Customer Reviews

The Riddle Song and Other Rememberings

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As I read the rememberings set fort in the Riddle Song, I felt honored to be invited into Rebecca McClanahan's world. McClanahan writes with an elegance and grace that give heft and scope to her brave honesty. I was surprised not to be able to put down a book that was not racing toward a dramatic finish, but I had trouble putting this book down. The Riddle Song is as lyrical as poetry or song and as intriguing as a novel of manners. Almost every page brought a tear or a smile to my face. I found myself caring very much for the characters in McClanahan's world. This is a special book and one I would recommend without hesitation.

I recommend this book to all who wish to read "rememberings" painted with words. It is one of the best books I have read, the writing is beautiful and puts you in the scene. The stories will bring back your own rememberings and you will get a true sense of the author and what shaped her life. As a poet, I recommend it to both poetry and prose writers as a study in the use of lanuage.

Working in a bookstore I often get asked for reading recommendations. Rebecca McClanahan's The Riddle Song is at the top of my list, appealing to anyone who is human.

I had read several of the stories included in Rebecca's recent compilation of essays when they appeared in earlier publications. Reading them as a whole only heightened my pleasure in each piece.

Rare is the storyteller who can summon tears or laughter in the same sentence that begs to be reread for the sheer beauty of its language. Rebecca does that. Her words create vivid images, making us feel the Prell between our fingers as we lather Aunt Bessie's "muddied gray" hair. We twinge as we witness the young bride spying from the window at her unfaithful husband below. And warm to the sight of her parents' bodies making "a spoon curve on the sofa."

I have shared Rebecca's stories with my 84 year old mother and my 14 year old son with equal success. She deserves a wide readership for her heartfelt rememberings, magically constructed.

Riddle Song is a book to savor. The language, images, and stories are beautiful, and they weave together to create a meditation on family and self that is rich with meaning.

Each piece is a world unto itself, yet each vibrates against that next so that a wonderful symphony is created in the reader's heart and mind.

I have found myself pondering Riddle Song long after finishing it. This is definitely a book to own.

This is a book of many delights. McClanahan's language is lyrical, down to earth and humorous. I find her voice clear-eyed, feisty and tender all at once, a mixture which gave me much pleasure. Her beautifully-structured essays are wrought by a fine intelligence which questions life in its own unique way; for example: "How do we navigate the spaces between ourselves and others?"

I felt that I was right there as the little girl dolls up her eccentric old aunt to go to church, or when the long-married woman packs up her beloved house to move into a new and unknown phase of life. I am especially grateful for McClanahan's exploration of loving un-motherhood by choice.

As I read I laughed often, cried more than once, and mused for days over a particular angle of perception of some human peculiarity. When I closed the book, I immediately started making a list of friends to whom I want to give it.