All posts by Francesca Rheannon

About Francesca Rheannon

Francesca Rheannon is an award-winning independent radio producer. In addition to hosting Writer's Voice, she's a freelance reporter for National Public Radio and its affiliates. Recipient of the prestigious Nancy Dickerson Whitehead Award for reporting on substance abuse issues for her news series, VOICES OF HIV, produced for 88.5 WFCR public radio in western Massachusetts. She is also finishing a book on Provence (PROVINCE OF THE HEART) and working on a memoir of her father, THE ARGONAUTS.

Podcast

Anthony Lewis, FREEDOM FOR THE THOUGHT THAT WE HATE & Edward Ball, THE INVENTOR AND THE TYCOON

Anthony Lewis
Anthony Lewis
Edward Ball
Edward Ball

The late Anthony Lewis on his “biography of the First Amendment,” Freedom for the Thought That We Hate. Lewis died on March 25, 2013. And Edward Ball talks with Drew Adamek about his book, The Inventor and the Tycoon. It’s about how modern media were born out of an unlikely partnership between a tycoon and an inventor who was a murderer.

THANK YOU From Writers Voice Hosts Drew Adamek and Francesca Rheannon

We want to send a big shout out of thanks to all who sent in donations to our Kickstarter Campaign to support our special series, The River Runs Through Us. We’re happy to report we exceeded our goal and have been able to heave a huge sigh of relief. Thanks SO much — and tune in to our next episode of The River Runs Through Us, coming up next week on WV. We’ll be listing our supporters on this website in the coming weeks. Continue reading

Podcast

Lois Leveen, THE SECRETS OF MARY BOWSER & Eve LaPlante, MARMEE & LOUISA

 

Lois Leveen
Lois Leveen

 

Eve LaPlante
Eve LaPlante

Lois Leveen talks about the remarkable true story of Mary Bowser, a freed slave who became a Union spy right inside the Confederate White House. Her acclaimed new novel, THE SECRETS OF MARY BOWSER, is based on it. And Eve LaPlante talks about her terrific new book, MARMEE AND LOUISA. It’s about the powerful relationship between Louisa May Alcott and her mother Abigail. Continue reading

Podcast

Helaine Olen, POUND FOOLISH & Les Leopold, HOW TO MAKE A MILLION DOLLARS AN HOUR

Les_Leopold
Les Leopold
Helaine Olen
Helaine Olen

Helaine Olen talks about her exposÁ© of the personal finance industry, POUND FOOLISH: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry and Les Leopold discusses his new book HOW TO MAKE A MILLION DOLLARS AN HOUR: Why Hedge Funds Get Away with Siphoning Off America’s Wealth.

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Blog

REVIEW: Dan Jones, THE PLANTAGENETS

by Francesca Rheannon

plantagenetsEver since I discovered Shakespeare’s historical plays at age 11, I’ve been fascinated by the Plantagenets, the dynasty of English/Norman kings who counted among their number some of the greatest scoundrels and most illustrious monarchs (some of them one and the same) England has ever known.

Alas, Dan Jones’ The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England does not include my own personal favorite Shakespearean monarchs, Henry V and Richard III. But then that hardly matters, for this sweeping 300 year history kept me on the edge of my seat as I followed the royal soap operas played out from Henry II, through Richard I (the Lionheart) and bad King John to Richard II (also the star of a Shakespeare play, but a rather mediocre one.)

The reader is prompted throughout to contemplate the fickle finger of Fate (or Karma) as monarchs triumph, only to crash and burn. Sometimes, they are able to hoist their luck up Fortune’s Wheel again, but dastardly deeds, cruel betrayals by family and friends, internecine wars — in short, all the “slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune” — are unloosed on nearly all  Jones’ primary subjects in the course of their eventful lives, often by their own actions. King Lear hath no tragic chops over Richard II, whose wife and sons tried to depose him.

But despite the tragic — and sometimes comic — elements of their history, The Plantagenets also had a profound effect on English law and custom that continues to reverberate down to our present time, as Jones reveals: the creation of the Magna Carta, for example, with its establishment of rights of the governed. As President Obama erodes the right of habeus corpus with his “targeted” killings of American citizens, we would do well to contemplate with what copious amounts of blood this right was birthed and defended over the past 800 years. And the penchant for wars in the Middle East (the Crusades then, our adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq now) has been devastating for the balance sheets of rulers from Henry II to President Bush II and the current US administration.

In The Plantagenets, Jones gives the reader many rip-roaring yarns, a good lesson in history, and much food for thought about current events.

Podcast

Russ Kick, THE GRAPHIC CANON & Louise Erdrich THE ROUND HOUSE (encore)

Russ Kick
Russ Kick
Louise Erdrich
Louise Erdrich

Russ Kick, editor of The Graphic Canon, talks about the two volume set of the western world’s greatest literature, rendered in graphic novel form. And Louise Erdrich talks about her novel The Round House. It’s about the brutal rape and beating of a Native American woman and her struggle for justice against her non-native perpetrator. Continue reading

Blog

Book Review: Ismail Kadare’s FALL OF THE STONE CITY

History is a quirky thing. Understanding history is a lot like the parable of the blind men and the elephant: depending on your vantage point, history can be a victory, a defeat, a holocaust or a glorious defense of the homeland.

And that seems to hold for personal history as well as big picture social, political and national histories. The lover you remember so fondly becomes a bitter pill after they marry your best friend; the heroic war protestor becomes a traitor to the cause when a secret relationship with the FBI is uncovered; the great writer is vilified with the discovery of plagarism.

So how does one go about comprehending a history, both personal and national, that is constantly shifting with the vagaries of time, distance, and circumstance? How can you be certain of what really happened, even in your own life, when how you interpret the past is dependent of where you are standing in the present?

Ismail Kadare examines this question in his novel, The Fall of The Stone City with a biting satirical wit and an aching sadness. Out for the first time in English translation, the novel is an complicated intellectual treat, a bitingly funny satire and a heartbreaking tragedy at all once. Ismail Kadare, an Albanian, is considered one of Europe’s best writers and his work has won the Man Booker prize and he has been a Nobel candidate several times.

The book opens on the small Albanian town of Gjirokaster in 1943 as it prepares for the Nazi invasion from Greece after the capitulation of the occupying Italians. Gjirokaster is a provincial, medieval town closed up against its neighbors and isolated by a sense of nationalistic entitlement. The Germans approach the main gates of the walled city and are fired upon by unknown assaillaints.

In retaliation, the Germans prepare a bombing campaign but just as it begins, a white flag is seen over the town. The Germans stop the bombardment but storm the town and take 100 prisoners, threatening execution if the assailants aren’t identified.

Just as the Germans are rounding up prisoners, a strange scene unfolds in the town square. One of the town’s most prominent citizens, Dr. Gurameto, meets with the German commander and invites him to dinner. It seems as if the German Colonel and Dr. Gurameto were college roommates and long lost friends.

Dr. Gurameto cuts a strange figure. Aloof, rigid and highly accomplished, he is not the only Dr. Gurameto in town. The first is known as big Dr. Gurameto while the another, unrelated Dr. Gurameto, known as the little Dr. Gurameto. Before the Germans invaded, the favorite sport of the town was to compare the two doctors on their perceived merits and. Half of the town favors the Big Dr. Gurameto and half the little Dr. Gurameto; depending on the day’s events one camp triumphs over the other in the war of words.

The dinner with the German colonel seems to seal the town in Big Dr. Gurameto’s favor. Over the course of the dinner, which is shrouded in mystery, the Germans slowly release all 100 prisoners, including the town’s most prominent Jew. Based on an agreement that no party understands or shares, the Germans agree to let Gjirokaster be left unharmed.

And there Kadare sets up his novel. There are three unkowns that the book sets out to solve: who waved the white flag, who fired on the Germans and what really happened at the dinner at Dr. Gurameto’s house?

And the answers change throughout the book depending on how and where one ponders them. The book follows Dr. Gurameto and the town for ten years, into the rot of communist rule to trace the evolving understanding of what happened so many years ago.
During the German occupation, the Albanian nationalists are convinced the communists are the culprits and after the communists take power, the nationalists are to blame. All of the town’s sacred cows fall from grace as Kadare , with keen satire, skewers the blind institutional certainty and petty jealousies that shape history.

Dr. Gurameto is first hailed as a hero but as communist revisionism and paranio slowly take over he is slowly turned into a villain and arrested as part of a plot to kill Stalin. It is in the final third of the book, during his interrogation that Kadare reveals the secrets of the dinner.

Answering the question of what exactly happened at the dinner would ruin the novel, so I will leave it at this: what happens to Dr. Gurameto in his past and in his present are shocking and grievous, both unbelievable and unjust. In an amazing feat of intellectual and narrative dexterity, Kadare takes the ironies of fate, intertwines them with the fickle nature of self-protective narratives and smashes them on the impersonal destructiveness of bureaucratic institituions.

But more than the story of Dr. Gurameto, The Fall of The Stone City, is a parable for the difficulty with reconciling Albania’s complicated political and social history. For those interested in untangling history generally, and Balkan history specifically, there can be no more tragic and insightful place to start than The Fall of the Stone City.

— Drew Adamek

Podcast

Stuart Horwitz, BLUEPRINT YOUR BESTSELLER, Rajesh Parameswaren, I AM AN EXECUTIONER: LOVE STORIES and more

Stuart Horwitz
Rajesh Paramaswaren

Stuart Horwitz talks about his book architecture method of organizing and revising any manuscript. His book is BLUEPRINT YOUR BESTSELLER. Then Rajesh Parameswaren discusses his new story collection, I AM AN EXECUTIONER: LOVE STORIES; finally, Drew Adamek reviews Ismail Kadare’s The Fall of the Stone City.

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Podcast

New Short Stories by George Saunders & Jennifer Haigh

George Saunders
Jennifer Haigh

George Saunders talks about his acclaimed new short story collection, TENTH OF DECEMBER. And Jennifer Haigh discusses her new collection, NEWS FROM HEAVEN: The Bakerton Stories.  Continue reading

Podcast

Sarah Skinner Kilborne, AMERICAN PHOENIX (extended interview)

Sarah Skinner Kilborne

Sarah S. Kilbourne

Silk manufacturing was one of the most important industries to emerge out of the Connecticut River Valley in the 19th century. William Skinner was, perhaps, the most influential of the textile magnates. He lived the American Dream: a poor immigrant, he used grit and skill to build an industrial behemoth– and then lost everything in a catastrophic flood. But he rose like a phoenix, rebuilding his mill on the mighty Connecticut River and thereby putting Holyoke, Massachusetts on the world map.

Francesca Rheannon talks with his great granddaughter, Sarah S. Kilborne, about her book, American Phoenix, The Remarkable Story of William Skinner, a Man Who Turned Disaster Into Destiny, to learn more about the forces that shaped his life and the economy of the Connecticut River Valley.

Podcast

Episode Three, Industry’s Rise & Fall – And Renewal?

Tom Juravich
Sarah S. Kilborne

Writers Voice continues its special series, The River Runs Through Us, exploring the literature, spirit and meaning of the Connecticut River in Massachusetts.

This week: industrial development. Historian Kerry Buckley gives an historical overview, Sarah Skinner Kilborne discusses her biography of silk magnate William Skinner, and labor scholar and folk musician Tom Juravich talks about de-industrialization and the potential for a new green industry.

The River Runs Through Us is funded by a generous grant from Mass Humanities. And right now we need your help to continue the project. We need to raise $600 to fulfill the conditions of our grant and to cover our costs. It’s not a lot –and it’s the first time we’ve ever asked you for money. But now we really need you. Please head on over to this link to donate on Kickstarter. Any contribution is greatly appreciated. Thanks so much for your support!

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Podcast

Translator Donald O. White, THE ISLAND OF SECOND SIGHT by Thelen & translator Damion Searles, COMEDY IN A MINOR KEY by Keilson.

Donald O. White
Damion Searls

Donald O. White talks about his translation of THE ISLAND OF SECOND SIGHT by Albert Vigoleis Thelen. Also, Damion Searls discusses his translation of Hans Keilson’s novel of wartime Amsterdam, COMEDY IN A MINOR KEY (encore.)  Continue reading

Podcast

James W. Douglass Speaks About The Unspeakable

James W. Douglass

James W. Douglass talks his new book GANDHI AND T HE UNSPEAKABLE: His Final Experiment with Truth. It’s about Gandhi’s advocacy of peace and reconciliation and the forces, both in the Indian government and among extremist groups, that murdered him. Then WV airs an excerpt from our 2009 interview with Douglass about his book, JFK and The Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters.

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Podcast

Jared Diamond, THE WORLD UNTIL YESTERDAY & Holly Bellabuono, THE AUTHENTIC HERBAL HEALER

Jared Diamond
Hooly Bellabuono

Scientist and author Jared Diamond talks about his latest book, The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? And herbalist Holly Bellabuono discusses her book, The Authentic Herbal Healer: The Complete Guide to Herbal Formulary & Plant-Inspired Medicine for Every Body System. Continue reading

Podcast

Martin Duberman, HOWARD ZINN & Howard Zinn, VOICES OF A PEOPLE’S HISTORY

Martin Duberman
Howard Zinn

Martin Duberman talks about his biography, HOWARD ZINN: A Life On The Left. We’ll also hear an excerpt from a 2005 interview with Zinn, five years before his death, about the book, VOICES OF A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES (co-authored with Anthony Arnove.) Continue reading