~ from Jill

On Saturday a book I had pre-ordered from Amazon finally arrived, and I spent the afternoon and evening devouring it. I’d like to play coy, but I can’t hide the fact that the author is my cousin, especially since we’re sharing this blog.

I held two things in mind as I was reading it: one, the thrill of hearing a story told well, a story entirely created and not part of our own family’s history, and two, a mental picture of my cousin with her chalk-blond hair in a succession of school photos; her quiet persistence, and tenacity, her marvelous gift with words.

I found myself turning down pages that made me laugh, reveling in her style. I felt so proud of her.

We’ll be driving together to Kansas in three days, to attend a Conference at which she will be speaking, and signing books. I called her last night and said that I read a great new book titled “Next of Kin.” It actually took her a minute to figure out that I was talking about HER book. We have a five hour road trip from her house in Tulsa to Manhattan, Kansas, and I am much more of a talker than she is. I teased that I would prepare a list of questions to go over with her about the book.

Her response: “I’ll have my set of emergency headphones ready . .”

Will I be able to resist asking questions about her intriguing characters? I know both our mothers would smile, just picturing the two of us in a car for 5 hours straight, remembering nights when I slept over and tried to keep her up talking while she tried to sleep and ignore me: “Give her more space,” my mother used to say. “Stop gabbing.”

I want to start a shelf of books written by people I know, people I love. Hers will be the first one there.

Some favorite passages:

“She breathed him in, his smell a mix of cigarettes and Jack Daniels and cologne as deep and inky as the Phoenix night sky.”

“Her voice rang with a musical quality, carrying in it the sound of Arkansas, the sound of crickets and green trees on the hills and girls who grew up too fast.”

“Heat lightning flashed across the hay fields, confusing the fireflies into senseless patterns of light. The melting stump that used to be Uncle Sam wept its own cold tears of passion and mistakes in the humid Arkansas night.”

“Thistles and dry weeds, anointed with a powdering of sugar crystals, crunched under her feet as she headed down the side of the mountain.”

“Sally figured the mayor-in-waiting would be half-furious, considering his mode of transportation had been stolen and subsequently returned by a horse and fry cook. Then again, this was Arkansas.”

Isn’t this great writing? Isn’t my blonde-doll of a cousin fantastic? . .

“Gab, gab, gab, gab, gab .. “