5/1/2007

At the Latin America Club (a favorite Mission dive bar), on her night out away from her husband and kids, reading Anagrams, by Lorrie Moore. She has a special interest in the book-- Word for Word, a local San Francisco theater company that performs literature, as their name suggests, word for word, did a portion of Anagrams with her daughter's third grade class (I think she said third grade). They've also done House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros and different poems with classes. The students get to decide how it's staged and act it out. I saw Word for Word do Daniel Handler's Four Adverbs last year at Theater Artaud and they were fabulous. My sister and I still quote from it. Our favorite line, voiced by Helena, a young writer living in squalor, wandering about her New York City apartment after attempting to teach children and wondering how to get her agent on her side-- "money Money Money money money Money money..."

Recently she read Rise and Shine, by Anna Quindlen, which she thought was okay and Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates, which she really liked--its about suburban life in the 50's that goes terribly wrong.

She doesn't have a favorite book, but here are are some of her favorites: What I Loved, by Siri Hustvedt; The Hummingbird's Daughter, by Luis Alberto Urrea, for its story, mysticism and setting (Mexico late 19th century); and Dragon Wings, by Laurence Yep, which is set in San Francisco's Chinatown between 1900 and 1907. She used to teach and would read it to her students.

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