An Accidental Completist

Also: New books, new interviews, and the fire of Tesoro poets

Before we begin…

If this month were a book and you were in charge of giving it a title, what would that title be? I’m just checking in here. This January seems to have been a trying month for many folks. Are you glad it is over or was it actually a great start to your new year? 

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First a Book, Then a Relationship

Last week, I asked you if you’d ever read all the books by a single author. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, prompted by my own “completist” tendencies when it comes to certain writers and by memories of my dad who came into this world in January 1927 and left it in January 2021. 

Thanks to him, I have read every single one of Patrick O’Brian’s Master and Commander series featuring the unforgettable characters of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin. I’ve read most of these more than once up to and including the first three chapters of what would have been the twenty-first novel in the series: The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey.  

When it comes to O’Brian’s entire body of work, however, I will remain an “incompletist.” I’ve read a few of his stand-alone novels but I know I’ll never read his translations or his biography of Picasso. I can live with this. 

There is something neat and tidy about the word “complete,” two simple syllables that, when uttered, yield a satisfying snap. On the other hand, the word “completist” is tinged with obsession. Normally, I am too much of a dilettante for obsessions to take hold but when it comes to an author I love or a series of books that forever link me to a time or a person that has been important to me, I’m susceptible. I dive deep. The characters are people who are with me even when I think I’ve long since left them on the shelves, tucked safely between the covers of their books. 

I am not alone in this. Those who responded to my very unscientific survey last week have read all the books by one or more authors. 

What is behind the desire to read all the work by one author? For some, certainly for me, it starts with one good book, one good story, followed by another, then another. For example, Lani Diane Rich (Dear Writer) loves books by Jennifer Crusie for very specific reasons. 

 “Everything she writes feels like it’s specifically made to delight me. Sharp humor, fun relationships, and a sharp focus on story. I wouldn’t say I’m a completist; I don’t feel compelled to read everything she writes, but she’s never disappointed me so far, so she’s an auto-buy for me.” - Lani Diane Rich

A whole crowd of people over at Notes From Three Pines are ardent fans of the entire Inspector Gamache series by Louise Penny. More than one reader here has advised me that I should read these books by in order to fully appreciate how the characters grow and change; the mysteries themselves are only part of the allure. 

I am a completist in only three authors: Anne Tyler, Ann Patchett, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I am aiming to finish all the work by Toni Morrison, Rabhi Alameddine, Kate Atkinson, and Carol Shields. I am almost there with Shields and Alameddine. In each case, I started with one book that captivated me except for the Sherlock Holmes stories. I read these to understand what my husband loved about them. I have since developed my own relationship with the stories.

And that is what I love about the idea of completing all the books by one author: the relationship that develops. I pick up a book out of curiosity, or attraction to the first page, or because a friend recommended it, and then suddenly I am in deep. Reading a lifetime of an author’s work creates a kind of relationship that I have come to cherish even when one book isn’t as good as another. As a reader, this is very fulfilling. It is the closest I will likely come to actually knowing a writer I admire. As a writer, the value goes even deeper. Author Kelsey McKinney wrote about this in an old post from her newsletter.

“After you’ve read four or five books by the same writer, you start to see not only where their natural talent is (which you can usually tell by book one) but what they had to learn to do, where they improved….When we read every book of an author’s corpus (their body) we begin to understand what broadly they were trying to say, and how they tried to say it.” - Kelsey McKinney

I own every book Anne Tyler has ever written, even the early two novels she later wished she could have destroyed, If Morning Ever Comes, and The Tin Can Tree. I have read a number of her novels three or four times. She never leaves Baltimore, she always writes about family, but within those two constants she explores the full range of every human frailty, emotion, and success. I started with Breathing Lessons in the late eighties. I moved ahead from there and then looped back to her earlier books. I am now familiar with all the routes and byways, all the signposts and landscapes, and even the people who, as different as they are from story to story, are related to each other. After all, they all sprang from the same imagination. 

Tyler can make me cry. She can make me laugh out loud. She can leave out pages of detail and communicate everything important in just a paragraph. I read her to learn not just about life and people but about how to observe them and let them be who they are. I have my favorites: The Accidental Tourist, Breathing Lessons, Ladder of Years, Saint Maybe, Noah’s Compass, A Spool of Blue Thread. There are a few, like Celestial Navigation, that I could barely stand to finish including those two earlier novels of hers. Reading them all, however, reveals something important about Tyler’s journey - what she learned to keep, what she learned to let go of, the themes that continually fascinate her. Her voice. Through her books, she has revealed her mind and shown me how her craft has evolved. I will never know her personally (although I do possess a very kind note from her that I will cherish always) but hers is one of the voices in my head when I sit down to write, someone who prods me to try and shows me what can be done. 

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Spotlight San Diego: Three Novels and A Poet

Our next author in our new Spotlight San Diego interview series will be Ari Hornavar. I just finished speaking with her about her novel, A Girl Called Rumi, the story of a young girl whose powers of imagination and storytelling help her navigate the ruptures caused by war in Iran and her ultimate escape to the U.S. that comes at a cost. It is a gorgeously-told tale by a writer who weaves her own experience as a young girl in late-eighties Iran, then as unaccompanied minor immigrating to the U.S., and finally as the adult who must learn to carry “home” inside her instead of looking for it in the world around her. 

Ari Hornavar, Jim Ruland, and Marivi Soliven Blanco

Also coming up: My interview with Marivi Soliven Blanco, author of The Mango Bride which is being made into a movie as I write these words, and my talk with Jim Ruland whose newest novel, Make It Stop , launches in April but you can pre-order it right now and you should because 

1. Make It Stop is one of the most fun reads I’ve had in a long time which is strange because the hero is an addict and the story taps into some of my worst fears about the healthcare system. It’s an L.A. story that is funny, beautiful, and fast. Think Quentin Tarantino with an actual beating heart and a moral compass. Jim describes it much better here and we will have a blast talking about it when I interview him. 

2. Pre-orders are one of the most powerful ways you can support an author’s work. They feel wanted. The publishers get excited. The momentum builds. Not only do they help an author right from the start, they give you that frisson of status when the books arrive in your mailbox the very day they are published. 

You’ll find a growing collection of books by San Diego writers here on bookshop.org.

So a Woman Can Sing (and Write and Teach) 

Stacy Dyson, a poet who also calls San Diego home, leads Tesoro, an innovative organization of women poets from all over the world who perform, teach, and help an ever-expanding network of women who want to write and perform their poetry. Tesoro is running a fundraiser that ends on February 5. Check it out now and see if you can help lift the voices of these women because, as Stacy writes:

“A woman without her voice is a candle denied a flame.” 

Spark is Yours: Chime In

Have you just finished a book you loved? Tell us about it.  Got a great resource for readers or writers? Share away! How about sharing your book stack with us, that tower of tomes rising next to your bed or your bath or wherever you keep the books you intend to read – someday. And if you stumbled on a Moment of Zen, show us what moved you, made you laugh, or just created a sliver of light in an otherwise murky world. 

Welcome New Subscribers & An Experiment

So we hit a nice little milestone after last week’s newsletter. We are now a community of more than 710 readers, writers, and people who like to explore life through a bookish lens. Welcome to all new subscribers! Thank you so much for being here. If you would like to check out past issues, here’s a quick link to the archives. Be sure to check out our Resources for Readers and Writers too.

Let’s See What Happens

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That’s it for this week. Let me know how you are and what you’re thinking about. And of course, always let me know what you’re reading. If there’s an idea, book, or question you’d like to see in an upcoming issue of Spark, let us know!

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Ciao for now!

Gratefully,

Betsy

P.S. And now, your moment of Zen…Elmo? (we’re getting desperate for some new Zen moments. Send yours today!)

Calling for Your Contribution to “Moment of Zen”

What is YOUR moment of Zen? Send me your photos, a video, a drawing, a song, a poem, or anything with a visual that moved you, thrilled you, calmed you. Or just cracked you up. This feature is wide open for your own personal interpretation.

Come on, go through your photos, your memories or just keep your eyes and ears to the ground and then share. Send your photos/links, etc. to me by replying to this email or simply by sending to: elizabethmarro@substack.com. The main guidelines are probably already obvious: don’t hurt anyone  -- don’t send anything that violates the privacy of someone you love or even someone you hate, don’t send anything divisive, or aimed at disparaging others. Our Zen moments are to help us connect, to bond, to learn, to wonder, to share -- to escape the world for a little bit and return refreshed. 

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