| Anne
Lamott writes and speaks about subjects that begin with capital
letters: Alcoholism, Motherhood, Jesus. But armed with
self-effacing humor – she is laugh out-loud funny –
and ruthless honesty, Lamott converts her subjects into enchantment.
Actually, she writes about what most of us don’t like
to think about. She wrote her first novel for her father,
the writer Kenneth Lamott, when he was diagnosed with brain
cancer. She has said that the book was “a present
to someone I loved who was going to die.” In all
her novels, Anne Lamott writes about loss – loss of loved
ones and loss of personal control. She doesn’t try
to sugar-coat the sadness, frustration and disappointment, but
tells her stories with honesty, compassion and a pureness of
voice. Anne Lamott says, “I have a lot of hope and
a lot of faith and I struggle to communicate that.”
Anne Lamott does communicate her faith; in her books
and in person, she lifts, comforts, and inspires, all the while
keeping us laughing.
Anne Lamott is the author of six
novels including, Hard
Laughter,
Rosie, Joe
Jones, All
New People, and Crooked
Little Heart (the sequel to Rosie), as well as
four best selling books of non fiction, Operating
Instructions, an account of life as a single mother
during her son’s first year and Bird
by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, a guide
to writing and the challenges of a writer’s life,
Traveling
Mercies, a collection of autobiographical essays on faith,
and Plan
B: Further Thoughts on Faith. Anne Lamott has been
honored with a Guggenheim
Fellowship, and has taught at UC Davis, as well as at writing
conferences across the country. Lamott’s biweekly
Salon Magazine “online diary,” Word
by Word, was voted The Best of the Web by TIME
magazine. Filmmaker Freida Mock (who won an Academy Award
for her documentary on Maya Lin) has made a documentary on Anne
Lamott, “Bird
by Bird with Annie” (1999). Anne Lamott's essay collection,
entitled Grace
(Eventually): Thoughts on Faith was released in paperback
in February 2008.
•••
“Lamott is a
narrator who has relished and soaked up the details of her existence,
equally of mirth and devastation, and spilled them onto her
pages.”
—The New York
Times
“The greatest
of Lamott’s gifts is her narrative voice, consistently
lively and smart and funny, always connecting.”
— Newsday |
