Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 28, 1994 TAG: 9408210114
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: D-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
By Fanny Gaynes. Morgin Press. $14.95.
This is a bittersweet memoir if there ever was one. At age 35, Fanny Gaynes discovered that she had breast cancer, and before her death 12 years later she wrote this account of her illness. She intended it to be a "tribute to friendship, family, support, great doctors, and the urgency of humor."
Hers is not a perky, Rebecca-of-Sunnybrook-Farm style. She is earthy, wacky, irreverent, honest and a fighter to the end. And funny to the end. The last line in the book is an answer to her question, "How am I gonna find a man if I'm dead?" "I think," she says, "it'll be a lot easier." For along with the pain and nausea and disappointment of therapies, is the loss of friends who cannot take her il lness.
She tells a story familiar to every cancer sufferer of leaving no stone unturned in trying to find a cure; of investigating every option no matter how distant or expensive or experimental.
After she discovered that the cancer had spread to her lungs, she changed her name from Jill to Fanny to try to fool the Angel of Death. After all, that ruse (an ancient Jewish tradition) had apparently worked for her Great-Great-Aunt Fay.
Her story is uniquely inspiring, and not just for the reader who may be suffering from cancer or any other incurable disease. Fanny Gaynes can teach us about compassion, and about loving life in all its complexity and ambiguity.
Toward the end of her life, she discovered that "I didn't simply want to `not die' _ I wanted to live." That is a lesson for anybody anytime.
- MARIE S. BEAN
Prisoner of Woodstock. By Dallas Taylor. Thunder's Mouth Press. $22.95.
It's not too hard to figure out where Dallas Taylor's 60's-era memoir is coming from, not when it's got a blunt-instrument of a title like, "Prisoner of Woodstock," and chapters such as "The Party," "The Suicide Attempt," and "The Awakening."
Taylor played drums for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, and "Prisoner of Woodstock" is an account of his life and career. Semi-famous, young and newly wealthy, he hung out with such rock superstars as Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton and - surprise surprise - he took lots of drugs and drank too much. This is not exactly a new story.
It's fortunate that Taylor was eventually able to straighten his life out, and admirable that he now works as a substance abuse counselor, but his attempts, in this book, to establish a cautionary, "Don't try this at home" stance just don't mesh with his "Boy, did I have fun!" storytelling style.
Taylor's writing isn't as bad as what one usually finds in books like this, but it's still not good enough to hide the fact that "Prisoner of Woodstock" is basically another weak attempt to cash in on old glories with a "tell-all"confessional.
- NEIL HARVEY
Mysterium.
By Robert Charles Wilson. Bantam. $11.95 (trade paper).
"Mysterium" is a curious novel. On one level, it's a conventional science-fiction story of parallel worlds. As such, it's neatly constructed and imaginative, much like Clifford D. Simak's better work. But author Robert Charles Wilson is also interested in some complex theological and philosophical ideas.
After a brief introduction where something is discovered in Turkey in 1989, the scene shifts to a small town in Michigan. There the federal government has established a remote facility to study this "something." One night, an incident involving strange lights, fires and explosions transports the town, the facility and the surrounding forest to another Michigan, one that's ruled by a Christian theocracy. This is not the simplistically rigid and repressive political system that's often imagined by fiction writers. It is brutal, but it's also complex. In that world, American "theology is impoverished, too. Like a line drawing of Christianity, all the details left out." Wilson sets out his conflicts carefully and he writes with an understated prose. He's cool and remote with his characters, though. They're never as compelling as the larger concepts he's wrestling with. Despite them, he keeps the plot moving at a brisk pace and avoids the cliches of the genre. In the end, "Mysterium" is the kind of novel that may well appeal more to people who don't normally read s-f than to true fans. Recommended.
- MIKE MAYO, Book page editor
Marie S. Bean is a retired college chaplain.
Neil Harvey lives in Blacksburg.
by CNB