When I’m writing furiously I rarely get time or head space to appreciate other stories–if I read, it’s nonfiction. So now that I’ve finished I’m having a great glut of fiction.
First, I read Armistead Maupin’s The Night Listener. I did this because some of my nonfiction reading led me to the strange case of Anthony Godby Johnson, who was a 14-year-old author who didn’t exist. He’d written a book about surviving horrific abuse, but no one had ever seen him–not his agent, not his editor, no one. Only his adopted mother, who, years later, it was proven had been pretending to be Anthony all along (although she has never admitted to it).
Maupin knew Anthony (or whoever he really was) through telephone conversations, and came to have a close relationship with him. When he started to suspect Anthony was a fake, he fictionalised his experience in The Night Listener. I love fakes and frauds and find them endlessly fascinating, so a fiction about a fake is total candy for me. I couldn’t put it down.
Yesterday I went to the movies for the first time in ten months. I saw Superbad, just because that was what was on when I turned up, and I really enjoyed it, mostly because I liked the two main characters and their sidekick so much. There was a real warmth to the film, which I didn’t expect in a teenage let’s-get-drunk-and-laid movie.
Then last night I watched a DVD of Little Miss Sunshine, which was pure pleasure all the way through.
Meanwhile I’ve bought the last Harry Potter book and have started reading that (though I had to read the synopses of the two previous books on Wikipedia because I’d read the books so long ago I’d forgotten what happened). It’s a total page-turner, of course, so much so that I stayed up later than I wanted to last night.
It’s so great to read and watch films again! I should get revisions from my agent any time now, though, so I’d better enjoy the reading while I can.
HP is brilliant…..enjoy your break
Little Miss Sunshine says, “I’M A SUPERFREAK!”
Well, I’ve read 250 pages in a day and a half, Liz, which isn’t bad when you’re squeezing it in during naptimes.
I know Mel, that scene is hilarious!