Lint in Literature: Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

I've read lots of books since my last post but none mentioned lint. And I haven't been actively seeking out lint news. You could say I've been in a lint lull.

Well, I'm happy to say the lull has been broken!

Last night while reading Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn, I came across this perfect passage with lint:

"Katie was the type who'd bustle around all day, clean the kitchen tile with a toothbrush, pull the lint from the floorboards with a toothpick before she spoke much about anything uncomfortable."

This book is dark and wonderful like the other books Flynn's written. If you're not familiar with Gillian Flynn, she also wrote that little book Gone Girl. Yeah, her. Sharp Objects was her first novel and it's good, but I did like Gone Girl better and Dark Places best.

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 Watchmaker's Daughter by Sonia Taitz

I'm still reading The Watchmaker's Daughter by Sonia Taitz, and this memoir of a daughter of two Holocaust survivors is very good. 

 
Last night I read this passage and smiled because I'd get to share this bit of lint with you:

Will he greet my damp-faced, round-cheeked mother in her housedress, wearing pink kid shlurkes on her feet as she spreads the dust around with a lint cloth or boils up some exhausted white chicken?

This author candidly exposes her feelings growing up as the only daughter (she has an older brother) of a watchmaker. Her father was a craftsman who was allowed to live by repairing Nazi's watches in the Dachau concentration camp during the war. 

This book really has nothing to do with lint but has a lot to offer on the history of a family and what it means to be a the child of World War II Jewish parents. 

Lint in Literature: The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns

I recently read The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns by Margaret Dilloway, and I loved it! The writing was rich as were the characters and story.

I was also so thrilled to see a nice little reference to lint toward the end. The main character, Gal Garner, has to go to the hospital every other night for dialysis treatment. 

Here is the lint line where Gal talks about her ongoing dialysis:

I will do this the day after tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow after that, and so forth forever, through vacations and work, picking up infections the way black sweaters catch lint.

Lint in Literature: Born Under an Assumed Name: The Memoir of a Cold War Spy's Daughter by Sara Mansfield Taber

I just finished reading Born Under an Assumed Name:  The Memoir of a Cold War Spy's Daughter by Sara Mansfield Taber. This was a very good book and it contains lint, to boot!

Near the end of the book, she describes the teachers at the Canadian Academy in Kobe, Japan where she attended high school:

"My French teacher was a fastidious man with impeccable clothing from which he brushed off invisible bits of lint with his manicured fingernails."

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.)