Angie Kim

A father goes missing, and the only person who can unlock the mystery of what happened to him is his autistic, nonverbal son, Eugene.
 
Angie Kim’s second novel, Happiness Falls, follows a family as they attempt to discover what happened to Adam Parson when only his son returns from their walk in the woods. As the Parson family scrambles to recover their lost father, they find themselves thrust into a different crisis of miscommunication between law enforcement and Eugene.
 
Flawlessly told by Mia, narrator and twin daughter in this biracial family of five, Happiness Falls is not just a missing-person story but an examination of the happiness quotient, selective perception, and logic chains gone wrong. 
 
Kim spoke to Goodreads contributor April Umminger about her latest book as well as her experience as an immigrant, nonverbal intelligence, and…happiness. Their conversation has been edited.
 

Goodreads: At a high view, how would you describe Happiness Falls in a couple of sentences?

Angie Kim: This book is about a biracial family in crisis, that is thrust into crisis mode when a beloved father goes missing one day and the only person who was with him, who might be able to say what happened to him, who might know what happened to him, is a nonspeaker by virtue of having autism and a rare genetic disorder, Angelman syndrome.
 
The family must come together to try to connect and communicate with each other, and him, and also to get to know a father's secrets so that they can try to figure out what happened.

GR: You've got such an interesting background with attending Stanford and then Harvard Law. How did you start writing fiction?

AK: Being a fiction writer is actually my fifth career. I was a lawyer in my 20s. Maybe four years into practicing law, I had this month where I did three trials in a row. Being in the courtroom was my favorite aspect of being a lawyer, and I hated everything else about it. I had this wonderful month, and afterwards I went to this beach area and read a book that I happened to have, Tim O'Brien's In the Lake of the Woods. 

GR: You mentioned that book in Happiness Falls.

AK: Yes, it's in a footnote. I read it from cover to cover, drinking wine, looking at the ocean surf. It was just such a glorious experience. And I thought, “I haven't had a day like this where I haven't been stressed about something about work in four years.” 

I told my husband later that night that I wanted to quit and go find something that made me fulfilled on a macro level but also day-to-day happy. 

I quit and I went into management consulting. I then became an entrepreneur in the dot-com era, and then I was a stay-at-home mom for a good 10 years. 

We have three boys, and all three of them had mysterious ailments as babies. Writing came out of that experience. I felt the need to process what I had gone through with the kids. My husband pointed out that a lot of these essays about our children, they weren't just my story, they were the family’s story. They were the children's stories as well. He suggested that I start writing fiction. 

I started with short stories, and as soon as I completed my first short story, I was like, “This is it.” This is what I have been wanting to do. By this time, I was in my 40s. 

Once I had some publications, and won some contests and things like that, I decided to try my hand at a novel, which was Miracle Creek. And Miracle Creek was published on the week that I turned 50. 

So, there you go.

GR: I love success stories that come later in life. It's never too late. It seems the concept and study of happiness has really taken off in the past decade or so. What made you put so much about the concept of happiness in the midst of a missing-person story?


AK: Happiness is something that I've been fascinated with since I was little. I think it comes from my immigrant experience. 

When I was in Korea, we were really poor. We didn't have running water in the house. The three of us lived in one tiny room that was in somebody else's home. 

We moved when I was 11, and I remember hearing…just the excitement, and my parents describing the visa that we got, as akin to winning the lottery, and my friends all saying how lucky I was and how happy I was going to be because we were going to this huge house—my aunt's house—in the suburbs of Baltimore. 

[There was] a stark difference between what I was expecting and what I actually experienced. 

My parents worked in a grocery store in downtown Baltimore, and the hours were so long that they ended up sleeping there in a storage cupboard in the back. I went from seeing them, being in the same room with them every day, and being very close with them, to not seeing them at all. 

Then, on top of that I also experienced the strange thing of losing all of my confidence and competence because I didn't speak English. I think it's so deeply rooted in our society, this assumption that equates oral fluency with intelligence, which of course is another strand in the novel. 

I experienced that for the first time so I felt stupid even though I should have known I wasn’t—but just the shame of not being able to speak. And the frustration. So that made me deeply unhappy. And I complained to my parents that I wanted to go back. 

A lot of that experience is in my first novel, in Miracle Creek. I'm not sure that I started thinking about it this explicitly, but it's something that I thought a lot about, this idea of happiness—Aristotelian kind of notions of what constitutes fulfillment. 

GR: Why did you pair autism and Angelman syndrome in Eugene’s character?

AK: These characters have been with me for more than 10 years. 

I first wrote a short story, “Buried Voice,” about this family in Mia’s voice. The story is a magical realism story about a pair of twins, John and Mia, running around this Korean graveyard outside Seoul trying to find their nonspeaking brother's voice literally in the ground—they think that his voice has seeped into their grandmother's graveyard for various reasons. I think it's my favorite short story I've ever written. 

That voice stayed with me. That family stayed with me. 

I love this biracial family—the family is very quirky. The mom is a linguist, the dad is a former management consultant who has very specific opinions and ideas about lots of different things. Mia was—to me—very funny. I love her voice, and she's very precocious. 

My first novel is about HBOT (hyperbaric oxygen therapy). While I was doing that therapy to one of my kids for his ulcerative colitis, I met a bunch of families that have children with autism. Over the years, I have watched them grow up and learned about that world and been inside it in some ways. 

Every time I thought about Eugene, I saw him doing some of these things that a lot of autistic kids do, as far as some of the high-pitched noises and the repetitive behaviors and nonspeaking and motor difficulties. But I also saw him as always having this beatific smile. I wondered what that smile was about.

When I was on tour for Miracle Creek, I was looking up the website of a therapist who was using this spelling therapy for nonspeakers. I saw that one of her board members had a child with Angelman syndrome, and I’d never heard about it. 

I looked it up and I just got chills because the way that it was described was exactly how I see Eugene in my mind, with the persistent smiles and laughter and motor impairments, nonspeaking for the most part, and having gastrointestinal types of issues. Also, that it's usually—or it can be—comorbid with autism, and that it can sometimes be misdiagnosed as autism. 

I started reaching out to people and reading everything I could about it, did a ton of research, met families with children with Angelman syndrome, talked to a lot of experts, and came to find out that the way I was seeing Eugene in my mind was most likely to be a dual diagnosis of autism and Angelman syndrome. 

GR: Building on that story and unpacking that a little bit more, how do you do your research?

AK: For this book I had so much research that I had to do because there were so many fascinating things that would pop into my head and, in Mia's voice, it brought up so many other related or sometimes unrelated issues. 

There's a fair amount of Googling going on, but for the things that I really, really cared about, which were the Angelman syndrome, getting that right, the nonspeaking letterboard therapy, which is a real-life therapy, that I wanted to make sure that I was representing correctly. 

I like to do a lot in person, but during the COVID era it was Zooming with people and trying to learn as much about the real-life experiences of these people as much as possible. 

And then also, possibly because Miracle Creek was my first novel, a lot of the research from that came from my own experience. I wanted to do a similar thing here, with respect to not just writing about something based on what I read, but meeting the people, and also making that a part of my life. 
For example, with respect to the nonspeaking side of the research, I started volunteering at a therapy center near me teaching creative writing to non-speakers. I get to experience what it's like to communicate with them, with me speaking and them responding by spelling.

Seeing that in real life, once you’ve experienced it, it's life changing to me. 

GR: Wow—that I can only imagine. In terms of the plot of this book, this is a missing-persons story. How do you develop and map out the plot and twists? Do you have a whiteboard or print pages out, or do you just sit down and revise?

AK: It's more the latter. The way that I write is, I call it method writing—similar to method acting. 

I did a lot of method acting training [in high school]. When I started writing, that's how it made sense to me to write, to inhabit the character, and act out what they would say, how they would react. I see it as scenes in my mind…as I'm pacing back and forth, and muttering things out loud to myself, and writing and free writing and things like that. [Laughs.]

Since that's the way that I write, it's not until I’m done that I can figure out what that scene should be and how it's going to play out. It plays out in real time, as I'm writing and as I'm thinking about it. Because of that, outlines are kind of useless to me. 

At the same time, I'm a huge story structure and architecture geek. As I'm drafting, after I've done all this free writing and acting it out in my head, the other part of my brain—the story structure and architecture side of me—is going, “What's happening here? And how is that relevant to where you are in the story?” 

I almost retroactively superimpose this structure after I've finished the scene or chapter. Once I'm done with the first draft, I have this very, very short outline that I've been jotting down as I finish each chapter, and then I can edit accordingly. 
 

GR: That is fascinating! Switching gears, what is your favorite genre of book?

AK: My favorite genre is linked stories, which are short stories or chapters that are woven together in some way. Books like Olive Kitteridge, which is the same character, A Visit from the Goon Squad is probably one of my top-five favorites. David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, again, all these different stories that are seemingly disparate but are connected and bound by a very, very tight throughline and structure that you realize when you get to the end. 

I love when people tell seemingly disparate stories that show very different aspects of people and their lives. But being the story structure and architecture geek that I am, I also like when the story is propulsive in a way through the linking, whether it be a character whose fate I'm interested in finding out about, or whether it's a puzzle that I'm trying to solve like a mystery. 

I feel like that's what I tried to do with Happiness Falls: using the missing-person mystery almost as a hook, like a Trojan horse. You put it in, and then once you’re hooked into the story—and there is that present-day story of the investigation—but that gives me a way in to frame it and anchor the story so that Mia can go off and tell all of these sometimes seemingly random things like about her and John running around, having these Vulcan mind melds when they were little. I'm sure some readers are like, “How is this relevant,” and you find out at the end how it comes together. 

GR: What are you reading now?

AK: Back to these link stories, I am reading some of them right now. 

I am reading Daniel Mason's North Woods, which is coming out later in September. It is one of these linked stories, and the link is a house in the woods. It spans something like 400 years and lots of different formats of storytelling. But it's all linked together by this house. 

I am also rereading Anthony Marra’s The Tzar of Love and Techno. It's got some objects that interlink some of the stories as well as some of the characters and the location. The links are a little bit looser, but the links are enough to intrigue me and to make me think of each story almost like a puzzle. The stories themselves are gorgeous. And then I'm trying to figure out how they link up, which is another level of layering of the puzzle of reading and storytelling that I love so much. 

GR: What is the one thing you would want people to remember about Happiness Falls?

AK: No matter what the cause, whether it be autism or Angelman or somebody being an immigrant or some medical reason, just because you can’t talk doesn't mean you can't think or understand. If there's one thing that I hope people take away from reading this book is to question the assumption that oral fluency is equivalent to intelligence.

GR: Last one: You referenced Tim O’Brien’s book In the Lake of the Woods earlier and in your book, and that is a story open to interpretation. Would you say the ending of Happiness Falls is definite?

AK: I don’t think it is. I wanted the ending of this story to be satisfying. I think there's enough of a resolution and enough answers that it is. 

There's also an opening that I provide for the readers. In the Lake of the Woods there really isn't any kind of resolution—there are seven different hypotheses—and by the time you finish reading, each scenario he presents is equally likely. 

Whereas here, I think most people have an idea of what they think happened. And sure, there are some doubts, but that's similar to real life. Even though this is a novel and a fictionalized story, one of the points that I'm trying to make is about missing-person cases, and those being such frustrating, open-ended mysteries. Often in real life with missing-person mysteries, you don't get any kind of a resolution. Given that point, it makes sense that we wouldn't know for sure. 

There is a resolution, there is a satisfying ending, but there is also just the tiniest, tiniest bit of question that possibly what you think, what you're almost positive about, might not be true. I think that makes it fun. I think that's one of the pleasures of reading books. 

One Copy of "Bring Them Home" (100 Copies Available)

About the book:

A perfect village. A perfect crime.

When two young girls disappear from their primary school, the village of Heighington is put on high alert—and not for the first time. Called in to investigate, Detective Karen Hart is sure that parallels with a previous disappearance are anything but coincidental.

DS Hart is still reeling from a case she tried and failed to solve eighteen months ago, when a young woman vanished without a trace. She’s no nearer to the truth of what happened to Amy Fisher, but with two children missing now too, the stakes have never been higher. As she looks to the past for clues, she must confront her own haunting loss, a nightmare she is determined to spare other families.

Hart soon realises that nothing in this close-knit Lincolnshire community is what it seems. Pursuing the investigation with personal vengeance, she finds herself in conflict with her scrupulous new boss, but playing by the rules will have to wait. Because while there’s no shortage of suspects, the missing girls are running out of time…

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Multiple Opportunities

International bestselling author Liz Gavin’s books have made to #1 in countries as diverse as Japan, the UK, the US, Canada, Australia and her home country Brazil, collecting 5 and 4-star reviews. Nominated for a Summer Indie Book Award in 2016, and again in 2017, this RWA member constantly seeks new opportunities to improve her craft.  This thirst for knowledge propelled Liz to leave the comforts of family and friends in Brazil and move to California to pursue a Master’s degree in late 2015. She lives in sunny SoCal, where she’s researching the writing process, for her thesis, in hopes to figure out why she creates in English instead of her native Portuguese. 

Liz Gavin writes in contemporary, paranormal, and historical genres. In her sexy stories, one finds smart, independent women, who don’t need rescuing by knights in shining armor, but indulge in steamy action with swoony Alpha males with big hearts. She also writes about women discovering their sexuality and finding happiness in unconventional setups.

Prospective ARC participants should contact Liz via email at lizgavin@elessarbooks.com to apply.  

The Greenhorn

Cold.  God, he couldn’t remember ever before being this cold, never ever in his life.  Only one day and he was already beginning to regret his decision.  His jaw was numb from the cold and his shoulders ached from hunching against it.  The wind was blowing out of the northwest, sweeping snow under the brim of his hat, the beautiful new Montana peak he’d bought just two days before.  It swept in, no matter how he tucked his chin or turned away from the blast, blinding him and taking his breath away.

Hell, it was April.  It wasn’t supposed to be doing this in April.

His name was Ray Turner, seventeen on his last birthday, and he was bone weary from his first day working the line, his first day of fence duty.  No one had told him what a pain in the butt working the fence would be.  Where was the glamour?  The lariat on the straying calf, the long gallop over the plain to turn the errant steer, the fact-to-face encounter (oh god yes, the encounter) with some angry Sioux warrior come to plague the herd?  Where the hell was the romance?

He and Curly were walking their horses back through the snow toward the line shack where they’d stowed their gear after riding out from the main ranch.  That morning the Montana sunrise had been beautiful, the prairie grass glistening with dew in the slanting sunlight, nearly blinding him as it glanced off the ground.  April in Montana, the huge sky above, the buttes in dark silhouette against the western horizon, the rounded hills leading down to the Yellowstone.  What more could a young man ask for?

Well, how about some glamour?  A little romance?  He knew they were there somewhere.

But first the reality of a long day riding the fence, re-stapling sagging wire, straightening posts, re-attaching supports to the “deadmen.”  Curly had thus identified for him the glacial boulders to which the tension wires were strung.  By noon his fingers were numb from too many misdirected blows, his hands bloody from handling, mishandling, the barbed wire.  By three his back was screaming from all the bending, lifting, pulling—using muscles he hadn’t used before, at least not in the way he was using them then.

And now the reality of a late spring blizzard as only Montana could know it, the Canadian low sweeping out of the north to turn the blush of April back to January scowl.

So much for glamour and romance.

With visibility near zero, they were following the fence back to the line shack.  Finally, topping one last rise, there it was, barely visible below them.  The slope leading down to the Yellowstone was irregular, with low hills and hollows north and south along the river, and the line shack was built into the side of one such hollow.

It was a sorry affair the color of Montana mud, almost indistinguishable from the rest of the landscape.  The back wall and half the two side walls were earthen with cottonwood poles for the front, sides, and roof, the roof then covered with cowhides and sod.  But it looked like a palace to the boy.

They dismounted at the shed on the north side, unsaddled their horses and turned them into the fenced enclosure.  Then they hauled their gear into the shack.

The line shack was primitive in construction, but it had everything they would need while they were there on fence patrol.  One room facing east, fifteen feet square with a plank floor, a window in each side wall, and a door that opened outward and was covered with cowhide to keep out the drafts.  There was a pot-belly stove in the middle of the room with a wooden table and four chairs in the south half, then two sets of bunk beds along the north wall with the window in between.  Near the door, hanging from a nail, was a water bag, and hanging from nails in the south wall were the sacks of provisions they’d brought with them.

Curly lit the lamps and turned to Ray.  “Chips outside,” he said pointing north.  Curly was not one to waste words.

Ray came back with an armload of cow chips, deposited them, the put some in the stove.  On the chips Curly poured oil from one of the lamps and then dropped in a match.  Soon the room was warmer as well as smokier, most of the smoke going up the stovepipe, but not all.  And the air was pungent with the mixed aromas of coal oil, steaming saddle blankets, and burning cow chips.  Ray didn’t care.  He could hear the wind outside but he no longer felt its cutting edge, and the odors were a small price to pay for being warm again.

Curly took off his coat and hat and placed them on one of the upper bunks along the north wall.  His head, shining dully in the lamplight, gave the lie to his name.  Ray assumed he’d acquired it years before, in the days of his youth and curly locks.  Or maybe it was the same mentality that called circus elephants Tiny.  Using that logic, the boy thought, Curly should be Gabby.  Curly McCoy, Ray guessed, was somewhere in this late forties or early fifties, one of the old-timers in Montana cattle ranching, and a man from whom Ray could learn much.  And even though Curly seemed a bit slow with anything other than cows, horses, and fences.  Ray could learn by example rather than word.  Could learn from him, that is, if Ray was going to continue to pursue his career as a cowboy.  After today, he wasn’t as sure of that as he’d been the day before.

He followed Curly’s move, putting his coat on the other bunk, then carefully placing the new hat on top.  He’d paid too much for it, he knew, about half a month’s wages he hadn’t yet earned.  But it was worth it.  He loved the way he looked in it when he stood before the bureau mirror in his hotel room in Miles City where he’d bought it just after signing with the Bow and Arrow.  It had taken too much of his meager savings but he didn’t care.  No self-respecting cowpoke would be without a proper hat.  And that raggedy old cap he’d worn there from home just wouldn’t do.

 “You scrounge up some grub ‘n I’ll go tend the horses”, Curly instructed, putting his coat and hat on again.

In the gunnysacks they had provisions for a week: four loaves of bread, coffee, a half-gallon of baked beans, potatoes, carrots, onions, a slab of bacon, a ham, and two chickens.  Though Ray had never before done any kind of cooking, he’d watched his mother do it often enough at the Ismay Hotel to believe he could pull it off.  After all, a stew’s a stew.  How tough could it be?  He’d show Curly he was no greenhorn.  At least not when it came to cooking.

He found a kettle big enough for more stew than the two of them would need, rinsed out the dust, filled it halfway with water from the water bag, and set it on top of the stove.

That morning, at Curly’s instructions—Curly wordlessly handed him the bag and pointed—Ray had gone down to the river, filled the bag, brought it back and hung it on the wall to be ready for them when they returned that evening.

He got out three potatoes, a half dozen carrots, and an onion.  With his jackknife he peeled the potatoes and carrots, then cut them in chunks and dropped them in the water, which was by this time beginning to steam.  Next the onion, in generous slabs.  He took out one of the chickens from the other sack.  It was already plucked and gutted so all he had to do was cut it up and put it in with the vegetables.  Legs, thighs, wings, then the carcass in four chunks.

It was all bubbling nicely by the time Curly came back.  He sniffed once and nodded.  Ray took that to mean it smelled good.  Curly brushed snow from his shoulders and beat his hat on an arm.  “Nasty un,” he said.  “Probly no work tomorrow.”  He put coat and hat on the bunk, then sat in a chair with a long sigh.  Then, “Thet’s probly okay with you, huh, Ray?” he said, smiling, already knowing Ray’s answer.

Ray assured him it would be better than okay—would Curly believe great, wonderful, heavenly?  Even being cooped up for a day or two with Curly, no great conversationalist, beat having to go out to work the fence again.  They sat with legs outstretched toward the stove and waited for the chicken to get done.

When Ray awakened, at first he didn’t know where he was, thinking he was back in Ismay still dreaming of being a cowboy.  Then he remembered, and looked to see if Curly was laughing at him for falling asleep, like some kid exhausted from men’s work.  He was relieved to see Curly slumped in his chair, hands folded over his belly, chin tucked in his chest, snoring vigorously.  He looked older now in the lamplight, his features sleep-loose with deep creases in chin and cheeks, lines raying out from eyes that had squinted for too many years into too many Montana suns, his forehead and scalp a smooth white contrast to the heavily weathered face.  Then Ray noticed the jagged flesh bunched and puckered from just above the left eye and running across the temple to a point above his ear.  When Curly was a young man just learning the trade, he’d been bucked off a frisky mustang and then kicked into a three-day coma.  Some of the Bow and Arrow cowboys unkindly suggested that was the reason Curly said so little: the kick had addled his brain and he just didn’t know what to say.  But Ray hadn’t been around long enough to have heard the story of the mustang and the kick.  Sometime, he promised himself, when he knew Curly better, he would ask him about the scar.

He got up to check the stew.  He spooned out a potato chunk, blew on it, and popped it in his mouth.  Oh yes, just like his mother’s—no, he decided, better than his mother’s.

He gently shook Curly awake, and they scooped out stew in their cups and ate together in silence.  The vegetables were delicious, the chicken the best Ray had ever tasted.  They ate it all, sopping up even the last drops with chunks of bread.

“Oooooeee,” Curly cooed contentedly, “mighty fine, boy.  I cain’t remember any better.”  For Curly, that was a speech, and Ray glowed with the praise.

Curly took out a sack of tobacco and a paper and rolled a smoke, licking the edge, twisting the ends and lighting it, then blowing out a stream of smoke.  He extended the bag to Ray, who declined, not so much because he wouldn’t have liked to try it, but because he was certain he’d never be able to get the tobacco in the paper without scattering it all over the shack.  While Curly smoked, Ray cleaned the pot out with some water and then hung it on a nail by the vegetable sack.

Just then, even over the moaning wind, they heard the sound of an approaching rider, then a horse’s snort and an answering whinny from one of the horses in the corral.  Curly got up and went to the north window.  He shrugged and sat down again.

“What is it, Curly?  Who’s out there?” Ray asked.

“Too dark,” Curly answered.

Moments later the door opened and a man entered in a swirl of snow and wind, saddle in one hand, bridle and blanket over his arm.  He pulled the door shut, threw his gear down in the corner, took off his hat and slapped it against a leg.

“Howdy do, boys,” he said.  “We got us a good un out there.”

He took off his coat and put it and his hat on a bunk.  Then he pulled a chair up to the stove, holding his hands out and rubbing them together.  “Nice to hear yer sweet voice again, Curly.  Who’s this young feller?  Don’t believe we met before.  Name’s Bob Atkins, Texas Bob to my friends.  So what’ll it be, young feller—Bob Atkins or Texas Bob?”

Curly snorted his amusement.

Ray wasn’t sure who the man was or why he was there or how he should respond to him.  “I’m Ray, Ray Turner,” he said, extending his hand.  “I signed on just a couple days ago.”  The man took his hand and they shook.  “You work for the Bow and Arrow, Bob?” Ray asked.  “Texas Bob,” he corrected himself.

“Me ‘n Curly been workin’ fer the Bow fer more years’n I’d keer to say.  How many now, Curly?  Gotta be . . . damn near thirty.  Right, Curly?  Just nod, Curly.  I know how it pains ya to open yer mouth.”

Curly nodded.

“I was out checkin’ fence to the north, ‘n when the damn storm blew up.  I figgered to come here ‘n spend the night with you boys.  This un looks like that blue norther we had in, what, ’92, right, Curly?  You ‘member that un, Curl?”

Curly was in the middle of rolling a cigarette, but he nodded as he licked the paper shut.  He remembered.  He wasn’t simple, after all.  He knew what the others said about him, but he chose to ignore them.

“So, Ray, how’s ol’ Curly been treatin’ ya?  He talkin’ yer ears raggedy?”  He laughed.  Then he frowned, having thought of something else.  “Ya like ridin’ fence?”

Before Ray could respond, he went on.  “Gol dern bob wire anyways.  Curly ‘n me remember the days when this country was open—no fences, just God ‘n buffla grass ‘n cows ‘n open range.”  He produced a corncob pipe and a pouch of tobacco and proceeded to fill it, tamp the tobacco in, and light it, puffing mightily with blue smoke billowing around him.  He sighed when he got it going to his satisfaction, and slumped in his chair remembering the old days, the good days.

Ray considered him in the yellow light from the oil lamps.  He was about the same age as Curly, medium height, but lean and tough as old cowhide.  His hair was black streaked with gray, and his cheeks and chin were black with a day’s growth of beard.  Another one he could learn from, he decided.  And this one loved to talk.

“You boys already et, I spose.  Yeah, I was afeared I’d get here too late.  Well, I kin always rustle up somethin’ in a bit.”  He punched down the tobacco with a blunt thumb, then struck a match and sucked the flame down into the pipe bowl.

“How old er ya, Ray?  Look a little green to me.”

Before Ray could tell him he was twenty-one and no greenhorn, Bob went on.

“But then I ‘member Luke Sweetman, outta Texas, back in ’86.  He’s only eighteen on the big spring roundup that year ‘n he’s headin’ up one of the big outfits in District Eight, Circle Dot, it was.  Or mebbe N-Bar-N.  I dunno.  Which was it, Curly?  You ‘member?”

Curly shrugged.

“Yeah, well anyways, don’t much matter how old ya are, long’s ya know what yer doin’.”

The fire in the stove was down, so Ray added several more chips.  He was happy to be sitting there, listening to the talk, even though only one of them was doing any talking.

“Them were the days, all right,” Texas Bob went on.  “I ‘member when the XIT drove herds all the way from Texas to Montana range.  Now we got ‘steaders all over the dern place.  Everthin’s fenced now.  Short-horn Herefords now ‘steada them mean-eyed, stringy, pisshead longhorns.  Probly short-peckered men ‘n boys now too.”  He looked at Ray and smiled.  Curly was nodding off by the fire, Bob’s patter like an old, often-heard serenade.

Texas Bob got up and stretched.  “I’m gonna find me some grub ‘fore I hit the sack.  What’s left over here?’

He went to the south wall to the provisions.  When he saw the pot hanging nearby, he turned to the others and said with hands on hips, “Gol dernit, Curly!  What in sam hill’s the pisspot doin’ hangin’ over here?”

Ray never cooked chicken after that.  Ray never ate chicken after that.

The 10 Best Greek Mythology Books

Reblogged from "Norse Mythology," which can be found by clicking HERE.

A painting of Dionysus and satyrs by the Brygos Painter (5th century BCE)

There’s a bewildering array of books out there on Greek mythology, especially at the beginner level. Which ones are most deserving of your hard-earned money? This list (last updated in April of 2019) was written with the intention of helping you make that decision.

Different people find Greek mythology to be meaningful for different reasons. For some, the wondrous tales and their larger-than-life characters make for great literature. For others, the value of the Greek myths and the religion of which they were a part lies in their importance for understanding the history of Western civilization and thought. Still others might be interested in the subject for spiritual or scholarly reasons. But whatever it is that draws you to Greek mythology, you’ll probably find at least a book or two on this list that fits what you’re looking for.

The order of the books in this list runs roughly from the most newbie-friendly to the most advanced. The lower-numbered books aren’t necessarily better than the higher-numbered ones, but the lower-numbered ones aremore accessible.

If you find this list to be helpful enough that you decide to buy one or more of the books listed here, the best way you can say “thank you” is to buy whatever you decide to buy through the Amazon links provided at the end of each book’s description. When you do, I automatically get a small commission on your purchase with no extra cost or hassle for you whatsoever.

1. Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes by Edith Hamilton

Ever since its original publication in 1942, Edith Hamilton’s Mythology has been widely seen as the quintessential introduction to Greek mythology for adults, even as countless other introductions to the topic have come and gone. Yes, it’s stood the test of time that well.

Hamilton masterfully retells all of the major myths of the Greeks, and gives overviews of all of their main deities and heroes. Her prose is clear and lucid, yet poetic and evocative – an ideal style for both the head and the heart. The book assumes no prior knowledge of the topic whatsoever, making it perfectly suited to the total beginner.

As an added bonus, Mythology includes a brief treatment of Norse mythology at the end.

If you’re looking for a comprehensive introduction to Greek mythology that reads like great literature, Edith Hamilton’s Mythology is the book I’d recommend. Click here to view or buy Mythology at Amazon.

2. The Complete World of Greek Mythology by Richard Buxton

Another deservedly popular and impeccably newbie-friendly introduction to the topic that you might want to consider is Richard Buxton’s The Complete World of Greek Mythology. Buxton’s book covers much of the same ground as Hamilton’s, but is written in a less literary style and has more of an emphasis on the historical and geographical contexts within which the myths were told. For example, Buxton will teach you much more about the wider religion and society of which Greek mythology was a part, the roles that particular features of the Greeks’ landscape played in their ancient myths, and how subsequent centuries have used and re-imagined Greek mythology.

But perhaps the biggest draw of The Complete World of Greek Mythology for most people will be its 330 illustrations, including 139 in color, which adorn practically every page of the book. These pictures range from artifacts from ancient Greece to photos of Greek landscapes to classic paintings of scenes from Greek mythology.

Bottom line: you can’t go wrong with either Hamilton or Buxton – or both, if you find both of their approaches appealing. Click here to view or buy The Complete World of Greek Mythology at Amazon.

3. D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths by Ingri and Edgar Parin d’Aulaire

If you’re looking for a great book on Greek mythology for kids, D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths is easily the best one out there. It’s written in a style so simple and clear that children should have no problem understanding it, but the language is also very colorful and evocative. It entertains as it informs.

The book is as comprehensive as you could wish for in a book of this sort, and gives accounts of the personalities of the gods and most of the heroes, as well as retellings of most of the major myths themselves. Along the way, countless lavish illustrations help to bring the stories and characters to life. This book is sure to kindle your child’s imagination and take him or her on a journey to an enchanting world filled with extraordinary beings who do epic deeds, but who are cast as being surprisingly relatable for a child.

Much like Edith Hamilton’s Mythology, D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths was originally published decades ago – in 1962, in fact – but has yet to be surpassed to this day. It’s that good. Click here to view or buy D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths at Amazon.

4. The Iliad by Homer, translated by Robert Fagles

Back to the books for adults.

Who could consider themselves to be knowledgeable about Greek mythology without a familiarity with Homer’s masterpieces, the Iliad and the Odyssey? Even if you’ve read the summaries in introductory works on the topic, there’s no substitute for reading the original epic poems (in English translation, of course, unless you can read Homeric Greek).

The experience of reading Homer’s works is just as valuable as the knowledge of Greek mythology you’ll glean from them. Homer is regarded as one of the greatest poets of all time for good reasons; his verse is poignantly beautiful without being flowery or effusive, his signature rapid pacing makes for an action-packed read, and the stories he tells feature many of the most paradigmatic characters and scenes in all of world literature.

The Iliad tells the story of the conquest of the city of Troy by a Greek army led by the likes of Achilles, Agamemnon, and Odysseus. The fight is ultimately over Helen, a daughter of Zeus and one of the most beautiful women to ever walk the earth, who is abducted by one of the Trojans. The plot is tugged one way and then another by the characters’ complex psyches, twists of fate, and divine interventions. Click here to view or buy the Iliad at Amazon.

5. The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Robert Fagles

Homer’s second major epic poem, the Odyssey, picks up where the plot of the Iliad leaves off. Troy has been conquered, but for Odysseus, one of the heroes of the victorious army, many battles still loom ahead before he can return home to the arms of his wife, Penelope, and their son, Telemachus. Over the course of twenty years, Odysseus must undergo captivity at the hands of a nymph, the curse of the god Poseidon, a fight with a cyclops, malevolent drugs and spells, the now-proverbial Scylla and Charybdis, and many other trials and tribulations before he can at last set foot again in his home city of Ithaca.

Meanwhile, Penelope and Telemachus must fend off many dozens of suitors, who want to gain Penelope’s hand and, with it, access to Odysseus’s great wealth.

As with the Iliad, the best translation of the Odyssey for most people will be that of Robert Fagles, who makes both of these Greek masterpieces read like masterpieces in English. Click here to view or buy the Odyssey at Amazon.

6. Theogony by Hesiod, translated by M.L. West

Another primary source that every Greek mythology enthusiast owes it to himself or herself to read is Hesiod’s Theogony.

Theogony is a prose work from the late eighth century BCE that provides a remarkably systematic account of the origins of the first gods. (“Theogony” means the genesis of gods.) It’s one of the main sources we have on ancient Greek creation narratives, and its clear, point-by-point structure has made it a favorite source for modern retellings.

M.L. West’s translation is probably the best one out there – easy to understand, but full of poetic richness and nuance. This edition also includes Hesiod’s Works and Days, a collection of advice for farmers on how to live a good life. Click here to view or buy Theogony at Amazon.

7. The Library of Greek Mythology by Apollodorus, translated by Robin Hard

The Library of Greek Mythology (a.k.a. the Bibliotheca) is the only work that survives from classical antiquity that attempts to provide a comprehensive account of all – or at least large parts – of Greek mythology. As such, it’s long been one of the main ancient sources that scholars have used to piece together Greek mythology.

The material in The Library of Greek Mythology covers the birth of the gods and the creation of the world, the later exploits of the gods, and the mighty deeds of heroes like Hercules, Jason, Perseus, Theseus, and the men and women of the Trojan War.

Robin Hard’s translation is modern and accessible, and makes for pleasurable reading. Click here to view or buy The Library of Greek Mythology at Amazon.

8. Greek Religion by Walter Burkert

If you’re interested in going beyond the mythology and learning more about the ancient religion to which Greek mythology belonged, Walter Burkert’s Greek Religion is probably the best single book out there on the topic.

Whereas a few of the other books on this list contain some basic remarks about the Greek gods and other aspects of Greek religion that pertain directly to the myths, Burkert goes much further. Greek Religion offers a comprehensive account of the ancient Greeks’ sanctuaries, rituals, deities, theology (both explicit and implicit), ideal of heroism, views on death and the afterlife, and more. The last two sections focus on later developments in Greek religion, such as the “mystery” cults and the beginnings of the philosophical tradition.

Throughout the book, Burkert provides an ideal synthesis of factual detail and abstract, conceptual interpretation. Click here to view or buy Greek Religion at Amazon.

9. The Penguin Dictionary of Classical Mythology by Pierre Grimal

I imagine that most of you who are reading this have read the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. Remember how his works typically come with glossaries so that you don’t become too bewildered by the sheer profusion of proper nouns – the names of characters, places, etc.?

Well, Greek mythology contains a similar abundance of such “key terms.” Therefore, when reading any book on the topic, it’s extremely helpful to have a guide to those “key terms” handy.

Pierre Grimal’s Dictionary of Classical Mythology(reprinted by Penguin Books as The Penguin Dictionary of Classical Mythology) is the best such guide available today. It covers virtually every proper noun you’ll encounter when reading about Greek mythology. Each alphabetical entry contains a description of the character, place, concept, or other “key term” that’s thorough but makes sure that the main points don’t get lost amongst the details. Click here to view or buy The Penguin Dictionary of Classical Mythology at Amazon.

10. Myth and Philosophy: A Contest of Truths by Lawrence J. Hatab

Those of you who have particularly intellectual interests will likely find Lawrence Hatab’s Myth and Philosophy to be engrossing and illuminating, just as I have.

Hatab first offers an overview of early Greek myth and religion from a philosophical standpoint – including what myth is, what its latent or implicit theory of knowledge is, its relationship with the political system and view of the self that prevailed in early Greece, and other such themes. The philosophies of Nietzsche and Heidegger often help to frame these discussions.

The book then considers the historical transformation from myth to philosophy in ancient Greece, and the roles that the above themes and others played in that transformation. Along the way, Hatab points out ways in which earlier Greek myth and religion provided raw concepts that later philosophy would take up and transform, and ways in which elements of myth remained in Greek philosophy (such as Plato’s view that an inner, intuitive “spark” was the root of all reason).

Myth and Philosophy is probably one of my personal favorite books, and is indispensable reading for anyone interested in both philosophy and myth. Click here to view or buy Myth and Philosophy at Amazon.

Paris: The Memoir

Reblogged from "The Harvard Crimson," which can be found by clicking HERE.

 

Readers may expect Paris Hilton’s memoir to be full of pink dresses, diamonds, fashion advice, famous name drops, and lavish parties. While all of these can be found in Paris Hilton’s new book, “Paris: The Memoir,” they only adorn the background of this portrait of a raw, relatable life. Through strikingly clear writing, Paris Hilton deconstructs her public image. Hilton does not force relatability, using her genuine prose and naturally witty humor to highlight the parts of her life that paparazzi and TV cameras never could.

The less publicized realities of Hilton’s life lay the foundation of this work. Readers learn about Hilton’s struggles with ADHD, the motivations behind her party-girl persona in her teenage years, and her struggles with her family. The recollections of her adolescence center around one of the most tragic and personal moments of the book: her harrowing experience at a troubled teen facility called CEDU.

She details her forceful removal from home in 1997, which led to her two-year confinement in a facility called CEDU — a place where her parents, concerned for her safety, sent her at age 16 for safety concerns after her months of late-night partying. Hilton describes the disturbing experiences she faced at this facility, where “disobedient ravers from conservative families and ADHD kids who got kicked out of school” were sent.

With the agility of a seasoned writer, Hilton brings life to the verbally abusive false group therapy sessions, sexual abuse, drugging, psychological manipulation, and demanding physical labor she faced at CEDU. Hilton achieves a closeness that goes beyond a memoir’s typical intimacy with its readers; her illuminative imagery allows her audience to develop deep empathy for her and other teenagers forced into these camps.

What stands out most in Hilton’s memoir is the unique way she structures her story. In the book’s prologue, Hiton details her experience with ADHD and describes how this has shaped her life.

“Because my attention span is limited, I don’t see time as linear,” writes Hilton, “the ADHD brain processes past, present, and future as a Spirograph of interconnected events, which gives me a certain Spidey sense about fashion trends and technology.”

Hilton spins a web of stories that bounces back and forth between her present and her past, writing in a way that, as Hilton describes, models a conversation with her as someone with ADHD. This restless motion through the memoir is unexpectedly clarifying; readers gain more insight into Paris’s perspective as moments that readers are familiar with from early 2000s media are tied to personal stories that describe Paris’s thoughts at the time. This connect-the-dots storytelling style engages the reader by mixing a thoughtful and intellectual voice with the familiar Paris-isms entrenched in popular culture.

With an articulate and confident voice, Hilton presents herself as the Paris she herself defines, not the character that people may encounter on reality television.

This vulnerability woven through the memoir allows Hilton to align herself with her audience. In a particularly unguarded moment, Hilton writes about how she came to terms with her asexuality, in light of her recognition as a “sex symbol.”

When reflecting on her time at CEDU and its impacts on her life now, Hilton writes, “The ironic thing is, because of the abuse and degradation I survived as a teen — and maybe partly because of the way I was raised — I feared sex.”

In a way, Hilton’s memoir is the permission that readers have been waiting for. For such a powerful icon to come forward and openly accept herself and share her truths may be the inspiration that other readers need.

“I promised myself I would be truthful,” writes Hilton, “and I know that there’s someone out there who needs to hear that they're not weird or frigid or dead inside — they’re just who they are at this moment: an asexual person in a hypersexualized world.”

Bringing things full circle, Hilton shares her activist work in Washington D.C. where she lobbies legislators to create regulatory laws against the troubled teen industry. Her work includes planning rallies and protests and spreading awareness about her experience, particularly through a podcast called “Trapped in Treatment” which she hosts alongside fellow troubled teen industry survivor, Caroline Cole.

Wrapped in a rather unassuming pink book jacket, “Paris: The Memoir” is a transformative experience. Throughout the memoir, Hilton defies readers’ preconceived notions, writing with a confidence that paints herself in the light she deserves. Her hard-hitting messages radiate self-awareness and tenacity, resonating deeply with both audiences who have followed her since the early 2000s and those who are just learning of her story.