The Youngest Miss Ward

Who wrote this book and when?
Joan Aiken published this in 1998.

Has there been a film version?
No.

Who are the important characters?
Hattie Ward – the youngest of the four Ward daughters, creative and ignored
Ned Ward – Hattie’s youngest cousin and closest friend
Lady Ursula – Hattie’s aunt, a spinster who has it out for her
Lord Camber – Lady Ursula’s former beau, a kind man who feels a kindred connection with Hattie
Sydney Ward – Hattie’s eldest cousin, for some unknown reason is interested in her
Burnaby – the nurse for the Ward twins, who have been hidden away from society
Godwit – Lord Camber’s manservant
Agnes – Hattie’s sister, a shrew and harpy

What’s it about?
Hattie Ward is devastated when her mother falls ill, her domineering aunt comes along, her sisters betray her and she herself is sent to live with distant family. Mostly left to herself, Hattie is given ample time to compose poetry and converse with her cousin Ned. When introduced to Lord Camber, Hattie finds someone else to share her soul with. But things take a turn for the worse when measles hits the entire household and Hattie is wrongly cast as a fallen woman.

Why is this book a classic/bestseller?
It is neither.

Do I recommend you read this book?
I would recommend Aiken’s other books before this one.

How did this book make my list?
I liked “Miss Fairfax” by Aiken.

Has it won any awards?
No.

Favorite quotes:
“All this was bitter as gall to the irritable spirit of Agnes, the more so since it was based on completely reasonable arguments and thoroughly incontrovertible facts.” – p 12

Anything else?
No.

Personal thoughts:
I always look forward to reading modern authors’ take on the lives of Austen characters – whether after the conclusion of their respective stories according to Austen, or the lives of the characters who hover on the grey edges of Austen novels. This particular novel follows Hattie Ward – who is the aunt of Fanny Price from “Mansfield Park.” She is very similar to Fanny in many ways: she is a writer, she’s overlooked and loaded off onto relatives. And she looks for love though she doesn’t hold much hope of gaining it.

Aiken does a good job of capturing the few characters from “Mansfield Park” properly. Agnes (Mrs. Norris) is a nagging know-it-all, Mrs. Bertram is sufficiently absent, and Fanny’s mom, Frances, falls in love and elopes with Fanny’s father during the course of the book. However, the storyline of this novel is very disjointed, with a very abrupt ending. I’m not sure if Aiken was attempting to imitate the odd plot of “Mansfield” but I can honestly say I never knew which what way the story would meander into next. I wasn’t very satisfied with the story as a whole, but am still glad I read it.

Day #10 – in which we sample the delights of North Carolina

I wasn’t going to get up early and go to breakfast with my mom, Kate, and Anne, but when I heard they were going to visit a farmers’ market, I revised my plans hastily. I love going to our local farmers’ markets and was eager to visit one on the other side of the country to see what they had going on. My aunt opted to stay home and leisurely get ready. But before we could even head out, my mom realized there was a neighborhood yard sale going on and hit the pavement in search of deals. She came away with some books and an extra suitcase for me (which I was pretty sure I was going to need, based on how much I’d already bought.) I tried to buy some little Crocs for Maysen but was outsnagged by a lady with twins.

The farmers’ market was great. There were lots of stands selling things we don’t usually see up here at the FM. Broccoli, leeks, okra, collard greens – and nearly ten stands all selling goat products of some sort: goat cheese, goat meat, goat milk, goat milk soap. I was in heaven. I picked up a small bar of goat’s milk soap, a microwaveable heating pad filled with cherry stones, and a jar of pumpkin butter. (Pumpkin butter!) When people heard where we were from, they inevitably asked us about onions, wine, apples, and lavender.

(the house across the street from Anne’s. I wanted to buy it and move there. Only $375,000!)

After the farmers’ market, we went out to breakfast at a place Anne frequents. They had marvelous pancakes and I couldn’t come close to finishing my breakfast. I was surprised to find out my sister drinks coffee now. Not the espresso drinks but black brewed coffee. Yikes! Midway through our meal my dad called to tell us my aunt was locked out of the house. She didn’t have her cell phone but she remembered our home phone number and called my dad asking him to call us and tell us to come home. She was still in her pajamas. We finished up and headed back to rescue her. Then we packed up and took off for High Point to visit family.

(Vinegar Barbecue at Kepley’s. Nasty.)

We visited my mom’s cousins at Mickey’s house. He is one of their favorite cousins and has stage four lung cancer from working in a paint factory. They reintroduced us (or in Kate’s case introduced) to the wonder that is Cheerwine. More on that later. Mom, Aunt Elaine, Mickey and other family caught up and shared horror stories about their growing up years. Then we went off to find my grandparents’ graves. We drove around in circles a while trying to find the graveyard, and eventually stopped at a Krispy Kreme to call Jason and ask him to get googlemap directions for us.

(Grandpa Dallas’s gravestone)

At the graveyard, we trooped around looking for gravestones. My grandma and great grandparents’ were in the same place, which was fairly easy to find. But my grandpa and great uncle were in a different spot and were tougher to find. I found out my great uncle was stabbed to death in a bar fight and that my grandpa fought in World War II and was a “mean s.o.b.” according to my aunt. My aunt brought Kate and I into fits of laughter when she went dumpster digging for discarded silk flowers to put on my relatives’ graves. My mom was mortified and hid in the car.

(Kepley’s)

We then went to find a hotel and dinner. My mom wanted to stop in at Kepley’s Barbecue, a place she and my aunt used to walk to and eat at when they were younger. We all ordered barbecue except for Kate and were disappointed to find out it was no longer smokey-sauce based barbecue but vinegar based – a very big difference. I couldn’t eat more than a few bites of mine and my mom even didn’t finish hers. Turns out the original owner had sold the place soon after my mom and aunt moved away and he had completely changed the recipes of everything. We did, however, gorge ourselves on the hush puppies before calling it a night.

Our New Digs

Many, many of you have been requesting photographs of our new house, so I’m here to indulge you – kind of.  These are pictures we took the day after closing on the house, before we had done any cleaning at all or any painting (of which we have now done a little).  Painting, I mean.  We took a week to deep clean this house before we did anything else since it was previously a rental home and in kind of depraved condition, cleanliness wise.  So, hopefully by the end of the summer or mid-fall, depending on our summer activities, we will be able to get the rest of the house painted and such and I will post the “after” pictures.  Hopefully, most of you will have been guests at our house by then, as well, so you won’t need photos. 

Here’s the exterior:

Yes, it is a manufactured home, although they are building another one down the street and we can’t figure out exactly what makes it a manufactured home since it appears they build them exactly the same way we’ve seen other houses built.  Also, you can see our approximately 15 square feet of front lawn.  It’s a bit larger in the back yard, but we’re okay with its smallness.  And that we have neighbor boys we can pay $10 to mow and weedwhack.

When you walk into the house, this is what you see:

The door to the right with the slats leads to our laundry room, which I do not have a photo of.  It has room for the w/d, obviously, several cupboards, and a utility sink.  Directly to the left is the hallway to the two extra bedrooms and the second bath:

At the end of the hall is the bigger of the two extra bedrooms, which we’re using for a guest bedroom.  It looks out on to the street (and is the big window in the shot of the front of the house).

See the kitty food on the floor?  At least it never smelled like cat pee!  This room is actually fairly large, possibly as large as our living room area in our apartment.  Here’s the second bathroom, which is the one we opted to decorate with our British stuff and is the room nearest to completion, decor wise.  It just needs to have the towel bar replaced and the toilet paper holder fixed:

There’s a small linen closet between the bathroom and the third bedroom – which we’ve converted into an office with four bookshelves and our solid oak desk.  I use it most of the time, since I spend most of the time at home and am in charge of doing the budget and writing checks to pay bills.  It also houses the cat boxes – a strong motivation to keep them clean!

This is a shot of the kitchen/dining area from the living room.  Despite the fact that we have no dining room table set, we are still planning on using this as an eating area and are trying to keep it cleared out.  The purple splotchy wall is now gone – we have painted it, and the funky ledge thing along the kitchen island a cocoa brown color, as well as the ledge in the walkway.

My kitchen is probably eight times bigger than our apartment kitchen was and I have so many cupboards I can’t fill them all.  Which I am okay with and I’m sure will change.  I have a raised stove, which you can see, and a ceramic cooktop.  The two downers in the kitchen are that the garbage disposal doesn’t work, which we need to fix and can’t afford to right now, and that the microwave is nothing but a glorified timer for the stove.  It works in every way except that it doesn’t heat things.  So for now, we’re using our old microwave on the counter by the sink where it’s mostly out of the way.  That green thing is one of the things now cocoa brown, and yes, those are skylights.  We have five skylights in our house, which rocks.  One in the laundry room, one in the second bath, and three in the kitchen.  We nearly never use our interior lighting.

Here’s a shot of the living room from the kitchen.  It isn’t that good, but I think that’s because Jason didn’t want to include the three foot wide bleach stain in the carpet of the living room.  We don’t know exactly what the renters did, just that they weren’t very smart about cleaning it up.  We hope to eventually replace all the flooring in the dining area, kitchen, and living room with some kind of laminate or bamboo.  Also, you can see the very corner of our enormous tumbleweed pile along our back fence.

Here is a shot of the master bedroom.  There’s a walk in closet.  Um…yeah…all I can think of to say about that?

This is the only shot of the master bath that I have.  This is our tub.  There’s also a linen closet, a shower with massage shower head (yay!), double vanity sinks, and obviously, a toilet.

Finally, here’s a shot of our garage.  It’s accessed through the laundry room and is the only part of the house which the owner fixed up before selling.  It’s had the entire interior repainted, shelves installed, and lighting installed.  It’s pretty nice and very helpful considering the temperature has already broken 100 degrees around here and there’s also been rain.  We also have an underground sprinkler system for our miniscule lawn – hah!

So there you have it.  We love it, despite the fact we’ve had to buy more light bulbs in one go than I ever thought possible and tons of paint and are nowhere near getting it to where we want it.  But that’s part of the fun, right?

Day #9 – of the infamous Mart, and lovely Charlotte

I don’t have a plethora of pictures for this day, since most of it was spent on the road.  So you’ll just have to settle for pictures of my cousin’s kids again.  Sorry.  I also realized you may want names with faces:  The green shirt is Thomas, the smallest who is falling off the couch is Griffin, and the one with the jack-o-lantern smile is Peyton.  Cutest boys!

We were *supposed* to be on the road by 8am (hah!)  but considering Kate and my aunt were involved, things took considerably longer.  Not that I’m complaining because I had more time to sleep.  We piled into the car and headed for Atlanta to shop at the Mart.  Basically – this is a gift center for retailers to purchase things from suppliers to resell in their own establishments.  You either have to have a retailer tax code to get in, or know someone who actually has a shop there in order to get permission to come in and shop.  My aunt knows everyone and their brother, so we managed to get in around 11 am.

We then proceeded to shop for three (THREE!!!) hours.  Most of which was Kate and I sitting on a bench waiting for my mom and aunt as they perused the wares.  We didn’t buy much of anything, although there were some very adorable purses there.  However, it is a big trend in the south to have your initials monogrammed on everything you own and I don’t particularly care for that – so I passed.

After the Mart, we drove to Charlotte to stay with the sister of my mom’s college room mate (didja get that?). We stopped at Cracker Barrel so Kate could enjoy the CB experience before heading on to Anne’s house.  She has a beautiful house which I would kill to own – or any of the houses around it.  They almost all have lovely gardens (the above photo is Anne’s), sweeping porches, huge trees and hardwood floors.  I was instantly disappointed in our own house until I found out most of the houses started at $500,000.  Yikes!  I got a room all to myself since I had reach maximum exhaustion status by this point and my mom wanted me to get a good night’s sleep.  The day ended with a bit of the movie Ben Hur and cheese and crackers and a cracking good thunderstorm.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Who wrote this book and when?
John Berendt published this in 1994.

Has there been a film version?
Yes, directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Kevin Spacey and Jude Law.

Who are the important characters?
The narrator – a reporter, supposed to be John Berendt (the author)
Jim Williams – a Savannah socialite, embroiled in a murder trial
Danny Hansford – a volatile young man with a loud car, a penchant for sex and drugs, and an explosive temper
The Lady Chablis – a transvestite performer
Joe Odom – a musician and semi-swindler, friend of the narrator
Minerva – a local voodoo practitioner

What is it about?
The narrator (Berendt) has been introduced to the slow moving but serious social life of Savannah, particularly that of Jim Williams. Williams has not been officially crowned as the king of the social circle, but is fairly close. Berendt also befriends a local piano player named Joe Odom, who moves around to different deserted houses to run a tour location and music joint, and the Lady Chablis – a performing transvestite who impresses Berendt to be her chauffeur.

When a shocking shooting happens in the realms of high society, Savannah finds itself caught up in one of the most interesting (and drawn out) murder trials in the city’s history.

Why is this book a classic/bestseller?
It is based on true events, features real people, and is also highly entertaining/engrossing.

Do I recommend you read this book?
Yes, but there is obviously violence in it (a shooting among other things), sexual themes (a transvestite and homosexual tones), and language.

How did this book make my list?
I visited Savannah this past spring and wanted to read it after visiting, since they advertise the movie/book everywhere. It’s pretty much the only competition for Paula Deen.

Has it won any awards?
I don’t think so.

Favorite quotes:
“Minerva was sitting in a small room under a bare light bulb. She was like a sack of flour. Her cotton dress was stretched tight over her round body. Her skin was a pale brown, and her face was as round as a tranquil moon.” – p 244

Anything else?
The movie is so drastically different from the book, you almost need to consider it a different story. Just to warn you.

Personal thoughts:
It was lovely to read a book with places in it that were real and some of which I have actually seen with my own eyes. The characters are all based on real people and the events actually happened – which, after reading the book, sounds a bit ridiculous. (Just ridiculous enough to be true.) I don’t usually enjoy reading books that could be classified as mysteries (which our library considers this) but this book is one of the exceptions. It’s completely enthralling – with me staying up to the tiny morning hours reading just one more chapter. While every part of it doesn’t seem to be tied to the central plot (the Lady Chablis, for example) they all help to make up the gorgeous painting which gives a glimpse into Savannah life.