Read of the Month
In a Special Light
by Elroy Bode (Trinity University Press, $24.95)

Elroy Bode had me at hello. That is to say, I was hooked from the opening words of his first essay: "I need the earth-life, the ordinary countryside moment…." Like me, this polished Texas writer is drawn to look for meaning in the simple moment observed.

Lest you think all the essays in his recent collection, In a Special Light, focus on nature, consider the scope of the topics he addresses: music, friendships, the Iraq war, and his lifelong profession of teaching. He writes with the same careful turn of language and piercing honesty about the search for and tragic suicide of his own son.

He also includes this telling journal entry: "I have tried to write as if I were describing what ordinary things are like to someone--maybe a Martian--who has no idea what earthly life is all about: what a day is, how an afternoon feels. That’s the key: getting the ordinary down on paper but in such a way that the ordinary has the specialness, the haunting, elusive timelessness of life itself." He has succeeded. --Dianne Young