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Mark_McKenna
Posted August 14, 2011
Synopsis:
Serena Callaway is a married, twenty-something pole dancer with a generous intellect, a flexile morality and gracious acceptance of all things porn. Serena is taking her morning walk, hoping to renew faith in small town America when she finds a severed woman's toe on the sidewalk in front of an adult bookstore. Soon she finds a distressed woman in the front seat of a car, bloody panties wrapping her foot, and a bolt cutter in the back seat.
This, and every, outer-world event in "Now That I'm Ready to Tell You Everything" prompts a serene reflection by Serena on the circumstances of her life - her hometown (Emily Handy); her marriage to M. Callaway (formerly Mitch Callaway, Serena stopped using his first name after an unfortunate incident in the strip club); her coupled friends: Mariel and Bjüszk, Gladys and Binky as well as sex, corporate downsizing, chiropractic care, obsession, re-birthing, men and women, teenage boys, abortion and motherhood. The novella ends with a soulful resolution of the toe incident and - although it's hard to see how Serena could get any looser - a lysis.
Review:
Pianist Artur Schnabel once described interpreting a piece of music as "a free walk on firm ground." G.K. Wuori's "Now That I'm Ready to Tell You Everything" is a free walk on ground that unexpectedly falls away leaving the reader floating in a state of wonder and wanting more.
Serena Callaway does have a spacious capacity for acceptance - but it's not infinite. Serena has a problem that the toe incident throws into focus - what her husband calls her "shotgun focus" - described by G.K. Wuori thusly:
"...her ability to hold numerous trains of thought in her mind at one time while still singling out the snowflake without which there could never be a blizzard, or the pebble without which there would be no asphalt. Without asphalt, there would be no grand roads to transport the dull and dispirited out of town, this town, this Emily Handy out there on the corn coast of Illinois, a town of many secret prosperities and some not at all secret: a gas station owned by a man said to be either ninety-five or else so old the human counting had shut down, a lingerie shop, a pregnancy clinic, a fertility clinic, a striptease cabaret, and an adult bookstore, a sensual outpost (someone said) situated so that anonymous Chicagoans could remain that way."
Beautiful writing. And there is the book. Full of creative turns, subtle humor, and nourished by a deep, hidden, underground stream: a highly-motivated woman trying to make (or find) sense in the endless, senseless series of people, places and events that make up her life. "Now That I'm Ready to Tell You Everything" is a gem of a novella, full of unexpected moments of grace, oddly fresh insights and at least one deeply profound insight (page 85) which may have been the pebble in the shoe all along.
A caveat. This is a book that deals frankly with sex; I feel it's meant for readers who have the maturity only experience and time can provide. Keeping that in mind, I can say "Now That I'm Ready to Tell You Everything" is appropriate for everyone who loves literature.
LendMe™
Overview
On a beautiful spring morning, Serena Callaway wanted nothing more than a quiet, meditative walk along the streets of her small town. Then she found a toe, a woman’s big toe, recently pedicured, lying in the street, and began to realize that normal, along with quiet and certainly meditative, just might not be where things were headed that day.Now That I’m Ready To Tell You Everything is a quirky romp through a single morning, as a group of quite ordinary people try desperately to turn average moments into nutty adventures.