I Don't Hate It | Linger in the Driveway
Hey there. It's a gorgeous day here in Charlottesville, sunny and sixty-six degrees. I lingered outside this afternoon, which is so out of character as to be worrisome.
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1. Earlier this week I had to run an errand in the middle of the day (taxes are due!) and was able to catch Charles Bock on Fresh Air. The interview was so completely captivating that I sat in my car in the parking lot for several minutes, not wanting to turn off the radio, not wanting it to end. I sat there thinking this even as I knew I could access the program in its entirety later through the podcast app on my phone. When I posted about it on Facebook, a friend commented that it was "a real driveway moment." Terry Gross interviewed Bock on the occasion of the publication of his new novel, Alice & Oliver, which was inspired by Bock's first wife's cancer diagnosis just months after giving birth to their daughter.
2. Listening to Bock and reading Alice & Oliver made me think about the last time I sat up in bed and cried my eyes out while finishing a novel: David Nicholls's One Day. An entirely different novel in almost every way, One Day is the story of two people who meet on the last day of university in 1988 and then continue to see each other on that same day each year for two decades. The movie adaptation isn't bad, either.
3. My third recommendation this time is self-serving and geographically specific. If you're in New York, please come to KGB Bar on Tuesday, April 19th, at 7:00 PM. LaShonda Katrice Barnett, Amanda Harris, Tanwi Nandini Islam, Anna March, and I will be reading, thanks to Lillian Ann Slugocki and Deborah Oster Pannell who founded and curate BEDLAM: New Work by Women Writers. Say hello!