Photo Credit: Dani Shaw.
I grew up shelving books on bookcases built by my father. They stood, floor to ceiling, on either side of the fireplace, which had above it a mantle crafted by the same man: a veteran of two tours in the Vietnam War, working out his demons by sawing, carving, and hammering wood into the shape of his will. Making beauty to escape his psyche's torment. My father bought an encyclopedia set, which filled an entire row on the left of the fireplace. I repeatedly reached for D and H, to learn about breeds of dogs and horses, respectively. M was my gateway into the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The bookcase on the right of the fireplace was filled with paperbacks, including children's chapter books, issues of Readers' Digest, and books for grownups my parents had acquired but that I had never seen them read. Black & White: Stories of American Life, an anthology including works by Gwendolyn Brooks, Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Joyce Carol Oates, Flannery O'Connor, and William Faulkner (Washington Square Press, 1971), and The Woman and the Men: Poems by Nikki Giovanni (William Morrow and Company, 1975), were staples of my childhood -- their tattered spines making up a literal literary background. I grew into a writing-obsessed being -- earning Bachelor's degrees in Spanish and Journalism, a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, and spending my professional life working in multiple disciplines. My parents a few years ago downsized into a smaller home from the one in which they raised three girls. Black & White: Stories of American Life and The Women and the Men were treasures my mother passed on to me. |