The Second Time around

JAN: I'm reading Jane Eyre. Yes, because of the movie, but no, not for the first time. This is the third time I'm reading it, and what I'm wondering how I didn't notice earlier how longwinded it is. Or how incredibly groundbreaking the character of Jane Eyre must have been for her time. I guess I was pretty caught up in the love story. I knew she was a strong female character, but only now she was quite the feminist in the only way you could have been in the early 1800s.

So today's JUNGLE RED list. Is books you've read more than once. And what, if anything, surprised you on second or third readings.

RHYS: I am guilty of reading favorite books over and over. For years I reread The Lord of the Rings every six months, to the point that my daughter and I quizzed each other during long train-rides all over Europe. I always go to Agatha Christie when life is stressful and I need a book that doesn't involve me emotionally and in which life make sense. The moment In got a Kindle I downloaded the complete Jane Austen, the whole opus of P.G. Wodehouse. I just reread Northanger Abbey, which I hadn't read since my teens and I was amazed how very funny it is. A real spoof. Jane and I would have clicked instantly!

HANK: OH, I reread Wrinkle in Time recently--and though I still loved it, it was kind of..odd. Big holes in the plot, too big to even tesser through. I don't care, I still love it.

Rereading Nancy Drew is a big big mistake--they're pretty awful. Clunky, obvious, and even racist. A true period piece..and best left alone. (Don't even think about the new "updated" versions where Nancy has a cell phone. Yuck.)

On the good news side--I reread some Sue Grafton in "preparation" for Malice. (Wasn't she amazing?) And they are even better the second time--textured, themed and witty. (Is themed a word?)

DEB: I've reread different books at different stages in my life. I'm with Rhys on Lord of the Rings--I've reread the entire series every few years since I was fourteen. I also love Mary Stewart's romantic suspense. I can't count how many time I've read her novels, especially My Brother Michael, but it's been awhile. (My copies are crumbling.) At one point I think I'd almost memorized all the Dorothy Sayers, and I love Elizabeth Peter's Amelia Peabody books, especially the early ones.

The last few years I seem to have gone back to fantasy. I've reread all the Harry Potters, and all Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden books. I LOVE Harry Dresden. But now that I have a Kindle app on my phone, I think it's time I dipped into Jane Austen again, and Wodehouse. And, and, and . . . too many books . . . more ways to read them . . . not enough time . . . I think the most interesting question is WHY we reread certain things.

ROBERTA: I have a hard time rereading. I keep saving things that I love, thinking I'll want to go back, but there are so many books still to come! Thanks for the heads up on the Nancy Drews, Hank. I adored them growing up and keep thinking I should go back...

JAN: So tell us, what books have you found yourself rereading, and what did you learn the second (or third) time around?

Friday the Thirteenth

JAN: We don't like to think of ourselves as superstitious. But we all are. A little bit. I, for one, am totally convinced that all the Red Sox's problems this season are Joe Girardi's fault (NY Yankees manager) because he jinxed the team by saying we were the #1 team this year, the frontrunners, the team to beat. (And yes, he was trying to make us believe the Yankees were the underdogs.) I also am semi-convinced the rally caps my son and I wore during the 2004 playoffs are at least partly responsible for the Red Sox winning the series division.

Okay, that's how ridiculous I am. So on this Friday the thirteenth, what's your silly superstition?

ROBERTA: I love black cats, but not running across my path. And I won't walk under a ladder. And like you Jan, I hate to say things are going really well, for example: geez there was less traffic than we expected. That's asking for trouble and we all have to knock wood...

RHYS: I believe Hank asked me during an interview whether I was at all superstitious and I denied it. But I have noticed--if I'm up for an award and my hair looks good when I'm getting ready I don't win. If I can't do a thing with my hair and it looks awful--I win. But I can't make myself deliberately make my hair look terrible! My mother's family (Welsh influence) were horribly superstitious and had all these little mantras (drop a spoon, get a letter, drop a fork,visit from a lady, drop a knife, visit from a gentleman). I find myself muttering those things on occasion!

HANK: Rhys, you are too funny. Listen to this. On the night I was nominated for the best-first Agatha, I found a shiny shiny penny on the floor by my banquet seat. I snapped it up..and it was from 2005--the year I first started writing. I was SO HAPPY. And I won! So, of course it was the penny.

This year, nominated for Best Novel,I also found a coin! I was SO happy. I picked it up--and it was a Canadian coin. Sigh. And Louise Penny won. (Pretty funny on several levels...)

Am I superstitious? YES. I will not put a hat on a bed or shoes on a table.

DEB: I didn't grow up in a superstitious family. The only thing I can remember really worrying about as a child was "Don't step on a crack or you'll break your mother's back." Since my mother is ninety this year and her back is still okay, I must have avoided a lot of cracks! I've had several black cats, and only worry about walking under ladders if I think a can of paint might fall on my head.

I do worry about the reverse jinx, though. If I think, or say I think, I'm going to win an award, or that someting particularly good is going to happen, etc., I'm afraid I'll jinx it.

And I collect little tokens; a cardinal feather, a shell from the beach in Florida, a pretty little fragment of aqua tile I found on a morning walk. There's no real significance to these things, except as ties to moments that made me feel happy.

Love your penny story, Hank!

JAN: I never even heard of the not putting a hat on the bed. And I only don't put shoes on a table for hygienic reasons -- which just goes to show -- how many superstitions there really are - I can't keep track of them all.

So what weird superstitions are you in denial about? Come on fess up!

Crime Theater

JAN: Arlene Violet, a former nun, was the attorney general in Providence when I was a reporter there in the mid 1980s, and all sorts of corruption was percolating. She later would write her memoir, Convictions, and go on to become Rhode Island's number one talk radio host. Now, she's written a play, a musical about the mob, called The Family, and it starts running at Providence's prestigious, Trinity Repertory Theater. next month: from June second to July first.

I don’t open all my emails from Trinity Rep. in Providence but when I saw a musical about the mafia – I was sold, even before I saw that Arlene Violet wrote it. I knew from her vast experience as Attorney General that she had the material. But my biggest question for Arlene was this: How did you decide to make it a play – AND A MUSICAL, at that?

ARLENE: Enrico Garzilli, the brilliant composer and lyricist, had just finished his Michealangelo, a musical at PPAC. He suggested that we do something together. We decided that it should be about the Mob since during my two stints in the office of Attorney General (1976-77-head of Consumer Fraud) and in the mid-80’s as Attorney General, I often interacted with informants, police and the accused. There were so many stereotypes, I felt that it was time to do something authentic so the public would understand how these mob operations were able to take root since today’s gangs follow a similar pattern.

I love the tradition of musical theatre where the dialogue leads up to the emotional moment of the scene which is carried by the music/lyrics. For maximum dramatic impact, we decided on a musical.

JAN: The Providence Journal reports that you got your inspiration from Raymond Patriarca, the former mob boss. Tell me more about that.

ARLENE: - Don Marco, the godfather, in THE FAMILY, is the personification of a mob boss like Raymond Patriarca. The “boss” is able to keep the “respect” of the neighborhood because he sometimes does charitable things. I believe that sometimes good guys are bad and bad guys are good so this element is in the musical. One incident in Patriarca’s life where he did an extremely generous act is in THE FAMILY.

JAN: Tell us a little about the plot of the play.

ARLENE: The musical is called THE FAMILY because the godfather has to juggle his mob family(a wise guy defects into the witness protection program which, in turn, causes this witness his own family problems, his own family where his son does not want to be a member of the mob,and the “family” demands of his community. All the “family” conflicts converge in the climax of the musical.

The protagonist is Don Marco. His antagonist is Joe Barros, the wise guy who goes into witness protection. They do a “minuet ‘of trying to take each other out with tragic consequences.

JAN: This play sounds terrific. What was the hardest part of writing it as a play? How is it different from telling a story in book form?

ARLENE: The biggest difference in writing a play from a book is that you have to have an enhanced visual /aural perception of how to advance the story. While writers are told all the time to “show the story” and use these cues, in theatre anything that can be told in a minimum of dialogue. With “sight/sound “ it is critically important not to overwrite. Because I am a believer of the “traditional musical’s” structure, I believe that dialogue leads up to the emotional impact of the scene with music.

JAN: What’s it like working with a composer? Do you have input into the songs and lyrics or is it completely the composer’s domain?

ARLENE: Working with Enrico was a joy. He is brilliant and because of this fact, he is never threatened .We often talked about both the structure of the musical and the lyrics because I was more of a “thug’ than he was!

JAN: Are you the producer as well? Tell us about casting?

ARLENE: I am the managing producer. We have what is called in the business a “Front End Investor” agreement. These Rhode Islanders who invested, insisted that I be the producer in control (they also are producers) re husbanding their respective investments. Casting is always difficult for a musical since the actor must be a “triple threat”, i.e. must be a great actor, singer and dancer .We did close to two hundred auditions from the northeast to come up with the sixteen cast members.

JAN: We have a lot of crime writers who follow our blog, Any advice you have for anyone wanting to use their material to write a play?

ARLENE: Re the wonderful crime writers on this blog, my best advice is to believe in your work. Then revisualize/auralize your Work re scenes. You get to (and must) “show” much more in a play then the written word.

JAN: You’ve been a nun, lawyer, attorney general, author, radio talk show host, playwriting, (and possibly producer? ) What haven’t you done, and what could possibly be next??

ARLENE: This sounds like I can’t keep a job! My next most important goal would be to be a crime writer as good as the people who are reading this!