Some of the best seachildren started out as dry-landers

[sovay]

What has two thumbs and a copy of Francesca Forrest's Pen Pal (2013)?

Okay, well, you can't see the thumbs, but it's me.

Things I need to remember: Not to be jealous of Small Bill's genealogy. Mr. Ovey's six-greats-ago grandfather was a marlin, and Mrs. Ovey's seven-greats-ago grandmother was a sea turtle. But all of us got seablood, even if it's not from creatures with gills or shells. We're either born with it or it's sung into us. The Seafather gave it to the Choctaw and Biloxi and Pensacola people who hid out in the salt marshes, so no white folks could find them, and to runaways and other slippery folk who were happier on the sea than the land—like Vaillant, who swam from Haiti to Cuba and from Cuba to here, to get away from slavery. Gran said that when he found out there was slavery here, too, he decided to give up on dry land altogether and pledged allegiance to the sea. The Seafather admired Vaillant so much, he gave him fins. Whenever Small Bill starts talking about his marlin ancestor, I start bragging on Vaillant's fins. The marlin was just born with fins, but Vaillant earned them.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

:-)

I saw your subject line in my in-box and my heart skipped a beat--I am still three entries behind! Going to read your post on The Seventh Victim

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

I am slowly working through it in bits and pieces here and there, savoring, but already, I am almost 2/3 of the way through...

[beowabbit]

The thumbs must be there, even though we cannot see them, because otherwise what would you be pointing with? (And we know you’re pointing, because otherwise what would those thumbs be for?)

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

That's a wonderful passage. I'm glad you've a copy. I'm thinking I might have to get my hands on one, myself. Especially because Mobile Bay is the one place from my childhood that I've seen in years.

[larryhammer]

Me. Still reading it myself, but thumbs have been twitching upward from the git-go.

---L.