The Books They Carried 2.0

I have added the Pacific Theater to the book list that will accompany us to Savannah. Back When We Were Orphans practically jumped off the shelf as did The Rape of Nanking. What a terrible loss for the narrative nonfiction world when Iris Chang committed suicide. The Last Samurai goes. And Hiroshima of course. Add to that several shelves on opening up the East and a handful of books on the development of the atomic bomb. All suddenly necessary. Plus, Copenhagen - the absolutely brilliant play about atom splitting research. 

Reality and its escape

The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that does not require his attention.

Flannery O’Connor

I have been staring today. The occasion was a memorial service and it has yielded enough material for an outline for a connected short story collection, all orbiting around reality and attempts to escape its pull. The idea, literally and figuratively, begins with the splitting of atoms writ large we call Hiroshima. Hiroshima. Say it and you immediately feel the weight of civilization that crushed Miss. Sasaki in John Hersey’s brilliant 1946 account. 

More on this later as I sketch out the story ideas.