Twenty Stories

Imagine you live in California and you go to a local coffee shop often; parked outside is a teal and pink truck. You see it, every time — it’s hard not to — but you never stop. Although you can’t remember why exactly, there is always something else to do, some rush you are in, some other task you’ve allotted your time. Perhaps you want to, but you never stop.

Now imagine you move all the way across the country — from Los Angeles to tiny Providence, Rhode Island. There, suddenly, you see it — parked across from a different coffee shop — THAT SAME TEAL AND PINK TRUCK. THERE IT IS. IT’S RIGHT THERE.

Hearing Emory Harkins tell it, this actually happened to an RI resident. “He ran into the van this past weekend … he stopped and actually had, probably, a 20-minute conversation with us,” said Harkins, who, along with his partner Alexa Trembly, co-owns the mobile bookstore Twenty Stories. Selling 20 curated books a month out of their renovated van, the pair recently switched coasts. This story, Harkins continues, “[shows] the nature of the two cities.”

Mainly, it’s a story about pace. The more engaged city residents are with what is happening around them on the streets the less quickly they are moving, certainly. For Trembly and Harkins, that is a good thing.

“The whole bookmobile concept is really nostalgic,” says Alexa. “I think people, when they see the van, it’s almost like a timescape where everything feels like it’s moving a little slower and they are able to enjoy themselves and browse … [to] take their time and find some peace.”

In addition to the van, the pair will be opening a physical bookstore this fall, which will allow them space to host write-nights, events with local authors and illustrators and their monthly book club discussions featuring one selection from their list. Both creative writers themselves, they are excited about the extended possibilities a brick-and-mortar space will give them that a truck didn’t; at the same time, they are grateful for the way they began – hardly fathomable in New England, their truck started up last winter in California.

The Pawtucket bookstore will house the past six months worth of selections – 120 rotating, curated stories at a time. “We always try to put our tastes aside,” says Alexa. “So much can be covered in 20 books that I really do think there is a book for everyone.” “Just being around books gets you in that mental state where you can think more creatively,” Alexa says. Certainly the case, the Providence/Pawtucket community and beyond will soon have a new space to be inspired. In the meantime, Alexa and Emory will be trucking all around our city – stop and say hello if you can.

Book Review: Ann Hood’s She Loves You Yeah, Yeah, Yeah

Last month, on a quiet Monday night, I read two New York Times articles back-to- back. Though penned by different writers, they both had the same protagonist. Both of them made me cry.

The first was out of delight – and, I’ll admit, because I’m a softie. The story was that of Ann Hood and Michael Ruhlman; two authors, recently divorced, both wholly certain that they had met their platonic other half by finding each other. A friend of Hood and fellow novelist Laura Lippman officiated their 2017 marriage ceremony, describing it as “an occasion of years lived and miles spanned, only to circle back to that path in Vermont where a man called a woman’s name and she turned and responded to his greeting.” That reference, from the first sweet but fleeting interaction the pair had, happened in 1988; the man of course was Michael, the woman Ann. Thirty lived-apart years later and they were now a formal union. Their connection, in the “late afternoon” of life (Ruhlman’s words), was a story so tender that it twisted every romantic fiber in my being until tears dropped out of my eyeballs. It was beautiful. It was fate. It was love.

The second article was different. Written by Hood herself, from 2006, this time the story was about heartbreak. Still, truly, it was an article about love, but instead of love found this was a love lost, and lost heart-wrenchingly early. Hood’s daughter had died from a horrendously unpredictable medical emergency – the young girl, Grace, was only 5. In her writing, Hood meaningfully communicates the pain caused by reminders of her daughter through the things that her daughter had loved (in this case music – the Beatles, no less). The trouble is made even more difficult by the fact that Hood herself had loved the Beatles as a young girl, and the overlapping memories and emotions that every chord, every album cover causes the grieving mother are nothing short of crushing. Immobilizing. Despite her many successes in the 12 years since that tragedy, the archival article stood as a testament to how much Hood had had to overcome in order to keep her life moving.

This perhaps is a roundabout but essential introduction to discussing Hood’s new book, She Loves You Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. Surely, a review for this novel can, and will, exist independently of the events in Ann Hood’s life that have transpired and shaped her. But, just as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s love and heartbreak are these days central to any discussion of the epic Frankenstein, so too I believe are Hood’s beautiful highs and crashing lows important when assessing her most recent work. As is often the case, context matters.

Hood’s new book is written in the plain and honest voice of what could believably be a sixth grader from the ‘60s. Trudy Mixer, the novel’s heroine, is spunky, intelligent and unconditionally in love with the Beatles. Her life is seemingly chugging along on-course – she has a wonderful best friend Michelle, she is the president of the most popular club at Robert E. Quinn Junior High in Rhode Island (the Beatles Fan Club; 23 members) – until, that is, the first day of sixth grade, which irreversibly changes her trajectory. A substitute teacher calls the young girl by her full name, Gertrude, and with the conviction that only young people truly have Trudy is certain that this slippage sets into motion the minor tragedies that she faces in the coming year. Her best friend abandons her. Her fan club dwindles in size to only four, counting herself. Her father – their most binding connection being their mutual love of the Beatles – abandons plans he made to take her to a concert in Boston.

The heft of the novels centers on Trudy’s ability to pull herself up by the bootstraps and continue her life. She is heartbroken, but she also has a fiery faith in herself (and in Paul McCartney) that is a joy to witness. Watching a cast of misfit middle schoolers navigate the murky waters of adolescence is a soft and wistful, but often comic reminder of how it was back when identity centered wholly around what your parents did for a living, what you were and weren’t allowed to wear, around choosing, say, either Future Cheerleaders or Sixth-Graders Against the Vietnam War to attend after school. A time when a singular victory could, you were certain, rewrite the course of your future. Hood’s expert adherence to set and scenery successfully immerses the reader in the head of a small girl in 1966, while, at the same time, the less period-specific content of the novel (feelings like joy, despair, isolation and connectedness) reveals basic human similarities that relate across generations, across decades.

A novel that is so easily digestible and fast-paced it could be mistaken for simple, She Loves You is in fact a meaningful reflection on family, on love, and on the sometimes mystical power of searing youthful conviction. It is an exercise by a seasoned and practiced writer reclaiming her outlook on the world. When examining the context of Hood’s real life, there is an underlying melancholy that is subtle and moving – the reality of what the Beatles mean to her in actuality mirrored by the young Trudy’s child- like devotion. Hood seems to say hold fast to the things you love. Do not abandon your childlike awe and wonder. Your life – for better or worse – can change in a moment. The final few pages’ twist will make you laugh out loud, then sigh under the weight of it. How beautiful the world we live in can be, sometimes, even after it has been its cruelest. Hood cannot resist filling the ending of She Loves You with hope and with love, with optimism that, every now and then, is just the ticket.

Robert Ellis Smith, 1940-2018

Robert Ellis Smith

Robert Ellis Smith, who died unexpectedly July 25, was an independent journalist whose influence on our understanding of privacy – indeed, on the definition of the term – cannot be overstated. We didn’t know each other well, but I would see him perform in plays – I reviewed him in The Man From Earth – and we would chat when running into each other in Wayland Square coffee shops and that sort of thing. Just as I knew him as a privacy expert who dabbled in theater, he seemed to know me as an internet expert who dabbled in theater criticism.

A few months ago, Smith self-published a short 86-page book, Faces I Have Known: Encounters with Famous Persons, that collected disconnected vignettes but with a theme of assessing personal character from limited observation. For example, he always remembered that the motorcade of Adlai Stevenson, running for president, drove past the then-12-year-old Smith standing and watching all alone on a bridge, and that Stevenson made the effort to wave to him particularly; Stevenson didn’t have to do that but the fact that he did, Smith suggests, reveals something about him as a person. Sitting in the “green room” waiting to be interviewed for a taped segment on “Good Morning America,” Smith relates how he was in a hurry because he had to testify before a Congressional committee, and the other guest politely offered to let him go ahead of him; it was Charlton Heston, there to promote his movie.

As a reporter, Smith was assigned to spend a full day on the campaign trail with Robert F. Kennedy who was considering an early intra-party challenge, even before Eugene McCarthy demonstrated the political vulnerability of incumbent Lyndon Johnson and forced him to withdraw. Bobby Kennedy by no means shared the political temperament of his brothers, Smith learned. “It was obvious, between stops, that Kennedy would have rather been somewhere else. I had been wondering all day whether there was any fun in appearing before ecstatic crowds like this. And so I asked him. We were alone in the rear seats on the 20-minute flight to Islip. The sky over us was now beginning to darken. I had learned that Kennedy often allowed endless moments go by before responding to a question. He simply stared, then looked away, out of the window. I simply waited. After what seemed like 90 seconds or so, I thought that he had dismissed my question and was not going to answer. ‘I don’t know,’ he said finally. ‘I suppose I’m like anyone else. I’d rather be home with my family. How about you?’”

Like many natives of Providence, Smith was friendly with its legendary and longest-serving mayor, Vincent A. “Buddy” Cianci, Jr., but after Cianci was twice removed from office in consequence of criminal convictions, Smith made an effort to avoid him. When a chance meeting occurred outside City Hall, Cianci asked him for a favor: figuring out how to set up a criminal-defense fund. Smith writes, “He had me. I knew immediately whom to call. I reached the lawyer for Bill Clinton. I told him only that I represented a New England politician who needed to set up a defense fund legally. His response: ‘We have been wondering when someone would be calling us about Cianci.’”

Some of the vignettes have a far more serious, even sinister, tone. Bill Moyers, who had served as press secretary to President Lyndon Johnson, was afterward publisher of Newsday where he hired Smith as his protégé. Smith relates a series of hush-hush discussions among senior administration officials who had come to the conclusion that Johnson was mentally ill. Smith writes that Moyers told him he “and Richard Goodwin, also an assistant to Johnson in 1964 and 1965 (and to Kennedy before the assassination) called Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara together to discuss their fears. They decided to draft a memo attesting to Johnson’s severe paranoia and to lock it in a safe deposit box. Why? To be able to say later, ‘We told you so?’ I don’t know what other purpose their action would have had. I never asked Moyers.”

Smith had an uncanny knack for being in the right place at the right time. One of his classmates at Harvard was Ted Kaczynski, later to become the UNABOMber. “He had in fact been coerced into participating in drug experimentation by a Harvard psychologist… He was the only super famous member of my college class. Most Harvard classes have a half dozen or more. All of them with positive reputations,” Smith writes.

As a staff writer for The Harvard Crimson, he happened to be seated next to Prof. Henry Kissinger the night the disastrous American invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs became known. “‘Well, were you involved in this decision to invade?’ I asked. As soon as the words had left my mouth, I had a dread that I had asked the wrong question. I didn’t have to wait for the look of disdain on the professor’s face. ‘Do you think I would be involved in this debacle? They never listen to me. They go ahead with an ill- planned scheme and, as we are seeing tonight, it looks bad,’ he said in his grave, accented tones.” Smith, journalistic instincts intact, realized that Kissinger had not denied involvement, and in fact had not even answered his question.

Ten weeks after Fidel Castro successfully took over Cuba in 1959, he toured the Eastern United States looking for support. Because Castro visited Harvard on a Saturday before exams, The Crimson had difficulty finding someone to interview him, and Smith volunteered. About 10,000 attended Castro’s public speech, and the press went with the motorcade to Boston’s Parker House hotel. The professional press left around 11pm, but Smith and six or seven other student journalists decided to hang around because he thought “something might happen.” Sure enough, Castro came down to speak with them, still wearing army fatigues. “Castro appeared wounded actually that the Department of State had rejected him. ‘I love America,’ he said in acceptable English phrasings. ‘This is not my first time here. We love your cars in Cuba. I love baseball.’ Years before, he had spent a three-month honeymoon in New York City, sponsored by his affluent in-laws. ‘No, now I have to go to Moscow to see what the Soviet Union can do,’ Castro continued in the hotel lobby. ‘My people are not thriving. We need assistance right away. I have very little in common with Eastern Europe. I am driven to seek help there because America has said that it will not help.’” Smith was hardly alone in concluding that the United States decision to rebuff overtures from Castro proved to be a costly mistake. “As with other leaders I have encountered over the years, I did not ignore the treacheries of the Castro years in Cuba, but I felt that the man had attempted to be friendly with the United States from the beginning and had been spurned. American government operatives had sought to kill him… My experience when Castro visited the Boston area exemplifies how my generation views its own government. We who came of age in the Fifties and Sixties seem not to bear the same animus for Castro that both the generation before us and the generations after us did. Up close I saw the beginnings of Castro’s alienation from the United States, just as my contemporaries in the late Fifties saw it from afar. We all sensed that Castro did not begin as a tyrant and that our own nation inhibited Cuba’s prosperity during his reign.”

The small book evokes the experience of sitting and talking with Smith, a natural raconteur. As editor of The Harvard Crimson, his staff included Michael Crichton, Andrew Weil, and Anthony Hiss. The latter, son of Alger Hiss, became a writer for The New Yorker whose May 30, 1977, profile of Smith first brought him to widespread notice as an authority on privacy. That article is summarized in the magazine’s index: “Talk story about ‘Privacy Journal’, an 8-page newsletter published in Washington, by Robert Smith. It has a circulation of 1500 – editorial writers, federal officials on the Assistant Secretary level who are responsible for some of the government’s computer systems, editors of the computer- industry trade press[,] speech writers for govt. men and business leaders, civil-liberties lawyers, and, in Smith’s phrase, ‘the hard-core privacy community.’ The ‘Journal’ carries no ads and supports itself entirely on subscriptions – $15 a year for private citizens, $45 for officials & institutions.”

I first met Smith at an ACLU dinner where he was the keynote speaker and I was a young college undergraduate. He had fairly recently begun publishing Privacy Journal, a one-man newsletter devoted to a subject that, in the 1970s, was something of a journalistic backwater. In those days, “privacy” to most people meant worrying about multiplying uses for Social Security numbers and shoddy practices on credit reports. Smith repeatedly cited the story of a Midwesterner who was turned down for loans because a neighbor told a credit investigator that he had “hippie tendencies,” meaning that he drove a Volkswagen bus; the Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1970 outlawed such practices by lenders.

Smith was among the first to frame the main threat to privacy as the increasing interconnection of databases. In an appearance on the “Dick Cavett Show” in the late 1970s, Smith memorably sketched a chart of interconnected boxes representing the widely disparate collectors of information, both directly and indirectly, and the invasive potential from aggregating these pieces to assemble a jigsaw puzzle. Smith reused that chart, refined and redrawn, for the next several decades.

The tiny journalistic enterprise has a long tradition and is the ancestor of the alternative press, of which Motif is an example. Smith’s Privacy Journal was often compared to the far more well-known I.F. Stone’s Weekly that broke major stories, such as that the Tonkin Gulf incident that started the Vietnam War may never have actually happened. In Fact, published by George Seldes, during the 1940s broke numerous major stories, notably that medical studies proving cigarette smoking was deadly had been suppressed since the 1930s with the connivance of the mainstream press because of their dependence upon revenue from cigarette advertising.

Smith, in Faces, modestly credits others with conceiving of the loss of privacy as being ensnared in a web of connections, quoting Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s 1960s novel Cancer Ward in which the Soviet Union riddled with gulags and corruption is analogized to a patient dying from tumors: “As every man goes through life he fills in a number of forms for the record, each containing a number of questions. There are thus hundreds of little threads radiating from each man, millions of threads in all. If these threads were suddenly to become visible, the whole sky would look like a spider’s web. They are not visible, but every man is constantly aware of their existence. Each man naturally develops a respect for the people who manipulate the threads.”

Sean Spicer Gives Briefing at Barrington Books

Motif Publisher Mike Ryan and former US presidential press secretary Sean Spicer (L-R:) at book signing for The Briefing, Barrington Books, Cranston, RI, on July 28, 2018.

RI native and former Trump press secretary Sean Spicer was in town in July representing and signing his new memoir, The Briefing: Politics, the Press, and the President. Spicer grew up in Barrington and attended Portsmouth Abbey School. He lasted six months as President Trump’s first press secretary (not a short tenure in the Trump administration).

Other recent book tour appearances have produced controversy (a signing in Middletown prompted a former high school classmate of Spicer’s to level accusations of bullying and using the N-word, a signing in Cambridge was canceled “due to the political climate,” and a signing in Barrington attracted protesters). There was a noticeable police presence, but no incidents at the signing Motif attended at Barrington Books in Cranston on July 28. Spicer was interviewed in front of a small crowd by former US Ambassador to Malta and former Providence Mayor Joseph Paolino, and took questions from the crowd afterward. The questions were mostly non-political and about Spicer’s experiences. Highlights included a detailed football analogy proposed by Paolino (“Trump was like the quarterback, and you’re like a defensive lineman…”) to which Spicer responded, “Well, I played soccer, so…”

“The reason I wrote the book is because to so many Americans, they only saw me through these windows of 30-minutes,” he told the audience. “As I went around the country afterward, I ran into a lot of people telling me how I thought about things. ‘I heard you really didn’t like this,’ or ‘I heard you thought this was a good idea.’ So to the extent that you want to know what it was like for me behind the scenes, or how did a kid from Rhode Island get in that situation, I’ve tried to answer that.”

The Briefing by Sean Spicer

One audience member asked, “What was it like to get up there and either lie to the press, or know that you had been lied to? Case in point, the numbers at the inauguration.”

“… I feel like every time I go to explain it, people think I’m making excuses,” Spicer responded. “We were there to get things done, and the first day all anyone in the press wanted to talk about was that Obama had more people there. So I talked to the guys at TwitterLive, and social media and the web guys who said they had record traffic – and this isn’t a shot at Obama, we’ve never really had those platforms before. Those tools didn’t exist four years earlier. CNN was reporting 16 point something million people on its platform. So I added all those up, and said it was the greatest audience for an inauguration, ever.”

“You were including the internet?” the audience member followed up.

“Apparently not very well,” Spicer retorted, pausing for laughter from the crowd. “For the rest of my life that’s going to follow me, and if I could do it again, of course I’d do it differently. All I could think about was all the people who’d supported me and had confidence in me, and I’ve let them down. I didn’t go out there and intentionally say something that was wrong – I screwed up.

“But there was never a time I went out there and deliberately said something that was demonstrably untrue. There were plenty of times when I said, ‘The president believes the following…’ They would confront me with a tweet and say, ‘You know that’s not true.’ But that was not my job – my job was to communicate the thoughts and views of the president of the United States as told to me. Not to try to interpret what he really means, or what he SHOULD have said. My job was to give the best advice I could, and sometimes they agree, sometimes they say, ‘You’re half right,’ and sometimes they don’t take your advice… At the end of the day, you’re there to serve them, and if you can’t agree to do that, then you step aside…

“If you read my book, you can still not like me when it’s over, but at least you’ll have an idea of why I did everything I did.”

RI Authors Give Advice to Graduating College Seniors

Throughout May and June, robed college graduates listened to commencement speeches delivered by well-known lawmakers, judges, television personalities, actors and chief executive officers of businesses. Many of the orators advised the young adults on how to create a more rewarding personal and professional life in their later years.

Members of the Association of Rhode Island Authors (ARIA) also have insightful advice on aging gracefully in a challenging and changing world to give to the Class of 2018, and some of what the authors would have said if they had been invited to speak follows.

Hopefully, readers will benefit from the commencement tips and find time to take a look at the authors’ books.

The ABCs of Aging Gracefully

Norman Desmarais, 71, professor emeritus at Providence College, lives in Lincoln and is an active re- enactor and a former librarian. He is the author of The Guide to the American Revolutionary War in Canada and New England, The Guide to the American Revolutionary War in New York and The Guide to the American Revolutionary War in New Jersey. These books intend to provide comprehensive coverage of the confrontations of the American War of Independence and to serve as a guide to the sites. For book details, go to revolutionaryimprints.net.

Commencement tips: “It’s nice to be important, but more important to be nice. Remember that the people you pass climbing the ladder of success will be the same people you meet on the way down. They will often be the people you will need to be successful.”

Rick Billings, 59, a retired firefighter and emergency management technician lives in Barrington. He authored and illustrated two children’s books, The Tragic Tale of Mr. Moofs, a story about the changing relationship between a stuffed toy and a boy’s older sister and more recently, Melba Blue, a light introduction for children on the works of Edgar Allen Poe and William Shakespeare. For book details, go to reddogart.com.

Commencement tips: “What are you waiting for? This is my mantra. I became a firefighter at age 35. I wrote, illustrated and self-published my first book 19 years later. Today, I cycle between 40 and 80 miles each week. I travel. I laugh. I love. Embrace family, nature, health, spirituality, peace, creativity and the purity of the new. What are you waiting for?”

Patricia Hinkley, 73, a former holistic counselor and journey practitioner in private practice, lives in Wakefield. She authored Chasing Sleep/Lonely Tussles in the Dark, a book that explores the issues and challenges surrounding sleep deprivation and how to overcome them by changing attitudes and behaviors, and “Claiming Space/Finding Stillness that Inspires Action,” a book that invites you to step back from the busy world to uncover the peaceful intelligence, genuine happiness and capabilities within. For book details, go to patriciahinkley.com.

Commencement tips: “Find what you love and do it. Learn about your world and become a part of positive change. Respect and peacefully negotiate with people who differ from you. Know history, government and civics. Involve yourself to make a better world. Trust your heart’s wisdom when deciding what is right. Speak up for it.”

Hank Ellis, 69, formerly employed by the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, lives in Exeter. He authored The Promise: A Perilous Journey, a book appealing to all ages and a must- read for those who love the magic of a childhood adventure. For book details, go to Amazon.

Commencement tips: “Know what is important to you: happiness or wealth. You can have both, but it can be more difficult. Be open to change, roll with the punches and don’t punch back. Always be kind. Be brave and stretch yourself. The greatest advice I can give is to give of yourself. Serve others in all you do. I guarantee amazing results.”

Barbara Ann Whitman, 62, a family support specialist, lives in Johnston. She authored Have Mercy, a book about the effects foster care can have on a child. For book details, go to facebook.com/BarbaraAnnWhitmanAuthor.

Commencement tips: “Before you can be kind to others, you must first be kind to yourself. If you want to be honest, start with the person in the mirror. The same principle applies to being authentic, loyal and loving. Being selfless is overrated. Indulge and invest in knowing yourself. Only then will you be ready to share your gifts with the world.”

Etta Zasloff, 70, lives in Hope Valley. She published an alphabet book for all ages on her 70th birthday, Beginning with Xs and Os: The Evolution of Alphabet. It’s a child’s first chapter book! Personified letters change, rearrange and interchange in rhyming stories of origin. For book details, go to ettazasloff.com

Commencement tips: “Live, really live. Look out the window more than in the mirror or at your phone. Explore the world. Engage with people beyond your immediate circle. Pursue your passion with education, experience and practice to mastery. Have the courage to forge your own path and leave a trail for others to follow. Always think of those who follow.”

Harris N. (“Hershey”) Rosen, 85, ran a Pawtucket-based candy company for 40 years before retiring. He lives in Providence, and he authored My Family Record Book, providing easy tips on organizing personal information, financial plans and final wishes for seniors, caregivers and estate executors. For book details, go to myfamilyrecordbook.com.

Commencement tips: “Achievement is 90% perspiration and 10% inspiration. So in life, find your purpose in something you enjoy and don’t be afraid to aim high. Look around for help and value your network of friends you made in college. Persist in realizing your goal, knowing that it’s OK to fail (you will) but not to quit. You’ll get there; I promise.”

BJ Knapp, 44, a former college radio station disc jockey, lives in Coventry. She authored Beside the Music. Imagine if a washed-up ’80s metal band moved in to your house. It happens to Brenda and Tim in this book. Can Brenda be one man’s wife and another man’s muse? For book details, go to bjknapp.com.

Commencement tips: “Never forget how to laugh at yourself, how to be silly and how to make others laugh. Laughter is great for your abs, for your soul and for your relationships. And it’s not all about you. Don’t turn every situation around so it’s about you. Most of the time it’s about someone else, and it’s up to you to be supportive of that person. They will do the same for you when it really is all about you.”

Alison O’Donnell, 52, a freelance editor, proofreader and ghostwriter, lives in Pawtucket. She authored Stupid Cupid~ A Survivor’s Guide to Online Dating. The book has a sarcastic slant toward online dating, chronicling 100 really bad dates followed by a moral learned experience from each experience. For book details, go to facebook.com/AuthorAlisonODonnell.

Commencement tips: “Do not fear your own power! There are people who will try to beat you down; rise above it. There are people who will use their power to beat you down. Go around it. Then, mentally thank them for the life lesson. There are people who will support you. Show gratitude. Your success will have been earned. Embrace it.”

Michael A. Battey, 65, a podiatrist, lives in East Greenwich. He authored The Parent Trap, Vol. 1, the first of a two-volume collection of humorous and insightful observations on contemporary teen parenting. For book details, go to parenttrapcolumns.com.

Commencement tips: “There is a power to kindness.There is no act you can choose that will be more powerful. It is stronger than the most reasoned logic. It can vanquish the sharpest wit. Deceptive at times and preternaturally puzzling, it is your best ally. It elevates discussions and makes you a better person. It is defining, and it is memorable.”

A. Jacob, 50, a government claims auditor for CVS, lives in Central Falls. She authored Grimaulkin, a book about a young wizard who was sent to prison for summoning demons. Now he’s out trying to be a better man, but others want to use his knowledge and abilities – against his parole. For book details, go to paperangelpress.com/pages/books/grimaulkin.php.

Commencement tips: “I published my first book at 48, but I’ve been writing since I was 15. Why did I wait so long? Because I was afraid. Afraid of what my family would say about me, of how the book would be received. Here’s my advice: Don’t wait. Life is too short. Buy the darn shoes you love.”

Phyllis Calvey, 68, an educator and story teller who lives in Bellingham, Mass. Her latest book, The Butterfly Club, presents real people’s stories of how God can, and does, use signs to communicate His presence to those in need. For book details, go to butterflyclubbook.com. Commencement Tips: “The odds were probably a thousand to one to be published, and yet I quit my job to be a writer. My dad said, “You could be the one. How much does a book sell for these days? $6.95? When you sell a million, that’s…” But all I heard was the word “when”, it immediately seemed to change the odds!”

For more information about the ARIA, click here.

Herb Weiss, LRI’12, is a Pawtucket writer covering aging, health care and medical issues. To purchase “Taking Charge: Collected Stories on Aging Boldly,” a collection of 79 of his weekly commentaries, go to herbweiss.com. He is a member of ARIA.

Book Review: Joanne Mead’s Tiger Tiger: Underlying Crimes

Tiger Tiger is the second book in author Joann Mead’s Underlying Crimes series, though the books aren’t connected in any way other than the biological theme of the series. Mead is a science teacher who also works in the biotechnology and medical research fields, which gives her writing a sense of realism and terror. This book serves as a sobering reminder that there are people who thrive on destruction, and you never quite know how a scheme of chaos and destruction could play out or when.

The book’s character Mei grew up in Shenzhen, an urban village in China. She watched her mother work as a maid to support her. Her father died when she was young, and her mother placed importance on Mei receiving a good education so she didn’t end up in the same situation. Mei also secretly learned how her mother was earning extra income, and used these lessons later in life to help her manipulate men into getting what she wanted. Mei’s favorite mantra was “Work hard, get rich.”

Mei became a scientist, working in a lab at World Genomics. She tried to grow professionally, but knew other ways to get ahead, whether it be for more money or to further her education. She meets Kahliy, a teacher with a boatload of various passports, an unusual backstory and a certain charm that he uses to his advantage. The two work out a plan to unleash the Tiger Flu, a super virus that will wreck absolute havoc wherever it is unleashed, which is (big surprise) America.

The story plays out like a beach read. There is plenty of sex for lust, money and manipulation on both Mei and Kahliy’s part. It’s interesting to see how each use it to their advantage, both with each other and other people. I’m not usually a fan of reading sex scenes, but Mead used them in a way that was necessary to move the plot along.

The part of the story I liked best was the bioterrorism aspect. It is clear that Mead is knowledgeable of the subject, and she uses this to write something absolutely terrifying and realistic. Mei creates the Tiger Flu and tests it on a couple of unsuspecting guinea pigs, while Kahliy plots to release it to the public via terror cell. Everything seemed well-planned and nearly foolproof, which sent shivers down my spine. I’m as fascinated as I am scared of this subject, and Mead thoroughly portrays both what could happen and how it could happen.

There are parts where the storyline is choppy, and some of the dialogue is cringe-worthy. It follows Mei for most of the book before abruptly starting to tell Kahliy’s backstory (this starts “Part 3”). It took me away from the story a bit, though I found the part that focused on him to be the strongest section. The story also shifts at times to Jo and Jeremy, who are pseudo detectives living in Rhode Island trying to piece together what happened after learning about Mei’s test subjects. While I found their presence interesting, it didn’t seem necessary and their payoff was a little disappointing.

It took a bit to become fully invested in the story — it didn’t become a page-turner for me until about halfway through; however, Mead crafts a well-thought-out story that is based in realism and what-ifs. Fans of this genre would consider this a fun and interesting read.

Beach Reads: New Non-Fiction of Local Interest

You’re not limited to romancey, vampirey, murdery fluff when you head to the beach this summer. Pick up one of these non-fiction local tales instead and getcher learn on, you dummy! If for no other reason, do it so you’ll be more interesting at parties.

The Poison Plot: A Tale of Adultery and Murder in Colonial Newport by Elaine Forman Crane (272 pages, Cornell University Press, published May 15, 2018). The Poison Plot by Elaine Forman Crane

Crane is a “micro-historian” who illuminates the larger issues and society of the past by telling the story of small, particularly unusual incidents that expose aspects otherwise kept hidden. In 1720s Newport, RI, 21-year-old Mary married Benedict Arnold, a merchant barrel maker two decades older than she was. By 1738, she was widely known to carry on extramarital affairs, possibly in an unsuccessful effort to provoke him to file for divorce, an option not then open to women, but that didn’t happen. When he got sick, a doctor diagnosed the cause as poison, leading to a judicial inquiry that meticulously compiled evidence from another doctor who treated her and her lover for gonorrhea and from druggists who sold her various components that could be used as poison, eventually accumulating about 100 pages of manuscript records that have been preserved. Believing himself poisoned, he finally filed for divorce. But was he? Adding to the uncertainty, she was illiterate and chose to remain silent about the allegations, so we never hear her side of the story, leaving us to infer it from third parties.

Crane’s earlier quasi-companion book, Killed Strangely: The Death of Rebecca Cornell (253 pages, Cornell University Press, 2002), relates another case of alleged murder in 1673 Portsmouth, RI, when a wealthy, elderly matriarch was found burned to death near the fireplace, for which her adult son in his 40s was accused – and the hearsay testimony of ghosts was then admissible in court. The contrast is striking: only a few decades later, the court system in the Arnold case was struggling to evolve rational if not exactly scientific standards of evidence, long before any sort of objective chemical test existed to detect poison.

If you like this: Witches, Wife Beaters, and Whores: Common Law and Common Folk in Early America by Elaine Forman Crane (272 pages, Cornell University Press, 2012) and The Witches: Salem, 1692 by Stacy Schiff (512 pages, Little, Brown and Company, 2015).

God, War, and Providence: The Epic Struggle of Roger Williams and the Narragansett Indians against the Puritans of New England by James A. Warren (304 pages, Scribner, published June 12, 2018). God, War, and Providence by James A. Warren

From its inception in 1636, Rhode Island was a weird place, defying the mindset of the Puritans who settled Massachusetts and founded by a series of refugees fleeing from stultifying obsession with enforced unity of religious views. When Roger Williams settled Providence by stepping off his boat in what is now Fox Point onto a rock (that two centuries later would mistakenly be blown to bits by city workers sent to preserve it) and was supposedly greeted by Native Americans with the mixed English- Algonkian question “What cheer, netop?” that now forms the basis of the city’s motto, he established the first community in the world built on the assumption that freedom of religion and tolerance for dissenting views would strengthen rather than weaken the social fabric.

Williams was trained as a lawyer, a student of the legendary British judge Sir Edward Coke, and this led him to conclude the conduct of the colonists was unlawful and unfair. What finally forced Williams to leave Massachusetts were charges of heresy and sedition for publishing a broadside arguing that it was theft to take land from the indigenous Native Americans without payment and consent. Williams was also the first in the New World to organize an effort to outlaw slavery.

The British colonists looked back helplessly with increasing alarm as the home country descended into civil war in the 1640s and the interregnum of the 1650s, and the neighboring settlements in Massachusetts and Connecticut saw the Rhode Island settlers as anarchist heretics and the native tribes as recalcitrant heathen savages. As the other colonies subjugated and Christianized the tribes, Williams and the Narragansetts formed a military and social alliance that well served their mutual goal of remaining independent: “For their part, the Puritan authorities viewed Williams’ Rhode Island as a cesspool of religious and political radicalism, and the stubborn Narragansetts as both a serious security risk and an obstacle to Puritan expansion.” This book is the story of how that unique confluence happened.

If Carl von Clausewitz was correct that war is the continuation of policy with other means, military historian Warren has finally written a book that emphasizes the policy rather than the war. His earlier Giap: The General Who Defeated America in Vietnam (256 pages, St. Martin’s Press, 2013) is a remarkable, contrarian assessment of the history teacher turned soldier who became the most surprisingly successful strategic general since George Washington, crediting Giap with out-thinking both the French and the Americans in two wars and objecting to the conventional view that Giap was merely the lucky beneficiary of enemy mistakes and incompetence.

If you like this: American Jezebel: The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, the Woman Who Defied the Puritans by Eve LaPlante (312 pages, Harper, 2005) and The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity by Jill Lepore (337 pages, Knopf, 1998).

Founding Martyr: The Life and Death of Dr. Joseph Warren, the American Revolution’s Lost Hero by Christian Di Spigna (336 pages, Crown, forthcoming August 14, 2018).

Founding Martyr by Christian Di Spigna

Killed in action at Bunker Hill early in the American Revolution at age 34, Bostonian Joseph Warren finally receives the biography he deserves as one of the key leaders for the decade leading up to the shooting war, along with Samuel Adams and Paul Revere. Indeed, Warren was the man who sent Revere and William Dawes on their midnight rides. Warren’s biography shows that the American Revolution did not just start in 1775.

If you like this: Paul Revere’s Ride by David Hackett Fischer (464 pages, Oxford University Press, 1994).

Not Local, but Recommended

Fascism: A Warning by Madeleine Albright (304 pages, Harper, published April 10, 2018).

Bill Clinton’s secretary of state who as a child twice escaped oppression, once from Nazi Germany and once from Soviet communists as they took over her native Czechoslovakia, warns that the world is backsliding away from ideals of freedom and democracy traditionally supported by the United States and is embracing authoritarianism.

The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America by Timothy Snyder (368 pages, Tim Duggan, published April 3, 2018). America’s most original historical thinker about Nazi Germany – his brilliant Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (560 pages, Basic Books, 2010) won the Hannah Arendt Prize – ties together current populist trends, including the unchecked annexation of Ukraine territory by Russia under Vladimir Putin, Brexit, and the American presidency of Donald Trump, to argue that Western democratic institutions are more precarious than commonly thought. Something of an expanded follow- on from his On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (128 pages, Tim Duggan, 2017), itself expanded from a Facebook post a week after the 2016 election that began, “Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so.”

Off the Charts: The Hidden Lives and Lessons of American Child Prodigies by Ann Hulbert (400 pages, Knopf, published January 9, 2018).

Fifteen cases studies of child prodigies provide the framework for surveying how they have been studied and prodded over the past century, including the longitudinal Terman’s Study of the Gifted begun in 1921 and Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth begun in 1971. What risks do these children face and what help do they need? From the author of Raising America: Experts, Parents, and a Century of Advice About Children (464 pages, Knopf, 2003).

(((Semitism))): Being Jewish in America in the Age of Trump by Jonathan Weisman (256 pages, St. Martin’s Press, published March 20, 2018).

The deputy Washington editor of The New York Times, an assimilated Jew born and raised in Atlanta, is shocked to discover that a vocal minority of alt-right Trump supporters feel unleashed on social media to attack him and other Jewish journalists, surrounding their Twitter handles with “echoes” – triple parentheses ignored by search engines – to “dog-whistle” that they are Jewish and hold them up to ridicule.

Beach Reads for Fiction Lovers

View each season as a blank slate — a fresh three months to accomplish whatever is desired, a future filled with options, an adventure just waiting to happen, for better or worse. There is an aura of uncertainty that can be both exciting and terrifying.

Despite the unpredictability of what the summer may bring, here’s hoping that you find some time to hit the beach (or wherever your place of solace is) with a book. The following are a few suggestions to help enhance your summer.

Paul DiFilippo’s The Big Get-Even: This book will literally be a summer read for me, as it is next on my “to read” list, and I’m highly intrigued. This is a caper tale about a disbarred lawyer and ex-arsonist who come up with a scam to make $20 million. It’s hard not to get excited about a plot like this. I can’t wait to read and review this one. Joann Mead’s Tiger Tiger: Underlying Crimes: This is almost the dictionary definition of a beach read. Mei is a Chinese researcher who uses sex appeal to better position herself in her field, which just happens to be biological warfare. She uses her skills in hopes of setting off a pandemic, leaving her rich in the process. This book is full of sex and violence, which I always assume everyone at the beach is reading about.

Heather Rigney’s The Merrow Trilogy: I’ve been singing the praises of Heather Rigney ever since I was drawn into Waking the Merrow, the first book in the trilogy that follows ultimate anti-hero Evie McFagan and her mermaid nemesis, Nomia. Now that the entire story has been written, I can finally recommend it being read back to back to back. This will leave readers no time to forget anything.

Happy reading!

Up On The Roof: Over the Edge Fundraiser for PCL

Who wouldn’t want to rappel down a 12-story building if they had a chance? Turns out, a lot of people wouldn’t, but when I first saw the notice about the Providence Community Libraries (PCL) Over The Edge fundraiser, it was a no-brainer for me. It sounded like great motivation to get in shape for the summer, and a great way to see my city from a new perspective and usher out my 60s. Most of all, since I love my local libraries, I saw it as a great way to show my support for them.

Only the first 90 people who raised $1,000 are allowed up to the roof of the Regency Plaza and then down its side, so my primary concern was that it would take me longer to raise that amount from my $10 and $20 contributing friends than someone who could raise that amount in two phone calls, so I got to work right away. I sent out a personalized request with a link to the donation website to 100 or so of my closest friends, and posted my appeal on social media. My peeps did not disappoint. Within 12 hours, I’d raised more than the $1,000 I needed, and I became the very first official PCL rappeller-to-be. By the next day, I’d earned enough to wear a GoPro camera on my helmet so I could document my descent. I have never rappelled before. So I was very pleased that a perk of registration was getting a free pass to Rock Spot Climbing in Lincoln where I experienced the apparatus I’ll be using on June 23 when I take that first step off the Regency Plaza roof. As with many of life’s challenging endeavors, the first step is the hardest. In this case, it was getting my body from an upright position on a roof to a right angle on the side of the building that took some getting used to, but I felt more comfortable after two times rappelling down the one-story wall at Rock Spot.

So far, I’ve lost seven of the 10 pounds I put on while working on a book this past winter and early spring. I’m eating a healthier diet and have increased my exercise regimen. I plan to be in peak condition by Descent Day, and envision sporting a Wonder Woman type outfit. I’ve more than doubled my original fundraising goal. All good. But to help PCL be in their peak condition, to keep them healthy and help put them over the edge for their fundraising goal, many more people need to climb up on the roof with me. And PCL is now sweetening the pot by offering to split funds raised by some youth-serving non-profits that want to partner in this worthwhile effort.

On the Over the Edge website, you can find out more, including a list of the Top Ten Reasons to Support PCL. Here are my top three:

1. PCL promotes literacy and lifelong learning with inspiring programs for people of all ages and backgrounds, and last year, library users made more than 650,000 visits to PCL libraries. 2. At the end of the school day, children flock to the libraries for creative programs and help with their homework, and PCL’s specially equipped Mobile Library expands PCL’s Summer Reading Program by taking it on the road – bringing books, computers and teachers to schoolyards and recreation centers. 3. All PCL services and programs are offered absolutely free to the public.

Let’s keep the good work of our community libraries going. Donate today, or join me up on the roof on June 23.

An Interview with Heather Rigney

Author Heather Rigney has made a name for herself with The Merrow Trilogy, which follows lovable screw-up anti-hero Evie McFagan as she deals with her nemesis/counterpart Nomia, a mermaid. Both experience self-discovery and both leave a path of destruction in their wake. All three books have garnered praise, and helped Rigney build a loyal fanbase.

Now that the trilogy is complete, I sent Rigney some questions about her thoughts on her work, the characters, the process and her future.

Bobby Forand (Motif): How did the idea for The Merrow Trilogy come about? Was it always meant to be a trilogy?

Heather Rigney: I was invited to collaborate on a now-retired, anthology called DIVE. It was a collection of short stories about mermaids or merfolk. Four authors were involved, and I wrote a story called “Mermaids are Not Nice.” That was the birth of both my antagonist, Nomia, and protagonist, Evie McFagan. The short story received a lot of praise and more than one person stated that I needed to expand the world I had created. From there, I thought, “I should make a trilogy out of this!” I had no idea what I was getting into.

BF: Who was your favorite character to write? Why? Did that character change as you continued to write?

HR: Evie was easily my favorite character to write because she is based on my worst behavior. She says all the things I want to say but don’t. Evie went through a lot of changes. Her evolution needed to happen because she’s at rock bottom when we first meet her. The only direction she could go was up. I tried to create an arc for her that worked with her bad habits and helped elevate her from unlikable anti-hero to unlikable, unlikely hero.

BF: Which book was the most fun to write? Why?

HR: They all had different vibes. Book one was a blast because it was my first real book and I had so much fun attempting to be a writer. Book two was a slog. I felt a huge sense of pressure to deliver, and it made the work feel like a burden. I got very sick after Hunting came out, and I think it was my body’s way of telling me I pushed my stress quota too far. Caging was the most fun. I felt confident and more carefree because I knew it was the last one.

BF: How did you feel once the third book came out, meaning The Merrow Trilogy was complete?

HR: I felt relieved. Here is a secret that I don’t want anyone to know: I don’t like mermaids and I never did. You know when you are little and you mention to a relative that you like owls and then next thing you know every holiday or special occasion finds you swimming in owl paraphernalia? That’s my connection to mermaids. I never liked them, I just thought it would be a marketable topic to write about (and coincidentally paint — I have several mermaid paintings because I thought they would sell). Once the last sentence was written, I felt a huge sense of release, a new freedom from mermaids.

BF: Have you thought about any of the characters during your daily life since completing the trilogy?

HR: I often wonder what Evie would think of Trump. Wherever she is, you know she has a pink hat and a RESIST bumper sticker.

BF: Looking back, is there any part of the story you wish you could change?

HR: There are a lot of mistakes in book one. I didn’t have a good solid direction and if I had the chance to rewrite it, I would. But that would be strange and almost like time-traveling. I’m sure I would mess up the known universe in some way.

BF: What are your plans now that the trilogy is complete?

HR: I recently took a job as the elementary art teacher at the Lincoln School in Providence, and I am loving it. I didn’t realize how much I missed teaching. It has become a full-on immersive compulsion that leaves little room for writing at the moment.

BF: Rhode Island plays a part in the story. How accurate are the locations you use as the setting? What made you choose the locations you did?

HR: The trilogy is my love letter to Pawtuxet Village, a unique area of both Warwick and Cranston on Narragansett Bay where I live. It’s such a great place filled with rich history, neighborhoods within neighborhoods, quirky individuals and a fantastic community that is always changing. I love being part of it and I really wanted to highlight all the wonderful qualities that I adore, such as Gaspee Days — a time where we honor colonial rebels who burned down one of His Majesty’s ships during Pre- Revolutionary War times. All of the streets and locations are as close as possible to reality unless I altered them slightly to fit with the story. For example, Little Falls Cafe in the Village has been renamed Heart Attack Heaven and is no longer a bakery/coffee shop but a charcuterie/coffee shop. BF: What was your biggest challenge writing the trilogy?

HR: Not having any prior knowledge of how to write a trilogy. I had no idea what I was doing and the process almost broke me. At that point in my life, I was blessed with the gift of time. I had left teaching to stay home with my young daughter. I don’t think I could have written three books while I was teaching and raising a family.

BF: Describe your writing process. How has it changed since you started writing?

HR: For starters, I use the writing program Scrivener. It has revolutionized my writing. Being a visual person, I needed to lay out all my chapters and see them in multiple ways — not just one linear format as it is with Word. Scrivener allowed me to write multiple story arcs and then jumble them into one cohesive novel. I color-coded everything so I could see how the different threads wove into the braided final product. Another change was my ability to start with the ending first and work toward it. After I finished the first book, Waking, I wrote the final chapter of Caging. I used that as my finish-line marker while writing book two, Hunting and book three, Caging.

BF: What is your favorite and least favorite part of writing?

HR: My favorite part of writing is creating characters. I love crafting beings with subtle quirky traits, unique physical properties, and the nuances of how someone would speak. We are all, in the real world, wonderfully different. We all have our own way of doing things and reasons for why we do them. I like watching and observing people in the real world and then translating that into a fictional character.

My least favorite part of writing is editing. God, how I hate editing. I hate re-reading something I have already read a thousand times, fully knowing that I am most likely missing a glaring error that some reader will point out just to embarrass me.

BF: How have you marketed The Merrow Trilogy? Have you noticed its popularity grow?

HR: I did everything I could afford, and a few things I couldn’t, to promote my trilogy. I have gone to almost every event I have been asked to do — library signings, book fairs, comic and horror conventions. I have done virtual book tours, countless interviews for blogs and newspapers. I called all local newspapers and sent out press releases every time I released a book. I have thrown huge parties for each book release. I put first edition copies of Waking in Little Free Libraries around the state. I have left my books in airports and other public places. When I travel I put bookmarks up in Starbucks. I am shameless in my promotion! This summer I will be doing a sunset cruise of Providence Harbor with the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council. Yes, I will be on a boat, trying to sell books.

BF: What are your thoughts on self-publishing? Please discuss both the pros and cons.

HR: Pros: You are in control of everything from writing, to cover design, to marketing, to branding, to accounting, to promotion, to quality control. It’s all you, all the time. No one will tell you that what you are doing is wrong.

Cons: See above. It’s exhausting wearing all those hats when all you want to do is write. Giving up creative control when you write for a publisher, and not yourself, allows you to focus on your craft. However, in today’s market, you still have to self-promote no matter who signs your paycheck. BF: Please give a tip to anyone interested in writing and releasing work of their own.

HR: Do it. If you want to write and you have something you want to share with the world, just do it. There are so many resources out there for DIY publishing right now. Why not see if you’re any good? Once the reviews start coming in, pay attention to what they’re saying and fix the issues. You’ll only get better with practice. Sitting around saying, “I could write a book,” does not make you a better writer. Putting the time in and practicing is what makes it happen.

BF: Please state an interesting and unknown tidbit about The Merrow Trilogy.

HR: I am proud to say that I have created my own little feminist manifesto. I attempted to examine the way women were perceived in the past and in the present by both society and themselves. Each of my female characters represents a different stereotype. I included the female pariahs such as the sloppy failure of a mother, the cougar, the adulterer and the aggressive alpha. I included the rape victim and the sex worker. I explored issues of the glass ceiling throughout time and issues of the sublimation of women by men. To some degree, both my parents were feminists and they raised me to recognize that I would always be fighting against the fact that I was female. My dad always said that I could do anything, no matter what, because I was strong and I was a fighter, being female should never be a drawback, it’s a superpower. You just have to fight twice as hard. I’d like to think the women in my book did just that — they fought twice as hard to be themselves as I fought to be something I never trained to be: a writer.

Learn more about Heather Rigney by checking out her Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/HeatherRigney/e/B009GSPRPU/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1