Review of The Painter by Peter Heller

 Reviews > The Painter

The Painter
by 

Peter Heller

Yvonne Osborne's review

Dec 19, 2024  ·  edit

it was amazing

If there were six stars, The Painter would get them. This is the first novel by Peter Heller I've read but it won't be the last. Highly, highly recommended. From the first page to the last you won't want to put it down. I was adrift and lonely when it was finished. 

I've never fly fished but I felt like I was knee deep in the rushing water with a reel over my shoulder. I've never painted but I held the brush, smelled the pigment and the turpentine and felt the satisfaction of art well done. I've never killed a man, but felt the horror of it. Heller made me feel like I was knee deep in all of this alongside his protagonist, the troubled and complicated painter, Jim Stegner. Reading this novel was "living in the stream of eternity", stepping outside of myself. And what an accomplishment that is.

A masterpiece!

The Cedar Swamp and the Car Wreck

The Flapper Press recently published my essay, The Cedar Swamp and the Car Wreck, in their online magazine and just nofiied me that they nominated it for a Pushcart Prize. 

Even though I haven't won one of these yet, it sure is nice to be nominated. What long forgotten stories do you think reside in your family's tree? And please let me know if you've received a Pushcart prize or been nominated for one. Give yourself a shout out!!

Behind the Scenes at a Book Reading.

When I first entered the Community Room at the Peter White Library in Marquette, MI and saw the huge stage I was to speak from, I felt as small as this picture makes me look.

Four steps up to the stage,
podium, microphone,

and cameras running

(it was being live-streamed!)

I needed a drink.

Voice like a frog.

And then....

I started to get the hang of it.

After which mingling and signing books was easy

             One-on-one with an old friend is the best.

             See the sound guy in the background?

             His name is Marty and he was amazing.

             He put me at ease with his calm demeanor. 

My sister who made it all happen

And

Then....

                the 

                        AFTER

                

                                    PARTY!!!

One thing I would recommend to authors if you take questions after a reading in a large room like this, is repeat the question for the steaming audience. Otherwise there's dead space (as I discovered) and anyone listening in would feel left out.

Finally, I highly recommend an After Party!! 🥳It's fun to kick back and such a relief (for everyone involved) when the main event is over.

I'm very thankful for you and for your comments and for just hanging in there.

Happy Holidays!

 

Making Friedcakes

This time of year, our thoughts go back to making friedcakes on the opening day of pheasant season. Back when pheasants were plentiful, hunters in cameoflage jackets and canvas vests lined with pockets to store their bullets, traipsed in and out the back door to sign in on dad’s clipboard. After the hunt, they’d stop back to report in, show off their game, if they'd been lucky, and get a friedcake, warm from the fryer and glazed with frosting. 

Betty Crocker called them cake donuts but Mother called them friedcakes, so friedcakes they were. 

Last year was the first in many that we decided to bring Grandma's old Presto deep fryer up from the basement and continue the tradition. I found Mother's recipe with her penciled-in notes still legible. We were rusty and had a few laughs, but we'll try again this year because it's fun and they are delicious.

If you want the recipe, send me a message and I'd be happy to share it. 

Writing this, I can't help but feel a twinge of nostalgia. What beautiful birds those ringnecks were. Sometimes we hear their truncated chortle, the two-note song, but seldom see them anymore.

In the Library of My Mind

A poem written to the prompt at  Shay's Word Garden using three words she culled from The Book of the Dead, classic tales of the supernatural. 👻 

A natural for the month of October!

In the spirit of compliance I went two better. 😀

In the library of my mind

I speak Latin.
I’m kind, lucid, and brave.
I remember the poor
drop a coin on the plate
and one in the cup
of the man wrapped in wool

braced against the cold
at the end of the road.

I decided to add a little bonus content using one more word. (Can you find it?)

 

Someone poured a stein for the man in the box,
the no more man who was a father who was dead
and set it on the mantle like a plate for the missing
on the Day of the Dead.

On The Beat!!!

I'm excited to be invited to read from and discuss my debut novel Let Evening Come at Detroit's premier bookstore, Book Beat.

They've been specializing in quality Lit since 1982!! They even added some reviews. I'm sharing the night with another author, Donald Levin, who wrote The Ghosts of Detroit, there to talk about it just in time for Halloween.

It's been six months since my novel's release so this feels like a mini celebration for me. Sometimes it's like pulling teeth to get booktores to take a chance on a new (unknown) author, so I very much appreciate the opportunity and social media push.

Also, I just received a new review from the UK!  And have you heard of Blackwells? In addition to normal retail outlets, the book reviewer has included a link to the bookseller based in Oxford, For some reason that seems exotic to me. (Delivery to the United States included in the cost.)  Imagine seeing your novel on a bookshelf in a book store in Oxford. It might not be that big of a deal but it seems so to me. 

It's been quite the publishing journey. I feel like I should have more words of wisdom but they elude me. For now I'm just sharing the epigram for the poetry compilation I'm submitting for publication. It sums up the feeling I'm feeling.

It is a serious thing

Just to be alive on this fresh morning

In this broken world

- Mary Oliver

Feeling Small in a Multitude of Ways

                "I will love my crooked neighbor with my crooked heart"                                                                                           W.H. Auden

If the sky were any bigger it would kill me clean.
like an iceberg into the melting sea.
 
The sun colors the sky best before it breaks dawn
each wisp of cloud a red kite on a string.
 
It enhances the tree clinging to its last wind-torn leaf
like a mother to her child through the fence of the king.
 
It’s bigger than a barn from afar, that tree
and I don’t know its name or how old it is,
 
limbs full of empty nests unraveling in the wind.
Too lazy to have walked through a field of grass
 
to stand under a tree, the vast sweep of its arms,
and pay homage to that which is braver than me.
 
Too cowed to lob arrows at he who'd be king, 
my capacity to feel small is undiminished  by lies.
 
The sun travels its arc across a blood-splattered sky
and I finish the day in a multitude of small ways.

In concert with the theme March of Time from the poets at What's Going On and with OLN (open link night) at dVerse, the pub where poets hang out.  A good way to finish out the week, methinks!!. 

What The Tree Remembers

 

Stumps  cut down in their youth

line the ditch. Roots full of life

 

with a reach wider

than their whacked-off crowns

 

cut off at the knees

        (can you feel it?)

now have nothing to feed.

 

The parked bulldozer

        (can you smell it?)

with its claws in the dirt

 

is poised to make smooth

the way of man.

 

But wait.

        (look closely)

Saplings spring stubbornly

 

from stumps left alone.

The tree remembers.

Written for What's Going On Blog which challenges us this week to see both the dark and light in a world abounding with both and find a balance. Showing, somehow, the beauty and hope in a world that often feels dismal and divisive; with highlights to poems by Mary Oliver and Deena Metzger who do this all the time in their amazing poetry.

Flash Fiction - Cece Got Her Gun

On the first warm night of summer she wore the sarong she bought in Venice Beach where everyone is beautiful. The drape of fabric, soft as a sigh, brought back the surf that smelled like seaweed, the muscle volleyball game, and the blackest man in America who mimed on the boardwalk to a growing crowd. Candle wax from the last time she'd worn it had hardened in little droplets down the front. She could lift them out with an iron and a piece of paper towel. But that would have to wait.

The rain came across the fields like wind through corn, and with it rose the howl from the barn, and what she had to do because he was gone overtook the carefree evening. She hung the sarong back in the closet, changed into the jeans that fit and pulled on the tall rubber boots that didn't, then loaded the gun, raised the hood on her anorak, and entered the night.

Flash Fiction can be looked at as a half circle. But what if this was just the beginning. Would you turn the page?

 

The D.A.R. and Four Sacred Herbs

Not many things can beat sitting around a table with a group of like-minded people to discuss books.

I was recently invited to the monthly meeting of Town and Country, a local women’s group of lifelong friends. From historians to teachers to retired medical professionals, we gathered at a friend’s house over hors d’oeuvres, bourbon slush, and elder blossom liquor to discuss my novel, Let Evening Come. 

Some in the group have a direct relationship to Native Americans, and I learned of the four sacred herbs: sage, cedar, sweetgrass and tobacco, a discussion that led seamlessly into that of my novel with its Indigenous components.

Other members of the group are affialiated with the Daughters of theAmerican Revolution, the historic patriotic organization of forward thinking women established in 1918. There were bookmarks proclaiming The American Creed: I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it; to support its Constitution; to obey its laws; to respect its flag; and to defend it against all enemies. Penned by William Tyler Page in 1918, a creed that seems more urgent today.

While they don’t call themselves a “book club”, on this day it was.  

America - Love it Or Give It Back

I had one of my best readings right here at our local township library. This man, with the evocative message on his shirt, made an indelible impression on me. I was honored he asked me to sign a book for his daughter. 

My novel, Let Evening Come, is about the displacement of Indigenous peoples, love and loss, broken treaties and sundered promises. His shirt says it all and made me feel I had written something of worth. I'm sad that in the confusion of signings and surrounding conversation, I didn't get his name. That he had me sign it for his daughter, felt like the best tribute of all.

Regarding book signings, I'll be doing a Fourth of July giveaway. All you have to do is sign up for my newsletter here.  I promise to keep the content interesting and the mailings infrequent. 

The Price of an Ignorant Nation

In praise of libraries, my two local ones, the Goodland Township Library and Brown City District Library, have been amazing in their support and enthusiasm for this local author. They are involved and interested in their communities and support literary events, book sales, and summer reading programs. Like our public education system, libraries are part of the structural backbone of a democratic society. They are the literary center of small rural communities and encourage civil discourse. The public monies allocated to them are an investment in literacy and an educated citizenry.

The price of libraries is small compared to the price of an ignorant nation.

My self-arranged book tour has been a mini success to date, and I'll keep reaching out to libraries and independent bookstores far and wide to invite me to talk, read, and sign my debut novel Let Evening Come.  Who know, maybe someday I'll be at one near you. My publisher is small and they don't have the resources or personnel to organize book tours for their authors, so I have the reins in one hand and a sharp pencil in the other, searching for the sweet spot between promotion and creation. 

My hope now is that the first print run sells out and they have to do a second printing so the four (yes 4!!) typos a friend and sister found can be corrected.

IMPERMANENCE

The women gather at the riverbank
Musician, hunter, poet, mother.
Far from the withering gaze of the preacher
They bare their breasts to the sun.             
Sacred herbs for the midwife—
Sweetgrass and yarrow, sage, and cedar.

They gather and gaze

At the image of their mothers
In the mirror of the river.

Like snails in an aquarium
loosened from their shells,

In the reel of the river
They bare their breasts to the sun.

 

Bird’s plaintive cry o’er

purple nestling on the walk

Flees in silent flight.

 

 

May is a time of transience, and Frank Tassone, Monday’s host at dVerse, asked us to face the inevitable passing of it all with a Haibun, a literary form that blends prose and haiku.  

Bloodthirsty Nocturnals

A story about them is in the Flapper Press this month. 

After my mother died, I found a mink stole wrapped in newspaper at the bottom of the cedar chest . . . 

Yes, living where I do, we have rat stories, mink stories, weasel and skunk stories, the knock-in-the-night stories. Nocturnal stories. 

Fodder for a memoir. Would you pull up a chair?

Me and Tommy Orange

 In good company at Eras Bookstore

Thanks to the way bookshops and libraries organize books, I'm butting up against one of my favorite authors! I couldn't ask for a better position. We even happen to be color coordinated. 😃

To cap off my novel's birthday month I spent the afternoon at this new bookstore in Oxford, Michigan.

Tell me that checkered tablecloth isn't corny as all get-out?! Like I'm at a picnic. I meant to buy a plain black one but time got away from me.

Finally, I just want to say that because of the power of "local", independent bookstores are growing in number and popularity, helping their communities and the authors they support. Bookshop is the best way to access your own favorite local bookstore.

Onwards and upwards in this pursuit of the written word, doing what we all love best. 

Yvonne

Human

The Out-Of-Sorts Time For Novelists

If you are a writer, could you base a novel on a single solitary memory from your childhood? 

Sometimes that's all that's needed to jumpstart a story.

For me it was a barefoot boy beckoning from an adjacent dock on a Northern Michigan lake,  the boomerang that wouldn't come back, and the boy who lived with his family in a migrant's shack and one day stopped coming to school.

Writing is a solitary business (why writers love to write). Yet we eavesdrop and belly up to the bar where interesting people rub shoulders and words flow and ideas percolate to flow off our fingertips onto the white expanse of a screen or a notebook or a bar napkin.

Some of the reasons I'm passionate about writing and the natural world are explained here  (the scary out-of-the-way, desolate places our dad would park our pop-up camper on family vacations), along with some of my favorite immersive fiction from 2023 and the novels whose readers I felt would enjoy Let Evening Come.  But I wonder how accurate my assumptions are.

I've been asked, if I  had to do anything other than write, what would it be? I would like to hide in the upper branches of a tree. Drop raspberries in a basket tied at my waist and stomp grapes. Walk the fencerow to the rear of the farm to see the eagle's nest I've heard tell of, a mere hundred-acre walk away.

With one project complete and out of my hands while another is stalled and yet another still percolating like a an old coffee pot, I'm stuck in that out-of-sorts time for a writer. So, why not do some of those things? Why let a 20-mile-an-hour wind dissuade me, or a cold rain, or a mass of turbulent clouds skuttling across the sky to hide the sun as if another eclipse were underway? Why do I let the mundane eat away at the day, like the moon to the sun, or suddenly find myself daydreaming in front of the open refrigerator as if dinner will miraculously appear? Why let the out-of-sorts-time interfere with a walk along a fencerow to discover an eagle's nest rumored to be as big as a dining room table and maybe . . . maybe even catch sight of an adult in the act of remodeling or adding to last years structure.

Now that would be something to write about!

The Interview And the Robin

MIRACLES OF SPRING

 

While answering questions about my writing in an Interview with the publisher, two plump robins engage in a mating dance on snow-crusted grass outside my window. They fly their affair into the maple, bare as a February field, and find foothold in the crook of a branch for spring is coming and there's work to be done.

The miracle of the greening.  

The poets at What's Going On (the mighty foursome!) reminded me that all around there are miracles in our midst. We only have to stop and look to see the plump robin in a new light, how she fends off the blue jays through patience and perseverance. 

Then there's the first pop of green in the towering birch trees that seemed to happen overnight.

Speaking of miracles, my launch party at Inscribe Books went off without a hitch! Another miracle. A day I dedicated to my grandma who bolstered my fragile self-esteem through adolescence; to my father who collated copies of my early poems, bound them together with his stapler and titled the collection The Farmer’s Daughter; and to Mother who always wanted to know what I was doing if I hadn’t stopped in for a visit—immersed in a novel I regretfully never shared with her.

        I'm sorry Mom. 

        I wish you had been here. 

I reacquainted with some long lost friends tonight at our local library, coming together over a book. Now that's a miracle! It's a miracle that this book is out in the world. A miracle that someone wanted to interview little ol' me. Proof that (yes Mother) patience pays off and perseverance is a virtue.

Grandpa's Haymow (The Secret Place)

 We appreciate what we have after we no longer have it

 

I unhook the latch on the door and climb over the ancient
threshold of the haymow erected when grandpa was little.
The wind moans and groans through the cracks in the boards
and the door swings and bangs on its rusted hinge.
The smell of hay baled in summer and stacked for winter
from floor to rafters to a peekaboo window
the fun of seeing without being seen. But there—

A cache of eggs in a bowl of straw.

Brown and warm, chocolate and tan

Hens who like to sit, murmur, and coo

Beneath a watertight roof safe and secure.

Puffed-up doves preen in the rafters.

One flies overhead, east to west, the length of day.

Temperatures drop, wind rifts through the cracks

The sound of eaves dripping,

November come calling.

But the mow stays dry, a refuge from the farm on the farm.

I write in here. If I were a bird I’d nest in here.

If I were an owl, I’d sleep in here. 

If I were a architect I construct this here.

But they don't make barns like this anymore.

The resident cat from a long line of felines is on patrol.

When dad had dairy there were many of them.

Does she have a batch of newborns curled in a ball

In grandpa’s hay mow? 

A melodic song from high in the rafters

Stirs the hair on my arm.

No common sparrow this trilling song. Doves don’t mind

Our looking at them but somewhere up there—

Where no light can shine, nor eye can see

Perches an uncommon bird warbling a song.

My breath freezes in frame like a cat on the prowl

But this diminutive bird

Compelled to sing of the day 

Remains hidden from me.

 

For dVerse, a poem about a building that was more than a building to me.

 

What Happens After "The Call"

I have a guest post on Anne Allen's blog, What Happens After "The call". 

My novel releases one week from today.  I hope you'll add it to your bookcase.📚 I just got an advance blurb from  Dave Essinger, author and editor. I'm geeked about it.

Let Evening Come is a compelling contemporary Northern coming-of-age tale, gripping in its conflicts and transfixing in its prose. - Dave Essinger, author of Running Out, and Editor, Slippery Elm Literary Journal.

I'm so grateful to all of you who have been willing to shell out hard-earned dollars for this book. It's very humbling and I hope you'll find it worthwhile.
 

The Elevator Pitch 📚and Last Call

The hardest thing for an author to articulate is the one-sentence pitch. I've made a hundred adjustments and it still doesn't feel right. 😕

Let Evening Come  is the story of an Indigenous person displaced from his ancestral home in Canada and the motherless farm girl from Michigan who befriends him. 

Since I'm within ten days of my book launch (shiver, shake, commiserate) I thought I'd give last call for my newsletter signup. Sign up by April 2nd and your name will be included in the drawing for an autographed copy with some other goodies. Signed first printings are worth a lot!! 😀 My heartfelt thanks if you have already done so. 

The Worm Moon is shining in my window like a headlamp, illuminating the snow-covered landscape such as you wouldn't need one. A beacon in the darkling night while the world sleeps.