Lazy Blogger, That's Me

Really? April, you say? That's the last time I updated? Oh.... um. OH LOOK A BIRD! There it goes, let's all watch it as I sneak away, back into my corner of shame.

I would like to tell you a story, I would like to sit you down, give you a blanket and a cup of something spiced and warm, and let your eyes unfocus on the firelight, while your mind dances away into a different world, lingers on descriptions, and tastes the light touch of each palpable word.

I'd like to tell you the story, of everything I've read, every beautiful prose and heartbreaking shard of perfect poetry.

Buuuut.... I can't really remember. So, I'll start with where I am now, which is as good a place to begin, as the beginning itself.

I'm currently around fourty (40) pages into The Well and the Mine by Gin Philips. It's a fairly new release, having been published first in April, and is the debut novel of Philips, and winner of a first place 'Discover Great New Writers' award from Barnes and Noble.

It tells the story of a family living in a rural Alabama coal mining town in the 1930's. It is told from several points of view (the children, the wife, and the husband), as they experience a murder-of-sorts in their backyard.

So far, it is written with impeccable precision, as though Philips were standing just out of sight, and observed these events herself, with an eye for translating them into prose.

On the first page, at the first line, she takes your hand, and jumps headlong with you into the thick, startling plot, and then seamlessly ambles, with an authentic ease of pace through the beginning of her story with an accent flavored heavily with the warmth of southern summers, and the bleak worry of poverty hanging just behind that curtain of misleading comfort.

It strikes the reader as simultaneously lulling and discomforting, an emotion perfectly suited to the uneasy mystery in her novel.

On a personal note, I think it's rather lovely so far. I can't attest for much, being such a short way in, but I feel at complete ease in the hands of Ms. Philips, who impresses even more, being that this is her first novel, and yet told with such a convincing authority, and intriguingly unique delivery, that one cannot but help to crave just a few more pages, just a couple more lines, before bed, or work, or school, draws you reluctantly outward again, and away from what is unarguably, and invaluably, a very good book.

I'll let you know how I find the rest of it, as it comes. Hopefully sooner than next April;P