Once my husband and I discovered a roll of film in a chest drawer in our house. When we had it developed, we were astonished to see photos of us in our first apartment twenty years before. It was unexpected; it was delightful. It was both old and new. I had that same experience reading Talland House.

Written by Woolf scholar Maggie Humm, this, her first novel, is destined to please Woolf fans as well as entertain those who are unfamiliar with her work. Talland House does not take up where Lighthouse left off, but it does revisit not only some of the novel’s key scenes, but also updates us on Lily Briscoe’s full life regardless of her marital status. (Still single, and we’re happy about that, because of Mrs. Ramsay’s insistence that she marry in Lighthouse.)

A line by Humm, “In bed, Lily was tired by the weight of everything she didn’t understand…” could well have come from Lighthouse. While Humm does not use stream of consciousness, there is something Woolfian about her prose.

In Lighthouse, Lily closely observes her hosts, the Ramsay family and their summer visitors, but mostly she scrutinizes Mrs. Ramsay, the mother of eight and wife to one irascible academic.

Humm paints the essence of her Lily with the same close attention in which Lily attempted to paint Mrs. Ramsay in Woolf’s novel. What results is a harmonious portrait of the two “Lilys.”

No one who has read Lighthouse will be surprised to learn that Lily is, in Talland House, an accomplished painter whose work is displayed at the Royal Academy in London. What might surprise the reader but fits with the time period is the revelation that she nursed soldiers during the war as well as trained with a pharmacist, something that ties nicely with a plot point regarding Mrs. Ramsay’s mysterious death, a death that unsettled many an original reader of Lighthouse by its unexpected and nearly buried notice, occurring in parentheses as it did. (This could well be the most striking instance of understatement in literature, something to be discussed in depth elsewhere.)

A tender connection mentioned in the author’s note is the author’s loss of her mother at the same age that Woolf lost hers. The reader can’t help but think of that along the journey, and it deepens the feeling in the story.

A novel that fills a gap in literature, a lingering question about a character, is a genre I find particularly satisfying, and this example does not disappoint. (If there is a name for this genre, I do not know it. If there is not, I suggest we choose one.)

Many thanks to Maggie Humm for this bonus peek into Lily Briscoe’s life. Talland House is a treat for Woolf fans as well as those who have never read her work. Although I recommend you get on that, if you haven’t. Start with Orlando.

You may remember that the main character in my next novel’s name is Briscoe. Her mother, a Woolf scholar, named her after Lily. So naturally I was excited to read more about Lily Briscoe. And while Lily is a lovely name, I don’t think my hard-edged character could wear it, so I’m pleased with my choice.

P.S. I am making Amor Towles’ Fettucine Mio Amore from his novel, The Lincoln Highway today. I’m not sure if I’m more obsessed with his book or this recipe. If I remember, I’ll take photos and share. The photos, not the pasta. 😉

TW: addiction

Barry and I recently had the honor of interviewing our friend, poet and fiction writer Andrew Najberg. Andrew is one prolific writer and has been published frequently. (Rumor has it that he has more publishing news to share since speaking with us. I can’t wait to hear more about that!) Take a listen if you’d like to know his process.

I’m so glad I’ve been the one editing the episodes. While I’m far from a perfect editor, it gives me the opportunity to revisit what our guest said and reflect upon it in a way I, in my too-often anxious state, cannot in real time. This is one venture I’m so happy we have embarked upon. We’re meeting new writers and catching up with some of our writing friends. Win/win.

Next up will be YA novelist and science teacher, Melissa Hamilton. She brought along a special guest that had me wishing we were using the video portion of the call, too. But I don’t want to spoil it. Look for her episode in two weeks.

Forgive me for this shift here, but this weekend has been…challenging, and I’d like to ask for good vibes and such if you would send them up.

Since I’ve mentioned our son’s struggle with addiction here before, I’d like to share that he is on another leg of his journey. He’s back in rehab, after an impromptu intervention last night.

He showed up on our doorstep yesterday bloody and barefoot, in need of treatment, medical and otherwise, though it’s still somewhat unclear exactly what happened to him.

He will be in the treatment facility for 28 days, following by six months in a sober living house. We live in hope that this time it will “take.”

When we adopted Zack from specialized foster care at the age of 9, we knew the journey would be tough. (He does not mind us sharing his story. He actually joined our family when he was 8, but the adoption process takes time.) He had already been through so much, and that stays with a person. But we also believe he can overcome his past, and that he can overcome this addiction.

Our family tradition, when adopting, is to take the child of the day out for all the ice cream they can eat. I don’t recall just how much ice cream he had on his special day, but he had lots! I’m thinking we should repeat that when he gets released to indicate a new start. (If I had more energy, I’d go dig out adoption day photos.)

I’m trying to keep the tone lightish here, but my heart aches. As my niece’s van began pulling away last night to take him to the treatment center (and bless my niece for all of her help; she has contacts in that field that set everything up), Zack jumped out for one last hug. “You’ve got this,” I said. I believe that.

I always have.

I always will.

Copyright Drema Drudge, 2022. All rights reserved.

I’ve just crossed the 30K wordcount line in my third novel, though a good part of that has involved revisions. I wanted to take the time to say hello. 

First, I have had two Virginia Woolf sightings this week. One was in the admittedly juvenile movie, Senior Year, on Netflix. I always say that I’m serious about literature and art, so I can watch whatever silliness I want! I’ve gotta say, I wasn’t crazy about the Woolf reference in the movie, but I hope it will lead some curious watchers to give the book a try. In the movie, a librarian is logging in new books and Woolf’s The Waves passes by and he says something like, “I know nobody’s going to read you.” Challenge accepted, I hope adventurous viewer/readers will say. P.S. We didn’t enjoy the movie after all.

The other Woolf sighting was in Less is Lost, a novel by Andrew Sean Greer. Woolf’s To the Lighthouse is mentioned! In a letter to Less, who is an author, a member of a theater troupe says the troupe puts on literary works as plays and mention a six-hour performance of To the Lighthouse! (I’m assuming this is meant to be humorous, and it is.)

Moving right along…I’ve been looking for our spare sheet(s) this morning with no luck. I told Hubby that I am tired of washing our bedsheet sheet and putting it right back on, mainly because I read an Anne Tyler novel once where a character was scandalized that a relative did that because you’re “supposed” to let your linens air before you put it back on. While I’m not one to do what I’m “supposed” to do, not on that front, anyway, it’s hard to forget that bit of manners. Or is it manner? It’s certainly mannered.

After having searched the linen closet, the towel cabinet, under the bed, in all of our drawers and closets…on and on, I decided to give up and order a new set. It’s not like we will have lost anything if the sheet(s) turn up. That’s right, I’m not even sure whether we’re missing one or two sheets.

You see, we bought a wonderful, marvelous, literally life-changing bed during the pandemic. A Purple mattress and platform. King-sized. (Not a sponsored post.) While the part of me that once upon a time said she NEVER wanted anything larger than a full (because snuggles) was sad to see our old bed go, this bed…ah! I don’t wake up aching every day now. And I don’t hit my husband in the face by accident in my sleep.

And wonder of wonders, there’s room in the bed for my phone, my earbuds, AND my books! (I try to remember to remove them when I fall asleep, but that doesn’t always happen, I must admit.)

Needless to say, I’ve been more focused on the bed than the sheets. But now our poor, well-used sheet will get a rest. Full disclosure: we do have plenty of unfitted sheets, and I know opinions vary on the gaucheness of fitted ones, but there are things in life that I refuse to do, and one of them is spend time wrestling an unfitted sheet onto the bed, knowing I will also have to also wrestle to keep it on once in bed. No thanks. Hospital corners, no matter how crisp, are not for me. (Likewise, please do not bother tucking in the covers. I will only be irritated and will kick them loose.)

What about you, do you do hospital corners? Do you let your linen “rest”?

Recently I submitted the first page of Southern-Fried Woolf to a contest, and I thought if I could do that, maybe I should be brave and share it over here, too. Heads up: this sample contains strong profanity.

I should tell you, I am not trying to be clever with my book. I am unabashedly trying to interest a new generation in Woolf’s writing, and I have surrounded the main character’s “thesis” with what I hope is a compelling, fast-paced story as bait. Obviously, I would be happy if everyone loved it, but time will tell…

One or two words about the main character in my book. She is Briscoe Chambers, 28 years old, her country musician husband’s manager, and she’s also a grad school student, trying to write her thesis to get her degree. At least until she gets this phone call. Now all bets are off.

If it seems as if she questions everything, that’s because she does.

Here goes…

Southern-Fried Woolf, Page One

“…this is what leads naturally on to the next stage—the essay-novel.” The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Wednesday, November 2, 1932

                                                                2018
I push my whining phone across the bed with my toes until it dangles over the edge like an imperiled onscreen Marvel superhero. Not that it stops ringing. I admire my freshly polished toenails, (sunset chrome, very cool), but force my fingers to return to the home keys while my thoughts hunt for a similar perch. I sweep my hair off my shoulder with determination; my graduate thesis I have nicknamed Beastis is due too soon to allow interruptions of any kind, I sternly, silently, warn myself. I thwart the creeping dusk with the twist of a lamp switch to extend the day, as if doing so can give me more time as well, and I once again position my fingers. This time, I actually move them:

In what has been seen by some as her most autobiographical work, Virginia Woolf weaves into her novel To the Lighthouse a “femininely” knitted and “masculinely” knotted marriage of covert and subtle madness, though not one without warmth and love. She challenges the reader with a paradox: She makes sacred the domestic arena while revealing madness by the domestic activities themselves, thus showing us the “twisted (and twisting) finger” of the main character, Mrs. Ramsay….

…and of herself,” I type while frowning at my insistent phone, while wondering how much sh*t I’ll get for using the word madness, and especially in relation to Woolf. I highlight it to consider it carefully in light of previous and present scholarship, to decide if it even makes sense to use it.

Hell, madness is a word literature has pretty much co-opted for centuries. Then again, it’s also one that can be seen as making light of mental illness. That’s a topic for my feminist mother, “madness” in women in literature. (Funny the speed of a thought, how a phone can still f*cking ring in the time you’ve had the equivalent of a mini essay go through your head.)

The marimba stops, then almost immediately resumes, bones on metal, until it registers that the noise is my husband’s ringtone. Sh*t.

I groan and lean across the time-softened quilt. My shifting sends a cascade of mini-chocolate bar wrappers onto the floor as I leap and rescue the phone just as it vibrates over the edge.

Wait, could this call mean Michael actually wants to speak to me, even though he has Queen Velvet around? Hope grows the flimsiest bones and then sags back to the ground, the garbage cartilage it was to begin with. Hope, the enemy of peace. Sponsored by Tanqueray and tonic, my thesis writing beverage of choice.

END OF PAGE ONE!

Look for the whole book to come in January 2023. I can’t wait to share it with you!

P.S. Interested in what else has been keeping me busy? Barry and I have started a podcast, MFA Payday for MFA graduates. Episode One is live! To go along with it, I created a free pretty submission tracker. Because even tools should be pretty!

Thanks for reading!

All Best,

Drēma

Copyright 2022 Drēma Drudge, all rights reserved.