Gwendolyn Kiste The Haunting of Velkwood

We are a haunted species.  Memories of our mistakes, regret for what we have – or have not – done, the inadequacies of our responses to straightforward conundrums, our bad judgments of ourselves, all of them follow us relentlessly, accompanied by the intuition that they will outlast us, surviving our deaths no matter what we do to hasten our own demise.  Talitha Velkwood was not there when her suburban neighborhood disappeared, in an event that remains inexplicable.  Some 20 years on, she’s alive, sort of, scraping the bottom of a hand-to-mouth, minimum-wage existence.  The world has mostly moved on from The Velkwood Incident.  Talitha tried to leave home, but it follows her still.

With The Haunting of Velkwood, Gwendolyn Kiste reveals herself to be an author able to plumb the depths and heights of emotional, involving fiction.  This is a compelling and powerful novel, strikingly original in concept, deeply chilling, but filled with the colors of life, death, love, and memory.  Talitha’s narrative is both mournful and joyful.  

Talitha is taken away from her life of regret when she’s contacted by Jack, who represents a group of paranormal researchers.  They want her to return to her old haunts.  The world has let Velkwood pass by because nobody can get into the suburban block.  Jack and those working with him believe that Talitha can.

Kiste approaches the story with a melancholy intimacy.  Her prose is crisp, her plot is delightfully demented, but most importantly, her aim is true. The Haunting of Velkwood takes readers straight into the unreal even as it carries us forward with a very human heart.

Kiste masterfully turns a visit to an American suburb into an Otherworld journey.  Talitha discovers a battered, buffered past where time is lost, and memories are found.  Her friends from the neighborhood who also “survived,” Grace and Brett, are also haunted by the choices they all made in a past all would prefer to change or forget.  Kiste offers an eye-popping journey, and manages to find a beautiful, all-too-human surreal world at the heart of her book and her characters. The Haunting of Velkwood is a big-screen reading experience of our own smaller-than-life stories.  

Happily, Gwendolyn Kiste finds joy in her ability to craft unreal narratives of the highest quality.  Here’s a link to our conversation about The Haunting of Velkwood.  She is dark of mind, but also incredibly kind. It turns out that a conversation about regret with Gwendolyn Kiste offers a glimpse of memory at its best.

Jeffrey Rosen The Pursuit of Happiness

How do we understand the intended meaning of the phrase “the pursuit of happiness” as used in the Declaration of Independence?  Language changes quickly, often and drastically.  Words are added and discarded, as definitions shift.  It’s an important question.  Jeffrey Rosen to decided that understanding what was written then could be discovered by reading what the framers themselves read.  Happily, they left excellent notes about this, and Rosen’s report comes to life as the entertaining book The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America.  Rosen’s answer to his own question turns out to be a delightful tribute to the power and import of reading, and then writing about what you’ve read.

Rosen’s strategy is straightforward and pretty simple.  For the authors of the Declaration, happiness was not pleasure, but the result of a life of virtue.  They were quite specific about these virtues, as many read the same ancient texts on the matter.  He pairs each of twelve virtues (order temperance, humility, industry, frugality, sincerity, resolution, moderation, tranquility, cleanliness, justice and silence) with a different founder/framer/author.  He makes no apologies for obvious hypocrisies like slavery and women’s rights, and often finds that some of his characters had the same questions.  He looks at their reading, writes sonnets about his and their work and discusses how their personal lives reflected their understanding.  

The resulting hybrid of history and self-help (you’ll learn a lot about your own aptitude for happiness) is thoroughly engaging storytelling shot through with understated psychological analysis.  And because Rosen confronts our personal and national sins with such low-key honesty, never showing judgment, the reader is easily able to bridge the gap between then and now.  The quotes from ancient and historical sources are handled well, with the effect of making you want to plow through Rosen’s reading list. 

The upshot is that early on, you’ll feel authentically inspired as you read this book. The history is fresh and exciting.  You’ll want to implement the plans for “moral improvement” the founders used.  They’re doable and make sense.  You’ll want to read books, and there are lists at the back to help.  You’ll want to write notes.  You’ll see the worthiness of work and writing. The Pursuit of Happiness is serious and fun, and proves to be an excellent example of virtue as a source of happiness.

Jeffrey Rosen needs no history to be inspiring.  But he wields it well in our interview.  Here’s a link to download it, or pour yourself a Sam Adams ale and listen below.