Saturday, February 1, 2020
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone and Other January Reading
A new year, new books, some of them very good, some of them not worth writing about. But all in all, an interesting month.
The "Best of" List
I continued reading from the LitHub list of books on the most "best of" lists for 2019, and it was really a mixed bag. At the top of the list was a wonderful nonfiction title (maybe a memoir--not sure how to classify it) Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, by Lori Gottlieb. Gottlieb is a therapist who is gobsmacked when "Boyfriend," with whom she was planning a future, suddenly breaks up with her. She seeks a therapist (the process of finding someone who is highly regarded by peers without telling them it's for you was indicative of Gottlieb's humor, which suffuses the book) and ends up with "Wendell." The book recounts breakthroughs and speed bumps on Wendell's couch while also describing the work Gottlieb is doing with four of her patients. She offers insight into various therapeutic approaches and, at a more fundamental level, into human nature. I found a lot to think about, talk about, and enjoy in this book. Highly recommended.
At the other end of the enjoyment spectrum was On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong, which was one of the two books at the top of that LitHub list, appearing on 21 lists (the other was Nickel Boys, which I read last year). Vuong is a poet, and much of the language in On Earth is graceful and moving. The story is framed as a letter from a son, Little Dog, now in his 20s, to his mother, who it seems likely could not actually read it, and conveys a seemingly random series of memories from his childhood. The parts that focused on the mother-son relationship and the lives of the women of the family in Vietnam before they immigrated were insightful and moving. But the teenage sexual relationship between Little Dog and a white boy in a position of economic power over Little Dog was so abusive and so graphically described that I trouble had reading those sections. In addition, all of the different memories didn't seem to actually add up to anything. So despite some positives, I did not enjoy this book and wouldn't recommend it to most people.
The Topeka School, by Ben Lerner (another novelist-poet), was interesting but not completely successful. Adam Gordon, a high school senior and champion debater, seems to be the protagonist. But he shares so much time with his parents--his father a psychologist focusing on "Lost boys, his mother a feminist scholar--and an "outsider" classmate that Adam and his friends manipulate mercilessly that I did not feel I got to know him well enough to understand what this book was supposed to be about. I've read reviews that purport to know (though they don't necessarily agree), so it may be that I do not understand enough about white male rage or "trauma, sex, paradox, magic" to comprehend this book. But whatever the reason, it fell flat for me.
As an almost-70 white American woman, I am not the intended audience for Queenie, by Candice Carty-Williams, which is the story of a Jamaican British millennial journalist whose long-term boyfriend has recently broken up with her. While waiting for him to come to her senses, she dates some fairly hideous men and at work struggles with racism, frustration that her story ideas are rejected, too-frequent absences, and a totally unfounded accusation of sexual harassment. Things get so bad she's forced to move back in with her grandmother, which has both its ups and downs. The biggest plus in the midst of Queenie's breakdown is her group of three friends, nicknamed "The Corgis," who offer love and good advice (which she doesn't always heed). I appreciate the portrayal of day-to-day racism in Great Britain but I found Queenie's decisions so frustrating I often wanted to scream at her. Perhaps a typical Baby Boomer reaction to a millennial's stressors.
The Testaments is Margaret Atwood's follow-up to the classic The Handmaid's Tale. Because I only recently read The Handmaid's Tale, I didn't have the longstanding commitment to the book that made it hard for some readers to accept The Testaments. Consequently, I very much enjoyed the sequel's story focusing on three characters--Aunt Lydia, a young girl living in Canada who does not realize she is a famous child kidnapped from Gilead, and a Commander's daughter who is facing the prospect of marrying a repulsive older man and getting lost in the role of wife. It may not be as good as its predecessor, but it's plenty good!
Say Nothing, by Patrick Radden Keefe, has been been billed as a mystery about the death of a widowed Irish mother of ten during "The Troubles," but it's not really much of a mystery. It's more of a history of The Troubles from the perspective of a few of the participants. I took two main take-aways from the book: (1) Gerry Adams was a tool who denied his role in the IRA and managed to convince a lot of people that he was innocent of any violence and (2) the oral history project launched by a binational team of Irish and Americans (at Boston College) seemed like a good idea but was so ill-conceived it is mind-boggling. The book is a tad slow-moving but provides insight into the causes and consequences of political violence.
I generally don't care for short stories, and Orange World & Other Stories, by Karen Russell did not change my mind. Many of the stories involve elements of creepy "magical realism"-- the living and the dead interacting, a woman's body taken over by a Joshua tree, young mothers must nurse demons to save their babies. The one story I enjoyed was "The Tornado Auction," in which a lonely former tornado farmer buys a baby tornado to bring meaning back to his life. Weird but entertaining. The rest of the stories . . . not so much.
I wanted to like Miriam Toews' Women Talking, which is based on real events in a Mennonite community in which women and children were drugged and raped by the men of the community. Toews imagines eight women who meet in a barn to debate whether the women of the community should leave, rebel, or do nothing--and how their decision will impact their relationship with God; they invite the male schoolteacher, reviled as unmanly because he failed as a farmer, to take minutes. The book is supposedly those minutes. I found the book repetitive and, finally, dull. Not recommended.
Other January Reading
I really enjoyed Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country, by Pam Houston. Houston shares how buying a ranch in the high country near Creede, Colorado, essentially saved her life. Part of the reason her life needed saving was the horrible abuse she suffered from her father and the lack of any kind of support from her mother. Somehow, caring for animals and doing the hard labor required to maintain a small ranch gave her solace and hope. I was less fond of a detailed description of the 2013 fire that came very close to her ranch. It presented a lot of information, with definitions of fire terms interspersed throughout the text, and just didn't flow like the rest of the book, which included many beautiful passages that made me stop to savor Houston's writing.
Thirty years ago, I used to read a lot of true crime. I read Fatal Vision, talked about it relentlessly, and went on a binge of Ann Rule-type books. So this month, I tried an Ann Rule book, Practice to Deceive, which focuses on a 2003 murder in Whitby, Washington. The book is not very satisfying, as Rule did not have access to the guilty parties and never uncovered a motive for the killing. This made me wonder how many cases a true crime writer starts working on before choosing one--if you choose the wrong one, years of research would go down the drain, or you end up with a mediocre book like this!
Everything Inside, by Edwidge Danticat, is an excellent collection of short stories, all involving characters with connections to Danticat's homeland of Haiti. The stories are mostly downers--in "Dosas," a woman helps her ex out financially when he tells her his new woman has been kidnapped, only to learn she's been scammed; "In the Old Days," a woman goes to visit the father she has never known only to find he died shortly before she arrives; a teenager with AIDS is given a worthless placebo in another story; and a man who survived being pushed from a boat en route from Haiti to the United States falls into a cement truck. Yes, the stories are hardly uplifting, but they're well crafted and worth reading.
Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living presents Krista Tippett's reflections following countless interviews with spiritual leaders, thinkers, and scientists on her radio program On Being. The work is organized around five "basic aspects of the human everyday . . . breeding grounds for wisdom": words, the body, love, faith, and hope. The book is hopeful, with many thought-provoking excerpts from interviews Tippett has conducted. All together, however, I felt like I might learn more by listening to old On Being programs.
My education was sorely lacking in terms of reading the classics, a fact I from time to time try to remedy. I don't think there's anything I need to say about Frankenstein, other than that I was surprised how much I liked it.
My YA book for the month was Dear Martin, by Nic Stone. Stone has admirable intentions--exploring racism, particularly police violence against African Americans, while also examining normal issues of teenage angst. While her protagonist, Justyce, an African American teenager, a senior at a private school with few African American students, is engaging, I don't think the book worked overall. The device of Justyce writing letters to Dr. King doesn't really go anywhere, and the dialogue often seems like a series of mini-lectures. Similar issues are explored much more skillfully in The Hate U Give.
Favorite Passages
Sometimes, I imagine the monarchs fleeing not winter but the napalm clouds of your childhood in Vietnam. I imagine them flying from the blazed blasts unscathed, their tiny black-and-red wings jittering like debris that kept blowing, for thousands of miles across the sky, so that, looking up, you can no longer fathom the explosion they came from, only a family of butterflies floating in clean, cool air, their wings finally, after so many conflagrations, fireproof.
Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
How do we become who we are in the world? We ask the world to teach us. But we have to ask with an open heart, with no idea what the answer will be.
There is love in these old logs and in RJ's workmanship and I can feel it every time I walk inside. We call such a limited number of relationships love in our lives, but there is always love around us--it's as ubiquitous as oxygen. It lives in the houses where we've slept, the kitchens where we've cooked, in the food we've prepared for the people we love and in the walls we've shaped with our hands.
Pam Houston, Deep Creek (and there are so many more!)
Tuesday, December 31, 2019
Best of 2020
I read a LOT this year--228 books, perhaps the most ever for a year since leaving childhood behind. Getting into audio books has definitely increased my reading, since you can listen while cooking, doing a puzzle, playing a computer game, walking, driving, etc. I've read some very good books this year although I'm not feeling as strongly about the best novels as I did in 2016-2018. But that's not stopping me from making some "best of" picks.
Fiction
Feast Your Eyes, by Myla Goldberg. I will admit I picked this book over my two honorable mentions because it was more original. In fact, it was not like any other novel I have read, in that Goldberg structured it as an exhibit catalog written by the artist/photographer's daughter. It also incorporates excerpts from her mother's journal and interviews with people from her mother's past. The story that unfolds is a complex exploration of a problematic mother-daughter relationship, female friendship, and the life of an artist, both in terms of the economic challenges and the way in which the creative mind works. I loved Goldberg's first novel, Bee Season, and Feast Your Eyes is similar in its originality, its complexity, its insights into art, and its spot-on portrayal of a young female character, and yet wholly different.
Honorable Mention: The River, by Peter Heller and The Most Fun We Ever Had, by Claire Lombardo. Still feeling unqualified to choose a best sci fi/speculative fiction, I would just say I thoroughly enjoyed The Dispatcher, by John Scalzi; Recursion, by Blake Crouch; and The Dreamers, by Karen Walker Thompson.
Oops--how could I have forgotten Olive, Again, by Elizabeth Strout? Loved it!
Mystery
Fiction
Feast Your Eyes, by Myla Goldberg. I will admit I picked this book over my two honorable mentions because it was more original. In fact, it was not like any other novel I have read, in that Goldberg structured it as an exhibit catalog written by the artist/photographer's daughter. It also incorporates excerpts from her mother's journal and interviews with people from her mother's past. The story that unfolds is a complex exploration of a problematic mother-daughter relationship, female friendship, and the life of an artist, both in terms of the economic challenges and the way in which the creative mind works. I loved Goldberg's first novel, Bee Season, and Feast Your Eyes is similar in its originality, its complexity, its insights into art, and its spot-on portrayal of a young female character, and yet wholly different.
Honorable Mention: The River, by Peter Heller and The Most Fun We Ever Had, by Claire Lombardo. Still feeling unqualified to choose a best sci fi/speculative fiction, I would just say I thoroughly enjoyed The Dispatcher, by John Scalzi; Recursion, by Blake Crouch; and The Dreamers, by Karen Walker Thompson.
Oops--how could I have forgotten Olive, Again, by Elizabeth Strout? Loved it!
Mystery
Odd Child Out, by Gilly Macmillan. Two British teenage boys, best friends, sneak out after dark; one ends up being fished from a canal. The other is in a state of shock, unable (or unwilling) to speak. As the police try to figure out what happened, the reader grapples with issues of adolescent friendship, childhood illness, immigration, and sexual violence.
Honorable Mention: Idaho, by Emily Ruskovich; Those People, by Louise Candlish; and Lady in the Lake, by Laura Lippman (Ruskovich and Candlish might not consider their books mysteries, but I wish more mysteries resembled them)
Nonfiction
Grace Will Lead Us Home, by Jennifer Berry Hawes. Hawes documents the horrific 2016 shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC, and the aftermath for the survivors and families of the victims. The survivors were badly let down by their church and pastors in the aftermath and, while some victims' families were remarkable in their strength, others experienced conflict and estrangement, compounding their losses. The perpetrator's story is equally disturbing, since his radicalization seems to have occurred largely on line. While the book offers moments of uplift, it's mostly terribly sad.
Honorable Mention: Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson; If I Understood You Would I Have This Look on My Face? by Alan Alda; and Everything Happens for a Reason . . . And Other Lies I've Loved, by Kate Bowler, which gets a special award for leading me to the author's wonderful podcast (https://katebowler.com/everything-happens/).
YA
The Poet X, by Elizabeth Acevedo. This may be the best book I read this year--I absolutely loved it. Acevedo, a former middle school English teacher, wrote the book as the poetry journal of the main character, high school student Xiomara. The writing is exquisite and the character's challenges as a teenager and the child of strict immigrant parents are presented with great empathy. It's a beautiful book. Here's one poetic excerpt (I love the Legos metaphor so much!):
Every time I think about Aman
poems build inside me
like I've been gifted a box of metaphor Legos
that I stack and stack and stack.
Honorable Mention: The Opposite of Always (my granddaughter's favorite), by Justin A. Reynolds, and Words in Deep Blue, by Cath Crowley
Poetry
Monument, by Natasha Trethewey. I read several poetry collections this year (yay me!) but some were a little too obtuse for my taste (shame on me!). Trethewey's poems chronicle the life experiences of life experiences of African Americans, especially African American women, from slavery to Hurricane Katrina. If the book only included the first stunning poem, it would be worthwhile; that poem is about the murder of Trethewey's mother by her stepfather and the things people say to her about this trauma ("Do you think your mother was weak for men?"). As a farm daughter, I loved these lines:
. . . Lord, bless those hands,
The harvesters. Bless the travelers who gather
Our food and those who grow it, clean it, cook it,
Who bring it to our tables. Bless the laborers
Whose faces we do not see--like the grl
My grandmother was, walking the rails home:
Bless us that we remember.
"Invocation, 1926"
Honorable Mention: Shout, by Laurie Halse Anderson
Favorite Passages
I loved so many passages in The Well-Read Black Girl, edited by Gloria Edim, that I'll just refer you to that review for a sampling: https://novelconversations.blogspot.com/2019/05/well-read-black-girl-edited-by-glory.html.
Perhaps related at some level to those passages is this one:
Sisters, drop
everything. Walk
away from the lake, leaning
on each other's shoulders
when you need
the support. Feel the contractions
of another truth ready
to be born: shame
turned
inside out
is rage.
Shout, by Laurie Halse Anderson
And, although it's hard to say this is a favorite of all favorites, I do appreciate some snark:
If reading really does increase empathy, as we are constantly being told it does, it appears that writing takes some away.
Sigrid Nunez, The Friend (the narrator's thought when she hears another writer say about her friend, "Now he's officially a dead white male")
Rounding out the Year of Reading
Fairly early in December, LitHub compiles a list of the books that landed on the most "best of" lists (https://lithub.com/the-ultimate-best-books-of-2019-list/); I immediately start perusing the list and asking myself, "Why haven't I read that . . . or that . . . or that?" So I start madly trying to get my hands on some of the books I haven't read (this continues through February); some prove to be worth it while others make me scratch my head. December's reading was definitely peppered with items from that list, as well as other random choices. Here are the more interesting titles from December.
Note: I read two books of poetry this month--The Tradition, by Jericho Brown and Hybrida, by Tina Chang. Both have some beautiful language and imagery but I find I have nothing intelligent to say about them, so . . .
Fiction
My Sister the Serial Killer, by Oyinkan Braithwaite. Korede is a well-respected nurse in a hospital in Nigeria. Her more beautiful and Instagram-obsessed sister Ayoola is a bit of a challenge, calling her from time to time to help clean up the mess that results when she kills her latest boyfriend. Then Ayoola starts dating a doctor from Korede's hospital, the doctor Korede just happens to have been in love with for ages. What is Korede going to do? The book is a satirical look at sibling relationships and social media--a quick look at reader reviews on Amazon shows that many people love this book. I enjoyed some of the humor but wasn't entirely won over by the absurdity of the situation.
Akin, by Emma Donoghue. An elderly man who is about to make a pilgrimage to his hometown in Europe learns that he is the sole relative available to provide temporary care to his 12-year-old great nephew. The boy's mother is in jail, his father and his paternal grandparents are dead, and the maternal grandmother with whom he has been living has just died. A social worker agrees to let the boy travel to Europe with the great uncle, and the book is he story of their "adventures." In some ways the book is endearing, as the simultaneous experience of investigating his mother's history and learning to cope with the young boy opens the old man's mind and heart. However, the situation is so ridiculously unfeasible (what social worker would go for this plan?) and the two characters make so many bad decisions (that's my kind way of saying they are obnoxious) that I became weary of the book about half way through.
Normal People, by Sally Rooney. Very near the top of the LitHub list (and a favorite of President Obama's for 2019) but not universally loved on GoodReads, Normal People is the story of a relationship between two bright teenagers, the wealthy loner Marianne and Connell, a member of the "in crowd" at school whose mother works for Marianne's family. The two start a secret sexual relationship that waxes and wanes as they go off to college and enter early adulthood. Although they are drawn to each other, they can't seem to establish a healthy relationship as they struggle with self-esteem issues and the need to please/impress their friend groups. This will probably seem weird, but the relationship reminded me of Rhett and Scarlett in Gone with the Wind. In the end, the author leaves the future of the relationship to our imaginations.
Red at the Bone, by Jacqueline Woodson. Also high on the LitHub list, Red at the Bone examines the effects of a teen pregnancy on two African American families, one successful, the other struggling. The book is told nonlinearly from the perspectives of the child Melody, her parents Aubrey and Iris, and her grandparents. Woodson goes back into the grandparents' memories of violent racist attacks on their family and the struggle to overcome, relates Aubrey and Iris's teen marriage and the sadness that persists as a result of Iris's rejection of both her daughter and her husband, and explores Melody's dating and friendships. While there is great sadness and pain, there is also uplift in the way in which Aubrey essentially became the child of Iris's parents and the love with which Melody was surrounded. And, of course, there is Woodson's exquisite prose, crafted to express five distinct voices. Definitely recommended.
Rules for Visiting, by Jessica Frances Kane. I really enjoyed this light book featuring May, a gardener at a college. When she gets an extra month of vacation from her job, she decides to use it visiting four old friends that she hasn't seen for years. Feeling herself not well-versed in friendship, she studies up on how visitors should behave. The resulting visits are awkward, funny, and sometimes touching. And there's a lot of information about plants. If it sounds silly, it is a bit--but it's a good silly.
Supper Club, by Lara Williams. This one was lower on the LitHub list, but I can't imagine how it got onto even four "best of 2019" lists. Maybe it's a millennial thing. The protagonist Roberta and friend Stevie, stuck in unrewarding jobs straight out of college, start a supper club for women in which they make elaborate dishes from foods they have obtained through dumpster diving. They eat until they feel sick, hoping to be able to take up more space in the male-dominated world in which they live (The Guardian described the supper club as a female version of Fight Club). This is an interesting, if somewhat nauseating, idea, but the supper club is only a piece of the story, which also deals with Roberta's dysfunctional childhood, rape, self-harm, and painful/bad relationships. Maybe this could all add up to something insightful, but for me, it does not.
The Other Americans, by Laila Lalami. At the heart of this novel, also lower down on the LitHub list, is the hit-and-run killing of Driss Guerraoui, a Moroccan immigrant who owns a small restaurant in a small California desert town. His daughter Nora, a composer (not a career her parents would have chosen for her) believes the accident might have been a hate crime, and the investigation into this possibility provides a through thread for the novel. At the same time, through multiple narrators, Lalami explores the conflict between self-interest and doing the right thing, the longing for home, the particular stresses in immigrant families, the effects of violence/PTSD, and more. While some of the content and themes may seem to be particular to the immigrant experience, I found the author's insights equally applicable to all people. The author's skill in weaving together different perspectives and themes while keeping the narrative of the accident moving forward was impressive. Recommended.
Mystery
The Nanny, by Gilly Macmillan. Macmillan has written some very good mysteries. The Nanny is so-so. I found it predictable and also winced at the "bad mother" theme that seems to be common in recent mysteries.
How the Dead Speak, by Val McDermid. Years ago, I read a lot of Val McDermid. Then I decided she was getting too dark for me, so I stopped until about five years ago, when I started reading her newer series. I enjoyed several of them quite a bit. Sadly, I found How the Dead Speak, which is number 11 in the Tony Hill/Carol Jordan series, somewhat dull, though you'd think dozens of children's bodies found in the yard of an orphanage would make for an interesting read. Perhaps it's because Tony and Carol aren't actually the main characters in the book. Perhaps it's because Tony is in prison, trying to use his psychological skills to help other inmates while avoiding getting beaten. Perhaps it's because there's a major coincidence that ties two cases together in an unbelievable way. This one just didn't do it for me.
Sci-Fi/Speculative Fiction
Hyperion, by Dan Simmons. My friend Suzy, who is a big reader of sci-fi, recommended this book. Its structure is interesting, in that the bulk of the book is devoted to seven travellers telling their stories a la The Canterbury Tales. Because I am very bad at getting the gestalt of fictional worlds, here is a slightly edited version of Wikipedia's overview of the context: In the 29th century, the Hegemony of Man comprises thousands of planets connected by farcaser portals. The Hegemony maintains an uneasy alliance with the TecnoCore, a civilisation of AIs. Modified humans known as Ousters live in space stations and are in conflict with the Hegemony. Hyperion is a planet with no farcasters that is difficult to access without significant time dilation. It is home to structures known as the time Tombs, which are moving backward in time and guarded by a creature known as the Shrike. On the eve of an Ouster invasion of Hyperion, a pilgrimage to the Time Tombs has been organized. I found several of the pilgrims' tales to be very interesting; however, I was put off by not having a better understanding of the point of their pilgrimage and by the ending, which was an obvious indicator that there would be a sequel (which there was).
The Dreamers, by Karen Thompson Walker. In a small college town in California, people suddenly fall into a deep sleep. Some die, others just keep sleeping. In the fear engendered by the sleeping illness, people and institutions take drastic actions to try to prevent its spread and the reader experiences those actions through the eyes of various townspeople.Eventually, for no apparent reason, some people start to wake up, bringing with them memories of dreams they believe predict the future--and some seem to. Yet others of the dreams, while still perceived as images of the future, are actually forgotten events of the past. The book leaves us with many more questions than answers. My description does not do the book justice--it's highly entertaining and also thought-provoking.
Nonfiction
Heavy: An American Memoir, by Kiese Laymon. Kiese Laymon is an accomplished writer and educator. Reading his memoir about growing up in Mississippi and the long-term effects of abuse of varied types, pervasive violence, and racism makes one wonder how he has managed to achieve so much. Clearly, his success has not been easily won, as he has struggled with addictive behavior (exercise, eating, gambling), psychological issues, and persistent racism. He addresses the memoir to his mother, which is an act of courage, given that she was at the heart of many of the troubling aspects of his childhood (and she is still alive). Heavy is a courageous, troubling, and intense book that can be uncomfortable reading--but will worth the discomfort.
What My Mother and I Don't Talk About, edited by Michelle Filgate. I found it somewhat ironic to be reading this book in the last week of the year in which my mother died. There were certainly plenty of topics we did not talk about but reading the 15 essays in this collection made me feel like the pain and anger under those silences are fairly low key in comparison to what others have experienced. The parental failures to accept their children, to address their traumas, to be there recounted in some of the essays are heartrending, and one can understand how estrangement between parent and child happens. Other essays deal with silences that seem less significant to me; an NPR reviewer classified these as wanting to know "what to know what their moms were like before they were moms." Trying to unravel the mysteries of our parents' youth is certainly interesting but it's a silence of a different nature (believe me, as I am currently transcribing my grandmother's diaries, I have some questions about the family narrative, but I am not obsessed with finding answers). I don't think I had any major insights into my relationship with my mother (or my children) as a result of reading this book, but I did find it interesting.
YA
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, by Hank Green. Hank Green, brother of mega-popular YA author John Green, has created a fast-paced tale about graphic designer April May, who comes across a giant Transformer-like statue on a Manhattan street. She calls her videographer friend and they post a video about the statue on YouTube; when it turns out that these statues have appeared simultaneously in cities across the world, the video goes viral and April becomes a media star. The book deals with serious themes--fame/celebrity and their effect on people, how social media is changing culture, fear of the unknown and how it can be exploited, and more. The book is entertaining but the ending is clearly a set-up for a sequel (to be published in 2020), which is something I'm not fond of. Interestingly, my granddaughter couldn't get into the book while it's her best friend's all-time favorite.
Favorite Passages
His girl will love and be loved. She will suffer, and she will cause suffering. She will be known and unknown. She will be content and discontented. She will sometimes be lonely and sometimes less so. She will dream and be dreamed of. She will grieve and be grieved for. She will struggle and triumph and fail. There will be days of spectacular beauty, sublime and unearned. There will be moments of rapture. She will sometimes feel afraid. The sun will warm her face. The earth will ground her body. And her heart--now thrumming strong and steady, against her father's chest, as he rocks her to sleep on a porch swing one evening in early summer, at the very start of a life--that heart: it will beat, and it will someday cease to beat. And so much of this life will remain always beyond her understanding, as obscure as the landscapes of someone else's dreams."
Karen Thompson Walker, The Dreamers
For too long we said nothing. There was something moving through me like a razor in my chest--I didn't know then if it was rage or sadness or fear. Maybe Iris felt it too because she moved closer to me, rested her hand on the back of my neck, and pressed her lips into my hair. I wanted more, though--a hug, a kindness whispered into my ear. I wanted her to tell me I was beautiful, that she didn't care what music played, that she loved me. I wanted her to laugh with me about the ridiculousness of garters and stockings.
Jacqueline Woodson, Red at the Bone (and very relevant to What My Mother and I Don't Talk About)
Perhaps memory is not merely the preservation of a moment in the mind, but the process of repeatedly returning to it, carefully breaking it up in parts and assembling them again until we can make sense of what we remember.
Laila Lalami, The Other Americans
Note: I read two books of poetry this month--The Tradition, by Jericho Brown and Hybrida, by Tina Chang. Both have some beautiful language and imagery but I find I have nothing intelligent to say about them, so . . .
Fiction
My Sister the Serial Killer, by Oyinkan Braithwaite. Korede is a well-respected nurse in a hospital in Nigeria. Her more beautiful and Instagram-obsessed sister Ayoola is a bit of a challenge, calling her from time to time to help clean up the mess that results when she kills her latest boyfriend. Then Ayoola starts dating a doctor from Korede's hospital, the doctor Korede just happens to have been in love with for ages. What is Korede going to do? The book is a satirical look at sibling relationships and social media--a quick look at reader reviews on Amazon shows that many people love this book. I enjoyed some of the humor but wasn't entirely won over by the absurdity of the situation.
Akin, by Emma Donoghue. An elderly man who is about to make a pilgrimage to his hometown in Europe learns that he is the sole relative available to provide temporary care to his 12-year-old great nephew. The boy's mother is in jail, his father and his paternal grandparents are dead, and the maternal grandmother with whom he has been living has just died. A social worker agrees to let the boy travel to Europe with the great uncle, and the book is he story of their "adventures." In some ways the book is endearing, as the simultaneous experience of investigating his mother's history and learning to cope with the young boy opens the old man's mind and heart. However, the situation is so ridiculously unfeasible (what social worker would go for this plan?) and the two characters make so many bad decisions (that's my kind way of saying they are obnoxious) that I became weary of the book about half way through.
Normal People, by Sally Rooney. Very near the top of the LitHub list (and a favorite of President Obama's for 2019) but not universally loved on GoodReads, Normal People is the story of a relationship between two bright teenagers, the wealthy loner Marianne and Connell, a member of the "in crowd" at school whose mother works for Marianne's family. The two start a secret sexual relationship that waxes and wanes as they go off to college and enter early adulthood. Although they are drawn to each other, they can't seem to establish a healthy relationship as they struggle with self-esteem issues and the need to please/impress their friend groups. This will probably seem weird, but the relationship reminded me of Rhett and Scarlett in Gone with the Wind. In the end, the author leaves the future of the relationship to our imaginations.
Red at the Bone, by Jacqueline Woodson. Also high on the LitHub list, Red at the Bone examines the effects of a teen pregnancy on two African American families, one successful, the other struggling. The book is told nonlinearly from the perspectives of the child Melody, her parents Aubrey and Iris, and her grandparents. Woodson goes back into the grandparents' memories of violent racist attacks on their family and the struggle to overcome, relates Aubrey and Iris's teen marriage and the sadness that persists as a result of Iris's rejection of both her daughter and her husband, and explores Melody's dating and friendships. While there is great sadness and pain, there is also uplift in the way in which Aubrey essentially became the child of Iris's parents and the love with which Melody was surrounded. And, of course, there is Woodson's exquisite prose, crafted to express five distinct voices. Definitely recommended.
Rules for Visiting, by Jessica Frances Kane. I really enjoyed this light book featuring May, a gardener at a college. When she gets an extra month of vacation from her job, she decides to use it visiting four old friends that she hasn't seen for years. Feeling herself not well-versed in friendship, she studies up on how visitors should behave. The resulting visits are awkward, funny, and sometimes touching. And there's a lot of information about plants. If it sounds silly, it is a bit--but it's a good silly.
Supper Club, by Lara Williams. This one was lower on the LitHub list, but I can't imagine how it got onto even four "best of 2019" lists. Maybe it's a millennial thing. The protagonist Roberta and friend Stevie, stuck in unrewarding jobs straight out of college, start a supper club for women in which they make elaborate dishes from foods they have obtained through dumpster diving. They eat until they feel sick, hoping to be able to take up more space in the male-dominated world in which they live (The Guardian described the supper club as a female version of Fight Club). This is an interesting, if somewhat nauseating, idea, but the supper club is only a piece of the story, which also deals with Roberta's dysfunctional childhood, rape, self-harm, and painful/bad relationships. Maybe this could all add up to something insightful, but for me, it does not.
The Other Americans, by Laila Lalami. At the heart of this novel, also lower down on the LitHub list, is the hit-and-run killing of Driss Guerraoui, a Moroccan immigrant who owns a small restaurant in a small California desert town. His daughter Nora, a composer (not a career her parents would have chosen for her) believes the accident might have been a hate crime, and the investigation into this possibility provides a through thread for the novel. At the same time, through multiple narrators, Lalami explores the conflict between self-interest and doing the right thing, the longing for home, the particular stresses in immigrant families, the effects of violence/PTSD, and more. While some of the content and themes may seem to be particular to the immigrant experience, I found the author's insights equally applicable to all people. The author's skill in weaving together different perspectives and themes while keeping the narrative of the accident moving forward was impressive. Recommended.
Mystery
The Nanny, by Gilly Macmillan. Macmillan has written some very good mysteries. The Nanny is so-so. I found it predictable and also winced at the "bad mother" theme that seems to be common in recent mysteries.
How the Dead Speak, by Val McDermid. Years ago, I read a lot of Val McDermid. Then I decided she was getting too dark for me, so I stopped until about five years ago, when I started reading her newer series. I enjoyed several of them quite a bit. Sadly, I found How the Dead Speak, which is number 11 in the Tony Hill/Carol Jordan series, somewhat dull, though you'd think dozens of children's bodies found in the yard of an orphanage would make for an interesting read. Perhaps it's because Tony and Carol aren't actually the main characters in the book. Perhaps it's because Tony is in prison, trying to use his psychological skills to help other inmates while avoiding getting beaten. Perhaps it's because there's a major coincidence that ties two cases together in an unbelievable way. This one just didn't do it for me.
Sci-Fi/Speculative Fiction
Hyperion, by Dan Simmons. My friend Suzy, who is a big reader of sci-fi, recommended this book. Its structure is interesting, in that the bulk of the book is devoted to seven travellers telling their stories a la The Canterbury Tales. Because I am very bad at getting the gestalt of fictional worlds, here is a slightly edited version of Wikipedia's overview of the context: In the 29th century, the Hegemony of Man comprises thousands of planets connected by farcaser portals. The Hegemony maintains an uneasy alliance with the TecnoCore, a civilisation of AIs. Modified humans known as Ousters live in space stations and are in conflict with the Hegemony. Hyperion is a planet with no farcasters that is difficult to access without significant time dilation. It is home to structures known as the time Tombs, which are moving backward in time and guarded by a creature known as the Shrike. On the eve of an Ouster invasion of Hyperion, a pilgrimage to the Time Tombs has been organized. I found several of the pilgrims' tales to be very interesting; however, I was put off by not having a better understanding of the point of their pilgrimage and by the ending, which was an obvious indicator that there would be a sequel (which there was).
The Dreamers, by Karen Thompson Walker. In a small college town in California, people suddenly fall into a deep sleep. Some die, others just keep sleeping. In the fear engendered by the sleeping illness, people and institutions take drastic actions to try to prevent its spread and the reader experiences those actions through the eyes of various townspeople.Eventually, for no apparent reason, some people start to wake up, bringing with them memories of dreams they believe predict the future--and some seem to. Yet others of the dreams, while still perceived as images of the future, are actually forgotten events of the past. The book leaves us with many more questions than answers. My description does not do the book justice--it's highly entertaining and also thought-provoking.
Nonfiction
Heavy: An American Memoir, by Kiese Laymon. Kiese Laymon is an accomplished writer and educator. Reading his memoir about growing up in Mississippi and the long-term effects of abuse of varied types, pervasive violence, and racism makes one wonder how he has managed to achieve so much. Clearly, his success has not been easily won, as he has struggled with addictive behavior (exercise, eating, gambling), psychological issues, and persistent racism. He addresses the memoir to his mother, which is an act of courage, given that she was at the heart of many of the troubling aspects of his childhood (and she is still alive). Heavy is a courageous, troubling, and intense book that can be uncomfortable reading--but will worth the discomfort.
What My Mother and I Don't Talk About, edited by Michelle Filgate. I found it somewhat ironic to be reading this book in the last week of the year in which my mother died. There were certainly plenty of topics we did not talk about but reading the 15 essays in this collection made me feel like the pain and anger under those silences are fairly low key in comparison to what others have experienced. The parental failures to accept their children, to address their traumas, to be there recounted in some of the essays are heartrending, and one can understand how estrangement between parent and child happens. Other essays deal with silences that seem less significant to me; an NPR reviewer classified these as wanting to know "what to know what their moms were like before they were moms." Trying to unravel the mysteries of our parents' youth is certainly interesting but it's a silence of a different nature (believe me, as I am currently transcribing my grandmother's diaries, I have some questions about the family narrative, but I am not obsessed with finding answers). I don't think I had any major insights into my relationship with my mother (or my children) as a result of reading this book, but I did find it interesting.
YA
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, by Hank Green. Hank Green, brother of mega-popular YA author John Green, has created a fast-paced tale about graphic designer April May, who comes across a giant Transformer-like statue on a Manhattan street. She calls her videographer friend and they post a video about the statue on YouTube; when it turns out that these statues have appeared simultaneously in cities across the world, the video goes viral and April becomes a media star. The book deals with serious themes--fame/celebrity and their effect on people, how social media is changing culture, fear of the unknown and how it can be exploited, and more. The book is entertaining but the ending is clearly a set-up for a sequel (to be published in 2020), which is something I'm not fond of. Interestingly, my granddaughter couldn't get into the book while it's her best friend's all-time favorite.
Favorite Passages
His girl will love and be loved. She will suffer, and she will cause suffering. She will be known and unknown. She will be content and discontented. She will sometimes be lonely and sometimes less so. She will dream and be dreamed of. She will grieve and be grieved for. She will struggle and triumph and fail. There will be days of spectacular beauty, sublime and unearned. There will be moments of rapture. She will sometimes feel afraid. The sun will warm her face. The earth will ground her body. And her heart--now thrumming strong and steady, against her father's chest, as he rocks her to sleep on a porch swing one evening in early summer, at the very start of a life--that heart: it will beat, and it will someday cease to beat. And so much of this life will remain always beyond her understanding, as obscure as the landscapes of someone else's dreams."
Karen Thompson Walker, The Dreamers
For too long we said nothing. There was something moving through me like a razor in my chest--I didn't know then if it was rage or sadness or fear. Maybe Iris felt it too because she moved closer to me, rested her hand on the back of my neck, and pressed her lips into my hair. I wanted more, though--a hug, a kindness whispered into my ear. I wanted her to tell me I was beautiful, that she didn't care what music played, that she loved me. I wanted her to laugh with me about the ridiculousness of garters and stockings.
Jacqueline Woodson, Red at the Bone (and very relevant to What My Mother and I Don't Talk About)
Perhaps memory is not merely the preservation of a moment in the mind, but the process of repeatedly returning to it, carefully breaking it up in parts and assembling them again until we can make sense of what we remember.
Laila Lalami, The Other Americans
Tuesday, December 24, 2019
Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson
I have long admired Bryan Stevenson's work as the founder and director of the Equal Justice Initiative and marveled at his fierce yet gentle demeanor. But I had never read his book until now--and it confirms that he is a true American hero. The book details his work on behalf of those treated unfairly in the criminal justice system, often because of racial discrimination, but also because they lacked the resources needed to receive a fair trial because they were poor, young, or disabled. The story of Walter McMillian, who was wrongly convicted of a murder (literally everyone involved with the investigation and prosecution lied) and sentenced to death, provides a through line for the book. Eventually, Stevenson was able to win McMillian's freedom, and he continued to assist McMillian after his release (as he and EJI have done for many).
Alternating with chapters about McMillian are chapters that delve into some of the issues with which Stevenson and the EJI have worked--sentencing and treatment of the mentally disabled or mentally ill, trying juveniles as adults and rendering death penalty or life without parole penalties in those cases, women who had stillbirths and were subsequently charged with murder, and more. Near the end of the book, he describes the decision to become in education programs to help people understand racial discrimination in the larger context of the African American experience in the United States with slavery, post-Reconstruction terrorism, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration being four phases of that experience. That work has resulted in the construction of the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice; you can learn more about these educational projects at https://museumandmemorial.eji.org/.
The book can be difficult reading--I was crying on an airplane as I read earlier today--but it should be read by everyone, particularly those who think that our justice system operates well. Highly recommended.
Favorite passages:
The kind of hope that creates a willingness to position oneself in a hopeless place and be a witness, that allows one to believe in a better future, even in the face of hope makes one strong.
I guess I'd always known but never fully considered that being broken is what makes us human. We all have our reasons. Sometimes we're fractured by the choices we make; sometimes we're shattered by things we would never have chosen. But our brokenness is also the source of our common humanity, the basis for our shared search for comfort, meaning, and healing. Our shared vulnerability and imperfection nurtures and sustains our capacity for compassion.
Alternating with chapters about McMillian are chapters that delve into some of the issues with which Stevenson and the EJI have worked--sentencing and treatment of the mentally disabled or mentally ill, trying juveniles as adults and rendering death penalty or life without parole penalties in those cases, women who had stillbirths and were subsequently charged with murder, and more. Near the end of the book, he describes the decision to become in education programs to help people understand racial discrimination in the larger context of the African American experience in the United States with slavery, post-Reconstruction terrorism, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration being four phases of that experience. That work has resulted in the construction of the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice; you can learn more about these educational projects at https://museumandmemorial.eji.org/.
The book can be difficult reading--I was crying on an airplane as I read earlier today--but it should be read by everyone, particularly those who think that our justice system operates well. Highly recommended.
Favorite passages:
The kind of hope that creates a willingness to position oneself in a hopeless place and be a witness, that allows one to believe in a better future, even in the face of hope makes one strong.
I guess I'd always known but never fully considered that being broken is what makes us human. We all have our reasons. Sometimes we're fractured by the choices we make; sometimes we're shattered by things we would never have chosen. But our brokenness is also the source of our common humanity, the basis for our shared search for comfort, meaning, and healing. Our shared vulnerability and imperfection nurtures and sustains our capacity for compassion.
Monday, December 2, 2019
Thankful for Good November Reading
I read a lot in November—partly because I have had a cold that won’t quit and have been reading while lying around—and enjoyed a surprising number of the books read. I still read some titles I ended up sneering at, but in the spirit of the holidays, I've decided not to deal with them here.
Fiction
Lake Success, by Gary Shteyngart. Hedge-fund manager Barry Cohen, plagued by an SEC investigation and unable to cope with his three-year-old's autism diagnosis, takes off on a Greyhound bus in search of his college girlfriend, leaving his much younger wife Seema to cope with their son, her immigrant parents, and the SEC. Barry's experiences as he lurches across he country might teach a better man something important about himself or humanity, but Barry is not the reflective type. Seema, on the other hand, grows in her Barry-free time, finding ways to encourage their son to become a functioning human being. This book was my first by Shteyngart, but it won't be my last.
Searching for Sylvie Lee, by Jean Kwok. Sylvie Lee is the older daughter of Chinese immigrants to the United States who spent the first 9 years of her life living in the Netherlands with her grandmother and an aunt. After travelling back to the Netherlands to be with her dying grandmother, she disappears, and her younger (and much less accomplished) sister Amy travels to Europe to try to find her. As Amy searches for her sister, she uncovers family history that has been held secret for decades. The story is told asynchronously from the viewpoints of Sylvie, Amy, and their mother; as the climax approaches, we begin to sense what may have happened, but there is still a bit of a twist at the end. An engrossing family drama.
Behold the Dreamers, by Imbolo Mbue. Cameroonian immigrant Jende thinks he has landed his dream job driving for Lehman Brothers executive Clark. Jende's wife Neni and their son have joined him in the United States, and she is going to school and expecting their second child. Despite the challenges of being an immigrant in the United States, they believe they are on their way. Then the great recession hits, and Jende loses his job and his somewhat trumped-up asylum request. As his family struggles, so does Clark's family, as dreams at many levels (people might have to start flying coach!) are crushed. What makes this book different from so many other immigrant stories (SPOILER) is that Jende, over Neni's objections, decides the family should return to Cameroon.
The Confession Club, by Elizabeth Berg. This is Berg's third feel-good book set in Mason, Missouri. The center of this story is a group of women who meet regularly to eat and confess to each other their misdeeds and regrets. Several characters from the previous two books reappear with new problems to solve, but all ends happily. It's corny but charming.
Nonfiction
Erosion: Essays of Undoing, by Terry Tempest Williams. Williams is brilliant, a marvelous writer, and an environmental advocate. While reading Erosion, I occasionally felt I had read the same environmental arguments in her book about the national parks, but her writing about the reduction of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante national monuments reminded me of the destructiveness of the Trump Administration (so much keeps happening that you forget the outrages of first two years) and the utter lack of understanding of the indigenous people's histories. Her essay on her brother's suicide is terribly raw and moving, beautiful in its grief. The book is not uniformly great, but there's enough that is to make it worthwhile.
Eat Joy: Stories and Comfort Food, edited by Natalie Eve Garrett. This collection brings together writings (and recipes) from a variety of well-known authors, who describe a moment in their lives when food was important. The title is somewhat misleading, as many of the stories have more to do with sadness than joy--dead fathers abound (Edwidge Danticat's essay about sharing rice with her dying father is perhaps my favorite)--but the pieces are nonetheless rewarding. And it's somewhat shocking what horrible food some authors lived on (General Tso's tofu, anyone?).
To Obama, with Love, Joy, Anger, and Hope, by Jeanne Marie Laskas. Every day of his presidency, Barack Obama read 10 letters from constituents, sometimes replying with handwritten notes, other times leaving directions for staff to investigate and respond. Selecting these letters was only a small part of the work of the Office of Presidential Correspondence, and Laskas gives us insight into what that work involved, its rewards and its challenges (the office received a lot of what were termed Red Dot letters, those that suggested an emergency in progress, whether self-harm or violence against others, and under protocol had to be responded to with assistance within 24 hours). Laskas talked to a number of people whose letters made it into 10LAD, examining how writing the letter and getting a response affected them. She also talked to President Obama about how the letters affected him. He told her, "If we duplicate enough of those moments, enough of those interactions, enough of those shared stories, over time we get better at this thing called democracy. And that is something that all of us have the capacity to do. That's not the job of the president. That's not the job of a bunch of professional policy makers. It's the job of citizens." Of course, the letters and the President's responses are the soul of the book--it's good to be reminded how angry people were in 2008 (and interesting to see that Obama often argued with accusations made against him). To Obama may not be the deepest book written about his historic administration, but it's an enjoyable one.
Mysteries
Those People by Louise Candlish. Candlish's work reminds me of the novels of Liane Moriarty--both skewer the smug self-satisfaction of the upper middle class and do it in a way that is both creepy and humorous. The fact that Those People includes police interviews with people in the neighborhood where the book is set makes this title even more reminiscent of Moriarty's Big Little Lies. In Those People, a lovely suburban neighborhood near London is disrupted when a lower class gent inherits a house on the block. He and his female partner immediately offend by playing heavy metal at deafness-causing levels, parking a variety of junky vehicles on the street and in their yard, and starting construction projects that promise to be protracted. Then the scaffolding required for one of the projects collapses, killing someone. Was it an accident, negligence, sabotage? Relationships break down as the police investigate. It's entertaining and somewhat mysterious.
Favorite Passages:
Whatever I know as a woman about spirituality, I have learned from my body encountering Earth. Soul and soil are not separate. Neither is wind and spirit, nor water and tears. We are eroding and evolving at once, like the red rock landscape before me. Our grief is our love. Our love will be our undoing as we quietly disengage from the collective madness of the patriarchal mind that says aggression is the way forward.
Erosion, by Terry Tempest Williams
Election Results
An Abecedarian
A shuffle of slippers awakes me. I arise from my
bed. Mom looks at me through tearstained cheeks. "Honey, she lost.
Clinton lost." I squeeze my eyes shut. I can't even pretend to suppress the
dry sob that
echoes in my throat. Someone
fear-driven will be the head of this
glorious nation, my
home country. How could we have done this?
I convince myself to get up. The days are now numbered until
January 20th, that dreaded day when our true leader is
kicked out, no
longer in the position to
make our country the place we
need it to be. Right now,
only Obama can make me feel better, so I
press the Home button on my iPad to watch his speeches.
Quiet tears leak down my face, a whispered
reminder: my Mexican, Asian, and Muslim friends may
soon be leaving me, all because of
Trump, who can't even begin to
understand the rest of the world's point of
view. I thought I
would be angry. Instead, I'm sad that he's brainwashed America with his
xenophobia-ridden lies. I turn back to Obama,
yearning for everything and nothing at the same time. I tell myself.
"Zoe. We can get through this."
Zoe Ruff, age 13, in a letter to President Obama
Fiction
Lake Success, by Gary Shteyngart. Hedge-fund manager Barry Cohen, plagued by an SEC investigation and unable to cope with his three-year-old's autism diagnosis, takes off on a Greyhound bus in search of his college girlfriend, leaving his much younger wife Seema to cope with their son, her immigrant parents, and the SEC. Barry's experiences as he lurches across he country might teach a better man something important about himself or humanity, but Barry is not the reflective type. Seema, on the other hand, grows in her Barry-free time, finding ways to encourage their son to become a functioning human being. This book was my first by Shteyngart, but it won't be my last.
Searching for Sylvie Lee, by Jean Kwok. Sylvie Lee is the older daughter of Chinese immigrants to the United States who spent the first 9 years of her life living in the Netherlands with her grandmother and an aunt. After travelling back to the Netherlands to be with her dying grandmother, she disappears, and her younger (and much less accomplished) sister Amy travels to Europe to try to find her. As Amy searches for her sister, she uncovers family history that has been held secret for decades. The story is told asynchronously from the viewpoints of Sylvie, Amy, and their mother; as the climax approaches, we begin to sense what may have happened, but there is still a bit of a twist at the end. An engrossing family drama.
Behold the Dreamers, by Imbolo Mbue. Cameroonian immigrant Jende thinks he has landed his dream job driving for Lehman Brothers executive Clark. Jende's wife Neni and their son have joined him in the United States, and she is going to school and expecting their second child. Despite the challenges of being an immigrant in the United States, they believe they are on their way. Then the great recession hits, and Jende loses his job and his somewhat trumped-up asylum request. As his family struggles, so does Clark's family, as dreams at many levels (people might have to start flying coach!) are crushed. What makes this book different from so many other immigrant stories (SPOILER) is that Jende, over Neni's objections, decides the family should return to Cameroon.
The Confession Club, by Elizabeth Berg. This is Berg's third feel-good book set in Mason, Missouri. The center of this story is a group of women who meet regularly to eat and confess to each other their misdeeds and regrets. Several characters from the previous two books reappear with new problems to solve, but all ends happily. It's corny but charming.
Nonfiction
Erosion: Essays of Undoing, by Terry Tempest Williams. Williams is brilliant, a marvelous writer, and an environmental advocate. While reading Erosion, I occasionally felt I had read the same environmental arguments in her book about the national parks, but her writing about the reduction of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante national monuments reminded me of the destructiveness of the Trump Administration (so much keeps happening that you forget the outrages of first two years) and the utter lack of understanding of the indigenous people's histories. Her essay on her brother's suicide is terribly raw and moving, beautiful in its grief. The book is not uniformly great, but there's enough that is to make it worthwhile.
Eat Joy: Stories and Comfort Food, edited by Natalie Eve Garrett. This collection brings together writings (and recipes) from a variety of well-known authors, who describe a moment in their lives when food was important. The title is somewhat misleading, as many of the stories have more to do with sadness than joy--dead fathers abound (Edwidge Danticat's essay about sharing rice with her dying father is perhaps my favorite)--but the pieces are nonetheless rewarding. And it's somewhat shocking what horrible food some authors lived on (General Tso's tofu, anyone?).
To Obama, with Love, Joy, Anger, and Hope, by Jeanne Marie Laskas. Every day of his presidency, Barack Obama read 10 letters from constituents, sometimes replying with handwritten notes, other times leaving directions for staff to investigate and respond. Selecting these letters was only a small part of the work of the Office of Presidential Correspondence, and Laskas gives us insight into what that work involved, its rewards and its challenges (the office received a lot of what were termed Red Dot letters, those that suggested an emergency in progress, whether self-harm or violence against others, and under protocol had to be responded to with assistance within 24 hours). Laskas talked to a number of people whose letters made it into 10LAD, examining how writing the letter and getting a response affected them. She also talked to President Obama about how the letters affected him. He told her, "If we duplicate enough of those moments, enough of those interactions, enough of those shared stories, over time we get better at this thing called democracy. And that is something that all of us have the capacity to do. That's not the job of the president. That's not the job of a bunch of professional policy makers. It's the job of citizens." Of course, the letters and the President's responses are the soul of the book--it's good to be reminded how angry people were in 2008 (and interesting to see that Obama often argued with accusations made against him). To Obama may not be the deepest book written about his historic administration, but it's an enjoyable one.
Mysteries
Those People by Louise Candlish. Candlish's work reminds me of the novels of Liane Moriarty--both skewer the smug self-satisfaction of the upper middle class and do it in a way that is both creepy and humorous. The fact that Those People includes police interviews with people in the neighborhood where the book is set makes this title even more reminiscent of Moriarty's Big Little Lies. In Those People, a lovely suburban neighborhood near London is disrupted when a lower class gent inherits a house on the block. He and his female partner immediately offend by playing heavy metal at deafness-causing levels, parking a variety of junky vehicles on the street and in their yard, and starting construction projects that promise to be protracted. Then the scaffolding required for one of the projects collapses, killing someone. Was it an accident, negligence, sabotage? Relationships break down as the police investigate. It's entertaining and somewhat mysterious.
Favorite Passages:
Whatever I know as a woman about spirituality, I have learned from my body encountering Earth. Soul and soil are not separate. Neither is wind and spirit, nor water and tears. We are eroding and evolving at once, like the red rock landscape before me. Our grief is our love. Our love will be our undoing as we quietly disengage from the collective madness of the patriarchal mind that says aggression is the way forward.
Erosion, by Terry Tempest Williams
Election Results
An Abecedarian
A shuffle of slippers awakes me. I arise from my
bed. Mom looks at me through tearstained cheeks. "Honey, she lost.
Clinton lost." I squeeze my eyes shut. I can't even pretend to suppress the
dry sob that
echoes in my throat. Someone
fear-driven will be the head of this
glorious nation, my
home country. How could we have done this?
I convince myself to get up. The days are now numbered until
January 20th, that dreaded day when our true leader is
kicked out, no
longer in the position to
make our country the place we
need it to be. Right now,
only Obama can make me feel better, so I
press the Home button on my iPad to watch his speeches.
Quiet tears leak down my face, a whispered
reminder: my Mexican, Asian, and Muslim friends may
soon be leaving me, all because of
Trump, who can't even begin to
understand the rest of the world's point of
view. I thought I
would be angry. Instead, I'm sad that he's brainwashed America with his
xenophobia-ridden lies. I turn back to Obama,
yearning for everything and nothing at the same time. I tell myself.
"Zoe. We can get through this."
Zoe Ruff, age 13, in a letter to President Obama
Friday, November 1, 2019
Rude Democracy: Civility and Incivility in American Politics, by Susan Herbst
It’s embarrassing to look in your stack of unread books and
find a book you borrowed from a friend years ago and still haven’t read. So
with apologies to my friend Nisan, I have finally read Rude Democracy. One of
the things that was immediately interesting was that the book was written in
2009-10, in the wake of the 2008 election and the health care debates—a time
when we thought incivility was high but did not realize the escalation that
would occur in the Trump era. It would definitely be interesting to see what
the author has to say about the current situation. (Early on in the book she
says “My belief is that truly interesting and important cases of intentional
public lying are somewhat rare,” a statement I think might require some
revision.)
Herbst suggests there are three basic definitions of
civility—one equates civility with virtue, one with good manners, and the third,
the definition Herbst favors is that civility and incivility are strategic
tools. One can certainly see this in the 2008 election, which Herbst looks at (with
particular emphasis on Sarah Palin) and the 2016 election, which of course she
was unable to consider. She is hesitant to say that the level of incivility is
worse than it has previously been, arguing instead that modern communications put
incivility in our faces in a way that would not have been possible in previous
centuries. She also makes a strong argument that civility is not only about how
we talk but about how we listen.
The book is organized into three major sections; the first
looks at Sarah Palin’s use of civility and incivility in the 2008 campaign; the
second examines President Obama’s commencement address at Notre Dame in 2009,
in which he discussed the need for civility, as well as how subsequent events related
to the health care debate tested Obama’s thinking about civility; the third
presents results surveys of Georgia college students regarding freedom of
speech and civility on campus. I did not find any of these analyses particularly
helpful. In the section on Palin’s use of civility and incivility, which she
praises as skillful, she spends more time critiquing the way media covered
Palin and Obama rallies than actually dissecting how Palin used
civility/incivility as strategic tools and why her use was effective.
I did find interesting the fact that American Presidents
rarely have talked about civility. A search of the American Presidency Project’s
archive of 86,000 documents revealed only 129 mentions of civility, only one
before 1961. She does look at strategies Obama used in his speech, but I am not
sure they are strategies of civility but rather strategies used in discussing
civility. The strategies—linking terms by forcing associations among them,
breaking a concept into parts to identify one’s proposal with the most favored
part, creating a symbol that condenses an issue, and frame shifting—are interesting
but I’m not sure what I learn about civility through learning about these
strategies for controlling the discussion of an issue.
The major idea I took from the chapter on the survey of
college students is that, while students have very strong feelings about
political discussion, they have very few skills for engaging in such discussion.
As an educator who has spent years teaching teachers how to develop discussion
skills in their students, this came as disheartening confirmation of the
concerns most of us have about the civic preparation of young people.
Overall, I was disappointed by Rude Democracy. While Herbst presents some interesting ideas, her
analysis could have been more pointed.
Favorite Passages:
“Again, Eulau gets to the bottom of it, proposing that
civility is about emotional maturity: “We have achieved the politics of civility
when we are capable of asking not only ‘What is in it for me?”’ but also ‘What
can I do for you’ It is out of these two simple questions that the maturity of
civility is born.”
Just as incivility is a strategic asset, a real skill when practiced
well, listening and dealing with incivility can also be both skill and asset. Neither
ignoring nor capitulating in the face of incivility will move a conversation.
Wednesday, October 30, 2019
Bad Weather, Good Reading
October in Colorado is ending on a particularly cold and snowy note, but it is also ending with a couple of really good books (The Grammarians and Olive, Again), so the month redeemed itself!
Fiction
For a writer/editor who as a child thought that being a twin with a secret language would be unbelievably cool, picking up Cathleen Schine's The Grammarians was a no-brainer. After all, it's about identical twins Laurel and Daphne (oh, did I mention my name is Laurel) who are obsessed with language. Their closeness and idiosyncrasies set them somewhat apart from their families and prevent them from forming other close friendships. Yet, after attending college together and sharing an apartment in New York, they both marry, have a daughter, and eventually carve out language-based careers. Daphne becomes an editor and columnist who writes snarky pieces about writers whose language is insufficiently precise while Laurel is a teacher who writes poems and short stories based on the language of historic letters to the Department of War whose English does not live up to the standards of the pedantic Daphne. Other than the sisters, the characters are not particularly well developed and there were some inconsistencies in the narration that bothered even me (this is the kind of thing my son the literary scholar usually has to point out to me). But I enjoyed the sisterly relationship, the word play, and the philosophical discussions of language and its uses enough to let me ignore any problems I saw. And, by the way, I no longer think being a twin would be that great.
I pick up every Elizabeth Strout book as soon as I can, so I certainly wasn't going to miss the new sequel to Olive Kittredge, titled Olive, Again. Like its predecessor, Olive, Again is a a collection of linked short stories. In some, the irascible Olive Kittredge, a retired math teacher who was widowed near the end of the previous book, is the central character; others feature her neighbors in Crosby, Maine, with Olive making a cameo appearance. Together, the stories in this collection add up to something not quite a novel but equally rewarding--an exploration of "coming into age," of loneliness, of friendship. Olive as a character continues to fascinate--she seems here to be gaining some degree of self-reflection, yet she continues to offend with her abruptness and condescension; perhaps that is why she feels so authentic. My favorite story is "The Poet," in which Olive sees a former student sitting in a coffee shop and joins her for breakfast; the student happens to be a former poet laureate but Olive is perplexed by her ratty sweater, bad teeth, and apparent sadness. When the woman later writes a poem that eviscerates Olive, the pain comes not only from the poem but from the fact that someone left the poetry magazine at her door, knowing how it would affect her. While there is much that is sad in Olive, Again, it is balanced with humor and the humanity Strout gives her characters.
I thought I had already posted about Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys, but either the post was imaginary or it has disappeared, so . . . The Nickel Boys is based on facts about a horrific school for boys in Florida, The Dozier School, renamed the Nickel School for this novel. The main character, Elwood Curtis, is a good student who is looking forward to better things in the future when he accepts a ride from a man who happens to be driving a stolen car; though an innocent passenger, Elwood is sent to the Nickel School, where he and other African American boys are hideously abused, sometimes killed. Although there is a novel-ish twist near the end, when we are learning about Elwood's post-Nickel School life, most of the time I felt like I was reading a nonfiction account, which was somewhat disappointing given the creativity of Whitehead's earlier works (particularly The Underground Railroad). Nonetheless, I am glad I read the book.
If you are a beer aficionado or are just looking for a "feel good" novel, you might enjoy The Lager Queen of Minnesota, by J. Ryan Stradal. I don't like beer and I thought the story was quite unbelievable, so didn't really care for it but can see that some people would feel differently.
I listened to Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein because the editors on the podcast Audicted recommended it. It's the story of two friends, Julie and Maddie, who are involved in war work; they are assigned to a secret mission behind enemy lines in France. Julie is captured and the first part of the book is structured as her confessions; the second part is a more straightforward narrative from Maddie's perspective. It's an intense story that not only educates about the work women did during World War II but also explores loyalty, friendship, and courage. Although I am somewhat tired of World War II stories, I nonetheless enjoyed Code Name Verity.
My friend Colleen recommended Problems with People, a collection of stories about the difficulty of connection. While I admire author David Guterson's writing style, the stories mostly left me feeling dissatisfied.
Some reviews I'd read of Katherine Center's Things You Save in a Fire had led me to believe it was a more serious book than I found it to be. Essentially, it's a romance with some serious social issues--sexual assault, misogyny in certain professions--thrown in to give it some depth.
Classic
I have struggled with Margaret Atwood in the past (I think Alias Grace is the only of her books I have made it through), but all the attention to The Handmaid's Tale convinced me that I should read it, and I'm glad I did. The dystopian tale of women's subjugation is a terrifying look at what could happen in a religiously-oriented state run by people who hate women (does this now seem more possible than it did a few years ago?). The epilogue, which purports to be the minutes of a presentation at a historical association meeting, is both encouraging (Gilead no longer exists) and very funny, perhaps especially if you're an academic or even a semi-academic (as I might call myself). I am now looking forward to reading The Testaments and might even try some other Atwood.
The Ongoing Binge
In case you think I might have abandoned mysteries, such is not the case. Here are this month's time-stealers:
Favorite Passages
There were no words for what she felt, the depth of the emptiness, the breadth of the emptiness, the emptiness of the emptiness. Words could only cloak what she felt. Words were supposed to illuminate and clarify.Words were meant to communicate information and feelings from one person to another. But today words stood numb and in the way. We are alone, Daphne thought, words can't change that.
--Cathleen Schine, The Grammarians (these were Daphne's thoughts following her father's funeral)
"When you get old," Olive told Andrea after the girl had walked away, "you become invisible. It's just the truth. And yet it's freeing in a way."
--Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again
Make a career of humanity. Make it a central part of your life.
--Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys
Fiction
For a writer/editor who as a child thought that being a twin with a secret language would be unbelievably cool, picking up Cathleen Schine's The Grammarians was a no-brainer. After all, it's about identical twins Laurel and Daphne (oh, did I mention my name is Laurel) who are obsessed with language. Their closeness and idiosyncrasies set them somewhat apart from their families and prevent them from forming other close friendships. Yet, after attending college together and sharing an apartment in New York, they both marry, have a daughter, and eventually carve out language-based careers. Daphne becomes an editor and columnist who writes snarky pieces about writers whose language is insufficiently precise while Laurel is a teacher who writes poems and short stories based on the language of historic letters to the Department of War whose English does not live up to the standards of the pedantic Daphne. Other than the sisters, the characters are not particularly well developed and there were some inconsistencies in the narration that bothered even me (this is the kind of thing my son the literary scholar usually has to point out to me). But I enjoyed the sisterly relationship, the word play, and the philosophical discussions of language and its uses enough to let me ignore any problems I saw. And, by the way, I no longer think being a twin would be that great.
I pick up every Elizabeth Strout book as soon as I can, so I certainly wasn't going to miss the new sequel to Olive Kittredge, titled Olive, Again. Like its predecessor, Olive, Again is a a collection of linked short stories. In some, the irascible Olive Kittredge, a retired math teacher who was widowed near the end of the previous book, is the central character; others feature her neighbors in Crosby, Maine, with Olive making a cameo appearance. Together, the stories in this collection add up to something not quite a novel but equally rewarding--an exploration of "coming into age," of loneliness, of friendship. Olive as a character continues to fascinate--she seems here to be gaining some degree of self-reflection, yet she continues to offend with her abruptness and condescension; perhaps that is why she feels so authentic. My favorite story is "The Poet," in which Olive sees a former student sitting in a coffee shop and joins her for breakfast; the student happens to be a former poet laureate but Olive is perplexed by her ratty sweater, bad teeth, and apparent sadness. When the woman later writes a poem that eviscerates Olive, the pain comes not only from the poem but from the fact that someone left the poetry magazine at her door, knowing how it would affect her. While there is much that is sad in Olive, Again, it is balanced with humor and the humanity Strout gives her characters.
I thought I had already posted about Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys, but either the post was imaginary or it has disappeared, so . . . The Nickel Boys is based on facts about a horrific school for boys in Florida, The Dozier School, renamed the Nickel School for this novel. The main character, Elwood Curtis, is a good student who is looking forward to better things in the future when he accepts a ride from a man who happens to be driving a stolen car; though an innocent passenger, Elwood is sent to the Nickel School, where he and other African American boys are hideously abused, sometimes killed. Although there is a novel-ish twist near the end, when we are learning about Elwood's post-Nickel School life, most of the time I felt like I was reading a nonfiction account, which was somewhat disappointing given the creativity of Whitehead's earlier works (particularly The Underground Railroad). Nonetheless, I am glad I read the book.
If you are a beer aficionado or are just looking for a "feel good" novel, you might enjoy The Lager Queen of Minnesota, by J. Ryan Stradal. I don't like beer and I thought the story was quite unbelievable, so didn't really care for it but can see that some people would feel differently.
I listened to Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein because the editors on the podcast Audicted recommended it. It's the story of two friends, Julie and Maddie, who are involved in war work; they are assigned to a secret mission behind enemy lines in France. Julie is captured and the first part of the book is structured as her confessions; the second part is a more straightforward narrative from Maddie's perspective. It's an intense story that not only educates about the work women did during World War II but also explores loyalty, friendship, and courage. Although I am somewhat tired of World War II stories, I nonetheless enjoyed Code Name Verity.
My friend Colleen recommended Problems with People, a collection of stories about the difficulty of connection. While I admire author David Guterson's writing style, the stories mostly left me feeling dissatisfied.
Some reviews I'd read of Katherine Center's Things You Save in a Fire had led me to believe it was a more serious book than I found it to be. Essentially, it's a romance with some serious social issues--sexual assault, misogyny in certain professions--thrown in to give it some depth.
Classic
I have struggled with Margaret Atwood in the past (I think Alias Grace is the only of her books I have made it through), but all the attention to The Handmaid's Tale convinced me that I should read it, and I'm glad I did. The dystopian tale of women's subjugation is a terrifying look at what could happen in a religiously-oriented state run by people who hate women (does this now seem more possible than it did a few years ago?). The epilogue, which purports to be the minutes of a presentation at a historical association meeting, is both encouraging (Gilead no longer exists) and very funny, perhaps especially if you're an academic or even a semi-academic (as I might call myself). I am now looking forward to reading The Testaments and might even try some other Atwood.
The Ongoing Binge
In case you think I might have abandoned mysteries, such is not the case. Here are this month's time-stealers:
- The Liar's Girl, by Catherine Ryan Howard. This book about a young woman who returns to Ireland when the police ask her to talk with her former boyfriend, a convicted serial killer, has been nominated for some big prizes in the genre and I thought it was okay but not great.
- All The Wrong Places, by Joy Fielding. At the end of this book, I felt the author was asking us to be happy about the protagonist's nasty cousin being the victim of a serial killer--don't think I'll read any more of Fielding's work.
- Here to Stay, by Mark Edwards. In-laws from hell come to stay with young married couple and bad stuff happens. Ugh.
- Leave No Trace, by Mindy Mejia. A counselor at a psychiatric facility becomes involved with a patient's efforts to escape and help his father in ways that strain credulity. Totally unbelievable.
- Bloody Genius, by John Sandford. I liked this latest title in the Virgil Flowers series better than its recent predecessors, perhaps because there was less womanizing (after all, Virgil's girlfriend is pregnant with twins).
- 17th Suspect, by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro. What you'd expect from this series.
- Heaven, My Home, by Attica Locke. I like that Locke brings issues of race into the mystery genre, but this particular book had a kitchen-sink feeling to it--Locke threw in so many plot elements (a cover-up of a previous crime, problems in the marriage, exploitation of Native Americans, protection of squatters who have set up on property owned by African Americans) that I wished for a bit more simplicity. Still, I will continue to follow her work.
- Still Midnight, by Denise Mina. This is book 1 in Mina's Alex Morrow series; I'm not sure I'll try another.
Will I staunch the mystery binge in November? Stay tuned.
Favorite Passages
There were no words for what she felt, the depth of the emptiness, the breadth of the emptiness, the emptiness of the emptiness. Words could only cloak what she felt. Words were supposed to illuminate and clarify.Words were meant to communicate information and feelings from one person to another. But today words stood numb and in the way. We are alone, Daphne thought, words can't change that.
--Cathleen Schine, The Grammarians (these were Daphne's thoughts following her father's funeral)
"When you get old," Olive told Andrea after the girl had walked away, "you become invisible. It's just the truth. And yet it's freeing in a way."
--Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again
Make a career of humanity. Make it a central part of your life.
--Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys
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