presidential election

Feel-Good Fiction Can Temporarily ‘Trump’ Bad Feelings

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While many of us plan to oppose the Donald Trump presidency in all kinds of ways, we also occasionally need some escape from the awful news of his election. Toward that end, I’ve come up with a number of novels and short stories that might serve that purpose.

Those feel-good works contain happy endings and/or inspirational content and/or loving relationships and/or very funny material and/or other positive things. They may also include downbeat moments and some of the angst we feel in real life, but they leave us feeling mostly optimistic about the human condition.

Most of Fannie Flagg’s novels are pretty darn sunny (while not ignoring racism, sexism, violence, and other harsh things) — with perhaps the sunniest of all A Redbird Christmas. That book doesn’t start in an upbeat way, but, when an ill man living alone in wintry Chicago moves to a small Alabama town, things eventually get quite cheery while skirting the swamp of too much sappiness and sentimentality.

Also opening in a grim way and then making readers feel wonderful is L.M. Montgomery’s The Blue Castle, about a young woman whose life gets infinitely better after being told she’ll die soon. Some very comical scenes, too.

Finding blissful romance is a part of both The Blue Castle and A Redbird Christmas, and in other novels such as Terry McMillan’s How Stella Got Her Groove Back. The bliss may or may not last in the unwritten future after the novels end, but it’s sure nice to see in its initial stages.

Then there’s the release of endorphins you’ll experience when laughing through the pages of Charles Dickens’ funniest novel, The Posthumous Papers of The Pickwick Club. Also hilarious are Colette’s Claudine at School, Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint, Terry Pratchett’s Unseen Academicals, P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves/Bertie Wooster novels and stories, etc.

The pleasures of being a kid growing up in a small town are nostalgically conveyed in Ray Bradbury’s mostly heartwarming Dandelion Wine. There’s also nostalgia, and some sentimentality, in James Hilton’s Goodbye, Mr. Chips and its story of a beloved teacher. Another teacher tale, E.R. Braithwaite’s To Sir, With Love, has its inspirational moments, too, as the protagonist’s students eventually take to his unorthodox classroom approach. (Braithwaite is still alive at 104!)

David Lodge’s Paradise News promises nice things in its very title before telling the story of an Englishman finding love during a stay in Hawaii. The titles of John Steinbeck’s Sweet Thursday and Steve Martin’s The Pleasure of My Company also accurately promise some happy happenings within.

Then there are utopian novels, such as Edward Bellamy’s time-traveling Looking Backward, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland, Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End, and Aldous Huxley’s Island — the last book a sort of counterpoint to that author’s dystopian Brave New World.

There are also novels that mix the downbeat and upbeat, but the upbeat moments are so wonderful that readers finish the books feeling more good than bad. Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre is one famous example (the iconic Jane-Rochester romance certainly helps), and Jane Austen’s novels are also sort of in that category.

Some feel-good novels are depressing for almost the entire book before a mostly idyllic ending helps redeem things. Such is the case with (Ms.) Lionel Shriver’s exceptional So Much For That, which has a tropical-island conclusion that radiates lovely vibes.

Heck, even totally downbeat novels can leave us with some positive feelings if we see things like resilience, kindness in difficult circumstances, and so on.

Short stories? Those that would bring a smile to your face include Mark Twain’s “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” Herman Melville’s “I and My Chimney,” O. Henry’s “The Ransom of Red Chief,” Oscar Wilde’s “The Canterville Ghost,” and (until the ending) Bret Harte’s “The Luck of Roaring Camp,” to name just a few.

Obviously, there are tons of other feel-good novels and stories I haven’t mentioned. What are some of your favorites?

And…Happy Thanksgiving!

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else.)

I’ve finished writing a book called Fascinating Facts About Famous Fiction Writers, but am still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as “Dear Abby” and Ann Landers, and other notables such as Coretta Scott King, Walter Cronkite, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.

No Female President, But Women-Centered Novels Are Still to Be Read

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When I prepared to write this blog post on November 7, I fully expected the United States to elect its first female president the next day. So I decided my topic would be novels that are very women-centered.

But Hillary Clinton shockingly lost to Donald Trump, and these four things came to mind: 1) Many people dislike what America’s political and corporate elites are doing in this have/have-not country, so Bernie Sanders (or Elizabeth Warren, if she had run) would have had a better chance than Clinton to beat the fake populist Trump. 2) Huge crowd drawer Sanders never had a chance during the primaries because the mainstream media under-covered him or covered him with negative bias, because the supposed-to-have-been-neutral Democratic National Committee backed Clinton, because unelected superdelegates also tipped the scales, etc. 3) Clinton is smart, hard-working, resilient, and experienced, but didn’t fit America’s current anti-elite mood, even as she was slammed with sexism.  😦  4) My topic will still be fiction that’s very women-centered.

(If you want to agree with or dispute my election analysis, please do! I should also mention that my book columns after this one will return to discussing politics only occasionally. But political thoughts in the comments section are always welcome!)

Back to this week’s literary topic: So many novels — and not just thrillers — are male-oriented that it’s interesting when things get less testosterone-y. Books focusing mostly on women are often more subtle, more nuanced, more psychological, more emotionally satisfying, etc. — though it’s of course hard to totally generalize.

One example of a very women-centered novel is Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping, which I happened to read during this past election week. The elegantly written, heartbreaking book features three generations of women from the same extended family who live in virtual isolation in the Pacific Northwest.

There are also novels that are women-centered mainly because they feature multiple sisters — for instance, five in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and four in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible, and Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies. Fewer, but still memorable, sisters in such works as Alice Walker’s The Color Purple.

Other novels spotlight strong female friendships (and sometimes conflict between those friends), as in Terry McMillan’s Waiting to Exhale and Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride.

Then there are books featuring lesbian relationships, including Rita Mae Brown’s Rubyfruit Jungle, Colette’s Claudine at School, and Jane Rule’s Desert of the Heart.

Plus fiction set at women’s colleges (such as Dorothy L. Sayers’ Gaudy Night), set in towns where female inhabitants are the focus (such as Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford), and that feature workplaces of all or mostly women (such as Fannie Flagg’s The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion and Lisa Scottoline’s The Vendetta Defense and other Scottoline novels starring characters from the female Philadelphia law firm of Rosato & Associates).

What are your favorite women-centered novels?

This literature blog and my local weekly humor column usually don’t intersect, but I decided to give the latter a book theme for one week. Many authors and novels are referenced.

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else.)

I’ve finished writing a book called Fascinating Facts About Famous Fiction Writers, but am still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as “Dear Abby” and Ann Landers, and other notables such as Coretta Scott King, Walter Cronkite, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.

Fictional ‘Power Couples’ and a Real Presidential Election

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With America’s presidential election happening in two days, you’re welcome to comment here (before or after November 8) about anything related to that event.

But I also wanted to offer a literature column with some tenuous connection to the election, and came up with the idea of spotlighting fictional “power couples” who are roughly equivalent to Hillary and Bill Clinton — but not necessarily politicians and not necessarily as famous.

The first example I thought of are the two renowned 19th-century poets — Christabel LaMotte and Randolph Henry Ash — who have an affair in A.S. Byatt’s magnificent Possession. That fictional pair is loosely based on actual poets Christina Rossetti and (an amalgam of) Robert Browning and Alfred Tennyson.

There’s some sleuthing in Possession, which reminds me that there’s a high-profile couple in various Dorothy L. Sayers novels: wealthy amateur detective Lord Peter Wimsey and prominent mystery author Harriet Vane.

Also, we have TV host Doris Dubois and millionaire businessman Barley Salt in Fay Weldon’s The Bulgari Connection — which has a plot driven by Grace McNab Salt, who Barley the jerk divorced to marry the younger, glamorous Doris.

Or how about Mitchell and Abby McDeere in John Grisham’s The Firm? The husband is an attorney in a high-powered (but very suspicious) law firm and the wife a teacher at an elite private school.

Another possible example is Henrietta Stackpole and Mr. Bantling in Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady. There’s no question that journalist Stackpole is well known but it’s uncertain exactly what Mr. Bantling does except be a member of the upper class, which makes him sort of prominent in 19th-century Europe.

Then there’s investigative journalist Mikail Blomkvist and magazine editor/majority owner Erika Berger, who are occasional lovers in Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and its two sequels.

Plus renowned neurosurgeon Rowan Mayfair and successful home restorer Michael Curry, who fall in love in Anne Rice’s The Witching Hour.

And prominent 1930s stunt pilots/lovers Fritzi Jurdabralinksi and Bill Bevins of Fannie Flagg’s The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion — in which Fritzi later becomes a Women Airforce Service Pilot (WASP) during World War II.

In J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, among the power pairings are the elite “Auror” Nymphadora Tonks and Professor Remus Lupin.

Another academic, marine biologist Humphrey Clark, was once in a relationship with high-profile feminist Ailsa Kelman in The Sea Lady by Margaret Drabble. (She and the aforementioned A.S. Byatt are sisters, making them a prominent family duo of a different sort.)

Who are your favorite power couples in literature? And, again, election comments are welcome!

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else.)

I’ve finished and am now rewriting/polishing a book called Fascinating Facts About Famous Fiction Writers, but am still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as “Dear Abby” and Ann Landers, and other notables such as Coretta Scott King, Walter Cronkite, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.