Tag: fiction

Filling shelves with cookbooks and food perspectives

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In the expansion of the family restaurant in my novel, What’s Left, her father proposes an office for her uncle Barney that includes a wall-length bookshelf for his cookbooks.

At this point, of course, I could have been led to page after page of a bibliography! My wife would have Anthony Pellegrini’s pioneering volumes right up there. And I’d go for Julia Child, not that I’ve ever followed one of her recipes to a T. I just love her descriptions.

Now let me ask, what food books would you put on Barney’s shelves? And why?

~*~

Waitress in unidentified diner, Pike Place Market, Seattle, Washington, 1981. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

In my novel, the family restaurant could have been like this.

Time to think of a Japanese touch

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In the (highly unlikely) movie version of my novel, What’s Left, who would you like to see as her best friend, cousin Sandra?

Of course, that also means thinking of her blended genetic heritage and who could embody it.

~*~

A large Queen Anne-style house with a distinctive witch’s hat tower something like this is the headquarters for Cassia’s extended family in my new novel, What’s Left. If only this one were pink, like hers. (Claremont, New Hampshire.)

Can you really pass up this deal?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

If you haven’t already picked up my novels at this online one-month-only sale, don’t delay. You can’t beat the price – mine are free or else half-price.

They should fit your Kindle, Nook, laptop, tablet, or smartphone – any digital device where you’re reading.

All you need to do is hop on down to my booth at Jnana Hodson at Smashwords.com and download them. Take just one or all five novels plus the Blue Rock poems.

I think you’ll be happy you did.

Bells of freedom ringing

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Thinking of freedom, we can see it as personal expression as well as political opportunity. For some of us, that was a big dimension of the hippie movement.

The 50th anniversary of Woodstock is coming up next month. Normally, that would mark a jubilee, some even acclaiming it as a celebration of the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. Alas, the dark ages we thought had passed have returned from the dead, in intensified deadliness at that.

Jubilee, by the way, is drawn from the Biblical book of Leviticus, and it’s a most radical idea. Every 50 years, all the wealth in the land is to be redistributed. The scriptural passage is inscribed on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, so don’t tell me it’s not American.

~*~

One of the passages I cut before the final version of my novel What’s Left is one where she’s asking her aunt about the hippie experience:

I’ve never asked you about your own drug use.

OK? Can I say it was just enough to convince others I wasn’t a narc?

So were you really a hippie? I mean, you had such short hair!

You trying to say a hippie couldn’t have short hair? Don’t you know how radical my style was? You ever think I could conform to anything?

Well, you’ve indicated you weren’t stoned. I’m going down the list.

Have you considered the impact of the Pill? Or free love?

Oh, I’m so glad Cassia stopped talking like this! In the final version, she’s pretty snippy.

~*~

For the record, some of the truest hippies I’ve known weren’t promiscuous or do drugs. And some others never marched in a protest.

Still, as an image of the era, let me ask: What’s your impression of Woodstock? Have you ever been to a big, multiday festival? What’s your favorite music? How do you best express your free spirit?

 

This month only, they’re free

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Every July, Smashwords has a huge online sale of thousands of books, and many of its authors join in by discounting their prices.

Better yet, this year I’ve decided to go one better and make all but two of mine available for free. Yes, free. Three novels as well as my Blue Rock collected poems. And the other two novels are going for 50 percent off.

Quite simply, I want to encourage more readers to take a chance on a largely unknown author by downloading these books to their Kindle, Nook, laptop, tablet, or smartphone – any digital device where they’re reading. Nothing beats word of mouth or an online review by a real reader who likes it.

As I’ve been finding in my own perusal of books lately, it’s hard to pass up a promising ebook when it’s free – and there’s some fantastic reading available that way.

So hop on down to my booth at Jnana Hodson at Smashwords.com, will you. Please?

I think you’ll be happy you did.

Requiem for hippie

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In revising the novel that has been recast as Daffodil Uprising, I began grieving. It wasn’t the feeling I had expected. This was supposed to be a celebration of a remarkable time in world history. Some things really did change as a result.

Not all of them for the better, alas. And many of the lessons arising from Vietnam, especially, still haven’t been learned in realms of political power. And while much of the environment has been cleaned up, the global climate is still headed for disaster.

Repeatedly, I felt this was a requiem.

Part of that must have been a consequence of my long effort of drafting and revising What’s Left, which picks up on the central character a generation later. Or, more accurately, his daughter, Cassia.

But moving on with his story, in what’s now released as Pit-a-Pat High Jinks, I’m feeling wounded. Not by the novels, mind you – I think you’ll find them entertaining, enlightening, and delightful. No, the wounds are from, well, all kinds of losses, many of them my own fault.

I have heard that in the retreat from the outburst of the Quaker movement in the radical uprisings of mid-1600s Britain, many of them had a something of a shellshock look for years after. They had come so close to truly revolutionary societal change and lost that to the Restoration. Well, some of those ideals did come to flower in the American Revolution – the Bill of Rights, especially – but even there, we’ll still falling short.

As the liturgical chanters sing out in accompaniment to prayers in Christian Orthodox worship, Kyrie eleison – Lord have mercy.

Yes, mercy. And hope. And grant us peace.

Also on our big plate

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In my novel, What’s Left, having her family own a restaurant opens another dimension to the story – the changing food tastes of the American public.

If Carmichael’s continued solely as a burger-and-fries joint, we’d have a much different type of story, one based on the day-to-day interactions of line cooks, dishwashers, wait staff, and a slew of customers. One of my daughters has already drafted an exciting and entertaining story based on her own experiences in the trade – now, if she’ll only get it published! Realistically, a restaurant like that would likely wind up in bankruptcy halfway through the novel – or maybe even the victim of arson, if not accidental fire.

So having Carmichael’s expand, as I do, shifts the focus to a revolution in the awareness of food itself. We have plenty to play with that way.

Continue reading “Also on our big plate” →

Starting with death

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

My new novel, What’s Left, opens with her being taken out of her classroom and being told of the death of her father. Well, there’s still a thread of hope, since his body had not been recovered from the avalanche. But the finality weighs in.

What’s an 11-year-old to make of this? She’s been raised in two traditions, each one differing from the mainstream around her.

It’s not the only death in the novel. There’s the tragic collision that kills her grandparents and creates the opening for her father to marry into the family – they no doubt would have thwarted that development. And there are the other ancestors gone by the time Cassia appears on the scene, as well as two uncles who die when she’s too young to understand. But the questions remain.

Some of my favorite answers arise in the 14th chapter. But please remember: no fair peeking ahead.

~*~

The subject of death is difficult enough for adults. For children it’s all the more baffling, once they push past the notion of sleeping but not waking.

What’s the earliest funeral you remember? What were you told? What would you say to others?

~*~

The Athens restaurant in downtown Manchester, New Hampshire, is a longstanding tradition. Cassia’s family could have followed in its footsteps but chose a different route.