Author: Diane Griffin

Diane is a writer of Fantasy, an intermittent blogger, and a generator of nonsense.

Books I Like #7

Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela

Little, Brown and Company, New York, Boston, London 1994, 1995

Nelson

More of a history than a memoir, Long Walk to Freedom is the man’s detailed account of his extraordinary life. He seems to have lived every sort of life a man could live within the span of the twentieth century. Born an indigenous Xhosa, he was taken from his tribe at the age of ten and educated as a tribal prince. Then he moved to Johannesburg and lived in Soweto township. He was a laborer during the day and walked into Johannesburg in the evenings to go to law school. He was the leader of the ANC, a revolutionary, a prisoner for over two and a half decades and a beloved head of state.

Here is the story of a man who was a pedestrian for pretty much his whole life, hence the title, and a monumental human being.

If only David O. Lean were still alive.

Books I Like #6

Geronimo: His Own Story: The Autobiography of a Great Patriot Warrior by Geronimo, with S. M. Barrett and Frederick W. Turner

Plume (revised edition) 1996)

A1Io8dGTEaL

Here’s some history that was not told by the victors, though they did transcribe and edit it. It’s an amazing and enraging account.

Geronimo was not a chief, though he did become a war chief of the Mescalero Apaches. In this book he recounts for us the story of how his tribe ran afoul of the Tucson city fathers, who got tired of Apache raids and decided to have the Apaches removed, and how Geronimo led the fight to stay put. He was a brilliant leader, and managed to keep his small band of warriors and family together and on their land for years. Geronimo’s retelling made me hate those old Tusconans just as much as Woody Guthrie’s talking about their grandsons did in Bound For Glory.

This book is also notable for the archival photos of Geronimo and other Mescaleros. I got a lot out of them. They were all taken post-capture, so there’s an air of sadness to them, but I also loved that how Geronimo’s personality was captured in some of them. He was a very charismatic man, stylish and uniquely handsome, as well as being one of the fiercest warriors the world has yet seen.

Books I Like #5

The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss, Illustrated by Nate Taylor

DAW Books, New York, 2014

Slow Regard

Patrick Rothfuss has been working on the Kingkiller Chronicles for long enough that it’s almost reasonable to call it his life’s work. The first two books in the series, The Name of the Wind (2008) and The Wise Man’s Fear(2011) are as good as epic fantasy gets: character-driven (and what characters!), in a vividly realized world. It’s the story of a brilliant, romantic boy who has lost everything and then found purpose in life again, framed with an older version of the character, who is in hiding, having caused a slow-rolling, ongoing disaster from which he cannot entirely escape. We have no idea what that disaster is, because Rothfuss saved that reveal for the third and final book, which he’s still working on.

Rothfuss is a hugely talented writer, and apparently meticulous in his process. I feel quite confident that when we do finally get that ending, those of us who are eagerly awaiting it 8 years later are going to be blown away, because everything he’s written has done this already.

So, in the midst of our wait for that third book, to be called The Doors of Stone, Rothfuss has written a couple of interim pieces set in his world, which is called “The Four Corners”. There’s a short story about a supporting character in the later time frame, and TSROST, which focuses on Auri, a character known to Kvothe, his first-person narrator in the two previous books, from his time at The University.

Auri’s a former student at the University, who studied alchemy, and whom magic has broken in some way that we still don’t (and probably will never) know. She’s the only character in the book, though it’s the nature of Auri that she would disagree with that statement, and that’s at the heart of this story.

I’ll go no farther in describing it than to say that some hate TSROST because they think it has no plot. I disagree, though the throughline here is extremely subtle. It’s my favorite of his books. I think the writing is luminous.

Books I Like #4

The Boys of My Youth by Jo Ann Beard

Little, Brown, & Co. Boston, New York, Toronto, London 1998

boys-of-my-youth

This was one of the books I was assigned to read in my MFA program, and I wrote a craft annotation of it. It’s a collection of brilliant memoir essays from many different stages of Beard’s life, each one more vivid and intimate than the last. My favorites were the one where she’s watching fireworks with her family as a child, and the one that’s written from the point of view of a coyote.

My own memoir work is similar, though when I go back to it, I will revise it into a single narrative.

Books I Like #3

The Complicated Geography of Alice by Jules Vilmur

Self-Published, 2014

geographyalice

This is my favorite transition memoir. I found parts of it as blog posts at Daily Kos, back when I read that thing, and when I learned that author Jules Vilmer was about to self-publish a book-length version, I was thrilled. The realized object is no disappointment.

It tells the story of Alice, a troubled teen who had been wearing a “boy suit,” and her mother, who accepted her immediately, without a moment’s hesitation, and the story of Alice’s transition and traumas over the next few years. There is humor and sadness, love, joy, and tragedy in this book, and you experience it right along with Jules and Alice.

The aspect of this memoir I find most unusual and compelling is that it’s told through the eyes of someone who loves a trans person, rather than being a first person account. In this case, a first person account wouldn’t be possible, and that is also compelling. This is a story that Vilmer had to tell, and she tells it marvelously.

If you follow the link through from Jules’ site to Amazon, it appears that you can still buy the book in paper. I’m proud to own my copy, and I eagerly point you to your own opportunity to read it.