Here's a photo of my dear friend Brother Luke. He's reading LITTLE NIGHT, and he reads all my novels! We met many years ago when I was on book tour in the Louisville/Lexington KY area, visiting Joseph-Beth Booksellers and the late-great Hawley Cooke bookstores. (I miss Arlene, the store manager! Where are you now?)
Drawn to the Abbey of Gethsemani by the writings of Thomas Merton, I first met Luke many years and many books ago.
He is a brilliant musician and composer, an Irish poet with the best laugh in the world, and one of the greatest friends I can imagine having. He introduced me to his mother Alice and her sister Peggy, and when they came to New York City to visit we spent a day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art--two wonderful women. Luke and Alice came to Joseph Beth to see me speak, and afterwards we had dinner and talked and laughed.
We speak often, don't see each other enough, and I certainly consider him family. I dedicated SILVER BELLS to him.
And whenever I have a new book out, Luke heads straight to the shelves and is one of my first readers. I'm so grateful for his friendship and constant support. Love you, Luke...
My Cousin the Captain
My super-dear cousin Tom Brielmann, a captain for Delta Airlines, took this photo of LITTLE NIGHT and emailed me with the heading "Front of the Store at Logan Airport." He then followed a tradition--he always buys my book in the Delta terminal first day of sale, and gives it to a random passenger. Today it was a woman from NYC. I hope she enjoys it! (and thank you, Tom xxoo) (We're close, and he's always been generous, original, idiosyncratic, creative, a wonderful cousin, and a great pilot. I took my first flight with him when we were both 16.)
Providence
LITTLE NIGHT comes out tomorrow, the very same day the Transit of Venus will occur for the last time in our lifetimes. Coincidence? I'm not sure...
Some of you know how inspired I am by nature, especially celestial events. The full moon on the ocean enchants me. I've never missed a Perseid meteor shower--every August 11th night you'll find me on a beach blanket, watching for meteors to streak across the sky. Sometimes it's raining or too cloudy to see, but I still try. This year the planets have been lining up at dusk, sometimes with the crescent moon, to cast a spell and remind us not to remain overly earthbound.
The title, LITTLE NIGHT, has layers of meaning...I hope you'll discover them when you read the novel. They're all connected to love, and the mysterious ways we move in and out of the dark with each other. There are secrets in the sky and in our hearts...tomorrow the Transit of Venus might help translate a little of both.
When I was a young writer I lived for a short time in Providence Rhode Island--the city of my grandmother Mim's birth. I and my then-love lived at the corner of Benefit and Transit Streets and became best friends with two writers who lived in an old Victorian house at the other end of Transit. They occupied the second floor, and there was a crooked staircase lined with books, and he wrote under one eave on the landing, and she wrote under another eave in the kitchen, and she covered her typewriter with his boxer shorts--long before computers--and we were all in love and great friends and talked about books and fly-fishing and our lives and worst fears and fascinations and acted out sketches of our families and first dates and everything else while eating cozy dinners and drinking much scotch.
There was something about that house. The fact it was on Transit Street explained some of the magic. The street was named after the Transit of Venus, a phenomenon observed in Providence in 1769 by Joseph Brown and his brother Moses using a telescope from the top of a tall wooden platform. The event was commemorated by the naming of two Providence Streets--Transit and Planet.
I wrote one of those writers today to ask about the street, and he replied: It was named after the Transit of Venus. And it happens once every 100 years. I don't know much more about it. Did you know it was scheduled for your book date?
Actually I hadn't put that together. But it seems auspicious, considering that LITTLE NIGHT is dedicated to him. We've stayed friends all these years, still bound by our loves of books, family, fishing, sharks, celestial events, dogs, cats, and a thousand million other things. We wrote THE LETTERS together. It's a paradoxically singular experience, writing a novel with another person, and I can't imagine doing that with anyone but Joe.
LITTLE NIGHT, long friendship, the Transit of Venus; it's all Providence.
starred reviews for LITTLE NIGHT
we're excited to share with you these early reviews, both starred, for LITTLE NIGHT: From Publisher's Weekly:
* Little Night Luanne Rice. Viking/Pam Dorman, $26.95 (336p) ISBN 978-0-670-02356-1 After bludgeoning her sister’s abusive husband with a burnt log, Clare Burke is whisked away to jail in the dramatic opening of Rice’s 30th novel (after Secrets of Paris). Based on Anne’s false testimony in defense of her husband, Clare serves two years for assault, the sisters become estranged, and the story picks up 18 years later in 2011 in New York City, where Clare is a blogger and birdwatcher. Though she’s never fully recovered from the trauma of her sister’s betrayal, Clare desperately wants to reconnect with Anne, who has since cut all ties with her family at the behest of her manipulative husband. But when Anne’s 21-year-old daughter, Grit, shows up on Clare’s doorstep seeking a family that loves her, Clare and her niece bond, though the subject of their common tie—Anne—is never far from either of their minds. The two support one another as they attempt to create a relationship and reconnect with the woman who hurt them. Poetic and stirring, Rice’s latest beautifully combines her love of nature and the power of family. Agent: Andrea Cirillo, the Jane Rotrosen Agency. (June 5) Reviewed on: 04/16/2012
Other Formats Compact Disc - 978-0-307-70494-8 Hardcover - 491 pages - 978-1-4104-4886-6
From Library Journal:
*Rice, Luanne. Little Night. Pamela Dorman: Viking. Jun. 2012. c.336p. ISBN 9780670023561. $26.95. F In 1993, Clare Burke attacked her sister Anne’s abusive husband, Frederik, and went to prison for assault. Once close, the sisters grew estranged after Anne lied in court about what precipitated the attack. Clare, however, never stopped missing and worrying about Anne and her two children, Gillis and Margarita (Grit), who continued to live with a man they often feared. Now working as a birder and blogger in New York City, Clare is stunned to receive a letter from Grit asking to stay with her for a few days. Days turn into months as the aunt and niece get to know each other and try to live in the present while understanding the past. VERDICT Best-selling author Rice’s 30th book is an outstanding read that both chills and warms the soul. Her descriptions of abuse are startling and unnerving, while her vibrant verbal paintings of birds and nature are calming and uplifting. This hard-to-put-down story about how family ties can be undone and sometimes retied is compelling and will undoubtedly resonate with fans of contemporary women’s fiction. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 12/5/11.]—Samantha J. Gust, Niagara Univ. Lib., NY
love, the beginning
today "how we started," two short stories (linked to "the silver boat" and "little night") i wrote to celebrate new love, first love, the kind of love that turns into forever love, was published as an e-special (for $1.99!--love don't cost a thing) tell me: how did you start? what was the beginning of your great love?
The old Blue Moon
BLUE MOON is now available as an e-book. This gives me the chance to remember writing the novel, to be filled with all the emotions of the time. The words "Blue Moon," as well as referring to the celestial phenomenon of two full moons during the same calendar month, is also the name of the old blood-and-booze soaked honky tonk section of Newport, Rhode Island. My grandmother first told me about it--she was a "good girl," but as a young woman she and her boyfriend (who became my grandfather) were known to visit the Blue Moon district to meet their friends, cause some mischief, and dance up a storm.
I started writing the novel late one fall, when the weather had turned cold and storms had started down from Labrador, while driving in my car one day, I heard a radio report of a local fishing boat missing. The Coast Guard search began, continued over Thanksgiving, and was about to be called off when flares were sighted. Suddenly there was hope...but then the rumors began, that the flares had been set off by other fishing boats, doing anything they could to keep the search going.
That kind of love and loyalty hit me hard. I decided to write about a family fishing business in Mount Hope (aka Newport) Rhode Island. The Keating clan owned a fleet of boats, then sold the catch at Lobsterville, their wharfside restaurant. There are three generations of Keatings, all with their own loves, hardships, secrets, and joys. I love that family still, and feel as if they're my own.
I hope you'll download BLUE MOON and meet the Keatings. Billy and Cass, married 10 years and with 3 kids, were known as "the batteries" --their attraction to each other was so strong--and I think I've gotten more reader mail about a certain scene in Billy's truck in a grocery store parking lot than for many other books combined--but who says married couples can't have fun too?
Sheila, the matriarch, is still in love with her husband, in spite of the fact he's been dead for years now, and she never stops dreaming of another dance at the old Blue Moon with him.
My kind of love.
new books, new look!
this spring i have four publications, including my new hardcover LITTLE NIGHT, and to celebrate, we have redone the website. i'm so thankful to adrian kinloch, photographer and web designer, and andrew duncan, marketing manager at viking, for working so hard and making the site so beautiful (and easy for me to use, so i can share lots of writing, photos, and videos with you.) lindsay prevette, publicity manager at viking/penguin, and meghan fallon, of viking publicity, have been wonderful in providing material for the new site and getting the word out about all our news. ted o'gorman continues to be amazing, both as writer of his own fiction and in keeping my site and facebook running well.
tomorrow, april 17, BLUE MOON will be available as an e-book for the first time ever--the novel was first published in 1993, and was based on a true-life fishing boat incident off the connecticut and rhode island coastlines. the novel has been out in paperback, and was made into a cbs movie of the week, but this is it's e-debut.
THE SILVER BOAT comes out in trade paperback on may 29--the novel is very dear to me, and i must admit i love the cover and its shingled beach house. it's set on martha's vineyard, one of my favorite places, and deals with three sisters visiting their beloved summer cottage for the last time.
HOW WE STARTED is an e-special-- two short stories linked to LITTLE NIGHT and THE SILVER BOAT. the first story, "miss martha's vineyard", visits the characters harrison and rory of the silver boat, back when they were young and trying not to be in love. the second, "paul and clare," is a prequel to little night, and tells about their dreams of love, nature, new york city, and how they're destined to be both so right and so wrong.
i hope you'll enjoy the changes on my website, and i can't wait for you to read these four new releases.
on another, thrilling note, there was a starred review of LITTLE NIGHT in today's publisher's weekly.
where i am right now
by "where i am right now" i don't mean geographically, although at this moment, in a micro-geographic sense, i'm typing on the bed with maisie curled up at my feet. a cat and a keyboard: who could need anything more? (except another cat; mae-mae is in the other room.) where i am right now might be summed up by the fact i'm collecting quotes about light. here are two:
"in order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present." ~sir francis bacon, philosopher, 1561-1626
"though my soul may be set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light, i have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night." ~ from "the old astronomer to his pupil" by sarah williams, poet, 1837-1868
aren't they beautiful? and isn't light beautiful? i'm living in a place that's sunnier than what i've been used to for most of my life, and nearly every day i look out to see white light bouncing off the pacific, illuminating lemons in the trees, casting shadows on the mountain and canyon. but still i'm in touch with darkness, most of it inner--maybe all writers are? maybe all human beings are...
i'm thankful for that darkness. it's helped me understand the things people go through, the really painful stuff we all wish would just disappear, go away, or even better, never have existed at all. i'm writing about this now, because during the next few months i'm going to ask you to come on a journey with me.
the picture above shows me with two brilliant young filmmakers: rubie andersson and tamara edwards. when i'm not writing my new novel, i've been working with these young women to create a series of videos connected to little night.
the novel deals with a dark aspect of family life: domestic violence and how it affects everyone. i've experienced it myself, and know that healing is possible, that the dark night ends and daylight returns. little night is very much about how a woman wakes up from a nightmare--with the help of friends, family, and the right kind of love.
along the way, i've interviewed three women who've been affected--either themselves, or in one case, her daughter--by abuse. tamara and rubie have done such beautiful, sensitive filming; they're in the process of editing, and i can't wait to show you the results.
charlie
every day at 5 pm a red-tailed hawk flies over the hillside. when twigg crawford was visiting, he named the hawk 5 o'clock charlie. recently he requested that i post some photos of our daily visitor, so these pictures are for him (and you.)
i take photos with my iphone, no telephoto lens obviously, but there's something about seeing this hawk from a distance that brings poetry into my life every day at 5.
as you can see, charlie has found--or is in the process of finding--love.
we are together and we are fine
my essay about domestic violence, we are together and we are fine, is on the huffington post.
this morning
the ocean is blue, the waves breaking right for surfers, while out beyond the point california gray whales continue their migration south to the calving grounds of laguna san ignacio in baja california.
why doesn't she leave him?
update: my essay in the huffington post here is a story about domestic violence in the home of someone people very well might hope would protect them--ross mirkarimi, the newly appointed sheriff of san francisco county.
his wife, eliana lopez, was once a telenovela star in venezuela.
abuse can happen to anyone--even a famous, adored, talented woman--and the abuser might be the last person anyone would suspect. my mother had a phrase she used about someone we knew: "house devil, street angel." smiles and a way with words can hide a lot. what goes on behind closed doors is known only by the family. if you've got a secret that's hurting you, please ask for help.
the national domestic violence hotline is one really good place to start.
little night takes place in new york city, amid the magical and unexpected wild places in central park. it also deals with abuse and family secrets. the question that comes up, so often, is, "why doesn't she leave him?" the answer, as anyone who's ever been there knows, is: it's hard, so hard. and the reasons for staying are as varied as the women involved.
it can take a very long time to trust yourself enough and, and to decide to get out. but when it's time, it's time. listen to yourself, that little voice inside. believe what he does, not what he says. actions speak louder than words.
know that you are brave.
Spring News: My new novel is out now!
here's the cover of my new novel, LITTLE NIGHT. it came out june 5 2012. here's a link. isn't the cover lovely and mysterious? it's an image of poets walk, in new york's central park. i'll be posting more about the novel soon... [edited june 5, 2012]
Little Night is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and IndieBound
the light is bright
As a Child I Loved Winter
We had a small hill in our back yard, and I learned how to ski on wooden skis with my initials burned at the tips. My father had a workshop in the basement, and for a while he seemed to burn my initials on everything. The working class version of a monogram.
Read Morechanging light
the landscape stays the same, but the light changes.
constantly.
twilight can be blue
or rose
or blue and rose
sometimes there's a dramatic sunset
the full moon sets just before dawn
fog rolls in and then it rolls out
storms come
and some days it looks like this:
paradise
i wrote a novel called what matters most, and once again i've been putting a question mark at the end of the title, asking myself the question. i guess you'd say i'm an emotional sort, and i really want to understand what i feel. writing helps me with this. the most wonderful things, the most painful things, all of life touches my heart, and i bring it to my desk. characters come to me, and through them i tell the stories that tear me apart and put me back together. when i was younger i was motivated by need and desire--full-out, pedal to the metal, have to have it kind of thing. believe me, i still have my moments, but now the feelings are tempered by, i hope, some degree of self-awareness. that comes from writing.
my early novels told what i knew as a young woman. as time goes on, and life hands me more experience, they reflect what i have learned--not just factually, but emotionally. shades of marian the librarian in "the music man", sadder-but-wiser-girl that she was. am i saying too much here? i'm in the mood to tell you everything.
last night i took a ride along the coast with a friend. there was moonlight on the sea. lots of new houses had been built in the once-open space. nature is so staggeringly beautiful, and we were saying how sometimes we don't appreciate what we've got till it's gone. at which point i began to sing joni mitchell's big yellow taxi -- i couldn't help myself. "they paved paradise and put up a parking lot..." (poor friend, having to hear me sing.)
you know me well enough to know that seeing habitat destroyed and creatures killed makes me cry. (it really does...i actually hug trees.) but life has many metaphorical parking lots. you can pave over relationships, too. i know, because in the past i've done it. such a human tendency to want resolution--i'm right, you're wrong, i'm bad, you're good. or, maybe you're bad, i'm good. no in between, no grey area, no room for the maybes that come with taking a more compassionate, realistic, look at life. (see above: sadder but wiser.)
i may be falling in love--with the world as it is, not as i would have it. to put it another way, i'm finding it easier to look at what is true than to pretend something else. yesterday someone told me that things happen if they're supposed to--no amount of forcing or denying or hiding will change what is. so why not practice radical acceptance, and lovingkindness for where we are right here, right now?
so what matters to me is love, family, friends, honesty, this broken paradise, moonlight on the sea and knowing it won't last forever but will come back again, gratitude for what i've been given, and the awareness that comes through living life one day at a time.
step love
i gave this interview for motherhood later.
there's a lot more to say about being a stepmom. i focused on cordelia, but i also have a stepson i love from another marriage.
you didn't know about my complicated past, did you?
please go here for tickets to the off broadway play motherhood out loud.
tiny little frog
tiny little frog in the garden
smaller than a rose petal.
garden
joy in the garden:
white roses, blue lobelia,
agapanthus, alyssum.
hummingbirds, phoebes,
gnatcatchers.
hiding cat.
beyond the borders of my yard--
a creek, the sea,
a hillside where raptors hunt.
everywhere, no matter where i look,
the sky.
[if you love to garden, will you consider reading about ways organic gardening can benefit the environment and your health?]