Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Going Away Shoes

Inspired by the Emerging Writers Network–who dubbed May as Short Story Month again this year, Fiction Writers Review is excited to propose a community effort by lit bloggers to raise attention for short story collections: Short Story Month 2010: The Collection Giveaway Project.


To participate in Short Story Month 2010: The Giveaway Project:


(1) This month, post an entry on your blog recommending a recently published short story collection (or two, or three). The post can be long or short, a review or merely a rave. The one requirement is that you, the blogger, have read and loved the book(s) in question.


(2) Offer a copy of the book (or each book) as a giveaway to one lucky person who comments on your blog. You can choose the winner through a drawing, or by the wittiness of his/her remarks, or by whatever criteria you choose.


(3) Announce the winner(s) on May 31, 2010, and arrange to send out copies of any books you are giving away.


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I couldn't have stumbled upon The Giveaway Project at a better time.


On Sundays, as I mentioned in a previous post, I like to read the SundayStyles section of the NY Times.


On Saturdays we have a different ritual. Macy wakes us up at 7:30, argh, cursed cursed morning. However, I always try to make the most of it. The boyfriend is a runner, and runs at least 3 times a week - one of those times being Saturdays. That leaves me with Macy. We have taken to walking to the local coffee shop. However, local is a more relative term when you live in the 'burbs like he does (as opposed to the city like I do - our perpetual war), and the nearest shop is not on the next corner like it is by my house, it's 1.7 miles down the street. I know because I've clocked it with the odometer on his car.


So, while he runs, Macy and I walk to the coffee shop. She likes to play pretend games on our journey for my caffeine. She pretends that I am the queen and she is the princess. She gathers sticks and we use them as swords and have sword fights along the way, ignoring the stares of the suburban passersby (That's my favorite part). We pretend the houses along our way belong to the people in our kingdom and we wave. We pretend the white lines in the crosswalk are crocodiles along a river allowing us to use their heads for stepping stones. The boyfriend meets us at the coffee shop and we all have breakfast together, Macy and I continuing our walk home.


For weeks since the winter thaw we've walked past the cutest library, and I've been wanting to go in. One week I said to Macy, "I'm going to stop here and check it out." "NO," she declared, "I don't want to!" "Well then, you can sit on the bench and wait for me outside, I'll just be a few minutes, I want to see what it's like on the inside, it looks so cute," I retorted. She followed me inside and said as she ran past me, "I'll be in the kids section." I followed her in to make sure she was settled, told her I'd be back in 5 minutes, then started on my exploration. The upstairs is filled with winged back chairs and shelved books.


I stopped in the section titled "New" just to see if there was anything I could find there that I'd recently seen on bookstores shelves, might as well utilize the library since I'm watching every penny pretty closely these days. That's when I saw it..."Going Away Shoes" by Jill McCorkle. I admit, I was first attracted to the title because of the word shoes. I love fashion, and in particular, shoes. So I picked it up and read the inside flap to see what this was all about, and saw that the stories were all about women, and all tied together somehow by shoes. I thought, "Well, why not?" and used Macy's suburban library card to check out the book, as my city card won't work out there.


I loved this book. I couldn't put it down. It was one of those books that stayed with me. I would think about the stories and the characters long after the story was over. I couldn't wait to crack it open and read the next one to see where it would take me. I felt that I could relate to so many of the characters. In particular, I loved the story titled "Another Dimension", and even kept the book past it's due date at the library to have the boyfriend read it as well. He also loved it. He is reading all of the stories in the book so we can discuss them.


Another story in the book I loved was "PS", the letter written to the marriage counselor, as well as "Intervention" and "Me and Big Foot".


I was very interested to read that Jill McCorkle lives in Hillsborough, North Carolina. I understand it is quite an artist's colony there.


I've never really written a book review before, and don't really feel that this is a review, I'd put it more in the rave category, it's not an intelligent enough post to be considered a review.


Plus, I don't have any followers at this point. However, I really found this book to have significant emotional intelligence, that was what was the most striking to me about the book - the significant and striking emotional intelligence of the characters in the book, which leads me to believe that the author must have incredible insight into people.


I really enjoyed this book, and found this "contest" to be unique, I like the grass-roots mentality of it, promoting one another's works...so I thought I'd like to be a part of it.


I would love to send this book to somebody - the winner of my contest is the person who gives the most thoughtful comment, whatever that may be...


Thank you.

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