American Prison: A Reporter's Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment

I picked up Shane Bauer's American Prison: A Reporter's Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment at Book Expo last year, because, while it's not my primary research and advocacy focus, the prison system is a deep and important area of interest for me. It's intricately connected to education, and I can't help but care about the business of prison. 

Bauer is a journalist for Mother Jones magazine, and several years ago he decided to go undercover at a Louisiana prison to repent his experiences as a corrections officer there at a for-profit prison. His year-long experiment was quickly shortened — he lasted only a few months. However, it was enough to shape him and leaving him questioning everything he thought he knew about himself. 

He’s first hired over the phone, sight unseen. The for-profit prison system pays CO’s less than minimum wage, and they are hurting for employees. In fact, before finishing training, Bauer’s cohort is whittled down quite a bit. His whole training experience is enough to turn your stomach; beginning from the moment he walks in the door, not a single inmate at the Winn Correctional Center is seen as human. They are animals, and the COs’ jobs are to treat them as such. 

There is so much packed in this book, including a concise history of the for-profit prison industry, and it’s hard to know where to begin. The overall trajectory Bauer presents of himself — of a man seeking justice through journalism to a man who begins to see the inmates of Winn as the animals he is trained to view them as — was the most startling albeit the most predictable to anyone who has taken Psych 101. It’s the Stanford Prison Experiment writ large. It also feeds into a long-term research plan of mine related to education, but that’s neither here nor for this particular post. I wasn’t surprised at all at Bauer’s transformation, but wow, was it fast. Only a matter of months. It’s shocking how quickly the human brain will transform into full-scale survival mode. 

Winn, as many for-profit prisons, was facing a CO shortage. Who wants to do that job for less than most cities pay in minimum wage? And then, for those who do, who feels as though they are respected enough by their managers that they then respect the men they are tasked with supervising? It’s a recipe for disaster. My favorite parts of this book quickly became the footnotes, which usually invoked the mentioning of Winn’s denial that any events Bauer discusses aren’t true or that they have no record of them. It’s laughable, really. Anyone who has simply read an article online from anyone who has ever walked into a prison knows that Bauer’s experiences are the norm. 

I highly recommend this book for several reasons: Bauer’s persons journey, his interactions with the incarcerated men on his watch, the history of the for-profit prison system, and the final chapters in which Bauer shows the aftermath of his experiences and his reporting. It is well worth the time to ingest this book and sit with it for a time. 

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl: A Novel

As a tie-in with the movie a couple of years ago, the publisher was giving away copies of Jesse Andrews’ Me and Earl and the Dying Girl at Book Expo. I ended up not seeing the movie or reading the book until this last week, and not damn if I’m not kicking myself for reading this earlier. 

Greg is a kid with no ties in high school. He likes it that way — he can float around with no group affiliation and just marginally stay out of trouble that way. He has a friend, Earl, who barely has parents and smokes and peppers his language with curse words regularly. They are film aficionados, and they bond over watching and making films. Those films, though, are never presented or shared. That is, until one of Greg’s classmates, Rachel, receives a cancer diagnosis and Greg’s mom makes him befriend her. She gets her hands on these films and they bring her joy. Unfortunately for Greg, this sets off a chain of events that make the knowledge of his filmmaking public and changes the events of his last months in high school. And not, I might add, for the better. 

I was quite pleasantly surprised by how humorous I found this book. Not every book that purports itself to be a comedy about cancer is actually funny. Andrews’ protagonist, Greg, is hilariously amazing. I completely understood him as a character very early on, because Andrews’ character development is fully on point. I imagine he must be a teenager at heart because his characters were fully, entirely three dimensional and incredibly real. I know Earl; I’ve seen him and met him and he was painted with such a fine tip that I got him. Rachel is important but somewhat minor; her illness is sad for sure, but it’s more of a vehicle to understand Greg than it was about her dying. 

This book was just so funny. It’s not a traditional kind of funny, but more of a snarky and “catch me if you can” kind of funny. Greg is odd, and that’s what makes him so likeable. His telling of this story in differing formats, including as a screenplay at times, made the story enjoyable and easy to relate to. After all, who doesn’t envision their lives as part of a movie? I’m holding on to this book to put on my son’s shelf when he becomes of age to read it. I think he will enjoy it as much as I did. 

His Favorites: A Novel

I read a blurb about Kate Walbert's His Favorites on a "Best of 2018" list somewhere, so I picked up an e-book version from the library. 

The blurbs were right — this is a bewitching story that weaves two huge events together. The beauty of this book is not in a climactic punch, but rather in its intense prose and weaving together if the narrative. Jo is a young, carefree girl until the death of her best friend which will haunt her for years to come. She can’t go back to school — it’s too much to bear. She is lucky to be accepted to Hawthorne, a boarding school, so late after the start of the year. Her isolation, however, makes her a target of Master, the notorious teacher who gloms onto the beautiful young things he grooms through his modernist seminar. These two seemingly disparate events shape Jo into adulthood. 

This book was such a whirlwind that taking a step back to think on my thoughts about it knocks the wind out of me. It’s such a beautiful book that I felt like a lobster in a cool pot of water; it wasn’t until the book ended that I realized the water was boiling and I wouldn’t make it out alive. Jo was at times sympathetic and at others quite not so, as it’s hard to tell her that she shouldn’t blame herself for her best friend’s death. However, the most beautiful part of Jo is when she explains her confusion with the public reaction to Stephanie, her best friend, after she dies. Suddenly, in the newspaper articles and funerals notices, it’s a new girl. While everything these reports say is true, they capture an angel and not the true person Stephanie was on a Tuesday evening. This description was apt and quite affecting, as it’s something I’ve ruminated on for sometime, how we take people in death and make them into someone they weren’t in life. Or at a minimum a better version. Walbert wrote it better than I could. 

This book was just glorious, and it was quite a meditation on who we become when we live our lives. Every little event affects us, and shapes our souls. Walbert’s prose brings this through the paper and to the surface of our consciousness. And what a beautiful ride it is. 

Long Road to Mercy: An Atlee Pine Thriller

I think at some point I told you about my family's tradition (began last year) to give a book on Christmas Eve and then spend the day and night reading. This year my husband wanted to get me something that would surprise me, so he picked out David Baldacci's newest, Long Road to Mercy. 

Altee Pine is doing what she does best as an FBI field agent assigned to A small area in Arizona. It’s what she prefers to the stuffy, suited world of the East Coast. Her domain includes the Grand Canyon, so she is called out one morning when tour guides find a mule dead and a client missing. Little does Atlee know that this confusing case will lead to twists and turns, dips and peaks, leading her on a chase for people from the Southwest to the Northeast that don’t seem to exist yet are putting national security at risk. It’s literally a matter of life and death for Atlee and many residents of the United States. 

I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed Baldacci’s work overall. It shouldn’t surprise me — the man is a prolific crime writer with dozens of tomes to his name — but as this was my first foray into Baldacci-dom, I found myself quite pleased with the book overall. He weaves a tight narrative, keeps me on my toes, and builds suspense so that it keeps me plowing through the pages with a forcefulness that mimicks the protagonists’. This wasn’t a page-turner in the sense that I absolutely had to find out what happened next; rather, there was a forcefulness to the mission to support to Pine in discovering the truth that Baldacci made me feel was my responsibility. 

Pine was also a great character. She has her flaws and her weaknesses, but she is a hard-ass who has no shame in being exactly who she is. She loves her job and also doesn’t take shit from anyone, as attested by the hole she punched in her wall to get a suspect to talk. She slowly and skeptically let’s her secretary in to become her unexpected partner, and while she is hesitant, I came to see the deep humanity in this character. I loved how smart she was — and how she owned it — and how Baldacci used his character as the backbone of the story that drove it. I’m unsure that this particular mystery would have been solved without Pine. 

The best surprise? My husband’s name in the final pages. He didn’t know anything about this, but imagine how my jaw absolutely dropped when I read this. 

Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive

I picked up Stephanie Land's Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive at BookExpo last year as it was touted at the Adult Book Buzz panel as one of the hottest releases of the year. 

Stephanie is like many in America, but in ways that you might be uncomfortable speaking about. She grew up in poverty, and in early adulthood, she was working service jobs when she meets Jamie, who will become the father of her child. They agreed that their romance would be a fling — Stephanie had dreams of college in Missoula. When she becomes pregnant, she wants to give Jamie the chance to be a father, but instead she finds herself in a domestic violence situation with nowhere to turn. When she finally gets away, she finds herself dependent upon government assistance for everything from rent and electric to childcare — this while working long hours doing manual labor. Even while keeping her head up and trying to stay afloat, she deals with people remarking, “You’re welcome,” to her while she checks out in the grocery store with her EBT card. Her story is one that is repeated all across America — an entire swath of our population lives on less than $2 a day. 

Land is a profound writer who hits the shapest notes of strength and pride while still baring her soul for her readers. This book is no pity party; rather, it’s the story of a woman of tremendous strength who wants her reader to understand that when you live in poverty, there is never any getting ahead. The moment you do, you find yourself knocked down again — something as simple as a car not starting wreaks havoc for months on the loves of those living on an hourly minimum wage. Savings is a pipe dream. Land weaved her tale for us in a tight knit that made me empathize with her plight and angry at her circumstances. While you may feel there’s not much you can do, this is inaccurate. 

You can’t hate social programs and then say we can’t, as one of the wealthiest countries in the world, gauantee a living minimum wage for workers in every sector. Welfare is dead, and it has been for years. If you are paying attention, you know this to be true. Land goes into tedious detail explaining what life is like when you are on assistance — it’s almost a full-time job just to get what you need to be able to work. It’s a different application for everything (occasionally you get lucky and some applications double up), and each visit to each office takes hours on end. This is assuming that you never get sick and don’t need to take off work to go to a doctor. These minor inconveniences to people with salaried jobs are major catastrophies for people — mostly women, mostly single mothers — who fear losing what difficult-to-find work they had in the first place. 

That’s if you are lucky enough to have a regular work schedule, which Land finds when she begins working for a cleaning company. My heart broke for her when she entered into a relationship destined to fail — when it finally ended I was hopeful that she could make it on her own. I was angry when the doctors called her a bad mother for her living conditions — we are all trying to do our best with the circumstances we have. I  rode for her when her car went out of commission, the circumstances of which you will need to read for yourself. Land is an outstanding writer, and she brings us along on the journey that starts when her daughter takes her first steps in a homeless shelter. 

I’m always amazed when I listen to how some people speak of those on government assistance, and the coded language they use to describe those they feel are below them. Little do they know that the summer I lost my job, I sought out SNAP to help ease my financial burden. I qualified, but the process of obtaining them was so time consuming that I wouldn’t have been able to work what jobs I could find babysitting. It was an eye-opening moment for me, as was my visit to the unemployment office for a mandated job-training course. We were all treated like absolute morons. It was sobering to be sure. 

This isn’t a plea for empathy so much as it is a call to give Land’s book an open-minded read. Live in her world for a few hours, and imagine yourself in her shoes. 

Act Natural: A Cultural History of Misadventures in Parenting

You know I love a good parenting book, so when I read the blurb about Jennifer Traig's Act Natural: A Cultural History of Misadventures in Parenting I was completely sold. 

One peice of advice you get as a new parent — and arguably one of the most well-intentioned yet completely useless — is to trust your instincts. After all, parenting is natural. Everyone knows how to do it! Except...

You should be a little more familiar with history. It turns out, there is nothing even remotely natural about parenting. Humans have spent centuries making absolutely stupid decisions about their children. There is a reason people have been horrible forever — it’s because they are products of their environment and child-rearing. As I like to tell everyone, when we know better, we do better. However, it’s also fair to point out that since the late ‘70’s, the Western world has taken the very new concept of “parenting” and run with it. The pendulum has swung in the opposite direction and humans still generally suck. 

But don’t worry! Just trust your instincts. It’s natural. 

I loved this book as a cultural history of parenting. I’ve railed in previous posts about how parenting has become a verb and it’s done some damage to adults’ self-worth and beliefs about themselves. Here, Traig has selected a few big topics and has given us a concise yet very full history of parenting advice from as far back as it was written. Some of it is horrifying, some of it is funny, and some of it is absurd. Occasionally you will find advice that is on-point. She takes  us through birth to feeding and toddlerhood to adolescence. You would be surprised at some of the recommendations that you should maybe still think about today. 

However, humans have been offering unsolicited and stupid advice for generations upon generations. Traig pulls it out in this book and presents it to you as-is with a side of self-depricating humor. She’s not interested in giving you parenting advice; she’s just telling you about the absurdity that lies in the history of men telling women how to parent. Because if we are really going to get down to brass tacks, that’s the history of child-reading advice. (The best is when the men either didn’t have children of their own or gave them away to be raised somewhere else.)

It took me a hot second to adjust to Traig’s asides in her writing, but once I did I thoroughly appreciated her jabs at history and her willingness to own her parenting choices. This is not a holier-than-thou retelling, and she’s strait forward in making sure you know that she’s just trying to get by. However, she knows that you are too even if you present yourself as a perfect family on social media. (I’m also calling out you all who like to throw in a “what a crazy day!” post every once in a while. We know you. We see you. We know you are full of shit.) It turns out parenting has been hard across history for different reasons, and at the end of the day, this book just celebrates us all getting by in whatever way we can. 

The Dreamers: A Novel

Karen Thompson Walker's The Age of Miracles is a book that hit me like a ton of bricks and has stayed with me for years (since 2012!); when I saw that her newest book, The Dreamers, was available for request on Netgalley I jumped on it. 

A mysterious virus is snaking it’s way through Santa Lora, a sleepy college town deep in California. It’s starts with one student, makes its way to get another, and soon the entire town is blanketed in sleep, dreaming but not waking. Very few will be left awake, and the town is under full quarantine. Who will survive and who will not? What is happening deep down at the cellular level to cause this disease — and what are the dreamers dreaming? 

I wish that my blurb on this book could be a fraction as eloquent as Walker is in her prose. She is one of the most languid and beautiful novelists of our day. She writes with such a deep understanding of her characters yet provides us this knowledge at a remove; it’s as if she’s our higher power telling us the story of our ancient civilization. It’s a folklore that will be come to know by all who dwell here. It’s incredible, her ability to move me as a reader while still feeling like a universal storyteller. 

Walker focuses on Mei, a young woman who feels like an outcast in her college dorm. Her roommate is the first to experience infection and pass away. Walker has written Mei to be the most empathetic of characters, one that is easy to relate to even though in the surface it seems we have nothing in common. Mei, who is asked to endorse more than any 19 year-old does. She is in the eye of the hurricane and when it fans out, she is the moral compass in the storm. She, along with Sarah and Libby, the two young daughters of janitor at the college, anchored this story for me more than any other characters. The couple with the baby felt too close to home for me, as it made my gut ache. Walker has a way of doing that. The story is important, but the characters’ journeys are the lifeblood. 

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing

I had a Great on Kindle credit and didn't want for much, but at the moment Marie Kondo's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing was on sale and caught my eye. My mom and several friends swore by it, so I gave it a go. 

For those of you who missed the craze, Kondo built the KonMari method. You hold an object in your hands and ask yourself if it brings you joy. If it does, you keep it. If it doesn’t, you toss it. That’s the long and short of it although there is definitely more to it in the fine details. Kondo hates organization tools; she feels it creates a false sense of tidyiness rather than actual tidyness. She has a point there. While some stuff I could get behind, others made me cock my head in wonder. 

Here is an Instagram post I put up a couple of months ago, toward the end of 2018. 

I came to the KonMari method late — both in book time (this book came out a few years ago) and in cleaning time (see the above post). I read it after my big year-long purge, so it was interesting to read the book and compare methods. (Disclaimer: my way was in no way a method. I just have a small child who gets into everything and I don’t have the luxury of doing my whole house in a week anyway.) There were some things that I preemptively followed to the letter — I didn’t lose a lot of sleep about getting rid of things, and I didn’t keep things that didn’t bring me joy — and there were some things that made me curious. I don’t openly thank objects myself; maybe it’s my American puritanical upbringing, but I have a hard time thanking objects. (Although, now that I think about it, I’ve definitely said goodbye to objects.) 

One other things that was important to me in my great purge that Kondo doesn’t address is that it was, and still is, very important to me to get rid of things “ethically.” I can’t just throw things away — in case you haven’t heard, the world has a trash problem — and just dropping things off at a Goodwill means they will likely end up in the trash. So I have a nice amount of things still waiting to leave my apartment for a clothing swap in February and another in June, and a bag of shoes to go with it. 

I appreciated that Kondo doesn’t preach about buying less so much as only keeping what makes you happy. She actually recognizes that you will buy more things, but the hope in the tidying process is that you will recognize what brings you joy. One point of note she makes about clothes is that most of her clients it rid of pieces that others gave her. I’ve noticed that too. I got rid of a lot of beautiful pieces that just don’t fit my postpartum body, but I also got rid of pieces that just weren’t me. Interestingly enough, many of those were gifts.   

There are things I’ve taken from this book. With what’s left over, specifically around my own clothes, I’m evaluating piece by piece which I want to keep. I wear work clothes to work and when I look in the mirror, if I don’t feel 100% confident in how I look, I put the piece in the clothing swap pile as soon as I get home. I commented to my husband just yesterday how much more empty our closet feels — I’ve never had so many empty hangers. I’m also much more picky about what I buy. I subscribed to a clothing rental service (Gwynnie Bee), and I’m super happy with it. It’s rentals, but if you like you can buy. I get to wear something once or twice and see how it wears. I’ve bought a lot of basics through this — black pants and dresses, a top I LOVE — and I’ve been able to change up my wardrobe through new dresses weekly. 

I still have more to do. I haven’t tackled my office in full yet, although I did start yesterday. I feel as though I spend less time picking up on a daily basis now that I’ve gotten rid of things. I also took advantage of Kondo’s suggestion of small box organizers in my drawers and it’s made a world of difference in my calmness while food prepping. All in all, the book was worth the read even if I didn’t, and wouldn’t, follow everything to the letter. Let’s all try to live tidier lives. 

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

David Grann's Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI has been on my to-read list for a while, but with so many physical books actually on my shelf, it has been relegated to the wish list. This summer, while at the beach, my best friend handed me her copy and told me I had to read it. I was ecstatic.

In the early 1920’s members of the Osage tribe in Oklahoma began dying off, some suspiciously and others through outright murder. At the time, most white settlers could not care less, as they viewed the Indians as less than human and despised the Osage for their shrewd maneuvering of the oil system to claim headrights to the liquid gold underneath their reservation, making them all wealthy beyond belief. The headrights, however, were the key to this mystery, as they could only be obtained through inheritance — no Osage could sell their rights. Could there really be a cold-blooded plot to murder dozens of men and women simply for their fortunes? As Hoover’s FBI is in its infancy and the feds as we know them were just starting to take shape, this case, known by the Osage as the Reign of Terror, would become the cornerstone of the bourgeoning agency and would remain a  source of devastation to the descendants of a people who deserved so much better. 

I found this story, and this book about it, to be absolutely fascinating. I didn’t want to put it down, and I was thrown by the calculated, cold-bloodedness if it all. Interestingly, the mastermind of a large amount of the murders comes out mid-way through the story, and it’s almost unbelievable because you’ve come to know the man as someone doing good. I found it odd that as much as I love murder and mayhem, and as much true crime as I read, that wi would be flabbergasted by the white man’s lack of limits for wealth. To look at a group of people as genuinely inhuman and as lacking the same humanity that you have is just something I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around. It’s not that I don’t believe it — after all, we have all seen how cruel humanity can be — it’s just that when confronted when something this diabolical and cruel, it’s difficult for someone like me to grasp it. I wouldn’t even begin to imagine a plot like this, so it’s not a surprise that I have a hard time wrapping my head around it. 

Grann’s writing is wonderful and easy to read without being pedantic, and I appreciate the adaptability of the journalist to reach a lay audience. I loved the weaving of the Osage murder plot with the beginnings of the FBI, and he was wonderful at combining the information that we needed to know about the FBI and which would enhance our understanding of the Osage murders without burdening us with minutiae. I can see why this book was a bestseller and why it was consistently rated as one of the top non-fiction titles of the year it was published. 

It’s a strong and important retelling if a piece of hurtful history in Osage history and, frankly, in American history. Our country’s treatment of the Natives in so many ways was beyond cruel, and then to read it as personalized as Grann has made it here slaps you in the face. It only started with displacement and genocide and then it continued on with guardianships of the Osage fortunes, declaring Natives as incompetent and essentially forcing them to marry white man and women, and then turning a blind eye to their systematic murders for greed. When we say that as Americans we are “better than this,” we can pick up a book that extols the history of our dehumanization of the people who owned our land before we did and we can hopefully recognize that no, we aren’t — but that we can learn from history and choose to be better from here on out. 

Girl with a Pearl Earring

I have a whole bunch of older books that I buy when I go to bookstores while traveling, books that I've always wanted to read or that I should read because everyone has. Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier was one of these. I wasn't too keen on picking it up as I don't care for period pieces, but once I did I found myself absolutely captivated. 

Griet is almost sixteen when her parents inform her that she will be serving as a maid to help with family finances. She is sent to work for the Vermeer family, and one of her tasks is to clean the painter’s studio without moving a single thing. She struggles in the beginning to find her place in the house, with a fiery mistress, an ever-pregnant wife, and a stoic master. As the painter takes to Griet, she takes to him as well. His talent fuels her. When a wealthy patron known for his indiscretions takes to Griet, her master seeks to shield her from his advances. His efforts lead to one of his greatest works — but the end of Griet. 

I went into this novel hesitant for several reasons. First, I tend to not be into period pieces not historical fiction. I’ll give it a shot, but I’m more of a contemporary murder and mayhem kind of girl. Second, this was such a big hat that I was sure it would be overhyped. I have learned my lessons the hard way. I had purchased this at a used bookstore somewhere forever and a day ago, and since I was trying to work through some older books to sell back to the used bookstore this summer, I thought I would pick it up. I was wrong to be hesitant, as it was a great piece of work. 

I found Chevalier’s writing style to be compelling. I was interested in enough in her storytelling that I continually wanted to come back to find out where the story was going. It was a slow burn — this is not a high-octane, action-packed thriller, so there needs to be an element of languid prose to be able to keep me interested in what’s going to happen next. The key in why I enjoyed this so much was in the author’s weaving of the complicated pattern of Griet’s life. The characters served to move the story rather than the other way around. Chevalier made this work to deliver a carefully crafted story that was so vivid it felt real. 

Griet’s father plays a small role, but it is her relationship with him that drives the plot line and reveals moments that otherwise might not be revealed. Pieter, the butcher’s son who takes a fancy to Griet, is not a loveable guy but is necessary to what will be Griet’s ultimate breaking point in the Vermeer house. I even found myself rooting for him even though I didn’t actually like him. Again, that’s a touchpoint in this novel. Vermeer wasn’t even terribly likeable but he was compelling as a character nonetheless. 

I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this novel, and now I’m curious to check out the film and see what I think of it. I had never seen it, although I’m familiar with Scarlett Johansson as the lead and WOW, is that ever a 1:1 match. Talk about on point. However, I find myself wanting to live with the characters I developed in my mind with this book, as Chevalier has created such a vivid picture for me. Only time will tell. 

Sick: A Memoir

Porochista Khakpour's Sick: A Memoir was a popular new release, so I jumped on the bandwagon as soon as it came out. I was unfamiliar with her previous work, and much to my shame. She is a beautiful, compelling writer who drew me in with her prose and her tale-weaving. 

Most likely but as a child, Porochista has never known a time when she wasn’t sick. Things had always felt off for her, and when as a young woman at college in New York she finds herself spiraling down into a series of health breaks, she can’t quite put her finger on why. Although several people mention the possibility of Lyme over the next few years, it’s not until a definitive diagnosis almost a decade later that she can find any sort of short-lives relief. Her work and wanderlust takes her all over the word, but her illness continues to bring her back. 

Porochista’s story is fascinating, and well worth a read. She has many in her life who don’t believe her, and through her story I did a great deal of reckoning with myself over people I have known who have suffered from similar ailments. Was I a non-believer? Did I hurt anyone I loved because of an illness that was hard to diagnose? Quite possibly. I also had to reckon with my own ailments. I have been suffering from extreme exhaustion on and off for four years. It got better with pregnancy and post-partum, but it’s recently started to read its ugly head again. No doctor has taken me seriously, and so I soldier on, grateful that I have the ability to work from home on days when I just have difficulty moving. 

Following Porochista’s journey from childhood to adulthood and colored by this mysterious illness that has lent a cloud cover to her development was fascinating. Her timelining her illness with her relationships was something we can all easily relate to, even though by the time her illness became so bad that she had to leave Germany, I wanted to smack her and tell her to let herself heal emotionally as well as physically. For once, a character listened to me! For a bit, anyway, so by the time she found a relationship after making her way back to NYC I was cheering for her. 

I appreciate that she ended the book with the recognition that her journey is far from over. She talks about the book that she pitched which is not the book that she ended up with due to an unexpected relapse. Her open heart that she lays bare on her pages makes me feel as though she is my friend, and her words strung together on the page have made me think more deeply and honestly about capital-H Health. 

When Breath Becomes Air

Recently in my apartment building, someone started a book table where they leave books and others can take them. I am not interested in most of the titles, but occasionally one pops out that I have wanted to read. This was the case with Paul Kalanithi's When Breath Becomes Air.

This book is mostly a memoir, but it is a beautiful and arresting treatise on life and love. How do we live to our fullest? Kalanithi tells us, because he did it. Beginning as a child with a deep love of literature instilled in him by his mother, he was encouraged by his parents to delve deep into his curiosity and to learn. In college he continued to immerse himself in his beloved literature as well as indulge his curiosity in how the mind works through biology and the beginning inklings of neuroscience. He then went off to find himself, continuing his studies at Cambridge before moving on to medical school and eventually becoming one of the most sought-after neurosurgeons and neuroscientists in the nation. He married Lucy, the love of his life whom he first met in medical school, and together they had a child when they knew his life was near its end. Other than dying at a young age -- 37 -- he had it all.

But the thing that Paul teaches us in this book that dying is merely the end, but it's not the definition of who we are the lives that we have led. The measure of our worth as humans are the things we have accomplished in between birth and death -- knowledge, love, kindness, and the depth of our souls. In this short memoir, he puts that all to words in the most eloquent, moving, and thoughtful prose I have ever read. His words seared my heart in a reminder of how important it is to reflect on our lives through the lens of thankfulness when we have been given so much. Paul is one of the most gifted motivational writers that has ever existed (and yes, I am not exaggerating), and just a few hours with his gifted mind feels like it was a gift meant for me. It is clear why he would have been incredibly successful as a writer, and his self-education in literature is apparent in his writing.

There are so many beautiful moments in this book to touch on, but I want you to read them for yourself. When Paul is diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer in his 30's, at the height of his career, when he is being pursued by some of the most elite medical institutions, he has to reexamine his life plan. Practicing medicine for the next 20 years and spending the following 20 as a writer isn't possible anymore. He just won't live that long. He has to make a decision to live the last of his days and months to their fullest. He finishes out his residency, he begins this book, and he and Lucy decide to have a baby. This is where I am broken.

Paul's final words in his final chapter broke me as a human. His final paragraph, written to his infant daughter, is the most meaningful work I have ever written. It's simplicity belies the depth of his words and the meaning of life and love for another human. Even if the rest of the book wasn't worth the read -- and it very much is worth every second you will give to it -- those last few words will wreck you.

But you aren't done -- you need to read Lucy's afterword. Reading her bear her raw soul in telling us about her last few moments with her husband was so real that I had to read it in one-paragraph chunks. It was too much to bear in one setting without openly breaking down.

This book as a whole is one of the all time greatest memoirs ever written. 

Dan Brown's Origin

I happen to quite enjoy Dan Brown's work from a relaxed reading perspective. The subject matter is terribly interesting and I like being challenged with learning new things. Origin is no exception.  

Edmond Kirsch has discovered a secret that will change the how humans believe in supernatural forces. He claims it will even turn the masses away from religion. The winderkind computer scientist, a former student of Robert Langston’s, is about to present his discovery to the world when he is shot down moments before hiring “play” on his presentation to the world. Langdon (as usual, frankly) is immediately suspected and must go on the run with the stunning Ambra Vidal, curator of the museum and fiancé of the future King of Spain, also suspected in the gruesome plot to kill her friend Edmond. What was Kirsch’s discovery, and what other secrets was he keeping that deeply affect the future of mankind — and what does his militant hatred of religion have to do with it all? 

How on this green earth does Langdon find himself in these ridiculous quagmires? Exactly how many times in the span of a decade must be run for his life while solving a great mystery that puts the fate of millions in his hands? While I quite enjoyed this book, I had to wonder as I was halfway through how much longer Brown can put Langdon in these odd positions without us starting to catch on. I mean, how am I supposed to trust Tom Hanks the next time I see him? I am definitely not getting on a plane with that guy. 

All that being said, I quite enjoyed this book. While I don’t think it’s necessarily one of Brown’s intellectual best thrillers (I leave that still to Angels and Demons), I was quite fascinated by his weaving together a tale around the origins of life, which were actually quite plausible. By the time we got to the heart of the matter, which was Kirsch’s discovery of the origins of life (I will say no more), I was ready to jump into the science of entropy. I appreciated Brown’s ability to come up with such an intricate and heady scientific concept, and I was digging it. (As one guy I only went on one date because, well, you see, he constantly said, “I Dog, I dig.” Like, always twice in a row. I’m giggling now as I write this.)

There were some eye-roll inducing parts, such as Brown’s constant reference to the discovery that would shake religious belief forever — see, this went on for the better part of the book and I wanted to just tell, “Tell is the fuck about it already.” It was quite overwrought and we could have dealt without the melodramatics by, I would guess, 40%. But hey, this is Brown’s book and not mine. 

Weaving together this detailed story, it was nice to see it all come together at the end into a semi-loose narrative. There were some things that I think were extra (like motivations of red herrings, and you will just have to accept my lack of spoilers here), but overall I enjoyed myself and that’s really why I come to Brown’s novels when it comes down to brass tacks. 

The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel that Scandalized the World

One of the top five adult buzz books at BookExpo this year was Sarah Weinman's The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel that Scandalized the World. I nabbed myself a copy and was hooked as soon as I started reading. Sally Horner was a young girl -- not even twelve years old, who was coerced into running away with a man four times her age. A simple act of youthful rebellion -- stealing something from the dime store -- set off a series of events that removed her from her family for two years and pushed her into a nightmare that would define her life.

It might seem odd to many of us that a young girl could be "kidnapped" but not picked up and hauled off. She went with Frank La Salle (a name among many he used) willingly because he told her that he was an FBI agent who required her to come with him on a road trip to avoid being arrested and telling her mother for the petty theft. We as a society underestimate the fear and the power that adults have over children, and how likely it is that children feel obligated to those in power will do what they say, even if they get a creepy gut feeling that they shouldn't. (I will put a plug in here to say that teaching children compliance as opposed to autonomy contributes greatly to being picked as a victim by predators -- they know to look out for this type of child who willingly goes along and fears getting in trouble for "telling.") Ten years ago I would have not believed that Sally went along so willingly with a convicted child molester; a decade, some degrees, and a lot of reading later I understand how easy it was for La Salle to take her and convince her poor mother that he was the father of a classmate.

Sally's time with Frank is only known somewhat, although there are details from witnesses who knew them in the neighborhoods in which they lived. The long-term effects of her ordeal, though, were not to be seen, as she died young in a tragic car accident. Her experience didn't just affect her, however. It affected her mother and sister, and her friends that she had both before the experience and after. However, the most wide-ranging impact Sally's kidnapping had was on the public at large, as she served as an inspiration for Vladmir Nabakov's Lolita. While he would deny it until the day he died, Weinman's detailed and painstaking research shows that he was quite familiar with the story, even weaving details too small for the public to recognize into his narratives.

This book was gripping and I couldn't put it down. Weinman is an outstanding narrative non-fiction writer and she tells a tale that is winding and confusing in as close to a linear manner as she can, while still keeping us totally involved in the story. It reads like a novel until  Weinman brings you back out of Sally's story and reminds you that Nabakov was living a parallel life at the time. It is the best way to tell Sally's story; otherwise, it's incredibly difficult. She was sexually assaulted the entire time she was gone, and she was captive to a man who worshiped her in the creepiest way you can imagine. Weinman has crafted a gorgeous retelling of a time in a young girl's life that was horrific, yet iconic. It's well worth sinking your teeth into and getting to know the other side of a book you may know, whether you like it or not.

I need to read Lolita now, as I have never read it. I never had a desire to, but reading Weinman's take on the book and her deep connections to Sally's story makes me intrigued as to what my take of the book would be. Will it be a sordid tale that makes me shiver, or will I despise Humbert Humbert in the way that Nabakov possibly intended his audience to feel toward a man who is clearly a sexual predator? I love a good unreliable narrator, so I will look out for it soon on my next few jaunts to the used bookstore.

The Library Book

Susan Orlean's latest book, The Library Book, was a hot ticket at Book Expo this year. I didn't get a hard copy, which was a bummer, but I was approved for an electronic copy so I jumped for joy. And what a joy this book was. 

One spring morning in 1986, a fire broke out at the main Los Angeles Public Library. It was so intense, so all-consuming that 30 years later, residents remember it well. No one knows exactly how or where it started, only that it was arson. A suspect began to emerge — a man named Harry Peak, an aspiring actor and a generally confusing man who lived to spin tall tales. Orlean, a recent Los Angeles transplant, hears about the story after re-finding her childhood love of libraries at the venerable Los Angeles institution. Part narrative non-fiction, part historical record of the Los Angeles Public Library, and part love letter to libraries everywhere, this book focuses in on a place we all know and love yet rarely dig deep into: the oublic library. 

I wanted to read this book, but I can also say from looking into the rear view mirror that I wasn’t quite expecting what I got with this book. It was so much more than I was expecting, which was an historical account of this fire that destroyed millions of books and brought out the best in Los Angelenos. Orlean has put together a beautiful book that closely examines the history of libraries in general and the LAPL in terms of its origins, it’s sexist history, and the current societal position it holds as a welcome mat for the masses regardless of race, color, creed, gender, or even itinerancy. The library is open to all who can get through their doors while they are open. Orlean focuses on this and breathes life into a building that is so much more than that, as it is the lifeblood of the city to so many. 

The trips that Orlean takes with the staff of the LAPL, to other branches both closed and in use; into meetings about how to better serve their constituencies; and to library conferences where staff from all over the world seek ways to improve what they do in a changing world all serve to elevate the story of the fire and give us, the readers, a full-bodied and overt understanding of why we need public libraries. This was an absolutely fascinating read, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. And if you aren’t already a partron of your local public library, make it a point to go before the month is out. See the good these places do for all of our communities, no matter where we are in the United States. 

Ohio: A Novel

The premise of Stephen Markley's novel Ohio was so compelling that I fought tooth and nail to get an advanced copy. 

One hot, muggy night in The Cane a few years bah, four classmates converge on their hometown (New Canaan, but really, who calls it that?) on a series of missions that are inextricably bound even if they don’t realize it. Bill is running an errand for an old friend, muling something he doesn’t know but would love to find out because the drugs he’s taking are nuts. Stacey has been asked to meet with her nemesis, the mother of her high school lover who has run away and wants it to stay that way. Dan is a veteran of three tours who is back to visit his folks and catch up with the only woman he has ever loved. Tina seeks a reckoning for choices others made for her that have steered her life since high school. Tonight will change the trajectory of so many lives, leaving the wreckage of the baggage of the past out and open for all to see. 

So, I’m dead. I was so utterly, completely destroyed by this novel that I can’t even see strait. This was such an outstanding piece of work that I honestly thought I might never read anything else ever again. This absolutely killed me. I felt myself slowly creeping back to the book after I put it down, wanting to be back in the world of these kids who were just that — kids — as they watched their world change so drastically. These characters are a little younger than me, and I understand their zeitgeist because it is my own. I know what it is like to live without war, without the prison industrial complex, and without the full invasion of addicting, homemade drugs. The landscape of their lives has shifted dramatically in small-town post-industrial America that it’s no wonder those who get out can, and they never return. Those who stay end up barely living if they remain alive. 

I could see some of the twists and turns coming, but I did not see the biggest one, the undercurrent of the reason they all are back. This history, this Eason, draws them all like a magnet back to their center and holds on to them as if their lives depended on it. No matter how far these four have come, they will never be separate from their inner core. Stacey wrestles with her demons and the loss of the first person she truly, whole-heartedly loved. Bill’s demons are all in his head, and he must wrestle with himself in order to breathe. Dan is truly heartbreaking — a man who gave up everything to serve and lost so much, except loyalty. Tina — man, I rooted for Tina once I figured out what she was up to. I wanted her to find a solution so badly. 

This novel was incredibly affecting, so much so that my heart hurt after I closed the final page. It was truly a gift to read in every way, and I’m so grateful it came into my life. 

Florida: Stories

I loved Lauren Groff's Fates and Furies (which I have et to finish, years later!), which I'm not sure I ever blogged about, so I requested her new book of short stories, Florida, as soon as I could. 

I wasn’t entirely sold by the first story — that of a suburban mom who walks her anger off for hours every night, watching her neighborhood change and shift throughout the seasons. But the second story brought me in a bit — that of Jude and his life’s tale in 14 pages. This story was fascinating, in that Groff takes you from Jude’s childhood to the day he sends his daughter off to college. It’s a wild ride, one that manages to break your heart while also being somewhat bare bones. It speaks to Groff’s astounding storytelling, that she can speed through a life and you feel like you know him intimately.

“Dogs Go Wolf,” the third story, is what completely sold me. The tale of two young girls left to fend for themselves on an island, alone, was gripping and jaw-dropping. Groff has this ability to create fully formed characters within a single page, so that when you realize the tragedy of their existence you can’t turn back and in-know it. I was both intrigued and devastated by these two girls, hoping for them that their mother wouldn’t be the jerk that she was and that she would come back for them. It wasn’t meant to be, and we as the readers are better off for that. We leave with more than we came with. 

Through the story of the woman with a head injury camping with her two sons, we move into another one of Groff’s masterpieces, a story in which a woman opts to ride out a hurricane at home, only to be visited by the great dead loves of her past. This story was surprisingly moving and I found my throat catching in moments. It is a little life-flashing-before-your-eyes but with an honest twist, as there are no holds barred between her and her ghosts. 

The next two stories were equally arresting — one of a pair of friends on holiday in France, where secrets peek around every corner, and the other a woman on annual holiday in Brazil in which her mettle is tested by a storm. As the stories progress, Groff’s writing continues to make its mark as she weaves the tales of these women who are three-dimensional and full of life and love and missteps and small triumphs. You may think you know what is going to happen, but Groff will surprise you with what you least expect, and boy, is that a feat. 

As I rinsed out the last of her stories, I put down this book better than when I came to it, and for me that is a mark of the beauty of this work. I need to turn back to Fates and Furies next, this time with a fresh appreciation for Groff and her storytelling. 

The Whistler: A Novel

I may have mentioned this on the blog before, but my husband is the greatest man alive. Not only do I love him for who he is, but he understands and encourages my book obsession. How does that relate to John Grisham's The Whistler? Well, it was one of two books he gifted me for Christmas a couple of years ago -- in hardback no less. Knowing full well that my TBR pile is actually a TBR bookcase that's overflowing. That's love. 

The investigators on Florida’s Board on Judicial Conduct rarely get fired up about their work. There is no shortage of corrupt judges and a big shortage on funding. They do their job, deal with what they can, and go on with their lives. That is, until the day that Lacy Stoltz, a seasoned investigator, gets a lead on one of the biggest cases of anyone’s career. It involves many moving parts — a corrupt judge in the pocket of a mysterious billionaire who no one has eyes on, an Indian reservation and casino, and an informant who changes his own identity too much to keep of track of. It seems like a complicated case but it soon becomes dangerous — no one guessed when they went to law school that they might also lose their life. 

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this novel. It was a slight departure from the Grisham formula while still holding true to the legalistic thriller that he does so well. I don’t remember in the past being drawn to Grisham’s female characters; it could possibly be because he doesn’t often have female protagonists that are strong and smart and the actual lead of the story. I could be wrong — I’m not going back to check right now — but it worked in this story. I quite liked Lacy and her firebrand attitude. I liked that she was a badass at her job but when tragedy strikes, she is still a fully-developed human who dead with things the way we all do — caution and putting walls up and wariness about other people’s motives. 

I also appreciated that this story had twists and turns that I didn’t see coming but even if I had, I would still be left guessing so many details. Those moving parts I mentioned. This was a complicated story that could have twisted out of control but Grisham kept the story centered and grounded in the one solid understanding that power corrupts and the love of money is the root of all evil. I passed this book on to a friend of mine to enjoy as much as I did. 

The Mars Room: A Novel

I read about Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room as a highly-anticipated summer read, so I immediately hopped on the library request train for it.

Romy Hall is on her way to her permanent prison assignment to begin the first of her two life sentences. She has left behind her young boy in the care of her mother, with whom she's never had a great relationship. As she reflects back on the events that brought her there, starting with her work at the strip club The Mars Room, we visit her scrappy life on the fringes of society, her choices and her independence, and the unfair way that systemic issues put her away. She moves forward in her life in prison, creating a life for herself with no hope of getting out, forming alliances and friendships and aching for her baby boy. When there is no hope of seeing the outside again, how do you hold on to what you love the most?

I originally wanted to find out what the life sentences were for -- of course it was murder, but what's the story there? -- and while you find out early on, it takes the whole book to put the pieces together, ending with a flash-bang punch in the gut when you realize that even though every story has two sides, it's only because there are two perspectives. It's not necessarily because both people are right. I think I was oblique enough in that description for those who don't want spoilers, but I'll go in detail in the paragraph below. Skip to the following if you don't want to know some details.

We find out very early on that Romy killed her stalker when he showed up at her new home in a new city, the one she moved to in order to get away from him. This seems fairly cut and dry, because of course she felt threatened. Even though I stick by that throughout my next statements, Kushner did a ram-bam-thank-you-ma'am treatment on the stalker when we hear his story in the final few chapters. In his mind, he was in love with her and only wanted to make sure she was OK by following her around. Now, we know that this would have escalated -- it almost always does -- and I still feel the protagonist was in the right for defending herself. The issue here is the mind of the stalker. It's not a malicious series of events in his mind, even if you and I would agree that his actions were creepy and inappropriate. This is what makes Kushner so remarkable; she doesn't aim to make things black and white and she has an incredible ability to whack you over the head with empathetic story telling.

Romy is a character that I grew to love and I looked back on her life with in hopes that I could fix the things that went wrong. Not her choices, but the things that happened to her that stacked up against her. It's easy to say that her choices led her to those moments, but it's far more complicated than that. She chose to move, she chose a life with a man who could give her just what she needed at that moment, she created a community in her odd little world, but it couldn't spare her the fate that she faced. Reading her tale of her trial was painful because it's the story of so many indigent accused. Whether or not they deserve to serve a life sentence isn't the way of the justice system -- it's about the counsel you can afford. Unfortunately for a large swath of the population in the US, that's an overworked and underpaid public defender. Just listening (well...reading) to Romy's conversation with hers when she calls from prison asking about her son is infuriating. While I understood her anger and despair, I also understood that the public defender couldn't give his all to everyone when they were no longer on his docket.

Kushner's book is a wonder, and it's hard to put down even as you despair over its contents. This is an incredible piece of writing that repulsed me at times, broke my heart at other times, and made me desperate for the survival of the women she writes about. All of this was done because she has an ability to pull her readers in with her prose, her characters, and her story arc. It's incredible, and well worth the time to stick your nose in its pages. 

Small Animals: Parenthood In the Age of Fear

The second I heard I heard about Kim Brooks' Small Animals: Parenthood In the Age of Fear, I knew I had to get it. It's not just because I am a new parent (well, kind of new), but also because I have strongly felt for some time that in our current time we parent through fear rather than through a desire to lead out kids to be self-determined. (See The Self-Driven Child, if you will.)

Just a couple of years ago, Kim Brooks ran a five minute errand into Target in a suburb of Virginia and left her four year old son in the car. It was a mild to cool day, she could see the car from the store, and he didn’t even notice how long she was gone since he was engrossed in his iPad. That one choice would lead to a years-long fight with the court and child welfare  systems from several states away that ended in Kim not being prosecuted but serving many hours in parenting classes. All because a “Good Samaritan” watched her, filmed her, and phoned the police over an action that is not, in fact, against the law. 

This begs bigger questions in our society about fear-based parenting, the motherhood competition, and how we now view parenting as a cross between a competitive sport and a job. In the first chapter, Kim lays out her story. In the second, she explores deeper questions of why we live in a parenting culture of fear, beginning in pregnancy. It is a fear that grips mostly women, and this theme travels into the third chapter which focuses on the history of that fear and how it primarily affects mothers. The rest of the book explores these themes in more depth as well as the outcome of her own case, including the second-to-last chapter in which Brooks comes to the conclusion that all of this fear-based parenting is creating a generation of guinea pigs -- we don't know how people will turn out when a generation of helicopter parenting has prevented them from ever taking risks. (I can hypothesize on this, and it's not pretty.)

This book is so very important reading for every single person in this society, be you a parent or not. I have been flabbergasted since long before I became a mother how fear-based we truly are as a society. The statistics of stranger danger are sobering because so few children are absucted by strangers. As Brooks repeats throughout this book, the probability isn’t nil, which means that it is absolutely a possibility, but we find ourselves more worried about things that aren’t much of a problem to avoid being worried about things that are. This reflects the research; I recently read a paper that clearly found that humans in the western world tend to worry about things that have a small probability of happening but are in control of humans, such as kidnapping and terrorist attacks, but tend to not think often of things that are more likely to happen through chance and the environment, such as hurricanes and fires. The things I find myself most concerned about for my own child are choking, lead, and subway crashes. (I admit the last one is a bit less probable than I think, but it IS the MTA.) 

I find myself in Brooks’ camp. On one hand, we know better so we do better — with things like car seat safety, SIDS, early allergen exposure. But that doesn't apply to everything. Brooks discusses the child abduction craze of the 1980’s, which I not only remember well, but has had shape my own fears and anxieties. Because it was brought so publicly to the forefront, we tend to over-rationalize stranger abduction and ignore more important statistics such as according to RAINN, 92% of minors who are sexually abused know their abuser. This is convenient to forget when it’s someone we know and trust. We also underestimate actual risks, such as car accidents. People are so afraid of things that are plausible but not likely and less concerned about the fact that over 1600 children each year die in car accidents and another 2.35 million are injured or disabled. You are far more likely to be in this situation than someone taking your child from a parked vehicle. However, everyone has an anecdote, now, don't they?

I find it so interesting how my husband and I have described our parenting with all of these adjectives: lazy, ignorant, hands-off. When you put it in the context of the over-vigilance that is expected in 2018, where our children are never supposed to be left alone and they need to be monitored so that they never get hurt at the expense of exploration and adventure, it’s downright neglectful. But we are far from it. We just expect that our child will be independent, playful, adventurous, and brave. So far, so good. 

However, when I explain this to people who are around us, including my own parents, what they say and what they do are different. Thy say, “That’s so great,” and what they do is helicopter my kid. They say they love our attitude, but then they say, “Watch his head!” Or, “He’s stuck!” Or, “Can he do that?” In theory they like the idea of my child learning for himself, but in practice we have become an overbearing, controlling society regarding children. I find myself more frustrated with the need to control my child's every move than I am with the fact that my child is stuck in the first place. We call it hands-off parenting, and it really, really, really bothers most people.

This book is so very important for everyone to read, and I will add it to my arsenal of books that I send off to my new-parent (and hell, maybe even my old-parent) friends. Along with The Gardener and the Carpenter, The Scientist in the Crib, The Importance of Being Little, and The Self-Driven Child, this is one of the best books on parenting I can recommend. If you want your child to be smarter, put down the books that claim to make them so -- they are bullshit. What will make your child smarter is allowing them to explore, create, and just be.

Will I be a free range parent? You betcha.