Aug 9-fog

Title:

Aug 9-fog

Author:

Scanlan, Kathryn, 1980- author.

Personal Author:

Scanlan, Kathryn, 1980- author.

ISBN:

9780374106874

Edition:

First edition.

Physical Description:

110 pages ; 17 cm

General Note:

Based on an anonymous diary written by an eighty-six year old woman residing in Illinois. It was acquired fifteen years ago at a public estate auction and covers the years, 1968 through 1972. Scanlon edited, arranged, and rearranged the text.

Abstract:

A stark, elegiac account of unexpected pleasures and the progress of seasons. Fifteen years ago, Kathryn Scanlan found a stranger's five-year diary at an estate auction in a small town in Illinois. The owner of the diary was eighty-six years old when she began recording the details of her life in the small book, a gift from her daughter and son-in-law. The diary was falling apart -- water-stained and illegible in places -- but magnetic to Scanlan nonetheless. After reading and rereading the diary, studying and dissecting it, for the next fifteen years she played with the sentences that caught her attention, cutting, editing, arranging, and rearranging them into the composition that became Aug 9--Fog (she chose the title from a note that was tucked into the diary). "Sure grand out," the diarist writes. "That puzzle a humdinger," she says, followed by, "A letter from Lloyd saying John died the 16th." An entire state of mourning reveals itself in "2 canned hams." The result of Scanlan's collaging is an utterly compelling, deeply moving meditation on life and death. In Aug 9--Fog, Scanlan's spare, minimalist approach has a maximal emotional effect, remaining with the reader long after the book ends. It is an unclassifiable work from a visionary young writer and artist -- a singular portrait of a life revealed by revision and restraint.

Subject Term:

Diaries -- Found poetry.

Genre:

Fiction.

Summary:

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Belmont	Book	FICTION SCANLAN	Searching... Unknown
Searching... East End	Book	FICTION SCANLAN	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Main Library	Book	FICTION SCANLAN	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

"The searing strokes of this book remind me of the infinitude inside every life." --Leslie Jamison

Paris Review Staff Pick, one of Chicago Tribune 's 25 Hot Books of Summer, and one of The A.V. Club 's 15 Most Anticipated Books of 2019

A stark, elegiac account of unexpected pleasures and the progress of seasons

Fifteen years ago, Kathryn Scanlan found a stranger's five-year diary at an estate auction in a small town in Illinois. The owner of the diary was eighty-six years old when she began recording the details of her life in the small book, a gift from her daughter and son-in-law. The diary was falling apart--water-stained and illegible in places--but magnetic to Scanlan nonetheless.

After reading and rereading the diary, studying and dissecting it, for the next fifteen years she played with the sentences that caught her attention, cutting, editing, arranging, and rearranging them into the composition that became Aug 9--Fog (she chose the title from a note that was tucked into the diary). "Sure grand out," the diarist writes. "That puzzle a humdinger," she says, followed by, "A letter from Lloyd saying John died the 16th." An entire state of mourning reveals itself in "2 canned hams." The result of Scanlan's collaging is an utterly compelling, deeply moving meditation on life and death.

In Aug 9 -- Fog , Scanlan's spare, minimalist approach has a maximal emotional effect, remaining with the reader long after the book ends. It is an unclassifiable work from a visionary young writer and artist--a singular portrait of a life revealed by revision and restraint.

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

An elderly woman's diary of daily life in the Midwest provides inspiration for this assemblage of found text.Scanlan's debut begins with an indispensable author's note in which she describes acquiring a diary at an estate auction. The diary spanned five years in the life of an Illinois woman who was 86 years old when she began the project of keeping track of her days. Falling apart and badly water-damaged, the diary was only partly legible. But the voice Scanlan found within itidiosyncratic, matter-of-factcompelled her to keep returning to the diary, rearranging and collaging bits of language. The result, labeled "part diary, part collage, part fiction," is a slender volume arranged by seasons; most pages feature only a few words. The weather is one obsession: "Terrible windy," reads one entry, "everything loose is traveling." We get glimpses of chores, like sewing and canning, and gossip from others' lives. A narrative starts to emerge when one recurring figure, seemingly a son or son-in-law, gets severely ill and then, in the hospital, "seemed to just sleep away." There is an undeniable poignancy in the readerly act of filling in the gaps of this octogenarian's life, her voice pulled into the present from where it had been suspended in the late 1960s/early '70s. Scanlan's project will be familiar to anyone who reads contemporary poetry: Titans like Susan Howe or Solmaz Sharif have made stunning poems from found text. But Scanlan's book is "part fiction," and it's unclear where the invention, if any, actually comes in. What are the woman's words, and what aren't? Scanlan doesn't explain. And where Sharif or Howe use public texts, this is private writing manipulated and published as a work of art by Scanlan. Here, the text offers pleasures that the context complicates.A work of frequent beauty but puzzling intent. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.