It was gratifying to read Meagan Lucas’ debut novel Songbirds and Stray Dogs because Ms. Lucas contributed her story “Daisy Mae Returns” to the Spring 2018 edition of Teach. Write (43-45). Something special about that for me as an English teacher, especially since Ms. Lucas is one as well.

Taking place in the early ’80’s, the novel tells the story of Jolene, who finds herself, pregnant, alone, and abandoned in a small coastal town. She makes her way to the mountains of Western North Carolina, where she encounters more loneliness and hostility until she meets someone as lonely and broken as she and learns to trust, love, and hope again.

I liked the way the story develops with the distinctive alternating perspectives of a woman and a man. Ms. Lucas effectively captures the struggle of how two ordinary people find a way despite loneliness and despair. Our world needs more of their spirited perseverance.

The book is published by Main Street Rag. Hope you will buy it and support a promising new voice in Southern fiction.

A very different book I finally finished is an extraordinary biography of Johann Sebastian Bach by German musicologist Christoph Wolff.

I started reading this book quite a while ago, but it is difficult reading for me because I am not that knowledgeable about music, and the book goes into great technical detail about Bach’s compositional style.

I am, however, knowledgeable about scholarly research and can recognize the incredible achievement this book is, giving readers a detailed look at Bach as performer, composer, scholar, theologian, husband, and father. Also, even though I didn’t understand it all, I was fascinated when Wolff explains Bach’s music in detail.

Well worth the time.

At the end of the last chapter, Wolff quotes from another Bach biography, the New Bach Reader, relating an anecdote about Mozart upon his first hearing of the motet Singet dem Herrn, ein neues Lied:

“Mozart knew this master more by hearsay than by his works, which had become quite rare; at least his motets, which had never been printed, were completely unknown to him. Hardly had the choir sung a few measures when Mozart sat up, startled; a few measures more and he called out ‘What is this?’ And now his whole soul seemed to be in his ears. When the singing was finished he cried out, full of joy: ‘Now there is something one can learn from!'”

And I did!

The text, in translation, of the aria:

God, take us to Yourself from now on!
For without You we can accomplish nothing
with all of our belongings.
Therefore be our protection and light,
and if our hope does not deceive us,
You will make it happen in the future.
Happy is the person who strictly and firmly
abandons himself to You and Your mercy!

Now listen, dear reader, to Vocalconsort Berlin singing Sing to the Lord a New Song: