A bird in the hand? Flip it.

I am not especially accident-prone, but last month I broke my finger and mangled one side of it when I was putting away dumbbells at the gym. Yup: I was putting them away. Each one was 60 pounds and somehow I managed to get my right middle finger in between them or between one of them and the rack. It happened fast, as all dumb — and dumbbell — accidents do. One minute I was dropping the weights back onto the metal platform, and the next I was running my finger under the stream from the ice water fountain and trying to decide which expletives were suitable for a Wednesday afternoon at the gym. The finger looked like zombie lunchmeat.

So, for the last few weeks, my most prominent feature has been the way I am — and here’s a euphemism since this is a family newspaper and I’m a polite guy — flipping everybody I see the bird. The finger has either been swaddled and taped in gauze, or swaddled and taped and splinted. Either way, it makes for a great first impression, especially in a season with presidential primaries, political debates, and a State of the Union address. I have been everyone’s straight line.

Fortunately, I am not a surgeon or a concert pianist. So, for me — like for most people — a broken finger isn’t a big deal. I am, however, right-handed, and so it has been a tad inconvenient. I have always been a klutz (exhibit A, crunching my fingers between dumbbells), and so trying to do most things with my left hand has meant a whole lot of salad in my lap and a whole lot of nicks when I shaved. It has meant that I have to be a wee bit more careful when I slide my right arm through a sleeve, since it is usually those right fingers that lead the way.

But here is what I found most interesting the first two weeks after the accident: Because I had to do things slowly and methodically, I was, in some cases, weirdly competent. A perfect example would be the mornings when I would start a fire in the woodstove. Prior to breaking my finger, I would throw some newspaper and kindling into the bottom of the stove and then cavalierly toss in some logs. Some mornings it would ignite quickly, but other mornings I would have to rearrange the pyre until I got it right. With only my left hand, however, I found myself meticulously building a pyramid with long strips of newspaper I took the time to rip, carefully scattered tinder, and small logs positioned to allow plenty of air to circulate. Every single fire I built with only my left hand started easily. And while it took longer to construct them, in the long run it probably took less time than some of the blazes I would start when I had both hands and was far more casual in my design.

Moreover, I found myself unusually serene as I moved more slowly through the world. To begin with, I could no longer multitask: I couldn’t, for instance, talk to my editor or my agent on the phone while loading the dishwasher. It was one or the other because I had but one hand. And that, in turn, meant that I couldn’t do as much. And with diminished expectations came an unexpected tranquility, not the frustration I had anticipated. I let things go and, much to my surprise, the sun still rose.

In addition, I had to get over my profound germ-o-phobia. I have always been a manic hand-washer, surgically scrubbing my fingers before allowing them anywhere near my face. (I would bathe in antibacterial hand gel if I could squeeze enough into my bathtub.) But I could not get my broken right finger wet, except when I cleaned the wound, and so I had to get over my fear of cold germs and other flesh-eating microbial contagions.

Now, would I break my finger again to learn these lessons? Uh, no. But it has been nice to flip the bird at some of my sillier habits.

(This column originally ran in the Burlington Free Press on February 19, 2012. Chris’s next novel, “The Sandcastle Girls,” arrives on July 17.)

The Sandcastle Girls — the first 559 words

I found myself looking at the copy-editted manuscript the other day for my next novel, The Sandcastle Girls, and felt an unexpected twinge of excitement.  The books arrives roughly five months from today.  Here are the first 559 words — the first quarter of the prologue.

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When my brother and I were small children, we would take turns sitting on our grandfather’s lap.  There he would grab the rope-like rolls of baby fat that would pool at our waists and bounce us on his knees, cooing, “Big belly, big belly, big belly.”  This was meant as an affectionate, grandfatherly gesture, not his subtle way of suggesting that if we didn’t lose weight, we would wind up as Jenny Craig testimonials.  Just for the record, there is also a chance that when my brother was being bounced on Grandpa’s lap, he was wearing a white turtleneck shirt and red velvet knickers.  This is the outfit my mother often had him wear when we visited our grandparents, because this was the get-up that in her opinion made him look most British – and he had to look British, since she was going to make him sing the 1964 Herman’s Hermits pop hit, “I’m Henry the VIII, I am.”  The song had been popular five years earlier when she had been pregnant with us, and in some disturbingly Oedipal fashion she had come to view it as their song.

Yup, a fat kid in red velvet knickers singing “Herman’s Hermits” with a bad British accent.  How is it that no one beat him up?

I, in turn, would be expected to sing “Both Sides Now,” which was marginally more timely – the song had been popular only a year earlier, in 1968 – though not really any more appropriate.  I was four years old and had no opinions at all on love’s illusions.  But I did, despite the great dollops of Armenian DNA inside me, have waves of blond spit curls, and so my mother fixated on the lyric, “bows and flows of angel hair.”  I wore a blue mini-skirt and white patent leather go-go boots.  No one was going to beat me up, but it is a wonder that a social welfare agency never suggested to my mother that she was dressing her daughter like a four-year-old hooker.

My grandfather – both of my grandparents, for different reasons – was absolutely oblivious to rock and roll, and I have no idea what he made of his grandchildren decked out for “American Bandstand.”  Moreover, if 1969 were to have a soundtrack, invariably it would have depended upon Woodstock, not “Herman’s Hermits” or Judy Collins.  Nevertheless, the only music I recall at my grandparents’ house that year – other than my brother’s traumatizing refrain, “Everyone was a En-er-e (En-er-e!)” – was the sound of the oud when my grandfather would play Armenian folk songs or strum it like a madman while my aunt belly-danced for all of us.  And why my aunt was belly-dancing remains a mystery to me: The only time Armenian girls belly-danced was when they were commandeered into a sheik’s harem, and it was a choice of dying in the desert or accepting the tattoos and learning to shimmy.  Trust me: You will never see an Armenian girl belly-dancing on “So You Think You Can Dance.”

Regardless, the belly-dancing – as well as my grandfather’s affection for his chubby grandchildren – does suggest that their house existed in a penumbra of playfulness and good cheer.  Sometimes, it did.  But equally often there was an aura of sadness, secrets, and wistfulness.  Even as a child I detected the subterranean currents of loss when I would visit.

*     *     *

To see what the novel is really about, click here to read the Doubleday catalog copy.

Love is blind — especially when it comes to the ziti.

Tuesday is Valentine’s Day, a holiday that reminds us all of how important it is to be present in the lives of the people we love — or, if we don’t have the time to be present, to post a photo on Facebook. Let’s face it, nothing says love like a photo on Facebook.

Earlier this month I asked people who had been married 40 years to share with me the secrets to keeping love alive and making a relationship last that long. Here are some of their answers.

• Candy Moot: “Does it count if my 40 years were with two different husbands? I am currently married, but I often introduce my husband as my ‘current’ husband. I don’t want him to get overconfident.”

• David Kelley (Candy Moot’s first husband): “William James wrote that ‘the art of being wise is knowing what to overlook.’ Let go of the small stuff. Remember the guy who killed his wife because she overcooked the ziti? I probably would have overlooked that.”

• Chuck Nichols (Candy Moot’s “current” husband): “Trust. Sex. Respect. Sex. Good communication. Sex.”

• Melinda Moulton: “I love the way my husband smells. Curling up next to Rick at night and sniffing his skin drives me wild.”

• Jan Buker: “Enjoy everything, even the smallest moments. And remember that often the things that go wrong make the best stories. That was a Ron Rood statement!” (Naturalist, writer, and commentator Ron Rood was Jan’s father.)

• Donna Frost: “The secret? A good recipe for peanut butter chocolate chip cookies.”

• Bob Conlon: “Betsy and I really love each other a lot, but the real secret is to marry a woman who is better than you are.”

• Jacqueline P. Kelly: “There’s a joke about an elderly lady who was asked if she had ever considered divorce from her husband. She thought for a few minutes and answered, ‘Divorce, no. Murder, yes.’ There are moments in every marriage when things get tough. When that happens, you need to remember why you got married in the first place, and use that to get through the rough patches.”

• Jane Graham McCown: “The secret is a sense of humor and a short memory.”

• Nancy Hall: “We go camping and get away from all electronics. No phone, no TV, no computer. We recharge and re-center our lives.”

• Kathy Nowlan: “Honesty. Respectfulness. Humbleness. And faith.”

• Barbara Gaudreau: “Love sports.”

• Dorothy Lear: “My husband, Jim, and I are very different people, but we have always operated as a team — and we really enjoy each other’s company.”

• Kathie Taylor: “It’s not enough to love the person you’re with, you have to like them, too. My man is my best friend. Oh, and don’t forget: Always hold hands!”

• Gail Kindness Hurley: “I married the boy next door. When you think of it, we already knew each other’s families. We had the same friends — and we still have the same friends today. The secret is a good sense of humor, trust and forgiveness.”

• Leslie Kleh Broome: “My parents just hit 60 years this year. I think a large house helps — they can maintain separate sanities.”

• Lynn Barry: “Taking each other too seriously is not good for longevity in the marriage department. So, laugh. I mean it. Laugh out loud — a lot!”

• Roberta O’Hara: “The real secret to 40 years of marriage? Combine all the years from your three marriages.”

So, there you have it: Wisdom from the folks who have been married a lot of years — albeit, in some cases, to different people.

Now, go post your photos on Facebook. Happy Valentine’s Day.

(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on February 12, 2012. Chris’s new novel, “The Sandcastle Girls,” will be published by Doubleday on July 17.)

Thank you for 20 years — and a thousand-plus Sundays.

Here’s a sentence I never expected to write: This week marks my 20th anniversary writing a weekly column. The first “Idyll Banter” column appeared in this newspaper’s living section on Feb. 9, 1992. Actually, it wasn’t called “Idyll Banter” then. It was just my name and mug shot and 675 vaguely incoherent words wondering why the Green Mountains — a land of maple syrup and cheese — had brands of coffee and salsa.

When I first agreed to write a weekly column, my hope was to last one year. Find 52 things to say. Then, after a year, I expected to throw in the towel. I’d been writing for the newspaper since February 1988, but nothing as demanding as a weekly column. I had started four years earlier with a monthly column: Business advice. Then, in 1989, I started scribbling occasional essays for the living section. Candace Page and Steve Mease were the first Free Press editors to take a chance on my work. Juli Metzger and Ron Thornburg were the editors who actually gave me the column. So, if anyone’s to blame for “Idyll Banter,” it’s the four of them.

But in 1992, the notion that I’d be writing a weekly column 20 years later seemed as improbable to me as Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, or — coming soon to the smart phone in your pants — Toaster Glock, the first game that combines our national passions for handguns and carbs. (Okay, I made up Toaster Glock. Expect instead Tebow-zo, the first smart phone game to combine football and clowning.) Only twice in the last two decades have I not had a column in this paper on Sunday morning. That means I’ve written 1,038 columns — or roughly 700,650 words. That’s the equivalent of seven novels.

Just for the record, of those 700,650 words, about half have been “turd” and “hockey.” I have written about my cats a lot. You probably know way more about them than you need to.

Obviously an enormous amount has changed in the last two decades in my beloved Lincoln, in Vermont and in our world. When I began this column, my wife and I hadn’t any children. Now we have a daughter in college. In 1992, my parents were alive and healthy. So was my mother-in-law. Now they’re all gone. Likewise, you don’t need me to chronicle the ways the digital age has flattened the globe or how much reality TV has added to our culture. When the history of the last 20 years is written, we all know there will be plenty of room accorded Kim Kardashian.

But as grateful as I am to Kim for providing occasional content for “Idyll Banter,” the column was never really about her. It was about my family and about my neighbors. It has been, I hope, about those dreams and desires that remain constant across generations. In my case, that has meant being a husband, a dad, a brother and a son. If “Idyll Banter” has been about anything, it has been, first and foremost, about family.

Young writers ask me often if I keep a journal. I don’t. I have notebooks that hold research for my novels, but I have never kept a diary. Why? Because “Idyll Banter” has been my diary. This column has been where I have tried to make sense of the loss of close pals and parents, and where I have celebrated the wondrous joys of marriage and fatherhood and friendship. Likewise, it has been where I have chronicled the unremarkable but universal moments that comprise every day of our lives. The first snow. The last leaf. The swimming hole. The ice jam.

And I have enjoyed it more than you know. This column has been a great gift.

Will I still be writing it in 20 years? No idea. I have no idea if I’ll even be alive in 20 years. In the meantime, however, I will continue to be here every Sunday. Or, at least, most Sundays.

And so the two most important words I can leave you with this morning (other than “turd” and “hockey”) are these: Thank you. Thank you so much for being a part of my life — and allowing me to be a part of yours.

(This column originally ran in the Burlington Free Press on February 5, 2012. Chris’s next novel, The Sandcastle Girls, will be published on July 17, 2012.)

The Sandcastle Girls — what it’s about

I have been asked often this month what my next novel, “The Sandcastle Girls,” is about.  It arrives in bookstores, libraries, and eReaders on July 17.

So, here is what the Doubleday catalog says.

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Doubleday welcomes New York Times bestselling author Chris Bohjalian to its list with a new novel as powerful and emotionally resonant as Midwives. This new book, a sweeping historical love story, is steeped in the author’s Armenian heritage – a subject his legions of fans have been asking him to write about for years.

When Elizabeth Endicott arrives in Aleppo, Syria she has a diploma from Mount Holyoke, a crash course in nursing,  and only the most basic grasp of the Armenian language.  The year is 1915 and she has volunteered on behalf of the Boston-based Friends of Armenia to help deliver food and medical aid to refugees of the Armenian genocide.  There Elizabeth becomes friendly with Armen, a young Armenian engineer who has already lost his wife and infant daughter.  When Armen leaves Aleppo and travels south into Egypt to join the British army, he begins to write Elizabeth letters, and comes to realize that he has fallen in love with the wealthy, young American woman who is so different from the wife he lost.

Fast forward to the present day, where we meet Laura Petrosian, a novelist living in suburban New York.  Although her grandparents’ ornate Pelham home was affectionately nicknamed “The Ottoman Annex,” Laura has never really given her Armenian heritage much thought. But when an old friend calls, claiming to have seen a newspaper photo of Laura’s grandmother promoting an exhibit at a Boston museum, Laura embarks on a journey back through her family’s history that reveals love, loss – and a wrenching secret that has been buried for generations.

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To preorder the book, click here.

 

A novel idea: Lights. Camera. Action.

Next Saturday night, February 4, Lifetime Television will be premiering the movie version of my novel, “Secrets of Eden.” This is the third time that one of my books has become a made-for-TV movie, and people often ask me two things about my novels and Hollywood.

First, how do I feel about the adaptation? What do I think of the changes that have been made to transform a 100,000-word novel into two hours of TV?

Second, am I in it? In other words, was I a walk-on extra in the background somewhere?

That second question is easy. No. Never. Not because I’m not vain. Trust me, I’m plenty vain. Certainly I considered asking to sit on the jury that tried Sibyl Danforth – a.k.a., Sissy Spacek – in “Midwives.” I thought about volunteering to be among the parishioners in a Vermont church with a pastor named Stephen Drew – a.k.a., John Stamos – in “Secrets of Eden.” But that would demand more time on the set than I have ever allocated to a movie while it’s filming. The fact is, if you’re not a part of the cast or crew, a movie set is a bit like sitting in row 19 on a passenger jet: As the old joke goes, it’s hours of boredom interrupted by moments of terror.

In addition, I can’t act. Not even a little bit. I make Pauly D. from the “Jersey Shore” look like Laurence Oliver.

Moreover, I will never forget the t-shirt that Glenn Jordan, the director of “Midwives,” was wearing while I was there. It said, “Nobody moves, nobody gets hurt.” He meant it and I was terrified. I did nothing but eat doughnuts and make sure my cell phone was off for 72 hours.

But that first question, how do I feel about seeing my stories changed – often dramatically – is more complicated. It’s also more important. I love movies. And I love film adaptations of novels. I’ve never been a purist who rails at how the movie is never as good as the novel. Exhibit A? “Sophie’s Choice.” Exhibit B? David Fincher’s “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” Exhibit C? “Jaws.” I was dazzled by each of those novels. . .but I thought the films were superior.

And I appreciate the choices a screenwriter and a director have to make. It’s not merely about consolidation, although brevity often is key. A movie is told through visual images and dialogue and music. As a novelist, on the other hand, I can spend fifty words describing a sneeze – and fifty more having the character fret about the flu.

The truth is, I’ve never written a screenplay and have no plans to anytime soon. It has taken me decades to become an adequate novelist; I shudder to think how long it would take to become an adequate screenwriter. That’s not false modesty; it’s a reality. A screenplay is profoundly different from a novel, and for every novelist who figured out how to write a movie – Think Mario Puzo and “The Godfather” – there are many more who failed. Think Scott Fitzgerald.

Moreover, a movie is a reimagining of a novel. To a certain extent, it is a big, hulking collaboration involving hundreds of people. But it is most certainly not a camel – that proverbial horse designed by a committee. In the case of “Secrets of Eden,” there was the vision of the director, Tawnia McKiernan, and the screenwriter, Anne Meredith. John Stamos did not merely work from my novel when he was bringing Vermont pastor Stephen Drew to life; he had Meredith’s script. When I watched the finished cut for the first time, I was struck by how recognizable the minister was to me in some ways, but how different in others: He was gentler in some moments and angrier – more fierce – in others. But he always felt authentic to me and deeply rooted in the two texts – Meredith’s and mine.

Consequently, when one of my books is in the process of becoming a movie, I fully expect that it will change. It will grow in some ways and shrink in others. There will be some decisions that make all the sense in the world to me, and some choices that seem inexplicable. Always, however, the producers have respected the integrity of my work and remained fundamentally faithful to the novel that first inspired them. Happily, no one has ever added an asteroid to one of my books or thought it would make sense to put Adam Sandler in a dress in one. I don’t expect the people I work with ever will.

And so my short answer to that first question, how do I feel about the adaptations, is pretty simple. I love them. I feel great. And next Saturday night, even though I’ll be watching “Secrets of Eden” at home, I’ll be sure I have plenty of popcorn.

(This column originally ran in the Burlington Free Press on January 29, 2012.)

Not all rats are finks

My friend Lisa Goodyear-Prescott gets a wee bit uncomfortable around mice and rats. Actually, “wee bit uncomfortable” is a euphemism for “off-the-meter shrieking and off-the-charts, Freddy Krueger-is-in-the-house terror.” My sense is that even the Kia Party Rock gerbils give Lisa the jitters.

And, of course, she’s not alone – especially when it comes to rats. We don’t really like rats, in part because we know they carried the fleas that killed roughly a third of the human population of Europe in the fourteenth-century. You think it takes a while for someone to forgive you for posting a dorky photo of them on facebook? Well, just imagine how long it takes to live down the bad rap that comes with spreading the bubonic plague to a continent.

The result is that rats now desert sinking ships. We smell them when there is a waft of moral impropriety in the air. We have gutter rats, mall rats, and – for those few creatures that did not desert the aforementioned sinking ship – drowned rats.

The one exception to this? Someone thought it was a good idea for Michael Jackson to record a hauntingly beautiful but deeply disturbing ballad about the friendship between a boy and his rat in 1972, when Jackson was barely in middle school. The song, “Ben,” was part of the movie, “Ben,” the sequel to “Willard,” and would win the Golden Globe for “Best Song.” Among the lyrics:

“If you ever look behind and don’t like what you find,

There’s something you should know, you’ve got a place to go.”

Few people are going to peg the early 1970s as the pinnacle in pop music. Or, apparently, in movies.

In any case, the folks behind the song and the movie, “Ben,” may have been on to something. We may have been underestimating rodents all these centuries. Researchers at the University of Chicago last month unveiled a study that suggests rats may be considerably more empathetic than we realize. The study appeared first in the journal, “Science.” Essentially, what the scientists found was this: A free rat would rescue a trapped rat from a restrainer. A free rat would rescue the trapped one even when subsequent social contact was not possible. And when a free rat had to choose between chocolate and rescuing a trapped rat, the free rat would liberate the trapped rat and share the chocolate.

I first heard about this study on National Public Radio and shared it with Lisa Prescott when we were talking on Christmas Eve. I had forgotten that she views rats and mice as one step more terrifying than flesh-eating zombies with acid for blood. I went on and on about rats, sort of like those people who constantly tell pregnant women about their agonizingly difficult labors or that guy who can’t stop sharing his stories of turbulent flights with white-knuckle flyers. (Sadly, I am that guy.) She was patient and polite, but I had noticed she was growing a little pale as my wife gently reminded me that Lisa didn’t share my sudden interest in rats.

But this research fascinated me: It interested me because this might explain why my six cats have so little desire to track down and kill rodents. They must know that these smaller mammals are empathetic, too! Arguably, rats are more empathetic than some of my cats. (My cats might rescue a trapped peer over chocolate, but there is no way they would choose friendship over butter.)

But it also interested me as a person who believes that animals think and feel more deeply than we give them credit for. It is why, years ago, I became a vegetarian.

I still think the song, “Ben,” is creepy on just too many levels to recount here. But it’s reassuring to know that not all rats are finks.

(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on January 22, 2012. The movie based on his novel, “Secrets of Eden,” premieres on Lifetime Television on February 4.)