Only

"Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer."  ~ From "Howard's End" by E. M. Forster       Many years ago, when I first started submitting short stories to magazines and journals, Daniel Curley, the editor of Ascent, sent me the above quote.  I was young, and was positive I knew exactly what it meant: the necessity and desire, both in real life and fiction, of making close ties.  It seemed so obvious to me, such a clear life's path, that I tucked it away more as a motto than as guidance and admonition.

It was easy to do.  My mother and Mim, the grandmother who lived with us, were still alive.  I was in love, and couldn't imagine ever parting from him.  Both sisters and I were so close we had our own language and, I swear, saw the world through the exact same lens, through each other's eyes.  Childhood friendships were intact.

Life was sheltered and insular.  My sisters and I had the same first grade teacher, Miss Convey, as our mother.  Every summer our family went to the beach, a Brigadoon set apart from the world by a train trestle, staying in the cottage our grandparents had built.  We played with the children of people our parents had grown up with.  Those connections comprised our world.

I moved out and on.  And on and on.  Long story, but don't we all have long stories?  Even so, I still go to that family cottage, and I'm still friends with the girl I walked to school with, the boy I learned to swim with.

Now I find the Forster quote more philosophical, and I see a shadow behind it.  There's loss in life--people you thought would be with you forever go another way and disappear.  People break up, move away, get hurt.  It's easier to pile on emotional armor than to keep an open heart.  Only connect!  Maybe not...

Yet writing this makes me feel very connected to friends and family and people I've never met.  All the readers who visit my site, tell me they love my books, share their own connections with my stories and the characters who populate them.  How lucky am I?

Still, there are people long lost to me.  I think about them and wonder where they've gone.  Sometimes I dream about them.  Sometimes I regret their leaving or my leaving or things we said or things we didn't say.  Some of them were very close to me at one time; others might have no idea the role they played in my life.

Here's one of those: Billy K.  We went to Vance School together.  He lived in the Children's Home, a large brick building on a distant hill, that I could see from my bedroom window.  We were friends because we both had freckles.  I'd stare up at the Children's Home and wonder why he was there.  Had his parents died?  Had he been taken from them?  I asked my parents if we could adopt him, and they said we couldn't.  He had a sweater with a hole in its sleeve, and I'd see the hole getting bigger and wonder why someone didn't mend it for him.

Maybe he's out there.  Wouldn't it be wonderful if he read this and knew it was about him?  The internet makes connecting not only possible but ubiquitous.  People from the past find each other.  It's nice to make contact, take a trip down memory lane, catch up on life's happenings.  But I feel "Only Connect!" is more than internet-deep.  It's true love, real love, enduring friendship, and the hard work involved in holding on, holding tight.

Still, I would love to know about Billy, a boy I haven't seen since fifth or sixth grade, to hear how his life has been.

Pierce Brosnan Interviews Luanne Rice Part 1

Here's an interview with Luanne being interviewed by none other than Pierce Brosnan himself! Hope you like it!!

Pink Dreams

I've been away in the country, secluded, surrounded by woods and sky. A time to go inside, figure things out.  Sometimes it's easier to do that far from home and everything familiar.  I've stayed in a castle.  These are venerable old buildings, filled with stories.  The trails meander through woods where owls live.  Acres and acres of land, places to explore.  Walking becomes a meditation.  Thoughts and feelings, long buried, come up and out--inspiration, to use another word.

I've encountered people seeking their own inspiration.  The woman who loves fishing boats, my next door neighbor who sings at night, his angel voice lulling me to sleep, the young artist who made me a bracelet and who has pink dreams, the teacher from the western hills.  We gathered twice, shared our favorite music.  Thank you to the pink dreams artist for making that happen.  So many more to thank, especially the people who run this magical castle.  They give us what they need, things we hadn't thought of ourselves.

I've spent this time offline, not posting notes, not checking facebook.  I've missed many people, but sometimes it's good to forget the outside world and travel inward, connect with my own heart, remember good things I've forgotten along the way.

Advice To Young Writers

Luanne Rice, author of 29 novels, shares some of the methods that have made her such a successful writer.

Deep Blue Sea for Beginners: Out Now

This week the paperback edition of The Deep Blue Sea for Beginners is on sale.  I'm thinking of the title, of what "deep blue" means. The ocean, of course.  But there are other types of deep.  Deep love, deep understanding, deep non-understanding, the unfathomability of our own hearts.  The novel is particularly interested in fractured families.  A mother and her two daughters have spent years apart.  How do people become estranged?   What are the consequences of a single choice or series of choices?  How far can you move apart from someone, and once you've done that, can you come back?

These thoughts are on my mind now. I'm writing this from my own private deep blue location.   It's not sad, it's not bad, it's just a spot I came to reflect.  Miles from the sea, I'm in a rambling old place surrounded by New England woods.  There aren't many street or house lights, so when I look up at night I see constellations in the dark blue sky.   I'm surrounded by nature.  Thick trees, the leaves starting to turn.  A scarlet sugar maple stands  outside my window.

I loved writing The Deep Blue Sea for Beginners.   The characters feel real to me, all their hiding places and defenses, all their brokenness and goodness and desire to connect.  People can be apart so long it feels like forever.  But if you break through and find forgiveness, life can start over.  It's the same old life, of course, but there's an element of the brand new.   Love and forgiveness, or maybe it's forgiveness and love.  They go together.  I'm just not sure of the order.

It probably doesn't matter.

Sky

Today I went up to the roof and watched migrating hawks and thought about things, and then the sun went down, and some stars came out behind wisps of clouds, and then a three-quarter moon rose and chased the stars away.

Out on the Town

Fall in New York, everything starting up.  Last night an old friend took me down to the Lower East Side where it seemed as if everybody in the city was out doing things, all congregated on Ludlow Street--except for when we drove home and W. 14th Street was clogged with traffic, and then it seemed as if everyone in the city was at Fashion Week. We went to the Living Room for John Platt's On Your Radar and heard music by Diana Jones, Martyn Joseph, and Sally Spring.  The music was beautiful and made me all emotional and lost in a million feelings (what else is new?)  Great singers, all three, voices from the deepest places.  Diana sang from her EP "Sparrow" on the 1930's Gibson on which she'd written the songs, and Sally had a voice that made the place tremble, and Martyn brought forth--previously unheard on this earth, or at least on Ludlow Street--heavenly sounds from a guitar he'd bought in Belfast City long ago.  Just the most gorgeous guitar-playing...  One of the songs contained the phrase "Hudson Bay," and I can't remember it, but I loved it and felt transported by the music and lyrics (if anyone who was there can tell me the song I'd be so grateful.)  It was that kind of show, where it was easy to get lost in every moment, forget the details, just recall the feelings evoked by the music.

The three musicians thanked John Platt for his and WFUV's support of music, singer-songwriters.  He really is so generous and believes strongly in the musicians he supports.  Afterwards I bought CDs and had them signed and then came home after inching through fashionistas in the meat-packing district and listened to music seemingly conjured by a magical September evening.

The Wedding Chronicles, Part 3

The day was brilliant, and the wedding took place by the sea.

Molly and Alex had written vows that included references to water--they had met in it, the pool at Connecticut College.  And it flows and surrounds and falls from the sky and brings everyone and everything together.  As they spoke to each other, they held hands, and just behind them the cove glittered in sunlight.

The day was joyful.  We were so happy for Molly and Alex, and to be together in such a spirit of love, to be with people so open and positive.  People had traveled long distances to be there: from California, Texas, even Wales.  The weather was pure September: warm in the sun, cool as the afternoon progressed.

The wedding began with a moment of silence, for beloved friends and family who were not there.  Alex's stepmother Deb played cello and Maureen and I noticed an osprey fly overhead.  It was a moment, probably not that meaningful or significant, or maybe it was.  How hokey, to look up in the sky and see a fish hawk and get choked up thinking of who wasn't with us.

Molly held a bouquet of blue hydrangeas.  She'd woven the stems with a bracelet made of sea glass given to me by her mother.  I remember the day Molly visited the cottage at Point O'Woods and spotted it on my bureau.  She'd gone straight for it, picked it up as if it had called her.  I suppose it had.  She didn't have to ask--I gave it to her.

Maureen and I sat in the front row.  We'd been instructed to by Molly, who wanted us in her line of vision.  We are her aunts, her family.  Mia, her cousin, was a bridesmaid.  Alex's family embraces her as if she was their own.  All the toasts and comments and conversations and actions say as much.  They have taken her to their hearts.  It was moving to see.

Michael, who officiated, spoke about the mysteries of water and of life.

The reception was held under a tent.  It was festive and fun, and with Twigg at our table full of laughter and stories.  He and Audrey Loggia were also "family of the bride."   The food was delicious.  The band began to play, and Alex's aunt Penfield came for me and Maureen and told us it was up to the aunties to start the dancing.  Which we did, no problem.

P.S. Arleen, I posted the picture of Molly's gold shoes on my Facebook page.

Try to remember the kind of September

September is the most beautiful, still so full of summer, warm sands, salt water holding onto August heat.  The humidity drops, the sky is clear.  Bright blue, high clouds or no clouds.  Achingly gorgeous sunsets, topaz, violet, and maroon. Sometimes hurricanes come in September.  We'd ride them out at the beach, leaning into the wind.  Waves would rise to cliff-height and crash down, seething white over the sand, across the boardwalk, into the boat basin.  And then the weather would clear, and we'd clean up the branches and leaves and broken windows.  My house was built in 1938, survived the famous hurricane that devastated our area, and all storms since.

Early September brought conflict, i.e. school.  It required a complete alteration of mind and mood, a radical revision of self, to go from the beach's freedom to school's schedules.  We learned a lot in both places.  But to this day I know I was one person at the beach and another once school began.

Yesterday a friend and I walked through the city.  We headed downtown from 23rd St.  The day was hot.  Tenth Avenue reflected the heat.  We were on our way to a meeting.  Business, like school, starts up after Labor Day.  I wore loafers and real pants, not jeans.  My teeshirt wasn't torn or gigantic or from Surfrider.  It looked vaguely legit.  I sat around a big table with bright, creative people who talked about exciting things.   I had a coffee.  My friend brought amazing cookies.  We all partook as we discussed.   I particularly enjoyed the carrot cake cookie.  It felt good to be part of a whole--the way I always wanted school to feel.  My desk, the cats notwithstanding, can feel lonely.

Have I mentioned I was a September baby?  I, and other September children with whom I've spoken, always feel renewed this time of year.  One dearest friend and I have birthdays separated by just a few days and for many years have managed to celebrate them together.  She lives in LA and I live in New York but that never seems to matter.

On September will go.  Soon I'll be heading east on the way to my niece's wedding.  By dusk I'll be swimming in the Sound.  I'll have a massively festive reunion with whomever we're lucky enough to see.  The cottage is inhabited by ghosts, no joke, and we'll be glad for their company.  One early morning I hope to walk the beach, through the marsh, up the hidden path.

The air will be warm but not as warm.  I'll smell the leaves changing.  The air will be spicy with rose hips and young grapes.  The bay will flash silver with bait.  I'll swim as often as there's time.  My thoughts are already deeply with my niece, for whose wedding we'll be gathering.  It's the main thing.  Sometimes, with such a big, important event on the horizon, this one in particular because it's so dear, so incredibly tender, it's hard to imagine bothering with all the minutia of the days leading up.

But life being life, there's a lot to do before getting to that moment.  It's a moving meditation, the way of September.  Ineffable beauty.  Deep dreams and memories.  Things to do.  Including swimming.  Attempting to fathom the unfathomable.  Attending a wedding.  Celebrating Molly and Alex.  And to quote my sister Maureen who was quoting someone else, "love, love, love."

Try to remember. Thank you, Jerry Orbach.

Luanne Rice's Shark Video

New York Times bestselling author, Luanne Rice, tells of her chance encounter with a Shark.

The Wedding Chronicles, Part 2

From the time she was a little girl, she thought brides wore gold shoes.  It was like her own personal fairy tale, a talismanic necessity to ensure love spells on her wedding day.  All through life, in the back of her mind, that idea remained.   As she grew up and fell in love, and was proposed to, and began to plan her wedding, details came to life.  A beautiful dress, September flowers, a romantic hideaway by the sea--the country inn where Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall spent their honeymoon.  The chance to get married by the water, in a part of Connecticut she knows and loves well, with white boats on moorings and blue waves sparkling out to Block Island.  But the shoes were proving elusive.

The shoes couldn't be too gold.  Nothing bright or garish.  More like gossamer, spun from sunlight.  Perhaps they didn't exist and her childhood dream wouldn't come true.  She's not a material girl.  She doesn't shop and buy and acquire.  The things that matter to her are her fiance, their dog, their families, nature, the sea, and really good frozen yogurt.  But still: would the wedding be the wedding if the bride didn't wear gold shoes?

She mentioned this to a ancient family member.  This witch of the north lives in a crooked house between the village and the deep woods.  She knows love spells long buried, and unearthed one to conjure the perfect pair of gold shoes with red soles.  She sent them by Fedex to young Molly.

Now, with her wedding a week away, Molly speaks of those shoes as one of the "tricks in her back pocket."  A wise woman from Cambridge calls them Molly's "magic shoes" because they were given with love, and because it's awesome in life to have one of one's heart's desires delivered overnight directly to one's front door.

I love the idea of "tricks in her back pocket."  We all need a few of those.  For rainy days, or lonely days, or times of being overwhelmed by the grace and trepidation and enormity of one of life's great moments of passage.  It's rare that, even in the best and happiest times, we don't feel some twinge of "I wish."  I wish for a sunny day, I wish for the bride and groom to have a long and thrilling and joyful life, I wish everyone they love could be present.  I wish for peace.  I wish for the sea to sparkle like crazy that day.

Good to have some gold shoes, or in my case, a handful of moonstones, in my back pocket for this very occasion.  I visit the witch of the north now and then, and she's very generous with moonstones.

The Locals

Whenever Old Lyme threw a literary gathering, the writers would usually be the locals: Dominick Dunne, David Handler, and me.  What a thrill I felt to be included with them.  And I was always as entertained as the audience: they were as smart and funny as storytellers come. All three of us set novels in town; Dominick's fictional Old Lyme was Prud'homme, David's is Dorset, and mine is Black Hall, with the beach area of Hubbard's Point.

Earlier this summer when David and I discovered each other on Facebook, we had a happy online moment.  It turned bittersweet as we spoke of Dominick and how we miss him.

Old Lyme's light is dreamy, reflecting off Long Island Sound, the Connecticut River, and all the tributaries, ponds, salt meadows, and marshes.  Lyme Street runs through the village, lined with charming saltboxes, stately white colonial houses, stone walls, and gardens, one more seductive than the next.

There's an unquestionable reserve about our town, mystery behind the picket fences.  Such a delicious place to set novels.  No wonder David's are mysteries.

David has a brand new blog; I read the post while away from Old Lyme, and it made me homesick for everything about the town.  I hope we're asked to speak together again before too long.  I really want to hear him tell the Sid and Nancy, well more Nancy, story again.  Also, and I bet David doesn't know this, the reason I got a Fender Stratocaster is directly linked to why his character Mitch Berger first acquired his.

Dominick was wickedly witty and kind and direct and famous.  He knew everybody and traveled all over, and I think he really considered Old Lyme to be his sanctuary.  I loved his writing and consider his Vanity Fair article, Justice, about the murder of his daughter Dominique, to be one of the most riveting, honest, unforgettable pieces I've ever read.

What a time, what a town.  I want to stop by the Phoebe Griffin Noyes Library and get lost in some research, and I definitely need to play my Strat more often.

Wedding Chronicles, Part I

Oh love.  I woke up thinking of it.  Maybe I'd dreamed...  No, I know.  I'm thinking of love because my niece is getting married next week. She is radiant and beautiful, a scientist who left the lab with her betrothed to make a better frozen yogurt in Northampton.  Go Berry is delicious and causes cravings.  This is a brilliant young woman.  Not least of all, Molly is known for having debunked the 5-second rule.  I mention it here only because if an aunt with a blog can't promote her niece's frozen yogurt, who can?

Alex, her fiance, is also a scientist.  They met at Connecticut College.  They love the sea, the ocean, the littoral zone, marine life, diving, swimming, many other things, and especially each other.  Their kindness is touching beyond words.  They once drove miles out of their way when the snow was lovely, dark, and deep, to give me a hug just because I needed one.

Molly goes through life with such courage and grace.  I'm late to her life.  I didn't know her well as a little girl, but we've been making up for lost time.  My sister Maureen and I are watching her and Alex plan their wedding, proud to be her  aunts.

I'm writing this because Love is amazing.  It is fierce when it has to be.  It forgives.  It finds people who believe, really believe in it, and takes them into its fold.  This has happened with Molly and Alex. There's sorrow here, yes, there is.  There are people we love and miss--every day, but especially now.

The wild gift, beyond the casting off, has come in the form of a great coming-together.  Families getting to know each other.  The joy of having Alex in our lives.  Molly and her cousin Mia have gotten close.  Today as Mia heads off to grad school (I feel another niece blog coming,) Molly and Alex will be driving her to Vermont, helping her move in.  They're together today and will be again next week; Mia will be one of Molly's bridesmaids.

Twigg will be at the wedding, wouldn't miss it for anything.  The Loggias love Molly and will attend.  I know my mother and Mim, ghosts for many years now, will be there.  And so much family in spirit--I love you, we love you, you know that.  We'll celebrate at the edge of the sea together.  Be there!

Cool blog

Thank you to Peter Schwartz and Third Face (LITERARY DISCOURSE FOR THE POST POST-MODERN SOPHISTICATE) for including our Luanne Rice video in their excellent blog.

I took this photo last week in the garden of my agent's house in Hollywood.  The piece is carved concrete, English, and old.  One of a pair, Ron is calling them the Literary Men.  I believe this one is the Second Face.

Video Love

Please get the popcorn.  Darken the lights.  And watch the videos made for luannerice.com by Michael O'Gorman.  The Pony Story...the Intro...more to come.  The Luanne Rice video series!  (Just go to "Multi-Media" on the home page here.)     I feel lucky to have Mike working for this site.  He is a comedian by day and night.  Like the undead, he gets no rest.  He is destined always to be funny.  He has has own show, and he frequently appears on VH-1, the Onion, and other hilarious tv shows.  He just so happens to be the main squeeze of my friend and associate Jessie Cantrell, and he has been working between jaunts to Vegas, Sunset Boulevard, and the PIT to make video magic for our site.

Now Mike has started out easy.  We wanted to ease the site into sweet, simple videos that introduce you to me and my writing.  It's a new way to get to know a little more, a little deeper.  At times Mike's avant garde innovation comes out.  I stare down the barrel of the camera at him and and quite certain i'm seeing the reincarnation of Cocteau.

No matter what, Mike has true heart.  He gets the emotional nature of my work and lets if come through.  He makes me laugh while doing it, threatening to ruin take after take because I can't hold it in.  He knows my novels, and sticks close to the spirit of them in the videos.  We've been lucky enough to uncover some ancient (truly! circa sixties and seventies) Rice family movies, and Mike has woven them into the current stories.

Honestly, in videos coming up we have footage of the Rice girls swimming AND real live images of Twigg Crawford--famous to many of my readers, considering he's both a recurring character and a dedicee (of "The Last Kiss.")

So please jump on the video love train. We'd love you to love them, and if so, to repost them to your friends.  If you have ideas, please just use the comment section under "multi-media."  Any videos you'd like to see me in?  Singing Francois Cabrel's "Encore et Encore" in French and pretending to be a cat playing with a catnip apple are two much-requested favorites.  Merci for those ideas, but we shall skip them for now.  Thank you for visiting my site, and I'm really hoping you'll groove to the videos and give them the popcorn shout-outs they deserve.

The Shutters Lobby

The lobby at Shutters on the Beach is a wonderful place. I have written chapters of novels there, a screenplay with a friend--we sat on one of the couches five days straight and wrote until we had a draft--several essays, and many letters.  I stay there so often they call my favorite room the Luanne Rice room.

The hotel is at the foot of Pico Boulevard in Santa Monica; it has amazing views of the Pacific Ocean.  Many celebrities pass through the lobby.  Much rarer is the occasional legend--such as the one you see on my lap in the photo above.  The lovely, brilliant E.  She visited with her father, Johnny Walker, and after reading the New York Times, discussed the review of a new biography of Diaghilev.  E has much to say about the Ballet Russes.

Ben Affleck was across the lobby, but he didn't sit on my lap.

Endless summer

Morning walk along the beach.  Sandpipers, plovers, egrets, and surfers are the only ones here.  I set my towel by the lifeguard shack and walk into the water.Taking my swim, I watch the surfers paddle and wait, then rise up and become part of the wave. The sun ripples across the ocean.  Even with salt in my eyes, I can see Catalina.  As I start to climb out, I see a Snowy Egret standing in the hard sand, eyeing the scene.  She is a small white heron, with gleaming white feathers, long neck, black bill and legs, bright yellow feet.  Stalking prey she ruffles the sand with one foot; her bill darts and she moves on.

I step from the water and dry off, and the egret and I go our separate ways.

Pacific dreams

I swim in the Pacific.  The tide is out, and the waves roll long and frothily into shore.  I ride them in again and again.  Then I lie on my back and float staring up at the clear blue sky.  Getting here... I'd left New York early, in the rain.  Took off through gray clouds.  We rose through mist and strata.   Thicker round shaped dark clouds ranging from oyster to deep gray.  Ground still visible, then the Atlantic.  We banked, glimpsed the Verrazano Narrows and bridge, Manhattan invisible.   I'll be flying sea-to-sea.

We climbed through stages.  Into cloud then out, a momentarily bright and clear middle-zone with a dark ceiling above us and a thick gray-white layer below.  Gaining altitude into the blue.  Sharp true-blue endless blue.  Rigpa.  The cloud valley below mostly silver-white but with sharky patches of long pointed brown shadows.

Mid-country the clouds are gone.  We fly over plains and crop circles and patchwork farms.  Now we are over rocky terrain--garnet red rocks, deeply scored canyons and ridges, mountains with roads snaking up to the top in diminishing circles.

Hours go by.  I reread Peter Matthiessen's Blue Meridian.  Beginning our descent.  White lacy cobwebby cloud above, high desert below.  Landscape looks bleached into tones of white, cream, pale peach, pale green.  Then the coast mountains begin.  Dark, bone, mystery peaks, several long sapphire lakes.

I love these long flights across the country.  I literally rise into blue.  My heart and mind are at ease.  Things of the earth matter less in the sky.  We begin our descent and I already know I will swim this afternoon.

There are the tall buildings of downtown Los Angeles.  The Hollywood sign just a little above and behind them.  The Getty Center, white and sprawling in the hills above Sunset.  I used the sign and the Getty as landmarks; my friends live there, and there.

We land.  I get a ride to Santa Monica.  I enter my home away from home and am so glad to see everyone.  We hug and catch up; I haven't been away so long this time, but still every one has news.  It's wonderful to have more than one place to live.  Some real, on earth, others in your imagination.  This, for me, falls directly in between.  They carry my bags to the Luanne Rice room.  How funny and how lucky I feel.

I hurry down to the beach.  The sand is hot.  Happy voices drift over from the Pier, shrieks from the roller coaster and Ferris wheel.  Shorebirds skitter along the tide line.  There's a sign: surf to the left, swim to the right.  I set down my towel, and before even sitting down, go down to the water's edge on the swim side.  The waves are the same.  They tug my ankles.  I let them draw me in.

I dive in the and come up for air and I am looking up into the blue sky from which I'd just emerged, and I am in the Pacific.

New Luanne Rice video coming Monday!

Family vacation, sisters on the beach, Misty of Chincoteague, obsession with jodhpurs, my secret childhood wish: all will be revealed. P.S. I still want a pony.

(Photo: Misty with her foal Stormy.)