Mariella Hunt

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  • Marmee Was the Real Hero of Little Women

    Marmee Was the Real Hero of Little Women


    A North Star Called Marmee

    Little Women is one of the most famous pieces of literature in the English canon. It is taught in schools and passed from parent to child as a loving gift or family heirloom. Even those who are not deep readers have some idea of the adventures shared by Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. The many film adaptations have only increased our interest in returning to the original classic.

    We celebrate Jo’s courage and fiery personality. We laugh at the antics of Amy as she attempts to find her way in a rapidly changing world. We grieve Beth as she struggles with an illness and, ultimately, succumbs to it. But behind all of these iconic characters stands a voice of reason, a North Star guiding them all: Marmee March.

    All great novels have a Marmee March, a guide. These are the characters whose influence we sometimes fail to notice until we see how their actions have shaped the ending. Quiet as they might have been for the forty chapters of drama, by the end it is inconceivable that the novel could have taken place without them.

    In novels, as in real life, there is often a person behind the successes or failures of our protagonists. This wise man or woman offers comfort and sage advice when the protagonist finds themselves in a crisis. Sometimes they are the ones quietly pulling the strings, shaping the people around them without ever demanding the spotlight for themselves.

    Little Women’s wise woman, without a doubt, is Marmee. Whenever her daughters find themselves in one of their famous mishaps, she is ready with a word of advice or a life lesson that will ease their mortification or strengthen them to move forward with the choices they have made.

    Without Marmee, Little Women would be a very different story. Imagine Little Women if Marmee did not hold this worldview:

    “I’d rather see you as the happy wives of poor men, or even respectable old maids, than queens on thrones without peace or self-respect.”

    That single conviction changes everything. Marmee does not raise her daughters to pursue wealth, status, beauty, or even marriage for its own sake. She raises them to become women who know their own worth. Whatever happens to them, she wants them to have something that cannot be given to them by a husband, a fortune, or a place in society: self-respect.

    Who Was Abby May?

    It is natural that Mrs. March should be such an important presence in the March household. Louisa May Alcott herself had a very special relationship with her own mother, Abby May. In the biography Marmee and Louisa, Eve LaPlante explores this relationship in depth, and I believe it is an important book for any admirer of Alcott to read.

    Because Louisa’s writing career has so often been discussed alongside the work and philosophy of her father, Bronson Alcott, it can seem as though Abby May has disappeared from the story.

    But many mothers prefer to care for their children and help build their lives from a place in the shadows, allowing their sons and daughters to grow—and even make mistakes—on their own.

    Of Louisa’s two parents, Abby May was clearly the one of saner mind. While Bronson was off preaching his strange philosophy and planning the Fruitlands plantation, Abby May was worrying about how she was going to raise her four young daughters into strong women. Many times, Bronson went away on “work trips” and returned home with little to show for them.

    When, in Little Women, Mrs. March is the parent who is most present, we have to ask ourselves: Is that a coincidence?

    Louisa May loved her father, but can a woman who endured so many struggles as a child truly bear to put Bronson and Abby May on the same level?

    How Abby May Survives in Marmee

    Abby May may have disappeared somewhat from the popular story of the Alcott family, but she did not disappear from her daughter’s imagination. She survives in Little Women as Marmee, the doting mother who can keep a home in her husband’s absence—and yet is not above letting her daughters make mistakes and learn from them.

    Marmee is the person who holds the family together when circumstances threaten to pull it apart. She manages the household, comforts her daughters, disciplines them when necessary, and—perhaps most importantly—teaches them that becoming a good woman requires more than being obedient or pleasant.

    But, in my opinion, the most important thing Marmee did was allow her daughters to become their own people. We can see in each of the four March girls that they developed different passions, qualities, and tempers. Marmee never insists that one daughter must become like another. She meets her girls where they are.

    She knows that Meg does not have to be Jo, that Beth does not have to be Amy, and that each of them will have to discover her own way of becoming a woman. Marmee gives them guidance without trying to live their lives for them.

    She doesn’t only guide Jo through anger, but confesses that she can relate to it:

    “I am angry nearly every day of my life, Jo, but I’ve learned not to show it. And I still hope not to feel it.”

    Marmee understands that Jo is a soul who can lose her temper with ease, and reminds her that words said in anger cannot be taken back. Meg, who recalls a life before the Marches fell into poverty, continues to live with vanity in her soul. Marmee is sympathetic to her nostalgia, but reminds her that it is possible—and necessary—to be happy with what we have.

    Amy is spoiled and thoughtless. Beth, quieter than her sisters, must learn to confront the limitations imposed upon her by her own nature and circumstances. Each of the four girls is a challenge of her own, and Marmee takes on this challenge with joy.

    She even opens her heart to Laurie, the neighbor boy who does not have a mother figure of his own.

    We All Need Marmee

    Abby May Alcott had a unique sort of love herself. Even when her husband returned from his long business trips with little to show for them, she welcomed him into the home with tender arms. She taught her daughters to respect him and even followed him when he came up with new schemes, absurd as they might have been. Her love for him did not mean she could not see his faults. Perhaps it meant that she understood how to love someone while seeing them clearly.

    In Little Women, Marmee is absent in the first chapter because she has gone to visit her husband, who is ill in the hospital in Washington, D.C. We all remember the opening pages of Little Women: “How dreadful it is to be poor!” And we remember the lengths to which the March girls go together to ensure that their mother’s homecoming is warm and comfortable.

    In raising her four daughters to be themselves, seeing their strengths as well as their weaknesses, Marmee also saw us. We, the readers, might not have realized at the time of reading how special Marmee was becoming to us. Now I’m in my thirties, and I realize that she is one of the most sensible women I’ve ever “met.”

    Aspire to Be Like Marmee

    Perhaps this is why, as I grow older, I find myself admiring Marmee more than I did when I first encountered Little Women. As a girl, I understood that she was kind. As a woman, I realize that kindness was only the beginning.

    Marmee was patient without being passive. She was loving without being indulgent. She knew her daughters intimately—their weaknesses as well as their gifts—and she never seemed to confuse loving them with pretending they had no faults.

    Most importantly, she wanted them to become women in their own right. She did not need them to follow the same path she had followed. She did not need them to make the choices she would have made. She simply wanted them to become women who could stand firmly on their own feet, make their own choices, and live with peace and self-respect.

    We do not all have four daughters to raise, or a March household to manage, or a husband away in Washington. But we all have people whose lives we touch. We can be the person who offers wisdom when someone is ashamed of a mistake. We can be the person who reminds a young woman that her life does not have to look like anyone else’s. We can make room for people to become themselves.

    Abby May gave Louisa an example of that kind of woman. Louisa gave that example to the world in Marmee. And more than a century later, Marmee is waiting for us in the pages of Little Women, reminding us of what a woman can be.

    Marilla Cuthbert taught Anne that family can be formed from people we’ve never met before. Marmee taught her daughters that sisterhood, in this case bound by blood, can be stronger than any quarrel. Indeed, there are many ways to be a family.

    May we all have a Marmee who will give advice like this:

    “Oh, Jo. Jo, you have so many extraordinary gifts; how can you expect to lead an ordinary life? You’re ready to go out and—and find a good use for your talent. … Go, and embrace your liberty. And see what wonderful things come of it.”

    ☕ If this essay meant something to you, you can buy me a cup of tea.

    The Tearoom is a one-woman literary project: I read the books, fill the notebooks, write the essays, interview authors, and try to make a little more room in the world for women who love to read.

    Your support helps me keep doing that work—and, occasionally, buy another book I absolutely did not need.

    If you’d like to support The Tearoom, you can buy me a coffee and help keep the kettle on. 💜

  • The Language of Butterflies: An Interview with Wendy Williams

    The Language of Butterflies: An Interview with Wendy Williams


    Wings to Please the Eye

    The natural world is full of wonders beyond human imagining. Even just a walk through a nearby park will expose us to colors and sounds that we could never imitate ourselves: wild birds and rabbits, things that swim and creep.

    Insects have an interesting place in this grand scheme. Many people revile them—rightfully so, perhaps, as an encounter with the wrong kind of spider could lead to a long and painful death. But there are other insects that are harmless, that exist to pollinate our favorite flowers or simply to please the eye.

    Butterflies are among those creatures that seem to have been made simply to give humans something to marvel at. There are not many people who see a pair of white butterflies, called Cabbage Whites (or Pieris rapae), and recoil in fear.

    Cabbage White Butterfly

    Instead, myths have been dreamed up surrounding them. While in truth they are likely mating, some believe that the sight of a white butterfly signifies the visitation of a deceased loved one.

    There’s a Study for That

    There is a word for the study of butterflies and moths: lepidopterology. An entire branch of science exists dedicated to these surreal bursts of color—the butterflies and moths that punctuate our otherwise uneventful lives. A walk to the mailbox on a heavy summer afternoon suddenly becomes magical at the glimpse of a monarch butterfly.

    The love for butterflies is universal. In the first chapter of The Language of Butterflies, author Wendy Williams explains how these creatures have influenced society for many, many centuries, remarking that during the Victorian era, everyone—men and women—participated in the quest to collect and name these creatures:

    “Throughout Europe and North America, insect collecting was considered not only a healthy activity, but a way to honor God and His earthly works—and was therefore acceptable even in dour cultures where play was frowned upon.”

    She adds something poignant that paleontologist Richard Fortey wrote in his personal memoir, Dry Storeroom No. I: “Indeed, humanity had a ‘duty to inventory.’” It was a duty based in Biblical texts, recalling that God formed every living thing on Earth—then gave Adam the privilege of naming them.

    Everything Needs a Name

    Butterfly enthusiasts reasoned that, of course, they must be collected before they could be named. Williams adds a list of other things that the Victorians considered worthy of collecting and naming, quoting Jim Endersby in Imperial Nature:

    “From shells, seaweeds, flowers, and insects to coins, autographs, books, and bus tickets, Victorians of every class collected, classified, and arranged their treasures before exchanging unwanted finds with other enthusiasts.”

    The Language of Butterflies is one of the few books that I’ve read more than once. Each time, it reminds me of the beauty and sheer poetry that can be found in nature, the wonder that is available to us if we should only step out of the door.

    For this reason, I took a risk and wrote to Wendy Williams herself, asking if she would be willing to answer some questions about this piece of nonfiction, this memoir that I considered so important. I was greatly honored when she replied in the affirmative, and I am delighted today to share my conversation with Wendy Williams.

    The Interview

    Q: When you were writing about butterflies, did you ever feel as though you were also writing about attention itself—about what it means to truly notice something small enough to be overlooked?

    A: Yes. Of course, I had seen butterflies all my life. Taken them for granted. Because they were so common in my childhood, I never really noticed them. Never paid attention to them. But when I started to notice them in a deeper way, I began to experience nature in a deeper way.

    There’s the old saw about stopping to smell the roses. I’d now say stop to take a look at the seemingly nondescript all around you. Consider the wildflowers that you might have been taught were “just weeds.” Now we know that these “weeds” are an essential foundation to the web of life and beauty we see all around us. So there may be more there than meets the eye.

    Q: Was there a moment during your research for The Language of Butterflies when a particular species or behavior surprised you so deeply that it changed the emotional direction of the book?

    A: What surprised me—truly surprised me—was the history of human passion when it came to the colors on a butterfly wing. Poor old Herman Strecker. He was so lost and alone and perpetually sad. Somehow butterflies filled that void. When he finally acquired a butterfly he’d only seen in books, his life was made whole. Why? I only wish that he could have seen the magnificent Ornithoptera actually flying, with its wings glinting in the sunlight.

    Or consider the passion of Maria Sibylla Merian. She was so struck by a large blue butterfly that she embarked on her very own self-funded scientific expedition to the Western Hemisphere just to learn about its life cycle. And this was centuries ago. Of course, I fell in love with her. She just had to know.

    Q: Butterflies move between fragility and resilience in a way that feels almost contradictory. Did you find yourself drawn more to their vulnerability, or to their endurance?

    A: Both. Because the phenomenon begs the question: How can vulnerability and endurance co-exist in one single organism? How can a tiny insect that lives for only a few days also migrate over the Himalayas in freezing temperatures? Sometimes those of us who seem most fragile in the world turn out to be the most enduring.

    Q: In the Tearoom, we often think about the way books teach us to slow down. What did writing about butterflies teach you about slowness, if anything at all?

    A: I remember one time I was walking up a mountain path in a national park. The path was so crowded, and everyone was hurrying to get to the top of the mountain trail—just so they could get back down. It was a stunning day, sunny and bright and warm but not hot. Butterflies were everywhere, but no one stopped to look. They were all absorbed in their own little worlds.

    When we have the opportunity to be in an extraordinary place, I’m often surprised by how few people take the time to notice—really notice—where they are. I’m gonna kvetch here: The phenomenon of competitive trail running is just a mystery to me. You get to the other end, but have no idea where you’ve been. What’s the point of racing like that?

    Thoreau, of course, would be horrified: You go into the woods to live deliberately.

    Painted Lady Butterfly

    Q: If a reader closes The Language of Butterflies and carries only one quiet thought into their day, what would you hope it is?

    A: While researching my next book, about dogs, I was recently walking through a small village on the remote Greek island of Amorgos. Meandering down a side alley, I noticed some handmade bronze earrings displayed in a glass case just outside a tiny shop. The earrings were of butterflies. Of course I had to go into the shop. It was filled with butterfly earrings. I bought a pair, which is very unusual for me. I’m just not a “buying” kind of person. Now I wear them everywhere. They remind me of the specialness of nature.

    As I’m sure you know, psyche is the Greek word for butterfly—and for soul. The human love for butterflies is universal. As I explained in the book, it stopped a high-altitude climber making his way over the Himalayas, “conquering the mountain” (as if we mere humans could ever do such a thing), who never expected to see butterflies glinting in the sunlight in that frozen world.

    Butterflies teach us: Expect the unexpected.

    Conclusion & Beginning

    It would not seem, at first glance, that humans could have much to learn from butterflies—but as Williams pointed out in our interview, certain butterflies have such determination, such an ability to respond to wind and weather, that they can fly over the Himalayas.

    Our world is rapidly changing, and one could understand why some take a negative attitude toward it. Animals are going extinct, climate change is destroying some of our most beautiful places, and humans never quite figured out how to get along with one another.

    But the final paragraphs of The Language of Butterflies offer words of wisdom that I believe can give us hope through all of this:

    “When a five-year-old girl releases a butterfly into the air, and when that butterfly is seen by other people as it flies to its winter destination, that, to my mind, is the real butterfly effect: the joining together of countless people of many different nations, across generations, in a united effort to protect at least one small joyful piece of the natural world to which we belong.”

    We can still work together to protect our beauty, our joy, and the people we love. Thank you, Wendy Williams. You are an author I have admired for a long time, and you have written a memoir that reminds us of this great truth.

    If you enjoyed this conversation about butterflies and the marvels of nature, thank you for reading. I’d appreciate it if you would consider buying me a coffee to support my continued reading and research.

    However, if you’re unable to contribute, I appreciate your fluttering in to spend a little of your time with me!

  • The Correspondent: The Book That Made Me Think Differently About Sight

    The Correspondent: The Book That Made Me Think Differently About Sight


    One of the greatest fears in my life is that I will one day, in my old age, lose the gift of sight. Without my sight, I would lose the sacred thing that gives my life most meaning.

    If I could no longer read books, if I couldn’t see hallowed words on pages, what would become of the impressive personal library I have spent so much of my life building?

    I could not even think of passing it down, because no one I know loves my collection of books quite as much as I do.

    But, as much as these deeper themes resonate with me, the book is not about me. It’s about a popular novel called The Correspondent by Virginia Evans.

    In The Correspondent, the protagonist is a seventy-three-year-old retired lawyer named Sybil Van Antwerp. Her story in this novel is told through letters she sends and receives. She is faithful in this habit: every morning she sits at her desk and writes missives to friends, family, and even authors she admires, such as Ann Patchett and Joan Didion.

    The first time Sybil experiences a loss of vision, the description is terrifying:

    I couldn’t see! But how? That stretch of time, was it a moment or was it minutes? It was as if my life was a movie and went black, meant it, but I’m not certain, and that’s what’s troubling me. I’m not certain it was my vision that went black. It was as if I’d closed my eyes; it’s as if the space of time has been deleted from my memory, up until I crashed.

    Sybil’s failing eyesight leaves her vulnerable to dark memories of a tragedy that took place long ago, when one of her sons tragically died. Writing, the great comforter, forces her to confront a profound sense of guilt that, like a monster, has peered over her shoulder ever since.

    Terrible accidents happen all the time to many, many people. The grief that must fill the world is incomprehensible. Our small dose felt as large as the sun, didn’t it?

    Writing has an ability to calm a storm. It will not undo the grief that is “large as the sun,” but when words and stories are turned to truth and trust, they help certain scars to heal.

    The process of sorting through our stories can be painful at first, but sometimes it is the only way to understand what they have done to us.

    Sybil’s fear of going blind intensifies:

    What has my life been, really? I’ll go blind, and then? I wonder — the letters. All the letters. I wonder if all of it was a waste. Pages and pages of letters. I wonder what has it all been, really. I’ll go blind, and they will be nothing to me. It will be as if they aren’t there, and does that mean, in a way, they were never there?

    And then, as the novel nears its end, her tone changes:

    I thought when I started to lose my sight in this way, when it actually began to slip away, I would cling to it with all my might, but that isn’t the way I feel now. Now that it’s become such a strain, I almost find myself ready to let it go.

    What appears on the surface to be a melancholy admission is truly far more than that. Sybil is conceding that, even without the ability to see book pages and mountains and butterflies gliding in pairs, life goes on.

    There is more to the experience of living out our own stories. And while I still live in dread that I could one day wind up blind, it does help to witness Sybil’s struggle — and realize that, while she is tired from it all, she is not defeated.

    Migraines aren’t new foes in literature.

    In this post, we discussed the character of Marilla Cuthbert in Anne of Green Gables. In Montgomery’s first Anne book, Marilla is seen frequently struggling with debilitating migraines which make it difficult for her to go about her day and manage her many household chores.

    In Chapters 37 and 38, she finally consents to see a doctor, in the hopes that he might provide some relief. The news is bleak: her headaches are caused by a progressive condition which threatens her vision.

    Knowing that Marilla is vulnerable and cannot manage things on her own, Anne makes a sacrifice for her — a touching scene when we recall all that Marilla has done for her.

    But Marilla is still fearful.

    Marilla expresses panic when she is given the diagnosis:

    “If I wear the glasses he’s given me and give up all reading and sewing and fine work of any kind — if I keep out of the twilight and don’t cry on any account — my eyes may not get any worse and my headaches will be cured. But if I don’t, the doctor says I’ll certainly be stone-blind in six months.”

    She then mourns all that she will have lost:

    “To think of me sitting here tied hand and foot and completely helpless!… My eyes have always been so good. I can’t read, nor sew, nor do anything in the twilight. I’d rather be blind altogether than just sitting around doing nothing.”

    Sybil and Marilla might not have had the same disease, but they are remarkably similar in this respect. Their panic echoes one another, except that Marilla has Anne to help her through the dark days, while Sybil is, by choice, alone.

    Humans have always lived in fear of darkness, of the inability to perceive beauty when standing in front of it. Books offer us perspective and — dare I say it? — peace. Even if we do face the trial of blindness, medicine has evolved, and we do not need to bear the burden alone.

    More importantly, there are so many different ways to hear and tell a story. We may lose our ability to see the words on a page, but that does not mean the story — or the beauty that first drew us to it — has disappeared.

    Perhaps that is one of the comforts of being human: the things we love continue to live in us, even when we can no longer experience them in quite the same way.

    Keep the Tearoom Brewing ☕

    If you enjoyed this essay, you can buy me a coffee as a small way of supporting the Tearoom.

    Your contribution helps me keep buying books, talking with authors, writing about women and literature, and making this corner of the internet a little more interesting.

    Every coffee helps—and every reader means even more to me.

  • Why You Keep DNF’ing Books

    Why You Keep DNF’ing Books


    Literature gives us so many different paths to take: adventures that would never have been possible in our own lives, and lessons we might never have learned in quite the same way.

    Those of us who cannot imagine life without books know that a shelf full of them can be a source of comfort all by itself. Even when we aren’t reading everything we’ve purchased, there is something reassuring about knowing that those books are waiting for us. And yet, every reader has gone through seasons when none of the books we reach for seem to hold us.

    It is the old dilemma of “I have nothing to read!” when, in fact, we have hundreds of books waiting on our shelves. It is the purgatory of reaching for bestseller after bestseller, skimming the opening chapter, and setting it aside with a resigned sigh. Eventually, you may begin to wonder whether you even enjoy reading anymore. Surely there must be something wrong when the book everyone else loves leaves you completely cold.

    But there are many reasons we might keep putting down books we expected to love. I’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking about this, particularly during those periods when I felt guilty for abandoning books I desperately wanted to enjoy. Sometimes, no matter how beloved a book is or how much you want to love it, you simply cannot turn another page.

    Perhaps you’ve found this article at precisely the moment you needed it. If you’re in the middle of a reading dry spell, I hope some of what follows will make it feel a little less troubling. Because I promise: this will pass. Eventually, you’ll pick up a book that meets you at exactly the right moment and wonder why you ever felt guilty for putting the others down.

    Tiredness of the Mind

    It’s tempting to believe that our minds are somehow above such weaknesses as might make it difficult to complete a novel. Are books not supposed to transport us to places beyond imagination?

    But the truth is that reading—truly reading, in order to comprehend and remember—requires a complete engagement of the mind.

    Much of the time, it isn’t the fault of the novel itself that you aren’t being pulled into it. The most gripping story ever written will be little more than mist if a reader lacks the mental bandwidth to comprehend what it is trying to do.

    And no, drinking more coffee isn’t necessarily the solution. It may give you an adrenaline rush, but for most people, good reading is slow reading. We can skim our way through a novel, but will we remember any of it by the time we reach the final page?

    If your mind is too tired to enjoy books the way it once did, there are a few things you can try before deciding that you’ve lost your love of reading altogether. They may prepare you to enjoy your next book without suspecting that you are doing it an injustice—or wasting your own time.

    • Put the phone away. Give yourself even twenty or thirty minutes without notifications, scrolling, or the temptation to check what you’ve missed. A mind accustomed to constant stimulation may need a little quiet before it can settle into a novel.
    • Take a walk. Reading doesn’t always begin when you open the book. A short walk can give your mind somewhere else to wander for a while, leaving you more capable of settling into someone else’s imagined world afterward.
    • Do something with your hands. Make tea, water your plants, sketch, tidy a small corner of your room—anything that doesn’t demand much intellectual effort. Sometimes the best preparation for reading is giving your mind permission to stop working so hard.
    • Read less. If you’re exhausted, there is no virtue in forcing yourself through fifty pages when ten would be enough. Read a chapter. Read a few pages. Read a poem instead. You aren’t failing at reading because you lack the energy to consume a novel at the pace you expected of yourself.

    Sometimes the kindest thing we can do for our reading life is to stop demanding that our tired minds over-perform. Our books will still be there when we are ready for them.

    Sometimes, Breaks Are Good

    I know it sounds like sacrilege for a book creature like me to suggest that it might be good to take a break. But it is possible to take your TBR list so seriously that it begins to feel less like a source of pleasure and more like another chore.

    If reading a book becomes akin to doing the dishes or mowing the lawn, of course some of us will begin to dread the time that we have set aside for it.

    I can think of at least two reading dry spells that have punctuated my life. The most recent occurred when my paternal grandmother died. Words cannot describe how much her death unsettled me, making even the things I loved most seem to lose their luster. I read very few books during that time, but I remember two of the handful that did guide me through it: Marilla of Green Gables by Sarah McCoy and The Court of the Air by Stephen Hunt.

    As an aside: if you can remember two novels from a difficult time that made your trials more bearable, you may have identified part of your lifetime literary canon. When you are old and necessarily selective about the books you spend your final years with, these might be the ones you’ll gravitate toward naturally.

    Marilla of Green Gables will be a comfort to me when I am seventy-six and my eyesight begins to fail me. It has become an old friend. If you have books that have taken on the same significance for you, cherish them. And please tell me about them in the comments. I would love to know their titles, and why they are close to your heart.

    In my experience, by the end of these reading slumps, it felt as if a dam had broken. All of a sudden, I would find myself in a bookstore, not knowing where to begin and not having the slightest desire to stop. I was fascinated by every cover and every blurb, ready to spend the next few months exploring the worlds waiting between the covers.

    Perhaps that is what we forget when we are in a reading slump: the desire to read can return. We don’t have to force it back. Sometimes we simply have to give it room to find us.

    Let Yourself Be a Reader

    Perhaps the most important thing to remember when you find yourself abandoning book after book is that you are not required to prove that you are a reader.

    You do not have to finish every book you begin. You do not have to enjoy the books everyone else is talking about. You do not have to keep reading a novel because you think you ought to be. And you certainly don’t have to turn something that once brought you pleasure into another task on your list.

    Sometimes you are tired. Sometimes you are distracted. Sometimes life has become too loud for the concentration that a good novel requires. And sometimes, quite simply, the book’s not right for you.

    There will be other books.

    That, to me, is one of the great consolations of being a lifelong reader. There is always another shelf, another bookstore, another library somewhere. A reading slump may feel strangely permanent while you’re in the midst of it, but it’s not.

    Your next beloved book may already be sitting unread on your shelf.

    Some books will come at the right time. For me, Marilla of Green Gables was one of those books.

    I found my way to it during one of the most difficult periods of my life, when I had little appetite for reading at all. It reminded me that sometimes we don’t need to force ourselves back into reading; we simply need to stumble upon the right book at the right time. You can read my full review of Marilla of Green Gables here.

    So put the book down if you need to. Take a walk. Make tea and let your mind wander. Read something completely different—or don’t read anything for a little while.

    When you are ready, open a book again. I have a feeling you’ll know the right one when you find it.

    Cover Image: The Bibliophile (1896), Johann Hamza

    If you enjoyed this essay and would like to support The Tearoom, you can buy me a coffee. Every little bit helps me keep making this little corner of the internet for readers like you.

  • Marilla Cuthbert Was Already a Whole Woman

    Marilla Cuthbert Was Already a Whole Woman


    I believe that Marilla Cuthbert is one of the best-written characters in the literary canon, and also the most mysterious. So little detail is offered about her that she can easily be misunderstood or judged as harsh.

    For example, in Anne of Green Gables, Marilla isn’t as welcoming to Anne’s presence in her home as Matthew. Through the eyes of young Anne Shirley, who has been swept by train from one crisis to another, Marilla appears to be an unloving and cantankerous woman.

    However, readers who look closely at L.M. Montgomery’s original novel can immediately tell that there is more to Marilla Cuthbert. Today, creative license gives modern authors the freedom to try to fill in the blanks, allowing us to imagine backstories for characters like Marilla and, in doing so, enrich the reading experience.

    One of the books I believe does this best is Marilla of Green Gables by Sarah McCoy. In this lovingly written tribute to Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables series, McCoy gives us a plausible backstory for a character who is, in truth, far more profound than she initially appears.

    Understanding Young Marilla Cuthbert

    As readers of L.M. Montgomery’s traditional series, we only know Marilla Cuthbert as she was in later life. We recall her fondly as a woman who, by nature, cannot abide idleness. In Marilla of Green Gables, Sarah McCoy describes Marilla’s childhood and gives us an entirely different perspective.

    The pages that cover Marilla’s childhood reveal a girl who is not so different from the Anne Shirley we know:

    Sometimes, as sinful as she knew it was, Marilla wanted to idle the day away however she pleased. When she could steal time, she’d take to the balsam woods with her Godey’s magazine leaflets and follow the brook until it cascaded to a little pool split in half by a maple growing right up through the center. She’d sit there on her island with the water bubbling around and read until the sun slanted thinly through the trees.

    This passage establishes young Marilla as a child who was really not so different from Anne Shirley, even if Marilla would never admit it to Anne when she was raising her.

    As children, Marilla and Anne both loved Green Gables and the many natural wonders surrounding it that made the place so special. They were both devoted to reading, though Anne was more inclined to let her imagination run away with her, depending on what she was reading.

    In terms of writing style, McCoy stays true to Montgomery’s technique of using the wonders of the outdoors to establish the mood of a story. Marilla does not dramatically rechristen natural landmarks with names such as Lake of Shining Waters, but in her own way, she is able to befriend the trees, learning every nook and cranny of the land.

    In Marilla of Green Gables, McCoy offers us a means by which to understand Marilla Cuthbert.

    Reader, recall that this novel is not canon; it ought not to be read as part of the Montgomery set. But I admire novels like this—the loving projects of souls who loved a classic novel so much that they needed more of it, and then went on to write it.

    Anne and Marilla Aren’t So Different

    One of the pleasures of Sarah McCoy’s Marilla of Green Gables is seeing the connection between young Marilla and the girl Anne Shirley will eventually become.

    Anne is famous for her imagination, her love of books, and her tendency to find beauty in the natural world around her. Marilla is more restrained, but McCoy shows us that the younger Marilla possessed many of these same qualities.

    The difference between them is not that one girl loves beauty and the other does not. It is that Marilla has learned to contain the imaginative child she once was.

    That makes her eventual relationship with Anne even more interesting. In some ways, Marilla is raising a younger version of the girl she might once have been.

    Marilla Cuthbert and Motherhood

    My previous post about the novel Hello Baby raised questions about motherhood and the desire to start a family. Marilla, in this novel, does not have the great desire for children that her friend Rachel White (later Lynde) does.

    Page 219 explores this from Marilla’s viewpoint:

    Marilla liked children, but motherhood seemed outside her realm of possibility… the tariff for motherhood was too great when there was already so much depending on her.

    I do not feel like enough classic novels include the viewpoints of women who, like me, do not live only with dreams of motherhood. It’s not that Marilla—or I—dislike children or the idea of them. But there are so many women who want to be known for other things. They wish to be remembered for passions they already have, rather than the children that might come along one day—if a good man turns up.

    In fact, right after the quote about the “tariff for motherhood,” Marilla’s reverie continues, taking a turn in the old-fashioned manner of thinking:

    Besides, to bear a child, one must first have a husband… on that account, Marilla could not deny the lingering weight of regret.

    We see that Sarah McCoy’s Marilla is not opposed to the idea of marriage. She is human, and—as I pointed out recently—most humans are fascinated by the magic and warmth of a love story.

    Indeed, Marilla is in love with one man. Due to a loss of temper, she has a falling out with him. She is the ultimate romantic in that she will love no one else. She will not settle for lukewarm love or an obligatory marriage simply for the possibility of having children.

    The irony is this: though Marilla does not yet know it, a child will one day come along—just not in the way she has always expected.

    Matthew Cuthbert and Marilla’s Bond

    Matthew Cuthbert appears for a very short time in Montgomery’s novels, yet everything he does and says seems more memorable than that of many other characters. He does not stay in Anne’s story for very long, yet manages to burrow into the hearts of readers who meet him.

    In Chapter 2 of Anne of Green Gables, he is introduced as a man who can only be lured out for important quests, such as retrieving an orphan from a train station. Montgomery gives us an endearing description of this man. His presence is so fleeting that he is almost a wild creature from the woods of Avonlea:

    …he was an odd-looking personage, with an ungainly figure and long iron-gray hair that touched his stooping shoulders, and a full, soft brown beard which he had worn ever since he was twenty. In fact, he had looked at twenty very much as he looked at sixty, lacking a little of the grayness.

    We are told that Matthew is reclusive: he “dreaded all women except Marilla and Mrs. Rachel; he had an uncomfortable feeling that the mysterious creatures were secretly laughing at him.”

    This description has always stood out to me, as it says so much about Matthew Cuthbert and yet so tantalizingly little.

    Sarah McCoy makes a beautiful effort to fill in the blanks behind this sentence. She paints us a picture of Matthew Cuthbert’s one and only true love, a girl named Johanna who led him to believe that he had a chance with her—then one day decided she did not want what Matthew could offer:

    “I’m not your sweetheart or anything else, Matthew Cuthbert. I’d rather die than be a farmer’s wife.”

    And we then see the strength of Matthew and Marilla’s bond:

    Saying nothing, Marilla put a hand on his back. He didn’t turn, and she didn’t face him…. She didn’t see him cry, but she felt it, trembling through his bones and into hers, like a tuning fork, until her own cheeks were wet with tears.

    There are not many sibling relationships in literature that hit as powerfully as that of the Cuthberts. They have grown up together in their family home, seen the years go by side by side, and, in spite of their differing personalities, need one another.

    They make choices together, as we see in the ninth chapter of Anne of Green Gables:

    “Well, now, she’s a real nice little thing, Marilla. It’s kind of a pity to send her back when she’s so set on staying here.”

    “Matthew Cuthbert, you don’t mean to say you think we ought to keep her!”… “What good would she be to us?”

    “We might be some good to her,” said Matthew suddenly and unexpectedly.

    McCoy’s most powerful Matthew quote is the following:

    “I have a voice just as much as you do. It’s a choice we make every minute. What truths are important enough to say aloud and what ones are important just to know…. You can change your mind anytime you want, but you can’t take words back. Not ever.”

    Marilla Cuthbert Was Already Whole

    Given the time in which she was born, Marilla Cuthbert’s life does not unfold according to the obvious script.

    She does not marry young to have children of her own. She does not spend her life dreaming about the family she might someday have. Instead, she builds a life with what she has: her home, her brother, her work.

    Eventually, all of this is uprooted with the arrival of a red-haired girl who has a lot to teach her. Make no mistake, though: Anne Shirley changes Marilla, but does not complete her. Marilla was already a whole woman before Anne came along.

    There is something deeply comforting about a character whose life is not presented as a waiting room for the life she is supposed to have. Marilla has desires, regrets, disappointments, and loves, but she is never merely an unfinished version of herself.

    She becomes a woman through the life she actually lives.

    Sarah McCoy’s Marilla of Green Gables gives us the pleasure of imagining all the years L.M. Montgomery left unwritten, but it also reminds me why those unwritten spaces are so compelling. The lives of women like Marilla cannot always be reduced to what they expected to become.

    Sometimes a fresh start is something we choose. Sometimes it is thrust upon us. And sometimes it arrives quietly, disguised as a person we never expected to love.

    Marilla did not know what her life would become. Perhaps that is the most beautiful thing about her. She did not have to know.

    She simply kept living it.

    And eventually, Anne arrived.

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  • Tea with Elizabeth Wellington Rollins, Author of The Three Graces of Pearl Street

    Tea with Elizabeth Wellington Rollins, Author of The Three Graces of Pearl Street


    There are some books that seem to arrive at exactly the right moment. The Three Graces of Pearl Street is one of those books. It’s a warm, hopeful novel about aging, friendship, and small acts of kindness that can transform a life.

    Elizabeth Wellington Rollins was kind enough to send me an ARC of this novel. I have posted a review of it, which you can find here.

    At the center of the novel is Graziella, a former nun whose devotion to serving others — often through food, generosity, and the simple act of showing up — gives the story much of its heart. Her relationship with her granddaughter, Ella, adds another layer to the novel, reminding us that the people we love most can sometimes be the very people who frustrate us most.

    I was especially interested in the novel’s treatment of later life. Rather than presenting aging as a period of decline, Rollins allows her older characters to remain complicated, funny, stubborn, faithful, loving, and very much alive.

    Her answers below offer a glimpse into the personal experiences and ideas that shaped the novel, as well as what she hopes readers will carry with them after the final page.

    The Interview

    Q: The Three Graces of Pearl Street explores aging with remarkable warmth and hope. What inspired you to write a novel that celebrates later life rather than treating it as a period of decline?

    A: I’ve always found warmth and hope in my relationships with older generations, and so this was less of a conscious choice and more of a default setting. I adored every senior in my family, and I soaked up my time with each of them like a sponge.

    I’ve also always sought out relationships with seniors in formal and informal ways. When I was living in Boston in my 20s, I was lucky enough to have a landlord who was in her 90s who was also my downstairs neighbor. We developed a regular rapport in our little brownstone, and she was bursting with life, verve, and humor. She made my world and my life so much bigger.

    I feel that way about seniors on the page, too. Ever since I read A Man Named Ove, which is published by the same imprint as The Three Graces of Pearl Street, I knew I would write an older character one day. I’m so delighted to see Graziella make her way into the world through this novel.Graziella’s commitment to serving others is one of the novel’s defining qualities. Was there a real person—or several people—who inspired her character?

    Q: Graziella is her own fictional character, but the seedpoint for her service has deep roots in my own family tree and some lovely people I’ve met along the way.

    A: I anchored her in the Italian-American culture of my maternal lineage, which inspired her primary mode of service: feeding people. I was always taught that service should be humble and anonymous or it doesn’t count, and Graziella definitely reflects that nuance, as well.

    Q: Faith and conscience play important roles in the story. How did you approach writing about religious conviction while allowing your characters to wrestle honestly with disagreement and moral complexity?

    A: I felt my way through this rather than approach the novel with a particular point of view. I knew that Graziella, a former nun who brought those values into her life in the neighborhood, would be someone who broke some rules to uphold others. There’s a line that Ella, her granddaughter, says, “She’s the most devout person I know and the least compliant.” And I also knew that the other two protagonists would have their own relationships with their faith, which changed as they changed.

    My view is that faith is a dance that no one is going to live out in the exact same way because every person is unique. One of the joys of having three protagonists is showing a few contrasting variations of that, which I hope adds to the nuance of the narrative.

    Q: The relationship between Graziella and her granddaughter, Ella, feels especially authentic. Were there particular family experiences or observations that helped shape their dynamic?

    A: I think there’s this relatable paradox that you can admire someone wholeheartedly the way Ella admires her grandmother Graziella and still be completely frustrated by them. Ella and Graziella are so alike that they struggle to fit into each other’s lives in a consistent way. I think it’s relatable, and I wanted to walk people through the evolution of the relationship from that starting point.

    Q: One of the novel’s central ideas is that ordinary acts of kindness can transform lives. Is this a philosophy that has guided your own life, or did it emerge as you were writing the novel?

    A: I’ve always valued kindness, and I was so grateful to pull that thread into the novel. The older I get, the more I appreciate the difference between kindness and niceties, too. Those two concepts often overlap, but they are not the same thing. Graziella’s character and, quite frankly, the generosity and decency of New Yorkers, often reflects that subtlety.

    Q: Many readers, myself included, found the novel comforting when thinking about grief, aging, and mortality. What do you hope readers carry with them after turning the final page?

    A: I’ve heard from early readers that the novel feels like home. That feedback meant the world to me because that’s what I set out to do while writing it. In an ideal world, home is a heartening place to be. It fills us up before we need to go into the world and face down challenges and uncertainties. The novel is an emotional journey, but I hope it leaves people feeling renewed and supported, the way I would wish that every person feels in their own homes.

    Q: Finally, just for fun: if you could sit down over coffee with Graziella for an afternoon, what question would you ask her—and what do you think her answer might be?

    A: I would, in earnest, ask Graziella how she would suggest that I manage this new career as a working mom. Betting on my creative work as a full-time novelist was a huge leap for me, and the role defies some of the norms of a 9-5 job.

    I would love to take marching orders from her about how to make it work. Not only the big picture, but the specificities: Should I freeze chicken cutlets before I leave town for every book event?

    Her answer would probably be harsh but effective: “You’re stuck in that head of yours like a mouse on a wheel—the plague of your generation! Trust your instincts or you’ll suffer until the end of time for no reason. You know better or you wouldn’t have asked.” I imagine her waving around a wooden spoon and raising her voice while she says it.

    A Final Thought

    The Three Graces of Pearl Street promotes a specific idea: the truth that a meaningful life is not necessarily built out of grand gestures.

    Sometimes, meaning is found in sharing meals with other people. It is nourished by friendships sustained over decades. Its mettle is tested in the arguments we have with people we love.

    Most of all, meaning is found in the decision to show up for someone when they need us.

    Home is not simply a place we inhabit. At its best, it is something we create for one another. And if Graziella really does have a wooden spoon in hand, I suspect she would agree.

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  • 5 Novels That Felt Like Fresh Starts

    5 Novels That Felt Like Fresh Starts


    We all long, on occasion, for a fresh start. We want to walk away from the lives we already live and lay the foundations for new ones, setting off toward places where we are unknown and our mistakes are, too.

    Literature is one of the few places in which we can actually live out that desire, at least for a while. Every book allows us to see the world through the eyes of a protagonist, sharing in their struggles and exploring their worldview until we reach the final page. If the book is good enough, we might find ourselves carrying some of those perspectives with us for many years afterward.

    Some novels, though, follow the specific drama of a character having to start over. The circumstances behind these changes might not all be peaceful, and they might not all be happy. Not all of these protagonists want to change who they are or where they belong, but fate—and the will of the author—does not always give them a choice.

    I pondered for a while on books about characters who, voluntarily or by force, had to change their identities, locations, or circumstances. Sometimes they were grateful for the change; other times, they pined forever for what they had left behind.

    These are five novels about starting over in all its various forms.

    1. The Enchanted April — Elizabeth von Arnim

    The Enchanted April is one of those books that, although quiet, covers a great deal of ground. On its surface, it is a story of four women who rent a chateau in Italy, hoping for a break from the monotony of their lives. But as time passes and they spend more time with one another, they begin to realize that something else is taking place.

    You cannot spend an entire season in a different country, surrounded by different people, without something inside you changing. These women may return to cloudy England looking the same, and their interactions with family and acquaintances may not differ all that much.

    But the weeks they spend in the Mediterranean sunshine will have altered something—brought to wakefulness an energy that none of them knew they possessed.

    The most powerful changes are seldom obvious, but they are the ones that last the longest.

    2. Isola — Allegra Goodman

    I have yet to find a novel that has made such a great impact on me as Allegra Goodman’s Isola. Not only is it beautifully written, capturing the time period in which the story takes place with remarkable precision, but we can see the transformation of its protagonist, Marguerite, in nearly every chapter.

    Marguerite’s “fresh start” in Isola is not a blissful trip to Italy. She is kidnapped by her cousin and taken against her will on an expedition to remote shores near Canada. But in a cruel turn of events, her cousin abandons her on an island, along with her nurse and the man she loves. She also happens to be pregnant, which adds yet another layer of peril to the ordeal she and the others must face alone.

    Tragedy after tragedy on this remote shore changes Marguerite; there is nothing she can do to stop it. She is no longer the naive girl who once lived in wealth and took pride in her title. Now she must bury the people she loves, hunt with a rifle she never learned how to use, and become accustomed to a life of solitude.

    When, at last, she is rescued by a boat of fishermen, she is a different woman. She is a fearsome creature, set on vengeance, unafraid of her cousin, and stopping at nothing to achieve justice. She has had a “fresh start,” even if it is not something she pursued or something she would ever have wanted.

    Our lives might not be nearly as dramatic, but sometimes we face unexpected changes of our own, and they are unpleasant. We may find ourselves in circumstances we never would have chosen, forced to become people we never expected to be.

    Books teach us that we can survive this, too.

    3. The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry — Gabrielle Zevin

    A.J. Fikry is not looking for a fresh start. In fact, by the beginning of Gabrielle Zevin’s The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, he seems to have given up on the possibility of one altogether. His wife is dead, his bookstore is struggling, and his beloved rare copy of Poe has been stolen. He has retreated into grief and bitterness, pushing away nearly everyone who might try to reach him.

    Then a two-year-old girl named Maya is left in his bookstore.

    A.J. initially has no idea what to do with this unexpected child, but before long, Maya begins to change his life. He adopts her, and the bookstore that once felt like an extension of his solitude becomes a place filled with people, stories, and community. His relationship with Amelia Loman, a publisher’s representative whom he initially treats rather terribly, grows into something more. Slowly, almost without his noticing, A.J. begins to build the life he thought he had lost forever.

    What I love about A.J.’s story is that his new beginning does not require him to become an entirely different person. He is still a bookseller. He still has his particular opinions about literature. He is still, in many ways, himself.

    But he is no longer alone.

    His fresh start comes through the people who enter his life unexpectedly and remind him that there are still things worth loving. Maya gives him someone to care for. Amelia gives him companionship. The bookstore becomes a place where he can belong rather than a place where he can hide.

    Sometimes starting over does not mean leaving everything behind. Sometimes it means allowing something new into the life you already have.

    A.J. Fikry learns that a life can be rewritten even after you are convinced the story has already ended.

    4- The Light on Farallon Island — Jen Wheeler

    Amelia Osborne arrives on the Farallon Islands in 1859 under a name that does not belong to her. Taking on the identity of her recently deceased friend, Lucy Riley, she has come to the remote lighthouse outpost as a teacher for the keepers’ children. It is the sort of place where a person might hope to disappear completely.

    Thirty miles off the coast of San Francisco, the Farallon Islands are isolated and forbidding. The sailors who know them call them the Devil’s Teeth, and Amelia soon discovers why. The cliffs are dangerous, the waters are unpredictable, and the fog can make the world beyond the island seem impossibly far away.

    For Amelia, though, the physical dangers are not the greatest threat. She has come to the island hoping to leave her old life behind, but she has brought its secrets with her.

    Then there is Will Sisson.

    Will is a solitary man who seems to recognize the name Amelia has taken, although he does not recognize her face. Naturally, she is wary of him. But as she becomes more familiar with the small community on the island, she begins to trust him. What follows is a story about love and fear, but also about the difficult process of becoming someone new when the person you were is still haunting you.

    I think The Light on Farallon Island fits this list because Amelia’s fresh start is, in many ways, a literal reinvention. She changes her name. She leaves the life she knew. She travels to a place where almost no one knows her.

    But changing your circumstances does not necessarily mean escaping your past. Amelia has gone as far as she possibly can, surrounded by nothing but sea, rocks, fog, and the people who live alongside her. Yet even there, she cannot escape herself.

    Sometimes a fresh start requires a new place.

    Sometimes it requires becoming brave enough to stay.

    5. Anne of Green Gables — L.M. Montgomery

    Of all the titles on this list, Anne of Green Gables might be the most hopeful. It is not only Anne Shirley who receives a fresh start when she is rescued from the orphanage. Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert receive one, too.

    The Cuthberts have been living for years and years in a state of routine, unwelcoming of change and with no intentions of changing their lifestyle. They are content, but are they happy?

    When Anne is accidentally brought to Green Gables rather than the boy they hoped for, it takes a little while for them to overcome the shock. After all, her personality is vastly different from theirs. But soon they realize that her monologues, drama, and garnishes make them happy. Happiness is not something they have known for a very long time.

    Sometimes, like in The Enchanted April, a fresh start does not announce itself with trumpets and fanfare. Sometimes, like in Isola, it is forced growth of character. In the case of Anne of Green Gables, it takes the form of irresistible wonder. This sort of fresh start makes the world beautiful to behold, even to those watching from the sidelines.

    Anne loves Avonlea and sees magic in every cranny. Soon, Matthew and Marilla begin to see it, too—and to change.

    Perhaps that is one of the loveliest things about a fresh start: sometimes it does not only change the person beginning again. Sometimes it changes everyone fortunate enough to be there when it happens.

    Starting Again

    There is something comforting about stories of fresh starts because they remind us that our lives are rarely as settled as they seem.

    Marguerite never would have chosen the island. A.J. Fikry never expected a little girl to walk into his bookstore and change everything. Amelia went to Farallon Island hoping that a new name might allow her to leave her old life behind. And Anne Shirley arrived at Green Gables without knowing that she was about to change the lives of Matthew and Marilla along with her own.

    Even The Enchanted April, perhaps the gentlest of these stories, shows us that sometimes all we need is the opportunity to see our lives differently.

    I think that is what I love most about a fresh start in literature. It does not always mean becoming an entirely new person. Sometimes it means discovering a part of ourselves that had been waiting for the right circumstances to emerge.

    We cannot always choose when our lives will change. Sometimes change arrives as an adventure. Sometimes it comes through loss. Sometimes it appears on the doorstep in the form of a little girl who was supposed to be a boy.

    But there is always the possibility that something beautiful might come of it.

    Perhaps that is why we return to these stories when we need encouragement. They remind us that the ending of one chapter does not necessarily mean the end of the story.

    There may still be another life waiting for us.

    Cover Image: Woman Reading (1880), Edouard Manet

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  • How to Choose Your Next Book

    How to Choose Your Next Book


    Only a reader would understand this problem: you’ve just finished a novel that you absolutely adored. You’ve allowed it to simmer for a bit while completing the household chores that can’t keep being ignored. When you’re finally finished, you go to your favorite spot in the house: your bookshelf.

    Staring at the dozens, perhaps hundreds, of options lined up on the shelves before you, you feel that familiar hesitation.

    I have so many books, you think, but I don’t know what to read next!

    We seem to live with the idea that, because we love books, there should never be any uncertainty about what our next title will be. But when there are so many lovely directions in which we can go, it can genuinely be difficult to pick just one and commit to it. The more options we have, the harder it becomes to reach that satisfying moment of thinking, Yes. That’s the one.

    I haven’t completely solved this problem for myself, but I’ve learned a few things that make the decision easier. So if you’re standing before your own bookshelf right now, feeling overwhelmed by all those unread possibilities and thinking the same dramatic thought—I don’t know what to read next!—here are a few ways to find your way back to a book.

    Don’t Think in Numbers

    We might not want to admit it, but when we’re thinking about our next read, we can start subconsciously calculating.

    If I read these two novels this week, then cram that epic in the week after, and squeeze in this novella after that, I’ll cross more off my list than if I simply reach for what I actually want to read…

    The point of reading isn’t to get through all the books on your shelf. The point is to find a story and allow it to carry you away, for a while, from the hardships of life.

    Let’s face it: plenty of people have impressive personal libraries. Ask them how many of those books they’ve actually read, though, and they’ll probably admit that there are quite a few waiting patiently on the shelves. Some of them may never be read at all.

    And that’s okay.

    If you’re constantly trying to get through everything you own, you’re probably taking much of the fun out of reading itself. If opening a book becomes another mark to check off a list, what’s the difference between choosing a novel and buying groceries?

    You don’t need to optimize your reading life.

    Stop thinking in numbers and goals, and you may find that choosing your next book becomes much easier. Instead of asking yourself which book will help you make the most progress, ask a simpler question:

    Which one do I actually want to read?

    That answer is probably closer than you think.

    Look for the Story Your Soul Needs

    Sometimes, the book that is currently trending is not the story that your soul needs in that moment.

    There are a lot of performative readers on the Internet who seem to grab whatever is trending simply because everyone else is reading it. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with being excited about a popular book. Sometimes the books everyone is talking about really are wonderful. But you can’t always tell whether someone is enjoying a book because it genuinely speaks to them or because they feel as though they ought to be reading it.

    When choosing your next read, it’s more important to look for the story that might provide the particular kind of nourishment—or even healing—that your soul needs. Read the description of the story and ask yourself: Is it dealing with friendship? Might it have words of wisdom about coping with grief? Does it have literary sunshine to give life to a winter day?

    Maybe you need a love story. Maybe you need to laugh. Maybe you need to spend a few hours with a woman who has made a mess of her life and somehow manages to put the pieces back together. Maybe you need to disappear into another country, another century, or another person’s imagination.

    Your reading life doesn’t have to reflect what everyone else is reading. It doesn’t even have to reflect what you were reading last month.

    Sometimes we reach for the book that will challenge us. Sometimes we need the one that will comfort us. Sometimes we need a story that simply reminds us that there is still beauty in the world.

    Pay attention to that instinct.

    The book you need most may not be the book everyone is recommending. It may be the one that has been sitting quietly on your shelf, waiting for you to become the reader who is ready for it.

    Read the First Page

    Most literary agents will tell you that, when you submit a novel for publication, the first—and often the only—part they will look at is the first page. This is because a book’s opening bears a great deal of weight. Regardless of genre, POV, or tense, the first page should give the reader a reason to keep going.

    Take, for example, these wonderful first-page hooks:

    “The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.” —The Secret History, Donna Tartt

    “I was sitting in a taxi, wondering if I had overdressed for the evening, when I looked out the window and saw Mom rooting through a Dumpster.” —The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls

    “This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.” — The Princess Bride, William Goldman

    For more great hooks, read this post.

    Literary agents and editors have the right idea when they advise authors to make their opening lines special. I say this at the risk of sounding unkind to other writers who perhaps do not like being told how to write their novels, but it is what it is: we readers have so many options that, if an author wishes for their story to be chosen, they need to learn the gimmicks.

    There has to be a line, an idea, or an exchange in the first paragraph that makes me think, “Wait, what? I need to know more. How can Goldman say this is his favorite book if he’s never read it? Why is Bunny dead? Why is Mom rooting through a dumpster?”

    When picking your next read, allow yourself to be choosy. Go through your options, read the first pages of each, and pick the ones that grip you. It’s not necessary to toss aside books that don’t immediately arrest your attention; simply set them aside until the time is right.

    Read the Book You Keep Thinking About

    Sometimes, you already know what you want to read. You just haven’t admitted it to yourself yet.

    There may be a particular book on your shelf that you keep noticing. You pick it up, read the description again, admire the cover, and then put it back because you think you should read something else first. Perhaps it’s been sitting there for months. Perhaps you bought it years ago. Perhaps you’ve been telling yourself that you’ll get to it eventually.

    Why not now?

    Our reading lists can become so full of obligations that we forget to pay attention to the books that genuinely interest us. We tell ourselves we need to finish another book first, catch up on a bestseller, read something more “important,” or finally tackle the enormous classic we’ve been avoiding.

    But if you keep thinking about a particular book, there may be a reason.

    You don’t need to justify every reading choice. You don’t need to prove that you’ve chosen the most worthwhile book on your shelf. If one keeps catching your attention, pick it up. Read a few pages. See where it takes you.

    And if you discover that you’re not in the mood for it after all, you can always put it back.

    Conclusion

    Choosing your next book doesn’t have to be a complicated process. You don’t need a reading challenge, an elaborate TBR system, or a carefully calculated plan. Sometimes you simply need to stop and ask yourself what kind of story you’re longing for.

    Read for pleasure. Read for comfort. Read because a first page makes you curious. Read the book that has been quietly calling your name from the shelf.

    And remember that there is no wrong answer.

    The unread books will still be there tomorrow. Your reading life is not a race, and your bookshelf is not a list of obligations. You are allowed to wander through it, change your mind, abandon a book that isn’t right for you, and return to one when the time is better.

    So if you’re sitting there wondering what to read next, look at your shelves again.

    There’s probably a book waiting for you.

    If you’ve enjoyed this little corner of Her Reading Life, you can support my work by buying me a coffee here. It helps me keep writing, reading, and making more of these little literary things for you.

    And if you can’t, simply being here and reading means a great deal to me.

  • How to Read More Books (Without Making Reading Another Chore)

    How to Read More Books (Without Making Reading Another Chore)


    In my previous post, I addressed a problem that seems common among many adults: how to start reading again when new responsibilities threaten to crowd our leisure time. We discussed three ways to rekindle our love of reading and allow it to become the haven it once was.

    Now we turn to a different problem that is still in the same vein: how to read more books when life is already busy.

    There is nothing wrong with reading a handful of books per year, but some of us will not be satisfied with that. Some of us want the exhilarating sensation of reading volume after volume, visiting different places in the past and future, but cannot find a way to work such a goal into an already-busy schedule.

    Perhaps you’re struggling because you have a lot on your plate, and your TBR simply isn’t a priority. Perhaps you’re overwhelmed by the task of deciding what to read next. Or perhaps you’ve fallen into the trap of thinking that reading more requires some elaborate system of its own.

    The good news is that it doesn’t have to.

    If you want to read more books, these simple changes may help you build a reading life that feels satisfying rather than demanding.

    Stop Treating Your TBR Like a Syllabus

    I’ve fallen into this trap before: I’ll have a nice collection of books growing on my shelf, but my conscience tells me that I cannot read them except in the order in which they were acquired.

    To an extent, this might make sense. A person with common sense might think that we should read books as soon as they are bought; if not, did we really want them to begin with?

    But a TBR is not a syllabus.

    You do not have to start at the top of the stack and work your way down. You are allowed to skip around. You are allowed to read the book you are suddenly in the mood for, even if you bought it six months ago and have five others waiting ahead of it.

    In fact, I think this is one of the simplest ways to make reading more enjoyable: let yourself choose.

    Your TBR should be a collection of possibilities, not a list of assignments. There is no prize for finishing the books in chronological order, and there is certainly no reason to feel guilty about being more excited about the book at the bottom of the stack.

    Read the book that calls to you.

    Your future reading self will thank you for it.

    Keep More Than One Book Going

    Everybody has a different reading style, so this advice will not apply to everyone. Personally, I think it is perfectly fine to read more than one book at a time. Keep bookmarks at hand and have a different adventure waiting for you in every room of the house.

    You might think this advice is counterproductive. After all, how can we ever finish a single novel if there are five others waiting to be read? But in my experience, books naturally follow their own timelines. A short, 130-page novel might take you a year to finish, while you might tear through a third of an epic fantasy in a matter of hours.

    The point isn’t necessarily to have a great many books going at once. It is to trust the reading process itself. Different books will call to you at different times, and the one you have been neglecting for weeks might suddenly become the only one you want to read.

    When that happens, let it.

    Rather than dragging yourself through a book simply because you started it, you may find that giving yourself several stories to move between actually helps you read more. One book might suit your morning coffee, another your lunch break, and another the quiet half-hour before bed. You are not abandoning one story for another; you are allowing your reading life to have different moods.

    And sometimes, almost without realizing it, you’ll find yourself finishing books faster than you would have if you had insisted on reading only one at a time.

    Put Your Phone Somewhere Inconvenient

    I realize, as I type this, that this probably should have been the first tip in a post like this. But it doesn’t apply only to reading. Our creative pursuits are threatened by our phones just as much as they are, in some ways, aided by them.

    A phone gives us access to endless sources of inspiration, helps us meet other creatives with similar worldviews, and even allows us to sell our work to people who are interested in it. But it is far too easy to spend an hour building Pinterest boards instead of reading the novel sitting beside us—or writing the story we built the board for in the first place.

    If you like using your phone to take notes about the stories you read, give yourself a timer for these little rituals. Ten minutes should be plenty of time to fill a Google Doc with “margin notes” that you can later use for a review. Three minutes should be more than enough to update your Goodreads status.

    Reading time ought to be hallowed time.

    Use your phone for the necessities: work, keeping in touch with loved ones, finding directions when you need to get somewhere. But when it is time to curl up with your latest cozy mystery, put the phone somewhere inconvenient. Leave it across the room. Put it in another room entirely.

    If you want to read more books—and actually remember them when you’re finished—you have to give your attention somewhere else to go.

    Try Shorter Books When You’re Stuck

    I have recently discovered the great power that can be found in shorter books. Some of my favorite reads this year have been short enough to finish in a single sitting. Novellas, essays, short story collections—all of these absolutely count when you’re trying to overcome a reading slump.

    If you’re not sure where to start with shorter novels, I recommend Whale Fall by Elizabeth O’Connor and Hello Baby by Kim Eui-Kyung. Both can be read in an afternoon; both are atmospheric and immediately draw us away from the world in which we live. And I feel the need to add: both are incredibly deep.

    Some people seem to fear that a shorter novel won’t give us as much to mull over. But more pages do not necessarily mean more profound lessons about morality, life, or the human condition. A story does not become more meaningful simply because it takes longer to tell.

    I’ve always thought that a tale that can be told as briefly as possible and still captivate its listeners is a story being told at its purest.

    Make Reading a Part of Your Life Again

    Ultimately, I don’t think the goal of reading more books should be to make ourselves more productive readers. Books are not another item on the list of things we ought to accomplish before the end of the day. They are one of the few places left where we can allow ourselves to be completely absorbed in something that asks nothing of us in return.

    If you want to read more, give yourself permission to make reading easier. Choose the book you actually want to read. Keep several stories within reach. Put your phone somewhere you cannot see it. Pick up something short when a long novel feels impossible.

    Most importantly, don’t turn your reading life into another obligation.

    There will be seasons when you read dozens of books and seasons when you barely finish one. There will be books you abandon, books you carry around for months, and books you devour in a single afternoon. All of it counts.

    The wonderful thing about building a reading life is that there is always another story waiting for you. You only have to open the book.

    Cover Image: Old Woman Reading a Newspaper (1895), Paul Knight

    If you enjoyed this essay and would like to buy the Tearoom a little coffee, you can leave a tip here. It helps me keep making a cozy corner of the internet for readers like you.

  • 5 Novels that Felt Like Romantic Holidays

    5 Novels that Felt Like Romantic Holidays


    There is a certain kind of novel that sweeps you away on the sort of holiday that can be nothing short of magical.

    These are the books that transport us somewhere beautiful: perhaps to another time, through the streets of a foreign city, into a little village we wish existed, or even to a slower, more peaceful version of life. They might have been written long ago, or they might follow modern travelers as they explore ancient monuments and discover unfamiliar cultures.

    When a novel like this is written well, it carries you along with it. The setting becomes almost as important as the story itself. A house you’ve never visited can begin to feel like home. A village you’ve never seen can take on the familiarity of somewhere you’ve always known. For a few hours, reading becomes a kind of travel.

    Those are the books I think of as literary holidays.

    I’ve encountered several such novels over the years, and now that we’re entering September—our summer holidays winding to a close, our cardigans coming back out of the wardrobe—these are the sorts of books that can help us hold on to a little of that holiday magic.

    Because those of us who love reading know the particular magic that occurs when a book truly transports us. We close the cover and may be surprised to find that we are exactly where we started, sitting in a comfortable chair or tucked beneath the covers in bed.

    But for a little while, we’ve been somewhere else entirely.

    Here are five books that have given me that feeling—five literary escapes for anyone who isn’t quite ready to come home from holiday.

    1. The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

    In this life, different souls could hardly be more opposed to one another, whether in personality, temperament, or belief.

    The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim has a simple premise on the surface, but beneath it lies something that many women will recognize at one point or another: the need to escape from a life that has become too difficult, too confusing, or too stifled by expectations imposed by other people.

    In The Enchanted April, four very different women find themselves drawn together by the possibility of escape. They agree to rent a medieval castle in Italy, each expecting that she will largely keep to herself. They certainly have no intention of getting too involved in one another’s lives.

    But some places have a way of overpowering even our strongest prejudices.

    As the women settle into their beautiful Italian surroundings, the atmosphere of the castle and the warmth of spring begin to work their quiet magic. This peaceful, atmospheric novel gradually reveals the things its characters have in common, even when they initially have very little patience for one another.

    By the end, these four women have discovered that sometimes we need to leave our ordinary lives behind before we can see them—and ourselves—with new eyes.

    Read this if: you want an atmospheric, escapist novel about women, friendship, and the restorative magic of getting away from it all.

    2. A Room with a View by E. M. Forster

    There are few books that make travel feel quite as romantic as A Room with a View by E. M. Forster. Florence becomes more than a setting here; it feels like a doorway into a different way of living, one in which beauty, spontaneity, and the possibility of love might matter more than following the rules you’ve been given.

    Lucy Honeychurch arrives in Italy constrained by the expectations of the people around her, but her travels begin to open up something in her that she hadn’t quite known was there. Away from the familiar routines and conventions of home, she begins to see that another kind of life might be possible.

    I love the feeling of possibility in this novel—the sense that sometimes going somewhere unfamiliar can help you see your own life differently. It is a book about Italy and Florence, certainly, but it is also a romantic story about independence, self-discovery, and allowing yourself to want something more.

    Read this if: you want Florence, romance, beautiful scenery, and the feeling that a trip might change your life.

    3. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows

    Before cell phones and Instagram existed to prove that a holiday had taken place, there were letters. I’ve always thought that letter novels were inherently romantic, even when the stories themselves weren’t necessarily romantic.

    The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows is an epistolary novel told entirely through letters, beginning in the aftermath of World War II. It follows Juliet Ashton, a writer who has become famous for a humorous column that entertained readers during the war but who now dreams of writing something bigger and more substantial.

    When Juliet learns of a book club that sprang to life during the German occupation of the island of Guernsey—a literary refuge that brought comfort to its members under extraordinarily difficult circumstances—she becomes fascinated by the people behind it. Before long, she finds herself traveling to Guernsey to learn more about their lives and their remarkable wartime book club.

    What begins as a literary investigation becomes something much more personal. On Guernsey, Juliet discovers friendship, unexpected affection, and perhaps even the story she has been looking for all along.

    There is something especially charming about a novel that brings you to an island through letters. You never quite stop feeling as though you’ve been invited into someone else’s correspondence, and Guernsey becomes a place you can almost imagine wandering through yourself.

    Read this if: you want an atmospheric historical novel filled with books, letters, friendship, romance, and the irresistible feeling of discovering a place through the people who love it.

    4. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

    Not every literary holiday requires a train ticket or a passport. Sometimes all you need is a garden.

    Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden has always felt to me like the sort of book that creates its own little world. Mary Lennox arrives at Misselthwaite Manor in Yorkshire after being sent away from India, lonely and thoroughly unaccustomed to the quiet of the English countryside. There, she begins to discover the secrets of the great house—including a locked garden that has been left untouched for years.

    As Mary becomes increasingly fascinated by the garden and the people around her, the landscape begins to change, and so does she. There is something wonderfully restorative about watching a neglected place slowly come back to life alongside the children who care for it.

    This is perhaps the most fanciful literary holiday on my list, but that is exactly why I love it. The Secret Garden makes the English countryside feel like somewhere you could disappear into for a while—a place of hidden paths, changing seasons, fresh air, and possibilities waiting behind a locked door.

    Read this if: you want an enchanting classic about secret gardens, the English countryside, friendship, and the quiet magic of discovering a world of your own.

    5. The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George

    The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George is exactly the kind of novel that makes me want to disappear into a bookshop, buy a train ticket, and see what happens.

    As I remember it, the story follows Jean Perdu, a bookseller with a remarkable instinct for knowing which books might help people through whatever they’re experiencing. He lives aboard a floating bookshop in Paris, and eventually sets off on a journey through France that gives him the chance to reckon with an old heartbreak and consider what might come next.

    It has been years since I read this one, so some of the finer details have become pleasantly hazy in my memory—and that is part of why I’m looking forward to reading it again. What I seem to remember most is the feeling of it: Paris, books, waterways, food, and the possibility of beginning again.

    In my memory, it feels like a literary holiday in the broadest sense. Not simply a story about falling in love, but a story about rediscovering the world after you’ve been closed off from it for too long.

    I’m curious to see what remains when I meet this book again.

    Read this if: you want France, books, travel, and a story about finding your way back to life.

    Take Yourself on a Literary Holiday

    A literary holiday doesn’t necessarily require summer weather, a suitcase, or even leaving the house. Sometimes all it takes is a novel that knows how to make another place feel real.

    As September arrives and the days begin to grow a little shorter, I find myself wanting to hold on to that feeling of summer travel for just a little longer. These books offer their own kind of escape, taking us to Italy, Florence, Guernsey, France, and the English countryside without asking us to go any farther than our favorite chair.

    There is something comforting about knowing that the holiday can continue in this way. We can close the book, return to our ordinary lives, and still carry a little of its world with us.

    So if you’re looking for something to read as summer gives way to autumn, consider taking a literary holiday of your own. Choose a book that promises somewhere beautiful, settle in, and let it carry you away for a while.

    After all, September may be the month when we come home, but there is no reason we have to come home all at once.

    A Little Cup of Tea

    If you’ve enjoyed coming along on these literary holidays, and you’d like to help me keep making them, you can always buy me a coffee. It helps support the time I spend reading, writing, and making little corners of the internet for bookish people to settle into.

    No pressure at all—your company here is already lovely. But if you’d like to leave a little something behind for the next cup of tea, I’ll be very grateful.

  • Hello Baby: The Women in the Chatroom

    Hello Baby: The Women in the Chatroom


    Books Cross Borders and Cultures

    Translated from Korean, Hello Baby is my eighty-fifth read of the year. It’s a book laden with heavy but relevant topics, particularly to women.

    It follows the lives of seven women of different walks of life and social classes who have one very important thing in common: they have long wanted to be mothers, but for different reasons, are unable to make this dream come true. Ages ranging from 37 to 46, they keep in touch in a private chat called Hello Baby.

    They are all seeking treatment at Baby Angel Hospital, which is packed with couples hoping to start their families, even in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. But the first thing a reader notices in Hello Baby is the huge amount of pressure that settles on the woman.

    Why So Much Shame?

    The first character that we meet is 44-year-old Mun-Jeong, a journalist. In the opening scene, she is having her temperature checked by a nurse at Baby Angel, preparing to go downstairs to the IVF clinic.

    She is going to the clinic alone, always alone. The reason seems so petty to me: in the past, her husband ran into an acquaintance of his while escorting her. Since then, Mun-Jeong has endured hormone treatments on her own, because her husband was overcome with shame at having been recognized in such a place. He will only attend with her if his presence is absolutely necessary.

    Mun-Jeong often returns to the deep insult implied by his attitude, asking:

    Was low fertility really so shameful among men? Why did they have to be so caught up in their own egos when it came to the sanctity of creating life?

    I won’t attempt to answer that question. I’ll just let it sit.

    Women Can Love Two Vocations at Once

    Mun-Jeong also struggles with the (unfortunately) still-real expectation that, if the treatment does work, she would be expected to quit her work as a journalist and stay home.

    Even if she managed to get pregnant, Mun-Jeong intended to keep writing for the magazine right up until she went into labor.

    She loves her work as a journalist, relishing each interview, each achievement—yet it makes her wonder: are a husband and children the biggest obstacle to a woman’s success? It seems that Baby Angel ought to cause her more trepidation. The woman who walks into that clinic has more to lose, either way.

    Yet her husband was spooked because he crossed paths with an acquaintance.

    A Confession—Not an Apology

    It’s true that I do not have children, but this book made me think: Surely, there is no right way these days.

    Some women choose to live lives without children, and they have various, valid reasons for it. But if a woman’s dream is to be a mother, and for some reason this cannot occur naturally, the process of conceiving with medical help can be frightening and lonely.

    Hello Baby is not a long read, but it does a fantastic job of exposing the various wounds that a woman, unsupported, would endure throughout it.

    Some of these situations would clearly be far worse in the culture that is described in Hello Baby, but we can’t pretend that people do not still frown at one’s children—or lack thereof; that workplace equality truly exists everywhere, particularly when a family is involved.

    There is also always pressure from someone—in the family or just society—for a woman to want children. I know, because I’ve experienced it. Children are not in my plans at this moment, perhaps ever. It doesn’t mean I don’t like them, or think that they’re wonderful for people called to them.

    Including a character in Hello Baby called Seol-yu, a 40-year-old housewife who has “done everything right.” She has a pair of young twins that she loves. Now, she’s expecting a third baby.

    Due to financial issues, she must work, but does not know where to find childcare—so she asks her mother. Her mother’s help lasts a very short time:

    To Seol-yu’s surprise, her mother started crying.
    “I can’t do it anymore,” she said. “If I keep this up, my cancer’s going to come back.”

    Childcare…will make cancer come back? Okay.

    The Real vs. Fake Baby

    Then there’s Jeong-hyo, who married into a wealthy family where her mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law expect her to have children to pass on the family line. She also has a personal desire for children, but is unable to conceive naturally.

    The first time she met her husband’s grandmother, the older woman’s words were:

    “You look fertile. Your shoulders are round, and your hips are wide. You seem docile, but you’ve got sex appeal.”

    Awkward, but it can’t mean that much…right?

    Jeong-hyo’s been trying, and trying, and trying for years for a baby. But by the end of Hello Baby, after an ectopic pregnancy and the removal of a fallopian tube, Jeong-hyo’s mother-in-law chooses to “comfort” her on the way home:

    “You have to hurry up and put this behind you so the new baby can come. … If you keep thinking about the baby you lost, then the real baby won’t come.”

    To which Jeong-hyo finally snaps:

    “Don’t you ever say that to me again. … What right do you have to say whether my baby is real or pretend?”

    It’s My Village, Too

    As a woman without children, I felt many times while drafting this post that I have no voice in the matter, either way. But I have friends with children who are very happy, and childfree friends who are also at peace with their lives. And I recognize when an important, powerful book needs to be shared.

    The burden of parenthood should not be carried by a woman alone. A woman should not be obligated to renounce her passions when she wants a family. And matriarchs—or husbands—should not see a woman only for the children she might have.

    Also, she should have friends who understand her.

    Friendship is the source of strength and light in this novel. The ladies in the Hello Baby chatroom encourage one another, offer advice, commiserate, and celebrate together. They understand things about one another that the people closest to them sometimes cannot, because they are living through the same complicated mixture of hope, disappointment, fear, and expectation.

    Seven Shoulders to Cry On

    There is something especially beautiful about the fact that these women find one another through a shared struggle, but their friendship becomes about much more than whether they will become mothers. They see one another as whole people. In a novel so concerned with the ways women can be reduced to their bodies, their fertility, or their usefulness to a family, the Hello Baby chatroom gives them somewhere to simply be women together.

    This might be what I loved most about Hello Baby. The answer to all of this pressure is not that women should make the same choices. It is that women should have the freedom to make their own choices—and the friendship and support to know that they do not have to face the consequences of those choices alone.

    Hello Baby has quickly found its way into my top ten favorite books of the year. It has also reminded me why I want to seek out more international fiction. There is something wonderful about reading beyond the borders of your own culture—about entering another country’s stories and allowing a novel to complicate, illuminate, or simply broaden the way you see the world.

    I’m looking forward to making more room on my reading list for translated fiction and discovering the many voices beyond my own literary landscape.

  • No One Disappears on an Island: Thoughts on Remote Literary Settings

    No One Disappears on an Island: Thoughts on Remote Literary Settings


    Soon it would be another memory, those things and times and places and people one could never reclaim, yet never be rid of either. A feeling that would fade and flicker back to brightness, subject to her will, but that could never be undone or erased.

    The Light on Farallon Island, p. 345

    The Light on Farallon Island by Jen Wheeler was a gripping read that offered readers much to think about. Amelia lost her family a long time ago in a horrific accident caused by a hateful father. Amelia alone escaped, and has done odd jobs in order to survive, one of which leads her to the remote Farallon Islands in the San Francisco area, a place so isolated at the time that the arrival of a newcomer is the subject of much surprise and gossip.

    Amelia has an additional secret that she can’t even escape on the Farallons. Before arriving, she had fallen in love with a woman named Lucy. When a terrible fire ravages their home while Amelia is gone, reducing poor Lucy to ashes, Amelia at once enters survival mode. She had not seen anyone in Lucy’s social group, and no one knows her — she plans to leave anyway — so she takes Lucy’s name and some of her belongings; in her mind, Amelia Osbourne is dead.

    But one person exists who will not be so easily fooled by this ruse: Lucy’s brother, Will Sisson. He will demand answers from Amelia relentlessly, but before long, he will fall for her — before he even learns what her name is — while he still knows her only as a woman with a very compelling past.

    The Trope of “Hayworth House”

    Upon arriving at Farallon, Amelia is given for shelter a place called Stonehouse. It stands as “a simple, flat-faced structure made of… a mosaic of granite blocks quarried on the island. Its patchwork facade recalled a fairy cottage, but its form reflected perfect symmetry. A chimney capped each end of the gabled roof.” This is to be Amelia’s home as she lives on remote Farallon as a teacher to the handful of children living on that lonely place.

    Is Stonehouse haunted? Previous owners of the place report strange apparitions, such as a woman veiled in black. Even if these stories are true, Amelia’s experiences have taught her not to fear a lost spirit, but a living man who can do bodily harm.

    As a novel, The Light on Farallon Island succeeds most strongly in its atmosphere. Wheeler makes the Farallons feel genuinely cut off from the mainland, a place where news arrives slowly and the small community knows nearly everything about its inhabitants. That isolation gives the novel its Gothic quality without requiring the supernatural to carry the story.

    Amelia herself is also an effective protagonist because her desire to disappear is never quite as simple as it first appears. She has come to the island to escape her past, but the novel gradually asks whether escape and reinvention are actually the same thing. I did find some of the mystery elements more familiar than surprising, but the setting and emotional stakes kept me invested. The result is a novel that is less frightening for its ghosts than for its understanding of how difficult it is to outrun the past.

    There were many elements in this novel that made me think about great works of Gothic fiction that we all know and love, in particular the great novels of the Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne. Wheeler’s novel takes place on an island both remote and atmospheric. It is the ideal breeding ground for ghost stories and superstition.

    Off the Grid Drama

    It also reminded me of a novella written more recently, Whale Fall by Elizabeth O’Connor. Set on a remote Welsh island of fishermen, there is a similar sense of it being separated as though it were another world. Updates of the ongoing war against Hitler reach them very slowly. They, too, live lives that honor their own gods and traditions. O’Connor and Wheeler both use words to create the kinds of communities one could go to if they wished to disappear and become someone entirely new.

    Do such places still exist today? Could it still be possible to live “off the grid,” creating a self-sufficient community far from the wars and struggles of real life?

    Bronson Alcott, father of Louisa May Alcott, tried something like this when his young daughters were very young. It was called Fruitlands. Alcott, a radical Transcendentalist and author, and an English associate named Charles Lane attempted to establish a community in Harvard, Massachusetts. Lane purchased roughly ninety acres of farmland, and in June of 1843, the Alcotts were among the first families to move there.

    Alcott and Lane were obsessed with an idea: what if human beings could strip away the corrupting habits of ordinary society and return to a more innocent, spiritual, natural way of life? Fruitlands was imagined as a sort of earthly Eden, and their commitment to living simply was extreme:

    • They pursued a strict plant-based diet and rejected animal products.
    • They rejected the use of animal labor, including animals for plowing the fields.
    • They tried to minimize dependence on the outside economy and live as self-sufficiently as possible.
    • Lane advocated increasingly severe forms of self-denial, eventually including celibacy within marriage.

    The experiment, unsurprisingly, proved much harder to sustain than its ideals suggested. Farming was difficult, crops failed, supplies became scarce, and the community struggled financially. Fruitlands collapsed after about seven months, and the Alcotts left in January 1844. The failure was painful for Bronson, both financially and emotionally, though he continued to pursue his philosophical and educational ideals afterward.

    Later, Louisa satirized the experiment in Transcendental Wild Oats, her fictionalized account of Fruitlands. She remembered the community with both affection and irony, poking fun at the gulf between its lofty ideals and the practical realities of keeping a family fed and functioning. At one point she jokes that “Apple Slump” might have been a better name for the place, playing on the monotonous and sometimes meager food available to the community.

    Louisa and “Apple Slump”

    Louisa had witnessed firsthand the gap between an idealized community and the messy reality of actually living in one. She was a child when the Alcott family went to Fruitlands, but the experience clearly stayed with her. Years later, she could look back on it with enough distance to find the humor in what had once been a very real hardship.

    That humor is part of what makes her story, Transcendental Wild Oats, so charming. Louisa did not simply mock her father and his ideals; she understood the impulse behind them. She knew what it meant to believe that the world could be made better if people were only willing to live differently. But she also knew that lofty principles become considerably more complicated when there are hungry children to feed and crops that refuse to grow.

    Her “Apple Slump” joke captures that perfectly. Fruitlands was supposed to be an earthly Eden, a place where human beings could escape the corruptions of ordinary society and live according to higher principles. Yet Eden, as it turned out, involved a great deal of difficult farming and not nearly enough food. The joke is funny because it brings the whole grand experiment back down to earth: transcendental philosophy is one thing, but eventually somebody has to figure out what everyone is having for dinner.

    Louisa remembered Fruitlands with both affection and irony. She could see the beauty in her father’s dream without pretending that the dream had worked. And perhaps that is what connects Fruitlands to the remote islands in these novels: people may go somewhere isolated hoping to escape the world’s troubles, or even to become someone entirely new, but isolation does not make a place perfect.

    People bring themselves with them. They bring their loves, their griefs, their secrets, their prejudices, their hopes. Someone may arrive hoping to disappear, while someone else is waiting to find them.

    It is never perfect.

    Hidden in the Fog

    What makes the Farallons such an effective setting for Wheeler’s story? Could it be the remoteness?

    After all, Amelia goes there believing she can leave her old life behind. The island is remote enough to make reinvention seem possible, but it cannot erase what she has lost, nor can it protect her from the complications of being human. The ghosts of Stonehouse may or may not be real, but Amelia already knows that the most dangerous things we carry with us are not always supernatural.

    Sometimes they are memories. Sometimes they are grief. Sometimes they are the identities we thought we had buried.

    She may have gone to the Farallons to disappear, but the island gives her something quite different: a place where she must finally decide whether a new life means becoming someone else, or learning to live with the person she has always been.