Harper Lee's "Furious Hours"

I’ve just finished “Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee,” by Casey Cep.

It’s part murder mystery, part journalism, part biography and very well-researched.

The title takes its name from a reference to the Battle at Horseshoe Bend, between the forces of Gen. Andrew Jackson and some members of the Creek Indian tribe in what was then Mississippi, but is now Alabama, in 1814. (Harper Lee mentioned this in a lecture about someone else who would be interesting to read about, 19th century Alabama historian Albert Pickett.)

The book is about Harper Lee’s attempts to complete a second book (not counting “Go Set a Watchman,” which was the base on which “To Kill A Mockingbird,” was built.)

She came upon the tale of the apparent serial killer Rev. Willie Maxwell by cocktail party chance, and spent an amazing amount of time (years and years) trying to bring his story, the story of his victims, of his lawyer and of his murderer to life, but in the end, could not. In good part because the lives of black Americans in the South were not documented. Unless they were lynched.

Casey Cep has done a great job of examining why writers write, how they write, and, how, sometimes, they cannot (lack of good and supportive editors being a one reason).

In the end, “Furious Hours” seems to me more apt in referring to the time spent honing “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Trying to bring the story of the Rev. Willie Maxwell, Tom Radney and Robert Burns, seemed more of a slow boil of frustration. I suppose in that sense, it was the last trial of Harper Lee, daughter of a small-town lawyer.

Good book, well written and, again, very well-researched. A Borzoi Book published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2019.

Doors open

Kate in Boston, 2015, visiting Heidi.
(Photo by Heidi Pervin Yamaguchi)

Lunch time in the cafeteria at a suburban Maryland Catholic elementary school (Holy Cross in Garrett Park) where I landed in in 7th grade. Another stop in the bouncing around life of an Army brat (I didn't know that was what I was called until much later) and second U.S. school after three years in France.

At this school, I remember being best friends with Patti Miller, and listening to Sister Mary Paul rant about the Congo. (So, yeah, late 60s.)

Back to lunch time. I'm sitting at a table when schoolmate Sally S., kid of a big Catholic family, squeezes her right hand around the back of my neck. Hard. I don't really remember being bullied, just this one incident. Maybe there was more going on, because I also remember being fed up, so I reached back with my right hand and dug my fingernails onto her grasping claw. That ended it. I was a small person then; I'm sure Sally was too. In memory, she is sallow, with a severe pageboy haircut and a nasty sneer. Perhaps I'm piling on.

I guess I went through a door that day. Not to being a  bravesuperwonderfulstrong  person for the rest of my life. But to being someone who, for a moment, had had enough.

Other doors have opened in my life, thankfully not by Sally's method.

Starting at a new school in France, par example, led me to another best friend, Evelyne Eon (I had a lot of one-year BFs). We called each other "petite" as we ran around the playground holding hands. I remember her fondly. Our little-girl friendship made the constant upheaval of Army life bearable, if only for a while.

At Ohio State, karate lessons opened the door to a lifelong friendship with Heidi Pervin Yamaguchi. You know how some memories are seared in your brain?  I remember a late spring night in Columbus, sitting on a curb along High Street in North Campus with Heidi, just talking. Nothing pressing, just the murmurs of two young women sharing time before we became grownups with responsibilities. Brain may have trimmed this memory over the years, but I love it nonetheless.

I am so lucky to have made good friends during my life. And some of them are not even flesh and blood.

I love the girls of this last group because they all went through doors, too. And more valiantly than me. They are, as my earliest through-the-door friend exclaimed, "Curiouser and curiouser!"

So, you might guess that my first valiant girlfriend is Alice. I do not recall the first time I read "Alice in Wonderland." It might even have been read to me by Mom or Grammio. Whatever the provenance of the story in my brain, I love that Alice embraced the absurdity that came her way. Falling down a rabbit hole? What a perfect time for a nap! Land in a heap of twigs in a long hall with many doors? Then eat cakes or drink beverages as instructed! Believe impossible things? Why not!

“There’s no use trying,” said Alice, “one can’t believe impossible things.” 

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. 

“When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day.
Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

My second valiant girlfriend is Lucy Pevensie, whose tumble through a wardrobe door during the Blitz starts her adventures in Narnia with Edmund, Peter and Susan. Lucy is special. Her siblings doubt her when she returns to Spare Oom. Edmund bullies and betrays her, yet she never gives up on her new friend, Mr. Tumnus, on her new adventure, or even on Edmund. Throughout the chronicles of Narnia, she is loyal, brave and forgiving. My dad's mother bought all seven of the books for us seven grandchildren and, at least at the beginning, read them to us. I was first, so I got "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe," in which Lucy's story begins.

My third valiant girlfriend is Coraline Jones. Neil Gaiman's heroine, knocking about in a creaky, high-ceilinged old house, discovers a door that leads to her "other" mother. All will be well. Except, when it isn't. Coraline realizes that buttons for eyes mean blinding yourself. For her, it turns out that distracted real Mom and real Dad, are, though imperfect, better than other.

I check in with these valiant girls often. But the door always swings back to reality and my true BFFs. You know who you are. Lots of love.

Pool

The Buchanan family pool.
(Photo by Katy Buchanan)

I have splashed through my last laps at home.

My family has inhabited this space for 48 years and it is past time to go. The pool won't be open next year.

So many good memories of parents, siblings, schoolmates, neighbors, nephews, in-laws and friends enjoying this space.

My dad used to swim laps in this pool. So did my mom.

I remember, after coming back home from college, skinny-dipping with friends early in the morning and sharing champagne and strawberries with sour cream and brown sugar.

The pool was part of the scenery and of the reception on my wedding day.

The service for my late brother Chris was held on the deck that he used to power wash.

My late brother Peter fearlessly bounced off the long-gone diving board. (I don't remember using the board, but I do remember doing racing dives off the deep end. Mom was a fanatic about all us kids knowing how to swim.)

There were noodles, inflatables, water guns and lots of hilarity. And so much time spent just sitting on the deck and talking into the evening, the underwater light keeping dusk away.

Originally, there was a wrought iron fence surrounding the pool. I remember spending a high school summer stripping the white paint off of it. A few years later, my parents had the fence taken down and the pool refurbished. It still has the pretty blue tiles from that remodel circling under the coping.

My nephews as recently as this summer came to visit and, in between gaming and practicing guitar, dove in with the casual exuberance of very young men.

The water was cold on Sunday, but the sun was shining. After about 45 minutes, I got out and, even though I had slathered on sunblock, was still a bit sunburned.

The best thing about swimming is that it really gets your heart rate up. You can feel its benefits throughout the day. And you'll sleep well, too.

Thanks for the memories, pool.

Art appreciation

"Era of Cool" show at the Westmoreland.  Art by John Van Hamersveld.
August 17, 2019. (Photo by Katy Buchanan)

I can't draw. I can doodle, and scribble and do good design. I've even thrown a few nice pots in my time. I'm fine with that.

And yet ... besides wishing that I could sing, I wish, I wish my brain was built for the super-driven creativity and exultation of purpose on display in "Era of Cool,"  now at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art.

I'm more of a dilettante. I love learning new things, that's my passion and my weird discipline, I guess. Still, when I see cool art like this, I feel on the outside looking in. Why doesn't my brain work this way? I want it to, but ...

Blah, blah. Anyway. This art speaks to me because it is referential, not realistic. That sense of representation is why I love the Impressionists. They took reality and beautifully reduced it to shape and color. This is not to say I don't love the work of painters like Caravaggio or Vermeer. Their art is stunning and sends you deep into pondering the stories of the people they painted. But the artists who can strip off detail and take reality down to its essentials, I don't know why, but their work really does it for me.

In the 1960s, John Van Hamersveld used a photo of surfers, reduced it to its bones and made a poster for the movie Endless Summer that is just as stunning today as it was then. The yellow sun at the center draws you in, and you can see how the surfers converge toward it, chasing the light and the wave.

I had some 90 minutes to see the exhibit on Saturday, which is about my max time for gallery wandering. Admission is free. Plus, I got to see a painting by one of my favorite American artists, Milton Avery.

Here is my Endless Summer image.
Taken at Dormont Pool in Pittsburgh, around 5 p.m.
August 19, 2019. (Photo by Katy Buchanan)

Get busy living

Reading my mom's biography that's she's compiled over the years ... this stands out. She was recovering from the birth of my middle sis.

"Dad brought me 'The Guns of August' by Barbara Tuchman. I somehow managed to finish it in the five days I stayed in the hospital. Probably the last book I read for 20 years. Things got rather busy after that."

Five post-partum hospital days.

Wow.

And reading "The Guns of August" in 5 days.

After birth of kid 4 of 7. And my dad brought her such a weighty book.

Families are interesting, aren't they? (And things got busy!)

Also "Guns of August" is still on my to-read list.

I miss my dad. So many questions I would love to ask him. But he was a pretty private person; guess that's where I get it from. 

 

A summer night in 2019

Late summer is such a drowsy time. The season is cresting and heading downhill to autumn.

The back-to-school ads and commercials have started, but it's hard to take them seriously. All of August lies before us, a last blast of (hopefully) sun and lazy days of kids playing hoops in the street or zooming along the sidewalks on scooters. The fireflies stuck around 'til early July, kind of a rarity these years.

In my neck of Pittsburgh, the last day of July 2019 is hot, with towering clouds and a sky that looks ready to unload, yet again, cosmic buckets of rain. But so far, no showers. The bizarre weather manifests in a rainbow over thunder gray skies as I head home from meeting a friend on the North Shore.

(Photo by Katy Buchanan)

Home is drowsy, too. Filled with the murmuring hum of fridge and dehumidifier, the quiet tick-tock of a battery-powered clock. And, even though the windows are closed, I can still hear the steady burr of legions of crickets.

The dining room has a good view of the back yard and while I'm watching in the early evening, a hummingbird stops twice to fill up from the feeder.

I really love summer.

The photo is from June 21, the  summer solstice, at Randyland in Pittsburgh. A happy place.

Late July

(Photo by Katy Buchanan)

It's late Thursday, the third of three cool, dry days after a bucket-drenching rain on Monday in Pittsburgh. (I'm keeping track on my 2019 desk calendar, and 'bucket-drenching rain' is showing up a lot.)

A hummingbird just skimmed in front of my living room window and front screen door ... I'm puzzled because the lobelia is on one side of the house and the hummer feeder is on the back side, so not sure what that little guy was looking for. Except, now that I have seen this, my front porch pots next year definitely will not be papyrus.

I love June; it is so full of promise and goes by so fast. One phenomenon I've enjoyed this year, really late into the summer season is fireflies. They appeared in the back yard in mid- to late June and kept flashing into mid-July. We don't treat our lawns for anything, so maybe that's why. The back yard has a deep, dark slope and it is really magical seeing those golden firefly flickers late into the midsummer night.

Anyway, we are now almost at the end of July, when the season starts to end. I hate that I can already see September, and that back-to-school ads are popping up online and in print circulars.

One thing I've noticed over the years: Early summer is so quiet. By late July the crickets and katydids are doing their buzz and hum. That's how you know the season is changing.

The photo is of Stargazer lilies, at my mom's house. I think the vase is as pretty as the flowers.