Finished: The Pearl (Steinbeck) A very short novella which gets right to the heart of how suddenly becoming rich beyond your imagination can ruin your life and the lives of those you love. Kino is a very poor Mexican "native" who lives in a thatched hut with his wife Juana and their baby, Coyotito. He makes his living by fishing and diving for pearls, using a canoe handed down to him from generation to generation. When baby Coyotito is stung by a scorpion, Kino and Juana take him to the very privileged doctor in town who treats the natives like dogs and who won't help them without substantial payment. Dejected and upset, they go back to their hut and pray to find a pearl of enough worth to sell for the doctor treatment. As it happens, Kino dives down and finds the biggest pearl any of his fellow pearl divers have ever seen...as big as an egg in his hand. Their fellow villagers are in awe and gather around Kino as he talks about what he'll do with the money the pearl brings in. Both his wife and his brother are worried about the change in Kino's ambitions. Meanwhile, Coyotito is actually recovering naturally from his scorpion bite. However, when the doctor hears about the huge pearl Kino has found, he goes to the hut and claims he can heal Coyotito. The evil doctor actually gives the baby a powder that makes him sicker, only to come back in an hour and "cure" his illness. He then demands payment. Kino tells him that he will pay him when he sells the pearl the next day. That night, however, someone breaks into the hut and tries to steal the pearl. They are unsuccessful, but it begins the string of mistrust that Kino feels as he tries to guard what he now sees to be a richer future for his family. He is also determined that Coyotito will become an educated man. When Kino goes the next day to sell the pearl, the appraisers offer him a very low amount of money and it angers him. He expects fifty times as much and he takes his pearl and leaves, declaring he will go to the city and get a fair price. Again that night someone tries to steal the pearl, and this time it ends up with Kino stabbing and killing the intruder. Kino believes he will be immediately arrested and no one will believe it was self-defense, so he takes Juana and Coyotito and decides to sail away that night. However, someone has put a huge hole in Kino's canoe. :-( Instead, they head for the mountains, but soon realize they are being followed by trackers. As the trackers get nearer and nearer, Kino feels his only option is to sneak down to the tracker camp while two of the three men are sleeping and kill the guard, steal his rifle, and kill the other two men. During the scuffle, a shot rings out and Juana lets out a wail. The bullet has killed baby Coyotito. :-( :-( Kino and Juana march back through the village and out to the edge of the ocean and throw the bad luck pearl back into the ocean and decide to live their former simple life....however, without their precious son. Steinbeck is such a very descriptive writer and this was a good story, even if it was very black and white in regards to the affect that sudden wealth could/would have on a person and the surrounding community.

Finished: Blue Nights (Didion) A beautiful, emotional book written by a mother who has lost her daughter, her only child, shortly after seeing her happily married. The mother and author, Joan Didion, was married to screenwriter and novelist John Dunne and they lived the proverbial LA life of mingling with the stars. Their daughter, Quintana Roo, named for a region they loved in Mexico, fell critically ill when she was 37, and John suffered a massive heart attack and died while she was in the hospital. Quintana survived the illness, but fell and sustained a brain injury while on her way to her father's memorial service. She spent the next two years battling brain bleeds, sepsis and other critical issues before succumbing at the age of 39. Needless to say, her mother was bereft with the loss, first of her husband, and then her beloved daughter. In Blue Nights Joan Didion pretty much writes her stream of conscious thoughts on motherhood, children, life, aging, fearing death for yourself and your loved ones, and she does so with beautiful prose. It's a love story to her daughter, as she remembers back to specific things that will always remind her of Quintana. And, it's a story about how she had to go on and live her life, but as she grows older, how she fears illness and forgetfulness and dying. I related to much of what she wrote, having watched my parents lose a son at the age of 36. A very powerful, moving book!