime is ridiculous. And I I love this. They say I watched Dateline, I have to admit, I'm going to help myself here. But one of them says I'm part of the problem. So I can't say anything but good things. And the other woman says, I mean, I kind of have a low key crush on Dateline host, Keith Morrison, there's something soothing about hearing him talk about murder, I could just ease into my bed and just feel ultimately relaxed as he talks about homicide. It's really effed up. So that's kind of the tone of it. And I would just say this is a podcast, if you're just looking for like a total escape. It's clever. It's funny, I love their Oklahoma City accents. But it's, it's not going to change your world. It'll just be a really fun giggle. And of course, like the best of podcasts, you feel like, you know them and that you're, they're your friend, and you're kind of there with them. So I recommend that they also have guests on to who go ahead and complain with them. So okay, let's talk about the books. The first book I'm going to talk about is the librarian list, which is actually not a real term, I had to double check that. So Patrick DeWitt is the author. And he is best known. He wrote a book called The Sisters Brothers, which many of you will know about. And it's a witty Western about a pair of sibling assassins, and I will compare it to a Coen Brothers. Kind of, if the Coen brothers were to write a book, that's what it would be like. She he also wrote a book called The French accent. And it's a comedy of manners about a widowed Manhattan socialite who's just burned through her husband's inheritance and takes off to a friend's apartment in Paris to escape with her son with her adult son. And then he wrote another book called under major domo, and it's a sort of Gothic adventure. And so this book is different yet again. But what it how it's United is he has this very clever, I would call it droll sense of humor. So, so clever and so so funny. But you're not necessarily laughing out loud, but you're just like, it's just, it's absurdist. It's really funny. But he's written this book, and it's been called a quiet book, which I've come to discover. I actually enjoy quiet books. And not a whole lot happens in this book, but I do recommend it. So I'm going to tell you a bit about it and you can decide if it's for you. So what it's about it's about a guy named Bob comment. And he's a retired librarian. And he has a pretty boring life. He lives in a mint colored house in Portland, Oregon. And he takes a daily walk, he doesn't have any friends. And he was a libertarian for many years didn't make any friends there. But as his life is all about order, until one day, that changes, and what happens, he's at the 711. And he sees this wacky woman staring at power drinks, like in the case. And she's wearing matching pink sweatsuit, bright white sneakers, a mesh back baseball hats, a pair of dark sunglasses, and she's standing like a statue. And so he looks over at the cash person and says, What is this person, okay. And for some, the guy's like, I don't think so. And so what ends up happening is he gets this woman out of the store, follows her out of the store, and gets her back to the retirement home where she actually lives. And there's this hard charging woman who runs the place. And there's this total cast of wacky, more wacky characters. And through a series of events, Bob starts to volunteer at this retirement home, and it completely changes his life. And so my whole take on the whole point of this retirement home, is just a way to have a whole slew of side characters, which is what I think Patrick Patrick strength is, is creating this kind of people that just kind of come and go and have wacky conversations and move through the scene with Bob kind of as a senator as a straight person. And this book reminded me of two things. It reminded me a bit of David Copperfield, with David Copperfield as the straight man, and all these crazy characters swirling around them. And it was also sad. And this book is kind of sad as well. And it takes place in the early aughts. So 2005 2006, and he's at this point, a bob is 71 years old. And that's kind of when his life changes with this retirement home. But a lot of the book is Reflections on his past. So he has a pretty sad backstory, where the one woman that he loves, and fell in love with and married, ends up leaving him for his very best friend, and those were actually his only two friends. So there's a lot of discussion of that. But you're gonna say, why would I read this sad book? I think you'd read it. Because you're Patrick DeWitt fan, and you want to see what else he's been up to. I think you'd read it, because it's just a fun. It's fun, but is it? I would give it I'm gonna give it a four out of five. And if you like a lot of action in your books, I probably wouldn't read this. I just find him so clever. A little bit about Patrick DeWitt also just did I mention that he is from British Columbia. And he now lives in Portland, Oregon. And I actually want to try and have him on the podcast, but he has no social media presence. What whatsoever, I found him hard to track down. So I wasn't able to reach him. But I was laughing because I'm laughing now because he is from British Columbia. And whenever I, whenever there's someone from Canada, I always have to tell my friend from Kansas City, Jennifer Kraus, oh, they're Canadian, older from Vancouver. And so she's always teasing me that everybody's from Vancouver. But he in fact is from British Columbia. So I would give it a four out of five. And that's that. Okay, so now we're gonna move over and talk about a book that I just absolutely love, love, love. And so the opening at the top of the podcast, you heard me read a poem that kind of changed Maggie Smith's life. And what this is, is this is a memoir, called you can make this place beautiful. And a little bit about Maggie Maggie was trucking along as a poet, which is probably a pretty hard way to go making her art in the middle of Ohio, in Columbus. So she calls herself she says I lived in the heart of the heart. So Ohio is a heart shaped state, and Columbus is in the middle of the heart. So she lives in Bexley. And it was interesting because as I was reading along, and I didn't know for sure until it was done, she's talking about her college and I'm thinking, I think she went to my school. And I found out later she did. So she's a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan, which is a small liberal arts school, 30 minutes north of Baxley. And that was fun, so I could relate to that experience that she had there. And then she just talks a lot about little landmarks around Columbus. She talks about Lundy's, which is a really nice restaurant. And Germantown, which is a quaint neighborhood or Lundy's is also located. And what also struck me, she talks about this a lot. She's essentially from a flyover state. And I also grew up in a flyover state, Kansas City. And it's the kind of state that you don't think about going there on vacation you don't really talk about. But she loves it. It's it's talks about family, her family's from their parents, or their sisters or their she has lots of friends that are there. And I just really kind of appreciate that she's not from New York, she's not from Chicago, she's from Ohio. Another thing about this book, she does talk about the pandemic, I feel like I should give a pandemic warning when pandemic as a topic of a book, because I find probably like me, you don't always want to hear about the pandemic, because you kind of want to put that behind you. But I found that her marriage started to unravel during the pandemic. And there's some sort of fun moments in it, in that there's this fun scene where she is bopping around on rollerblades in her driveway with her best friend wearing some wacky outfits. And just finding a way to have a good time when you can't see or talk to anybody. So I thought it was a good way to treat sort of the pandemic. So what this book is about, she actually wrote a book a few years before. And it was called Keep moving. And it was sort of musings on the end of a marriage. And this one was a little more specific. And it's a memoir about the end of her marriage. But really why I liked this book. There's two reasons I like it for incredible writing. So clever. It's very experimental. And people have compared it to Rachel cos. And Deborah Levy. So I would, I would agree with that. It is she is a poet. And I would say it's like poems strung together and a very cohesive pattern, kind of like a really good old fashioned album. And each chapter, there's a very clever title that tells you what, what it's about. And some of the chapters are one line. Some of them go on for several pages. Some of them are quotes. Some of them are her speaking what seems like directly to you, which is quite powerful, almost like a, a Greek chorus. And what I also liked about this book is she makes it very personal. But she doesn't make it a towel all. So this isn't a book where she's trashing her husband, he does not come across very well in this book, but she keeps a lot of things private, and just is more mining, the emotions that she's having during that time, which is basically that she's broken open and has no choice but to reinvent herself. And so this book is really about hope and reinvention. But the way it starts is her husband who's a lawyer comes home from a business trip. And he gives his son she's got two different two children together, gives his son a pine cone and kind of goes off to bed. And for some reason, something just didn't sit right with her. And she decides and what she says is against kind of her character or better judgment to go through his his bag. And in his bag in his travel bag, she finds a postcard. And the postcard has a woman's name, a woman's address. And in it he writes about walking on the beach with her and finding a pine cone together. And he gave the same pine cone to his son. And so from there, she's not really sure what she's reading. She knows what she's read, but can't really believe that her life just kind of implodes. And from there, it's kind of just this like series of vignettes. But one of the things, and the reason why I started with this poem good bones is she believes that this poem, essentially was the final kind of end of our marriage, because before she got this postcard, this poem was written in 2016. And up to that point, she was the primary caregiver. And looking after the kids and fitting in her poetry, and her husband was a lawyer, a corporate lawyer, and was successful. And then when good bones came out, it just was like a Zeitgeist. And what happened was Meryl Streep ended up reading this poem, out loud, and in events. And on the show, Madam Secretary, this poem was also read, it blew up on Twitter, she all of a sudden had all these requests to speak. And she was becoming famous and at least famous from a poet standard. And it's pretty hard to be a famous poet. So then what was happening is she needed more childcare, she needed to go out of town. And she feels that their ecosystem change, there was a change in kind of a power dynamic between them. And while she keeps it fairly vague, it doesn't sound like the poem ended her marriage, but it was sort of that final straw or her marriage couldn't survive, just sort of a change in circumstance. And I what I wanted to end with, there were a couple of things I also wanted to mention, I love this beginning quote, that she starts the book with, she says, I am out with lanterns, looking for myself, by Emily Dickinson. I just love that. And then I wanted to finish by talking about one of the things that Maggie has learned about herself about not seeking approval from others, which the older we get, the more we know, I think often women to stereotype have more trouble with that, learning that lesson. But the older you get, the easier it is. And I subscribe to her newsletter. And her newsletter is mainly to talk about how to be a better writer. But this came into my inbox and I just thought, oh, I have to share it with you because I just thought it was so great. And so this is what she said. She said, she talks about how she went online and against her better judgment was reading comments about her and her writing. And people had super strong reactions to her in her opinion, and that some people just hate her work. And some they find it super annoying, and some love it. And she uses the phrase she says one person's yuck is another person's yum. And she says as I was writing you could make this place beautiful taking risks with both form and content. I suspected for every that for every reader who attach certain craft choices. There would be a reader who chafe at those same choices. The direct address the vignette that vignettes, the meta aspect of the narration, the privacy boundaries, I knew all of these were love it or loathe the choices. All of this is to say I knew I was writing a book with a strong flavor, but I love strong flavors, blue cheese, smoked kalamata olives, smoked anything really, very dark, bitter chocolate, very black, bitter coffee, chili, crisp, Rose lemonade, dill, pickles, hot curry, and Imperial IPA. I find these things delicious. But I also completely understand how they might taste terrible to other people. Taste is subjective, you're not for everyone. Your work is not for everyone. So be it. And with that, I want to conclude the first episode of the new season of The Red firm book review. And thank you so much for joining. And I just wanted to give you a little preview about some things coming up. We've got a really great season planned. Next week, I'm super excited. I've got a local author on Iona Whishaw, who in her third act in her 60s started writing murder mysteries. And she writes the Elaine Winslow mystery series, and they're set in World War Two. And they're really fun, especially if you love Louise Penny, where it's like a murder mystery set and a small Canadian town, I think you'll really enjoy this. But what's really interesting is the main character, Elaine Winslow was a spy during World War Two. And it turns out that I own his mom was a spy during World War Two. And before that her grandfather was a spy. So such interesting. That's such an interesting backstory. later this fall, I'm going to have Pam weathers on who's a journalist, turn ya author. And she talks about the power of why novels, sometimes we want to like, get back to our entertain, although I'm not sure that I do. But just kind of recall those strong emotions that you have when you're a teen. And when life is a lot simpler, but in some ways harder. And oh, I can't wait in October with Susan Matheson back, who has the bedside table, book blog, and she always comes on every fall and does a fall preview. So that's something to look forward to. So thanks so much for tuning in. Be sure to check out my Instagram at Red Fern book review. And also, you can check out my website at Red Fern book review.com and leave me a positive review on Apple podcasts. And I look forward to connecting with you more this fall. And I will talk with you soon. Thanks for listening. Bye