Shelfari

YA Wednesday: Cassie Clare Answers Your Questions

By Seira Wilson

Cassandra Clare is on fire right now--her penultimate novel in The Mortal Instruments series, City of Lost Souls, released last week and is getting rave reviews, and the latest book in the prequel series, The Clockwork Prince, just won the Teen Choice award, voted on by readers, in the Children's Choice Book Awards.  A couple weeks ago we asked our Omni readers and Facebook followers what questions they had for this best-selling author and they came pouring in!  Check out the exclusive video below to see some of those questions and Cassie Clare's answers.

The Inquisitor's Key: The Shroud of Turin and the Ultimate Game of "What if?"

By Jeff VanderMeer

(Omnivoracious is pleased to present this guest post from Jon Jefferson, the writer behind the New York Times bestselling Jefferson Bass "body farm" novels, for which Jefferson has partnered with forensic anthropologist Dr. Bill Bass. Jefferson is a veteran journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. His writings have been published in the New York Times, Newsweek, USA Today, and Popular Science, and broadcast on National Public Radio.)

The latest Jefferson Bass novel, The Inquisitor's Key, features series regular Dr. Bill Brockton, but is a bit of a departure. Inside a newly discovered chamber beneath the spectacular Palace of the Popes in Avignon, Brockton's protégé discovers a stone chest inscribed with a stunning claim: inside lie the bones of none other than Jesus of Nazareth. Brockton arrives to help prove or refute the claim, and the investigation leads inexorably to the Shroud of Turin, revered by millions as the burial cloth of Christ. The resulting uproar involves anthropologists, the Vatican, and a deadly zealot who hopes to use the bones to bring about the Second Coming. The Inquisitor's Key weaves together a rich tapestry of religion, history, art, and science. "“ Jeff VanderMeer, Omni contributor

Jon Jefferson on Researching the Ultimate Forensic Thriller"¦

For a crime novelist whose main character is a bone detective, it's the ultimate case, the greatest game of what-if: What if an ancient skeleton were unearthed, accompanied by the claim that the bones were those of Jesus? How would the bone-sleuth"”specifically, my bone sleuth, Dr. Bill Brockton"”corroborate or refute the claim? What forensic techniques would he harness? And who, besides him, might be interested in the bones"”interested enough to kill for them?

Those questions drive the dual narratives of The Inquisitor's Key, a forensic thriller that weaves together medieval mystery, modern murder, and authentic forensics. The book is set in Avignon, France, the home of the popes for most of the 1300s. And the bones at the center of the story"”the bones that link the medieval and modern plots"”are unearthed in Avignon's immense, 14th-century Palace of the Popes.

I quickly realized that a logical first step would be to obtain a forensic facial reconstruction: a trained artist's rendering of the face that had once fleshed out the skull. Suddenly another what-if hit me: What if the reconstructed face bore an uncanny likeness to the Shroud of Turin?

The idea was electrifying. The Shroud is a 14-foot-long strip of linen that's revered by millions as the burial cloth of Jesus, because it bears the faint, full-body image of a crucified man. The Shroud made its first indisputable appearance in the 1350s"”not in Turin, but in the town of Lirey, France, due north of Avignon. Hmm, I thought. Avignon was Europe's crossroads of money, power, and artistic talent in the 14th century. And the Middle Ages were the heyday of religious relics: artifacts (often human bones and body parts) intended to inspire devotion"”and to draw pilgrims to the churches that possessed them. The relics trade was a brisk and bogus-laden one. Churches throughout Europe claimed to possess two heads of John the Baptist, three corpses of Mary Magdalene, six"”count 'em, six"”foreskins from the baby Jesus, a vial of Mary's breast milk, 30 "holy nails" (spikes used to nail Jesus to the cross), and enough pieces of the True Cross to build a navy.

But the one relic whose power has survived and grown is the Shroud of Turin. The Shroud's fame soared to new heights in 1898, when the first photos of it were taken. A startled Italian photographer nearly dropped his glass-plate negative when he saw it: a haunting black-and-white image of the crucified man, far more dramatic and lifelike than the barely perceptible image on the Shroud itself. Modern-day proof of age-old miracle? Or primitive precursor to Photoshop: the power of image-processing to highlight an effect?

Ever since the 1300s, the Shroud's authenticity has been debated. A 14th-century bishop near Lirey wrote the pope in Avignon to warn him that it was a cunningly painted fake, created to bring pilgrims and donations to Lirey. The Vatican itself has always shied away from asserting that the Shroud is genuine. But many devoted believers"”including a cadre of scientists"”insist that it is. And anytime science undermines their argument"”as radiocarbon tests in 1988 did, with three independent scientific labs pegging the fabric as 13th or 14th century in origin"”the devotees scramble to attack the science (in the case of the C-14 tests, claiming that the samples tested came from in "invisible" repair made in the 1500s).

One of the favorite assertions of the believers is that only a miracle could have created the ghostly, lifelike image; there's no known technique, they say, by which human hands"”especially medieval hands"”could have created it. But at least two reputable researchers, professional skeptic Joe Nickell and forensic anthropologist Emily Craig, have shown that a medieval artist could easily have created the image, using red ochre pigment applied with a dust-transfer technique, like the one employed to make brass rubbings from tombstones.

Playing the ultimate game of forensic what-if"”what if a skeleton that might be Christ's were found, and what if that skeleton seemed linked to the Shroud of Turin?"”prompted me to take a fresh look at my own beliefs about faith and science, as well as the boundary between devotion and zealotry. I hope people who read The Inquisitor's Key will consider those questions, too.

-- Jon Jefferson

Media Monday - Post Mother's Day Edition

By Chris Schluep

As you might imagine, Mother's Day was on the mind of many reviewers this weekend. Which seems about right. A belated happy Mother's Day to all mothers. And just a general happy day to everyone reading out there.

The New York Times

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  In the spirit of Mother's Day, the cover of the Sunday Review features two books about motherhood. As you might suspect, if we're talking motherhood books there are bound to be references to French motherhood. Judith Warner writes in her review, "Just as everyone was getting ready to throw out the Baby Bjorns and start practicing detachment parenting à la française comes a new book, from the esteemed philosopher Elisabeth Badinter, warning that French motherhood isn't all it's cracked up to be." Published in Europe in 2010 (where it was a #1 best seller), The Conflict: How Modern Motherhood Undermines the Status of Women argues that French parents are growing too enamored with "naturalness," which tethers mothers to their babies, stealing away all but motherhood. Warner isn't sure she agrees with Badinter-- but on the other book in the review, The New Feminist Agenda: Defining the Next Revolution for Women, Work, and Family by Madeleine Kunin (a former Clinton administration ambassador to Switzerland who served as the first woman governor of Vermont),she feels quite differently. "Kunin's is not a book of literary value, like Badinter's. The writing is unremarkable, and there are no big, interesting philosophical ideas. Yet whereas Badin­ter's argument is beautiful and essentially wrong, Kunin "” Pollyanna-ish faith in the family-friendly nature of female politicians aside "” is almost unimpeachably right, as she diagnoses what we in Ameri­ca need, why we've never gotten it, and how we may have some hope of achieving change in the future."

  
  

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  Anne Enright is a favorite around these parts, so I started getting nervous as I read the opening of Judith Newman's review of Enright's new book, Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood. Newman tells us that "writing well about children is tough. You know why? They're not that interesting. What is interesting is that despite the mind-numbing boredom that constitutes 95 percent of child rearing, we continue to have them." Uh oh. Luckily, I read on: "To write well in the mother-child arena, a person must understand that the essential condition of motherhood isn't pleasure or wonderment or even terror "” although there's plenty of that. The essential condition is absurdity. Samuel Beckett could have come up with a great book on babies. Anne Enright has."

  
  

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  Jeanette Winterson reviews John Irving's newest novel In One Person, which she tells us is "a story about memory. Inevitably it is also a story about desire, the most unsettling of our memories. And it is a story about reading yourself through the stories of others." The novel is narrated by Billy Dean, who is thirteen and fatherless when we first meet him. Winterson tells us, "Desire and its unsettlements of the soul are as central to John Irving's work as lost fathers." Billy is bisexual, which creates desires and unsettlements in his life, and Winterson summarizes the effect as follows: "Desire is democratic; we fall for the wrong people, across age, class, color, gender. Desire is difficult; it messes things up. Desire is defiant; our desires square off against our assumptions, our morality, our conscience and our notion of who we are. There is no doubt that Irving thinks this is a good thing. He is not simplistic, though, not ever. He understands that we don't always act on or act out our desires. Sometimes we just suffer in silence. Yet he also realizes that the shock to our self-knowledge, or our lack of it, remains the same either way."

  
  

  Ed. Note: Last week, John Irving posted about his new book on Omnivoracious. You can read the post here.

  
  

The Washington Post

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  The Washington Post tackles Steve Coll's Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power, which it calls "a big book about big oil, big money and big government." Pointing to a recent article in "Texas Monthly" magazine, reviewer Moisés Naím includes a quote from Coll that reveals the hurdles he needed to overcome to write the book: ""reporting on Exxon was not only harder than reporting on the bin Ladens, it was harder than reporting on the CIA. ."‰."‰. They have a culture of intimidation . . . they make people nervous, they make people afraid." In pointing out that by 2005 Exxon's profits had reached $36.1 billion, Naím writes, "the company's size, its profits, internal discipline and the critically important product it sold "” energy "” gave ExxonMobil inordinate power, which it used ruthlessly." Whether dealing with taxes, climate change, unfriendly legislation, or disagreeable politicians and world leaders, ExxonMobil put its incomparable resources to work to get its way-- often in the form of lobbyists. And unlike so many companies, they never appear to have stepped outside the lines of the law. But as Naím points out, "it is easy for a company to stay inside the lines when, as this book shows, it is drawing them itself."

  
  

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  Screens, screens, and more screens. A lot of anxiety comes with the technology we've so rapidly embraced as a normal part of modern life. If you have kids, their embrace may be quicker and offer more conflicting feelings than even your own. Mike Musgrove reviews two books intended to help us deal with the conflicts of the digital age. They are James P. Steyer's Talking Back to Facebook: The Common Sense Guide to Raising Kids in the Digital Age and Net Smart: How to Thrive Online by Howard Rheingold. The books are directed toward slightly different audiences. You could say that Rheingold's book is about living in the digital age and Steyer's is about parenting in the digital age. Musgrove summarizes the books as follows: "For their respective audiences, both books aim to serve as a wake-up call. Technology isn't inherently good, and it isn't inherently bad, the authors argue "” but, then again, technology isn't exactly neutral, either. To get the most benefit out of the Web's vast offerings, we need to more closely examine how we, or how our kids, are spending time online. It's a hard thesis to contradict." And both books are prescriptive. They offer sage advice on how to interact with your technology, how to limit that interaction, and how to maximize your experience while you're engaged. It seems like we're getting to the point where a user-friendly handbook for all this technology might come in handy, and depending on your individual needs, one of these books might fit the bill.

  
  

The Los Angeles Times

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  The small publisher McSweeney's has been on a roll. Their latest is a cookbook called At Home on the Range by Margaret Yardley Potter. That probably doesn't sound too exciting, but if the author's name sounds like something out of a different era, that's because it is-- she is the great, great grandmother of the author Elizabeth Gilbert, At Home on the Range having originally been published in 1947 when she was a food columnist for the Wilmington Star in Wilmington, Delaware. As the Noelle Carter writes for the LA Times, "Potter's more well-known descendant, writer Elizabeth Gilbert, reintroduces her great-grandmother to readers in a forward to this new release. At once delightfully humorous and remarkably insightful, At Home on the Range is written both for "” and ahead of "” its time. Recipes aren't rigidly structured, but flow like a casual kitchen conversation between close friends, various dishes woven together with stories and motherly advice, relayed with a wit that apparently runs in the family." This is a truly entertaining read. At once modern and practically historical, and always entertaining. Carter cites the following advice during a bread-baking recipe: "Now relax. Sit down, light a cigarette, write a letter or make your own plans for the next fifteen minutes while the dough 'tightens up' as we bakers say.... "Is your cigarette finished? Let's go. This is fun." If permission to smoke doesn't move you, my advice is to use the "Look Inside" feature on Amazon. That's what I did (I don't have a copy in the office). And I just kept reading and reading...

  
  

The Millions

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  Here's one of those brainy, entertaining commentaries from The Millions.

  
  

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  There's also a guide to the upcoming Nebula Awards.

  
  

PWxyz

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  Truman Capote's typewriter was recently sold on E-Bay. Seems like it could have gotten more.

  
  

National Public Radio

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  NPR has a first read from a book that I enjoyed last weekend: Gone Girl.

  
  

Book Riot

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  In tribute to mothers, Book Riot has a list of words that owe their existence to "mother".

  
  

Brain Pickings

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  I got this off Brain Pickings, although I don't believe they're the original source. It's a video guide to Shakespearean insults. Use them wisely.

  
  
  
  
  
  

"The Art of Intelligence" - A Conversation with Henry A. Crumpton

By Chris Schluep

If you missed "60 Minutes" last night, then you didn't see the story on Hank Crumpton, which helped to send his new book The Art of Intelligence soaring up our best seller lists. During a twenty-four-year career, Crumpton spent time as the head of the CIA's global covert operations against America's terrorist enemies, including al Qaeda. In the days after 9/11, the CIA tasked him to organize and lead the Afghanistan campaign. As Scott Pelley points out in the "60 Minutes" piece, "he is known to U.S. Presidents, African rebels, and Afghan tribal leaders by just one name: Hank."

You can see the "60 Minutes" piece here.

Read on for a Q&A with Hank Crumpton:

Q: Why did you choose Africa as the place to begin your espionage work?




Hank Crumpton: Although having no experience or substantive knowledge of Africa, I had a brief training assignment in CIA headquarters Africa Division. I soon learned that Africa Division afforded rookie officers great opportunity to engage in a wide range of operations against many targets, including the Warsaw Bloc, Libyans, North Koreans, Chinese, and Iranians. In addition, the U.S. waged many of the hot, proxy battles of the Cold War in Africa and this offered unique espionage access, plus gave Africa Division officers a chance to advance policy makers' understanding in this important arena. I was attracted to the independent, entrepreneurial, unconventional, iconoclastic, and bold CIA officers working in Africa. It was a "fluid, unstructured, and churning environment" where operational creativity was prized "“ and had a huge influence on my leadership decisions years later in Afghanistan.









Q: You describe the important lessons you learned from African insurgent leaders. What were those lessons? What is and should be the CIA's role in so-called unconventional wars "“ civil wars, guerilla wars, insurgencies?




Crumpton: Insurgents in Africa taught me many lessons about war, from the tactical to the strategic, but most of all they impressed upon me that war is ultimately about people, fought by people among the people, all with their own values and aspirations. They taught me that understanding and charting the human terrain is an intelligence imperative, especially in unconventional war. I learned first hand the importance of pride, prestige, and honor in war. Why men fight will determine how they fight. The CIA will continue to play a leading role in intelligence and covert action where needed in irregular wars. Without understanding this human terrain, there is no victory for the U.S. or our local allies.




Q: After 9/11, why did the CIA have the lead role in Afghanistan? You had no military experience. Why were you selected to run this campaign? How did the U.S. overthrow the Taliban and cripple al Qaeda in just 90 days, with fewer than 500 Americans on the ground?




Crumpton: The CIA's Counterterrorism Center (CTC) first established an office working exclusively against al Qaeda in 1996 and, after I joined CTC in 1999, we deployed CIA teams into Afghanistan to work with our Afghan allies against this terrorist target. The CIA knew far more about this enemy and Afghanistan than any U.S. government entity. During the summer of 2001, the CIA repeatedly warned the White House about an imminent al Qaeda attack against the U.S. In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attack, President Bush asked his national security team for a plan. CIA Director George Tenet and CTC Chief Cofer Black immediately responded with a clear and compelling argument for CIA leadership. The Department of Defense had no plan. President Bush, therefore, assigned unprecedented authorities to the CIA.




Cofer Black selected me to lead the CIA campaign because for the previous two years, while serving as his Deputy in charge of all CIA global counterterrorist operations, I had advocated for a stronger role in Afghanistan. Moreover, I had run many high risk operations in many harsh environments, demonstrated strategic thought and planning capabilities, and exercised strong leadership skills.




The quick defeat of the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan was a result of the CIA's robust intelligence networks and Afghan alliances built over the previous two years, reinforced by unique technical collection platforms such as the UAV Predator and superb precision bombing. This intelligence based strategy, executed by an extraordinary network of CIA team leaders on the ground, placed covert action and U.S. special operations in the forefront "“ and ultimately rallied Afghan tribes to our side against the Taliban and their foreign interloper allies, al Qaeda.




Q: What are the key military lessons learned during and after the successful 2001-02 Afghanistan campaign? Why, more than 10 years later, are we still fighting in Afghanistan?




Crumpton: The campaign underscored the value of intelligence, integration of multiple U.S. government entities, empathetic understanding and support to local partners, application of technology driven by specific needs (not vice-versa), a bias to the field, flat and networked organizations, speed and precision in force projection, and leadership.




The United States, distracted with Iraq, and international community failed to secure the 01-02 Afghanistan victory with non-military power and did not address the growing enemy safe haven in Pakistan. Moreover, the U.S. struggles with accepting the changing nature of war, wherever it might be.




Q: You ran the CIA's clandestine operations inside the U.S. Why are CIA officers engaged in operations inside the U.S.? Does this pose a conflict with the FBI? What about the issues of civil liberties? What are the roles of U.S. citizens, universities, and companies in helping the CIA's Clandestine Service?




Crumpton: The CIA's Clandestine Service relies on other government organizations and the U.S. private sector to achieve collection of foreign intelligence, both in the homeland and abroad. U.S. citizens may have direct access to this foreign intelligence or indirect through their foreign contacts. Sometimes there is a conflict with the FBI, although areas of cooperation are common and often deep. The CIA's relationship with the U.S. private sector is completely voluntary and confidential; U.S. citizens have the right and responsibility to cooperate with the CIA "“ which is not a law enforcement organization. Concern about civil liberties rests more with expanded law enforcement authorities, with the overlapping powers of arrest and intelligence collection.




Q: The CIA has become more and more a paramilitary force, in some respects. Where is the line between intelligence and unconventional warfare?




Crumpton: The line is increasingly blurred, which underscores the growing value of intelligence in not only war, but with all areas of statecraft. The CIA's Clandestine Service, first and foremost, should be about espionage, the clandestine collection of intelligence. This intelligence can determine and drive covert action, paramilitary or otherwise, but that should always be subordinated to and complementary of a robust foreign policy. Covert action should never be a substitute for foreign policy.




Q: You have criticized the post-9/11 bureaucracy that has put a supervising authority, a National Intelligence Director, above the CIA, is that working any better, or does it continue to make us less effective and thus less safe?




Crumpton: The growing intelligence bureaucracy, including the DNI, is not effective. The entire effort is expensive, duplicative, Washington-centric, and burdened by an irrational Congressional oversight system. And, there are still major weaknesses in U.S. homeland intelligence collection and analysis. Paradoxically, the old pre-9/11 system outside the U.S. worked to a larger degree than policy makers"•who failed to heed the CIA's warnings about al Qaeda"•care to admit. The emphasis for intelligence improvement should be more about education, training, policies, and practices rather than more agencies in Washington DC.




Q: You lived and worked undercover in the foreign field for 14 years, mostly in Africa, accompanied by your wife and three young sons. What are the challenges on a CIA Clandestine Service officer with a family, especially when living abroad under cover? What is the spouse's role?




Crumpton: The challenges are many, such as employing falsehoods for operational reasons and sometimes enduring prolonged absences from home, but for us the rewards far exceeded any burdens. We loved living overseas, and our children learned so much in these fascinating environments. We endeavored to create learning adventures for our boys, from exploring castles in Europe to backpacking in Africa. My spouse played an essential role in operations. Although unpaid and unrecognized for her brave duty, she participated in many of my operations, including the assessment/development of foreign agents, the smuggling of communications gear, and countersurveillance runs. She never waivered. She is my hero.




Q: What motivates a foreigner to spy for America, for the CIA?




Crumpton: There are many motivations, including money, ideology, compromise, ego, revenge, and coercion. In most cases there is a blend of motivations. The best agents, in my experience, are those driven by a higher purpose. They are some of the bravest people imaginable. The prospective foreign agent, of course, must also have confidence and trust in the recruiting CIA operations officer who will be responsible for his security.




Q: Why did the CIA develop the UAV Predator program? Why not the Department of Defense?




Crumpton: The CIA developed the UAV Predator program as a means to complement human intelligence reporting against al Qaeda in Afghanistan. U.S. policy makers lacked confidence in our human intelligence reporting as a basis for covert action. In response to this, the CIA's CTC built a network across the intelligence and defense community to imagine and construct a unique and highly effective surveillance system. Eventually, again in response to policymakers' reluctance to take action against al Qaeda, this same CTC team figured out how to arm the UAV with Hellfire missiles. It was an extraordinary feat: the CIA cobbling together this intelligence/weapons system, by strapping an Army weapon on an Air Force vehicle, in only a few months. It would revolutionize warfare.




Q: There are several detailed accounts of you briefing and advising President George W. Bush and his leadership team at Camp David, the Situation Room, and the Oval Office during 2001-02. Usually accompanied by CIA Director George Tenet, you were sometimes in opposition to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and the Pentagon's view of the war. What were the differences? How was this managed?




Crumpton: The differences centered on authorities and control. In retrospect, I believe that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld wanted complete control, at the expense of the CIA. The management of this was relatively straightforward, however, because we had great partnerships with Central Command and Special Ops Command, along with the US Army Special Forces and Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Moreover, it was a campaign driven by intelligence and relationships with our Afghan allies, built up over the years, and the CIA's CTC had the de facto lead, no matter what Secretary Rumsfeld wanted. In other words, to the extent possible, I ignored Rumsfeld and did my job.




Q: Why was your relationship with General Tommy Franks and the Special Operations leadership so important?




Crumpton: The key to success was integrating our intelligence and covert action into our military's superb capabilities, and forging networked, interdisciplinary teams suited for any mission. Thanks to General Franks and other military leaders, such as US Army Special Forces Colonel John Mulholland, we were able to do so. I also depended on key military advisors in my shop, such as US Army SF Colonel Ben Clark and JSOC operatives from Delta Force and the Navy SEALS.




Q: Was 9/11 an intelligence failure or more a policy failure? Why did the 9/11 Commission only address the intelligence aspects of this terrorist attack, not U.S. counter-terrorism policy?




Crumpton: The 9/11 attack was primarily the result of prolonged U.S. policy failure during both the Clinton and the Bush Administrations. The 9/11 Commission, however, focused on the intelligence shortcomings, because the policy makers who established the Commission wanted to deflect any blame.

Ask Augusten Burroughs: Love After Infidelity--Plus Advice on Growing Up Gay

By Mari Malcolm

Memoirist turned self-help strategist Augusten Burroughs continues his guest advice columnist stint here on Omnivoracious--to kick off the release of his latest book, This Is How--with answers to two perplexing questions sent in by his readers: Can love outlast infidelity? And how can a gay guy find his way to the life he wants? Read on...

Can a relationship really survive an infidelity? Or will someone in the relationship always be a pumpkin eater? "”Anonymous

 

Dear Anonymous,

The question really isn't can a relationship survive infidelity, but rather, should it survive, and do both parties want it to?

From a theological perspective at least, monogamy is both desired and expected. But for couples who define their relationships in terms broader than those offered by conventional religions, monogamy may be neither expected nor desired.

Assuming, though, that this infidelity you speak of is within the context of a marriage or partnership where monogamy has been the assumption, here's the important question: why did the affair occur?

Why was there a breakdown in communication? What need was not being met within the relationship? This can be complicated. Sometimes, an unmet need has nothing to do with more colorful sex but rather, the illicitness of an affair itself, the danger, the threat of being caught. Some people are attracted to the forbidden, and you don't always know this about another person when you become involved with them"”because they may not even know it themselves.

Understand just what happened and why it happened. If an affair occurs and is concealed, it can be the deception, more than the sex, that stings the hardest. This makes people guarded and mistrustful, wondering what else is being hidden. But these trust-based anxieties could possibly be alleviated with communication. If your partner is able to open up completely and share their own thinking, the sort of path-of-bricks-made-from-thoughts-and-feelings that led them to this other person; in other words, if you sense genuine transparency from your partner, the rip in your trust may be reparable.

An affair can also be a passive, pass-the-buck approach to ending a relationship that is unhappy for one partner. "The affair" can be the reason "it didn't work." An affair is like a huge set piece on a stage that sucks up all the lighting and attention, so that one's true motivation for the affair (unhappiness in the marriage, for example) can remain concealed.

There's no easy answer for this question because there are as many variables as there are people. But there is always one action that can be taken right away to help determine the underlying health of your relationship, and this action is to talk. But this takes two people, and both of them need to be willing to be flawed in front of the other.

Ultimately, you need to ask yourself if the total value of what you and your partner share together is"”for both of you"”of greater value than the compromise of physical intimacy and trust. --Augusten

* * * * *

How do I find my way being gay? I want to be a million things. I work out, take my vitamins and still can't find the balance. How do I go to college for what I want to do? How do I know when to have kids? When to seriously date? When do I have a career and do I not get to go to circuit parties anymore? When do I know that I'm done with Bacardi? Where is the rule book? How do I find my way?

I love you and your books. 
Thanks,
Greyson

Dear Greyson,

You've asked several huge questions and wouldn't you know it, every single question you asked can only be answered by you.

How do you find your way being gay? Well, that's a start. You find your way being gay by knowing that's what you are and not trying to talk yourself into being another way.

It's good to want or want to be a million things. Some of the things you want, you'll probably get. But it's not within the realm of possibility that you'll have all the things you want, all when you want them. Wanting a lot in life is a lot like writing a book; it seems impossible at first because there are so many words, so many pages. But ultimately, even the longest book in the world was written just one letter at a time. One thing at a time. 

 How do you go to college for what you want? That's a simple one. On the form where it asks you to check the box next to your desired major, check that box.  It may be the case that your parents are very firm in what they want for you. But your parents were absolute fools if they thought they could get away with having children and never experience any disappointment or lack of control. This is your life. This is your education. It has to be your choice and your choice alone. Period. But individuality is expensive and do not think you'll be able to make this choice for free in life. You may have to pay in the form of managing the downfall that results when the expectations around you collapse and shatter onto the floor. 
As for knowing when to seriously date? No date should ever be weighted with the expectation or assumption of being, The Date. Go on dates as your actual self, be as nervous as you are or are not and focus not on whether your hair looks OK as you sip your drink but rather on the other person. Dates should be wonderful opportunities to get outside your own mind and world and crawl into somebody else's.
How will you know if you're in love? You will know. And until you know, you won't know.
The time to stop going to circuit parties typically coincides with the point at which a person asks himself, "How much longer should I be doing this?" 
When will you have a career? That depends. If you know what you want to do and are equipped now to do it, your career can begin when you reach the period at the end of this sentence; otherwise you might have to learn stuff first. 
All of which is to say, this is your life. It belongs entirely to you. You may do with it as you wish. Others may influence or inspire you, but they cannot control you. You are the only author of your present and future.

* * * * *

See more brutally honest, compassionate advice from Augusten in last week's column and in This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. It's one of our Amazon Editors' top 10 picks for the Best Books of May.

The Rule of Threes: Expressive Character Design

By Susan J. Morris

Nothing rocks my boat quite like an exquisitely inked character description: just enough to accent their best attributes, but not so much that you can't see the person for the paint. And nothing impresses me more. Such restraint and precision! Such a vivid vision--brief enough that it hits you like a truck, and nuanced enough that it hints at the secrets left untold. A good character description can, in a handful of words, sketch a persona that feels active, alive, and expressive. It can make you feel as though the character could step off the page.

But of course, like with chocolate, sea slugs, and everything else we love, moderation is key. A description too detailed or too bald can make an otherwise interesting character feel monotonous and rigid. The aim of a good description is not to bore into every pore on your hero's skin, nor to leave your hero an empty vessel for your reader to project their interests upon, but to capture their life and their essence with the minimum number of brush strokes.

In editing, I've found that tight, evocative prose often embraces the rule of threes. Three adjectives, three sentences, three paragraphs, three of just about everything. And for good reason! Three gives breadth without dragging and brevity without boring. It's the invisible number, in that anything over or under three makes a statement. (Not that statement-making is bad! But you definitely want to know that you're doing it.) And three has a wonderful resonance. So, without further ado, here are a few ways to use"”and break!--the Rule of Threes in your own writing.

The Rule of Threes

There's a reason we call a man "tall, dark, and handsome" rather than simply "tall" or "tall and dark." Three adjectives sound poetic, flow easily, and are the norm in prose across genres, making the craft behind the art relatively invisible and allowing the reader to simply experience the story. (Of course, once they're pointed out, like the cigarette marks in Fight Club, they can become impossible to ignore.) Likewise, three lines of description are just enough to give a clear picture of a character's physical, mental, and emotional presence without burying us in detail or leaving us puzzling out a post-modern picture. It's a perfect rule of thumb to check your work against when you're writing a description. And, if you choose to use more or less, it serves as a good reminder to check and make sure you like the effect.

One of my favorite things about the rule of threes as it applies to description is that it leaves a lot of room to play with that last adjective or sentence. We almost always expect the last word to be in line with the first two, a kind of exclamation point on the idea. But because of that, choosing something in stark contrast to the first two descriptors is often far more effective, providing for a memorable hook that leaves us wanting more. For example, "tall, dark, and every inch of him crisscrossed in sharp white scars." You can even use the expectations to set up humor or tension. "Tall, dark, and every inch of him crisscrossed in sharp white scars . . . Oh, and handsome. Very handsome, in fact. Her eyes traced the scars across his chest, wondering how he'd gotten them, as they wound across his rib cage down to his"¦ She jerked her eyes up, blushing furiously"”and found he was watching her--watching him. Smirking. She forced herself to hold his gaze. His grin got wider."

One Is the Loneliest Adjective

Minimalism is perfect for when you want to hit one note very hard. It works best when it stands in stark contrast the background, and, when used properly, can give a character an almost Western feel. It's a bold, stark move: saying this character embodies this attribute. And it is usually best used when the character themselves is stuck in some fashion. For example, you could use one adjective to define a character because that is what he has been reduced to. And then, as the narrative goes on and his story is told, you could have him regain adjectives the same way he gains complexity and depth.

That being said, it's easy to go overboard with minimalism. A woman described only as beautiful has the identity of "beautiful."Which is a pretty lame identity, if you ask me. And, while it does give me a fair amount of leeway as to how I picture her, I'm not actually a fan of the ad-libs approach to description. That's giving me way too much work! Work I must do at the speed of my reading, which means that woman will look like whatever boring default I've assigned to the word "beauty""”even if there's another woman in the book who already meets that exact same description. (And boy do conversations between those twins get confusing!) I would much rather authors inspire me with their vision, giving me a window into another world, rather than limiting me to the most boring pieces of my own imagination. Rest assured, once intrigued I will fill in whatever details necessary to suit my own desires.

Four is a Party

It is easy to get carried away when writing a description. The perfectionist in us comes raging out, and we want to Micromanage the Hell out of the reader's experience. They must see our character exactly as we imagine them in all their obsessively detailed glory! And"”as every writer worth their salt knows--there is no better place for sounding writerly than in description. Meaning we feel an almost unstoppable urge to cram every tool and trick we've ever learned into each and every description we write. By force if necessary. But a little restraint goes a long way.

Heavy description is perfect to underline a character's fascination with something"”or someone. By spending words on it rather than just informing us, you achieve a much more natural effect, allowing the reader to experience the fascination of the character. Of course, that being said, cramming a lot of description onto one hero is still a heavy load to bear"”but, like all heavy things, it's easier if you break it up. Say by putting some description before the character's name, and some after. In addition, to keep things interesting, I highly recommend varying the sentence length, and keeping the focus on the character's emotions rather than the mere physical reality of whatever is fascinating them.

Bonus Activity: Check my threes throughout this article"”and the places I deviate. Can you see how it affects the flow?

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Happy Writing!

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P.D. James talks to Omnivoracious

By Chris Schluep

Recently, we had the pleasure of posing some questions to the distinguished crime writer P.D. James. James has won numerous awards and has been inducted into the International Crime Writing Hall of Fame. At ninety-two years old, she is beloved by so many, having written some twenty novels, many of which have been adapted to television (as well as to movies, including one of my all-time favorites "Children of Men"). Her most recent novel is Death Comes to Pemberly, in which a murder takes place in the world of Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice.

Omnivoracious: How long have you been thinking about setting a detective novel in world of Pride & Prejudice?

P.D. James: The idea of combining my two enthusiasms, writing detective stories and Jane Austen, in one book had been at the back of my mind for a few years but I did not seriously start to plot it until some months after the publication of The Private Patient.

Omni: What pitfalls were there in entering the world of another author? Did you feel you were playing in Austen's sandbox, or did it feel like your own?

P.D. James: As I re-read all Jane Austen's novels at least once a year her world was not strange to me and I did not feel I was imposing on her creativity. I enjoyed introducing new characters and I think the magistrate, Sir Selwyn Hardcastle, made a particularly effective contribution to the plot.

Omni: You seemed to bring more of the real world into Austen's. For instance, there are mentions of women's rights and other modern changes. Was your intention to break the hermetic seal and flesh out Austen's world"”or did these added details just follow logically?

P.D. James: I did not wish to break the hermetic seal of Jane Austen's world. The added details were matters of concern to most educated people of Jane Austen's time and I thought it right to introduce them.

Omni: Who was your favorite character to write in Death Come to Pemberley (and was this your favorite character from Pride & Prejudice)?

P.D. James: Darcy was my favorite character to write, and Elizabeth my favorite from Pride and Prejudice.

Omni: You have traced your literary influences to four writers - Jane Austen, Dorothy L. Sayers, Graham Greene, and Evelyn Waugh. Do you enjoy each of these authors for different reasons, or do they share one or two of the same qualities?

P.D. James: I enjoy them for different reasons, but all have a virtue in common: the ability to write brilliant dialogue.

Omni: Do you have favorite books by these authors that you could recommend to our readers?

P.D. James: I would recommend A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh, and any book by the other three.

Omni: You began writing in your late thirties. Before you wrote your first novel, Cover Her Face, how much writing were you doing? Did you write short stories, parts of novels? Or just letters and grocery lists?

P.D. James: I was busy earning a living so had little time, but I did write a short play for radio and received an invitation to submit another, but my first novel prevented this.

Anne Lamott: "How My Mother Taught Me to Grandmother"

By Neal Thompson

*For Mother's Day, we're happy to share this special guest essay from Anne Lamott, whose most recent book is Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son's First Son, about becoming a grandmother. (It's co-written with her son, Sam, featured in Lamott'sOperating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year.)

My son adored my mother, who was a handful, believe me. She was from Liverpool, which I believe explains all of her most annoying, argumentative tendencies. (I attend twelve-step meetings for the children of the English.) Her real name was Dorothy, which she hated, and when her father died when she was ten, she reinvented herself as Nikki, the name of a popular girl on 1930s English radio.

My brothers and I called her Dot to tease her. She was at her best when being teased, swatting at us and squawking like an injured but good-natured crow. She actually loved being teased: it meant you were loved, in spite of it all. She was always quite plump and wore any old, odd clothes and"”sorry, Mom"”slapped on loud makeup every morning. Other mothers kept their weight down and dressed with 1960s style and youthful makeup. To us, compared with our mother, all the other mothers looked like Jean Shrimpton.

And she could be simultaneously pleased with herself and angry, in that English way, like a Monty Python character who might suddenly stab you with a passion fruit.

My son was the first grandchild in our family. Mom chose her grandma name, Nana, when I was a few months pregnant. I started calling her Nana most of the time, unless I was trying to show my love by calling her Dot"”caw, caw. She and Sam both had huge brown eyes and shiny dark hair. They played together often at her studio apartment and at a postage-stamp-sized beach nearby. He did not find it annoying when she insisted on wearing sweaters during heat waves or asking for a bite of his bacon. He didn't mind that she would argue with me when we were all together. A typical opening salvo from her might be, "But Jack and Bobby Kennedy were great," as if I didn't also feel this way. It made me want to choke her to death. Sam just thought she was funny.

She became sick with Alzheimer's in her last few years and died in 2001, when Sam was twelve, really still a boy, bashing branches against riverbeds and trapping spiders. He was matter-of-fact about her death: she'd gotten to stay in her apartment with her cat until the end, she hadn't appeared to know she was dying, and she'd had us. Sam seemed to be saying, "We should all be so lucky."

I was sad for her, and for Sam, her friends, and me, but to be honest, my life was much easier after her passing, as I no longer had to be a mother to both a prepubescent and a seventy-seven-year-old Englishwoman. And a brand-new relationship with her began to blossom. Her absence provided the breathing space for us to connect beyond our aggravating, codependent history together. I fell in love.

I saw past her faults to her stunning intelligence, saw past her annoying insisted-upon habits to her beautiful bleeding-heart character and lifelong activism on behalf of the underdog, saw past the strange clothes and bad makeup to the immigrant heart of a girl from Liverpool whose father died so young.

I looked forward to funny little moments of contact, through the smells of beaches and yeasty Danish pastries.

Seven years later Sam had a child, my grandson, Jax, who also has huge brown eyes and dark hair, like his daddy and his great-grandmother.

My mother had not cared that I was single and broke when I had my child at thirty-five, because she just wanted to get her mitts on that kid, and she would not have cared about Sam's being so young when he became a father, for the same reason.

So I tried not to, either. Okay, maybe I had a tiny position with Sam's age"”nineteen"”but mostly I just wanted to get my mitts on that kid, too.

The only important question was: What did I want Jax to call me one day?  My rather cold paternal grandmother had been "Grandma," which is what conservative politicians call all older women. And my senile mother's mother had been "Nanny," which is a great name, but for a while I wondered if maybe I should meet the little guy first. Instead I picked my grandma nomenclature when Jax's mother was about four months along, maybe three. Never mind, it's all coming back: it was a month and a half. I chose "Nana."

I wanted to honor my mother, even though she had driven me crazy for most of the forty-seven years we spent together on this earth. I wanted to honor how much Sam and she had loved each other, how ecstatic she'd been about his arrival, although circumstances had not been ideal. But more than anything, I wanted to think about her many times a day, because she was my mother. She put calamine lotion on my stings and rashes when I was little, and blew on my skin gently to cool me off. She read Little Women to me and taught me to make meringues dipped in dark chocolate and sprinkled with slivered almonds. She went to law school when I turned fourteen. She loved the first stories I began to write. She lived to play with my son.

Sam's love for my mother gave her to me, and Jax's love for my son gave Sam to all of us. So I'll hear a piece of music my mother and I loved together"”Mozart, or a union song, or Judy Collins, or Ella Fitzgerald"”and my heart shimmies for a few seconds as I think, "Mom, listen!" And we smile.

Author Katie Workman: Mother's Day Gift to Ourselves

By JoVon Sotak

[The editors at Omnivoracious are grateful to Katie Workman for this special guest post about her new cookbook, The Mom 100 Cookbook: 100 Recipes Every Mom Needs in Her Back Pocket, selected as one of our Best Cookbooks of the Month for April.]

Good god, have we gotten ourselves backed into a corner when it comes to feeding our families, getting dinner on the table, fighting the good fight.  Open the paper, turn on the news, and there's another scary missive about pink slime or childhood obesity or pesticides.  It's enough to make you want to curl up and under the bed and hurl a takeout menu at your family.  "I can't possibly do all of this right," we think. "Maybe I shouldn't even bother."

As Mother's Day slides towards us, here's what I'm thinking.  Let's stop acting as though life isn't extremely messy and complicated.  Let's stop beating ourselves up.  Let's try and imagine that just because we're not going to cook a homemade dinner from scratch every night, it's not worth doing it a couple of nights a week.  Let's not hold ourselves to impossible standards, believing that if we don't do all of our shopping at organic farmers' markets, calling each purveyor by name and discussing the quality of the soil, we should hang our heads in shame and let the food police haul us off to a place where bad mothers go.  This isn't really a resolution ('cause we all know how those things usually turn out), but more of a Mother's Day gift to ourselves.

Guess what I did last night?  After a full day of work, I spent the dinner hour on the phone being interviewed on the radio about the importance of cooking for our kids and families, and then I ORDERED A PIZZA!  Because I wanted to take my kids to a dance performance at their school.   And the pizza was great, and the dance performance was better, and I have another chance to make dinner tonight.

When I thought about writing The Mom 100 Cookbook, the simple concept was to create 100 recipes that every mom needs to have in her back pocket.  Recipes to answer those every day dilemmas like "there's a bake sale tomorrow and you signed me up to make what?" and "I need to get out of my chicken rut," and that evergreen crowd pleaser, "I'm going to find a way to make my kids eat their damn fish."  Twenty dilemmas, five recipe solutions for each quandary, and some gorgeous photography, and the main part of the book was done. 

But it turns out that just as important as the recipes is the need for us to feel enthusiastic about cooking, empowered in the kitchen.  We want to face dinner hour with a little more joie de vivre than we feel when it's time for a dental cleaning.  Because we get to feed our kids every day--every day!   So this book is full of tips for making things easier, getting the kids into the kitchen, preparing as much as possible ahead of time, and other thoughts about making cooking just plain old more fun.  

Even the small wins feel great.  Make a dish you know your family will like.  Ask your kids to pick out a recipe or two for the coming week.  Make a double batch of something, and freeze half.  Make homemade brownies. Take a look in your pantry and make a list of what you need to stock up on, so those rushed weeknights go a little more smoothly.  Pick one new chicken (or beef or pasta) recipe, and ask the kids to help.  On a Sunday evening, chop up some garlic and onions and tuck them into containers in your fridge, so later in the week when you come home and look at your recipe, the phrase "mince two cloves of garlic," doesn't bring you to your knees.  You've minced the garlic!  Allow your future self to thank your past self graciously for being so thoughtful.

There never seems to be enough time to do everything we want to do, the way we'd like to do it.  But when we've gotten to a place where getting dinner on the table seems way too daunting, it's time to tell the food police to pack up their thesis about the care and propagation of endangered heirloom potatoes and play somewhere else.  We have dinner to make.

Hawks vs. Doves: Schneier on Security

By Jon Foro

If there is such thing as the Godfather of Security, Bruce Schneier is it. He is the author of the seminal treatise on computer security and crypto technique, Applied Cryptography, which Wired described as "the book the National Security Agency wanted never to be published." In the years since Applied's original 1994 release, Schneier has extended his range and ambition, writing the layman's guide to digital warfare, Secrets and Lies, while Beyond Fear: Thinking About Security in an Uncertain World discussed security's role and efficacy in the post 9/11 world. 

With his latest book, Liars and Outliers, Schneier goes delves even deeper into the philosophy of security, considering the nature of trust--its necessity, as well as its limits. Employing game theory in an examination of human behavior, Schneier explains why there will always be populations of "defectors," and why we will always need measures to mitigate the damage they cause.

Mr. Schneier recently paid a visit to the Amazon campus to talk about his new book, and he stayed behind for a few more questions about the NSA and the Red Queen Effect. See more of Bruce Schneier's books here, and check out his blog for interesting commentary on the TSA and giant squid, among other topics.