I was just tending the blog and cursing slooow dialup when the sound of the radio penetrated my foggy brain. Linda Wertheimer was interviewing Ellen Airgood on NPR Weekend Edition. This is so good.
Ellen Airgood is a thoroughly engaging person. She is smart and funny and forthright. She works hard. She and her husband Rick own the West Bay Diner in Grand Marais, Michigan, and keep it open all year round. Ellen makes pie. As if all of that were not enough to recommend her, she is the author of South of Superior, a novel that I read in one happy gulp. Which brings us back to the interview. Linda Wertheimer! And there she was, Ellen Airgood, fielding questions about her book and the characters who populate it, talking about life in the North Country, being her engaging self. This is so good. People who listen to Linda Wertheimer like to read books, and I hope that many, many people will read this book. (You can listen to the interview later today on NPR’s podcast.)
I hope you will read this book. You will feel right at home in its pages. Whether you live in Torch Lake Township or Detroit or California or North Carolina or Nova Scotia or New York or Denmark or Utah or Scotland or the hills and dales of the north of England, it is filled with people you know. They live their lives with grace or stupendous foolishness, get knocked around and keep going anyway because, well, what else are you going to do? They do their work and their best, which is all we can ask of our neighbors or ourselves. Their stories are a good read, which is a valuable thing indeed.
I read obsessively but I am terrible at telling people about books. I blame it on being forced to do Book Reports in elementary school. Pamela Grath (a/k/a PJ) over at Dog Ears Books in Northport is good at telling people about books. This is why she has the bookstore and I buy books from her. PJ’s review of South of Superior tells you everything I would and does it better than I could.
Ellen keeps a blog where she muses about the diner and writing and launching the book. Her most recent post describes the pain/pleasure of the busy season in a resort community in a way that resonates for anyone who has ever Been There, which covers a whole lot of people Around Here. It is so good.
Torch Lake Views 
P.j. grath
July 17, 2011
A customer friend came in to say he’d come in on the last part of the interview. Guess I’ll have to catch the podcast. I agree, Gerry–THIS IS SO GOOD!!!
Gerry
July 17, 2011
Almost makes up for the Perfectly Dreadful Heat. I keep threatening to head North of Superior for the duration.
Carsten
July 18, 2011
That was something of a recommendation!
I might consider watching when the movie comes on tv! 🙂
Or trying to read it in tandem with someone else. I have a good experience with that.
Gerry
July 18, 2011
Carsten, when South of Superior is made into a movie I will post another Yee-Hah! Meanwhile, I believe you should take turns reading it out loud with Lise. You will find it exotic yet familiar.
Ellen
July 18, 2011
Gerry! What a lovely post you have written. Thank you so much. I had a great time talking with Linda Wertheimer. Rick and I drove out to the end of the point in the Jeep (reception was no good out at Sable Lake, my first plan) to listen to it ‘live’ on the radio. What a thrill.
Thank you for saying such lovely things about me and the book. Shucks. Bye! Ellen
Gerry
July 18, 2011
Caught me talking about you behind your back. Shucks. I can just see you out there at the end of the point in the Jeep, listening to the miracle of your own voice talking to Linda for all the world as if she were having coffee at the diner.
Dawn
July 18, 2011
Have to go to work.. 😦 but will listen to podcast. later..AND order the book from PJ…
Gerry
July 18, 2011
I think all three of these things are an excellent idea. May you have a productive day all the way around.
Beth Toner
July 18, 2011
Perhaps you need to keep writing, Gerry, you know, that stuff that you keep putting off writing. So we, too, can hear YOU on NPR. 🙂
Gerry
July 18, 2011
I am writing and writing and fact-checking and fact-checking. Except that I am taking July off to fill up the well, reading and reading and hanging out in artists’ studios and avoiding thinking about Civil War veterans most days. If I ever have an opportunity to talk to Linda Wertheimer about anything I’ve written I’ll probably go all deer-in-the-headlights. So Beth–while you’re here for your vacation we’ll have coffee at Chris and Sonny’s and read to each other from our work-in-progress, eh?
Anna
July 18, 2011
I love good storytelling life and about people stories. This book sounds like the good kind one curls up with and becomes part of the story. I enjoyed this post, Gerry! 🙂
Gerry
July 18, 2011
Thank you, Anna. I am positive that you would enjoy this book. I think you should ask the Waubansee Library to order some copies so that over the winter, when the book has become a best seller, there will be enough to go around. We are great winter readers here in the North Country, and I am willing to bet that it works the same for those of you out on the prairie.
dmarks
July 18, 2011
I like those old Cylon-head boomboxes. Is it 10-15 years old?
Gerry
July 18, 2011
Boombox indeed. That is my classy little bookcase stereo, purchased in 1998 or 1999 as I filled in the gaping holes in my nesting materials Post Divorce. Separate components, no handle. Can’t carry it on my shoulder, but I like it anyway.
I had no idea what a Cylon-head might be, so I googled it, and guess what came up #1? Throwaway Blog December 21 2009. If we keep hanging out together in Blogland either I will gradually become hip in a retro sort of way or you will get to be an old bat. Or both.