LyndaInOregon's Possibly Amusing Musings
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1LyndaInOregon
Hmmmmmm ... my very own thread. Wonder how long it will take to get it impossibly tangled?
Will be posting an occasional review here (starting with the next post, and thank you Lisa, for the suggestion), as well as monthly what-I've-read overviews and the annual lookback.
Will be posting an occasional review here (starting with the next post, and thank you Lisa, for the suggestion), as well as monthly what-I've-read overviews and the annual lookback.
2LyndaInOregon
Dear Fahrenheit 451 Review
This quirky little book takes a unique idea and develops it with verve and affection. In large part, it is precisely what it says it is – a series of letters to books, as if they were people – love letters, thank-you notes, quick apologies, and Dear John missives, using the point of view of either a librarian or an avid reader (both of which describe the author). In saying goodbye to an outdated, no longer popular cookbook, Librarian Spence writes “You are delightful and you’re going to make a swell book – for someone else. At the used book sale.” In a thank-you letter to a favorite children’s book, Reader Spence writes “I’ve wanted to write you for so long. Since I was just a kid – before I had the right words to tell you how much I loved your dark humor, or thank you for making a bookish girl with DIY bangs like me the hero of a story.”
Most readers will probably find at least one of their favorites mentioned here, and most will come away with a list of titles to be added to their TBR stack or authors to be sampled – my score was eight. It doesn’t hurt that many of her favorites are also in my permanent collection. You may find yourself nodding when Spence praises a favorite title or looking askance and thinking “Did we read the same book?” when she disses one.
Spence winds up the book by reverting to librarian-ism and compiling several recommended reading lists, but again she manages to do it with her own special flair. We have a list of book pairs that deal with essentially the same concept but from radically different viewpoints, books that deal with alternate realities, books to lure non-readers into reading, and my favorite – books that lead to more books – e.g. those reading adventures in which perhaps a book set in a certain locale leads you to reading up on that area which drags you into the biography of someone important in its history which plunks you down in the middle of a book about a political or technological revolution, wondering how you got there.
She also graces us with a “Recovery Reading” list – “books that you turn to when you’re on the mend from a book that gave you nightmares or left you in a dark headspace and you need some lighter fare but don’t want to give up quality.”
This breezy little book can be read in an afternoon, or it can lead directly down the rabbit-hole of bibliophilia. You might want to pack a lunch and maybe take a sweater, just in case.
This quirky little book takes a unique idea and develops it with verve and affection. In large part, it is precisely what it says it is – a series of letters to books, as if they were people – love letters, thank-you notes, quick apologies, and Dear John missives, using the point of view of either a librarian or an avid reader (both of which describe the author). In saying goodbye to an outdated, no longer popular cookbook, Librarian Spence writes “You are delightful and you’re going to make a swell book – for someone else. At the used book sale.” In a thank-you letter to a favorite children’s book, Reader Spence writes “I’ve wanted to write you for so long. Since I was just a kid – before I had the right words to tell you how much I loved your dark humor, or thank you for making a bookish girl with DIY bangs like me the hero of a story.”
Most readers will probably find at least one of their favorites mentioned here, and most will come away with a list of titles to be added to their TBR stack or authors to be sampled – my score was eight. It doesn’t hurt that many of her favorites are also in my permanent collection. You may find yourself nodding when Spence praises a favorite title or looking askance and thinking “Did we read the same book?” when she disses one.
Spence winds up the book by reverting to librarian-ism and compiling several recommended reading lists, but again she manages to do it with her own special flair. We have a list of book pairs that deal with essentially the same concept but from radically different viewpoints, books that deal with alternate realities, books to lure non-readers into reading, and my favorite – books that lead to more books – e.g. those reading adventures in which perhaps a book set in a certain locale leads you to reading up on that area which drags you into the biography of someone important in its history which plunks you down in the middle of a book about a political or technological revolution, wondering how you got there.
She also graces us with a “Recovery Reading” list – “books that you turn to when you’re on the mend from a book that gave you nightmares or left you in a dark headspace and you need some lighter fare but don’t want to give up quality.”
This breezy little book can be read in an afternoon, or it can lead directly down the rabbit-hole of bibliophilia. You might want to pack a lunch and maybe take a sweater, just in case.
4labfs39
I'm so happy that you've started a thread. I have often wanted to comment on your reading, but hesitate to clog up the What are You Reading thread.
I was intrigued by your review of Dear Fahrenheit 451 and have added it to my wish list.
I was intrigued by your review of Dear Fahrenheit 451 and have added it to my wish list.
5MissBrangwen
Great review, I have added this book to my WL as well!
6LyndaInOregon
And in the "Small World" department ... I was at our local library last week, and as I browsed the stacks, heard one of the workers at the front desk raving about this book she had just read, and I realized she was talking about Dear Fahrenheit 451. :-)
7SassyLassy
>2 LyndaInOregon: Sounds like a really fun book. I always love those "Did we read the same book?" moments.
8LyndaInOregon
September Reads -- Eleven books read and one DNF, evenly divided between fiction and nonfiction.
The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers: A-
A charming and intricately crafted sf novel whose title refers to the mission of a small tunneling ship, but which is really about the way its disparate crew interacts with each other, as a microcosm of the galaxy in which it exists.
Dear Fahrenheit 451, by Annie Spence: A-
Delightful collection of "letters" to the books in her life (and library), ranging from love notes to Dear John letters. Great fun.
A Tan and Sandy Silence, John D. MacDonald: B+
A Travis McGee mystery. McGee is having an existential crisis and wondering if he's slowing down enough to get himself killed one of these days when he gets suckered into looking for a missing wife and ends up neck deep in a stock swindle turned deadly.
The Silent Patient, Alex Michaelides: B+
Group read. Fun twisty suspense novel about a psychoanalyst trying to help a woman convicted of murdering her husband.
I Love Everybody, Laurie Notaro: B+
Notaro's collection of essays this time centers around her various frustrations at living in a world populated by doofuses, dolts, and demanders of various ages, sizes, and social standing. Meanwhile, she's awaiting the publication of her first book, trying to hang on to her job amid corporate shuffling, and fending off inquiries about her reproductive status.
Bad Cat, Jim Edgar: B
Fun collection of captioned cat photos.
Murder Out Yonder, Stewart Holbrook: B
Short, lively summaries of 10 true-crime incidents, most from the early 1900s, that occurred in rural settings from remote Oregon homesteads to isolated Maine fishing villages.
Keeping the House, Ellen Baker: B-
Multi-generation tale centered around a mansion built in a small Wisconsin timber town, and the 1950s bride who becomes obsessed with it.
They Whisper in My Blood, Franciska Soares: C+
LTER - Generational saga set among the Portuguese aristocracy of India in the late 1800s and how their choices ultimately impact the life of a contemporary descendant whose study of family history leads her to search out a long-lost love.
The Murder Gene, Karen Zacharias: C
A disappointment. Zacharias can't decide whether she wants to concentrate on the true-crime story of a murderous family, or take a look at scientific evidence for the existence of a genetic defect which may predispose its carriers to violence. Neither is well-served in this work.
Waltzing at the Piggly Wiggly, Robert Dalby: C
When the grocery store in a small southern town is threatened by a big-box newcomer, a group of feisty widows decides to come to the rescue. Pretty predictable and a pale imitation of Fannie Flagg's quirky-Southern-town novels.
Three Woman, Lisa Taddeo - DNF
I'm giving up on this one. Promoted as a "documentary", but written in the florid prose of romance novels, this case study of three women whose sexual traumas and dysfunctions are making shambles of their lives is just too squicky to finish.
The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers: A-
A charming and intricately crafted sf novel whose title refers to the mission of a small tunneling ship, but which is really about the way its disparate crew interacts with each other, as a microcosm of the galaxy in which it exists.
Dear Fahrenheit 451, by Annie Spence: A-
Delightful collection of "letters" to the books in her life (and library), ranging from love notes to Dear John letters. Great fun.
A Tan and Sandy Silence, John D. MacDonald: B+
A Travis McGee mystery. McGee is having an existential crisis and wondering if he's slowing down enough to get himself killed one of these days when he gets suckered into looking for a missing wife and ends up neck deep in a stock swindle turned deadly.
The Silent Patient, Alex Michaelides: B+
Group read. Fun twisty suspense novel about a psychoanalyst trying to help a woman convicted of murdering her husband.
I Love Everybody, Laurie Notaro: B+
Notaro's collection of essays this time centers around her various frustrations at living in a world populated by doofuses, dolts, and demanders of various ages, sizes, and social standing. Meanwhile, she's awaiting the publication of her first book, trying to hang on to her job amid corporate shuffling, and fending off inquiries about her reproductive status.
Bad Cat, Jim Edgar: B
Fun collection of captioned cat photos.
Murder Out Yonder, Stewart Holbrook: B
Short, lively summaries of 10 true-crime incidents, most from the early 1900s, that occurred in rural settings from remote Oregon homesteads to isolated Maine fishing villages.
Keeping the House, Ellen Baker: B-
Multi-generation tale centered around a mansion built in a small Wisconsin timber town, and the 1950s bride who becomes obsessed with it.
They Whisper in My Blood, Franciska Soares: C+
LTER - Generational saga set among the Portuguese aristocracy of India in the late 1800s and how their choices ultimately impact the life of a contemporary descendant whose study of family history leads her to search out a long-lost love.
The Murder Gene, Karen Zacharias: C
A disappointment. Zacharias can't decide whether she wants to concentrate on the true-crime story of a murderous family, or take a look at scientific evidence for the existence of a genetic defect which may predispose its carriers to violence. Neither is well-served in this work.
Waltzing at the Piggly Wiggly, Robert Dalby: C
When the grocery store in a small southern town is threatened by a big-box newcomer, a group of feisty widows decides to come to the rescue. Pretty predictable and a pale imitation of Fannie Flagg's quirky-Southern-town novels.
Three Woman, Lisa Taddeo - DNF
I'm giving up on this one. Promoted as a "documentary", but written in the florid prose of romance novels, this case study of three women whose sexual traumas and dysfunctions are making shambles of their lives is just too squicky to finish.
9LyndaInOregon
Minor rant, and also an honest question to any librarians out there -- there must be some in the group!
When ... and why did public libraries start breaking their fiction collections up by genre? I noticed this in my area libraries about 10 years ago. You can no longer walk through the door thinking "I'd like to read Nora Roberts' latest" (although why anyone would bother -- but I digress) and head for the "R" section of fiction. Now you have to decide whether it's "romance" or "large print" or "suspense" or whatever genre some nameless Authority has assigned it.
A "large print" section makes a certain amount of sense, but why the ghetto-ization of the other genres? And who gets to make the decision?
All this angst being brought about by the minor annoyance of having to get the librarian's help to locate my latest read -- The Love of My Life, by Rosie Walsh (link broken). When I checked the catalog at home, it showed as available in my local, very small, library, but I couldn't find it on the shelf. Turns out it was catalogued as "romance" -- which it definitely isn't.
When ... and why did public libraries start breaking their fiction collections up by genre? I noticed this in my area libraries about 10 years ago. You can no longer walk through the door thinking "I'd like to read Nora Roberts' latest" (although why anyone would bother -- but I digress) and head for the "R" section of fiction. Now you have to decide whether it's "romance" or "large print" or "suspense" or whatever genre some nameless Authority has assigned it.
A "large print" section makes a certain amount of sense, but why the ghetto-ization of the other genres? And who gets to make the decision?
All this angst being brought about by the minor annoyance of having to get the librarian's help to locate my latest read -- The Love of My Life, by Rosie Walsh (link broken). When I checked the catalog at home, it showed as available in my local, very small, library, but I couldn't find it on the shelf. Turns out it was catalogued as "romance" -- which it definitely isn't.
10AnnieMod
>9 LyndaInOregon: My library has special labels based on the genre and then the shelves are basically following the labels (and yes, they do mis-categorize - hilariously so sometimes). So when I look up something in the collection online, I tend to also check the label for it - it tells me which section to look in (unless it is newly acquired - these always live together while under 6 months old in the library system; large print is always separate as well). They have romance, SF (which includes all speculative genres) and crime/mystery split out (everything else goes into general fiction).
Not sure about American libraries but back home these 3 were always shelves separately from "general fiction" as early as mid 1990s (when I got into the adult section of the library). So I was not surprised to find them organized that way here when I moved a decade or so ago.
YA and Children books are not split that way - they all live together in alphabetical order by author in their respective sections. The YA makes sense (there is just a small section) but the children one is pretty extensive. Although thinking back, that was the same back home so seems like some things are universal.
Not sure about American libraries but back home these 3 were always shelves separately from "general fiction" as early as mid 1990s (when I got into the adult section of the library). So I was not surprised to find them organized that way here when I moved a decade or so ago.
YA and Children books are not split that way - they all live together in alphabetical order by author in their respective sections. The YA makes sense (there is just a small section) but the children one is pretty extensive. Although thinking back, that was the same back home so seems like some things are universal.
11labfs39
Egad! That would drive me batty. Fortunately our little rural library still organizes its fiction alpha by author, except large print and graphic novels, which sort of makes sense, since they are rather specific groups of readers. However, the adjacent town has organized its picture books for kids by genre! Horrors! It's impossible to find anything. Is the book Animals? Action? Fairy Tale? Worse yet, they mixed fiction and nonfiction, but not all nonfiction. Fortunately, they have realized the error of their ways and are reorganizing. I think public libraries were on a tear to be more "browsable," and took a leaf from bookstores.
12LyndaInOregon
>11 labfs39: took a leaf from bookstores.
That makes sense as a motive. In fact, I thought about that after posting. Someone who buys mostly within one genre may be more likely to make a purchase if all the new or featured titles in that genre are in one location.
But browser/readers like yours truly who are easily diverted by ***OOH, shiny!*** enjoy the thrill of finding a new author by accident when wandering around in general fiction. And a library loan that turns out to be a lemon hasn't cost us twenty bucks or thereabouts, so it's easier to try something new.
That makes sense as a motive. In fact, I thought about that after posting. Someone who buys mostly within one genre may be more likely to make a purchase if all the new or featured titles in that genre are in one location.
But browser/readers like yours truly who are easily diverted by ***OOH, shiny!*** enjoy the thrill of finding a new author by accident when wandering around in general fiction. And a library loan that turns out to be a lemon hasn't cost us twenty bucks or thereabouts, so it's easier to try something new.
13LyndaInOregon
This Tender Land. by William Kent Krueger
Marvelous, evocative tale of four orphans on the run in Depression-era America, who take to the rivers of Minnesota in an attempt to travel to St. Louis and the possibility of a home two of them barely remember and two have never known.
For 13-year-old Odie, his 17-year-old brother Albert, their mute Native American friend, Mose, and six-year-old Emmy, the journey is as much internal as external as the self-styled "Vagabonds" navigate many kinds of troubled waters. Leaving behind a corrupt Indian Training School / unofficial orphanage and fleeing from violence they could neither control nor avoid, they must use their wits and varied talents simply to survive.
Comparisons to "Huckleberry Finn" are inevitable; in fact author Krueger forthrightly admits he was inspired by Twain's classic. And as in the older work, the children meet many people along their journey, some helping them, some hoping to gain something for themselves. But the shadow of the Great Depression is never far from this story, as Odie in particular meets other wanderers, each struggling against the odds to survive and succeed, and as he says, "With every turn of the river, we were changing, becoming different people, and for the first time I understood that the journey we were on wasn't just about getting to Saint Louis."
Not every reader will embrace everything the novel offers. Two of the characters have what old country grannies would call "Second Sight"; others undergo about-face conversions from behaviors which in reality are seldom changed. There are coincidental meetings galore, familiar characters turning up in unfamiliar places, plus one final key plot point sure to make readers of Dickens nod their heads knowingly. (And again, Krueger gives props to his inspirations.) There's also a spiritual undercurrent, played out largely through Odie's coming of age.
As Krueger says in the Epilogue, "There is a river that runs through time and the universe, vast and inexplicable, a flow of spirit that is at the heart of all existence, and every molecule of our being is a part of it. And what is God but the whole of that river?"
Readers who will let that river flow through them will find a satisfying read here, peopled with many well-drawn characters (along with a few more shallowly developed players), and a lot of fine emotional scenery along the way.
Marvelous, evocative tale of four orphans on the run in Depression-era America, who take to the rivers of Minnesota in an attempt to travel to St. Louis and the possibility of a home two of them barely remember and two have never known.
For 13-year-old Odie, his 17-year-old brother Albert, their mute Native American friend, Mose, and six-year-old Emmy, the journey is as much internal as external as the self-styled "Vagabonds" navigate many kinds of troubled waters. Leaving behind a corrupt Indian Training School / unofficial orphanage and fleeing from violence they could neither control nor avoid, they must use their wits and varied talents simply to survive.
Comparisons to "Huckleberry Finn" are inevitable; in fact author Krueger forthrightly admits he was inspired by Twain's classic. And as in the older work, the children meet many people along their journey, some helping them, some hoping to gain something for themselves. But the shadow of the Great Depression is never far from this story, as Odie in particular meets other wanderers, each struggling against the odds to survive and succeed, and as he says, "With every turn of the river, we were changing, becoming different people, and for the first time I understood that the journey we were on wasn't just about getting to Saint Louis."
Not every reader will embrace everything the novel offers. Two of the characters have what old country grannies would call "Second Sight"; others undergo about-face conversions from behaviors which in reality are seldom changed. There are coincidental meetings galore, familiar characters turning up in unfamiliar places, plus one final key plot point sure to make readers of Dickens nod their heads knowingly. (And again, Krueger gives props to his inspirations.) There's also a spiritual undercurrent, played out largely through Odie's coming of age.
As Krueger says in the Epilogue, "There is a river that runs through time and the universe, vast and inexplicable, a flow of spirit that is at the heart of all existence, and every molecule of our being is a part of it. And what is God but the whole of that river?"
Readers who will let that river flow through them will find a satisfying read here, peopled with many well-drawn characters (along with a few more shallowly developed players), and a lot of fine emotional scenery along the way.
14LyndaInOregon
The Magdalen, by Marita Conlon-McKenna
This one gets a 3-star rating from me, as it really didn't live up to the hype. It's a pretty straightforward tale about a naive young girl from County Connemara who loves well but not wisely, and is introduced to harsh reality when she becomes pregnant and the child's father refuses to marry her, having better prospects at hand.
As was not unusual in Ireland in the 1950s, Esther's only practical choice is to enter a Catholic convent specializing in the housing of "wayward girls and fallen women" to await the birth of her child, which she must agree to place in the attached orphanage and make available for adoption. During her confinement, she works in the convent's commercial laundry and undergoes various hardships both physical and emotional.
At the end, she gives birth, realizes she loves her baby, has second thoughts about releasing it for adoption, is told she has no choice in the matter, and chooses to stay in Dublin afterwards rather than returning to the family which scorned her. She is sure she can survive and still holds the dream of someday being united with her lost child.
And while there's nothing really wrong with the book, there's nothing particularly significant about it, either. The characters are internally consistent; Esther's actions in the throes of first love are believable; the reader can tell from a mile away where the boyfriend's true intentions lie; the nuns are suitably unsympathetic to their charges; and the girls with whom Esther shares her confinement fall neatly into various categories.
Readers looking for an overview of the whole Magdalene Laundry system would probably be better off with nonfiction studies. Those looking for an engrossing fictional tale of one of its graduates will need to keep searching.
This one gets a 3-star rating from me, as it really didn't live up to the hype. It's a pretty straightforward tale about a naive young girl from County Connemara who loves well but not wisely, and is introduced to harsh reality when she becomes pregnant and the child's father refuses to marry her, having better prospects at hand.
As was not unusual in Ireland in the 1950s, Esther's only practical choice is to enter a Catholic convent specializing in the housing of "wayward girls and fallen women" to await the birth of her child, which she must agree to place in the attached orphanage and make available for adoption. During her confinement, she works in the convent's commercial laundry and undergoes various hardships both physical and emotional.
At the end, she gives birth, realizes she loves her baby, has second thoughts about releasing it for adoption, is told she has no choice in the matter, and chooses to stay in Dublin afterwards rather than returning to the family which scorned her. She is sure she can survive and still holds the dream of someday being united with her lost child.
And while there's nothing really wrong with the book, there's nothing particularly significant about it, either. The characters are internally consistent; Esther's actions in the throes of first love are believable; the reader can tell from a mile away where the boyfriend's true intentions lie; the nuns are suitably unsympathetic to their charges; and the girls with whom Esther shares her confinement fall neatly into various categories.
Readers looking for an overview of the whole Magdalene Laundry system would probably be better off with nonfiction studies. Those looking for an engrossing fictional tale of one of its graduates will need to keep searching.
15labfs39
>14 LyndaInOregon: Nice review of a book I can comfortably forego reading.
16LyndaInOregon
>15 labfs39: Happy to be of service!
17labfs39
How all is okay. Your post on the What I am Reading thread sounded as though things were discombobulated.
18cindydavid4
>9 LyndaInOregon: I get why bookstores do this,but libraries? no, non fiction is with the dewey decimal system or similar, fiction by alphabetical order. I do remember as a teen, having all sci fi placed in the YA section which sorta drove me crazy, but I thought that had been changed. Its been awhile; Ill go check at our local library and see if they are doing it that way too.Hope not
19cindydavid4
>4 labfs39: I have often wanted to comment on your reading, but hesitate to clog up the What are You Reading thread.
but thats what its for!!! Sometimes I don't get to all the indiv threads so I know I wont miss anything if its on the reading thread too! :)
but thats what its for!!! Sometimes I don't get to all the indiv threads so I know I wont miss anything if its on the reading thread too! :)
20LyndaInOregon
>17 labfs39: Tough week. My 98-yo Mom has been under Hospice care for about a month, and the end is very, very near. So there has been lots of bedside-sitting the past few days, with family coming in to say goodbye. I know how fortunate I've been to have had her company for this long, but it's hard. So, yeah -- a little distracted.
21cindydavid4
>14 LyndaInOregon: small things like these is a book about the same subject, that was on the short list for this years Booker Prize. then there is philomena a movie with Judi Dench, a mother trying to find the child that was taken from her. Not sure if it was based on a book, but the movie was excellent
22AnnieMod
>20 LyndaInOregon: Sending Hugs and good thoughts your way. It is always too early to face losing a parent. :(
23labfs39
>20 LyndaInOregon: I'm sorry to hear it, Lynda. Take care of yourself in the days and weeks ahead.
24lisapeet
>20 LyndaInOregon: Ah, I'm sorry to hear that. I went through that process in January right before Covid hit, lots of airport pickups and bedside sitting. I think the fact of a long and well-lived life eases the minds of those who remain further down the line, but while it's happening there's nothing to be done but be sad. Take care.
25LyndaInOregon
>21 cindydavid4: I think I was hoping for something with the depth of "Philomena" when I picked up The Magdalen, but no such luck. I will look for Small Things Like These.
26LyndaInOregon
Mom passed over yesterday. My daughter and I were both with her. It was very peaceful. So I'm now doing all that nonsense busy-work society demands (call these people, close that account, etc) and hope to be back to semi-normal soon.
I kind of stalled out on Demon Copperhead, and picked up Mom's copy of Hawaii while doing the bedside watch. I've read it several times, and it still rewards, but I did come home after that first day and download a digital copy to my Kindle. The binding was shot on her copy and it was shedding pages. Plus it's such a physical brick to cart around.
Slightly delayed list of October reads:
Eight books read and one DNF.
This Tender Land, William Kent Krueger, A-
An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good, Helene Tursten, B+
The Whore's Child, Richard Russo, B
The Love of My Life, Rosie Walsh, B
This Is Going to Hurt, Adam Kay, B
Inside Star Trek, Solow & Justman, C+
The Magdalen, Marita Conlon=McKenna, C
Summer's Child, Diane Chamberlain, C
Under the Rainbow, John Carlyle, DNF
I kind of stalled out on Demon Copperhead, and picked up Mom's copy of Hawaii while doing the bedside watch. I've read it several times, and it still rewards, but I did come home after that first day and download a digital copy to my Kindle. The binding was shot on her copy and it was shedding pages. Plus it's such a physical brick to cart around.
Slightly delayed list of October reads:
Eight books read and one DNF.
This Tender Land, William Kent Krueger, A-
An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good, Helene Tursten, B+
The Whore's Child, Richard Russo, B
The Love of My Life, Rosie Walsh, B
This Is Going to Hurt, Adam Kay, B
Inside Star Trek, Solow & Justman, C+
The Magdalen, Marita Conlon=McKenna, C
Summer's Child, Diane Chamberlain, C
Under the Rainbow, John Carlyle, DNF
27AnnieMod
>26 LyndaInOregon: Condolences and hugs! I know that it is hard now and you need to deal with people and niceties but give yourself time to grief when all the social crap is done.
28lisapeet
>26 LyndaInOregon: My sympathies, and I hope you have some time to yourself and/or with family in between all the things that need doing.
29labfs39
>26 LyndaInOregon: I'm glad everything was peaceful. Thinking of you.
30cindydavid4
>26 LyndaInOregon: I agree with Annie and Lisa. Make some time for yourselves. you and family need time to grieve
31rocketjk
>26 LyndaInOregon: Sorry to learn of your mom's passing. It's really good to have family around at such times.
32LyndaInOregon
Review: Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver
Kingsolver walks a tightrope here, not always successfully, as she updates ‘David Copperfield’ and slams it down into the heart of Appalachia for a look at what institutional poverty and disintegrating family structure does to children growing up in that toxic environment.
Her protagonist, who quickly picks up the titular nickname, is born to a single mom in one of those clichéd Tennessee enclaves of single-wide trailers, tobacco patches, and up-holler communities where everyone is everyone else’s cousin. Demon’s situation goes from bad to worse when his mother takes up with an abusive partner, then becomes an early casualty in the Opioid Wars, sending him into the uncaring arms of the social services system. Things are unrelentingly grim for most of the book, as Demon goes from one bad foster situation to another, his feet firmly set on a road the reader knows is going nowhere. A series of bad choices blows up what appears to be his one final chance at normalcy, and the decline is accelerated by the drug-fueled atmosphere in which he exists.
If this all sounds miserable and depressing, it’s because that’s precisely what it is. It takes Kingsolver and her protagonist about 500 pages to come to the meat of the argument and to look at just why the term “hillbilly” is one of the few ethnic slurs still considered politically correct, and why so many disparate social structures collided and colluded to create the perfect cauldron for drug-fueled despair.
There is a very slight ray of hope at the end; the only question is whether most readers will hang on to get within sight of it. ‘Demon Copperhead’ may be one of Kingsolver’s most important works, but it is not one of her best.
Kingsolver walks a tightrope here, not always successfully, as she updates ‘David Copperfield’ and slams it down into the heart of Appalachia for a look at what institutional poverty and disintegrating family structure does to children growing up in that toxic environment.
Her protagonist, who quickly picks up the titular nickname, is born to a single mom in one of those clichéd Tennessee enclaves of single-wide trailers, tobacco patches, and up-holler communities where everyone is everyone else’s cousin. Demon’s situation goes from bad to worse when his mother takes up with an abusive partner, then becomes an early casualty in the Opioid Wars, sending him into the uncaring arms of the social services system. Things are unrelentingly grim for most of the book, as Demon goes from one bad foster situation to another, his feet firmly set on a road the reader knows is going nowhere. A series of bad choices blows up what appears to be his one final chance at normalcy, and the decline is accelerated by the drug-fueled atmosphere in which he exists.
If this all sounds miserable and depressing, it’s because that’s precisely what it is. It takes Kingsolver and her protagonist about 500 pages to come to the meat of the argument and to look at just why the term “hillbilly” is one of the few ethnic slurs still considered politically correct, and why so many disparate social structures collided and colluded to create the perfect cauldron for drug-fueled despair.
There is a very slight ray of hope at the end; the only question is whether most readers will hang on to get within sight of it. ‘Demon Copperhead’ may be one of Kingsolver’s most important works, but it is not one of her best.
33labfs39
>32 LyndaInOregon: Sounds like a tough read at the best of times.
34jjmcgaffey
Hi! coming from the Questions for the Avid Reader thread. Yes...I realized just _after_ I posted that you had said fanfic, but decided to leave the post. I never read the fanfic, except for the stuff published in Star Trek: The New Voyages and Best of Trek books (and there were some excellent ones there...but those were, of course, heavily curated).
>9 LyndaInOregon: As a primarily SF/F reader, I really like it when they separate out speculative fiction and don't make me troll through all the litfic etc to find it. Though miscategorization is very much a thing...especially for those books that either have aspects of several genres or have a misleading cover (far too many, in SF/F). My shelves at home are genre-separated as well, and I shift things around from time to time. Even on my own terms, categorization is hard.
My father died a year ago April, and we're still dealing with the last few accounts etc that are clinging to his name (and worse, to his email address that accidentally got canceled). I'm sorry for your loss - and hope dealing with stuff doesn't take up too much energy.
>9 LyndaInOregon: As a primarily SF/F reader, I really like it when they separate out speculative fiction and don't make me troll through all the litfic etc to find it. Though miscategorization is very much a thing...especially for those books that either have aspects of several genres or have a misleading cover (far too many, in SF/F). My shelves at home are genre-separated as well, and I shift things around from time to time. Even on my own terms, categorization is hard.
My father died a year ago April, and we're still dealing with the last few accounts etc that are clinging to his name (and worse, to his email address that accidentally got canceled). I'm sorry for your loss - and hope dealing with stuff doesn't take up too much energy.
35LyndaInOregon
>34 jjmcgaffey: Things are going fairly smoothly. Mom had pared down and simplified when going into assisted living some years ago, and we did a second round in March, when her Alzheimer's became so severe that she had to be moved to a memory care facility. I had been managing her finances for a couple of years as her "forgetfulness" made that a necessity. So it didn't take much to cancel the credit card, remove the computer, which she was no longer able to use, have all her mail forwarded to me, etc. We moved all her remaining possessions out of the memory care facility and into my spare bedroom :-( less the furniture, which went to a local charity, but I am going through a box at a time deciding what to toss, what to pass along to siblings, what to donate, and what to try to sell.
Anyone who has been through it knows the drill. It's like eating an elephant. You can only do it one bite at a time.
Anyone who has been through it knows the drill. It's like eating an elephant. You can only do it one bite at a time.
36cindydavid4
Yup, three times. and thats a perfect description. hugs to you.
37labfs39
>35 LyndaInOregon: It sounds like you will be able to take your time, now that everything is out of the facility. It's fortunate that all the finances and paperwork were in order. It's laborious when no one else is on the accounts. Take care of yourself.
38LyndaInOregon
LTER - Little Man, Big Mouth, September 2022
Dave Schlenker’s collection of columns culled from 30 years as a Florida journalist and reporter, provides a pleasant and often nostalgic look back at a life filled with pets, children, and occasional collisions with the oddities of life.
Like that other famous Dave from Florida (who’s not only mentioned in passing but who turns out to have played a pretty important role in the author’s life), Schlenker generally manages to find humor in the stresses of parenthood, the joys of a long marriage (even if your partner somehow misses the point of your favorite movie), the insidious ways in which four-footed “pets” so often seem to end up ruling the roost, and in the frequent helpings of nonsense that get plunked onto our plates. Standout among these has to be the tale of J-Lo, the chicken with “two rear ends”, and how he managed to break his wrist by falling off a gingerbread house while wearing a wig and a dress and carrying a giant cupcake. (You sort of had to be there.)
He also pulls out an occasional more serious piece, discussing such meaty topics as infertility, the death of friends, and the passing of family pets, handling these rites of passage with insight and sensitivity.
There aren’t a lot of literary fireworks going on here, and the humor is more of a friendly recognition of life than of the laugh-till-you-cry variety, but Schlenker isn’t a bad companion for a weekend of laid-back reminiscing and an occasional grin.
Dave Schlenker’s collection of columns culled from 30 years as a Florida journalist and reporter, provides a pleasant and often nostalgic look back at a life filled with pets, children, and occasional collisions with the oddities of life.
Like that other famous Dave from Florida (who’s not only mentioned in passing but who turns out to have played a pretty important role in the author’s life), Schlenker generally manages to find humor in the stresses of parenthood, the joys of a long marriage (even if your partner somehow misses the point of your favorite movie), the insidious ways in which four-footed “pets” so often seem to end up ruling the roost, and in the frequent helpings of nonsense that get plunked onto our plates. Standout among these has to be the tale of J-Lo, the chicken with “two rear ends”, and how he managed to break his wrist by falling off a gingerbread house while wearing a wig and a dress and carrying a giant cupcake. (You sort of had to be there.)
He also pulls out an occasional more serious piece, discussing such meaty topics as infertility, the death of friends, and the passing of family pets, handling these rites of passage with insight and sensitivity.
There aren’t a lot of literary fireworks going on here, and the humor is more of a friendly recognition of life than of the laugh-till-you-cry variety, but Schlenker isn’t a bad companion for a weekend of laid-back reminiscing and an occasional grin.
39LyndaInOregon
LTER - Cleopatra's Eternal Journal, August 2022
This odd little book is based on the premise that ghosts – particularly the ghosts of powerful or influential people – continue to have an existence beyond the corporeal. The three singled out in ‘Cleopatra’s Eternal Journal’ (the lady herself, Libyan strongman Muammar Gadaffi, and Silicon Valley giant Steve Jobs) are found tending to unfinished business, settling old scores, or simply continuing to enjoy their celebrity.
By far the most interesting is Cleopatra, whose journal begins as she almost gleefully plans her suicide and burial for maximum impact, and then proceeds to hang around for the next couple of millennia, observing and occasionally influencing world events. This Cleo is neither a tragic nor victimized figure. She is a sassy, acerbic broad with a finely developed sense of her own importance, who seems to be enjoying her afterlife much more than her earthly one. It’s a clever idea, and a delightful character, and it’s unfortunate that Schröer didn’t choose to focus exclusively on the Egyptian queen and develop the idea into full-length novel format.
Because things definitely go downhill from there. The second ghost features Muammar Gadaffi as a vindictive little egotist who visits a fictionalized Condoleeza Rice, playing on her alcoholism and avarice to right what he perceives as an old wrong. Probably the cleverest twist in this section is the use of a musical clue which the reader realizes, only much later, was far more than mere background filler.
The book ends with the ghost of Steve Jobs attempting to reconcile and reconnect with the biological father he never really knew in his lifetime. Again, this might have been developed further to emotionally impactful effect. One thinks of the singular ‘Lincoln in the Bardo’ as the spiritual progenitor of such a work.
Alas, none of this happened, and the reader is left with an overall aftertaste of ‘why did I bother?’ The work is further damaged by the electronic presentation, which is rife with errors that apparently cropped up during the digitalization process. Page numbers appear randomly in blocks of text; in many sections, the first letter of the first word in a paragraph has been mysteriously plucked out of position and deposited somewhere down the line, like an inky hiccup, and the overall visual layout seems never to have been given an eyeball test before the book was released.
Then there’s the oddity of just who we should refer to as the author. The cover copy lists Fred Schröer; the copyright page and all the promotional material refer to Victoria Schröer. This book has enough problems of content; it certainly doesn’t need to lose additional points for sloppy presentation. It gets a two star rating, and then only because of the Cleopatra section.
This odd little book is based on the premise that ghosts – particularly the ghosts of powerful or influential people – continue to have an existence beyond the corporeal. The three singled out in ‘Cleopatra’s Eternal Journal’ (the lady herself, Libyan strongman Muammar Gadaffi, and Silicon Valley giant Steve Jobs) are found tending to unfinished business, settling old scores, or simply continuing to enjoy their celebrity.
By far the most interesting is Cleopatra, whose journal begins as she almost gleefully plans her suicide and burial for maximum impact, and then proceeds to hang around for the next couple of millennia, observing and occasionally influencing world events. This Cleo is neither a tragic nor victimized figure. She is a sassy, acerbic broad with a finely developed sense of her own importance, who seems to be enjoying her afterlife much more than her earthly one. It’s a clever idea, and a delightful character, and it’s unfortunate that Schröer didn’t choose to focus exclusively on the Egyptian queen and develop the idea into full-length novel format.
Because things definitely go downhill from there. The second ghost features Muammar Gadaffi as a vindictive little egotist who visits a fictionalized Condoleeza Rice, playing on her alcoholism and avarice to right what he perceives as an old wrong. Probably the cleverest twist in this section is the use of a musical clue which the reader realizes, only much later, was far more than mere background filler.
The book ends with the ghost of Steve Jobs attempting to reconcile and reconnect with the biological father he never really knew in his lifetime. Again, this might have been developed further to emotionally impactful effect. One thinks of the singular ‘Lincoln in the Bardo’ as the spiritual progenitor of such a work.
Alas, none of this happened, and the reader is left with an overall aftertaste of ‘why did I bother?’ The work is further damaged by the electronic presentation, which is rife with errors that apparently cropped up during the digitalization process. Page numbers appear randomly in blocks of text; in many sections, the first letter of the first word in a paragraph has been mysteriously plucked out of position and deposited somewhere down the line, like an inky hiccup, and the overall visual layout seems never to have been given an eyeball test before the book was released.
Then there’s the oddity of just who we should refer to as the author. The cover copy lists Fred Schröer; the copyright page and all the promotional material refer to Victoria Schröer. This book has enough problems of content; it certainly doesn’t need to lose additional points for sloppy presentation. It gets a two star rating, and then only because of the Cleopatra section.
40LyndaInOregon
This has absolutely nothing to do with books. I just want to play with the formatting of Touchstones.
Hawaii
John Steinbeck
The Cat Who
Okay. Now can someone explain when to use which?
Hawaii
John Steinbeck
The Cat Who
Okay. Now can someone explain when to use which?
41AnnieMod
>40 LyndaInOregon: Depends on what you want to link to - the book, the author page or the series. :)
42jjmcgaffey
The book - any individual work - is a single square bracket.
The author is the double square bracket.
Series is triple square bracket.
(as you know from the above)
Note that if you use single square bracket on an author name it will happily link...to a book with that name (if the author is well enough known there's a bio that's titled with their name) or to one, semi-random, book by that author (I do that a lot - check the Touchstones list on the right of the message before you hit Post!)(and check to make sure it linked to the right book, too, that's semi-random as well). If the touchstone is wrong the first way, you can just add the correct number of square brackets, or correct the title. If the title/name is correct but it's linking wrong, on each touchstone there's an (others) link at the end, click that and go find the correct thing to link to from the list (this usually, but not always, works).
As AnnieMod said, it depends on what you want to link to which to use when.
Does that answer your questions? Or were you asking something completely different?
The author is the double square bracket.
Series is triple square bracket.
(as you know from the above)
Note that if you use single square bracket on an author name it will happily link...to a book with that name (if the author is well enough known there's a bio that's titled with their name) or to one, semi-random, book by that author (I do that a lot - check the Touchstones list on the right of the message before you hit Post!)(and check to make sure it linked to the right book, too, that's semi-random as well). If the touchstone is wrong the first way, you can just add the correct number of square brackets, or correct the title. If the title/name is correct but it's linking wrong, on each touchstone there's an (others) link at the end, click that and go find the correct thing to link to from the list (this usually, but not always, works).
As AnnieMod said, it depends on what you want to link to which to use when.
Does that answer your questions? Or were you asking something completely different?
43LyndaInOregon
>42 jjmcgaffey: Thank you! Very good information.
I know LT has a lot of features that I either don't know how to use or am completely unaware of. It's a journey!
I know LT has a lot of features that I either don't know how to use or am completely unaware of. It's a journey!
44LyndaInOregon
LTER - Johnny Lycan & the Vegas Berserker - October 2022
This second entry in the Werewolf PI series cranks up the violence level but skimps on the background that made the debut volume (Johnny Lycan & the Anubis Disk) stand out from its urban fantasy peers.
This time around, Johnny is dispatched to Las Vegas to pick up yet another arcane artifact purchased by his eccentric employer, only to find that the person who was beaten out at auction for the goodie is not willing to give up so easily. The item in question is an egg-shaped crystal which may or may not be an alien artifact; in any case, it proves to have some unusual powers. The would-be buyer sends some pretty serious muscle out to grab what he couldn’t purchase, including another not-quite-human creature, the Berserker of the title. There’s a whole lot of fighting (with and without the assistance of Johnny’s werewolf persona), a few modern-day witches, a brief romance, and the discovery of a possible way to control the beast with which Johnny shares a body.
So in that sense, the universe being developed for this series does get a bit more fine-tuning. This reviewer simply wishes that Turmel had been able to figure out how to include a bit more of the background he set up so skillfully in the first volume. A reader coming in without that background is apt to flounder a bit, trying to identify all the players without a program, so to speak.
The series continues to be an interesting take on the paranormal / superhero genre, and readers will just have to wait for the third installment to see how Turmel is going to give new readers a leg up on understanding the ground rules for Johnny and Shaggy.
This second entry in the Werewolf PI series cranks up the violence level but skimps on the background that made the debut volume (Johnny Lycan & the Anubis Disk) stand out from its urban fantasy peers.
This time around, Johnny is dispatched to Las Vegas to pick up yet another arcane artifact purchased by his eccentric employer, only to find that the person who was beaten out at auction for the goodie is not willing to give up so easily. The item in question is an egg-shaped crystal which may or may not be an alien artifact; in any case, it proves to have some unusual powers. The would-be buyer sends some pretty serious muscle out to grab what he couldn’t purchase, including another not-quite-human creature, the Berserker of the title. There’s a whole lot of fighting (with and without the assistance of Johnny’s werewolf persona), a few modern-day witches, a brief romance, and the discovery of a possible way to control the beast with which Johnny shares a body.
So in that sense, the universe being developed for this series does get a bit more fine-tuning. This reviewer simply wishes that Turmel had been able to figure out how to include a bit more of the background he set up so skillfully in the first volume. A reader coming in without that background is apt to flounder a bit, trying to identify all the players without a program, so to speak.
The series continues to be an interesting take on the paranormal / superhero genre, and readers will just have to wait for the third installment to see how Turmel is going to give new readers a leg up on understanding the ground rules for Johnny and Shaggy.
45LyndaInOregon
Women Write: A Mosaic of Women's Voices in Fiction, Poetry, Memoir, and Essay, edited by Susan Cahill, PhD
Susan Cahill’s wide-ranging collection in aptly fulfills the promise of its subtitle. The 50 authors whose work is showcased here “represent the best writing in English by women on both sides of the Atlantic since the mid-17th century”. It’s a valuable compendium, whether intended as a study guide, a springboard to discussion, or part of a basic feminist library.
Many of the contributor names will be familiar to the modern reader – Maya Angelou, Alice Munro, Joyce Carol Oates. Others may ring a vague bell because of their best-known works – Mary Shelley, Flannery O’Connor, Sylvia Plath. And some may be new to the general reader, though their influence looms large in feminist studies.
Cahill notes that she has specifically omitted many writers whose works are widely anthologized or who are best known for their novel-length works. Some selection criteria were obviously necessary to keep the content at a manageable level, and this 300-page volume does an excellent job of covering a vast amount of territory while avoiding the doorstop syndrome.
This is a book to savor, to return to over a span of time, so that each short story, each poem, each essay, is allowed to breathe a bit and to develop in the memory.
Highly recommended.
Susan Cahill’s wide-ranging collection in aptly fulfills the promise of its subtitle. The 50 authors whose work is showcased here “represent the best writing in English by women on both sides of the Atlantic since the mid-17th century”. It’s a valuable compendium, whether intended as a study guide, a springboard to discussion, or part of a basic feminist library.
Many of the contributor names will be familiar to the modern reader – Maya Angelou, Alice Munro, Joyce Carol Oates. Others may ring a vague bell because of their best-known works – Mary Shelley, Flannery O’Connor, Sylvia Plath. And some may be new to the general reader, though their influence looms large in feminist studies.
Cahill notes that she has specifically omitted many writers whose works are widely anthologized or who are best known for their novel-length works. Some selection criteria were obviously necessary to keep the content at a manageable level, and this 300-page volume does an excellent job of covering a vast amount of territory while avoiding the doorstop syndrome.
This is a book to savor, to return to over a span of time, so that each short story, each poem, each essay, is allowed to breathe a bit and to develop in the memory.
Highly recommended.
46LyndaInOregon
Just finished The Sentence by Louise Erdrich. Maybe in a few weeks, I can put together a coherent review. But not today.
Erdrich explores the notion of "sentence" … from a collection of words with power to a term of servitude, sets it against the summer of Covid and the George Floyd murder, stirs in a heaping dollop of ghost story … and makes the damn thing work. I don't know how.
Yes, it meanders. Yes, the reader may be forgiven for wondering if there's ever going to be an actual plot emerging. All I can say is, if you pick this book up, stay with it.
Erdrich explores the notion of "sentence" … from a collection of words with power to a term of servitude, sets it against the summer of Covid and the George Floyd murder, stirs in a heaping dollop of ghost story … and makes the damn thing work. I don't know how.
Yes, it meanders. Yes, the reader may be forgiven for wondering if there's ever going to be an actual plot emerging. All I can say is, if you pick this book up, stay with it.
47LyndaInOregon
Review: The Sentence, by Louise Erdrich
Erdrich is attempting to touch a lot of bases in her latest novel, and though each track is compelling in its own right, they may never make a comprehensive whole for many readers.
The idea of the sentence … both as a collection of words conveying a specific image or idea, and a term of servitude undertaken as punishment or penance weaves itself throughout the narrative, which is relayed by the urban Indian woman Tookie, whose checkered past has fetched her up in a small independent bookstore in Minneapolis which specializes in Native American works. The owner (an only semi-disguised Erdrich, who in fact owns just such a store), the other employees, and the regular customers make up Tookie’s world, along with her husband Pollux. One of the customers, a White woman the Native employees somewhat dismissively refer to as a “wannabe” Indian, has the temerity to die unexpectedly, but to continues to hang around the store in spirit. For a fair amount of the book, it looks like it’s going to be a contemporary ghost story. Flora – the ghost – had obtained (perhaps illicitly) a rare journal set down by a Native woman, survivor of the Dakota War, who refers to herself as being “sentenced to be white” in order to survive. Tookie’s relationship with this book, and with the spectral Flora, forms one main thread of the novel and leads to a discovery about her own history.
Now, this alone could-have-been/would-have-been an adequate framework for pretty much any kind of novel about a person trying to exist in the interstices where two cultures rub together, often uncomfortably. But Erdrich then brings in Tookie's husband’s troubled pregnant niece, who is also carrying her own emotional ghosts, and then tosses everyone into the pressure cooker that was the first year of Covid, with its isolation, uncertainty, and fear. Even this isn’t quite enough, because if you remember your recent history, there was a little incident in Minneapolis in May of 2020, in which a Black man was killed by city police officers during an arrest for allegedly passing a counterfeit $20 bill.
Yeah. That one. The George Floyd murder and the civil unrest it engendered, takes center stage for a good portion of the latter half of the book, and is reflected through the Native community, which has its own issues with White law enforcement and legal practices.
It’s easy to see this novel is a wild stew of ideas, social conflicts, cultural differences, personal crises, family drama, and eyewitness to contemporary history. The plot staggers and wanders and occasionally stalls, but it also keeps pulling the reader through, via some incredibly unlikely sleight-of-hand that Erdrich has wrought, because dammit, you want to know what’s going to happen and how Tookie and her family (both biological and chosen) are going to come through this.
The reader comes out the other end, as though emerging from the Confessional booth in one corner of the bookstore, which also plays a major role, not entirely sure how one got there or exactly what has just occurred, but knowing that something did, and that it was utterly life-altering.
This is not a quick read, and it may be a book that requires a second go-round to winkle out the connections and inferences not seen on the first trip. Erdrich’s fans will probably buckle down to the task; readers coming to her work for the first time may end up walking away in puzzlement.
Erdrich is attempting to touch a lot of bases in her latest novel, and though each track is compelling in its own right, they may never make a comprehensive whole for many readers.
The idea of the sentence … both as a collection of words conveying a specific image or idea, and a term of servitude undertaken as punishment or penance weaves itself throughout the narrative, which is relayed by the urban Indian woman Tookie, whose checkered past has fetched her up in a small independent bookstore in Minneapolis which specializes in Native American works. The owner (an only semi-disguised Erdrich, who in fact owns just such a store), the other employees, and the regular customers make up Tookie’s world, along with her husband Pollux. One of the customers, a White woman the Native employees somewhat dismissively refer to as a “wannabe” Indian, has the temerity to die unexpectedly, but to continues to hang around the store in spirit. For a fair amount of the book, it looks like it’s going to be a contemporary ghost story. Flora – the ghost – had obtained (perhaps illicitly) a rare journal set down by a Native woman, survivor of the Dakota War, who refers to herself as being “sentenced to be white” in order to survive. Tookie’s relationship with this book, and with the spectral Flora, forms one main thread of the novel and leads to a discovery about her own history.
Now, this alone could-have-been/would-have-been an adequate framework for pretty much any kind of novel about a person trying to exist in the interstices where two cultures rub together, often uncomfortably. But Erdrich then brings in Tookie's husband’s troubled pregnant niece, who is also carrying her own emotional ghosts, and then tosses everyone into the pressure cooker that was the first year of Covid, with its isolation, uncertainty, and fear. Even this isn’t quite enough, because if you remember your recent history, there was a little incident in Minneapolis in May of 2020, in which a Black man was killed by city police officers during an arrest for allegedly passing a counterfeit $20 bill.
Yeah. That one. The George Floyd murder and the civil unrest it engendered, takes center stage for a good portion of the latter half of the book, and is reflected through the Native community, which has its own issues with White law enforcement and legal practices.
It’s easy to see this novel is a wild stew of ideas, social conflicts, cultural differences, personal crises, family drama, and eyewitness to contemporary history. The plot staggers and wanders and occasionally stalls, but it also keeps pulling the reader through, via some incredibly unlikely sleight-of-hand that Erdrich has wrought, because dammit, you want to know what’s going to happen and how Tookie and her family (both biological and chosen) are going to come through this.
The reader comes out the other end, as though emerging from the Confessional booth in one corner of the bookstore, which also plays a major role, not entirely sure how one got there or exactly what has just occurred, but knowing that something did, and that it was utterly life-altering.
This is not a quick read, and it may be a book that requires a second go-round to winkle out the connections and inferences not seen on the first trip. Erdrich’s fans will probably buckle down to the task; readers coming to her work for the first time may end up walking away in puzzlement.
48LyndaInOregon
Had a "first" yesterday -- saw a portion of one of my LTER reviews quoted on the author's FB page. (I won't say she cherry-picked the one positive portion of the review, but if you need a pie for dessert tonight, I have the fixin's.)
Anyway, it was an interesting experience. I often wonder if anybody actually reads the LTER reviews (either as an author, a publicist, or a potential buyer/reader of the work). So I guess that question -- or at least a portion of that question -- is answered!
(Edited to note that seeing it was the result of a long, boring, series of coincidences. I don't FB-stalk the authors I review!)
Anyway, it was an interesting experience. I often wonder if anybody actually reads the LTER reviews (either as an author, a publicist, or a potential buyer/reader of the work). So I guess that question -- or at least a portion of that question -- is answered!
(Edited to note that seeing it was the result of a long, boring, series of coincidences. I don't FB-stalk the authors I review!)
49labfs39
>48 LyndaInOregon: Ha, that's fun. And interesting that she picked the juiciest morsels.
50LyndaInOregon
Review: The Family Roe: An American Story, by Joshua Prager
If you’re younger than 50, you’ve never lived in an America that wasn’t riven by the topic of abortion. From December 13, 1971, when the Supreme Court of the United States ruled the procedure legal, and June 24, 2022, when it reversed itself on the subject, the decision commonly known as Roe v. Wade has driven a wedge through the fabric of American thought deeper than virtually any moral question since the issue of slavery. And in the wake of its reversal under Dobbs v. Jackson, the controversy continues to divide communities, influence national elections, and impact the lives of thousands of women facing unplanned, unwanted, or dangerous pregnancies.
But chances are, almost everything you thought you knew about Roe v. Wade is wrong -- or at least, incomplete, and almost certainly wildly inaccurate.
Joshua Prager takes on the topic in his exhaustive (and emotionally exhausting) study, The Family Roe: An American Story, focusing on the people involved in both sides of the controversy. And although the book’s 2021 publication date predates Dobbs, Prager’s study butts right up against the decision with the acknowledgement that the Court would almost certainly take the path it ultimately chose. He chooses to tell the story through the framework of the individuals most closely affiliated with the issue – the pseudonymous Jane Roe, her attorneys Linda Coffee and Sara Weddington, abortion providers like Dr. Curtis Boyd, Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, who wrote the Roe decision, and the pro-life supporters who rose to prominence in the movement – Mildred Jefferson, Randall Terry, Flip Benham, and Fr. Frank Pavone among many others.
But he returns time and again to “Jane Roe” – a young woman named Norma McCorvey, who faced her third non-marital pregnancy with the determination to terminate it but who could not come up with the going price of $500 for the then-illegal procedure. Norma discussed her dilemma with attorney Henry McCluskey, who had helped place her second child for adoption. As it happened, McCluskey had filed a lawsuit challenging Texas’ anti-sodomy laws and in doing so had consulted with Linda Coffee, whom he knew to be looking for a plaintiff to challenge the state’s abortion ban and who, after learning of Norma’s request, reached out to her former law school friend, Sara Weddington, a feminist attorney also interested in the topic. So by almost pure happenstance – a Tinkers to Evers to Chance triple-play on the legal field rather than the baseball diamond, Norma was tagged by the McCluskey to Coffee to Weddington combo and became Jane Roe.
A more unlikely poster girl for women’s rights would have been hard to come by. A high-school dropout with drug and alcohol issues and a promiscuous sexual history including both male and female partners, Norma was a stubborn iconoclast with a tendency to amend her history with an eye to whichever version of her story would seem to put her in the best bargaining position at the moment. She carried through with the lawsuit even though her attorneys cautioned her that it would almost certainly not be settled in time for her to legally terminate her pregnancy, and in fact she gave birth to her third and final child before the Roe v. Wade decision was handed down.
Norma’s rough-hewn appearance, her continued alcohol dependency, and her unpredictability as a speaker, made her largely unacceptable to the growing pro-choice movement that came into being as the topic of abortion began to be debated publicly. Ultimately, driven either by the rejection she felt from organizations like NARAL, or from the nagging guilt remaining from her Fundamentalist Christian childhood, Norma McCorvey – Jane Roe – declared herself “born again” and began to be courted by the pro-life contingent. Just who was using whom remains debatable throughout the book. McCorvey definitely wanted to be admired – and paid – for her brave stand … and which side of that “brave stand” she wanted to come down on was generally influenced by the number of zeroes attached to her speaking fees and honoraria. Prager describes her as “disagreeable and opportunistic”. According to her eldest daughter, Melissa, “On the pro-choice side, she could be who she wanted to be but they didn’t respect her. On the pro-life side, they respected her, but she couldn’t be who she wanted to be.” What Norma wanted to be, says Prager, “was gay and pro-choice – but only moderately pro-choice. Norma no more absolutely opposed Roe than she’d ever absolutely supported it.”
The topic of Norma’s sexuality – and indeed, of the gay community’s inextricable involvement with Roe’s underlying foundation of the Constitutional right to privacy – is interwoven throughout the book. Many of the major players in the drama – including McCluskey and Coffee – were closeted homosexuals at a time and place when being so put them at direct risk for criminal prosecution. Norma’s full acceptance by the religion-based pro-life faction was predicated on her ending her decades-long relationship with the woman who was her longest-tenured partner. Norma, predictably, tried to play it both ways, refusing to move out but insisting that the relationship no longer extended to physical intimacy.
Ultimately, this tangle of broken family ties, lives disrupted by unintended pregnancies, the clash of public and private morals, the ascendancy of the Christian Right as a political force, the medications and treatment options that moved fetal viability earlier and earlier in a pregnancy and their clash with procedures that made abortion safe for women later and later in term, all intertwine on a canvas of human fallibility, deeply-held religious beliefs, manipulation, falsehoods, shifting political sands, and always, always, that question people of good faith are still struggling to answer – at what point do the human rights of the woman outweigh the rights of the unborn?
The Family Roe is not an easy read. But it is compelling, thought-provoking, and ultimately, brutally, honest.
If you’re younger than 50, you’ve never lived in an America that wasn’t riven by the topic of abortion. From December 13, 1971, when the Supreme Court of the United States ruled the procedure legal, and June 24, 2022, when it reversed itself on the subject, the decision commonly known as Roe v. Wade has driven a wedge through the fabric of American thought deeper than virtually any moral question since the issue of slavery. And in the wake of its reversal under Dobbs v. Jackson, the controversy continues to divide communities, influence national elections, and impact the lives of thousands of women facing unplanned, unwanted, or dangerous pregnancies.
But chances are, almost everything you thought you knew about Roe v. Wade is wrong -- or at least, incomplete, and almost certainly wildly inaccurate.
Joshua Prager takes on the topic in his exhaustive (and emotionally exhausting) study, The Family Roe: An American Story, focusing on the people involved in both sides of the controversy. And although the book’s 2021 publication date predates Dobbs, Prager’s study butts right up against the decision with the acknowledgement that the Court would almost certainly take the path it ultimately chose. He chooses to tell the story through the framework of the individuals most closely affiliated with the issue – the pseudonymous Jane Roe, her attorneys Linda Coffee and Sara Weddington, abortion providers like Dr. Curtis Boyd, Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, who wrote the Roe decision, and the pro-life supporters who rose to prominence in the movement – Mildred Jefferson, Randall Terry, Flip Benham, and Fr. Frank Pavone among many others.
But he returns time and again to “Jane Roe” – a young woman named Norma McCorvey, who faced her third non-marital pregnancy with the determination to terminate it but who could not come up with the going price of $500 for the then-illegal procedure. Norma discussed her dilemma with attorney Henry McCluskey, who had helped place her second child for adoption. As it happened, McCluskey had filed a lawsuit challenging Texas’ anti-sodomy laws and in doing so had consulted with Linda Coffee, whom he knew to be looking for a plaintiff to challenge the state’s abortion ban and who, after learning of Norma’s request, reached out to her former law school friend, Sara Weddington, a feminist attorney also interested in the topic. So by almost pure happenstance – a Tinkers to Evers to Chance triple-play on the legal field rather than the baseball diamond, Norma was tagged by the McCluskey to Coffee to Weddington combo and became Jane Roe.
A more unlikely poster girl for women’s rights would have been hard to come by. A high-school dropout with drug and alcohol issues and a promiscuous sexual history including both male and female partners, Norma was a stubborn iconoclast with a tendency to amend her history with an eye to whichever version of her story would seem to put her in the best bargaining position at the moment. She carried through with the lawsuit even though her attorneys cautioned her that it would almost certainly not be settled in time for her to legally terminate her pregnancy, and in fact she gave birth to her third and final child before the Roe v. Wade decision was handed down.
Norma’s rough-hewn appearance, her continued alcohol dependency, and her unpredictability as a speaker, made her largely unacceptable to the growing pro-choice movement that came into being as the topic of abortion began to be debated publicly. Ultimately, driven either by the rejection she felt from organizations like NARAL, or from the nagging guilt remaining from her Fundamentalist Christian childhood, Norma McCorvey – Jane Roe – declared herself “born again” and began to be courted by the pro-life contingent. Just who was using whom remains debatable throughout the book. McCorvey definitely wanted to be admired – and paid – for her brave stand … and which side of that “brave stand” she wanted to come down on was generally influenced by the number of zeroes attached to her speaking fees and honoraria. Prager describes her as “disagreeable and opportunistic”. According to her eldest daughter, Melissa, “On the pro-choice side, she could be who she wanted to be but they didn’t respect her. On the pro-life side, they respected her, but she couldn’t be who she wanted to be.” What Norma wanted to be, says Prager, “was gay and pro-choice – but only moderately pro-choice. Norma no more absolutely opposed Roe than she’d ever absolutely supported it.”
The topic of Norma’s sexuality – and indeed, of the gay community’s inextricable involvement with Roe’s underlying foundation of the Constitutional right to privacy – is interwoven throughout the book. Many of the major players in the drama – including McCluskey and Coffee – were closeted homosexuals at a time and place when being so put them at direct risk for criminal prosecution. Norma’s full acceptance by the religion-based pro-life faction was predicated on her ending her decades-long relationship with the woman who was her longest-tenured partner. Norma, predictably, tried to play it both ways, refusing to move out but insisting that the relationship no longer extended to physical intimacy.
Ultimately, this tangle of broken family ties, lives disrupted by unintended pregnancies, the clash of public and private morals, the ascendancy of the Christian Right as a political force, the medications and treatment options that moved fetal viability earlier and earlier in a pregnancy and their clash with procedures that made abortion safe for women later and later in term, all intertwine on a canvas of human fallibility, deeply-held religious beliefs, manipulation, falsehoods, shifting political sands, and always, always, that question people of good faith are still struggling to answer – at what point do the human rights of the woman outweigh the rights of the unborn?
The Family Roe is not an easy read. But it is compelling, thought-provoking, and ultimately, brutally, honest.
51rocketjk
>50 LyndaInOregon: Great review. Thank you so much for writing at such length and depth. This seems like an essential book.
52labfs39
>50 LyndaInOregon: Wow. Thanks for the great review.
53Whisper1
Lynda, I agree with >51 rocketjk: and >52 labfs39:. Your review of The Family Roe: An American Story, by Joshua Prager is outstanding. As mentioned previously, you are an incredible writer.
Many thanks for the depth of knowledge in your review. Of course, the book is going on my TBR pile.
Many thanks for the depth of knowledge in your review. Of course, the book is going on my TBR pile.
