Top 75th percentile
September 2, 2007 | 8:44 pm | Uncategorized | Reading | 3
Surely you’ve heard the news? One in four Americans read no books last year. I am not one of those Americans. I read plenty of books last year, but you wouldn’t know it looking at the stack by my bed.
I have a special rule for myself. I am only allowed to read one book at a time. I must finish each book before I pick up a new one. The reason for this is simple — I would never finish any books if I were allowed to pick and choose at my whimsy. (This rule also applies to knitting projects).
I also have a weird compulsion to finish every book I start, no matter how awful. It is a very, very rare breed of horrible that forces me to give up on a book.
In addition, I usually don’t read a book twice. I have a book list that grows exponentially with every book that I finish, and there are far too many books I have yet to read for me to spend time on one that I’ve already consumed.
I have recently broken both of my rules, and that is why I have not finished a single book in August. They are all sitting by my bed, and I will finish them all, but I haven’t got to it yet.
But lately I’ve been thinking about older books that have stuck with me, books from my childhood, several of which I’d like to reread. There is one in particular I was thinking of in the shower, but I can’t remember the name of it. You all were so helpful last time, so hopefully you can help me again.
The book I’m looking for is a young adult novel, divided into three sections set across three generations of the same family. The first part takes place in the 1940s or ’50s and involves a romance between two high school kids of very different social status. The girl is poor, and an outcast, and key moments I remember from this section are the other girls being scandalized by the fact that she smokes and also the exchange of love letters between the two that include the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay.
I don’t remember much about the second part, except that perhaps the girl from the first section got pregnant accidentally and the section section is the story of her child. The third section is the story of the grandchild, a teenage boy (in the 1980s?) who’s father barely speaks to him because he is traveling with some musicians or something. The important thing I remember from this part of the book is that his father, over the phone in some far-away place, tells him the story of how Paul McCartney couldn’t think of a name for the song “Yesterday” and so he originally titled it “Scrambled Eggs.”
I would love to read this book again if anyone can help me find it.
In the meantime, I suggest you read a short story by Margo Lanagan called “Singing My Sister Down”.
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I can’t help you, but it’s refreshing (no pun intended) that I’m not the only one who does a good deal of thinking in the shower. The car is good for that as well.
Thats sounds like a good book. I hope you figure the title out.
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