I was very excited when I heard that Sara Gruen had a new novel coming out this fall.  I loved Water for Elephants and I know that many of you did also.  I began to read some of the reviews coming out about Ape House and they were very mixed…some loved it others hated it.  Being a bookseller as long as I have been I knew that they only way to know about this book was to read it myself.  Last week I got my chance because I got an advance copy from my lovely reps from Random House.  I went home on Thursday, ate some dinner and started reading and I finished Ape House on Friday!  I thoroughly enjoyed myself while reading  this book.  Do I think that everyone that loved Water for Elephants will love Ape House?  No, they are very different novels but I do think that everyone should give it a chance.

This is the story of a family of Bonobo Apes.  Sam, Bonzi, Lola, Mbongo, Jelani and Makena are part of an experiment to study their capability to have relationships with each other and humans.  In fact they have been taught American Sign Language and can communicate with Isabel, a scientist at the Great Ape Language Lab.  There is an explosion at the lab that injures Isabel and “liberates’ the apes.  After she leaves the hospital Isabel begins her search for the apes and comes to find out they have been purchased by man who has started a reality show called Ape House.   Isabel realizes that to save her “family” she must enlist the help of those she has never been able to fully connect with…her own kind, humans.  She enlists the help of a lab assistant, a reporter, a vegan protestor and a ex-porn star with plans of her own.

This is an article I found with Sara Gruen about why she wrote Ape House:

Sara Gruen on Ape House

Right before I went on tour for Water for Elephants, my mother sent me an email about a place in Des Moines, Iowa, that was studying language acquisition and cognition in great apes. I had been fascinated by human-ape discourse ever since I first heard about Koko the gorilla (which was longer ago than I care to admit) so I spent close to a day poking around the Great Ape Trust’s Web site. I was doubly fascinated–not only with the work they’re doing, but also by the fact that there was an entire species of great ape I had never heard of. Although I had no idea what I was getting into, I was hooked.

During the course of my research for Ape House, I was fortunate enough to be invited to the Great Ape Trust–not that that didn’t take some doing. I was assigned masses of homework, including a trip to York University in Toronto for a crash course on linguistics. Even after I received the coveted invitation to the Trust, that didn’t necessarily mean I was going to get to meet the apes: that part was up to them. Like John, I tried to stack my odds by getting backpacks and filling them with everything I thought an ape might find fun or tasty–bouncy balls, fleece blankets, M&M’s, xylophones, Mr. Potato Heads, etc.–and then emailed the scientists, asking them to please let the apes know I was bringing “surprises.” At the end of my orientation with the humans, I asked, with some trepidation, whether the apes were going to let me come in. The response was that not only were they letting me come in, they were insisting.

The experience was astonishing–to this day I cannot think about it without getting goose bumps. You cannot have a two-way conversation with a great ape, or even just look one straight in the eye, close up, without coming away changed. I stayed until the end of the day, when I practically had to be dragged out, because I was having so much fun. I was told that the next day Panbanisha said to one of the scientists, “Where’s Sara? Build her nest. When’s she coming back?”

Most of the conversations between the bonobos and humans in Ape House are based on actual conversations with great apes, including Koko, Washoe, Booey, Kanzi, and Panbanisha. Many of the ape-based scenes in this book are also based on fact, although I have taken the fiction writer’s liberty of fudging names, dates, and places.

One of the places I did not disguise or rename is the Lola ya Bonobo sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They take in orphaned infants, nurse them back to health, and when they’re ready, release them back into the jungle. This, combined with ongoing education of the local people, is one of the wild bonobos’ best hopes for survival.

One day, I’m going to be brave enough to visit Lola ya Bonobo. In the meantime, in response to Panbanisha’s question, I’m coming back soon. Very soon. I hope you have my nest ready!

Growing up, my family’s culinary experiences were limited. Whether it was a sign of the times — I feel like bologna, instant mashed potatoes, fish sticks, toaster pastries, and other “convenience foods” had their heyday in the nineties, and my family took advantage of their kid-friendliness — or because when feeding four kids you’re bound to have to sacrifice quality for quantity, I don’t remember many made from scratch meals. Cakes always came out of a box, and peanut butter and jelly could often be found in the same jar.

Now that I’m grown and have a palate for food with more than one ingredient (it can even touch other foods on the plate!), I’ve also found myself wanting to experiment with more and more complicated (and usually more delicious) recipes. When I get a new cookbook, I read it from cover to cover, daydreaming about the tasty possibilities and poring over each photograph. Emeril Lagasse, renowned New Orleans chef, has a new cookbook out this summer, Farm to Fork. The cookbook is organized by the type of focal ingredient, and showcases Emeril’s love for local ingredients and fresh flavor. One of the first recipes to catch my eye was for a quiche, a food I don’t think I knew existed until adolescence. An egg pie? How does that work? Wonderfully, it turns out. This is Emeril’s take, simple yet spiked with blue cheese.

“Herbed Quiche with Blue Cheese”

Savory pie crust:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
8 tablespoons (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
3 to 4 tablespoons ice water

1. Place the flour, salt, and pepper in the bowl of a food processor, and pulse to combine. Add the butter and process until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. While the machine is running, gradually drizzle in the water, processing until the dough comes together to form a ball.
2. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and shape it into a flat disk. Wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for at least 1 hour or up to overnight. (The dough can be frozen for up to a month; thaw in the refrigerator before using.)

Pie filling:

6 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
2 ounces Maytag blue cheese, at room temperature
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 eggs
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons chopped fresh mixed herbs, such as parsley, thyme, tarragon, chives, and/or oregano

1. Preheat the oven to 400F
2. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the pie crust dough to 1/8-inch thickness to fit an 8-inch fluted tart pan. Fill the pan with the dough, easing the dough into the bottom and lightly pressing it against the sides. Trim off the excess dough.
3. Line the pastry shell with parchment paper, and fill it with ceramic pie weights or dried beans. Place the tart pan on a baking sheet, and bake for 9 minutes. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and set the tart pan on a wire rack to cool. Remove the parchment paper and the weights.
4. Reduce the oven temperature to 375F.
5. In a medium bowl, whisk together the cream cheese, blue cheese, and butter. Whisk in the eggs until well blended. Stir in the cream, milk, salt, pepper, and herbs. Pour the filling into the partially baked pie shell. Return the tart pan to the baking sheet and bake, rotating the quiche halfway through, until it is puffed and golden brown, 25 minutes. The quiche is done when a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.
6. Remove the tart pan from the baking sheet and set it on a wire rack to cool for at least 5 minutes before slicing. Serve hot, warm, or at room temperature.
6 to 8 servings

I had always intended “to get to” Natasha Trethewey’s poetry, but when I saw that she had a new book coming out, that she was coming to Lemuria, and that she had been featured in Mississippians, there was no time to waste. To begin, I explored some of her poetry and ended up finding a book of Bellocq’s photography.

In the early 1900s, E. J. Bellocq photographed the prostitutes of of Storyville, the red-light district of New Orleans. Bellocq’s was largely unknown until the 1970s and many years later, in 2002, Trethewey published a collection of poetry inspired by these women and Bellocq’s photographs. The photographs can be painful to look at, but the viewer also recognizes the respect with which the photos were taken. Similarly, when reading Trethewey’s poetry, she leaves the reader the tenderness with which she writes.

I just finished reading Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Although I have been reading Trethewey’s work on a variety of subject matters, each piece leaves me with the care and tenderness she gives to the subject while never neglecting the hard truths of a situation. In reflecting on the possibilities that her family hopes lie ahead for her brother, Trethewey writes:

“There was still the possibility of a life he imagined–prosperous, stable, perhaps even emotionally rewarding, as it had been when he was first renovating houses. And it must have been in sight, reflected in the images of the “good life” plastered on casino billboards up and down Highway 49 to the beach: attractive people, in elegant clothes, laughing into cocktail glasses poised above plates of beautiful, abundant food. The casinos were among the first to recover, and they broadcast their message of affluence above the heads of people struggling to reconstruct their lives from remnants.” (page 92)

I will continue to read her work and no doubt we are proud she is a Mississippian. Natasha Trethewey will be at Lemuria this coming Wednesday, September 8th for a signing at 5:00, reading at 5:30.

See Nan’s blog on Beyond Katrina.

Click here to see all of “Lemuria Reads Mississippians.”

Editor Neil White will be signing at Lemuria on  Thursday, October 28th.

Reserve your copy online or call the bookstore 601/800.366.7619.

xxxx

Last year about this time, I made a pilgrimage to West Point paying respects to an all-time hero, Howlin’ Wolf. I started listening to his music over 40 years ago, and to say his musical influence on me is huge is an understatement.

The Howlin’ Wolf Blues Museum is really a small room in size yet chock full of Wolf memorabilia. It is a fan’s paradise of Wolfana reverently displayed with gifts from Hubert Sumlin–Wolf’s longtime guitar player, and the lovable Willie King.

For me it’s hard not to think about the Wolf without hearing “Spoonful” in my mind. Going from Wolf’s version to Willie King’s and then back to the Wolf. Two greats gone from my life yet their music lives.

Click here to see all of our blogs on Mississippi State of Blues.

Ken Murphy and Scott Barretta will be signing at Lemuria on Thursday, November 11th.

Reserve your copy online or call the bookstore 601/800.366.7619.

jjj

back in december of 2007 i read an awesome little book of short stories titled st. lucy’s home for girls raised by wolves.

about a week ago when our random house reps were here for a sales call they met with all of us lemurians to share their big upcoming titles.  one that i had my eye on was karen russell’s new novel, swamplandia!

i started reading swamplandia! a few days ago and am quite impressed.  the story is based around a alligator wrestling family with its own island park in florida.  the main character, ava is the youngest of three children.  when the main attraction of the park, ava’s alligator wrestling mother, dies suddenly the park takes a turn for the worse.  with no tourists to keep the park open the father takes long trips to the main land, the older sister becomes a spiritist and starts communicating with ghosts and the brother runs away to try to make money to keep the park out of debt.

and that’s all i’m going to tell you.  you’re going to have to wait until february (when the book comes out) to find out what happens.

by Zita