I just finished reading "Tom Lake" & it conjured up some feelings from my past, a past with a definite connection to Wilder's "Our Town." I was cast in our Senior play, "Our Town;" I did not play Emily, but I was reminded of her death each and every day that the play ran. The small town I lived in, Natrona Heights, outside of Pittsburgh, was a rough blueprint of Grovers' Corners, and I couldn't wait to EXIT this community for many reasons; too small, too white, too blue collar, too conservative. I enlisted in the Army at 17 and when I completed my 3-year obligation in Germany, I returned to Pennsylvania and went to school close to my own Grover's Corners, at Slippery Rock State College, much for convenience. I won a scholarship and left the Rock to attend Westminster College. They had me in mind to play a few leads in their upcoming theatre season that would include Thornton Wilder's "Our Town." Perhaps being offered a part in this production brought unsettling feelings to the surface: I packed my bags after declining to participate in the production. I had decided to leave Grover's Corners and stake my claim in California.
"Tom Lake" allowed me to revisit "Our Town" and my connection to the past. And to revisit the underscoring message: whether you stay or seek out your fortune somewhere else, you live and you die, just like everyone else, and in both cases you have the opportunity to open your eyes and participate in life and the lives of others, or you can just pass the time walking through your limited time on earth. I would like to think that I have had my eyes open to some extent; at least they weren't closed.
As I wrote this post this week, I struggled against the urge to follow the "those who go, those who stay" theme that you illustrated so beautifully here in your comment. I want to talk about that more fully in the future and I am going to reach out to you. I've been thinking about it for a long time. Sometimes even the towns that we grow up in -- while always a part of us -- are never quite "our town."
Wow! I really enjoyed and appreciated your description of how you experienced the Paul Newman version of Our Town and how Tom Lake, at times, gave us a contemporary Our Town. You said a lot -- all beautifully. Much to think about, reread and savor. I share your take on all of it. The photo is a delight. I saw the horse and thought--oh, the horse sees a problem with our embrace of new technology and takes it in with quiet amusement. What a great find that photo is. And so much snow...
I looked at that photo and just remembered a winter we all survived up there in 1969 and some before, some after. All that snow! It made the plows look puny. To see that horse way up there, where neither man nor machine could go, looking down just made me smile.
Thank you for this? As it i happens, I just ordered Deacon King Kong on audible because it was free but I had intended to by Heaven And Earth Grocery Store which I am now going to get from the library.
I appreciate your honesty in sharing that a book by a beloved author didn’t resonate in the same way other books have. I have never read Our Town. I have only seen it performed as a high school play.
My three notable books from 2023: The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor, She may be lying down, but she may be happy by Jody Gelb, and Medea by Euripedes
Elsbeth, your moving reference to Our Town and Emily who dies having given birth and how her family reacts has links to an Emily in my favourite book, ‘A Month in the Country’, which I have read countless times since it was first published in 1980; at least twice in the past year. The lead character, Tom Birkin, is a young veteran of The Great War trying to recover from shell shock and to cope with an equally young wife who is serially unfaithful and who always returns to her husband. Birkin is a conservator of medieval church wall murals and at the parish church he goes to he is confronted with a hostile vicar, who also has a beautiful young wife and into this mix the wonderful Baptist Ellerbeck family are thrown. They are Birkin’s escape and the family’s young teenage daughter Kathy is a quiet star of the book who, if Tom Birkin, had any sense he would keep close for the rest of his life (but he doesn’t I’m sad to say. I sometimes think I’d like to change that). Anyway, at the end of a particularly memorable day the pair spend in one another’s company, together with Kathy’s young brother Edgar, Kathy says to Birkin ‘Let’s call in on Emily Clough. She’s dying of consumption. We can give her the cornflowers Edgar’s picked for Mam’ and what follows is what you just heard in Kathy’s voice - a kind of resigned matter of factness. Emily will be dead soon and forgotten. The link in all this is the name Emily and young deaths. A coincidence I had never picked up on before and now I have I am wondering if Emily is a popular name for characters who die? 🐰
There was a point where my class could’ve done Our Town as our play the year of graduation. We settled on The Last Days of Judas Iscariot instead. But I remember, reading the two scripts, it was Our Town that made me cry. It was particularly poignant coming out of lockdown to be with my friends again.
Oh, how I wish you could have seen Portland's Fuse Theatre's production of Our Town. Fuse set out to queer it up, and they succeeded without changing a single line. The cast was a tight ensemble of highly capable and skilled actors, every one of whom could sing beautifully. I was expecting either a boring or campy production, but it was neither. Done with honest sincerity, Our Town came to life here in Portland, Oregon.
Thank you for this reminder, Betsy! I needed it this morning. I love this play and now I might have to watch the Paul Newman version. I saw it performed once in Cincinnati, no set, just some chairs on the stage and sound effects! What I remember is one of the women sitting in the chair making the motions of snapping beans and that sound coming through the speakers, even though she had no actual beans or bowl and I thought it was such magic. And of course, at the end I cried. Hell, I cried just reading your quotes from the play this morning.
The simplicity of the set is key somehow. It underscores the both the simplicity and the vastness of the world that they are depicting. I'm glad this resonated with you, Robin! Tears are good sometimes, right?
What a way to start my day. Thank you! My life has had so many Our Town connections I couldn't count them, but you read my book so you know...We have been planning to rewatch the Spalding Gray production, which we actually saw in NYC in 1989. Now I want to watch it tonight. Gracias!
Anyone who has spent time on the stage, as you have, has to have a relationship or at least a passing acquaintance with this play. For me, it was so very much ... New Hampshire. As I remember it.
My copy of "Tom Lake" is still with a friend who picked it up for me at the event last week, which I had to miss. I'm looking forward to the read. Ann Patchett is one of my "whatever she writes, I'm reading" authors. And, time for another watch of "Our Town." Do you think before or after I read the book? (actually after your newsletter and all the comments from others, I'll probably watch an "Our Town" production before I get my copy of the book.
Meantime, I didn't get to read as much this year as I usually do. Publishing a book will do that to you--steal time I mean. But my three tops: The first book I read this year: "Cloud Cuckoo Land," by Anthony Doerr (another writer on my list of "whatever he writes I'm reading" authors); "Thrust," by Lydia Yuknavotich, which in many ways reminded me of "Cloud Cuckoo Land," all about the necessity of telling stories and how they must be preserved; and finally my third top book of the year: "Day," by Michael Cunningham. Come to think of it, he's another in the canon of "whatever he writes I'm reading" authors.
I just finished reading "Tom Lake" & it conjured up some feelings from my past, a past with a definite connection to Wilder's "Our Town." I was cast in our Senior play, "Our Town;" I did not play Emily, but I was reminded of her death each and every day that the play ran. The small town I lived in, Natrona Heights, outside of Pittsburgh, was a rough blueprint of Grovers' Corners, and I couldn't wait to EXIT this community for many reasons; too small, too white, too blue collar, too conservative. I enlisted in the Army at 17 and when I completed my 3-year obligation in Germany, I returned to Pennsylvania and went to school close to my own Grover's Corners, at Slippery Rock State College, much for convenience. I won a scholarship and left the Rock to attend Westminster College. They had me in mind to play a few leads in their upcoming theatre season that would include Thornton Wilder's "Our Town." Perhaps being offered a part in this production brought unsettling feelings to the surface: I packed my bags after declining to participate in the production. I had decided to leave Grover's Corners and stake my claim in California.
"Tom Lake" allowed me to revisit "Our Town" and my connection to the past. And to revisit the underscoring message: whether you stay or seek out your fortune somewhere else, you live and you die, just like everyone else, and in both cases you have the opportunity to open your eyes and participate in life and the lives of others, or you can just pass the time walking through your limited time on earth. I would like to think that I have had my eyes open to some extent; at least they weren't closed.
As I wrote this post this week, I struggled against the urge to follow the "those who go, those who stay" theme that you illustrated so beautifully here in your comment. I want to talk about that more fully in the future and I am going to reach out to you. I've been thinking about it for a long time. Sometimes even the towns that we grow up in -- while always a part of us -- are never quite "our town."
It is amazing how many of us were shaped by that play. The echoes and reflections go on and on.
Wow! I really enjoyed and appreciated your description of how you experienced the Paul Newman version of Our Town and how Tom Lake, at times, gave us a contemporary Our Town. You said a lot -- all beautifully. Much to think about, reread and savor. I share your take on all of it. The photo is a delight. I saw the horse and thought--oh, the horse sees a problem with our embrace of new technology and takes it in with quiet amusement. What a great find that photo is. And so much snow...
I looked at that photo and just remembered a winter we all survived up there in 1969 and some before, some after. All that snow! It made the plows look puny. To see that horse way up there, where neither man nor machine could go, looking down just made me smile.
I fell hard for James McBride this year so it’s no wonder 2 of his books made my fav list for 2023
Deacon King Kong
and
The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store
Trust rounds out my top 3
I learned to ‘trust’ the author with this challenging yet ultimately very rewarding read
Thank you for this? As it i happens, I just ordered Deacon King Kong on audible because it was free but I had intended to by Heaven And Earth Grocery Store which I am now going to get from the library.
I appreciate your honesty in sharing that a book by a beloved author didn’t resonate in the same way other books have. I have never read Our Town. I have only seen it performed as a high school play.
Three books of 2023:
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
All of Us by Esther Cohen
Atlas of Imagined Places by Matt Brown and Rhys B Davies
🐰
My three notable books from 2023: The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor, She may be lying down, but she may be happy by Jody Gelb, and Medea by Euripedes
Elsbeth, your moving reference to Our Town and Emily who dies having given birth and how her family reacts has links to an Emily in my favourite book, ‘A Month in the Country’, which I have read countless times since it was first published in 1980; at least twice in the past year. The lead character, Tom Birkin, is a young veteran of The Great War trying to recover from shell shock and to cope with an equally young wife who is serially unfaithful and who always returns to her husband. Birkin is a conservator of medieval church wall murals and at the parish church he goes to he is confronted with a hostile vicar, who also has a beautiful young wife and into this mix the wonderful Baptist Ellerbeck family are thrown. They are Birkin’s escape and the family’s young teenage daughter Kathy is a quiet star of the book who, if Tom Birkin, had any sense he would keep close for the rest of his life (but he doesn’t I’m sad to say. I sometimes think I’d like to change that). Anyway, at the end of a particularly memorable day the pair spend in one another’s company, together with Kathy’s young brother Edgar, Kathy says to Birkin ‘Let’s call in on Emily Clough. She’s dying of consumption. We can give her the cornflowers Edgar’s picked for Mam’ and what follows is what you just heard in Kathy’s voice - a kind of resigned matter of factness. Emily will be dead soon and forgotten. The link in all this is the name Emily and young deaths. A coincidence I had never picked up on before and now I have I am wondering if Emily is a popular name for characters who die? 🐰
I think Emily is a popular name period but you raise an interesting point. It might be interesting to do a canvas of all characters named Emily.
There was a point where my class could’ve done Our Town as our play the year of graduation. We settled on The Last Days of Judas Iscariot instead. But I remember, reading the two scripts, it was Our Town that made me cry. It was particularly poignant coming out of lockdown to be with my friends again.
Oh, how I wish you could have seen Portland's Fuse Theatre's production of Our Town. Fuse set out to queer it up, and they succeeded without changing a single line. The cast was a tight ensemble of highly capable and skilled actors, every one of whom could sing beautifully. I was expecting either a boring or campy production, but it was neither. Done with honest sincerity, Our Town came to life here in Portland, Oregon.
The post really resonated. Thank you
Thank YOU, Susan.
Thank you for this reminder, Betsy! I needed it this morning. I love this play and now I might have to watch the Paul Newman version. I saw it performed once in Cincinnati, no set, just some chairs on the stage and sound effects! What I remember is one of the women sitting in the chair making the motions of snapping beans and that sound coming through the speakers, even though she had no actual beans or bowl and I thought it was such magic. And of course, at the end I cried. Hell, I cried just reading your quotes from the play this morning.
The simplicity of the set is key somehow. It underscores the both the simplicity and the vastness of the world that they are depicting. I'm glad this resonated with you, Robin! Tears are good sometimes, right?
Oh, yes, tears are totally good.
What a way to start my day. Thank you! My life has had so many Our Town connections I couldn't count them, but you read my book so you know...We have been planning to rewatch the Spalding Gray production, which we actually saw in NYC in 1989. Now I want to watch it tonight. Gracias!
Anyone who has spent time on the stage, as you have, has to have a relationship or at least a passing acquaintance with this play. For me, it was so very much ... New Hampshire. As I remember it.
That was true for Russel too, since he spent time in NH. I have never been to the state but it seems like I know it!
My copy of "Tom Lake" is still with a friend who picked it up for me at the event last week, which I had to miss. I'm looking forward to the read. Ann Patchett is one of my "whatever she writes, I'm reading" authors. And, time for another watch of "Our Town." Do you think before or after I read the book? (actually after your newsletter and all the comments from others, I'll probably watch an "Our Town" production before I get my copy of the book.
Meantime, I didn't get to read as much this year as I usually do. Publishing a book will do that to you--steal time I mean. But my three tops: The first book I read this year: "Cloud Cuckoo Land," by Anthony Doerr (another writer on my list of "whatever he writes I'm reading" authors); "Thrust," by Lydia Yuknavotich, which in many ways reminded me of "Cloud Cuckoo Land," all about the necessity of telling stories and how they must be preserved; and finally my third top book of the year: "Day," by Michael Cunningham. Come to think of it, he's another in the canon of "whatever he writes I'm reading" authors.
My top 3 reads of 2023: Pomegranate by Helen Elaine Lee, The Year of Goodbyes and Hellos by Kelly Irvin & Drowning by T.J. Newman.
These are all new to me so thank you very much!
You're welcome!