For anyone who wants to get out of their lightless house — count me in! — I’ll be giving an illustrated talk about The Orphanmaster tomorrow night, Nov. 1, 7:30, at the Dobbs Ferry Library, in Dobbs Ferry, New York. Sponsored by the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society.
Category Archives: The Orphanmaster
Cake Walk
Guested at a book club today, one of two I’ve been invited to this week. Book groups are great — you get to talk about literature, and they feed you good chocolate cake.
Cakes by Wayne Thiebaud
There were about 20 members gathered in a living room overlooking the Long Island Sound. Beautiful, though my chair had its back to the view. I tried to appear scholarly, as this was a group that had actually read Anna Karenina in a month (last time I partook it was a 12 month commitment).
I find that people like The Orphanmaster a lot, but they love the idea that it’s been optioned for Hollywood.
I spoke about all the research I’d done for The Orphanmaster, how most of the details and textures of the time were as accurate as I could make them. Oh, so it was faction, one member said. Well, historical fiction, I said.
But faction is a pretty good description after all, when you’re under the spell of that chocolate cake.
Filed under Cooking, Jean Zimmerman, The Orphanmaster, Writing
The Will to Talk
For those of you in lower Westchester, I’ll be giving a talk this Saturday on The Orphanmaster at the Grinton Will Library in Yonkers, 1500 Central Ave., at 1pm, with pictures, like this first street plan of Manhattan (1660).
Filed under Jean Zimmerman, The Orphanmaster
Got You Covered
I’ve just heard that The Orphanmaster is to be published in Hungary … now along with Italy, France, Holland and Taiwan.
The cover for the French edition really spooks me:
But wait until you see the cover for the U.S. softcover, due out in May! That is some scary artwork. I’ll share it when it’s finalized.
Filed under Jean Zimmerman, Publishing, The Orphanmaster, Writing
New Amsterdam in 3D
Check this out. The New Amsterdam History Project has a 3D rendering of Stone Street during the time of the Dutch settlement. You get a vivid feeling of how low the rooflines were, how close the settlement was to the sea. Interesting to insert your imagining of The Orphanmaster into this setting.
Filed under History, Jean Zimmerman, The Orphanmaster
PW Reviews Orphanmaster Audio
I go away for a few days and come back to this lovely review of The Orphanmaster on cd, as performed by George Guidall. George is a total pro and deserving of every accolade. I listened to the whole set through and it sounded so fresh it was as if I hadn’t even written the thing!
Filed under Jean Zimmerman, Publishing, The Orphanmaster, Writing
Write the Book
A link to a radio interview I did recently on a Vermont show called “Write the Book.” I liked Shelagh Shapiro, she was a perceptive host.
Filed under Jean Zimmerman, Publishing, The Orphanmaster, Writing
Chimes of Freedom
Plowing through puddles on I94 with lightning electrifying the morning sky, en route from Milwaukee to Wausau. Listening to Lucinda Live, Change the Locks.
From The Last Tycoon; There are a lot of ways through the mountains, one of them optimal, others less so, but the important thing is that someone has to choose how the tracks are laid.
Last night, Boswell’s, enthusiasm for Fiercely as well as Orphanmaster. Newton and Edith thank you.
On to Janke’s in Wausau at 5:00, last event on this tour but scattered gigs back east in the Fall.
For now, a stop to pick up 10 year old cheddar at the Maus Haus.
Filed under Jean Zimmerman, Love, Fiercely, The Orphanmaster
Under Construction
Swimming in Lake Michigan is like swimming in the Atlantic and taking a shower at the same time. And drinking a glass of water as you go. We had a chance to stretch out on the sand this morning after the Original Pancake House and before Interstate 94.
Last night at The Book Stall in Winnetka was cozy and great, a few people I knew — including a woman I hadn’t seen since we were girls shovel-scraping together on a summer archaeological dig so many years ago! — and a bunch who were new to me. (The store was ranked #1 indie book store by Publishers Weekly for 2012.)
I like talking to a combination of people who had read The Orphanmaster or had not, taking them by the hand and showing them some of the oddities of European culture in Dutch New Amsterdam in the old days, New York before it was called New York. And I’m finding that quite a few people have read not only the novel but Love, Fiercely. Tonight in my talk at Boswell’s, in Milwaukee, I’ll be talking about both books and the differences between writing fiction and nonfiction. The event’s at 7pm if you happen to be in the neighborhood.
Our hotel in Milwaukee is the only thing in the neighborhood not being rebuilt; we’re surrounded by dirt and earth moving machinery and jack hammers. Restful if you’re in a certain mood.
Filed under Jean Zimmerman, Publishing, The Orphanmaster, Writing
Beefy
I rolled us into Chicago and Gil headed us out, and in between we visited one of the city’s major attractions, just beneath the Navy Pier and the Sears Tower: Mr. Beef, the downtown locus of all that is juicy and meaty and our first destination whenever we’re in town. The Italian Beef Sandwich pairs hot shaved tenderloin with a melange of finely diced vegetables (called giardinera, if you must know) and a soft bun, all of it dipped in a special beefy broth which runs down your chin with each bite. Crush a vanilla milkshake at the same time and go take a nap.
You’ll Find It on Orleans
This is all good fuel for a talk I’m giving tonight at The Book Stall in Winnetka, one of Chicago’s northern suburbs. It’s an early event, 6:30, but should be fun. I promise to wash the Mr. Beef grease off my hands before I arrive.
Filed under Cooking, Jean Zimmerman, The Orphanmaster
Travels With Oliver
Speaking tonight at the Hudson Library in Ohio, sponsored by The Learned Owl book store. Nice drive today through elk country– fishing camps lined the backroads, and broke down vehicles of all kinds lay like beached porpoises in every yard. The stench of dog breath permeated the back seat.
Maud Keeps Oliver in Line
Not sure if we’ll have time to explore Cleveland, but I had a swim today so everything’s all right.
Filed under Dogs, Jean Zimmerman, The Orphanmaster
Fruit of the Earth
“Are the stars too distant? Pick up the pebble that lies at thy feet, and from it learn the all.” Margaret Fuller
Filed under Jean Zimmerman, The Orphanmaster
Strontium Plums and Beryllium Bears
The morning glories were raging as I, Gil, Maud and Oliver pulled away from Cabin World to start on our road trip to the midwest., leaving the hovel-in-the-marsh in the capable care of our friend Javert.
We crossed Pennsylvania to find a farm stand with a prematurely aged man making change out of a prematurely aged leather wallet. The plums he sold were the most delicious I’ve ever eaten.
Gil has his own take on the region we’ve hit, staying at a biker bar/motel so remote that a denizen of the bar exclaimed, “I’ve never seen anybody stay at the motel!” So here are his ruminations:
Researching a writing project, we’re embarking on a vacation tour of Fifties nuclear sites, the first one being the Quehanna Wild Area in west central Pennsylvania. As part of Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” program, the Curtis-Martin aeronautics company tore a huge swath out of the wilderness and installed a reactor as part of an experimental nuclear-powered jet engine development. But in 1960 the U.S. Air Force crapped out of the whole Jetson-style concept altogether, Curtis-Martin pulled out, burying some of its waste underground, after which area black bears and other animals rummaged through the stuff. Beryllium dust anyone? How about some strontium-90? ARCO inherited the hot cell in the woods. One of its subsidiaries had the brilliant idea of irradiating plastic-infused hardwoods to create a sort of super-flooring product, which Permagrain, Inc. installed in basketball courts and gymnasiums around the country (shades of flubber!). Several Quehanna clean-up efforts tried and failed to remediate the site, the robots were sent in, and the whole mess was eventually buried out of sight and out of mind. Even today, though, there’s a hexagonal “restricted area” on the maps. Another local attraction is a coed boot camp correctional facility for wayward youths, just up the road from where we’re staying. Escaped juvies wander into nuclear twilight zone? Sounds like a killer horror flick. The Forest Has Eyes…
Filed under History, Jean Zimmerman, The Orphanmaster
Good Link
Coupla nice items from the blogosphere:
BookTrib: The All-You-Can-Eat Literary Buffet
and
It feels ridiculously good when a reviewer understands what The Orphanmaster is all about.
Filed under Jean Zimmerman, Publishing, The Orphanmaster, Writing
110 Degrees in the Shade
Jim Neeley’s Interstate Barbecue. Nuff said. Even in an airport terminal outpost, a chopped pork sandwich so genuine I bit down on a knucklebone the size of a quarter. In the Memphis Airport, everyone’s flirting in the Tennessee manner, and one bookstore clerk is reading aloud to another clerk from a volume off the New Fiction shelf. Not my book, but you can’t have everything. It was a good trip. We tempered the desert furnace (115 degrees well after the sun has sunk) with ice cream and braved the weather advisory to visit the Poisoned Pen, the largest independent bookstore in the Phoenix area. My web chat there will be up for some time to come. Now home to Gil, Maud and Oliver, who probably spent fully six hours awake in the five days I was gone. G’boy.
Filed under Cooking, Jean Zimmerman, The Orphanmaster
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