Hartford Courant from Hartford, Connecticut • 59

THE HARTFORD COURANT SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2002 G3 BOOKS Biography Seminar Scheduled Dazzling Display Of Narrative Many Blessings Anna Quindlen's Sweet Story Of Romance, Sacrifice And Redemption By CAROLE GOLDBERG COURANT BOOKS EDITOR By KYRIE O'CONNOR COURANT STAFF WRITER By CAROLE GOLDBERG COURANT BOOKS EDITOR serve as caretaker. Charles Cuddy, known as Skip, has his own bad memories. His mother died when he was a little boy, his father left him in the care of not-very-caring relatives and a nna Quindlen's third novel, "Black and Blue," was a hard-hitting look at the The novelist Paul Auster might be described in many ways, but fainthearted isn't among them. In his latest, "The Book of Illusions," it's not his verbal pyrotechnics that amaze or his intellectual games that dazzle. Any Rivers of a woman Mark Twain once wrote: "Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man the biography of the man himself cannot be written." On Oct 5, the Mark Twain House will sponsor a symposium, "Never an Uninteresting Life: The Art of Biography," at which a panel authors will explore the role of the biographer in composing a work Twain It r- misplaced sense ofloyaltytoa ne'er-do-well friend landed Skip in prison for a time.

Now in his 20s, he's a basically decent guy who is drifting, discontent and looking for a Cuomo look-alike with a high verbal SAT might pull that off. But what he does with his narrative, a kind of novelistic flea-flicker, really does take some stones. BLESSINGS by Anna Quindlen, Random House, 226 $24.95 THE WRITE STUFF watches over the place through binoculars, is not so easily fooled. At this point, the reader has a choice to make: reject the whole plot as impossibly unlikely, or submit willingly to an ever-deepening emotional manipulation. It's a tribute to Quindlen's skill as a writer that choosing the second option is so satisfying.

Soon Lydia becomes Skip's confidant and brings in a third conspirator, Nadine's charming daughter Jennifer. Lydia's ancient family doctor is prevailed upon to vaccinate the baby. Little Faith cooperates by quickly learning to sleep through the night and keeps her fussing to a minimum more evidence that we are in fairy-tale territory here. Over a few months, Skip becomes a responsible and resourceful father, and Lydia, as she grows close to the baby, finally begins to explore the secrets of her own past Perhaps this improbable family will succeed after all. But then Quindlen steps back and lets reality stomp in.

There is no fairy-tale ending, though a literal hidden treasure is discovered and some promising doors are left ajar. It would be easy to dismiss this as saccharine soap opera, but sometimes a little sweetness is welcome. In a world staggered by toppling towers and rattling sabers, a comforting THE BOOK OF ILLUSIONS by Paul Auster. Henry Holt nd 321 $24 escaping from domestic abuse. "Blessings," Quindlen's latest, might well have been written on another planet An old-fashioned romanticism, a fairy-tale sweetness, permeates this story of love, sacrifice andredemptioa The word "blessings" carries multiple meanings.

It's the name of a beautiful old home with picturesque pond, sun-dappled orchards and flower-strewn meadows. The Blessings are the family that has treasured it for more than 50 years. And blessings in the form of grace and unexpected gifts figure' prominently. The book's two main characters could hardly be less alike. Lydia Blessing, 80, is the last inhabitant of the old mansion, once the scene of idylls with her dashing father, demanding mother and golden-boy brother, Sunny.

Later, it becomes her sanctuary and place of exile when she is widowed during World War and it becomes apparent her infant's father was not Lydia's husband. Later still, it is where Sunny takes his own life, for focus for his life. That focus arrives one night swaddled in an old flannel shirt and nestled in a cardboard box. Yes, it is an abandoned baby. Skip immediately, improbably, falls for the child and decides, against all reason, to keep her, hiding the baby from Lydia and her grumpy Korean housekeeper, Nadine.

Soon he's sneaking out to buy formula and Pampers, and snuggling the baby, whom he names Faith, inside his shirt to shield her from prying eyes while he rides the mower around Blessings' many acres. But A Lydia, who story of blessings may be just what we need. reasons it takes Lydia decades to understand but are soon obvious to an even minimally astute reader. Now living amid fading glories andflawed memories, cranky, niggardly Lydia, who isdeterrninedto maintain the rambling old place on the cheap, hires a young man from town to live over the garage and i suggestedcould not be created. The daylong event will feature nationally recognized authors, including three Pulitzer Prize recipients, who will discuss how biographers create, interpret and define the popular image of public figures.

It will be held at the Wallace Stevens Theater at the Hartford Financial Services Group, 690 Asylum Hartford. Speakers will include Pulitzer Prize-winning biographers Justin Kaplan Clemens and Mark William McFeely A and Edmund Morris Rise of Theodore Roosevelt" and "Theodore Other panelists will be James Atlas, former New York Times Book Review and Atlantic Monthly editor, and historian Robert DalJek, author of "Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times." Also included are Michael Eric Dyson, author of "Holler If You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac William Lee Miller, author of "Lincoln's Virtues: An Ethical and Sylvia Jukes Morris, author of "A Rage for Fame: The Ascent of Clare Boothe Luce." Lewis Lapham, editor of Harpers Magazine, will moderate a panel discussion. The symposium will begin with registration at 8:30 a.m, with an introduction at 9:15 a.m. byJohnBoyer, executive director of the Mark Twain House. Kaplan will give the keynote address at 9:30 am, followed by a morning session with the authors on "Biography of Cultural Icons" and an afternoon panel on presidential biographies.

It will end at 5 p.m. Lunch and morning refreshments are included in the fee, which is $45 general admission, $40 for those 65 or older, $35 for Mark Twain House members and $10 for high school and college students with identification. On Nov. 14, the Twain House will inaugurate a lecture series dedicated to Twain's legacy of social commentary and criticism with a program by Randall Kennedy, professor of law at Harvard University and author of the controversial book "Nigger. The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word" (Pantheon, $22).

For more information or to register Car the symposium or the lecture, call 860-247-0998, Ext 23, or visit wwwjnarktwain house.org. "The Book of Illusions" makes clear from the beginning that it's a story of loss: lost stories, lost art, lost lives, lost work. David Zimmer is a Vermont college professor who, in the late '80s, has just suffered the death of his beloved wife and two small sons in a plane crash. He can't get over it so he, too, crashes, into alcohol and solitude. One night he's watching some TV show when he happens upon a clip of a long-forgotten silent-film comedian, Hector Mann.

For the first time in ages, Zimmer laughs. Soon, in a desperate grasp at some kind of life, Zimmer becomes obsessed with the figure and work of Mann, a middling-successful star who mysteriously fell off the planet early in 1929. Zimmer travels all over the country to see the remaining prints of Mann's 11 movies and becomes more and more persuaded of the lost star's genius. (Auster's depiction of these films and Mann's work in them is a tour de force.) Soon Zimmer publishes the definitive and only book aboutMann's movies. Soon after that, he gets an offer to translate Chateaubriand's monumental classic "Memoirs de rOutre-Tombe" very loosely, "Memoirs of a Dead Man." Then it gets weird.

Zimmer receives a letter from a woman in New Mexico purporting to be the Wife of Hector Mann, urging him to1 come out to see Mann before his imminent death. Could the long-lost star still be alive? Did Mann's career really end in 1928? Wouldn't these questions make a Mann-obsessive jump on the first plane? Yes. But Zimmer, incredibly, hesitates. Then a yjmng woman who calls herself Alma Grund shows up, sticks a gun in Zimmer's face, tells him he's going to New Mexico and den, of course, the two tumble into bed. It's in the next section, in which Alma recounts the picaresque life of Hector Mann, that Auster shows his chops.

Remember, this is the contemporary Zimmer looking back on the '80s Zimmer, offering his replay of the very long story Alma recounts. Hard to make that work, but Auster manages. The other stuff is what gets him into trouble. Auster's strengths are his intellection and control of material. So when he turns noir, right about when Alma shows up, it's goofy.

The gun scene is out of "Casablanca." Here's Zimmer "Go ahead and shoot it, I said. Youll be doing me a great service." Auster also gets himself into trouble late in the game as the plot comes to, its strange endpoint (No, no spoilers here.) Auster makes two or three choices that may make sense in terms of his authorly questions about the nature of art and the impermanence of life, but they are highly unsatisfying for the reader. But when he's not trying to be Chandleresque, he produces a highly intelligent and serious meditation on the interplay of art, death and life. As the book's epigram, Auster punnishly quotes Chateaubriand: "Man has not one and the same life. He has many lives, placed end to end, and that is the cause of his 'Angel In The House' Deflowered BY SUSAN CAMPBELL COURANT STAFF WRITER sex with women.

She screams unduly at the kids. She is us, and we are her. In sometimes excruciating detail, the essayists in "The Bitch in the House" explore sex, love, solitude, work, motherhood and marriage, and not in that particular order. They are in their 20s; they are in their 60s. They are, to the last woman, feminists, but they are not necessarily 1IUI1C1 iinousE lion? in MimtM weal? CAfMl HAV.

(vitOH sure what that means. Ifthereisone complaint to make about this rollicking, free-flowing double-barreled think piece, it is that the women all seem to have Waters To Discuss Immigrants The experiences of African American and Caribbean immigrants and their Irish and Italian counterparts will be the subject of a talk by Harvard Professor Mary C. Waters Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Connecticut Historical Society, 1 Elizabeth St, Hartford. Waters is the author of "Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities." The society will present talks by four other writers this year.

Harlow Giles Un-ger will discuss his biography of Lafayette on Oct 6. Juan Gonzalez will talk about his book "Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America" on Oct 8. Colin Andrews will discuss his book about crop circles, "Circular Evidence," on Oct and on Dec. 12, Edward Linenthal will speak about the Oklahoma City bombing and other events that illustrate issues of how history is presented to the public. Admission to each event is $6 for adults; $3 for senior citizens, students and children ages 6 to 17; and free for society members and children under 6.

Reservations are recommended and can be made by calling 860-236-5621, Ext 238. the Cat" writes about her bout of doubt over childbearing. Upon holding the newborn son ofafriend, she says to the infant Tm going to go to your wedding, and Tm going to be the old woman with the long gray braid who's crying like crazy and you're going to say, Hey, Mom, who is that maniac over there making such a fool of And your mother will say, 'You remember Pam, she held you for a whole hour when you were just three hours and youll roll your eyes and kiss your bride and look over at me Natalie Kusz, author of the 1990 memoir "Road Song," writes in her essay, "The Fat Lady Sings:" "My sister, who is a supersized chick like myself, has had food hurled at her from passing cars (with accompanying size-related slurs) in two of these United States when she was outfor healthy strolls; both she and idling our cars at traffic lights, have had drivers alongside us shout helpfully, 'Get out and walk, (and then what they'll throw Said that old woman-hater Sig-mund Freud: "The great question which I have not been able to answer despite my 30 years of research into the feniinine soul, is "What do women want?" Well, get in line, Siggy. We're not entirely sure, either. Or rather, some of us know, and some of us don't Perhaps you should meet us on our own, individual turf.

Meanwhile, "The Bitch" is happy to give you a piece of her mind, provided you are tough enough to take it In 1854, English poet Coventry Patmore extolled his wife's goodness and sacrifice in a short poem, "The Angel in the House." Over the years, Patmore added to the poem phrases that today could be considered fighting words: "Man must be pleased, but him to please is woman's pleasure," and so on. Actually, it hardly took any time at all before someone called Patmore on his overwrought view of Victorian womanhood. In a 1931 lecture, author Virginia Woolf suggested that a woman writer's goal was to "kill the angel in the house." Bless her. Now look how far we've come. Cathi Hanauer, author of "My Sister's Bones," a 1997 novel about anorexia, has brought together 26 wom-en writers who go one step further than sending to her reward the sacrificing (and sacrificial) idealized female.

They not only kill the angel in the house, they replace her with the new female head of household, "The Bitch in the House." The Bitch is not what you think. The Bitch is trying, but with the conflicting messages she has received as she matured, she is confused. And so she gets married, has children, has a job, is exhausted, keeps trying, fails and tries again. Or she chooses not to get married, or she gets married long past the time ofher eggs' freshness. She puts on weight; she takes weight off.

She has affairs, with and without the knowledge of her partner. She has THE BITCH IN adequate finan- THE HOUSE cial resources, edited by Cathi Several of the Hanauer, William mothers sing Morrow, 275 the praises of $23.95 their nannies, and one is left once to wonder again if ferninism isn't continuing its traditional path through the landed gentry and leaving behind women who can't afford nannies and weekend retreats. Oh, but when it hits, it hits big-time. (Plus, let's be honest The title alone is evocative enough, and makes for a neat book to leave lying around. It certainly will generate conversation, and that without cracking open its pages.) Pam Houston, author of the short-story collections, "Cowboys Are My Weakness" and "Waltzing.