October Selection: In Caddis Wood

Title: In Caddis Wood: A Novel
Author: Mary Francois Rockcastle
Host: Joanne

From Publisher's Weekly

“As she did in her debut, Rainy Lake, Rockcastle once again melds family drama with a palpable sense of place. . . . Suffused, appropriately, with imagery of the natural and man-made worlds, Rockcastle’s skillful pacing weaves together the family’s tumultuous history with its uncertain present. A mature love story offering a clear-eyed glimpse of the challenges and rewards of a long marriage.”—Publishers Weekly

From New York Journal of Books

Told from the alternating perspectives of a husband and wife, In Caddis Wood explores the competing rhythms of romantic love, family life, and professional ambition, refracted through the changing seasons of a long marriage. Beneath the surface, affecting their collective future, beats the resilient and endangered heart of nature.

Hallie’s career as a poet has always come second to her family, while Carl’s life has been defined by his demanding and internationally acclaimed work as an architect. The onset of a debilitating illness and the discovery of Hallie’s cache of letters from another man set Carl reeling and cause him to question not only his previously unshakable belief in himself but also his faith in Hallie’s devotion. As the memories multiply and the family gathers at their longtime summerhouse in the woods of Wisconsin, Hallie and Carl’s grown-up daughters offer unexpected avenues toward forgiveness and healing.

With warmth and generosity, Mary François Rockcastle captures the way that the aging mind imbues the present with all the many layers of the past as she illuminates the increasingly unbreakable bonds borne of a shared life.

“Rockcastle has written a simple, but not simplistic, satisfying story of love, loss, marriage, fidelity, and family. . . . This family is so real, so understandable, so in need of comfort each in their own way, that we want to embrace them in their grief, applaud their reconciliations, and learn from their loving fortitude.”

Special Appearance

The author will join us to read and discuss (we hope and pray, if she is willing).

Readers without a Map, but with a Purpose

Feeling the end of summer, darkness descending toooo early, some of us sort of lost our way--but eventually, 10 of us showed up at Faith’s, to be warmly welcomed with a delicious, appealing spread.

Literature with cheese and champagne grapes

Insights and Opinions

Where would we begin?  Shirley dived in, asking “Why couldn’t he write the introduction to the anthology?”
+ Writers’ block? Because Roz left him? Because he was depressed?
+ If he was depressed, was it short term because of Roz leaving him? Because of losing his job? Or was it brain chemistry. Or, if it wasn’t depression but procrastination, was it because it wasn’t his idea?+ But he really was writing it--this book is the introduction to the anthology. It even, Linda noted, had the right number of pages--230--if you took out all the blank pages between chapters.
+ Whether he was depressed or not, there were nods all around at the suggestion that “it was the sweetest love story.” ‘Actually, someone noted, there were parallel love stories: between Paul Chowder and Roz, and between Ted Roethke and Louise Bogan.
+ Several of us had felt compelled to find and read The Fish by Louise Bogan, and then to look up her The Roman Fountain, and agreed with Paul Chowder that the first verse is terrific, but the rest doesn’t quite measure up. Sometimes just one word or one line, is brilliant in a poem.
+ As Margy said, “who knew iambic pentameter could be so hilarious?” Again, nods all around that this The Anthologist was comic, but dead-serious about poetry:
- A wonderful introduction to poetry, perhaps, even a Poetry 101 introduction.
- It’s a history of poetry, with brilliant insights but playful, both facetious and serious at the same time.
- Paul Chowder is a bit reactionary and contrary.
- He makes arguments for rhyme, and does a lot of rhyming at the end of chapters.
- It was a humorous, inviting, literary lark, arcane (but not to us!)
+ We all loved that in his talk at the poetry convocation near the end, he told his listeners, “write about the best moment of the day.” I think we agreed that this is an effective secret to writing poetry.
+ We asked ourselves why Paul Chowder cried in front of his class, near the end of the book. Thoughts:
- He set the bar too high for himself
- He was coming to terms with just being ordinary
- He was a pathetic, zany, off-beat person who stands for love and art, and is trying to discover “what really matters.”

Oddments and Telling Details

+ This wasn’t a poem, but an observation by Paul Chowder, but the only gentleman in attendance noted that he was particularly taken with the sentence, “a really good fuck makes me feel like custard.” We did not discuss whether that feeling was more significantly a male reaction, but I doubt it.
+ Toward the end of the discussion, someone (was it you, Vicki?) mentioned that listening to The Anthologist on audio was very satisfying--you could hear the beats in the poetry, the music to which he set the poems, and “it sounds exactly like Paul Chowder.”
+ Ten readers attended. Eight gave the book a "thumbs up." We welcomed Blanche, who abstained as she had not yet read the book.