Nan McCarthy

author of Since You Went Away, Chat, Connect, Crash, & Live ’Til I Die

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Holy shit. Have you seen the trailer for the new film adaptation of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary? It’s due to hit theaters April 19, 2019. The directors say they aimed to make this version hew more closely to King’s book, make it more character-driven with more psychological suspense. All good. I didn’t love the original film. Pet Sematary is one of my favorite Stephen King books. • True story: November 1984. I was a 23-year old newlywed visiting my parents’ home while my hubs was away on military travel. I stayed up late, reading in bed in my old bedroom, to finish the paperback edition which had just come out (pictured here). When I finished the book in the middle of the night I was so fucking scared I didn’t want to get out of bed to turn off the light. I guess the light woke up my mom in the next room so she comes into my room to ask what’s going on. I tell her I just finished reading Pet Sematary and would she please get in bed with me. So she did. She thought it was funny. I can laugh now but back then I didn’t see what was so hilarious about the situation. • #StephenKing #PetSematary #booktofilm #PetSematarymovie #horror #lovetoread #scarybooks

Me and color have a thing. Ever since I was a kid, looking at certain colors makes me happy. Some colors & color combos make me happier than others (like the color of this book). • Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours: Adapted to Zoology, Chemistry, Mineralogy, Anatomy, and the Arts by Patrick Syme makes me happy. • First published in 1814 by the British Museum of Natural History, the book is based on the work of mineralogist and geologist Abraham Gottlob Werner. Robert Jameson was a professor of natural history who matched Werner’s color descriptions with actual minerals. Patrick Syme was a flower painter and art teacher who used Jameson’s matches as the starting point for the color names, descriptions, and color charts in this book. So for example if you look under Prussian Blue you’ll find it compared to the “Beauty Spot on Wing of Mallard Duck” (Animal), the “Bluish Purple Anemone” (Vegetable), and “Blue Copper Ore” (Mineral). (See second photo.) • The book was widely used by artists and naturalists in its day, including a young Charles Darwin during his travels in 1831-36 on the HMS Beagle. • This new 2018 edition is published by the Natural History museum in Great Britain (and by Smithsonian Books in the Americas). Have I mentioned it makes me happy? • #wernersnomenclatureofcolours #abrahamgottlobwerner #patricksyme #robertjameson #colorclassification #animalvegetablemineral #scienceisart #artisscience #readwhatmakesyouhappy #lovetoread #lovecolor #bookstagram #booksofig

Took in some Kansas City history today. We chose to walk the tour on foot instead of taking the shuttle, which gave me a chance to photograph some homes that weren’t officially part of the Hyde Park Historic Homes Tour. #KansasCity #historicneighborhood #historichomes #KCneighborhoods

When one of your BFFs (@insta_graan, who happens to be a fabulous cook) says to buy this issue of Food & Wine, you buy it—even if you don’t buy magazines anymore. Thanks Carolyn for recommending this. I can’t wait to try the whole-roasted cauliflower, tomatoes w/ herbs & almond vinaigrette, Baltimore crab cakes, and that chocolate cake looks pretty good too. #friendswhocook #cooksofinstagram #foodandwine

I loved the archy and mehitabel poems as a kid so when I came across this 2006 annotated edition which contains the complete archy and mehitabel poems by Don Marquis I had to snag it. • “archy” was a free verse poet in a former life who’s been reincarnated as a cockroach. He types his poems on an old typewriter in the newspaper office (where columnist Don Marquis works) when everyone in the building has gone home. The poems are left in the typewriter for Marquis to “find” when he comes to work in the morning, and are then published in the newspaper each day. As a cockroach, archy has trouble operating the shift key; hence his poems are all in lowercase and have no punctuation. His poems are a satiric commentary on life in the city in the early 1900s. I can’t remember how I first came across the archy and mehitabel (mehitabel is an alley cat) poems. Maybe they were syndicated in the Chicago Tribune in the ‘60s and ‘70s? At any rate my next goal would be to snag some illustrated versions (by cartoonist George Herriman, author of the Krazy Kat cartoons from the 1st half of the 20th century). • Marquis has been compared to Mark Twain, and E.B. White said that Marquis’ satire helped inspire Charlotte’s Web. My favorite archy poems are “at the zoo,” “be beautiful,” and “the lesson of the moth.” • #DonMarquis #archyandmehitabel #poetry #satire #lovetoread

Happy Birthday to one of my favorite actresses, Claudette Colbert. She was born Emilie Claudette Chauchoin in France in 1903 and came to the U.S. with her family in 1906. She went by “Lily” growing up and started using her middle name Claudette in high school. For her stage name she added her maternal grandmother’s maiden name Colbert. • I love this actress for her comedic timing, wit, intelligence, style, and tongue-in-cheek vivacity. She stars in one of my favorite films, David O. Selznick’s 1944 Since You Went Away (based on the 1943 novel of the same name by Margaret Buell Wilder). For you eagle-eyed observers, I named the main character in my four-part novel (also called Since You Went Away) after her. • In the film, Colbert plays the mother of two teenage daughters whose husband / father is serving overseas during WWII. The novel & film focus entirely on what’s going on back at home in their small Midwestern town as they deal with the effects of war on ordinary people. (My 2017 novel is an updated version of this story, focusing on a modern-day family whose service member is deployed to Iraq.) • Another of my favorite films of hers is the 1934 Imitation of Life, based on Fannie Hurst’s 1933 novel of the same name. Colbert plays a widowed single mother who co-founds a successful pancake business with her housekeeper (played by Louise Beavers). It was named one of the “25 Most Important Films on Race” by Time magazine in 2007. • #claudettecolbert #happybirthdayclaudettecolbert #sinceyouwentaway #booktofilm

Only took us 5 months to settle on some new bookcases. 😂 No more stacks of books covering the floor! Next task: 1 more bookcase for my office (or maybe 2?) #gottaloveIKEA #downsizing #lovetoread

rainy morning in kc 🌧📖☕️ #yesimstillreadingthisbook #slowreader #summerreading #elenaferrante #mybrilliantfriend #neapolitannovels #lovetoread #countrysidekc #kcmo #kansascity #citylivin #porchtime

I’ve been a Spike Lee fan since I saw his first film She’s Gotta Have It back in 1986 at an art film house in Virginia, one of the movies that marked the beginning of the U.S. independent film movement. His latest film BlackkKlansman, set in the 1970s, is even more relevant today. Go see it. #BlackkKlansman #SpikeLee #basedonatruestory

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Blog (26)
Books (23)
- biography/memoir (5)
  - Live ’Til I Die (5)
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  - Chat: book one (3)
  - Connect: book two (3)
  - Crash: book three (3)
  - Since You Went Away (Part One: Winter) (3)
  - Since You Went Away (Part Two: Spring) (1)
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NOW AVAILABLE

Since You Went Away, Part Two: Spring

Since You Went Away, Part Two: Spring Nan McCarthy (Rainwater Press, 2017) 226 pages F I C T I O N…

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