Bookstore Confessions and More Thoughts on After Lucy

First the confessions. I bought three books yesterday. All used. All children's books. Obviously my Inner Child had snuck to the front. I went in thinking maybe I would find something in the writing or essays sections - but came out with A light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein (I've always wanted my own copy!), Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke (it's a New York Times Bestseller and has a dragon, a boy and a cat on the cover- it has to be good), and Earth Magic by Mallory Loehr ( the second of a series of books that involve kids, adventures and elemental magick). So now there are two more books on my list to read and a poetry book to dip into from time to time for a refreshing and ridiculous look at life. Maybe next time I'll find the Basho, Muir and Thoreou for my Higher Self.

Now continuing with After Lucy. I am about three quarters of the way through. There have been some twist and turns - unexpected plot building that leaves me really wondering how this book is going to turn out. The author has covered a lot of different issues so far and amazingly keeps adding more - cancer, death of a spouse, in-law relations, children coping, unusual social situations, counter culture, life choices and paths and more.
I like that. I like how occasionally you can feel where the author hit his inner nerves just right and the words flew out onto the pages expressing difficult things to express and in blatantly honest ways. It feels uncensored - like what life is like for real but so often gets touted as something else.

I'll end with a particular poignant quote from the book.

"Privately he'd fancied himself as the emerging Springsteen of the art world. God knows the painting world needed a Bruce Springsteen to cut through all the elitist crap and reveal what a pure struggle life was for most working people out there -- the meat-and-potatoes stuff artists used to care about but didn't seem to bother with anymore. No wonder the average person didn't give two shits about going to art galleries and museums. Nothing inside spoke to them. It all had to be explained, and even then the explanations wouldn't make any sense unless you'd studied cubism and feminism and postmodernism and read Kant and Freud and Kierkegaard and had memorized the complete history of all the world's religions."