Patti Abbott's "Friday's Forgotten Books"

Looking through Kaye’s wonderful archives, I see my story of coming to writing fiction late in life has been done by several other people. No sense boring you with another tale of being a latecomer. Briefly, I was born in Philadelphia, married at nineteen and moved to Michigan where my husband took a university teaching position, raised two wonderful children (Megan and Josh), did all the motherly things. One day I took a writing class, began to write poetry (awful) and then short stories (better). At this point I have published more than sixty stories in various publications and won a Derringer Award last year for a flash fiction piece. I love writing short stories and am so glad I found something I could do—even if it came late.

What I’d like to talk about on Meanderings and Muses is a project near and dear to my heart—and one I hope some of you might join. Friday’s Forgotten Books. How did it begin?

My husband and I like to spend winter Saturday afternoons scavenging in antique stores. We have no expensive collections—we just like junk. Often these shops would have cases of dusty books. And the books on their shelves were ones I remembered from my youth, the ones no one reads today. There they would sit, begging for someone to spend a dollar or two on them: A.J. Cronin, Sloan Wilson, Patricia Moyes, Nicholas Blake, John Marquand—well, you know the list if you’re of a certain age. All of them were well- regarded forty years ago but forgotten today. I wanted these books to be saved from the scrap heap. I couldn’t buy them all-or even more than a few— but I wanted to.

And then it occurred to me—I had a blog. A blog that was linked to a lot of other blogs. Maybe a few of those bloggers would join me in talking about a book they remembered but feared others had forgotten. So I asked a few people I had gotten to know a little on the Internet to write a short review. I posted links to their blogs and my own first review (Desperate Characters by Paula Fox) on my blog in April, 2008. I figured the project might last a few weeks because I would run out of people to ask for help very quickly.

Bill Crider saved the project. I didn’t know it at first but he wrote a second review the next week and a third review the week after. I’d never considered that some people might be willing to write more than one review. If it weren’t for Bill, the project would have died a quick death. For eighteen months, Bill has written a review every week. And a number of other bloggers have nearly matched him in this feat. Each week, I try to find a few new people to feature on my blog and post links to the rest of the crew. We average 15- 20 reviews a week. The Rap Sheet and J. Kingston Pierce joined in with their similar project-“The Book You Have to Read” early on, too. This added some heft to the idea that we would talk about old books—every Friday. It became more than just my project.

Occasionally, we talk about short stories, or kid’s books, movies, or non-fiction, but mostly I leave the genre up to the reviewer. Once or twice, I had to scramble to find a new review to post on my blog, but on the whole, it’s been a pleasure and a joy for me. And I hope anyone reading this that hasn’t done one (or those who have) will get in touch with me. The lists of books and reviewers are available at
http://patti-fridaysforgottenbooks.blogspot.com/
And the original reviews are in my archives at http://pattinase.blogspot.com.

Thanks to Kaye for inviting me to write this. And thanks to the more than 200 people who have written a review.

Patti Abbott's Friday's Forgotten Books

Patti Abbott has a wonderful thing she does at her blog, pattinase, every Friday. Its called Friday's Forgotten Books.

Here's my entry for Patti's Friday's Forgotten Books today.

My all time very favorite book ever is a forgotten book that keeps coming back to life like the Phoenix. Published originally in 1966, reissued in the 80s,and about to be reissued again by The Chicago Review Press. But. It isn't really a forgotten book. At least, not by anyone who ever read it. Its one ofthose books that once read, will become a book you'll push on all your friends and insist they read. And one reading is never enough. I can't even begin to guess or remember how many times I've read it. Or how many copies I've bought and given as gifts. FIVE SMOOTH STONES was written by Ann Fairbairn. The basic plot is a simple story of a young black child, David Champlin, being raised by his grandparents in New Orleans in the 60s. Going on to college with the help of an extraordinary man who befriends David’s grandfather, and then David himself. And finally, belatedly joining the civil rights movement. The premise sounds pat, over-done, formulaic, and sappy. However this book is anything but simple or formulaic or any of those other things. This is an exquisitely written, powerful story about love, honor, relationships and the willingness to stand up for beliefs. The relationship between the elderly grandparents and the young boy is one of the most touching story lines ever written. While David is a memorable character, his grandfather is even more memorable. An indelible character who will wrap himself around your heart and once there, will live there forever. As David's story progresses, we meet a host of some of the most enduring characters found in literature. Friendships are formed and forged that \will last a lifetime. We meet people who live honest, good lives with high moral standards, never faltering in their beliefs, or in their willingness to fight for those beliefs, or in their deep abiding love and trust in one another, during one of the most turbulent, heart breaking periods of American history. And topping it all off is a love story that will break your heart, and then have it soaring to the heavens. David Champlin and Sara Kent's story will never leave you. I dislike using the word "powerful" while describing a book, 'cause I think its overused and therefore somewhat lacking as a true descriptor, but I can't seem to come up with a word that works any better or even as well, so powerful it is. I'm going to do something a little different here, and refer everyone reading this to the reviews of FIVE SMOOTH STONES on amazon.com. There are, as of this writing, 91 reviews. 85 of which were given Five Stars. They've been written over a time span of ten years, and most of the people doing the reviews were people who did something I myself have done for years - seek this book out in any form available to buy to give to someone they care about. It was a groundbreaking novel in 1966, but one which, I believe, has stood the test of time, and done so quite elegantly.

Ann Fairbairn, whose real name was Dorothy Tait, was born in Cambridge, MA and attended the Leland Powers School in Boston. She worked in newspapers, television and radio and as publicity director for music groups. "Five SmoothStones" (1966), a Literary Guild selection in 1967, won her an enthusiastic following in the United States and abroad. She also wrote "That Man Cartwright"(1970), "Call Him George" (under the pseudonym Jay Allison Stuart in 1960), a biography about New Orleans jazz clarinetist George Lewis, and was in the process of writing a third novel at the time of her death. Fairbairn died apparently of a heart attack at age 70 in February 1972 (from the Boston Globe11/14/1994). Not much information can be found about this amazing woman who's life was threatened after writing FIVE SMOOTH STONES under a pseudonym. Oh my, how I wish she had lived long enough to have finished that third novel, and a fourth, and maybe even a fifth. I think she would have, over time, joined the ranks of great writers.