Vermont

Phew, now we can stop for a day, and hop out of the car and walk around, and look at things slowly instead of having them blur by. Yesterday we drove through the Adirondacks, and really, it was just one long green tunnel. It was not like experiencing the Adirondacks. It was not like holidaying in the Adirondacks. It was like having a very quick, crazy dream about the Adirondacks, complete with outlandish gift shop.

The reading last night went very well, as did the Q&A this morning; I didn't cry at either. :) They were both well attended, by both current MFA students and alumni—oh, and faculty. After the reading there was a reception, and Bear Pond Books now have a small pile of signed books if you missed both events and need copies.

Tomorrow morning I'll be signing at Flying Pig Bookstore in Shelburne, which we drove past on the way here yesterday after we got off the Essex–Charlotte ferry. Just after that we were hailed on, then just teemed on for a while, as we crept along the I189/I89 to Montpelier. This morning it was foggy and cool, but I think it will steam up later.

So, still having a wonderful time. Haven't read email yet, though—anything might be waiting over there. Will let you know.

Vermont reading

Tonight. Vermont College of Fine Arts. 7 p.m, VCFA Chapel (must dig out some appropriate robes). There will be other writers besides me, I believe. I'll be on for 30 mins. And will sign anything that moves. C u there.

On the road

It's 5.49 a.m. in Auburn, New York. Today we drive the last leg to Vermont, through the Adirondack Park; the last 2 days' racing across the countryside has all been in order to take our time in the wilder bit.

What a country they've got here. It has Amish people in it, and deer, and cornfields, and fields of … all sorts of other stuff. And the trees are ridiculously thickly leaved and an almost lurid green. And the houses are impossibly quaint or impossibly haunted-looking. And the weather is storybook summery. And the food options are … interesting, and usually huge.

Sorry not to have blogged more, but we've been on a mission here, and it's not left much time to blog unless I do it from the passenger seat of the rental car, and, hm, we don't want upthrow on the keyboard, I don't think. Yesterday particularly was all winding (side to side and up and down) country road, and I wouldn't have had a chance. Plus, if I put head to pillow I'm unconscious in an instant with the jetlag – hey, sometimes that happens even as we drive – and my screentime has been all emails, and by the time I've finished those Steven will be climbing the walls, as we've brought only the one laptop, and technically it's his. So, excuses, excuses.

Basically, we've been having the best time. There is nothing like being feted as a way to start off a trip, although it does make it difficult – you know, the rental car is small and it takes a bit of work after every night's sleep or day's stop to stuff my bloated head back into it. And now, if I should happen to forget all the champagne and flattery (Greer Gilman said on the phone I should call it 'just praise' – okay, Greer, just praise it is :) ), I have a Printz plaque in my wheelaboard that I can take out and pat, at any time, to remind myself. Alice Sebold has a strange, starting-off-squeamish article about literary prizes and editing Best Ofs in the Atlantic's Fiction Special at the moment (bought at Auburn Wal-Mart – my first ever Wal-Mart and what a Wal-Mart it was, my my), and I gotta say, Alice, that is not my experience of prize nights. The Printz ceremony was so nice – twice the size of the one back in 2006, so it's really grown in reputation and interest, this prize; and not as grand and terrifying as the Newbery Caldecott Banquet the night before, i.e. we didn't have to eat our dinners on stage (now THAT would make a person self-conscious). Such a crowd – 2 standing ovations for each of us, and cheers and hooting that really made this honoree feel like a rock star.

Plus, at ALA, I signed, I think, more books in 2 hours than I have in my whole life before. 'You looked for a minute as if you forgot how to spell your name,' said one bookbuyer, late in the second hour, and I had to admit that I was beginning to have some doubts.

Gab-gab-gab, I went, and so much smiling! I'm really going to have to get my face in trim for smiling if this ever happens again. My face ached, I tell you, and if anyone pointed a camera at me (a lot of teachers/librarians have an 'author wall' in their school library) the corners of my mouth would go all wobbly.

Too much fun. Too many friends, old and new – there was no way of enjoying them all properly. Too much new city – I didn't really begin to see it, apart from our lovely river view from the hotel room (the cars on the bridge nearby made a wonderful noise, that sounded so much like a blues choir, it took us a couple of days to work out that it wasn't actually piped ambient music).

Better stop now. Vermont awaits, and there is breakfast to eat before we set out (Wegmans raspberries, yoghurt and bananas – and no eating implements; this will be interesting).

More soon I hope.

PS The UK bear-hug of a welcome for Tender Morsels continues – I banged out some remarks-in-response for the Sunday Express yesterday, so expect them to join in soon.

Margo in Chicago

Actually, I'm not in Chicago any more, but halfway across Ohio on the way to Vermont.

It's warm here; the perfect temperature. I've thawed out from the Sydney winter, although I haven't got properly sunburnt yet.

The Chicago weekend was an absolute whirl of head-swelling encounters and events. There seemed to be more meals than usually occur in 3 days—although, now, surprisingly, we're hungry again, after our day's driving. In fact, I'm going to have to put off this update until after we go in to Andy's Chinese Dragon and have dinner, and before we pass out from jetlag and extended partying.

In the meantime, greetings to all those straggling home after ALA—I only saw a tiny corner of it, but it looked like a great convention.

The Scotsman, from end June

says TM is:

a beautifully written, deeply wise fairy tale. [...I]n the genuine tradition of fairy tales it's also shocking, often brutal. [plot summary] It's a rewardingly complex and emotional story told in highly imaginative prose. The worlds Lanagan creates are so rich and multi-layered it's easy to get lost in the book's 500 pages, never wanting to leave.

The Daily Mail goes off

'With a title that sounds more like a paedophile website than serious literature,' Tender Morsels aims to steal your children's innocence and make you, particularly if you are a parent, actually uncomfortable, says Danuta Kean. Ew, I hope you can stand it. Because nothing else about the real world will force you to answer awkward questions from your children.

This is an absolute, puss-mouthed, Mary-Whitehouse-channelled smear of an article. I don't know where to begin to argue with it, it's so bent-headed.

She says the adult cover is misleading because you have to look twice at the cover to notice that the birds are crows and the bear has teeth and claws. 'How many of us on a fast run through a bookshop to buy nieces and daughters a present have time to notice such details?'

To which I say, covers are not designed to keep irresponsible aunties and uncles and parents from embarrassing themselves. Open the book (to the first page—I can tell I'm going to get sick of saying this) and use just a tiny-weeny bit of your own judgement. Put the book back if you don't think it's suitable, and everyone will be happy.

How to counter the rest of this? Can't. Haven't got time. Must pack for Chicago.

books she done read

Here is a wonderful, lively, sensible, funny review of TM which gives you a good rundown on the actual reading experience—and gives the book 8 caterpillars (out of 10)!

Dear UK, the US looks at you askance

Who knew that the Brits were so prudish? Or, conversely, that Americans are so insensitive?

says Menachem Kaiser in the New Yorker online. Tender Morsels

came out on this side of the Atlantic back in October to solid reviews, and not much else. But it just got published in England, and blimey [links to Observer].

It's all hearsay again, though—sigh. Tender Morsels reworks a fairy tale, Kaiser says, but adds 'some lurid violent and sexual episodes, including a gang rape and a witch-dwarf tryst'. Open the book and point me to the lurid scenes, people; I challenge you to find luridity there! Well, okay, the gang-sodomy is a bit colourful, but lurid? Nah. Besides, nobody's reading as far as the cloth-men 'withdrawing from Hogback's bottom', which is about as close as the camera comes to any actual penetration (or reverse penetration). Yes, I know that bear/man waves his penis around after mating with the heavenly bear, but—

Look, the actual rape part of the gang rape is indicated by an asterisk, okay? And the witch–dwarf tryst is the nicest sex in the book; that's why I put it there, because the early chapters are so dire, readers have to know that there's going to be some lightness to look forward to. Here is part of this lurid sex scene (which all takes place after the sex act itself, all right? It's all aftermath:

It was warm, perfect for nudding down, the air like warm satin sliding all over me. The last blue of evening, close around us, shielded us from eyes, and yet some stars winked there and were festive also and who could mind their watching? And moths flew soft and silver. The stars silvered them, I guessed, and the last light from the sky, and the slight light from Shakestick’s lamps as he hurried the last of the haystackers, other end of the field. Anyway, they were low like a mist, the moths, like a dancing mist, large and small like snow wafting on a breeze, as if the very air were so alive that it had burst into these creatures, taken wing and fluttered in all these different directions.

Everything made sense, this girl and me wrapping each other, and what had gone before. I could see, as I’d not seen heretofore, why the whole world was paired up man to woman like it was, buck to doe, bull to cow, cock to hen: for both their releases, to keep them present on the earth, instead of away suffering inside their own bodies and heads. Moth to moth, too, eh? Moth to moth, look at them, floating and flirting, giving off their moth-signals, curling their feather antlers at each other’s nearness.

‘Gawd, Annie,’ I whispered. ‘What are you made of? Caves and volcanoes!’

‘I am!’ she said, ‘I am!’, and she laughed, a careful laugh so as not to be heard outside this hay, yet full of delight and delights.

See? Redeeming social value, all over the place.

It's all very entertaining, in a maddening kind of way. People seem very determined not to look at the object in question, and bring their intelligence to bear (no pun intended) on it.

Tender Morsels di Margo Lanagan: lo stupro di gruppo in un libro per bambini

Over in Italy, crimeblog has an entry about the Observer article about l’ ultimo romanzo per bambini della scrittrice australiana Margo Lanagan. Again, bambini? I don't think so.

Now I know useful phrases with which to describe Dolci morsi, should I ever tour Italy: una scena di sesso tra un nano e una strega, uno stupro di gruppo e la descrizione di un aborto. Everyone's repeating Vanessa's little grab-bag from the Observer; there are actually due aborti ( I know, they happen in quick succession, and it's easy to get confused) and nobody seems to be worried about the sodomia di gruppo at the end. This must be because it's not mentioned in the publicity material; it's a little treat for people who actually read the book right through.

Meanwhile, Cheryl is relieved:

I had been beginning to lose my faith in the Forces of Nannyism, but I’m pleased to report that someone has at last started yelling “Moral Panic!” over Margo Lanagan’s Tender Morsels. [...] Now we can all complain about how silly this is (except for those of us also prone to attacks of moral panic).

The Observer wags the finger

Vanessa Thorpe glooms-and-dooms about 'the end of children's literature'. She calls TM 'a lurid reworking of Grimm's Snow White and Rose Red fairytale'—I always thought there was more than one Grimm, snrt—and goes on:

Publication of Tender Morsels in this country is leading to renewed calls for a clearer system to let parents know about the nature of the books that their children are reading. Anne Fine, a former children's laureate [and of whom I am a big fan—ML], said: "If you look at online reviews, nearly all the parents think it is quite unsuitable. Many of the children loved the book but among the girls, a lot of them found it frightening or even repulsive."

In which case, according to pretty much all those online reviews, they tend to use their common sense and stop reading, exactly as they should for their own comfort.

I really don't know how much more clearly I could have telegraphed to (a) young readers or (b) parents who had the nous to actually open a book, that there was potentially offensive content in this novel. As Vanessa Thorpe starts off by saying, the word 'slut' is in the first sentence of chapter 1, and the first scene is clearly a sex scene. In addition, David Fickling Books is printing a warning up front. If a reader ploughs through all that and still expects a Disney fairytale, they must be extremely dim.

It amuses me how journos try and wring every ounce of outrage out of a topic. This was never published as a 'children's' book.

Anne Fine goes on:

I have to wonder generally whether a children's publisher does not sometimes have a responsibility to stop and say that although a shocking new book will make money, and even be popular, it does not have what the Americans call 'redeeming social importance'.

I think she should read the actual book (not just the online reviews), and right to the end. I reckon TM is just chock-full of redeeming social importance. It has redeeming social importance coming out its ears—particularly for frightened and repulsed girls.

David Fickling Himself leaps to my baby's defence, and Philip Pullman and Michael Rosen (of both of whom I'm also a huge fan) also weigh in. Go and have a look, and tell me what you think.