A while ago Josie Levitt posted about crying in public over a book on the Publisher's Weekly Shelf Talker blog. I'm proud to say that she was sobbing over one of the books I edited, Sorta Like a Rock Star by Matthew Quick, a book I had also sobbed over in public the first time I read it.Sorta Like a Rock Star is one of two books that I've edited in my career that have made me more than just cry--they've made me sob. Actual, stomach-heaving sobs. Not just moved, not just having tears well up in my eyes, but really cry. The other book was Rubber Houses by Ellen Yeomans.
I was remembering some of the books I sobbed over as a kid. The ones that stick out in my mind are My Brother Sam is Dead, Where the Red Fern Grows, Charlotte's Web, Summer of My German Soldier, and A Taste of Blackberries. I remember the sobbing, the streaming tears, the nose blowing and crumpled tissues. I remember feeling simultaneously anguished and reborn when I finished the books. God, I loved that feeling. A big cry feels good, particularly if it's not my own life's tragedies that I'm crying at.
As I always tell agents and announce at writer's conferences, I'm a sucker for books that make me cry. I just finished reading a wonderful book, One Crazy Summer by Rita Garcia-Williams. And yes, I had tears streaming down my face while on the train--although no actually sobbing this time, probably because they were tears of joy, rather than agony. But if you want sobbing, The Book Thief is your book.
I marvel at the skill of these authors to write such real characters, so real that I suffer true pain at the loss that the characters suffer, or pain when I lose them altogether. That's something.
What are some of your favorite sob inducers?
3 comments:
Chris Crutcher's DEADLINE made me weep uncontrolably until snot poured out of my face. I'm not normally a sobber, but that book really got to me.
The last book I remember crying over was An Na's A Step from Heaven. For some reason neither The Book Thief nor Jellicoe Road (which I think you mentioned made you cry also?) did it for me. I think my brain might need a more traditional narrative structure. Or maybe I'm just a sucker for father-daughter relationship epiphanies (as in Eat Drink Man Woman).
I have recently realized, while writing-for-hire something with sad elements, that I would rather laugh than cry.MUCH.
Lighthearted cheerfulness keeps breaking into this story. I'll start a scene, someone will do something I didn't expect or plan, and I find myself loving it and laughing outloud. So, I've finally decided to go with that and just dump the heavy elements.
But, the book may have its tear-jerking moments, too. MY favorite books, as a child and an adult, make me laugh and cry.
THE TREASURE SEEKERS by E.Nesbit--mostly laughing, but sobbing in the scene where Dora tells Oswald what their mother said before she died
But as for plain sobbing:
LITTLE WOMEN (all-time weeparoo)
OLD YELLER
BLACK BEAUTY
CHARLOTTE'S WEB (will never forget two boys I babysat for giggling when we wer all listening to this on the radio and I started to cry)
BAMBI (the book, when Bambi got old)
PETER PAN (when Wendy grew up and Peter came back - the first book I ever sobbed over. I will also never forget the look of bewildered horror on my father's face--he was reading it aloud to us and when my sister and I began sobbing, put it down, clearly at a loss.
"I don't have to read any more," he stammered.
"No, no, finish it!" we sobbed.
Post a Comment