Hermit Crab Essays

What is a hermit crab essay?

I read a story in Chestnut Review that uses this technique.

https://chestnutreview.com/cr_v4_n1/how-to-use-your-fathers-lawn-mower-yasmin-nadiyah-phillip/

by Yasmin Nadiyah Phillip.

Here's more on the topic:

http://www.thewritingaddict.org/2019/02/how-to-write-hermit-crab-essay.html

The Writing Addict's advice, though, is for non-fiction.

Daisy Jones & The Six

 

Daisy is that girl for whom everything comes easily. She has natural beauty, vibrant vocals, and a gift for song writing. Even with all this going for her, she self-destructs in the usual way–drugs and alcohol.

Billy who strives to stay on the straight and narrow calls her dangerous and an “impossible woman.” Even if that is the case, he needs her to take the Six to the next level. His song writing is too romantic. Her songs have a grittier edge that balance out his.

While the story appears to be a typical one, Reid has a way of telling it, as a transcript of a documentary, that is remarkable.

Characters often argue with each other or remember events differently. People blame each other and use one another.

Worst of all, people write songs about the other resulting in hurt feelings. For instance, Daisy writes “Regret Me” about Billy.

While Billy and Daisy croon about the dangers of falling in love, they face similar temptations. Reid’s characters are complex and flawed but easy to relate to.

If you liked reading Daisy Jones and the Six, you may also like the true account Girl in a Band about Sonic Youth or works of fiction about rock bands and music from the 70s.

Blau, Jessica Anya. Mary Jane.

Doan, Amy Mason. Lady Sunshine.

Egan, Jennifer. A Visit From the Goon Squad.

Gabel, Aja. The Ensemble.

Mitchell, David. Utopia Avenue.

Moore, Scotto. Your Favorite Band Cannot Save You.

Sloan, Elissa R. The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes.

Straub, Emma. Modern Lovers.

Daisy Jones and the Six has been adapted as a mini-series for Amazon. If readers are wondering what the songs sound like, they will get to hear the original music in the mini-series (13 episodes).

Hot Milk by Deborah Levy

Sophie takes her cracked laptop, where her unfinished doctoral thesis resides, with her to Almeria, Spain. She has a Master's degree in Anthropology so everything she sees and does is filtered through that lens. 

Sophie studies everything, including her mother, who is ill and looking for a cure at the Gomez clinic in Spain. 

More than once someone hints that Rose's illness is psychosomatic and that she had entrapped Sophie in her own destructive fantasies. 

Levy does a great job of making Sophie, who is at war with herself, accessible and likable. Though she is 25, Sophie remains child-like and dependent upon her mother. When she meets the irrepressible Ingrid Bauer, however, things begins to shift.

Ingrid is everything Sophie is not; she's bold and selfish. She carries a secret that changes Sophie's view of her. 

Sophie has been abandoned by her father at five, but it one climatic moment Sophie abandons her mother. 

This is a novel for reader's who like psychological, character-driven novels.

One question. Why is it called Hot Milk?

Down Among the Sticks and Bones

Jack and Jill's backstory, hinted at in Every Heat a Doorway, gets fully realized in Down Among the Sticks and Bones. 

Their parents, Chester and Serena Wolcott, had children for the most selfish of reasons. When the twins weren't what they expected, Chester assigned them stifling gender roles. One of them he dresses as a tomboy, Jill, while the other, Jacqueline, he dresses in finery. 

Unsurprisingly, what their father does has disastrous effects. When they reach the Moors, they reverse roles; Jack becomes self-sufficient and skilled in the sciences while Jill becomes the vain daughter of a vampire. 

This is the 2nd part of the Wayward children series. Though it lacks the spark of the first part, it offers a wonderful depiction of the Moors. 

Pieces of Happiness by Anne Otsby

There's a certain kind of book that appeals to readers who are stuck in the daily grind. They feature characters who are of a certain age who are tired of life passing them by. 

NPR has called it "late life reinvention," and that is an apt description for these titles:

Backman, Frederik. Britt-Marie was Here. (2016)
Davis, Brooke. Lost and Found. (2014).
Evison, Jonathan. This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance. (2015).
Tyler, Anne. Ladder of Years (2010). 

Now, here's a new book that fits that theme, Pieces of Happiness by Anne Otsby. In Otsby's novel, a group of friends in their sixties move to a Fiji island and start a chocolate business.