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An essential guide for writers on how to record and use rich detail
to enliven their work. The goal of the writer is to live with the
keenness of the foreigner. To experience, wide-eyed, the sensations
aroused and the events offered up by peculiar surrounds and then to
evoke them so brightly on the page that the reader, too,
experiences the foreigner's frisson. A time-honored way this is
accomplished is through the keeping of a field notebook-through the
faithful recording of the this-and-that of life; the atmospheres
and incidents; the bells, the beer, the bread. Based on what
accomplished nonfiction writer Sara Mansfield Taber learned in her
many years of field notebook keeping, Chance Particulars is a
unique and handy primer for writers who want to use their
experiences to tell a lively, satisfying story. Often, writers try
to turn their notes into a memoir, essay, travel piece, or story,
only to find that they haven't recorded enough of the concrete,
sensory details necessary to create evocative description. To help
writers overcome this problem, Taber has composed a true "field
notebook for field notebook keepers." Enhanced by beautiful
illustrations, this charming and comprehensive guide is a practical
manual for anyone who wishes to learn or hone the crafts of
writing, ethnography, or journalism. Writers of all levels, genres,
and ages, as well as teachers of writing, will appreciate this
useful tool for learning how to record the details that build
vibrant prose. With this book in hand, you will be able to recreate
times and places, conjure up intricate character portraits, and
paint pictures of particular landscapes, cultures, and locales.
From literary journalist Sara Mansfield Taber comes a deep and
wondrous memoir of her exotic childhood as the daughter of a covert
CIA operative. Born under an Assumed Name portrays the thrilling
and confusing life of a girl growing up abroad in a world of
secrecy and diplomacy-and the heavy toll it takes on her and her
father. As Taber leads us on a tour through the alluring countries
to which her father is assigned, we track two parallel
stories-those of young Sara and her Cold War spy father. Sara
struggles for normalcy as the family is relocated to cities in
North America, Europe, and Asia, and the constant upheaval
eventually exacts its price. Only after a psychiatric
hospitalization at age sixteen in a U.S. Air Force hospital with
shell-shocked Vietnam War veterans does she come to a clear sense
of who she is. Meanwhile, Sara's sweet-natured, philosophical
father becomes increasingly disillusioned with his work, his
agency, and his country. This is the question at the heart of this
elegant and sophisticated work: what does it mean to be an
American? In this fascinating, painful, and ultimately exhilarating
coming-of-age story, young Sara confronts generosity, greatness,
and tragedy-all that America heaps on the world.
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