Jack Couffer

I enjoyed this a lot in a deeply subjective way. For me at least, Under the Small Lights was immediately personal, and as well-written as the novel was it didn't have to stretch far to give me a vivid flash of what it was like to be 20, how it wasn't about whether you could get laid--anyone could get laid then whether you knew it or not, because everyone was beautiful--but rather all about being in love: with your lovers and your friends and your emerging self, with all this great literature that you were reading but maybe a bit too young to really get, with all the wonderful forms of medication in the world, and with the sheer possibilities that you weren't always attentive enough to turn into reality.

That was my experience of being 20, anyway, and John Cotter nails it with his cast of slightly aimless, self-involved, but basically decent kids. He takes them from winter through summer with a series of small transformations packed densely as a dwarf star; nothing happens and then everything happens. The action is hazy with drugs, gin and peach fuzz, the dialogue stutteringly realistic, and you come away with the sense of having been witness to a sharp sliver of life that they'll always hold at arm's length.

That was a year I remember as being uncomfortably fraught with longing and excitement in equal parts, and the characters, while not always lovable, are in love with all sorts of things--including but not limited to each other. The book left me feeling a little stoned and wistful, in a good way. Like the moneyed New England beach town where much of the action takes place, 20 is a fine place to visit and a good place not to have to live for too long. Cotter writes with compassion and generosity, and their story rings true.… (more)

Written by a father and son team, describes an area of marshland in Southern California, near which they resided. They describe walks through the mudflats, observations of local wildlife- most intriguing were the fiddler crabs!- and dismay at how the marsh was being affected by developments, people dumping trash, etc. I enjoyed the stories, all told in a friendly, charming fashion- one about a gull with fishing line tangled on its leg that they tried time and time again to catch and relieve of its burden, another about a lady who let her dog run loose on a beach where there were strict leash laws- only to end up plastered in mud when she tried to free her pet after it got stuck from wandering too far out into the marsh! yet another about the discovery of a rare species of shrew. It's a quiet kind of book, one that amuses and educates at the same time, showing how a few individuals can actually have a serious, positive impact on their environment. The Couffers were not at all shy about getting involved with local scientific studies or the work of Fish and Game biologists to do something about preserving this little bit of land. Most people would glance at the marsh and just see a lot of stinking mud, but these men reveal the hidden beauties of such a place, and the importance it has for myriads of wild creatures. Lovely little book.

from the Dogear Diary… (more)