Lint in Literature: Little Pretty Things by Lori Rader-Day

I just finished reading Lori Rader-Day's novel Little Pretty Things, literally, like 10 minutes ago. I loved this book. And there's a nugget in there, on page 180. A lint nugget!

"My own house is too clean now, you know? I see a piece of lint, and I have to stop and pick it up, and I look at it, try to decide where it came from."

Lint aside, this novel is a mystery that had me stumped till the killer was revealed. Well, I sort of had an idea but it was so good! Read it! With more than 24 5-star reviews on Amazon, it's not just me who likes this one.

Little Pretty Things

Lint in Literature: Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

I found some lint! I was reading the novel Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng last night and came across this line:

Lydia hugged her knees under the dining table, 

cookbookless; Nath picked lint from the carpet and glowered. 

This book is really good so if you love a good read (and lint), you might want to read it, too.

Everything I Never Told You: A Novel

Lint in Literature: The Silver Star by Jeannette Walls

I just started reading Jeannette Walls' latest book last night and love it! In case she doesn't ring any bells, she wrote the so-good memoir The Glass Castle. If you haven't read it, do! It's wonderful.

So, as I was reading along, the word "linthead" was used several times. Then it was explained! Here's that passage:

"Charlie was a fling, as far as she was concerned. Charlotte was pretty shaken up when that wastrel, Liz's father, decided he didn't want to be a father after all. She went through a wild-divorcee period and got involved with a number of men whom Mother and Father disapproved of. Charlie was one of them. She never considered marrying him. The way she saw it, he was just a linthead."

"What's that?" I'd heard Mom use the word, but I didn't know what it meant.

"A millworker. They come off their shifts covered in lint."

~*~

Isn't that perfect!? I think so. 

Lint in Literature: Freud's Mistress

I came across the word lint in the latest book I'm reading, Freud's Mistress by Karen Mack and Jennifer Kaufman. Here's the passage (Martha is Sigmund Freud's wife):

As the noise level rose, Martha flitted back and forth into the kitchen, checking on the biscuits, the beef, getting this child a glass of water, that child a napkin, removing an elbow or a leg from the arm of a chair, and, at one point, bending over and picking up a wad of lint from the floor.

I like his book, but in places it reads like a history lesson. The story is based in fact but is a historical fictional account of Freud and his sister-in-law Minna, who many feel had an affair.

Lint in Literature: The First Affair by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus

I recently read The First Affair by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus (of The Nanny Diaries fame). This novel was a fictional look at affairs women (young girls really) have with the President of the United States. I was pleasantly surprised; this book didn't just deal with the affair but largely with the aftermath of such a decision by both parties. 

It mostly was seen from the young intern's point of view and was handled very well. The character Jamie McAlister was idealistic and totally fooled, but I don't want to give too much away. Read it! I think anyone would love this smart look at the inner workings of politics today.

This little snippet about lint was in the book:

"Harrisburg? God, no." He considered for a second. "I thought there'd be more camaraderie. I thought join the government, join the campaign, share a common vision, a cause." He picked lint off his slim-cut cords. "But people suck everywhere, I guess."

Lint in Literature: The Little Giant of Aberdeen County

I'm reading The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker, and I'm loving it! 
 

It's the story of Truly Plaice, a solid girl who grows up to be a solid woman. She's not exactly a giant, but she's taller and bigger than most men. And she's ugly (that's not my word; that's how the author describes her). Her sister, Serena Jane, on the other hand is small and beautiful.

The other night, while reading along, I was thrilled to come across this lint phrase:

"Really, Truly," Serena Jane said, flicking a piece of lint off her cardigan, bored with my fantasies, "you might at least acknowledge that you're female."

Have you read this book? I highly recommend it.

Lint in Literature: Our Lady of the Forest by David Guterson

I've had the novel Our Lady of the Forest by David Guterson on my nightstand for years. I've been meaning to read it and when I found myself with no books to read, I pulled it out and started it.

The story is about a teenage girl whose run away from an abusive home life living in a tent in Washington state. One day she sees the Virgin Mary in the forest, who speaks to her. It's pretty interesting.

Last night I read this passage and smiled because there was lint:

Saturday night you can always attend. As well as twice on Sunday. The priest absentmindedly picked lint from his overcoat. So you went to the woods, he observed.

Quotes aren't used in this book, making the conversations just a tiny bid confusing occasionally, but I've gotten used to it.

Lint in Literature: The Girl Giant by Kristen den Hartog

I just started reading The Girl Giant by Kristen den Hartog last night and could tell right away that it was a winner. This small book--both in size (it measures about 5 X 7 inches) and page length (just 219 pages)--is compact but tells a big story.

Here's where the lint comes in (on page 26), when Ruth is describing going to her first day of kindergarten with her mother:

"On my first day, I was creeping up on five feet, heads taller than my peers, who stared at me as I made my way down the speckled hall to my classroom, sweaty hand gripping Elspeth's sleeve. Clip-clop went Elspeth's shoes, and her dark dress without a speck of lint swished against her nylons, like people whispering."

The writing is so good and the story wonderful.

Lint in Literature: The Beginner's Goodbye by Anne Tyler

I finished reading Anne Tyler's latest novel last night. The Beginner's Goodbye was a wonderfully simple story and too short. I always enjoy Anne Tyler's characters and the quirky situations she puts them in.

In The Beginner's Goodbye, Aaron is married to Dorothy, but actually when the book begins, Dorothy has already died and Aaron, a thirty-something year old who works at his family's vanity press, has started  having visits from Dorothy. Yes, back from the dead.

In one of the last pages of the book, this little gem of lint in literature showed up during a conversation about walking on freshly refinished wood floors:

Gary straightened and laid his brush across the top of his can. "Now, don't go walking on this, you hear?" he said. "Not for twenty-four hours. And then, the next few days or so, keep your shoes on. You wouldn't believe how many folks think they're doing a floor a favor to take their shoes off and walk in their stocking feet. But that's the worst thing."

"Worst thing in the world," the other man agreed.

"Heat of your body . . ." Gary said.

"Linty old socks . . ."

"Bottoms of your feet mashing flat against the wood . . ."

Nice! Linty old socks! (I've provided a link [the sock shown above] in case you have linty old socks and are need of some new ones. Just in case.)

The New Republic by Lionel Shriver

I'm a big fan of Lionel Shriver's writing. I haven't read all of her books, but several. I'm currently reading The New Republic. It's about terrorism and she wrote it a few years before 2001. It didn't get published then and immediately after 9/11, it couldn't get published, so 11 years later, it's okay again to have a book about terrorism. That is, a humorous book about terrorism.

So far, so good. She is such an excellent writer:  smart, funny, way over my head at least half the time but down to earth enough that when I get it, it's good and I don't feel dumb, just ignorant of her references. I'm not a worldly type person. She is obviously. And that's okay.

So, last night I read these paragraphs, which, you guessed it, one of them contains lint. So here goes:

Edgar could only intuit vaguely that they had money troubles.

"Barrington understood," she added sadly. "But Barrington collected meaning like lint. Like that Peanuts character:  it followed him in a cloud."


If you've never read any of Lionel Shriver's books, do yourself a favor. Do. I wouldn't recommend starting with We Need to Talk About Kevin though. It's her deepest, darkest and very good but so scary in the subject matter. Most of her others are more tongue in cheek and a delight.

Lint in Literature: 11/22/63

I've been reading Stephen King's latest book 11/22/63 for a week or so now. It's long, but it's very good. Last night while reading along, I found the first bit of lint in it! Since the book is 849 pages, it would be fairly disappointing if lint didn't show up at least once!

Here it is:

"That evening at six, Sadie inspected me, reknotted my tie, and then brushed some lint, real or imagined, from the shoulders of my sport coat."

I don't think I gave anything away with that snippet, in case you haven't read this book. But seriously, it is so good. Basically, a guy from 2009 (I think it is) goes through a portal that takes him to 1958. He has the opportunity to change history by keeping JFK alive. Of course that can't happen but if anyone can convince you of wormholes and alternate realities, it's Stephen King.