As a further expression of thanks, this Sunday we’ll inaugurate
our Literary Believer Perks Plus Program.
We’ll pluck three names from a hat, and each winning Literary Believer will
receive a signed copy of a previous Harriet Scott Chessman novel: Ohio Angels, Lydia Cassatt Reading the
Morning Paper, or Someone Not Really
Her Mother.
Anyone who has pre-ordered The Beauty of Ordinary Things by
11:59 p.m. on Saturday, August 24th will be automatically entered to win.
Below, we share a stunning passage from Ms. Chessman’s third
novel, Someone Not Really Her Mother. For
me, these few sentences exemplify the magic of Chessman’s prose. Placing us in
the mind of the aged main character, Hannah, as her thoughts wander into the
italicized and vivifying provinces of memory, Chessman evokes the bright longing,
the shining loneliness, and the sparkling tidal rhythms that characterize time
for anyone who’s lived a while and is the least bit sensitive to its passing.
Till Sunday, and with constant thanks to all you Literary
Believers,
M. Allen Cunningham, Atelier26 Books
From Harriet Scott Chessman’s Someone Not Really Her Mother:
As she stands at the window, over
the sink, she thinks of her own birthday, her
seventh; she is Hannah Luce, and she’s in the garden with Maman and Tante
Louise, and Emma, and Papa too, and the day is bright blue, in the cherry tree
above her head, filled with white blossoms. Maman gives her a plate with a
piece of her almond cake, and as Hannah takes her first mouthful, she thinks to
herself, this is what I must write about, now, soon, for I am a poet, and the
world is a poem — such a surprising thought to have, when you’re seven, and all
is still before you, England and America, the perishing of those you love, the
baby crying on the boat, birthday cakes with balloons, a little girl running in
a garden, a little girl coming out of the shadows of a pine tree. Here in this
garden, you are seven years old and all of it is still to come.
