Melanie Lee
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Joyce,
For the first piece, this account of an evening with your sister is just so full of perfectly rendered detail. Here is my end note:I just can’t believe how beautifully this is paced. Wonderful. I see the whole thing. That nose-grabbing. I love the simple, direct language here (in both pieces, actually). I love the way you loiter a little bit in your sister’s place, and she says no. God, what a nice moment, capped with “I have been dismissed.”
This is my end note for the pelvic exam:
Not too graphic at all. This description of a visit to the gynecologist for a pelvic exam who has never had such an exam is really a perfect description for me (and, I assume, all women). We need this in the literature. What a relief to see it. A beautifully done piece, I love all the details about this, including Judy’s intransigence which I often wish I had the guts to act upon. I agree, I’d like to see more about “no go.”
Susan, I just love both of these.I think you have a real gift, a real light, complete touch for evoking the nuances of the scenes. I want to know what happens in both.
In the first, there’s such romance and desperation as he falls for this girl. I shudder as to what I think is going to happen.Oy!
In the second, I think you’ve really got Anna as she confronts aging. beautiful.
In was confused or disoriented in one or two places in each, but there was enough to keep me grounded all the way through both.
Thanks, everybody, for your comments on last week’s submission. Here’s this week’s submission. You will see this: [Extra blank space for new section and paragraph]. Word, in my experience, makes simple formatting commands into an uneditable, unlearnable version of Esperanto.
Joyce, what a great endeavor! I want to know more about Judy , you the narrator and the relationship b between the two of you. Sometimes I felt confused, but I have a sense of how they relate, thanks to what you’ve written so far. Can’t wait to read the next iteration – or the next section, whichever comes first in the Salon. Lovely. I can see Judi Densch playing your sister.
Susan, I love your characters, the narration, the details. I want to know more! Thanks for letting me read it. Melanie
So I guess this is the comments area? I’ll attach the file. Let me know if this is right.
Here we see my mother and me returning to my father and the umbrella at the beach. I think I have just almost drowned, but I don’t know. I’m not clear on whether my mother rescued me or not.
Recent books I’ve loved: The History of Love, Oscar Wao, The Georges and The Jewels. I also want to read the new Rabih Almeddine. I loved I, the Divine. (I read this a long time ago.) Oh! And Frank Conroy’s Stop Time, a wonderful memoir — the way he ended it has lots of room for thought. Also Three-dog life by Abigail Thomas and Strayed, though I didn’t like the ending, thought it was too pat. I mainly love to read fiction and history that reads as well as fiction and essays. The Immortal Cells of Henrietta Lacks was great, Inside of a Dog was hard to read, even though you learn a lot about dogs. But if you don’t like reading it, how are you going to learn anything?
I’m Melanie Lee. I live in Brooklyn with my husband, fifteen year-old daughter and Havanese. I’ve been working on a memoir for a long time, have written many parts of it over and over until — I just got an aha moment on this process of mine — enough momentum built up to turn all these pages into the manuscript I’ve been planning on. So what I’m doing is writing as much as I can until I get a first draft, maybe if I’m lucky by the end of September, but certainly by the end of the year. I can’t be more definite because I’m finding that even with rewriting, some parts are just taking longer than I thought they would.
I started submitting this final rewrite for my first draft in the craft class last month; my first submission for the Salon is a continuation. I started reading Survival in Auschwitz as part of a long term project but these summer days, I don’t want to be reading such awful experiences and I’m reading The Georges and The Jewels, a Jane Smiley YA novel, plan to go to What Maisie Knew for the rest of the week. That’s a book whose theme ties nicely with mine. I really want to read Truman by David McCullogh this week, the time frame covers much of my mother’s generation, but I don’t want to carry it around when I walk my daughter to her riding camp in the mornings: I’m also going to be carrying my computer, and it’s three miles. At least, that’s the plan because that’s the camp is the only place I’ll have internet access unless we drive somewhere and I don’t drive, so I have to depend upon my husband who has his own things to take care of, but we’ll see. We’ll be in Columbia County, New York, lyme disease capital of the country, where we have a country hippie cottage and not enough electricity, which I’m kind of happy about.
This isn’t really a good bio – suffice it to say I love reading a lot of different things and when I’m done with this memoir I’d like to try some Sci Fi. There’s a lot to say and not enough time to say it. We’re getting ready to leave Brooklyn tomorrow and we’re in the middle of packing, etc. Rush, rush, rush.
I’m looking forward to this class!
