Nadine Feldman, Author

celebrating strong female characters and whatever else strikes my fancy

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Book Review: Migrations

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I’m always buying books, and sometimes they get lost on my Kindle app. Recently I found one I’d bought back in December but hadn’t read. It was well worth the wait, but why not sooner? I have no good answer for that. I’m just glad I finally took the time to read it!

Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy is an extraordinary debut novel about a woman with a passion for birds. Franny Stone is determined to follow the migration of the Arctic tern, a bird that flies from the north pole to the south every year, but which is endangered. She talks her way onto a fishing boat, promising that as she tracks the birds, she will find fish for the crew whose livelihood has been decimated by climate change. NOTE: The story is set sometime in the future, but close enough to present to be uncomfortable.

As the boat heads out to sea looking for fish, Franny’s background is carefully unspooled by the author. We learn about her marriage and her need to be on the run at all times, breaking the heart of her loyal husband who loves her exactly as she is. We learn she is a troubled soul with a startling past. And, at the end, we learn the real reason for her journey, not the one she states early on (which is troubled enough).

As I was reading, I thought I had it all figured out. I was wrong. Well, not totally. I guessed correctly at some of it, but the journey there brought me to an unexpected place.

Migrations is a haunting book that will stay with me for some time. Enjoy!

Thanks for reading! Starting in June, I will be adding a second blog post per week about other topics, and I hope you’ll join me! I invite you to subscribe to my blog.

Also, please consider purchasing one or more of my books. The Factory Girl and the Fey, a historical fantasy, is coming this fall, so stay tuned for more details! For more info on my contemporary women’s fiction, click here.

Random 5 Friday – Winter Has Arrived?

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Hi, and welcome to another edition of Random 5 Friday. For more great Random 5s, visit Nancy at A Rural Journal.

Here’s my five for the week!

  1. Cold weather came to visit this week. Yesterday morning it was 28 degrees. Due to a stiff back last week, I couldn’t get the gardening work done that I wanted (still battening down the hatches for winter), so I get to work in the cold. Yippee.
  2. I’ve been working with a local environmental group, and one of my jobs has been to update a website that gives people ideas for saving energy. If you are so inclined, take a look at JeffersonCAN (Climate Action Now). We have a blog, a Facebook page, and even a Twitter account, in an effort to get the word out about how people can lower their carbon footprint.
  3. As you may recall, I’ve been tweaking my diet of late, limiting gluten and sugar. So far I haven’t lost any weight, and I’m still waking up at night. Boo. This week I’ve been able to get back to my normal exercise routine, so hopefully that will help. I am feeling more energy during the day, especially as the week progresses, so I’m showing signs of improvement.
  4. I’m knitting gift items as quickly as I can. I found a simple Christmas stocking pattern that I can make in a single day, and I’ll put candy in them to give as children’s gifts. I’ll post pics once I’ve done the finish work.
  5. The other night we saw All is Lost with Robert Redford. It’s an extraordinary performance, and I applaud him for taking such a creative risk at age 77. He is silent throughout most of the movie.

Sandy: The Scariest of Hallowe’en Stories

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I have a lot of blog posts stacked up, but today they all seem trivial. In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, as the clean-up begins and we wait for the latest death toll numbers, we are left with questions. How do we keep Americans safe in the midst of ever-increasing, ever-intensifying weather events? How do we repair a crumbling infrastructure when money is tight — and yet, how do we not? How do we even consider electing someone for our country’s highest office who would privatize the work that FEMA does?

Passionate debates occur online and in the media. Some still stick to their guns that the climate change we see isn’t man-made. Even after Sandy. Even after Richard Muller, a Koch brothers-funded climate change denier, changed his stance last summer. Even with more than 97% of scientists in agreement.

Scary.

We do what we can. A few years ago, when my old Mustang bit the dust, I opted to live without a replacement. We keep our thermostat turned down and add layers of clothing instead. I dry only sheets and towels in the dryer, and hang all our clothing on drying racks. We recycle, compost and look for ways to reuse and reduce the packaging that we use. Most of our food comes from nearby, reducing the energy costs of getting the food to us.

Still, I feel a sense of futility. My efforts feel puny and inadequate.

Yes, let’s donate to the American Red Cross and other organizations who can help our friends and loved ones in the Northeast. Yes, let’s pull together as Americans still seem to do, even in our divided political landscape. But let’s also not waste this catastrophic event to have the real discussions we need to have. I am grateful for Governor Cuomo and Mayor Bloomberg for daring to utter the words “climate change,” which have been erased from political debates. We need to bring those words front and center.

Today, local children will dress up in their costumes and parade through downtown, where we will applaud them. We’ll give away lots of little Kit Kat bars (I hope so, anyway, because we sure have a bunch of them!). We’ll have fun and enjoy Hallowe’en. Maybe we’ll tell a ghost story or two…and we’ll try not to let the real scary story keep us up at night. This is not an imaginary monster hiding under the bed. This is real. We need to change.

Inuk: The Warming of Ice and Hearts

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I am in the midst of reading a pile of books to figure out what to review next. In the meantime, I thought I’d write about a great movie I just saw!

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In Greenland, ice matters. Unfortunately, there’s a lot less of it these days, and the Inuit hunters and fishermen struggle to eke out an existence, often having to change their routes to avoid thinning ice with its potentially fatal cracks.

Meanwhile, Inuk, a teen-aged boy, lives in the city. He had once lived a traditional life, but as a child he saw his father fall through the ice and die. He and his mother moved to the city, where she turned to alcohol to cope. Emotionally abandoned and uncared for, Inuk is taken from his mother and sent to the north to a children’s home, where he is re-introduced to the traditional ways. A hunting trip across the ice brings Inuk in contact with the great hunter Ikuma. Both deeply scarred, Inuk and Ikuma must work together in the harsh environment. As the film’s synopsis says, “the most difficult part of the journey is the one they must make within themselves.”

Inuk is not your average Hollywood fare. The actors are all natives of Greenland’s north country, including children from an actual children’s home and hunters who make their living from seals and fish. None had previous acting experience. Director Mike Magidson never directed a film before, either. And yet, the rich story is well-acted and conveys a country struggling with changes in both traditions and climate.

Having made the rounds of a number of film festivals, where it has gathered a number of awards, Inuk is preparing for its debut in 25 U.S. cities later this year. If you get a chance to catch this heart-warming story, please do.