When I was in the eighth grade, I got to be a teaching assistant during one of my class periods. It was a program for the “gifted” kids and I jumped at the chance to be an assistant for my favorite Reading teacher, Mrs. Cox. I had been in her class in sixth grade and she had made a memorable impression on me for a couple of reasons: she was sarcastic as hell (I think I learned my sarcasm from Mrs. Cox) and she loved to read almost as much as I did. Oh, and she used to loan me books. I was pretty much reading adult fiction by fifth grade and somehow managed to miss an awful lot of adolescent and YA fiction as a result, but oh!, the world of adult fiction was wonderful! It was filled with complex plots and interesting characters and settings far beyond my limited imagination… and sex. Mustn’t forget the sex! Adult fiction is filled with sex!
As a teacher’s assistant, I got to do things like straighten the classroom and erase chalk boards and even grade papers. I was in heaven! I never really aspired to be a teacher, but I loved being surrounded by the accouterments of academia-- pens and paper and books, wonderful, wonderful books! One of the conditions of getting to read during my teaching assistant period was that I had to finish all the other stuff Mrs. Cox assigned me first. Honestly, she didn’t give me all that much to do and I spent probably thirty minutes of the hour reading. I got credit for reading! Seriously, is it any wonder that I love school to this day?
One class period, Mrs. Cox took the sixth grade class to the library and left me in the classroom to grade quizzes. She had left a stack of books on the table for me and told me, as always, that whenever I was done grading I could read. I tried, I really tried, to grade the quizzes before going through the books, but my little eighth grade bookworm’s heart just leapt every time I looked at that stack of fat paperback novels. I think I managed to grade a handful of quizzes before I couldn’t take it anymore. I dove into the books and started reading Foxfire by Anya Seton.
I had never read anything like Foxfire before. Set in the Great Depression era of the 1930s, it tells the story of a young woman from New York who marries a half-Apache miner and moves with him out west. I was captivated by Ms. Seton’s descriptions of the Arizona desert and the strange tension she created between her main characters. At the core, it is a romance-- but it is so much more. An adventure, a mystery, a frozen moment in history, Foxfire hooked my thirteen year old imagination. I wanted to be Amanda, I wanted to run away to Arizona with Dart and hunt for treasure.
I had only intended to read a few pages of my wonderful new find-- just enough to quench my reading hunger-- but within minutes I was thoroughly engrossed. Shoulders hunched, long hair falling my face, legs tucked up under me, I wasn’t in Margate Middle School in Florida, I was in Lodestone, Arizona. I had been transported. So much so, I did not hear Mrs. Cox come into the room. She called my name and I jumped, feeling guilty and waiting for her to say something sarcastic (which was far worse than her yelling at me, believe me). She only asked what I was reading, nodded in approval, grabbed the papers she had forgotten and went back to the library. She didn’t tell me to stop reading and get back to grading, but I did. I tucked Foxfire away and graded like a mad girl, straightening everything on her desk for good measure. I felt guilty for shirking my duties and for getting caught reading (though it was hardly the first time I had snuck in some reading time). I tucked Foxfire in my book bag and picked up where I had left off on the bus ride home. I think I read that book three times before I returned it to Mrs. Cox. I was like that when I was a kid-- I’d read a book straight through, go back to page one and start over. I hungered for those words on the page and Ms. Seton’s story had struck a nerve.
It took me until I was an adult to understand why Mrs. Cox hadn’t been annoyed about my reading that day. I was reading! Reading! I worked in a library long enough to know that raising a reader is not an automatic or easy thing. The born-to-read types like myself aren’t all that common. I was getting more of an education in literature, vocabulary, history and storytelling in my furtive reading of Foxfire than I was by putting big red X’s next to misspelled vocabulary words of sixth grades. Mrs. Cox fed my hunger for books and indulged my impatience because she knew the value of my passion.
I have thought about that book often over the years, wondering why that one-- of the thousands I read as a kid-- stuck in my mind. At least part of it was the circumstances-- I felt like I had let down my favorite teacher/mentor. That doesn’t explain why I remember the details of the plot, the characters’ names and quirks nearly thirty years after I read it. That is storytelling skill-- something Ms. Seton had and something writers spend their entire lives learning. There are a couple dozen books or so like that which have stayed with me for decades. I’ve looked up Foxfire on Amazon now and again, but it went out of print. First published in 1951, I read the 1978 reprint. Funny, I didn’t know it was an “old” book until recently-- as a kid I think I believed all the books Mrs. Cox was giving me to read were “new” books-- new stories, new authors. Had she told me (or had I thought to check the publication date) I was reading a book that was written before I was born I probably would have wrinkled my nose and declined.
Last month, Chicago Review Press reprinted Anya Seton’s Foxfire. I bought my copy last week, anxious to find out if the story has stood the test of time, if my forty-one year old imagination will be as captivated as my thirteen year old imagination. I’m only into the second chapter (I don’t read as fast as I used to, sadly), but I’ve noticed two startling things-- the pace and tension are still there and still as crisp I remember-- and Mrs. Cox is still there, watching me read and nodding knowingly.
Isn’t that a captivating book cover?
I’m delighted to be a stop on the Spanked Virtual Book Tour! Rachel Kramer Bussel’s newest anthology from Cleis Press is packed with twenty delicious spanking stories from some of the naughtiest and most respected minds in erotic fiction.
Rachel has done a smashing job of gathering a tantalizing variety of stories for this themed anthology. Like rich chocolates, each delectable morsel leaves the reader wanting just one more bite. Shanna Germain’s shiveringly good “Perfect Bound,” Alison Tyler’s naughty-but-oh-so-nice “Betty Crocker Gone Bad” and Donna George Storey’s teasing confessional “A Rare Find” are among my favorites in this collection. I was also delighted to discover some new-to-me authors in the lineup, including Rick Roberts’ “Spanking You,” which opens the anthology and sets the tone for a variety of delicious intimacies.
The book tour finishes up tomorrow at DigiRomp. Be sure to check out the other blogs on the tour (below), as well as the Spanked blog, for interviews with the editor and authors. Rachel’s website also features a Spanked book trailer!
Spanked Virtual Book Tour
August
1 – Alison Tyler
2 – The Cherry Red Report
3 – Thomas’s spanking exploits
4 – Zille Defeu’s Fetish Fantasies
5 – The House of Richard Windsor
6 – Funky Brown Chick
7 – Baser Instincts
8 – Life in Motion
9 – All Things Spanking
10 – Viviane’s Sex Carnival
11 – Jamye Waxman
12 - Babeland
13 – NYC Urban Gypsy
14 – Femdom Spanking Blog
15 – Spanking Abby
16 – BadBadGirl
17 - Ellie Lumpesse
18 – Sugarbutch Chronicles
19 – Breathing In and Breathing Out
20 – Essin Em
21 – Pursed Lips
22 – Mixing It Up
23 – Domestic Spanking Blog
24 – Nobilis Erotica
25 – Live Girl Review
26 – All About George
27 – Lolita’s Predictions & Predilections
28 – Sexy Prime
29 – Naughty and Spice
30 – MeiLin Miranda
31 – AlwaysArousedGirl/Jane’sGuideBonus days! September
Last night, despite being exhausted, I stayed up until 1 AM reading Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle. It was recommended to me at least a year ago, but I put off reading it because of the topic—a dysfunctional family. When you come from one, you find reading about someone else’s less than entertaining. Finally, after running across the book on a couple of occasions recently, I decided I needed to read it. I read about a third of it on Friday and finished it last night.
Walls’ family dysfunction is a bit more glamorous than most. Sure, there are the usual hallmarks of a troubled family—alcoholism, poverty and what surely must have been mental illness—but there were also the adventures that took them across the country. Walls writes in a straightforward way without pointing fingers. The book is dedicated to her family, including her parents.
I found myself hating her mother and father. How dare they? I kept asking myself. How dare they risk their children’s lives, health and safety for their own whims? How dare they be so irresponsible with money? But Walls writes of her parents with love and there is forgiveness in her voice. I suppose I can understand that, to a point. She has made a very successful life for herself and surely the strength she gained from surviving a childhood spent in abject poverty living with parents who were unbalanced (though she would likely call them free spirits) is partially responsible for the person she has become. Still, I mourn the loss of her childhood and that of her siblings, who suffered along with her with there was no need to suffer at all. I am not forgiving.
I want to hope the shadow of my own childhood won’t fall on my child. I’ll be a better parent, right? I’ll be more loving and caring, more supportive. I’ll listen instead of yell. I’ll hug instead of ignoring. I’ll say “I love you.” I won’t take my own issues and dysfunctions and fears and disappointments out on my kid. I won’t.
I won’t.
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Last night, despite being exhausted, I stayed up until 1 AM reading Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle. It was recommended to me at least a year ago, but I put off reading it because of the topic—a dysfunctional family. When you come from one, you find reading about someone else’s less than entertaining. Finally, after running across the book on a couple of occasions recently, I decided I needed to read it. I read about a third of it on Friday and finished it last night.
Walls’ family dysfunction is a bit more glamorous than most. Sure, there are the usual hallmarks of a troubled family—alcoholism, poverty and what surely must have been mental illness—but there were also the adventures that took them across the country. Walls writes in a straightforward way without pointing fingers. The book is dedicated to her family, including her parents.
I found myself hating her mother and father. How dare they? I kept asking myself. How dare they risk their children’s lives, health and safety for their own whims? How dare they be so irresponsible with money? But Walls writes of her parents with love and there is forgiveness in her voice. I suppose I can understand that, to a point. She has made a very successful life for herself and surely the strength she gained from surviving a childhood spent in abject poverty living with parents who were unbalanced (though she would likely call them free spirits) is partially responsible for the person she has become. Still, I mourn the loss of her childhood and that of her siblings, who suffered along with her with there was no need to suffer at all. I am not forgiving.
Making love to you was never second best
I saw the world thrashing all around your face
Never really knowing it was always mesh and lace
I’ll stop the world and melt with you
You’ve seen the difference and
It’s getting better all the time
There’s nothing you and I won’t do
I’ll stop the world and melt with you
The incomparable Alison Tyler is sending me a copy of her new book, the back-to-the-80s erotic novel Melt With You. I love the 80s (and I loved them way before VH-1 ever did) and I love the song by Modern English, so I know I’ll love Alison’s homage to the era. Pop over to Alison’s website-- she’s giving away more goodies over the next 30 days. She really is the cat’s pajamas like that.
Here’s “I Melt With You” by Modern English, courtesy of YouTube (no video, though):
Oh, the good old days of new wave bands! I saw Modern English and The Fixx at a free concert on Fort Lauderdale beach back in the summer of… sheesh, 1983? 1984? Something like that. And I definitely owned my share of mesh and lace…
I love the 80’s. I love Alison Tyler!
What’s it all about?
Life. Love. Writing. Editing. Sex. Books. Romance. Movies. Friendship. Photography. Teaching. Coffee. (Lots of coffee.) Travel. Feminism. Academia. Insomnia. Memories. Experiences. Rants. Raves. Reviews. Chocolate. Mmm… chocolate. Musings of an insomniac writer. Want to know more?
