Graffiti Grandma Earns Starred Review from Publishers Weekly

Graffiti Grandma

Elderly antigraffiti vigilante Ellie Miller finds that teenage street kid Sarah Jansen resurrects her long-dormant maternal instincts in this gritty yet heartening examination of the significance of family. Fearing the increasingly malevolent Jeff—who uses brutality and murder to dominate a family of runaway teens—but loyal to her friends, Sarah's conflicted yearning for guidance and friendship impels isolated Ellie into re-engagement with everyday life. Barney weaves a multifaceted narrative with quick shifts in time and focus to show how flawed individuals overcome, or are destroyed by, failed relationships. The destructive impact of alcohol, drugs, and sexual abuse on children is abundantly displayed—and made stronger by the absence of graphic or exploitative portrayals—but the struggles of policeman Matt Trommald, who care for his autistic son, and Ellie's fragile, evolving commitment to Sarah reveal that even dedicated parents face difficulty in maintaining positive relationships. The grim, understated scenes of young people coping with the seamy side of life ensure that this is no lighthearted read, and Barney's convincing portrayal of ambivalent teen psychology prevails over the perhaps too-pat ending to provide a powerful glimpse of an underground world unknown to many, whose inhabitants are capable of transformation through love and acceptance.

Link: Review on Publishers Weekly website 

OUT-OF-THE-BLUE(S)

Sometimes we get so buried in our worries and To Do lists and doubts of our sanity that we can’t see past the glass of white wine in our hands. No, change those pronouns.  I, my.  No use playing Wise Woman to the world.  No use not admitting that I found myself in a really deep funk for a couple of months, a period that included self-medicating to no good end, just morning headaches.

I blamed my bad outlook on the completion of a goal, the paperback publication of Graffiti Grandma, not necessarily a good thing, it turned out.  Because what was next was the ghastly marketing siege that occasionally brought on nightmares involving flaming computer keys and missing fingers and daymares of me tossing my onerous efforts into a bottomless internet abyss, hearing, “Shit. Here she comes again.”

So I explained to my friends that what I loved most was writing, not the marketing.  I didn’t really, really, care that Amazon had sold only four copies of Graffiti Grandma, probably a record of some kind. I began Edith and inched my way through a first draft.

I sold a few more copies to Rotary club members who responded in their helpful ways to my husband’s description of his clever wife’s accomplishment. I think what inspired his support was the box of books he stumbled over every time he walked into our clothes closet. The box emptied. But then Createspace, in some kind of perverted promotion, surprised me with twenty free Graffiti Grandmas. The box remains in the closet.  Rotary can only do so much good.

However, last week something kind of miraculous happened. Trolling through my emails I found one that seemed to be saying that I and Graffiti Grandma had been chosen to be spotlighted in the Kirkus Review publication. Would I be interested?  “Will it cost me money?” I asked.  I am suspicious of out-of-the-blue miracles.  “No. This is for the promotion of your book which, as you know, got a very good Kirkus review.  In fact, the reviewer will be contacting you soon.”

And he did.  And he’s writing the piece as I write this blog, my first in months.

But the miracle is what the miracle did for me. Yesterday, in a surge of self-confidence, I started a list of ways I could promote my book--locally, not to strangers in the ether:  Readings in coffee shops, discussions at book clubs, gatherings in retirement homes, classes in writing at Senior Centers.  I would approach the books stores that have Graffiti Grandma on their shelves and ask to be included on their readings schedules.  I would ask for reviews from the readers of the book who could give it at least three stars.  I would spend the money I’d save by eliminating my medicinal wine to purchase reviews from publications that charge (like Kirkus ) for the privilege of  critiquing it to thousands of people.

Well, maybe not the wine part.  The reviews cost a lot more than the wine and I do like a celebratory glass once in a while, after a busy day of checking off items on this new To Do list.

AT SEA, SOMEWHERE

So, most of the corrections have been made and Graffiti Grandma looks almost the way I had imagined her: good font,  clean, readable pages, most if not all glitches caught and corrected. Except. Somehow she’s wearing a faded yellow nightgown of a cover, instead of the planned, vibrant, even shocking, orange ensemble. She will not reach out and grab any perspective reader not matter how hard she tries inside.

So she’s returned for a makeover.  It will take another five days, then I’ll be sent another proof. And then I’ll be forced to face reality. I’m thinking of telling my publisher to take his time. I’m not ready to begin marketing. 

I know this because I spent the weekend re-reading old articles from writers’ magazines, reading blogs, printing out email offers, looking for advice from marketing gurus who somehow know I’m about to launch a self-published book.

Launch. An  interesting concept.

I’ve only launched one thing in my life, and the word pulls the experience out of the archives that have stored it for seventy years. World War II. My school was having a war bonds assembly. Each class was to give a short patriotic skit, and since our teacher’s husband was stationed somewhere in the Pacific, we built a wooden replica of his ship which we were to launch as we sang “Anchors Away.” Several of us believed we should be the girl to crack the bottle across its bow, but Shirley was chosen, probably because, rather than canning jars and milk bottles, she brought in a pretty perfume bottle bound in ribbons. At the end of our song, Shirley stepped up and took a whack at our ship, but the bottle didn’t break. Another whack. After the third attempt, the teacher grabbed a rope attached to the stern and yanked, and the ship, now dented with parts dropping off, slid down its slide and into blue painted waves. We clapped as the curtain closed. Shirley broke into wails, and some of us smirked as we patted her shaking shoulders.

What I need right now is someone to pull the rope for me. I do not need a perfume-bottle-with-ribbons plan, but marketing support that will get Graffiti Grandma to go down the slide and out into the great sea of books. Could I at this very moment be deciding to hire one of those people on the internet offering to do just that?   

l also wonder if a few on-lookers will be hiding smiles when Graffiti Grandma’s curtain closes.  No matter. “Anchor’s aweigh” means that the anchor is raised and clear of the sea and therefore, the ship is officially underway. I look forward to the voyage.

ON BECOMING SEVENTY-EIGHT

For much of my life I’ve avoided old ladies. Not that I didn’t like them.  Mostly, they just didn’t interest me much.  A few of these almost invisible women come to mind:

            My grandma Anderl, a pudding of a woman who lived with my family for several of the last years of her life, sipping her daily glass of bourbon, doctor-prescribed, she insisted. 

            Mrs. Kauffman, the housemother in my college sorority with her precisely lacquered hair and manicured nails, who taught me how to iron my marriage sheets. 

            Ms. Pedersen, the spinster English teacher in the room next to mine, recycling meticulous forty-year-old lesson plans on the use of the subjunctive and asking if I’d like to borrow them.

            The elementary teacher in the room down the hall, who at sixty, attained her life’s goal of becoming a school principal, just in time to be asked to retire. 

            The Medicare-eligible counselor, dissatisfied with daytime TV, returning to her job on the kindergarten story rug, even though it meant getting on all fours and leaning on at least one five-year-old to rise up.

            My unnaturally coal-black-haired, crepe-skinned, neighbor, with her push-up bra decolletage, searching the Internet daily for a newer, younger bedmate.

            The raggedy woman in the plastic rain cap, sitting on the park bench talking to anything that moves, squirrels even, about her dead husband, probably a sister of the wild-haired shopper at Fred Meyer leaning over the head lettuce, asking how it’s doing today.

For years, I observed these women and others like them.  From a distance, smiling a little, turning away. They had little to do with me, with who I was, with what my life was all about.

And now I’m one of them. 

Today I heard myself talking to the Brussels sprouts in the vegetable section.  ‘Nasty little buggers,” I said as I piled a dozen of them in the plastic bag. “Why did I marry a man who loves you?” 

Last week I ironed our new 500-count cotton sheets because the developing permanent wrinkles in the top hem chafed my chin.  “Should have bought polyester,” I muttered into my ironing board. Mrs. K. didn’t have that choice back then.

For some reason, in spite of already having a man to sleep with, I sidled into Victoria’s Secret this weekend and, with boobs smashed into steel-like armature pretending to be a bra, felt as if I were an ancient stand-in for Super Woman. I also gave up on the idea of hair dye.

A couple weeks ago, I advised the copyeditor of my about-to-be-printed book that her use of salt-and-pepper commas needed to be tamped down; also, semi-colons, not to mention colons and M-dashes. “Want to borrow my Strunk/White?” I asked. I could hear Ms. Petersen cheering.

This lazy morning, I drank a third cup of coffee and glanced at the obituaries, followed by the want ads. Someone needed a tutor proficient in English skills willing to work with reluctant learners. I almost called for an interview when I realized I truly am not able to get up off the reluctant learner rug.

This evening I poured myself a glass of Scotch and watched the seven o’clock news on PBS.  It was a nice way to end the day, even if my doctor did not prescribe it.  Grandma knew.

Tomorrow, I will receive the proof of Graffiti Grandma. I am to give the go-ahead on its publishing.  This will be a little like getting a principalship and then realizing that you don’t have the time or the energy to create your perfect school. And that from here on out, my goal will most likely be what it is for all old ladies:  one day at a time, seize that day, breathe, be glad to be alive and kicking; always carry a plastic rain cap in a coat pocket.

SELLING: A DIRTY WORD BUT WITH A KIND-OF-NICE OUTCOME, MAYBE

So, now that both Graffiti Grandma and The Solarium are being sold on Amazon, Lulu, iBook and Nook (don’t even ask what this last few weeks have been like), I am beginning the marketing.

I like that word. Marketing. It seems professional. A Facebook page is under construction. I am reading a few other writers’ blogs. I have hired a web page genius who happens to also be a good friend even though I’m twice her age. I have on-line joined a couple of indie writers and publishers groups. That’s what we self-publishers are called with only a slight squint nowadays, a lot better than the derisive downward curve of the lip that used to accompany “vanity press.”

I haven’t a clue what to do next. Altogether I have sold maybe thirty copies of my books. My son even bought one and downloaded onto his 21-inch Mac. He will be paralyzed if he tries to read it that way, sitting straight up in his desk chair, but the effort warms his mother’s heart. A friend gave up trying to find one of my books on iTunes and downloaded the Glee-Madonna album instead. Another friend said, “Jo, I don’t do e-books. I don’t do Facebook. I don’t do the internet. Mostly, I don’t do computer. What else is there?” I ran off the manuscript of The Solarium and sent it snail mail to her, but warned her to open it carefully because Kindle formatting doesn’t do page numbers.

For the past day or so, I’ve begun to realize how easy it is to become addicted to the possibilities that the computer screen offers anyone who needs to make life, or in my case, marketing, perfect. This morning I Googled “e-book reviews” and two hours later it comes to me that I’ve been overtaken by hundreds of reviews of e-books, yes, but books written by Janet Evanovitch and that Patterson guy and others who get reviewed whenever they sneeze. No one’s going to review either one of my offerings, except my friend-writer Peggy who knew I’d also do it for her if it comes to that. Which it won’t because her first book may be picked up by a publisher who is entering the e-book business with romantic-mystery books, which is Peggy’s genre.

There is no genre for stories of old ladies who may or may not have mysterious (at least to anyone under sixty) notions--but think about it--who’s out there to notion with? Perhaps that’s where the mystery comes in. An old people’s genre? Somehow made sell-worthy with a handsome ninety-year-old lothario who happens to be a serial killer? (I’m noting that last sentence for further consideration.)

I have decided to take control of my days and my computer. Mornings are for writing the next novel about an old lady, to hell with it, and the afternoons will be for cruising the internet for marketing ideas that don’t cost $3,000. At noon I am joining a senior exercise class and giving my body a break.

“Mens sana in corpore sano.” At least I may get one of those right.