Literary Fiction

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The American Wife

Stories (Michigan Literary Fiction Awards)

By Elaine Ford


Of Elaine Ford's novel, "Missed Connections", the "Washington Post" wrote that it is a work "of small episodes, of precise sentences, of unusual clarity." That same clarity proves an unsettling force in Ford's stories, where precision of prose often belies uncertainties hidden beneath. In the title piece, an "American woman in England", embroiled in a relationship doomed to fail, discovers how little she understands about her own desires and impulses. In another story, another American wife, abandoned in Greece by her archaeologist husband, struggles to solve a crime no one else believes to have been committed. Throughout her stories Ford touches on the mysteries that make up our lives. Each story in itself is a masterpiece of such detail and power as to transform the way we see the world.
About the Author

Elaine Ford is the author of five novels. For her fiction she has received two National Endowment for the Arts grants and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She is Professor Emerita at the University of Maine, where she taught creative writing and literature. She lives in Harpswell, Maine.

Books » History » General
The Path to Home By Edgar Albert Guest

It couldn’t be done.
by Edgar Albert Guest 1881 - 1959

Somebody said that it couldn’t be done,
    But, he with a chuckle replied
That "maybe it couldn’t," but he would be one
    Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.
So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
    On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
    That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

Somebody scoffed: "Oh, you’ll never do that;
    At least no one has done it";
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat,
    And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.
With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,
    Without any doubting or quiting,
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
    That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
    There are thousands to prophesy failure;
There are thousands to point out to you one by one,
    The dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle it in with a bit of a grin,
    Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start to sing as you tackle the thing
    That "couldn’t be done," and you’ll do it



Books » History » General
A Dozen New Poems By Edgar Albert Guest

"Style is diction; style is cadence; style is syntax; style is word choice and the spectrum of a writer’s vocabulary; style is length of sentences and the careful placement of different length sentences into a paragraph in the way a master stonemason would set stones into an unmortared wall meant to last for centuries; style is repetition and knowing when not to repeat; style is omission; style is misdirection and subliminal suggestion; style is specificity set into deliberate vagueness; style is crafty vagueness set amidst a forest of specificity; style is the motion of the mind at work; style is the pulse and heartbeat of the narrative sensibility; style is balance; style is the projective will of the writer creating a portal of access to the receptive will of the discerning reader; style is the sound our words make on paper.

Style is goddamned hard." -- Dan Simmons

First published in 1931, this classic novel about Chinese peasant life around the turn of the 20th century seems a little dated now but still possesses enough emotional power to engage modern readers.  I first read this when I was 14. I am eager to read it again.

The book traces the slow rise of Wang Lung from humble peasant farmer to great landlord-a feat he achieves by steadily adding to his lands and making enormous sacrifices to retain them through hard times.

As one of the first Western novels to explore the lives of ordinary Chinese, this work has had an enormous influence on American views of China, and it propelled Buck to the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1938.

Books » Fiction & Literature » Classics
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Modern Classics

By Betty Smith, Anna Quindlen (Foreword by)



The beloved American classic about a young girl's coming-of-age at the turn of the century, Betty Smith's "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" is a poignant and moving tale filled with compassion and cruelty, laughter and heartache, crowded with life and people and incident.

The story of young, sensitive, and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the slums of Williamsburg has enchanted and inspired millions of readers for more than sixty years. By turns overwhelming, sublime, heartbreaking, and uplifting, the daily experiences of the unforgettable Nolans are raw with honesty and tenderly threaded with family connectedness -- in a work of literary art that brilliantly captures a unique time and place as well as incredibly rich moments of universal experience.

Reviews"A profoundly moving novel, and an honest and true one. It cuts right to the heart of life. . . . If you miss "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" you will deny yourself a rich experience."--"New York Times"

This is my favorite.  I have read and re-read my copy of this novel so often it is falling apart. I think I am ready to reread it again.

Through the eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Atticus Finch's children, Pulitzer Prize-winner Lee explores with rich humor and unanswering honesty the irrationality of adult attitudes toward race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s.

This volume celebrates the 50th anniversary of a modern classic that inspired a beloved, Academy Award-winning film.

I used to write for a Doctor for the Australian Medical Journal, of that was decades ago. It was fun to write about things I was interested but had to research before I could write about them. Learning while earning. I am doing it part time this year. Writing about some of the things I know little about, lol. By the end of the year, I hope to have had an education without having paid for it.  Love that idea.

Do you write what you know or what you would love to know? www.booknf.com

Fiction Flurry What's the worst Valentines Day gift you've ever received? http://www.fictionflurry.blogspot.com/

Kathy Joy Shell I've never had a worst Valentine Gift. I've always appreciated everything given with love. Mostly that is what we give, our love, not physically purchased items as that is just commercialism to us. Oh and loved the same person for 52 years. It isn't about the bought stuff.