20 Questions with author Andrea Lochen: Questions 1 & 2

Hello library patrons!

Local author Andrea Lochen will be doing a reading and Q&A session about her new novel The Repeat Year here at the West Allis Public Library on Tuesday, August 13th at 7 PM in the Constitution Room.  In preparation for her visit, Andrea did a little interview with me in order for you dear patrons to get to know her a bit. I will be posting two of her responses each weekday until her visit on the 13th.  So here we go!

20 Questions with Author Andrea Lochen: Questions 1 & 2

Q: 1. What do you do when you are not writing?

A: I teach English at the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha.  In my free time, I love to read, bake, and take my dog for long walks.  I also volunteer as a Big Sister through BBBS of Metropolitan Milwaukee, which is incredibly fun and rewarding. 


Q: 2. If you had to choose one flavor of ice cream to describe your personality, which flavor would it be and why?

A: Hmm….what a philosophical question!  I would have to say mint chocolate chip—two very unique flavors that complement each other surprisingly well.   

We have several copies of Andrea's book here at the library if you would like to prep yourself with questions but get one soon!  They are always flying off the shelves!  Signed copies of the novel will be available for purchase at the reading.

The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan

pan·op·ti·con  /paˈnäptiˌkän/- noun.  A circular prison with cells arranged around a central well, from which prisoners could at all times be observed. Oxford English Dictionary

Anais Hendricks is unlike any fifteen-year-old you've probably ever met.  Orphaned by a woman who gave birth at a mental hospital and then disappeared, Anais has spent her entire life in the foster care system in Scotland.  As the book opens, we find our lead character in the back of a police car (a rather normal occurrence for Anais) headed to a new group home.  This home is actually the Panopticon; a former mental institution with 24/7 surveillance.  The Panopticon is used to house the most serious juvenile offenders and Anais soon finds herself in the company of a handful of teens who are either A. broken, B. mentally unstable, C. violent or D. all of the above.  But Anais doesn't have to work very hard to prove her status in this new home since her reputation has reached the doors before the police car: Anais is suspected of beating a policewoman so badly that she is now in a coma.  Anais, however, was higher than a kite at the time of the crime and can remember nothing.  

The story is told from Anais' point of view and is filled with her frustration with the system (it's amazing what the social workers don't ask), her dreams and commentary about "the experiment" and flashbacks to her adoptive mother who was murdered when Anais was still young.  Anais, like many kids in foster care homes, bonds quickly and deeply with her fellow "inmates" and they become a new family unit.  When the threat of throwing Anais into a secure lock-up until she can be placed in a regular jail looms near, and devastating events throw her new family into chaos, Anais must decide if she is going to the criminal everyone in the foster system assumes she is or if she will discover her true self.

This is a very gritty, realistic telling of a life that has always been hard.  One that probably won't get any better.  Anais talks openly about drug abuse, prostitution, child molesters, rape and AIDS.  Fagan writes Anais' voice completely in Scottish dialect which can take some getting used to.  Ultimately, if Fagan's goal was to shine a harsh light on the modern-day foster car system, she has succeeded.  Readers will potentially be horrified by the experiences Anais has lived through in The Panopticon, but will want to cheer for her to become a healthy, independent person.

Dear Life by Alice Munro

Dear Life is a collection of short stories by prize-winning Canadian author, Alice Munro. Many of these stories are about ordinary people who make capricious decisions which drastically change routine lives. These decisions, often involving adultery and/or disappearing, usually have detrimental effects on their own lives, as well as those of spouses, children, parents, friends and neighbors.  Young mothers slide, with astounding ease, into affairs. Men and women walk away from problems without a second thought as to who might be worried or hurt. The self-absorbed people in many of these stories change their lives and the lives around them seemingly on a whim. In contrast, the last four stories in the book, which the author says are “autobiographical in feeling,” have a theme of perseverance in the face of difficulty. In these stories, neither poverty nor loneliness nor illness nor disappointment destroys the constancy of the family. Hardship is an accepted part of life. 

Check out Dear Life @ the library!

Bright-Sided by Barbara Ehrenreich

Barbara Ehrenreich uses common sense, critical thinking and a sharp sense of humor to analyze the positive thinking philosophy that influences so much of American society.  Tracing positive thinking back to a nineteenth century backlash against the dourness of Calvin-based religion, she examines the philosophy of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Transcendentalism and the Christian Science of Mary Baker Eddy.  Moving into the twentieth century, she scrutinizes the self-help books of authors like Norman Vincent Peale and Dale Carnegie, also the belief that attitude can deter the progress of serious disease and the prosperity theology of preachers like Joel Osteen. Finally, she traces our country’s current problems to the wide-spread reliance of politicians, CEOs and managers on feelings and intuition instead of the analysis of hard facts their counterparts used in the past. She concludes that positive thinking is not a benign philosophy which improves our attitude, but rather the purposeful turning of a destructive blind eye to signs of trouble we should be heeding. 

Check out Bright-Sided @ the library!

The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta

What would you do if one day a portion of the population including your friends, family, and neighbors suddenly disappeared?  This is the premise of The Leftovers.  The aftermath of the Sudden Departure is told through the stories of many different characters.  The uncertainty of the event (was it the Rapture or another inexpiable happening?) has changed everyone’s lives.  Some people continue on while others leave the family they have left and join cults such as the Barefoot People and the Guilty Remnant.  In contrast to Tom Perrotta’s other works this book is very subtle and does not have the satire that has become his trademark.  However, it’s a thought provoking book with loose ends that will have the reader drawing their own conclusions.  Checkout The Leftovers @ the library!

Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell

In the summer of 1976, when London is suffering through a record-breaking heat wave and drought, Robert Riordan, a retired London banker, walks out of his home one morning to buy a newspaper. When he does not return, he creates a crisis requiring his three adult children to return to the family home.  Although his wife, Gretta, claims he was happy in his retirement, his emptied bank account reveals his vanishing to be premeditated and of his own volition. The family is not close and the children each have their own troubling secrets. Michael Francis, oldest child and only son, is failing in his personal and professional life. Monica, the responsible, perfect daughter, has similar problems. And Aoife, the difficult, late-in-life baby, who went through childhood with undiagnosed learning disabilities, is hiding the fact that she cannot read from family, friends and employers.  Monica and Aoife also have a secret between them that has destroyed their relationship. And, obviously, Robert has a secret reason for disappearing. But, in the course of searching for some clue of why their father left or where he might have gone, the children discover that their parents have keeping the biggest, most astounding secret of all. Using the small bit of information they are able to glean from their mother, their search takes them to the family home in Ireland.  Here they find answers to their questions and, perhaps, solutions to their problems. In INSTRUCTIONS FOR A HEATWAVE, author Maggie O’Farrell is able to make the reader understand this dysfunctional family (disappointed mother, distant father, angry children). We pull for them to come together and overlook each other’s weaknesses.  

Check out Instructions for a Heatwave @ the library!

Love Anthony by Lisa Genova

Olivia’s son Anthony is diagnosed with autism at age three. He doesn't talk and has not progressed beyond loving Barney.  The relationship between Olivia and her husband, David is disintegrating and she is having a rough time accepting that Anthony will never be “normal”.  Just when she starts acknowledging that Anthony can be happy despite his diagnosis he suffers a seizure and dies.   Olivia and David separate and Olivia moves to Nantucket away from relatives feeling sorry for her and memories of Anthony.  Searching for a reason for Anthony’s short life she finds solace in the words of a fellow island resident.  Lisa Genova has once again created a touching novel.  Checkout Love Anthony  at the library!

Inferno by Dan Brown

Instead of religion, Dan Brown tackles science in this fast paged, page turning read that will leave you on the edge of your seat.  It begins with Professor Langdon (of Da Vince Code fame) in a Florence hospital suffering from a gunshot wound and amnesia.   After a woman breaks into his room and starts shooting he escapes with the help of a doctor.  Trying to figure out why he’s in Florence with people shooting at him leads Langdon on a path though the great art and buildings of the city.  As in Dan Brown’s other books the history, art, literature, and science are real.  Check out Inferno@ the library!

I Can't Complain by Elinor Lipman

Author Elinor Lipman indeed seems to have little to complain about. She draws on her life experiences for this collection of essays and has barely a cross word to say about anyone in her personal or professional life. A baby boomer, she was raised in 1950’s Lowell, Massachusetts, by a happy homemaker mother (who lied about her age) and a doting father who was able to make each daughter feel she was his favorite. She grew up in an Irish Catholic neighborhood that fully embraced the only Jewish family on the block. All her friends, relatives, in-laws, in-laws’ friends, friends’ in-laws and co-workers (and their friends, relatives and in-laws) are friendly, successful, interesting and funny. She and her husband and son may have some faults, but those faults are charming and merely add a little spice to their lives. These experiences lead her to some common-sense opinions on how to choose a mate, how to maintain a relationship, how to share cooking chores and a bed and taste in fashion, and how to survive the inevitable death of loved ones. In short, I CAN’T COMPLAIN paints a picture of an American life we’d all like to live. 

Boy 30529: A Memoir by Felix Weinberg

There are a lot of Holocaust memoirs out there.  This one is a little bit different.  Czech-English physicist Felix Weinberg does not like to refer to himself as a “camp survivor.”  He considers it a series of miracles that he lived and his family did not.  But I find it hard to call Weinberg anything but a survivor.  This book tells the story of a teenager who survived not only Terezín, but Auschwitz-Birkenau, Blechhammer, the Blechhammer death march, Gross-Rosen and Buchenwald.  Once the war was over, Weinberg vowed only to look toward the future.  But years of not talking about his experiences left him feeling that he owed it to both his living and deceased relatives to put his story on paper.

Much of this book is a monument to his family.  Weinberg’s memories begin when he was a young child living in Aussig (Ústí nad Labem), Czechoslovakia.  He speaks fondly of the beautiful family home. How he and his mother, father and brother went to visit his mother’s parents in Prague during the holidays.  He talks about his health obsessed father, Victor,  who always took the family on nature outings, fed them all vitamins and even went so far as to hire a gymnastics trainer for young Felix. 

In 1939, Weinberg’s father left Czechoslovakia for London where he was arranging to move the entire family.  Hitler invaded the country in March of that year.  Victor had secured three Red Cross transportation passes for the remaining Weinbergs but through some sort of red tape or missing documents, they were not allowed to leave the country.  Nelly, Felix’s mother, moved them all to the small town of Wildenschwert (Ústí nad Orlicí) to live with the family of Rudolph Pick, a family friend.  Things continued to deteriorate in Czechoslovakia.  Soon, Felix was refused access to the local school due to his status as a Jew.  Food shortages worsened.  The SS even had the nerve to confiscate all of the skis belonging to Jews living in that mountain town.  Rudolph and Nelly decided to send inexperienced Felix to live at a nearby farm where he would be well fed.  This arrangement lasted about a week.  The Germans requisitioned the Picks’ large home in 1942 and the Weinbergs were soon after deported to Terezín; beginning a five year journey of horror and chance survival.

Weinberg’s short memoir is striking in its straightforward tone but is not filled with ghastly details of Nazi atrocities.  Felix explains that he does not remember large portions of those five years; that his mind enabled him to “see without seeing” as a coping mechanism.  Weinberg defied so many odds by surviving the war and his everyday account of life in Nazi concentration camps makes for an enthralling read.  Boy30529 is a thoughtful account of one man’s family and his experience during the holocaust.