AUG 9 - FOG :: Kathryn Scanlan

A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness and is republished here with permission.

Through an inventive format, Kathryn Scanlan shares a serendipitous treasure discovered long ago in a box of unsold estate auction items destined for the garbage. Worn and water-damaged, its physicality intrigued Scanlan, but she ultimately set it aside, assuming its contents were mostly indecipherable.

Years later, Scanlan rediscovered the diary--given to an Illinois woman for her 86th birthday--and spent a decade immersing herself in the distinctive language that chronicled the days between 1968 and 1972. Eventually, the diarist's particular and measured language ("Terrible windy   everything loose is traveling." "That puzzle a humdinger.") became intertwined with Scanlan's own voice, the diary "something like kin--a relation who is also me, myself."

Exasperated but unable to resist, Scanlan surrendered to the mixed influences and wrote Aug 9 - Fog. In fleeting, diary-esque entries sectioned by season, Scanlan writes in a new vernacular resulting from the commingling, an unusual "co-authoring" that holds multiple layers of mystery. Where the diarist's nonfiction and Scanlan's fiction meet or marry is unknown--somewhat frustratingly unknowable in the most intriguing of ways.

The "story" is by turns clear and vague. Day-in-the-life details (weather changes, church-going, pie-making, visiting) and profound life and death events paint a full spectrum over the course of time. Guesses can be made as to the identities of recurring characters "Vern" and "D.," but the varying forms and linguistic style is both provoking and devilishly satisfying. Aug 9 - Fog is a one-sitting read that echoes long after the final "Winter" has passed.

STREET SENSE: This very fast read is really quite fascinating--a true-life artifact and the author's imagination melding together to depict the life of an elderly woman from a small Midwest town. If you've lived in the Midwest or a small town, many of the snippets will resonate. It's half maddening (what is true v. what is fiction?) and yet since it's not earth-shattering information being relayed (except, perhaps, for the diarist), it's easier to just sit back and enjoy the minutiae.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE:  D. & Bucky going to see about head stones. She bought one. Seen 8 9 10 11 jets tonite, 2 airplanes & new moon while we eating supper 6 to 6:45.

[NOTE: I loved this not for the content but the strikethroughs. I imagine the woman sitting with her diary counting planes and crossing the count total out as each new one goes by. There's something relaxing about simply reading about someone taking the time to watch and count the planes]

COVER NERD SAYS: The mysterious nature of this title, along with the cover that really doesn't explain it, got me good. The cover could be seen as quite boring, but the intrigue amplifies it to a curiosity that can't be ignored (at least by me). Once I read the synopsis, I was hooked. So. Well done, cover.