Montreal Journal & the joys of travel in 2023

I go to Montreal to speak Italian and shop at an Italian grocery store.

And this year, I got to do both when I visited the Francophile Canadian city, while also writing about it! 

Call me an Italophile in French-speaking Montreal, and a grateful traveler whenever I can get there, which is now more often since I live in New England (the gateway to Montreal, in my opinion).

The post-war period saw a surge of Italian immigration to Canada such that the Italian community is slightly less assimilated there -- or slightly better at keeping traditions -- than in the States, and the culture a little more intact than in say New York's Little Italy. Plus, Montreal has had to fight for its Francophone existence in the wider sea of Canada’s English speakers, and now sees the value in safeguarding other cultures, including their languages. So a stroll through Little Italy ("Petite Italie") is often an occasion for Italian language practice.

At a bakery across the street from the Jean Talon market, a young cashier immediately switched to Italian when he saw my shirt, which had an image of the iconic Italian coffee pot called the Moka. His grandfather was from Puglia, in Southern Italy, he told me, and he learned to speak fluent Italian as a child.

As one person in Montreal told me, "We all speak three languages."

Little did I know when I visited as a child that Montreal would eventually become one of my kindred spots (assuming that places can be kindred spirits in the way people can -- sure feels like it).

What I read in 2023 & what I plan to read in 2024

I had a special mission this year to immerse myself in Holocaust narrative so I could find a publisher for the short stories I am translating, thanks to an NEA literature grant. Of course, I've been reading Holocaust narrative from the moment I began translating Bruck's work. Well, actually, before that, really, because as soon as I read Primo Levi's first book (If This Is A Man), I understood that this was seminal information -- and I read it in college.

But I think in 2023, this particular strand of my reading life came into focus: I will never know enough about the Holocaust or World War II, and so I am going to keep studying it until the end of time.

What's stunning: the horror never receded. What Holocaust victims and survivors endured is unthinkable. No passage of time can diminish the pure horror of what they experienced. And it's remarkable -- though that word fails -- how varied survivors' experiences are -- in other words, how many horrific ways Nazis and others found to torment these poor people. So I keep reading.

I wasn't especially productive, if my aim was to read a lot of books in full. Instead, I read parts of many books. But as I said, the reading I did about World War II and the Holocaust was seminal.

And so I will begin with books in that category:

Holocaust narrative or fiction based on the Holocaust

*L'esile filo della memoria, Lidia Beccaria Rolfi (This book begins a few days before the writer was liberated from the concentration camp called Ravensbruck, which is fascinating because it deals with the saga of afterward. As if the saga of before -- the camps -- weren't enough.)

*Cinque Storie Ferraresi by Giorgio Bassani

*Here in Our Auschwitz, Tadeusz Borowski 

*A Scrap of Time, Ida Fink (a collection of stories that includes "The Key Game" -- devastating)

*Return to Latvia, Marina Jarre (for a review)

*I'd Like to Say Sorry, but There's No One to Say Sorry To, Mikolaj Grynberg

*Women in the Holocaust, edited by Dalia Ofer and Lenore J. Weitzman (I read this book as part of research for an article I published in the American Scholar about women Holocaust survivors)

Auschwitz and After by Charlotte Delbo (French resistance fighter)

The Parnas by Silvano Arieti

Art from the Ashes (anthology)

Against Forgetting (anthology)

I read other books, of course, though I don't think I broke any records for number of titles consumed. Here's a sampling of what I read: 

Children's books

I have fallen into a habit of auditioning a new genre each year. Last year, it was graphic novels (I also read one this year: Moi aussi je voulais l'emporter). This year: children's books. Specifically by Kate DiCamillo:

*Because of Winn-Dixie

*The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

I guess you could say I've been reading children's books since 2012 when Leo was born, but these two books I read on my own -- Leo didn't have any interest. And they were beautiful. If you are trying to keep some awful tragedy at bay, and not succumb to tears, don't read them. Otherwise, proceed.

(Note, I read these books thanks to an essay by Ann Patchett on the joys of reading DiCamillo's books, regardless of your age)

Department of re-reading

La strada che va in città, Natalia Ginzburg (I could re-read Ginzburg until the end of my days)

Voci della sera, Natalia Ginzburg

Come una rana d'inverno, Daniela Padoan (interviews with three women who survived the Holocaust)

Books I perused (do they count?!)

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets -- IN ITALIAN! (From Rizzoli and technically belonging to Leo)

The Pentagon Papers (because Daniel Ellsberg died this year)

L’Art Presque perdu de ne rien faire, Dany Laferrière (as Montreal trip prep)

*The bible in Italian (I've never read it in Italian, now have I? So I bought a copy last year)

Books that fell into my lap -- serendipity

Still Life (Fiction) (thanks to my cousin-in-law Stephanie)

Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything By David Bellos

Nonfiction

The Years, Annie Ernaux (The final line is a stunner: "Save something from the time where we will never be again." It captivated me so much I memorized the French version as well: "Sauver quelque chose du temps où l'on ne sera plus jamais.")

Strangers To Ourselves, Rachel Aviv

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby (in connection with West Hartford Reads, a library initiative)

Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby (in connection with West Hartford Reads, a library initiative)

The Faith of a Writer by Joyce Carol Oates

Other notables

The Ones Who Don't Say They Love You, Maurice Carlos Ruffin (Fiction/Short Stories)

Paris Stories, Mavis Gallant (Fiction/Short Stories)

Reporting Live, Lesley Stahl (memoir)

Scene of the Crime, Patrick Modiano (“…another memory from that time emerged into the light, like strange flowers floating to the surface of stagnant waters.” I wrote a review of it for a small literary magazine, which you can read by clicking on the title.)

What I plan to read in 2024

Another book by Annie Ernaux (Using this guide from the Nobel Prize folks to help me out: https://www.nobelprize.org/what-to-read-books-by-annie-ernaux/)

Whatever Patrick Modiano writes (in translation)

Something/anything by Montreal-born graphic novelist Julie Delporte

Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey (but I said this last year as well so we'll see)

L'Agnese va a morire

At the Mind's Limits

A Farm Life: Observations from Fields and Forests by my friend Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

Leftover from last year:

*The Letters of Alberto Moravia and Elsa Morante (Quando verrai saro’ quasi felice)

*Clint Smith's How the Word Is Passed

*The Friends of Eddie Coyle

What will you read? What do you think I should read? What did you read this year? Leave comments here or in the post on Facebook. You can see the genres I read -- Italian fiction and nonfiction, memoir, Holocaust narrative, et al -- so please make some suggestions! Or something from a completely different genre. 

Happy reading! And Happy New Year! And happy reading in the new year.

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The Year in Writing & Crying (2023)

I considered 2022 a terrible year in writing for me so I suppose 2023 couldn't help but be better.

As it turns out, 2023 was quite a year for publishing my writing but almost certainly one of the worst years for me personally. That means I am going to report what I accomplished but skip some of the editorializing and grandstanding that normally comes along with this task. Accomplishing a lot in the writing world doesn't bring anyone back from the dead.

It didn't keep me from writing about the dead -- but that was back before I knew those ranks would swell.

In any event, in brief, here's what I published:

For The Millions, I wrote an essay about reading my father's books in the wake of his death. It's called, "The Books that Made My Father":

https://themillions.com/2023/01/the-books-that-made-my-father.html

As I've mentioned, I always aim to land work in new journals (see below). I also sometimes want to deepen my relationship with a publication by publishing work in a different section. I was thrilled this year, for multiple reasons, to publish a book review in the Boston Globe of a book by the Italian author I am translating. The book, Lost Bread, which was translated by Gabriella Romani, revisits her childhood and, of course, the worst moment of her childhood: deportation by the Nazis.

I also managed to publish a scholarly essay (maybe scholar-ish, no footnotes and I didn't include any digs about other scholars) on what women writers can tell us about surviving the Holocaust. It's called "The Forgotten Writers of the Shoah," and it was published by the American Scholar in September. I began work on it when I had a short fellowship at the New York Public Library in 2021.

https://theamericanscholar.org/the-forgotten-writers-of-the-shoah/

How Italy Ruined My Life (sort of -- for The Millions)

The way Italian plunges me into an intoxication of sound and thought is something I've wanted to write about for a long time.

The way the Italian language is like a person in my life, "a twin who accompanies me everywhere -- for better or for worse," the way knowing a foreign tongue "confers a special passport" or how my attempts to convince Florentines I had mastered their language -- la lingua di Dante -- devolved into nothing short of high school hazing ... yes I've wanted to explore this topic for so long.

And now I have! Thanks to my editor, Sophia, at The Millions.

You can read the essay here:

https://themillions.com/2023/11/the-quiet-exhilaration-of-reading-in-italian.html

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What women Holocaust survivors can teach us

When I went to study at the New York Public Library in connection with a short fellowship I'd won, my intention was to study the author whose work I was translating (Edith Bruck). Sure, I planned to look at other analogous works in translation.

But I wasn't expecting to uncover a trove of information about how women's experiences of deportation and imprisonment by the Nazis differed from men's experiences -- and more importantly, differed from the accepted notion of the Lager in the public imagination.

What I mean is: what we know about concentration camps comes largely from the accounts of men, including authors I prize such as Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel.

Their stories are essential, of course, but so, too, are the stories of clandestine pregnancies in the Lager and the fates of so many children which hung on whether their mothers chose to save themselves or accepted dying along with their little ones (since children were typically slated for immediate elimination). 

The only universally known story of the Holocaust not penned by a man is The Diary of Anne Frank. But there is so much more we need to learn -- and as the number of living witnesses dwindles, there's no time to lose.

Please read more at the American Scholar:

https://theamericanscholar.org/the-forgotten-writers-of-the-shoah/

And thank you.

End of ORIGINAL POST here.

Adding: I've jotted down some titles for anyone who wants to begin exploring books by women survivors, specifically. Here's a link to that post:

https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2024/01/women-holocaust-survivors-reading-list.html

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First Boston Globe book review pubbed -- YES!

Thrilled to land a book review in the Sunday Boston Globe!

I am a fan of the Globe's arts coverage and besides, it's not easy to find good places to publish book reviews these days that actually pay something.

Thrilled the topnotch art staff came up with a custom illustration that illuminated the book's theme with the signature image (for many Holocaust memoirs and related books) of barbed wire.

Here's hoping a lot of Boston Globe readers took my advice to heart and read the book. Lord knows, I read a lot of book reviews and don't ever get around to read the actual books!

The piece ran last month. I meant to post this sooner! Anyhoo, here's a link to the book review:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/07/20/arts/edith-brucks-lost-bread-an-account-holocaust-its-aftermath-cruelty-continues-survivors-even-after-auschwitz-is-closed/

For your trip to Florence -- buonviaggio!

When my aunt and uncle embarked on a trip to Florence last year (after an absence of 40 years!), I realized I have slightly skimped on travel tips here on Ciambellina or in some cases not organized the posts with tips well so I am going to try to unite everything here in one post. Everything you -- my friend, my Ciambellina reader, my cousin, my uncle -- need to know in order to have a special trip to Florence, Italy (where I still live in my heart). You can thank Aunt Maureen and Uncle Pat!

Before I get to specific tips and itineraries, let me mount my linguistic soap box: learn some Italian before you go. 

Not to be nice or cosmopolitan, and not to improve the American image abroad. 

But rather because: speaking Italian with an Italian is one of life's special pleasures.

The other major bits of advice:

*Walk as much as possible

*Visit the main produce markets

*Have a ciambellina (and bring a few back for me).

 

OK, sermon over.

Where to go

Assuming you will tick off the major sites listed in your guide book or online (the Duomo, the Uffizi, l'Accademia, San Marco, Cappella Brancacci, etc.), I will move onto advice about other attractions in Florence.

One of the main recommendations I want to make is: Visit the Villa and Giardino Bardini. Most people visit Boboli Gardens, which is quite lovely but I think the Bardini is even better. The gardens are gorgeous [terraced in some parts] and the views stunning. When I was in Florence last summer, our ticket somehow got us entry to both, though I don't know how you would visit both in one day and see everything. 

(Note, they are both on the other side of the river).

Also on the other side of the river: Forte Belvedere and Piazzale Michelangelo. I recommend walking to both, but have your walking shoes handy. Both sights are gorgeous, with views equally as gorgeous. There's likely some important historical note someone else could tell you about.

There are also specific corners of the city that I love. I'll start with piazzas: 

Piazzas I love (to walk through, to stroll through, to gaze at, to sit in)

Piazza Santo Spirito

Piazza del Carmine

Piazza dei Ciompi

Piazza della Repubblica (now with a carousel)

Piazza della Signoria

Quirky neighborhoods

Santa Croce: the area across from the piazza and the church was originally settled by Etruscans and it's one of the few places in the city where roads curve. There are some tiny, hidden piazzas and viuzze here that are fun to discover.

Piazza Torquato Tasso: Real people live in this neighborhood! Locals gather to play soccer in the park at the center of the piazza and you could go over to Al Tranvai if you wanted authentic but decidedly unfussy Florentine food.

Speaking of which...

Where to eat

I mentioned Trattoria Cammillo (Borgo San Iacopo, #57R) in a previous post about restaurants in Florence because it's a place that I like (and Beyonce also liked it!).

Cibreo is also good -- there are actually multiple Cibreo storefronts in the same basic area, depending on your budget (Via Andrea del Verrocchio #8R). Here are some other recommendations:

https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2015/05/where-to-eat-in-florence-update.html

Note, a lot of the places I like are on the other side of the river and two are in Piazza Santo Spirito: Trattoria Casalinga and Borgo Antico. The piazza is also quite lovely (see above) and the church was my father's favorite (designed by Brunelleschi).

I also love Ristorante Caffe Italiano on my old street, Via della Vigna Vecchia.

Where to eat and shop for dinner

I really like going to the public produce markets in Florence and the two main ones in centro are the Mercato di San Lorenzo (by the station; it is the best-known) and the Mercato Sant'Ambrogio; this last one is where I did do my shopping. It is east of Santa Croce -- and has fantastic cheese, sliced meats, veggies, etc. 

The San Lorenzo produce market -- the main market -- is now a wonderful place to dine and shop. You have to wade through the outdoor flea market surrounding the market to reach it but it's worth it.

Not just where to eat but what

People rave about pasta but here's a secret: Italian sandwiches are divine. Note: in the Old Country, they are nothing like a sub or a hero. Freshly made and reflective of all the Italian culinary acumen we've come to expect in pasta dishes, the Italian sandwich you can buy at a bar is something not to miss. Antico Noe is one of the best places for sandwiches, and not only because it is literally tucked inside a medieval arch a half-mile from Piazza Santa Croce (with a view of a medieval tower I once lived atop, but that's neither here nor there).

Other highlights:

Crostini -- as an appetizer. In the event these are new to you: little toasted slices of bread with toppings, including chicken pate, freshly-chopped tomatoes, mushrooms, etc.

Prosciutto crudo -- I believe it's part of Italy's culinary patrimony and I am not joking. Salty, silky, delicious. I don't care if you're a vegetarian -- my Italian friends certainly didn't when I pretended to be one in college and they kept urging me to eat prosciutto!

Cinghiale -- Wild boar. It's used often as the main ingredient of an amazing pasta dish that I suggest you order: pappardelle al cinghiale. It's available everywhere!

Porcini mushrooms -- if they are in season

Fiori di zucca (zucchini flowers) -- fried or stuff

Italian pastries -- Forget gelato. The real treats in Italy are pastries. Look for bars that say 'produzione propria' (that means they make their own pastries) or head to a pasticceria.

(Also grab a chocolate bar at the supermercato/alimentari if it has whole nocciole in it -- the big nut at the center of the baci candies. Why have one nocciola when you can have an entire chocolate bar full of them?)

Where to walk...

In addition to "everywhere," I also recommend walking to the other side of the river -- often. From there, as I've mentioned, you can walk to Forte Belvedere, Piazzale Michelangelo and the Bardini gardens.

Indeed some of the nicest walks are in the area around San Niccolò (the other side of the river) because they allow you to get outside the walls of the city and go up into the hills. One place you could try walking to is Forte Belvedere.

Where to have a coffee and step onto a page of A Room With A View:

There are old-school caffes that make your morning coffee feel royal and four of them are on Piazza della Repubblica, of which Caffe Gilli is probably the best (coffee/pastries/aperitivo etc); also the Rivoire on Piazza della Signoria will make you feel as though you're a wealthy landowner.

Where to drink wine

Everywhere! That's one of the things that makes Italian coffee bars special -- you can order a caffe latte in the morning and un bicchiere di vino rosso in the evening!

But I will give one recommendation of a place to drink: Rose's on Via del Parione; it's on one of the more beautiful streets in the center city. Drink outside at one of the tiny tables where you can watch fancy Florentines walk and bike by.

Look for a place called 'enoteca' to sample some good wine. I also love the hole-in-the wall (literally) kiosks where you stand on the street at a counter and order a glass of wine and maybe a sandwich.

Pastries

You'll find an entry for gelato below but as I mentioned, I think paste or pasticcini [pastries] are the unsung sweets of Italian cities (unsung, I should say, by Americans. Italians know). And really, by now, you should know my favorite: la ciambellina (looks like a donut if a donut was baked in God's kitchen). Also good: un bombolone (similar but without the hole and typically filled with crema). 

Gelato

Vivoli (Via Isola delle Stinche) around the corner from our old apartment is very popular and also very good but so is Festival del Gelato right off of Piazza della Repubblica (down the block from the Duomo). Also good (and popular): Gelateria Carraia and Gelateria Santa Trinita (both are stationed on the other side of two consecutive bridges across the River, Oltrarno side).

Souvenirs

I still buy souvenirs and so should you! I favor paper goods because reading in Italian is my passion (and paper was an ancient Florentine art) so my suitcase is always loaded down with novels and magazines but the category also includes notepads, calendars and the like, which would appeal to anyone.

I find some of the best souvenirs can be had at the big bookstore on Piazza della Repubblica: Libreria Edison (there are also lots of kiosks right in front of the bookstore that may have something you like). In addition, I highly recommending visiting the Bialetti store for the classic Italian Moka coffee pot (and coffee cups and other accessories).

Lastly, I know some of you out there are real foodies so I recommend checking out a website published by a local Florentine food writer who knows her stuff (and has Catholic interests -- hugely into sushi, etc.):

https://www.ioamofirenze.it/

She recently published a guide on her blog to choosing a restaurant in Florence:

https://www.ioamofirenze.it/mi-consigli-un-ristorante/

Note, it's in Italian but all the addresses you see everywhere (on maps, for hotels, etc) are in Italian anyway and the names of restaurants are in Italian on the sides of buildings so if you really want to go somewhere, you'll figure it out. I suggest choosing something from her guide under the category 'Trattorie tipiche' ('local, traditional eateries'), with the name of the restaurant in bold at the start of each entry (then Google the name of the restaurant and figure out where it is). She also has a heading for fine dining (in English) and if you have the euros, go for it!

Buonviaggio!

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A day in the life of this American Man at age 10

There is a seminal profile, well-known in literary journalism circles, about a 10-year-old boy and his world.

Published in Esquire in 1992, "The American Man at Age 10," by Susan Orlean, twisted the notion of a journalistic portrait and more importantly foregrounded how 10-year-old boys think. (Link below).

https://classic.esquire.com/article/1992/12/1/the-american-man-at-age-ten

I have so much to say about one particular 10-year-old boy -- but not much time to say it because he will soon be 11! Yep -- double hockey sticks.

In this past year -- his final before middle school -- I made a particular effort to jot down moments that reflected our routine and his state of mind.

How he spoons with our dog, Caramel, every morning before school (as you might with your college boyfriend). How he weaves in and out of the dotted lines on the bike trail in our town -- he reads them as an invitation to zig zag. Do you?

I took note of a certain Sunday evening -- a perfect one, by my standards -- where we biked to a nearby restaurant for dinner, then watched the Mets game, followed by our ritual Harry Potter reading. That night, while I read Harry's adventures aloud, Leo looked up curse words in my Italian dictionary.

So what does the American man, age 10, think about? Pepperoni pizza.

Fifth grade was full of special activities to mark the final year of elementary school -- including a whopper of a field trip: a visit to Lake Compounce, an amusement park in Connecticut.

Except it got canceled. So to make up for it, the school arranged a pizza party for the 5th graders. And my American man, age 10, intoned, "I hope they have pepperoni pizza. They better have it."

Not that Leo is only focused on the mundane -- far from it! He's a dedicated reader of The Week Junior (as I call it, "the best magazine you've never read" -- because you're not 10) and regular peruser of the front page of The New York Times (especially on the days something ghastly has happened and I am trying to confiscate the paper but on the sly).

Over Memorial Day Weekend, Leo and I were talking about American presidents as we walked to the beach, and when the conversation turned to Pres. Obama (an important figure to him for many reasons, not least of which: he was born when Obama was president), I said offhand that he was such a nice person. 

To which Leo, somewhat dismissively, replied, “Of course! You have to be nice to be President.”

Whoa, stop the presses. This is a missive from the “other side” that stuns me. The other side being childhood (my side, regrettably, broken-down adulthood).

I thought: Does he know what he said? Is that really how he sees the world? That a qualification for an important job such as President -- or maybe specifically for the job of President, not just any important job -- is you have to be nice. Age 35 or above, no criminal record, lots of stamina, oh and you have to be nice. 

A child’s perspective on the world. One more reason children are superior to adults.

I check on him while he walks Caramel down the block, and peering down the sidewalk, I see he's a tiny figure in determined motion with a bobbing white blur next to him. Something about their frenetic, untamed movement tells me childhood can still be Paradise Island.

Similarly, when he bikes, he is unwittingly trying to break my heart out of cuteness. With his still petite size, shaggy hair and ubiquitous grin, he forever reminds me of Elmo from "Sesame Street" when he's on two wheels. Perhaps it's the delight he feels that becomes like a current, emanating toward me?

(We biked twice to school in May, a goal I'd set years ago, and it turned the morning drop-off into a magical errand for this mama).

(He also ran a 5K this year -- not his first!)

He still lobs a lot of questions my way -- and when they stop, a part of me will die. In the past year, quite often, these questions consisted of car choices. Specifically, "Mommy! Would you rather have an MG or a Triumph?"

Perhaps because for Christmas last year, my American man, age 10, received a book called, "Classic Car: The Definitive Visual History," and I swear to you he spent more time flipping through this book than he spent moving the joy stick on his little Gameboy (the particular art of the coffee table book can take a lot of credit).

(He also asked me one day if I would prefer being a dog rather than a human. I had to tell him that I think being human has the edge).

What else does he like? Well, he likes to fish. In fact, in the spring, he and his pal, Nicolas, went fishing in the woods behind his school. As they traversed the packed, after-school playground with their rods, they were followed by a small army of curious onlookers, all of whom had opinions about what to do fishing (use the bobber, no don’t use the bobber, get a pack of worms, no, no worms).

Oh and he reads. A lot. Of the many books he's read so far this year, I will brag about THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER, which I’m thrilled to say we bought at the Mark Twain House in Hartford.

He's also begun reading collections of Calvin and Hobbes comic strips.

Leo loves baseball and hates the Houston Astros because they cheated.

He still likes chit-chatting, with his mother, though he might not admit it -- though he would enjoy teasing me about the verb 'chit-chatting,' which he would probably pronounce with the exaggerated Brooklyn accent he's learned from me when I am mimicking my mother (he does a good impression of Pat, too).

He likes staying up late ("Mommy! I've got a question for you! What's the latest you've ever stayed up?" That was Wednesday morning's question).

He likes New Yorker cartoons, pancakes, oreos and hot cocoa even when it's hot outside. He enjoys collecting Pokemon cards and baseball cards, plus he likes TV! Shows like "The Adventures of Gumball" and "Scooby Doo" and revamped versions of Looney Tunes.

And I hope he likes being 11.

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Stepping Stones Reveal a Path into Italy's Dark History -- for PBS site

Writing stories culled from your travels is a dream assignment. I rarely get paid to do it! But in this case I did, and what's more, the topic is tied to the work I do as a literary translator.

For the PBS website, Next Avenue, I wrote about tiny public memorials to victims of the Holocaust and other targets of the Nazi-Fascist forces. These memorials are copper-plated cobblestones embedded in the streets of Italy, Germany and other countries. I learned about the stepping stones while researching Italian women writers -- and others -- who have borne witness to the Holocaust.

And last summer while I was in Italy, I was able to visit some of these stones in Rome, Milan and Florence. 

The stones in some ways are a paradox: tiny but powerful, open to the public at all hours for free but especially poignant when you're able to do some additional research. Under foot -- which some object to -- but also in the way, in your face, in a way that supporters like. You can't avoid this historical moment -- it's right under your foot.

You can read the piece here:

https://www.nextavenue.org/stepping-stones-reveal-italys-dark-history/

Leo's Coronavirus Journal

Well, it's not really his Coronavirus Journal -- it's an excerpt of my own journal that features pithy comments from Leo.

May 12, 2020

Leo is learning about poetry this week and will even have to write two poems. Out for a walk, we’re discussing the types of poems he’s studying and suddenly he says, “What kind of poem is the one by Sean O’Casey? Where he says, ‘An I assed meself, what is the stars?’”

THIS REALLY HAPPENED.

It shows he’s reading the walls of our house since that's where we have the famous poster about Irish writers, which features 12 quotations (including the one from O'Casey). But still! My 7-year-old American son said the name ‘Sean O’Casey.’

We then went back to my parents' house to study their version of the poster. Truth: as often as I looked at the poster, I never actually studied the rhymes in the quotations! Never studied the meter! And there we were counting syllables in a poem by Sean O’Casey. 

LITERATURE IS REAL. 

And...

WE ARE ALL POETRY PEOPLE when we start out reading.

August 9, 2020

Leo picks up a long, curved stick, and says, “This could be a good steering wheel for animals.”

Nov 2. 2020

Leo: “Your brain is like a library.”

Nov. 3, 2020

Leo and I talk a lot about fur. What’s lined with fur. Like sweatpants and hoodies. When he calls something “super furry,” my brain becomes cozy. I yearn for all things furry. And I’m thankful for this lovely little boy who makes lovely little observations. 

What I'm reading? Often Modiano

Yep, I read a lot of Patrick Modiano -- thank God he is so prolific!

So I figured why not review his latest work from Yale University Press?

It's not his best, as I say in this review below for Cleaver Magazine, a lit mag based in Philadelphia and run by some fellow Bennington Writing Seminar alums, but you won't regret reading it (and in the review I tell you which books to seek out, including the title in the picture).

Here's a link to the full review:

https://www.cleavermagazine.com/scene-of-the-crime-a-novel-by-patrick-modianom-reviewed-by-jeanne-bonner/

As I mention in the review, the action in Scene of the Crime revolves around a character called Jean Bosmans who stumbles upon a series of coincidences involving his childhood home and a group of shady individuals who are alarmingly interested in his past.

The plot is par for the course for this French Nobel Laureate who has dedicated his literary career to exhuming the ghosts of wartime Paris through semi-autobiographical fiction.

The plot is also beside the point—and in some ways, I love that.

Nearly all of Modiano’s works touch on memory and childhood, as the author pieces together fictionalized episodes with his father, a shadowy figure who was on the run during World War II because of his Jewish heritage and willing to get his hands dirty to stay free. Born in 1945, Modiano has trained his gaze permanently on the war years that immediately preceded his birth, and the post-war years that are often referred to as the Thirty Glorious Years. As Alice Kaplan noted in a 2017 article for the Paris Review, Modiano likes to say he “is a child of the war.” She quotes him as saying: “Faced with the silence of our parents we worked it all out as if we had lived it ourselves.”

Modiano has been accused of writing the same book over and over. Many writers have been the subject of such an accusation and it’s probably true, but few are as magnanimous about it. Indeed, Modiano has admitted it during interviews, perhaps because he doesn’t see it as an insult or a problem.

Similarly, I enjoy reading his work because I'm always hoping he will add to the portrait he's been building of his father. And of course he always does. Sometimes more satisfactorily, sometimes less so.

But he's sifting through the wreckage of memories, and using fiction to uncover something that's even truer than fact.

I enjoy Modiano so much that I've begun reading one of his books in French -- desperately relying on knowledge I stored up for the most part back in Junior High School! I keep the English translation in my lap and refer to it every other sentence -- what passes for fun in my world.

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Coronavirus Journal, three years later

A publisher put out a call a while back for Coronavirus diary entries and I happily obliged since, of course, I'd been writing in my journal during those initial dark, confused days. I've heard nothing from the publication so I am publishing the entries here. In our particular corner of the world -- by which I mean, the Bonner sisters and their families -- we were simultaneously handling the initial phase of my father's decline. It feels individual and unique and yet I have the sensation so many of us were juggling two problems -- two pandemics, as it were. The wider emergency of Covid taking over the planet, and the personal imprint of a local tragedy, complicated by the restrictions and the terror of those early pandemic days.

March 25, 2020

Leo yesterday had a Zoom meeting with his teacher. The same Zoom software I am using to teach my class at Wesleyan, except it’s not actually at Wesleyan anymore.

He’s above average in reading and he likes Math a lot so perhaps we are lucky in some ways because I don’t fear he will miss out on as much.

Nonetheless, a part of me grieves that he’s been robbed of the fundamental social nature of school, particularly as an only child.

Yet I am always of two minds. I mean, quite literally always -- before coronavirus and probably since I was born. (Or) I think of it as an occupational hazard as a journalist.

He should be in school, but in my home school, he can rock in his chair or even slump (for a while at least). He can stand up to do math problems, and he can walk around the computer room on the third floor while he explains fables to me. Oh, and we have gym every day, multiple times a day.

And yet – the other mind weighing in again – he has not played with a friend in a week.

March 27, 2020

My coronavirus diary walks side by side with my Daddy-Is-Sick journal. I spoke with him yesterday and it was not the same person I knew. It was like talking to a hybrid of Mommy and an exhausted Daddy. He kept repeating certain key details of his fluid transfusion – that it took four-and-a-half hours hours, for example. He told me there are good days and bad, and the bad ones are when he wants to pull the blanket over his head. What was yesterday, I asked? A pull-the-blanket-over-your-head kind of day.

When I like to write

I like to write in the morning after a fractured night’s sleep has left me feeling so emotionally fragile it feels like a form of grief. I’m overcome and on the verge of tears, and my brain suddenly alights on a thought, then 10 thoughts, then 100. The words quickly filling my mind need a space to live. Feelings I left festering under the surface emerge and demand to be heard. I’m running on adrenaline, and at my wit’s end, and too tired to be careful. What makes me ache, what tortures me, what I truly think comes pouring out. I confess that I feel as though I am in mourning at fall’s first warnings, when the sudden chill in the morning air is so jarring since until yesterday, there was nothing but heavy, humid air mugging my every breath. Or I whisper to the journal I keep in my car, “I think I’m losing my fingerprints.”

I wrote this gush of words above after beginning a graduate writing program in my early 40s. I was finally attempting to fulfill my third-grade teacher’s prediction that I would be a writer when I grew up. Trying my hand at fiction for the first time, I had the zeal of a convert. I’d deferred my writing dreams (and my vague grad school plans) for so long, I never thought I’d be someone who lived to write. Then a series of unforeseen events – motherhood in my late 30s, among other things -- lead me to the magic door. I found the more I wrote, the more I wanted to write – like an itch you keep scratching or better yet, a lover you can’t stop kissing. If I showed up to write, I would write, then write a little more. Later after I’d taken a pause, a new thought might occur to me and I would race to my laptop to record it.

In the early days of this writing frenzy, which began during my maternity leave, I convinced myself it was all tied to breastfeeding and post-pregnancy hormones. (My true religion is a combination of Catholic guilt and jinx theory.) Plus, writing felt magical, too good to be true. I feared it would all disappear once I ceased to nurse and my body went back to its old self.

When this pessimist’s fantasy lifted, I found I wanted to write fairly often; some days, every spare minute. Not that every day produced the same kind of writing or quantity. Oh no.

So while writing after a night of broken sleep unleashes in me highly emotional, highly unstructured thoughts, writing after I’ve had eight hours of solid slumber produces an excess of energy that converts my mind into a trampoline, and I find myself revising multiple pieces in one sitting, organizing notes for a future piece and gathering details on, say, a fellowship for writers. I’m full of wonder and confidence; I have something to prove and I want to fight – on the page.

(Note to young writers: Sleep is cool if it allows you to go wild in your writing).

Running very little very often

I have a photo of myself and my son that became instantly beloved to me the moment I saw it.

He’s on his bike and I’m chasing after him, in a bid to keep up with him -- and keep an eye on him. We’ve come to the Beltline, the rails-to-trails economic development project that’s remaking Atlanta, where we once lived.

I’m dressed in tight jeans and black sandals with hard wooden soles; my hands are gripping my pocketbook and a cell phone. I’m not, in other words, dressed to run. But I am running full-on -- and reveling in the moment.

We’re a blur in motion, we’re laughing, we're alive; need I say more? The photo means more than the plaque I received at a 5K race in my neighborhood after finishing second in my age group.

As the mother of an elementary school-aged boy, I probably run more now than ever before. Running isn’t something I do occasionally – it’s woven now, in small doses, into my life.

My go-to sport and exercise regimen leans more toward lap swimming, and I love simply to walk. I also sometimes bike and paddleboard. But running is so simple, so low on equipment and preparation, that for me it’s like the exercise you pull out of your back pocket as needed. In a new city? Go for a run to map the place out. Can’t get to the gym? Run around the block a few times. Trapped in a cycle of insomnia because you’ve moved cross-country to start a new life in Connecticut? Run in circles behind your house, in the cool, green fields of a private school on your new street. (For example).

I don't run great distances. I don't even run not-so-great distances. I run very short distances.

But it doesn’t mean I’m not serious about running. I am serious about keeping running a constant, if not huge, part of my life. If for no other reason than it makes me feel like I am six years old again, and being six has a lot to recommend for itself.

Often when I’ve run over the past five years, it’s behind my son’s bike, like the scene in the photo. I have to keep up with him, and I relish a chance to be with him while also exercising.

No, it’s not like training for a 5K, or a half-marathon and it certainly isn’t elegant. But it’s running in its pure form, which is to say how we first learned to run as children. Their bodies start moving rapidly without any reason, without checking if they have the right gear on, and in a few seconds, they are engulfed by the euphoria running seems to singlehandedly bestow. My son and his friends run because they want to arrive at the next moment, at the next opportunity for joy, at the next post in life, as soon as possible. What better reason to run? So I copy them – because I, too, want in on this surefire path to smiles and laughter and joy.

As for races, they’re constantly being staged on a spontaneous basic. A few months ago, my son challenged me to a series of races in the school fields behind our house. Each race was a little bit longer – and one race was designated a “jogging-only” course. Do I let him win? I often do but not before running flat-out my fastest (then easing up). I mean, I am sprinting across that field like I am trying out for the Olympics.

I began doing that five years ago when my son turned five and his running sped up. He challenged me to a race on the sidewalk in front of our lilac Victorian in Atlanta, and all of a sudden, I was pouring on the power in a way I hadn’t in decades. I was back at my Long Island elementary school, competing in the 50-yard dash near the end of the school year, and I was joyfully passing classmates even while huffing and puffing around the makeshift track.

I cannot say what my neighbors might have thought, seeing me sprint across the sidewalk toward the corner. I wasn’t play-jogging as many parents do. I was in it to win it. And it felt glorious.

There have been so many days like that since he was born. Days where the highlights come when I’m getting some exercise with my son. I competed in gymnastics growing up and exercise somewhat regularly, but I have never been a jock. Nonetheless I’d always intuited, even if I didn’t fully exploit the notion, that exercise can change our days, and our lives -- literally. Now I try to work up a sweat when I can, including kicking the soccer ball around our small yard over and over (it’s running, just with a ball). And I don’t care how I look or who sees me or where I am when I begin running. With a son who runs at the drop of a hat, it’s not hard to do.

Some of this shift reflects the changes all parents have to make – and the underreported transformation that parenthood conveys. You get a do-over. Looking down after that first sprint with Leo, I suddenly thought, “I feel like a kid.” And it’s all because now I have a kid. Parenthood does that to you. You become the person you were when you were a child. You are given a chance to wipe the slate clean. Got bad habits? Don’t worry -- you won’t have as much time to indulge them. Never an early riser? You can be one now. Want to run around and burn off the frustration of adulthood? You’ll have plenty of opportunities now.

I love it when my son runs to retrieve something. Something he could have simply walked to get. My partner will tease him, by saying under his breath, “Must run everywhere.” And I think, “Shhhh!” I think, Please don’t let him realize the adult world ceased running as a matter of course a long time ago -- because the adult world sleepwalks through life. He aims toward adult life – it’s the natural trajectory of all humans. But let us imitate him – at the very least by moving our bodies often, without care.

Children who are my son’s age naturally belong to The United Republic of Running. No one is wearing expensive workout tights. No one has sponsorships But they are comparing their performances, contrasting the pros and the cons – and ready to race at any time. No excuses like you hear from adults. One day, when his friend heard that Leo and I raced, he challenged me to a race outside their school. Once again, I went full-on, and he cackled the whole race because he couldn’t believe there was a mom keeping pace with him (or openly acting so wacky) along that sidewalk.

For serious runners, this “baby-step” approach (quite literally) may gall. But it aims at a revolution: Running, running often, out of pure joy, and staying alive.

 -30-

What if the Dodgers never left?

I've been thinking all year about the uncle I never met. Which means I have also been thinking about the Dodgers. The Brooklyn Dodgers, since he and my mother were big fans. And I stumbled upon this Slate podcast episode that imagines Brooklyn -- and a minor nearby city named Manhattan -- if in fact the Dodgers had stayed (at least until 2018):

https://slate.com/culture/2018/05/what-if-the-dodgers-had-never-left-brooklyn.html

Hunger Mountain Translation Prize -- "Silvia" is now published!

The first short story connected with my NEA grant, indeed the first short story I ever translated by Edith Bruck -- it's now published!

Thanks to the Hunger Mountain Translation Prize, you can find the story, which is called "Silvia," at this link:

https://hngrmtn.org/issues/hunger-mountain-27/translation/

My thanks to Allison Grimaldi Donahue who chose the story from the other contest entries and to Ms. Bruck for entrusting me with her work.

This story is about a young German boy who is the son of a high-ranking Nazi official. He finds a Jewish stowaway and brings her home to the horror of his proud Third Reich-worshipping mother. The best line? Tough to say but how about, "You always wanted a little girl."

I can only hope many people find their way to the story. Not only because I translated it but because it reminds us, to quote a line of verse from Bruck, that "once upon a time/there was Auschwitz."

-30-