Of the
thirty-one books published by Cross+Roads Press to date,
half
of them were written by women. Not that I’m counting,
not that
political correctness or anything else matters when it
comes to
choosing a book I like, introducing a writer I feel
deserves greater
exposure. I’m aware that more women are interested in
literary work
than men. And it’s no surprise that writing workshops
students are
predominantly women.
When I look at the list of women I have thus far
published, consider
their books of poetry and stories, certain common themes
emerge:
family, relationships, the search for selfhood. Not that
the men do
not exhibit an interest in these same themes, but that
their approach
is often different in style and perspective. Sometimes,
radically so.
It’s my contention, however, that if only men would pay
more attention
to any of the women I have published by Cross+Roads
Press, they would learn so much more about
themselves…about family…about relationships …about the
art of writing…perhaps even gain a little more knowledge
toward that age-old question: “What does a woman want?”
Sharon Auberle doesn’t have all the answers in SATURDAY
NIGHTS AT THE CRYSTAL BALL, but she asks many of the
right questions and leaves the reader with plenty of
insights to carry around for a long time.
Just prior to publication, I asked her to explain a
little about the
book:
this is a book full of ghosts…once, during the
deathwatch, my mother
looked up at me (she was perfectly lucid) and said who
is that woman
behind you? there was no one, and I said so, but she
insisted, oh yes,
she has her hand on your shoulder… the death of a parent
is enormous
“We are all victims of our childhood”… I read somewhere
as I sat by my mother’s bed those two weeks while she
was dying I knew the thing I’d feared most as a child,
her leaving me as my father had done, was happening and
I became that child again…
a child who, nevertheless, could sit at her bedside in a
darkened room
and scribble in my black journal… didn’t know why I was
doing it,
never thought it would become a book…just knew I had to
it started as
my mother’s story…but my father needed to be in it too,
though I
didn’t know him…how can I write about him?
I did…and began to feel as if I had known him. certainly
better than I
ever had…felt compassion for him…would not go so far as
love, but,
more importantly, forgiveness the realization that in my
own life, in
a different, yet same way, I’d done the same as he…
…the more I wrote of their failed love and marriage, the
more I
understood it, though much, of course, was imaginary…who
can ever know another person’s heart?
~Norbert Blei
Review:
Saturday Nights at the Crystal Ball by Ralph Murre
There’s a new book on the shelf that I reserve for the
fine work of my
friends over at Cross + Roads Press. Not that I expect
Saturday Nights
at the Crystal Ball to spend much time on the shelf. Far
too much good
material to set it aside for long.
Poet Sharon Auberle, on the surface, tells the story of
her mother’s
last days on this earth; that of a woman who danced her
way through an uneasy life. Anyone who’s ever lost a
parent, or ever will, can
benefit from the reading. Just beneath the surface, the
writer finds
other tales about to finally break into daylight: the
story of a
father who left early, in a time when that was the
exception; the
subsequent effects on the lives and loves of the author
and her
mother; the perhaps too quickly passed judgments all
around; all told
in the voice of an accomplished artist of the written
word, and
through it all, there is the dance. In “Spring Came Late
That Year”,
we read:
Maggie
danced
the night Edward left
whirling
her baby girl
about the kitchen
their mingled tears
spinning out
bouncing off windows
like the freezing rain
falling that night
and later,
in Legacy:
What my
mother left me
was not dancing shoes
or diamond rings
or bad luck with men
it was the way she stood
so straight
barely reaching my shoulder
but tall
on days when life
bends most people low
and that quickstep of hers
forward always
to music only she could imagine
Sharon
Auberle is storyteller enough to find and relate what is
unique
in her life. She is poet enough to show us what is
universal. She has
deftly tackled subject matter that in lesser hands could
have been
maudlin, even trite — but has triumphed in a way that
elevates us. Her
luck in collaborating with editor/publisher Norbert Blei
assured an
elegant book to stand beside the thirty others from his
press. Blei’s
decision to reproduce pages from the author’s journal,
written in the
days immediately preceding her mother’s demise, was a
brilliant one,
giving us a very palpable connection to the writer in a
time of
vulnerability juxtaposed with great strength.
~Ralph Murre
Much more on Sharon Auberle can be found on her website.
Just click on
Mimi’s
Golightly Cafe
