Reviews

 This month I received a solicitation from Elise Felix, wanting to help publicize my series So Are You to My Thoughts. She had read one of the books, and had an insightful take on it:

“Pulled Into Nazareth drew me in immediately with its beautifully layered portrayal of siblings navigating life, love, and ambition. The way Line, Marty, and Paul support, challenge, and shape each other’s journeys is rare and compelling. Your depiction of family as both anchor and springboard resonated deeply with me. I can feel the heart behind every page. I’m reaching out not for your money but because I understand and appreciate the emotional depth of your storytelling and want to help it reach readers who will treasure it.

“Pulled Into Nazareth is more than a story about siblings. It's a testament to how family shapes our growth, our choices, and our lives.”

I haven’t money for a book trailer, or the other ways publicists try to boost readership, but I was impressed that Elise Felix had actually read one of the books! I get many solicitations from scam publishers and agents, who all refer to the same book, which they must pass around to each other, telling me it is worthy of re-publication or a movie deal! None of them have read the book.

A few years ago, Melissa Low entered a review on Amazon of Fit Company for Oneself which had some excellent insights into what the books are trying to do. You can see the whole review on Amazon, but here are some excerpts:

”The second book in her series: "So Are You To My Thoughts: An American Odyssey", it was surprisingly different to the first book The Pastor's Kids. The family is still close, and the story carried by Line, Marty and Paul branched into their own direction, yet a day or two after recovering from finishing it, it became clear that the family's closeness is providence, a good base for their individual developing values and worldviews. As Line and Marty leave high school and head for college, their little adventurous gang is broken up, but they think of each other often as they lead their lives conscientiously. Even Paul, still at home with the rest of the family, carves independence and space for himself in the company of nature, which isn't an ambient backdrop, but a breathing system of living things, a perfect companion for his scientific curiosity and spiritual wonder.

“When we are with Paul, we sit on the canoe with him as the achingly beauty of things takes the form of natural poetry. I find it hard to describe the experience of reading Kronlokken's writing when it comes to describing the natural world. Shivers and wet eyes. It's not flowery prose, the sort where you float into the author's imagination of what they see. Her writing plants your feet firmly on the ground, or in a canoe, describing simply the colour of the water, the smell of bread, the direction of sun, the shining reality of the physical world. It's not make-belief, fantasy painted upon the world because, to Kronlokken, the world is good enough as it is.”

And here is one more favorite review, written by a Concerned City-zen on Amazon:

“With her photographer's eye, poet's mind and compassionate disposition, Kronlokken steps into and guides us, book after book, through the intimate intricacies of her character's lives and times. Weaving a tale often more akin to a symphony than a story, her novels are rich with a zen-like sensitivity that leaves one quietly fulfilled, yet wanting more. Highly recommended.”

The books in my series definitely have a point of view. Like any writer, I am thrilled when someone else gets it. 

So Are You to My Thoughts

This post summarizes the chapters in So Are You to My Thoughts. If you don’t like spoilers, please ignore it.

Marty, having moved into Doug’s complicated household on a mountain near Boulder Creek Vineyards, negotiates life with Doug’s four kids. Doug builds bunk beds with their help, grills sandwiches and they all organize for a camping trip on a nearby beach south of Santa Cruz. Scrabble on a foggy afternoon occupies them, but they go down to the beach for the brief appearance of the sun later. Marty does tai chi.

Paul’s wife Maria is so weak he is spending all his time looking after her. They sell the house in Ely and live in the apartment below Ellie’s house. They wake up one morning to find their dog Archie dead. Paul drives him to their lake property, where he buries him. Choir practice, as always, is a highlight of the week. And Ellie buys Paul and Marie plane tickets so they can again spend the winter in warm Oaxaca.

Line and her daughter Ivy take care of five-month-old Sophia, Fern’s daughter. Fern is at a conference, looking for work. Poppa and Line delight in the four-generation household. At Thanksgiving, the Cohens go up to the Boulder Creek winery to celebrate. Doug rotisseries chickens over an outdoor fire. Jeremy brings out the wines. Fourteen people sit down to dinner. And afterward there are many pies!

Doug and Marty take the kids to Minnesota for a family vacation at the Mikkelson family cabin. Marty and Grace each have four young kids to worry about. Doug takes many of them on a canoe trip. Paul is solicitous of his wife Marie, who is fading. The kids put on a play. Paul plays Spanish guitar. Afterwards everyone goes in swimming, including Marty, who puts on goggles and swims under water.

In September, when planes are diverted into the World Trade Center in New York, Line’s family draws close, but each of them continues to do what they have been doing. “Otherwise, the terrorists win.” Ivy shows Line the costumes she is designing for dance productions. Stephen and Line go for a picnic with Paul Lee. They discuss their earlier hopes for the university, as opposed to what it has become.

At Christmas, Paul brings Marie up to Ellie’s celebration on the floor above their apartment. She is very weak by this time, under hospice care. When she dies, Paul goes through all the proper motions, but feels confused by time. He gives into mourning briefly, but then walks around St. Paul, works as a website designer. His sisters try to cheer him up, sending Christy over to play chess.

Marty and Doug drive their kids down to Santa Monica to stay with Mackenzie and Clay, her new boyfriend. They will go to Disneyland on spring break. Doug and Marty drive up the coast, stopping in Ojai, where Jeremy worked at the Ranch House, at Sanford’s innovative winery and enjoying time with just the two of them. They discuss the kids. The kids have a great time at Disneyland.

Line and Stephen, with Poppa and Ivy, march in San Francisco against the Iraq war. Back at home, Line goes to her watercolor class where the teacher demonstrates different washes. As she sweeps the wooden decks, Line thinks about each of her kids. Stephen suggests they call Christy, as he is thinking of writing a book about Paul Wellstone, who was killed in a plane crash, devastating Christy.

Marty and Doug do a week of tai chi camp, but it is hard for them to concentrate. Doug worries about the harvest, Marty about the kids. That summer Ellie had proposed rebuilding the cabin and the Mikkelson siblings had agreed. When Marty and Doug pick up the kids, they have a day of rock climbing and ice cream making before going back to school, Zoe to high school in Santa Cruz.

The family cabin at a northern Minnesota lake is bulldozed in October. Paul takes photos and puts them up on a website for his siblings to see. He has pizza and watches television with Grace’s family. When he goes to St. Paul in December, he, Ellie and Bruce bend their heads over the sketches for the replacement cabin. It will be a log home, on two levels, one designed for Bruce and Ellie, and one for family.

Ivy drives off to Los Angeles to live with a man she has not known long, and take a job at an art school. Line is flustered by it, but knows it was bound to happen. Fern brings her new husband and the precocious little Sophie for a visit. They live near Phoenix and work on an archaeological site. They all drive up to the Boulder Creek winery, where Doug is making a paella meal, the winery very busy.

Doug, Marty and the kids fly to London, then take the Eurostar to Paris in what Doug says is a “tale of two cities.” The food in Paris is wonderful, they walk by the Seine and the Hotel de Ville where the Musketeers lived. They take in a few paintings at the Pompidou. They learn a modicum of French and a bit of Cockney rhyming slang on their way back to London. The Henderson motto is “All for one, and one for all!”

Paul settles in to the newly-built cabin in October. Christy comes by for an evening, a bit dazed by the upcoming election. Paul goes to a meeting of the lake association with older people who live on the lake all year round. He feels out the social possibilities as well as staking out the place he wants to observe ecologically. He tells everyone he is looking for a dog and a caramel-colored puppy soon turns up.

In Santa Cruz, Poppa, Stephen and Line make up a small household. Line worries about their health and prunes her rosebushes in January. At Christmas they had joined Doug and Marty for a treasure hunt with the kids in San Francisco. They call Heather’s family in Chile on the new Skype video call system. Heather has two small bi-lingual sons who sing for them. She admits to being homesick.

The Hendersons live in Santa Cruz full time while the kids are in high school. The twins want to surf, and Zoe wants to play soccer. Marty stays in town too, and Doug travels up the mountain to the winery every day. Doug and Marty join his partners to watch the movie Mondovino, about global winemaking. The partners argue about the wine they are producing. Marty prods Jason to write down his homework.

Paul and Andre, Grace’s middle kid, take the canoe out into the freezing open water at the edge of the lake, testing how early in the year they can go out. It is Easter and Paul attends a service in Bemidji, and on Sunday, his own Lutheran church. In the morning he goes out to the back lot, considering how the returning birds and the greening of the spring are in sync with each other, citizen science by observation.

Stephen and Line attend a performance of Cabaret, which Ivy and Marshall are working on in North Hollywood. When they get home Fern comes with her little Sophie, and a day later, Heather arrives from Chile with her three children. Line has been feeling uncharacteristic lethargy every once in a while and a cramp in her hip makes walking difficult. They all share a beach picnic with Marty’s family.

At the end of a Christmas hunt, the Henderson kids find themselves on Maui. Marty and Doug have kept the secret they had been planning all year! They stay in a cheap hotel, and take off every day to look for waterfalls, go snorkeling and exploring. One night Doug tells Jason he is not his biological father, though he is in every other respect. They all enjoy the warmth, the tastes and sights of the island.

Line and Stephen get together with friends from Brazil and Cuba for dinner. Stephen is about to retire, though he will keep writing. He is increasingly helping Line with domestic tasks she can’t manage. She is panicked, afraid she won’t be able to work in the world. Marty does tai chi with her. Christy brings his girlfriend Emily for a visit. Political talk cannot be avoided, but they also play hearts.

Paul welcomes Hanna and Faith from New York, with their two newly-adopted children. They visit the headwaters of the Mississippi at Lake Itasca. Back at the cabin, canoeing, Faith talks of the Leatherstocking tales and Paul realizes how different her background is. Ellie and Bruce also come to the lake and the difficult adoption tale is recounted. It’s been a year, though, and things are better.

All of a sudden it seems to Marty that everything is about college. The Hendersons drive over to Merced where Nic is intrigued by the new University of California. Natasha wants to go to Cal Poly. Zoe is already at a small college in Montecito. Jason wants to go to a culinary academy of course. Marty is impressed especially by Natasha’s college essay. She and Doug will move back to the ranch.

Line struggles for acceptance of her MS disability. She and Stephen go up to San Francisco for a session in self-healing with Meier Schneider. It loosens Line up, but she knows it won’t last. When they get home, there is Ivy. She has driven up for her own reasons, one of which is voting. The Cohens vote the next morning. Ivy and Line bake pies, and when Barack Obama wins, they all celebrate.

Returning from their last remaining aunt’s funeral, Paul and Ellie are given a cache of letters written by Marshall Mikkelson to Dad. Paul ponders this and the other stories he has been involved in in his life. Time tells true, but stories and questions lead to others. When Paul gets home, two of Grace’s sons arrive on bicycles, having ridden 30 miles. Paul makes them lunch and they discuss climate change.

Marty has heard there will be a flash mob at the farmer’s market in Santa Cruz, so she and several of the kids drive down the mountain. Ivy is in it! All four Henderson kids are home from college. After they leave, Marty persuades Doug to take a few days and drive to Tassajara hot springs. Marty reflects on her life in beauty while enjoying the great food, the September warmth and the springs.

All the Mikkelson kids gather, at least briefly, at the lake cabin. Honoring their parents with remembrance, they drink California wine. They watch a video made 20 years before, rueing their older-looking bodies. Late at night, they play poker while listening to jazz. The next day, Line finally consents to making her slow way down to the dock to watch the sunset. Paul plays old songs, and a new one, on his guitar.

A Moon Every Night

This post is a summary of the chapters in A Moon Every Night. If you don’t like spoilers, please ignore it.

At Christmas, Paul and Marie, Marty and Hanna come to stay in St. Paul with Mother, at Ellie’s house. These siblings, along with Line, have Dad’s nonconformity, while Ellie and Kristen blend into their surroundings more. Mother is enjoying her status in the city. The next day they drive up to their lake cabin, have a meal around the Ben Franklin and enjoy the stars and dancing on the thick lake ice at night.

The Cohen family, including Poppa, gathers from California, Minnesota and Edinburgh, where they have each spent the school year, in Tuscany at a rented villa. Sitting in the evening sun, Poppa tells about his film club, Stephen about his historical studies, Heather about wine-making. They visit Siena and Florence, with Siena being their favorite. They find delectable food at a restaurant in Greve.

Marty is lonely as she tries to become her own impeccable self. She practices tai chi several times a week in class, enjoys Chinese food with the international mix of class members and reads about Taoism. She has taken off a year, but is about to begin another job at a big architectural firm. She and Matthew go to a gallery of fine art photographs. Matthew tells her stories and they share a bottle of wine.

Paul and Marie go down to St. Paul where Mother lives, to meet Hanna’s new partner, Faith. Hanna and Faith plan a cheese-making operation at Faith’s family farm in upstate New York. Marie’s sad background surfaces, as well as Mother’s growing disability. An unseasonal heavy snow arrives at Halloween, which Paul enjoys. It does prevent Hanna and Faith from flying out as planned, however.

In Edinburgh, Line visits a garden with her friend Kerry. Another evening, Fern brings home a friend who is pregnant and hasn’t talked to her family about it. Line counsels her to do so before she makes any decision. The Cohens wrap up their two-year sabbatical with a trip to the Isle of Man, where they walk the ancient royal way of the Manx kings in honor of the 1,000 year history of their parliament. 

Marty is surprised when Doug Henderson takes her out for dinner. They talk about wine-making, their families, finding themselves able to be quite honest with each other. Marty is proud of her ambitious architectural firm, but she also has a strenuous tai chi practice. She experiments with eating less and believes that she is finally developing the “sound mind in a sound body” advocated by the Romans. 

Line and Ivy repeat the Reiki mantras before going to work and school. Line is impressed with the idea of “hands of light.” She uses it on her hospice patients, a woman who is 98 and dying, and a young man with AIDS. She counsels the families of the dying as well as trying to ease their suffering. At night she picks up Ivy at the roller rink, who says Mackenzie, Doug Henderson’s wife, was there, pregnant.

Marty and Doug have a brief affair, which shakes Marty to her core. Doug takes her to a wine-tasting at a San Francisco hotel. But he is not free. When Doug’s wife has her baby, even though it is not Doug’s, he accepts the little boy as his own and tells Marty the affair is over. He can only be friends. Marty understands she must let go, must let Doug have his life and his family.

At Thanksgiving, Paul and Marie go to Bemidji where Grace is now awaiting her fourth child. Paul helps deliver meals out of the St. Phillips church, before coming home to their own meal. Gerald’s Ojibway mother and aunt are also present. Marie insists on singing after dinner. When they get home to Ely, Paul takes his dog out for a walk around the lake, thinking about the fishers he saw that year, and evolution.

Line, Stephen and Poppa all go to Minnesota for Christy’s graduation, very proud. Mother and Paul are also there. Christy is planning to go to Peru, in the Peace Corps. Two weeks later the California relatives convene for Heather’s graduation from U.C. Davis in enology. Doug Henderson brings Marty. Heather will go to Chile for an internship. Line is sorry that her children all seem to settle so far from her.

Paul, Marie and Mother drive out to visit Hanna in the Mohawk Valley in New York. They help with Faith’s family cheese-making operation and watch Hanna act in The Importance of Being Earnest. Paul and Marie make excursions up into Quebec and finally down to Concord, to Walden Pond. Paul realizes that Thoreau’s observant science no longer has the value it once did.

Two French friends stay with Marty, and they all go down to the annual tai chi week at a youth camp, once a logging camp in the redwoods. Four practice periods a day make it intense. After a few days, when their legs have stabilized, Marty enjoys the camaraderie, the lightness. They are a forest of mirrors, reflecting each other. When they get back to the city, there is more practice and Ted spirits Marty away one night.

When asked what she wants most for her birthday, Line realizes she wants to spend time with Mother. She and Ivy go out to Minnesota, where Mother, Paul and Marie are spending the summer. Mother spends her time in a recliner looking out at the bird feeders and the lake below, less mobile all the time. But she, Line, Ivy and Marie go into town to a frothy tea shop where they have cinnamon rolls and tea.

Marty is thrilled by a discussion of Flaubert after a dinner with friends, intellectual fodder. Doug comes to the city and they go to a new art museum. They talk intimately, but “you can’t build your life around your love,” Doug tells her. Marty works, does tai chi, finding absence and silence refines her love. She cannot deny it. She calls and finds that Mother is living with pain, in her back and her joints.

Ellie finds Mother dead of a heart incident on a September afternoon. All of the Mikkelson siblings gather, except Line, who is in Europe. Paul speaks for the family at the large funeral at Mother’s church. Afterwards they each take some of Mother’s possessions. Paul and Marie take Marty and Hanna to the airport, talking about their family legacy. Mother had relied on Paul, a pleasant weight which has now lightened.

Line picks up her daughter Heather and her friend from Chile, Pablo, at the winery on a rainy night. Pablo tells them that Heather has agreed to marry him. They want to be married soon, when Pablo’s parents can come. Line is even more surprised to learn Heather wants to become Catholic. The wedding is simple, but special, at Line’s house. Line believes Heather will be happy, but sadly will move to Chile.

Marty picnics at the arboretum with her cousin Sarah, her partner and toddler. When they leave, Marty takes tea at the Japanese tea garden, thinking about how much her preoccupations have turned toward the East. At work, Marty feels pressured, but happy. She is competent and useful in the high powered architectural firm. She also takes a calligraphy class, copying a meaningful Shakespeare sonnet.

Paul and Marie wake up in a campsite on the grounds of a Renaissance Faire. They have a paying gig there on the weekends, singing songs from Elizabethan times. They have researched these songs carefully. Back at home, Paul works at the computer lab at the high school. He walks with Archie, thinking about the cabin (which is not in good shape), his position, evolution, Christianity.

In Edinburgh for another guest lectureship, Line and Stephen have a cottage with a garden, but Line does feel she has little responsibility, waits for the mail. When they go to Glasgow for research, Line stops at a botanical garden and meets an older woman who has some relationship to Stephen’s research. He laughs at how Line finds people, while he has to rely on books!

At the cabin in the northern woods, Paul and Marie and Grace’s family have a cookout at the end of summer. When the Hickman’s leave, Paul and Marie pack up, but are surprised by a visit from Christy and his girlfriend. They all have a political conversation late at night over cocoa. Christy loves the progressive Paul Wellstone, whom he has worked for. Marie sings as everyone packs up and moves on.

Marty enjoys planning the Christmas party for her office with her committee. They have an elaborate spy skit planned, to take place at an art gallery. Marty is being pressured at work to be more “strategic.” She does her usual round of work and tai chi, spending an afternoon with Doug at Thanksgiving. The party comes off well. At her apartment, Marty’s neighbor is taken away, leaving a horrific apartment mess.

In Edinburgh, Line enjoys the blooming spring at Kerry’s cottage. Kerry joins her and Stephen for dinner, decrying the situation in Bosnia and Kosovo. She is working with refugees. Paul calls Line to say that Marie is having a double mastectomy, wants to talk about her treatment. Line goes to Minnesota on her way home to help. Marie wants to refuse chemotherapy and radiation. Line washes Marie’s hair.

Doug asks Marty to meet him at a restaurant near the Bay. He asks her if she would be willing to move in with him, at the ranch in Boulder Creek. Mackenzie wants a divorce, doesn’t want custody of the kids. Marty quits her demanding job and has a few months of openness before arrangements are made. Doug takes her to a bed and breakfast, and an amazing Japanese-style cedar enzyme bath and massage.

Marie longs for warmth and sunshine as winter comes on. Paul makes arrangements to drive down to Oaxaca for the winter. The car manages, they find a place to stay and have a quiet time, going to mass in the mornings, resting and listening to music. On St. Cecilia’s day, the whole town turns out for a procession behind a statue of the saint. Marie loves this saint, and she and Paul wend their slow way with the others.

On New Year’s Eve, 1999, Line and Stephen gather their daughters, Marty and Doug’s family, and Alice and Poppa for a party. Several people go to an evening service of peace, and the rest talk about what kind of year each of them have had. The year, in which everyone is worried about the calendar turning over to 2000, slips away quite benignly nevertheless.