Grand Avenue, Leighton Avenue, Bowman Street, Upper and Lower East Main Street and Lamont Place. Sonja Livingston glanced at the list of streets that surrounded our old house in the city. I had jotted them down as I read her book, “Ghostbread“, and Peggi had opened it to that same blank page in the front of the book in order to have Sonja sign our copy. It is interesting to me that so much of her bleak and beautiful memoir took place on the streets of our old neighborhood.
Sonja had a packed house at the downtown library on Super Bowl Sunday. Standing room only. Her husband, painter Jim Mott, manned the merchandise table and sold every copy of the book they brought. We’ve given copies of her book to a few people as gifts and we learned from the question/comment session that many others had done the same. The book is that moving.
Sonja read from “Ghostbread” but she read too fast. Even though the chapters are short I wanted her to linger over them and so I could savor their beauty. She had many in the crowd tell her how much this book meant to them, some were people who grew up with her, and it was all quite emotional. There were publishing and craft-like questions from other writers which Sonja handled with charming efficiency and I was thinking, “Can’t you see? This woman is a natural.” But what do I know. I can’t even spell. She said she hoped we realize that people in poverty are just like you and me in every other way.
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