#108: Now You See Him

Now You See Him, by Eli Gottlieb

(New York: William Morrow, 2008)

Summary:
"The deaths of Rob Castor and his girlfriend begin a wrenching and enthrallingly suspenseful story that mines the explosive terrains of love and paternity, marriage and its delicate intricacies, family secrets and how they fester over time, and ultimately the true nature of loyalty and trust, friendship and envy, deception and manipulation.

"As the media take hold of this sensational crime, a series of unexpected revelations unleashes hidden truths in the lives of those closest to Rob. At the center of this driving narrative is Rob's childhood best friend, Nick Framingham, whose ten-year marriage to his college sweetheart is faltering. Shocked by Rob's death, Nick begins to reevaluate his own life and past, and as he does so, a fault line opens up beneath him, leading him all the way to the novel's startling conclusion."

Opening Line:
"At this late date, would it be fair to say that people, after a fashion, have come to doubt the building blocks of life itself?"

My Take:  
Side note:  While the barrage of end-of-year books I've just posted may have gotten somewhat out of order, I do know this was the last book I read in 2012. Just as parts of our lives have their own soundtracks, much of what I've done and read this past year comes with its own scenic backdrop. (Of course, some of the scenery was prettier than the rest.) There are novels I know I read in Boston because I can't see their covers without picturing the bedspread in my Boylston Street apartment; others I place in D.C. from the memory of painstakingly cramming the flimsy Days Inn pillows into place behind me so I could lean back while I read. Strangely, I could certainly look it up, but I don't know what I read in Pullman. I can see the autumn Palouse light, golden on the rolling hills and tinged pink through my window; I know I sat in the Lighty Hall atrium at lunchtime with a mocha in my right hand and a book in front of me. (What I remember from that trip is the podcast -- Frontline's "God in America" -- that served as its soundtrack: gasping uphill through the wildfire and paper mill smog in Lewiston on the way to the Nez Perce County Fair; twilight descending between the downtown taqueria with the mural and the community garden's fading sunflowers as I took the scenic route back to my hotel; gazing out the airplane window as Minneapolis fell away and realizing I'd be back amid the familiar bustle and mess of my family within hours.)

But this book did not come to Pullman. This one came to Boston over New Year's; I fiddled with the adjustable mattress as I sprawled on my bed in the Revere, the air smelling faintly of peppermint shampoo, Eliza channel-surfing and Mike doing game prep on his laptop at the art deco-inspired desk. Perhaps I sipped a glass of the wine we picked up at the 570 Market on our way back from dinner at Addis; it's likely I schlepped it to Manchester in my satchel when we drove up to see the NH side of the family.

If only. If only I could make the time to capture moments like this more frequently, rather than just sneaking them into tangentially-related blog posts like Jessica Seinfeld's vegetable brownies.

But oh, yeah, the book. Gatsby a la Richard Russo, if you transplant the title character from Roaring '20s Long Island to 21st-century Mohawk small-town Upstate New York. This is a good thing, and a good (if sad) story.

#107: San Miguel

San Miguel, by T. C. Boyle

(New York: Viking, 2012)

 Summary:
"This latest novel from Boyle (The Women; When the Killing's Done) portrays two families living and working on barren San Miguel Island off the coast of California. In 1888 Marantha Waters leaves her comfortable life on mainland California and moves out to San Miguel with her adopted daughter and husband, a steely Civil War veteran convinced that he'll have success sheep ranching on the island. Marantha is seriously ill, but instead of breathing the clean, restorative air she expected, she must live in a drafty, moldy shack in a damp environment where the sun rarely shines. Years later, in 1930, Elise Lester, newly wed at 38, moves to San Miguel with her husband, Herbie, a World War I veteran. Though Herbie has his highs and lows, they are happy, and they have two daughters. The outside world learns of their pioneering ways, and they achieve a celebrity Herbie hopes will translate into additional income. Then World War II arrives, and with war in the Pacific, their insular island location may no longer be a refuge"

Opening Line:
"She was coughing, always coughing, and sometimes she coughed up blood."

My Take:
I don't think I'll ever be quite as transported by another of Boyle's books as I was by The Tortilla Curtain, but I know that's my problem. He's a fascinating writer, very skilled technically and with recurring themes (humans vs. nature, government vs. the civilian everyman or -woman, and with the addition of this to When the Killing's Done, apparently the Channel Islands) I enjoy. Intriguing characters here, especially if they were based on real people ... which would explain why the story seems not to have much of a real ending.

#106: The Outsourced Self

The Outsourced Self: Intimate Life in Market Times, 

by Arlie Russell Hochschild

(New York: Metropolitan Books, 2012)

Summary:
"From the famed author of the bestselling The Second Shift and The Time Bind, a pathbreaking look at the transformation of private life in our for-profit world.

"The family has long been a haven in a heartless world, the one place immune to market forces and economic calculations, where the personal, the private, and the emotional hold sway. Yet as Arlie Russell Hochschild shows in The Outsourced Self, that is no longer the case: everything that was once part of private life—love, friendship, child rearing—is being transformed into packaged expertise to be sold back to confused, harried Americans.

"Drawing on hundreds of interviews and original research, Hochschild follows the incursions of the market into every stage of intimate life. From dating services that train you to be the CEO of your love life to wedding planners who create a couple's "personal narrative"; from nameologists (who help you name your child) to wantologists (who help you name your goals); from commercial surrogate farms in India to hired mourners who will scatter your loved one's ashes in the ocean of your choice—Hochschild reveals a world in which the most intuitive and emotional of human acts have become work for hire.

"Sharp and clear-eyed, Hochschild is full of sympathy for overstressed, outsourcing Americans, even as she warns of the market's threat to the personal realm they are striving so hard to preserve."

Table of Contents:

1. You Have Three Seconds
2. The Legend of the Lemon Tree
3. For as Long as You Both Shall Live
4. Our Baby, Her Womb
5. My Womb, Their Baby
6. It Takes a Service Mall
7. Making Five-Year-Olds Laugh Is Harder than You Think
8. A High Score in Family Memory Creation
9. Importing Family Values
10. I Was Invisible to Myself
11. Nolan Enjoys My Father for Me
12. Anything You Pay For Is Better
13. I Would Have Done It If She'd Been My Mother
14. Endings 
15. The Wantologist

My Take:
Another Second Shift or Time Bind this ain't. I suspect Hochschild's decision to write it was born of her own conflicted, guilt-spiked feelings at seeking a paid caregiver for her elderly aunt, and I think the book might have been stronger and more compelling had it focused on those intimate activities -- child and elder care, for example -- that pretty much everyone needs, and which have increasingly been moved to the market sphere and paid for. That story's been told many times, though, so what we're left with seems less like a thoughtful exposition and discussion-starter and more a voyeuristic "Wow, look at all the crazy, unnecessary stuff the 1% (or maybe just the 0.1 or 0.01%) will pay people to do for them!" Sure, it's interesting and may seem creepy or just weird that someone who's rich enough will spend beaucoup bucks on a kid's birthday party or various aspects of the wedding-industrial complex, but it's hardly a social problem on the order of the second shift.

#105: Tumbleweeds

Tumbleweeds, by Leila Meacham

(New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2012)

Summary:
"Recently orphaned, eleven-year-old Cathy Benson feels she has been dropped into a cultural and intellectual wasteland when she is forced to move from her academically privileged life in California to the small town of Kersey in the Texas Panhandle where the sport of football reigns supreme. She is quickly taken under the unlikely wings of up-and-coming gridiron stars and classmates John Caldwell and Trey Don Hall, orphans like herself, with whom she forms a friendship and eventual love triangle that will determine the course of the rest of their lives. Taking the three friends through their growing up years until their high school graduations when several tragic events uproot and break them apart, the novel expands to follow their careers and futures until they reunite in Kersey at forty years of age. Told with all of Meacham's signature drama, unforgettable characters, and plot twists, readers will be turning the pages, desperate to learn how it all plays out."

Opening Line:
"The call he'd been expecting for twenty-two years came at midnight when he was working late at his desk."

My Take:
Silly, entertaining, but forgettable fluff. We all have our guilty pleasures; this one wasn't the best of its kind I've read, but it wasn't the worst, either. That's all.

#104: Daughter of Fortune

Daughter of Fortune, by Isabel Allende 

(translated by Margaret Sayers Peden)

(New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2008)

Summary: 
"An orphan raised in Valparaiso, Chile, by a Victorian spinster and her rigid brother, vivacious young Eliza Sommers follows her lover to California during the Gold Rush of 1849. Entering a rough-and-tumble world of new arrivals driven mad by gold fever, Eliza moves in a society of single men and prostitutes with the help of her good friend and savior, the Chinese doctor Tao Chi'en. California opens the door to a new life of freedom and independence to the young Chilean, and her search for her elusive lover gradually turns into another kind of journey. By the time she finally hears news of him, Eliza must decide who her true love really is"

Opening Line: 
"Everyone is born with some special talent, and Eliza Sommers discovered early on that she had two: a good sense of smell and a good memory."

My Take:
Maybe it's because I'm now getting into the more recent parts of my backlog, or maybe it's just that Isabel Allende is a brilliant writer, but when I decided it was time for a Latin American-themed flight of books, this was what I had in mind. (The fact that the protagonist's name is Eliza doesn't hurt, but I'd have loved Daughter of Fortune anyway.) Exciting adventure story with just enough twists and turns, and great characters. Just blogging about it and remembering how much I enjoyed it is almost enough to make me look forward to my long commute tomorrow and listening to Ines of My Soul. Almost.
 

#103: Dancing to "Almendra"

Dancing to "Almendra," by Mayra Montero 

(translated by Edith Grossman)

(New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2007)

Summary:
"Havana, 1957. On the same day that the Mafia capo Umberto Anastasia is assassinated in a barber's chair in New York, a hippopotamus escapes from the Havana zoo and is shot and killed by its pursuers. Assigned to cover the zoo story, Joaquin Porrata, a young Cuban journalist, instead finds himself embroiled in the mysterious connections between the hippo's death and the mobster's when a secretive zookeeper whispers to him that he 'knows too much.' In exchange for a promise to introduce the keeper to his idol, the film star George Raft, now the host of the Capri Casino, Joaquin gets information that ensnares him in an ever-thickening plot of murder, mobsters, and, finally, love.

"The love story is, of course, another mystery. Told by Yolanda, a beautiful ex-circus performer now working for the famed cabaret San Souci, it interleaves through Joaquin's underworld investigations, eventually revealing a family secret deeper even than Havana's brilliantly evoked enigmas.

"In Dancing to 'Almendra,' Mayra Montero has created an ardent and thrilling tale of innocence lost, of Havana's secret world that is 'the basis for the clamor of the city,' and of the end of a violent era of fantastic characters and extravagant crimes."

Opening Line:
"On the same day Umberto Anastasia was killed in New York, a hippopotamus escaped from the zoo in Havana."

My Take:
Awesome as that opening line is, I think this was one of those books I'd hoped to like a lot more than I did. More good writing (how I wish I could produce it instead of just recognizing it, but sadly, whatever facility with words I once had, I don't have two original thoughts to rub together), and certainly Batista-era Havana is as much a character in the novel as anyone else. Noir isn't really my favorite genre, though, so I'm probably not the person who'd get the most from this book.
 

#102: American Youth

American Youth, by Phil LaMarche

(New York: Random House, 2007)

Summary:
"American Youth is a controlled, essential, and powerful tale of a teenager in southern New England who is confronted by a terrible moral dilemma following a firearms accident in his home. This tragedy earns him the admiration of a sinister gang of boys at his school and a girl associated with them. Set in a town riven by social and ideological tensions an old rural culture in conflict with newcomers this is a classic portrait of a young man struggling with the idea of identity and responsibility in an America ill at ease with itself."

Opening Line:
"The two boys walked the high ridge at the center of the wood road, avoiding the muddy ruts along the sides."

My Take:
As far as I remember, I liked it well enough and appreciated that it was well-written. Didn't absolutely love it or have a tough time putting it down, though.

#101: Talk to Me First

Talk to Me First: Everything You Need to Know to Become Your Kids' Go-To Person About Sex, by Deborah Roffman

(Boston: Da Capo Press, 2012)

Summary:
"Nationally acclaimed educator and author of Sex and Sensibility, Deborah Roffman distills her more than thirty years of experience teaching kids -- and their parents -- into this indispensable guide, helping you to be your kids' number one source for information and guidance on human sexuality. Roffman tackles everything from developmental stages to strategies for handling embarrassing or difficult conversations, offering the best way to make sure you both keep talking (and listening)."

Table of Contents:

1. Getting There First About Sex
2. Raising Children in a World Gone Upside Down
3. Parenting Is a Five-Piece Suit
4. Affirmation: Our Children as Sexual Beings
5. Information: Folding in the Facts
6. Clarity About Value: Honing Your Message
7. The Delicate Art of Limit-Setting
8. Anticipatory Guidance: Turning Children over to Themselves
9. Practice Makes Perfect: Let's Go Fishing

My Take:
Here's one where I really wish I'd kept up on my blogging, as I remember this being an especially useful book about parents, kids of all ages, and communications around sexuality (and in general). Unfortunately, enough time has gone by that the book's long been returned to the library and I don't recall enough specifics to comment on in more detail. Oh well. If you're looking for a good book about talking with kids about sex that doesn't push a particular agenda, read this one.  

#100: Between You and Me

Between You and Me, by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus

(New York: Atria Books, 2012)

Summary:
"Twenty-seven-year-old Logan Wade is trying to build a life for herself far from her unhappy childhood in Oklahoma. Until she gets the call that her famous cousin needs a new assistant -- an offer she can't refuse.

"Logan hasn't seen Kelsey in person since their parents separated them as kids; in the meantime, Kelsey Wade has grown into Fortune Magazine's most powerful celebrity. But their reunion is quickly overshadowed by the toxic dynamic between Kelsey and her parents as Logan discovers that, beneath the glossy facade, the wounds that caused them to be wrenched apart so many years ago have insidiously warped into a showstopping family business.

"As Kelsey tries desperately to break away and grasp at a 'real' life, beyond the influence of her parents and managers, she makes one catastrophic misstep after another, and Logan must question if their childhood has left them both too broken to succeed. Logan risks everything to hold on, but when Kelsey unravels in the most horribly public way, Logan finds that she will ultimately have to choose between rescuing the girl she has always protected ... and saving herself."

Opening Line:
"'Okay, we're coming up on our final hill,' Sandra, my instructor. puffs into her microphone, reaching out from her bike to dim the spin room's lights even further."

My Take:
Poor McLaughlin and Kraus. While I'm sure they're laughing all the way to the bank, I think by now it's safe to say that they're unlikely to ever have another zeitgeist-grabbing megahit anywhere close to what they did with The Nanny Diaries. You and Me was good enough, an entertaining, engaging few days' read -- but not so memorable and compelling that I can picture where I was and what else was going on while I read it (in contrast to Dedication, for example, which wasn't really much better but does conjure up my room in the Colonial Building on Boylston Street). This one does a lot of hinting at some deep, dark back story behind Logan and Kelsey's childhood separation, and at the creepiness of Kelsey's overly close relationship with her parents, but never delivers anything scandalous or surprising enough to merit all the ominous foreshadowing. As a story of Logan, girl next door who stumbles into the bright lights, big city of celebrity and finds it's not all it's cracked up to be, it's OK, but not terribly memorable. 

#99: Fifty Shades of Grey

Fifty Shades of Grey, by E.L James

(New York: Vintage Books, 2012)

Summary:
"When literature student Anastasia Steele goes to interview young entrepreneur Christian Grey, she encounters a man who is beautiful, brilliant, and intimidating. The unworldly, innocent Ana is startled to realize she wants this man and, despite his enigmatic reserve, finds she is desperate to get close to him. Unable to resist Ana's quiet beauty, wit, and independent spirit, Grey admits he wants her, too -- but on his own terms.

"Shocked yet thrilled by Grey's singular erotic tastes, Ana hesitates. For all the trappings of success -- his multinational businesses, his vast wealth, his loving family -- Grey is a man tormented bu demons and consumed by the need to control. When the couple embarks on a daring, passionately physical affair, Ana discovers Christian Grey's secrets and explores her own dark desires." 

Opening Line:
"I scowl with frustration at myself in the mirror."
 
My Take:
Yes, I succumbed. This book generated so much buzz, both rave reviews from adoring fans and the media being all atwitter about it, that I had to see what the big deal was. Frankly, I was underwhelmed. The writing is pretty darned awful, smacking of the mediocre, unedited fan fiction it originally started out as. After the umpteenth description of how Ana "flushed scarlet" or mused that her "inner goddess" was doing something or another, I couldn't help giggling, which probably isn't the reaction James was going for.

As erotica, meh. It has its moments, but I've read better; I don't think adult literature is exempt from the rule that it's tough to get into the spirit of things if the characters are wooden and one-dimensional. Far more remarkable than the book itself, as I see it, is the widespread amazement at its success. Why are we so surprised that women, even women in their 30s and beyond who (gasp!) have children want to read steamy books, or that some of the steamy books they seek out deal with (ahem) varsity-level sexual variations? I'm not even talking directly about what consenting adults might or might not get up to in the privacy of their own bedrooms; like most bibliophiles, I don't want to read only about things that resonate with my own personal experience. If I can read murder mysteries or espionage thrillers without wanting to be a detective or a spy, or can enjoy Terry McMillan's novels without being African-American, well ... why can't I enjoy an adult novel whether or not I share the main characters' intimate proclivities? Maybe the bigger story here is that Fifty Shades' success hints at an unserved need: if this book could become a bestseller despite its sloppy, shoddy writing, might there be a far greater market for woman-oriented erotica than we've been willing to acknowledge up until now?

#98: French Kids Eat Everything

French Kids Eat Everything: 

How Our Family Moved to France, Cured Picky Eating, Banned Snacking, and Discovered 10 Simple Rules for Raising Happy, Healthy Eaters, by Karen Le Billon

(New York: William Morrow, 2012)

 

Summary:

"Moving her young family to her husband's hometown in northern France, Karen Le Billon is prepared for some cultural adjustment but is surprised by the food education she and her family (at first unwillingly) receive. In contrast to her daughters, French children feed themselves neatly and happily -- eating everything from beets to broccoli, salad to spinach, mussels to muesli. The family's food habits come under scrutiny, as Karen is lectured for slipping her fussing toddler a snack -- 'a recipe for obesity!' -- and forbidden from packing her older daughter a lunch in lieu of the elaborate school meal.

"The family soon begins to see the wisdom in the 'food rules' that help the French foster healthy eating habits and good manners -- from the rigid 'no snacking' rule to commonsense food routines that we used to share but have somehow forgotten. Soon, the family cures picky eating and learns to love trying new foods. But the real challenge comes when they move back to North America -- where their commitment to 'eating French' is put to the test. The result is a family food revolution with surprising but happy results -- which suggest we need to dramatically rethink the way we feed children, at home and at school."

Table of Contents:

1. French Kids Eat Everything (and Yours Can Too)
2. Baby Steps and Beet Puree: We Move to France, and Encounter Unidentified Edible Objects
3. Schooling the Stomach: We Start Learning to "Eat French" (the Hard Way)
4. L'art de la table: A Meal with Friends, and a Friendly Argument
5. Food Fights: How Not to Get Your Kids to Eat Everything
6. The Kohlrabi Experiment: Learning to Love New Foods
7. Four Square Meals a Day: Why French Kids Don't Snack
8. Slow Food Nation: It's Not Only What You Eat, It's Also How You Eat
9. The Best of Both Worlds
10. The Most Important Food Rule of All 

My Take:
Liked it, but not quite so much as Bringing Up Bebe. I think the chief difference is that Le Billon managed to push some of my rusty-but-still-functioning parental guilt/ smugness buttons in a way Druckerman's book didn't. To be fair, the two aren't identical; French Kids is more narrowly focused on the French attitude towards food and eating, while Bebe is a broader observation on French parenting in general.

Anyway, it's no secret that I've wrestled with my share of parenting demons over the years. I've always been a working mother; I nursed my daughter for a year; she has no siblings. For all the much-publicized trials of raising a teenager, this is one thing that gets better with time; you've realized by now that whether and how long you breast-fed and what you do from 9 to 5 really doesn't matter all that much, and you can commiserate with other parents about adolescent attitude flare-ups without their insisting that you wouldn't have this problem if only you were co-sleeping.

One of the areas where I never quite fit the toddler parenting mold was preparedness. I carried a diaper bag when we still needed one, and would toss in a favorite toy or 2 if we were traveling to a kid-free home overnight, but other than that, I was never The Mom Who Has Everything. And while I sometimes wished I had a Band-Aid or box o' wipes handy, neither Twig nor I ever suffered for a lack of little prepackaged baggies of Teddy Grahams and goldfish crackers. Sure, I felt a little sheepish on those play dates where other moms ended up feeding both their own kid and mine from their Cheerios stash, but I also knew Twig was way more interested in the playground than the food, and probably wouldn't have thought to ask for a snack on her own if her friend wasn't having one right there in front of her. In fact, my first inkling that the local Supermom (a truly lovely person whose child was Twig's favorite preschool playmate) just might not win all the medals in the parenting Olympics came when we took the kids to lunch at a grocery store cafe, and Twig happily devoured her strawberries and yogurt without much prompting, while Supermom laboriously spread cream cheese on tortilla chips one by one for Superkid.

Point is, I was primed from the get-go to do some private eye-rolling at some of the French parenting norms that proved so hard for Le Billon to accept. Of course you don't make special kid-friendly food at every meal; if a child is hungry enough, s/he'll eat at least some of what everyone else is having. And naturally the after-school snack can wait till you get home; barring exceptional circumstances, there's no need for regularly dining a la car. (5 hour road trips? Sure, pack a few snacks. A 15-minute trip home from school or day care? Not so much.) Long story short (or at least shorter than it would be if I kept on keepin' on), Le Billon's observations about French food culture are fascinating to think about for anyone interested in the topic, whether or not they have young children, though I ended up without much sympathy for the author herself.

#97: The Middlesteins

The Middlesteins, by Jami Attenberg

(New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2012)

Summary:
"For more than thirty years, Edie and Richard Middlestein shared a solid family life together in the suburbs of Chicago -- two children, a nice house, ample employment, and generous friends. But things are splintering apart, for one reason, it seems: Edie's fixated on food -- thinking about it, eating it -- and if she doesn't stop, she won't have much longer to live.


"When Richard abandons his wife, it is up to the next generation to take control. Robin, their schoolteacher daughter, is determined that her father pay for leaving Edie. Benny, an easygoing, pot-smoking family man, just wants to smooth things over. And Rachelle -- a whippet-thin perfectionist -- is intent on saving her mother-in-law's life, but this task proves even bigger than planning her twin children's spectacular b'nai mitzvah party. Through it all, they wonder: Do Edie's devastating choices rest on her shoulders alone, or are others at fault, too?"

Opening Line:
"How could she not feed their daughter?"

My Take:
I formally left Catholicism almost 14 years ago, and hadn't been to confession in more than a decade before that, but sometimes, childhood memories die hard. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It's been two months since my last blog post.

This doesn't mean I haven't been reading (though I've slacked off since New Year's, completing a whopping 2 books since the start of January); only that I haven't carved out time to blog about what I've read. That's part of a way bigger issue that merits contemplation, but for now, I think I'll just bang out a scarcely-commented log of what I've read since then.

So here goes. Loved The Middlesteins, and also loved in a quietly arrogant way that this was one I happened to stumble across and read before all the reviewers seized upon it. I think it was the NYT Book Review podcast that mentioned this one just before Thanksgiving, calling it a meditation on the complex relationships and obligatory dysfunctions that are part of every family; I'd read it as an observation on Edie's obesity being a natural outgrowth of women's/ mothers' traditional nurturing/ caregiving roles, but I don't think either view is unjustified. As to whether it hit a wee bit close to home given my own weight and emotional eating struggles over the years, well ... as I said earlier, that's a subject for another, much longer post. In the meantime, let's leave it at saying I really enjoyed the book and would recommend it highly to others.

#96: Survival Mom

Survival Mom: The Modern Family's Guide 

to Any Apocalypse, by Lisa Bedford

(New York: HarperOne, 2012)

 

Summary:
"Undaunted by the prospect of TEOTWAWKI (The End of the World as We Know It), Lisa Bedford tackles every what-if and worst-case scenario head-on, offering practical advice on how to prepare your family for whatever might come your way. From a few days without electricity to an unexpected job loss or total chaos after the destruction of a tornado, Survival Mom provides everything you need to become self-reliant and establish plans for your family, including:

• preparing the home for a natural disaster
• alternative sources of energy in a power's-out situation
• everything you need to know about food storage
• personal protection (do I really need to learn how to shoot a gun?)

"Deep inside every mom is a Survival Mom whose passion for her family drives her to make the best of the present and prepare for the future. So tap into your Mama Grizzly instincts and channel your worries into action. Whether you're a full-fledged 'prepper' or just getting started, with real-life stories and customizable forms and checklists along with Lisa's 'you can do it' attitude, Survival Mom replaces paranoia and panic with the peace of knowing YOU have the power to keep your loved ones safe and secure."

Table of Contents:

• Quiz: What Kind of Survival Mom Are You?
• From Suburban Mom to Survival Mom, an Introduction
• 1. Prepare More, Panic Less
• 2. Survival Begins with Water
• 3. Keeping It Clean: The Ins and Outs of Sanitation
• 4. The First Steps of Food Storage
• 5. Increase Your Food Storage Savvy
• 6. Your Home Base
• 7. The Unplugged Home: Learning to Live Without Electricity
• 8. The Essentials for Safety and Security
• 9. Survival Finances
• 10. It Takes a Compound
• 11. Preparedness on the Go: Evacuation Basics
• 12. Survival Mom to Survival Mom

My Take:
I've heard that life imitates art, and stumbled into enough eerie parallels between what's going on around me and what's on my bookshelf to agree. Sometimes, it's just a weird but minor coincidence that makes me smile to myself. Other times, I'd much rather my reading material have remained irrelevant. If you've been in or even aware of the northeastern US last week, you know this is one of those other times. I read this book last week, when I was still adjusting to my 90-minute commute and too brain-dead in the evenings to tackle anything other than a very concrete, lots-of-bulleted-lists self-help manual. Bedford's tone here really isn't particularly alarmist, and I'm too fond of my coffee and libraries to seriously contemplate going off-the-grid, but hearing the news reports and office chit-chat about Hurricane Sandy's approach and then falling asleep envisioning some of the scenarios for which Survival Mom recommends preparing had me sufficiently shaken that I sent Filbert out to stock up on batteries and flashlights and packed a change of clothes and an extra granola bar in my satchel when I set out for work on Monday, just in case.

Here in my neck of the woods, we were lucky. It rained steadily for a few days, and the wind gusts buffeting my little Matrix Monday evening were a bit unsettling, but that was all. The power never even flickered, and with no school for Twig or I and no real weather of consequence, Tuesday felt almost like a holiday, complete with a drizzly stroll downtown and a decadent soda-fountain float for dessert. My hometown, though, where my parents and siblings still live, was another story. It could have been worse, of course; they aren't in Breezy Point, where some 50 homes burned to the ground during the storm, or in any of the coastal Jersey communities of which aerial photos show only rooftops above the flood waters. Three-quarters of the Thyme family never left their homes, and got their power back on Thursday night. The glorious, seemingly immortal pin oak still towers over the house we grew up in, though Dad's started to make noises about how it's not looking so great after two years of hurricane damage and maybe he should take it down himself before another storm beats him to it. Most importantly, everyone is safe and healthy, including my newborn niece (who's fated to spend her every birthday hearing the grown-ups retell Hurricane Sandy stories that grow taller even as she does). Still, I see loved ones with flooded homes (some for the second time in two years), beaches and other beloved landmarks devastated, news of fights breaking out in gas station lines that make me wonder if some of Lisa Bedford's more apocalyptic what-ifs are really as far-fetched as I'd initially thought.

I don't want to co-opt this disaster into Hurricane Hazelthyme, grasping at whatever tenuous connection to tragedy I can so as to make myself the center of attention. But along with the obvious sadness and loss, I feel guilty, regret that I let my own busyness and awkwardness keep me from staying closer to these friends and relatives all along so I could offer help or at least sympathy now without being perceived as a tourist or a vulture. As the only one of four siblings who settled more than 15 miles from the aforementioned pin oak, I'm accustomed to feeling cut off from my family and my home town. I last lived there at 18, when few people are yet fully comfortable in their own skin, and as I now live 5 hours away, there will always be parties I can't attend and "in" jokes I Just Don't Get. Usually, though, what I'm missing are happy things: a Father's Day cookout, a shared beach house, my nephew's birthday party, a spontaneous dinner with my oldest friend, a chance meeting and drink with a former high school classmate in a neighborhood bar. I could walk into one of these events any time, and while I'd be a recurring guest star rather than a featured-in-the-title-sequence main character, I'd nonetheless be welcome; as Robert Frost said "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in." Strange to say, though, I find myself wishing I'd gone out of my way to accept more party invitations, haunt more local watering holes, and make more phone calls and Facebook posts while I was there, so that I'd have earned the right to help haul ruined furniture out of some flooded basements now.

So much for not making it all about me. At any rate, this started because I'd read Survival Mom, which offers a solid, well-organized guide to increasing your family's self-sufficiency and disaster preparedness, provided you don't mind or can overlook some of the more catastrophic scenarios the author imagines. In Sandy's wake, few would argue with the logic of storing enough food and water for at least a week, even if the 2 to 3 months' supply Bedford recommends is more than your storage space or organizational skills can handle. Likewise, it suddenly seems prudent to have not just a backup plan, but a backup backup plan, for any major what-if; the generator you've been storing won't do you much good if you can't get more gas when you need it. And we've all known at least since 2008, if not earlier, that maintaining enough savings to cover several months of living expenses (Bedford recommends at least 6) is a smart idea, while buying a home you won't be able to afford if the slightest thing goes wrong (you lose your job, your spouse takes a pay cut, someone in your family becomes seriously ill, interest rates go up) is not.

Side tangent, though: Suggesting that a stay-at-home parent represents some sort of asset in case of emergency, because "[i]f Dad should lose his job, the family's income will take a big hit, but [they] have some interesting options. ... If things got really tight, Mom could become a math tutor or get a job as an accountant or bookkeeper" didn't make sense when Elizabeth Warren did in in The Two Income Trap, and certainly isn't any more plausible here. If the job market is such that Dad, who's been in the workforce all along, has a hard time finding a new job, how is a Mom who hasn't done any paid work in years going to suddenly find work that pays enough to provide significant support for her family? Unless Mom really has some rare skill set that's a) in high demand where she lives, and b) not sufficiently valued by her having been out of the workforce for some period, a better recommendation is for a family to avoid spending all their income as soon as they earn it, whether it's 1 or 2 adults doing the earning ... and to keep your skills sharp and your mind open, so that if whatever your family's current division of paid and domestic labor stops working for whatever reason, everyone's willing to change what they're doing either temporarily or long-term, whether that means picking up a second or part-time job, switching careers, or putting more time into cooking, canning, gardening, and home maintenance to offset the lack of cash you now have for such things.

Anyway, my original point from, oh, about 2 paragraphs back, is that while some of the information Bedford offers is practical, clear, and accessible even for those fairly new to the whole preparedness/ survival genre. Where she loses me, though, is where she drifts from preparing for the sorts of (oxymoron alert!) ordinary disasters that will at least touch most of us at some point -- hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, ice storms, floods, wildfires, job loss -- to apocalyptic scenarios that sound more like something out of a Cormac McCarthy novel:

• "Nuclear events -- including, but not limited to, an electromagnetic pulse (EMP), suitcase bombs, and actual mushroom clouds;
• "Terrorist attacks -- these could happen anywhere, anytime, although I have to admit that terrorists seem to favor New York City;
• "Social unrest -- riots, strikes, large-scale and violent protests;
• "Increased crime rate -- home invasions, car-jackings, burglaries;
• "Economic collapse -- the devaluation of the dollar, bank closures, hyperinflation, a significant stock market crash;
• "Biological catastrophes -- epidemics or pandemics, biological warfare;
• "Utter and complete collapse of civilization -- it's happened before, and it can happen again."

 Maybe I'm just naive or in grave denial, but I have a hard time seriously contemplating any of the above -- or at least attempting to prepare for their remote possibility. To be fair, Bedford does note that not all conceivable disasters are equally likely, and that "it's important to assess which emergency situations are most likely to happen in you area and in your specific set of circumstances."

"In a way, making plans for emergencies is a bit like gambling. You start with the event that has the highest odds first and work your way down from there. Really, should your very first concern be a nuclear attack? Probably not. The odds are much better for a severe weather event, increased crime, or a natural disaster common to your area. Even better odds favor a deep decline in family income and the inability to pay rent or mortgage payments."

Under the circumstances, I'm willing to ignore some of her more extreme recommendations about preparing for economic collapse and building a safe room in her house, not to mention the whole firearms chapter, and just conclude that perhaps she's read a few too many of the male-targeted survivalist books and magazines she claims inspired Survival Mom and ended up with a somewhat skewed perspective on what's dangerous as a result. Perhaps I just took one too many economics classes and have too much innate pessimism, but I tend to think the danger of complete economic or societal collapse or ending up in a terrorist's cross-hairs is sufficiently remote, and the chance of our anticipating or successfully shielding ourselves from harm if one of these events does come to pass, make for an insufficient return on the time and money we'd need to invest in the attempt. (Had I been in the South Tower on 9/11, no personal firearm or inventory of home-canned peaches would have made a difference. Just saying.)

#95: Victory

Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution, by Linda Hirshman

(New York: Harper, 2012)

Summary:
"A Supreme Court lawyer and political pundit details the enthralling and groundbreaking story of the gay rights movement, revealing how a dedicated and resourceful minority changed America forever.

"When the modern struggle for gay rights erupted—most notably at a bar called Stonewall in Greenwich Village—in the summer of 1969, most religious traditions condemned homosexuality; psychiatric experts labeled people who were attracted to others of the same sex 'crazy;' and forty-nine states outlawed sex between people of the same gender. Four decades later, in June 2011, New York legalized gay marriage—the most populous state in the country to do so thus far. The armed services stopped enforcing Don't Ask, Don't Tell, ending a law that had long discriminated against gay and lesbian members of the military. Successful social movements are always extraordinary, but these advances were something of a miracle.

"Political columnist Linda Hirshman recounts the long roads that led to these victories, viewing the gay rights movement within the tradition of American freedom as the third great modern social-justice movement, alongside the civil rights movement and the women's rights movement. Drawing on an abundance of published and archival material, and hundreds of in-depth interviews, Hirshman shows, in this astute political analysis, how the fight for gay rights has changed the American landscape for all citizens—blurring rigid gender lines, altering the shared culture, and broadening our definitions of family.

"From the Communist cross-dresser Harry Hay in 1948 to New York's visionary senator Kirsten Gillibrand in 2010, the story includes dozens of brilliant, idiosyncratic characters. Written in vivid prose, at once emotional and erudite, Victory is an utterly vibrant work of reportage and eyewitness accounts, revealing how, in a matter of decades, while facing every social adversary—church, state, and medical establishment—a focused group of activists forged a classic campaign for cultural change that will serve as a model for all future political movements."

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: How an Army of Good Gays Won the West
• 1. Gays and the Cities: Community First, Politics Later
• 2. Red in Bed: It Takes a Communist to Recognize Gay Oppression
• 3. It Was the Sixties That Did It: Gays Get Radical, Radicals Get Gay
• 4. Stonewall Uprising:  Gays Finally Get Some Respect
• 5. The Good Gays Fight the Four Horsemen: Crazy, Sinful, Criminal, and Subversive
• 6. Dying for the Movement: The Terrible Political Payoff of AIDS
• 7. ACT UP: Five Years That Shook the World
• 8. Failed Marriages and Losing Battles: The Premature Campaign for Marriage and Military Service
• 9. Founding Fathers: Winning Modern Rights Before Fighting Ancient Battles
• 10. Massing the Troops for the Last Battle: The New-Media Gay Revolution
• 11. With Liberal Friends: Who Needs Enemies?
• 12. Victory: The Civil Rights March of Our Generation
• Epilogue

My Take:
I've gotten backlogged in my blogging again (backblogged?) and don't recall either any especially profound reactions to the text or vivid pictures of what else was going on while I read it, but this was a thorough, informative, and engaging history of the U.S.'s final (as of right now) civil rights frontier. Victory should be required reading not just for the LGBT community (many of whom won't require a mandate anyway) but for their mostly straight allies (even if they/ we're afraid of what someone will think if they see them/ us carrying it at work) and for anyone interested in contemporary politics, culture, and social movements.

#94: The Uncommon Reader

The Uncommon Reader, by Alan Bennett

(North Kingstown, RI: BBC Audiobooks America, 2007)

Summary:
"In this deliciously funny novella that celebrates the pleasure of reading, the Uncommon Reader is none other than Her Majesty the Queen, who drifts accidentally into reading when her corgis stray into a mobile library parked at Buckingham Palace. She reads widely (J.R. Ackerley, Jean Genet, Ivy Compton Burnett, and the classics) and intelligently. Her reading naturally changes her world view and her relationship with people such as the oleaginous prime minister and his repellent advisers. She comes to question the prescribed order of the world, and loses patience with much that she has to do. In short, her reading is subversive. The consequence is, of course, surprising, mildly shocking and very funny. With the poignant and mischievous wit of The History Boys, England's best loved author revels in the power of literature to change even the most uncommon reader's life."

Opening Line:
"At Windsor it was the evening of the state banquet and as the president of France took his place beside Her Majesty, the royal family formed up behind and the procession slowly moved off and through into the Waterloo Chamber."

My Take: 
Very funny, likeable little book perfect for a long, tedious drive. I started an assignment in north central Neighboring State last week, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. On one hand, it's lovely to have dinner with my family and sleep in my own bed every night, especially as the town in question is no Boston. The non-commuting consultants on site don't even have the relief and picturesque walking trails of a comfortable hotel to retreat to after hours, as I did at my last assignment; they're bunking in college dorms. I know there's no conveniently-located kitchen, though I suppose there may be mini-fridges in their rooms; I couldn't bear to ask about the bathroom facilities. Given all that, being home in the evenings with a cat at my feet and show tunes from my daughter's Pandora channels filling my ears isn't hard to take. Coming home, though, is another matter. No matter which route I take, it's a 90 minute drive, far enough that I leave home before anyone else is up in the morning and go more than halfway there in the dark. Not urban dark, where the storefronts and streetlamps and incessant traffic still provide enough light to read by, or even suburban dark, where you've at least got the unflattering purplish yellow sodium streetlight glare if you need to check a map. Nope, this 3 or 4 small, roll-the-sidewalks-up-at-9-pm small towns, separated by miles of pitch black, bottle-of-ink rural darkness. More often than not, the predawn mornings are blanketed with what weather forecasters call "patchy fog," which means no visual cues to tell you if you're just driving over a hill or about to plunge off the edge of the world.

While there's no way around the length of the commute -- my skyrocketing gas bill; the bleak, sleepy loneliness of the drive in; the speed with which bedtime comes if you get home after 6 and eat supper after 7 -- I've developed a routine to alleviate its tedium. Before work, I listen to Morning Edition for about 45 minutes and 3 different radio stations, stop for coffee at a Dunkin' Donuts that's just about at the halfway point, and then put some news and current events podcast or other on for the remainder of the drive there. On the way home, though, I pick something lighter and more strictly entertaining; making me laugh out loud is a plus, though mostly it just needs to be engaging and fast-paced enough to keep me from getting drowsy at a point in the day when my energy's already pretty low.  

An Uncommon Reader was perfect for the job. It's funny and well-worded, compelling enough to hold my attention without being so action-packed that if a noisy truck or complicated merge makes you miss a few lines, you're hopelessly lost. At several points, I found myself smiling fondly at Bennett's clever phrasings as one would over coffee with an old friend. (Certain excerpts reminded me of conversations with a particular friend I haven't seen in months, and chuckling even more at the knowledge that as someone even more stubbornly proud of her Irish heritage than I am, she'll be appalled that it's a story about a British monarch that prompts me to drop her a line.) And as a voracious reader myself, it felt like a vindication of sorts to enjoy a book all about the pleasures of reading and how what one reads can change you, with a main character who often has that familiar experience of having some dreary obligation to attend to when you'd really just rather be curled up at home with your cats (or in Her Majesty's case, corgis) and a good novel.

The only down sides I saw here were ones that probably can't be avoided in a novella. Call me nosy, but I kept wanting to know more: what was it, for example, about the experience of reading or the particular books she'd read that prompted the Queen's unexpected and unprecedented feelings of tender sympathy for the doddering Sir Claude? And what, exactly, were the dilemmas or alternatives she considered that lead to her climactic announcement at the book's end?

#93: Ten Thousand Saints

Ten Thousand Saints, by Eleanor Henderson

(New York: Ecco, 2011)

Summary:
"Adopted by a pair of diehard hippies, restless, marginal Jude Keffy-Horn spends much of his youth getting high with his best friend, Teddy, in their bucolic and deeply numbing Vermont town. But when Teddy dies of an overdose on the last day of 1987, Jude's relationship with drugs and with his parents devolves to new extremes. Sent to live with his pot-dealing father in New York City's East Village, Jude stumbles upon straight edge, an underground youth culture powered by the paradoxical aggression of hardcore punk and a righteous intolerance for drugs, meat, and sex. With Teddy's half brother, Johnny, and their new friend, Eliza, Jude tries to honor Teddy's memory through his militantly clean lifestyle. But his addiction to straight edge has its own dangerous consequences. While these teenagers battle to discover themselves, their parents struggle with this new generation's radical reinterpretation of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll and their grown-up awareness of nature and nurture, brotherhood and loss.

"Moving back and forth between Vermont and New York City, Ten Thousand Saints is an emphatically observed story of a frayed tangle of family members brought painfully together by a death, then carried along in anticipation of a new and unexpected life. With empathy and masterful skill, Eleanor Henderson has conjured a rich portrait of the modern age and the struggles that unite and divide generations."

 Opening Lines:
"'Is it dreamed?' Jude asks Teddy. 'Or dreamt?'"

My Take:
Perhaps I was feeling unusually uncharitable here, as I read this one right after Imperial Bedrooms and had had it up to here with drug-addled adolescents before I tackled the first chapter. That said, Ten Thousand Saints didn't overwhelm me. It wasn't repugnant the way IB was, and the characters here were rather more sympathetic -- partly because it's set in the '80s and definitely conveys that this was a different time, and partly because it's easier to excuse adolescent behavior when it actually comes from adolescents.

And perhaps I just bring too much of my own baggage to the story. Jude and Teddy are of my generation, a mere two years older than I am, which means I should be able to relate to their world ... but I really can't. Sure, I grew up 30 miles from the NYC where much of the story is set, but that may as well have been another universe, and my suburban adolescence was probably more sheltered than most. Mine wasn't a drugging or even hard drinking crowd, if the motley handful of not-yet-cool nerds I occasionally socialized with constituted a "crowd" at all. I never had any burning desire to fit in either with the stoners who make up Jude & Teddy's clique at the beginning, and I don't think I knew such a thing as straight-edge existed at the time. Punk, yes, but much as I loved the music, I was well aware a big-haired teeny bopper from the 'burbs would have been eaten alive in that environment. Instead, I contented myself with volunteering at a crisis line throughout high school and growing vicariously wise through the lives that touched me there.

It's interesting, too, to look back on the '80s with enough distance and perspective that you're aware of the hallmarks of the era. As a middle and high schooler, I knew something about the culture and history of the 1920s or '40s or '60s -- enough to reference an era convincingly in a term paper, or make guesses about how my grandparents' adolescence differed from my parents' or my own. But I couldn't articulate what made the '80s the '80s or what future generations would see as the hallmarks of my decade, any more than my daughter can define the 2010s or a particularly conscious fish could tell you what it's like to breathe water rather than air. Ten Thousand Saints depicts the era as a very long, unglamorous morning after the hedonistic '70s, with the principals' parents as the clueless hung over guests you just know will spend the next week bragging about how awesome the party was and how wasted they were, and Jude, Johnny, and Eliza the housemates who get stuck cleaning up all the spilled food and broken glass. Jude's mom, Harriet, is the canonical leftover hippie, naming her kids after Beatles songs (Jude's sister is Prudence), selling handblown glass in a small town in Vermont, and earning the bulk of her income selling bongs; his father, Lester, is a successful Manhattan pot grower who takes pride in being a cool, approachable pseudo-stepdad to his girlfriend's daughter Eliza but hasn't bothered to contact his own kids in who knows how long. After Teddy's death, Jude and Eliza's guilt leads them (with Johnny's help) to discover the no-drugs, no-drinking, no-sex world of straight edge, drawing spiritual sustenance from a Hare Krisha temple whose connection to the former is never exactly clear.

Henderson's writing is clear, understated, and sad, and the setting an interesting, unusual one. I only wish the characters (yes, this is always a sticking point for me) felt big or complex enough to live up to it. The book was OK, and I finished it -- but it felt more like a duty than a pleasure to get through (although it did get somewhat better in the latter part).

#92: Imperial Bedrooms

Imperial Bedrooms, by Bret Easton Ellis

(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010)

Summary:
"Bret Easton Ellis's debut, Less Than Zero, is one of the signal novels of the last thirty years, and he now follows those infamous teenagers into a more desperate middle age.


"Clay, a successful screenwriter, has returned from New York to Los Angeles to help cast his new movie, and he's soon drifting through a long-familiar circle. Blair, his former girlfriend, is married to Trent, an influential manager who's still a bisexual philanderer, and their Beverly Hills parties attract various levels of fame, fortune, and power. Then there's Clay's childhood friend Julian, a recovering addict, and their old dealer, Rip, face-lifted beyond recognition and seemingly even more sinister than in his notorious past.

"But Clay's own demons emerge once he meets a gorgeous young actress determined to win a role in his movie. And when his life careens completely out of control, he has no choice but to plumb the darkest recesses of his character and come to terms with his proclivity for betrayal."

Opening Lines:
"They had made a movie about us. The movie was based on a book written by someone we knew."


My Take:
I've never read Less Than Zero, nor have I seen the movie it inspired. And frankly, after finishing Imperial Bedrooms, I'm not particularly inclined to do so. I've read and enjoyed books with unlikeable characters, even anti-heroes, before, but this ain't one of 'em.

The good, only because I feel compelled to say something positive about a novel heralded with such fanfare: Ellis's run-on sentences do succeed in creating the fast-paced, disorienting mood he seems to be striving for. An example, chosen purely by opening the book at random, is as follows:

"At Dan Tana's we're seated in the front room next to a booth of young actors and Rain tries to engage me, her foot rubbing against my ankle, and after a few drinks I mellow into acceptance even though a guy at the bar keeps glancing at Rain and for some reason I keep thinking he's the guy I saw her with in the parking lot at Bristol Farms, his arm in a sling, and then I realize I passed him on the bridge at the Hotel Bel-Air when I went to see Blair, and Rain's talking about the best way to approach the producer and director of The Listeners in terms of hiring her and how we need to do this carefully and that it's 'superimportant' she gets the part because so much is riding on this for her and I'm zoning out on other things but I keep glancing back at the guy leaning against the bar and he's with a friend and they both look like they stepped out of a soap opera and then I suddenly have to interrupt her."

I wish I could say that's exceptional but it's not. Annoying sometimes, yes, but I'll allow it as a deliberate literary technique.

What I can't get past, though, is the sheer, shallow, repulsiveness of the characters. Perhaps if I'd read Less Than Zero I'd feel some attachment to someone here, know some back story to make me care who lives or dies ... but I hadn't, and I didn't. I've said many times that any self-respecting sequel needs to work as a stand-alone novel, even if you know nothing about its predecessor, and Imperial Bedrooms fails on that score (if, indeed, LTZ was more engaging or the characters more likeable than I found them here). That, plus the fact that Clay is a sadistic rapist without even enough motive or complexity to be compelling in a Hannibal Lechter sort of way ... well, let's just say I'm glad the book was fast-paced and not all that long.

#91: An Available Man

An Available Man, by Hilma Wolitzer

(New York: Ballantine Books, 2012)

Summary:
"In this tender and funny novel, award-winning author Hilma Wolitzer mines the unpredictable fallout of suddenly becoming single later in life, and the chaos and joys of falling in love the second time around. When Edward Schuyler, a modest and bookish sixty-two-year-old science teacher, is widowed, he finds himself ambushed by female attention. There are plenty of unattached women around, but a healthy, handsome, available man is a rare and desirable creature. Edward receives phone calls from widows seeking love, or at least lunch, while well-meaning friends try to set him up at dinner parties. Even an attractive neighbor offers herself to him.

"The problem is that Edward doesn't feel available. He's still mourning his beloved wife, Bee, and prefers solitude and the familiar routine of work, gardening, and bird-watching. But then his stepchildren surprise him by placing a personal ad in The New York Review of Books on his behalf. Soon the letters flood in, and Edward is torn between his loyalty to Bee's memory and his growing longing for connection. Gradually, reluctantly, he begins dating ('dating after death,' as one correspondent puts it), and his encounters are variously startling, comical, and sad. Just when Edward thinks he has the game figured our, a chance meeting proves that love always arrives when it's least expected.

"With wit, warmth, and a keen understanding of the heart, An Available Man explores aspects of loneliness and togetherness, and the difference in the options open to men and women of a certain age. Most of all, the novel celebrates the endurance of love, and its thrilling capacity to bloom anew."

Opening Line:
"Edward Schuyler was ironing his oldest blue oxford shirt in the living room on a Saturday afternoon when the first telephone call came."

My Take:
This and I Thought You Were Dead, together, should be required reading for anyone who's laying low and convalescing, whether from a stubborn case of bronchitis or from acute heartbreak. What a lovely, understated story of widowhood, grief, loneliness, and ultimately, love. Edward is just so real and likeable; he felt like a distant but kind relative, or the neighbor you always meant to have in for supper. And some of his first forays into dating are both poignant and funny: the businesslike woman with whom he has nothing in common, but who nonetheless expects sex at the end of the evening; the friendly widow who can't stop talking about her late husband and displaying photo after photo of their lives together; the cosmetically-altered, seemingly ageless 70 year old. The supporting cast are also well-sketched, particularly Edward's fragile stepdaughter Julie and tough-old-bird mother-in-law Gladys. I'm even OK with the reasonably happy ending.

#90: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot

(New York: Crown Publishers, 2010)

Summary:
"Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells -- taken without her knowledge -- became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first 'immortal' human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they'd weigh more than 50 million metric tons -- as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb's effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping, and have been bought and sold by the billions.

"Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.

"Now Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the 'colored' ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells, from Henrietta's small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia -- a land of wooden slave quarters, faith healings, and voodoo -- to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells.

"Henrietta's family did not learn of her 'immortality' until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family -- past and present -- is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.

"Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family -- especially Henrietta's daughter Deborah, who was devastated to learn about her mother's cells. Deborah was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her mother? Had they killed her to harvest her cells? And if her mother was so important to medicine, why couldn't her children afford health insurance?

"Intimate in feeling, astonishing in scope, and impossible to put down, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences."

Table of Contents:
Part One: Life
1. The Exam ... 1951
2. Clover ... 1920-1942
3. Diagnosis and Treatment ... 1951
4. The Birth of HeLa ... 1951
5. 'Blackness Be Spreadin All Inside' ... 1951
6. 'Lady's on the Phone' ... 1999
7. The Death and Life of Cell Culture ... 1951
8. 'A Miserable Specimen' ... 1951
9. Turner Station ... 1999
10. The Other Side of the Tracks ... 1999
11. 'The Devil of Pain Itself' ... 1951

Part Two: Death
12. The Storm ... 1951
13. The HeLa Factory ... 1951-1953
14. Helen Lane ... 1953-1954
15. 'Too Young to Remember' ... 1951-1965
16. 'Spending Eternity in the Same Place' ... 1999
17. Illegal, Immoral, and Deplorable ... 1954-1966
18. 'Strangest Hybrid' ... 1960-1966
19. 'The Most Critical Time on This Earth Is Now' ... 1966-1973
20. The HeLa Bomb ... 1966
21. Night Doctors ... 2000
22. 'The Fame She So Richly Deserves' ... 1970-1973

Part Three: Immortality
23. 'It's Alive' ... 1973-1974
24. 'Least They Can Do' ... 1975
25. 'Who Told You You Could Sell My Spleen?' ... 1976-1988
26. Breach of Privacy ... 1980-1985
27. The Secret of Immortality ... 1984-1995
28. After London ... 1996-1999
29. A Village of Henriettas ... 2000
30. Zakariyya ... 2000
31. Hela, Goddess of Death ... 2000-2001
32. 'All That's My Mother' ... 2001
33. The Hospital for the Negro Insane ... 2001
34. The Medical Records ... 2001
35. Soul Cleansing ... 2001
36. Heavenly Bodies ... 2001
37. 'Nothing to Be Scared About' ... 2001
38. The Long Road to Clover ... 2009

My Take:
Well worth waiting for. Just enough scientific detail about the history of cell culture and experimentation, with all its missteps and exciting developments, to provide context, but this is primarily a story about Henrietta Lacks herself, her family, and the racist, classist wrongs often done to poor, uneducated people of color in the name of science before we arrived at our current principles of medical ethics. Fascinating if often sad and infuriating read.

#89: I Thought You Were Dead

I Thought You Were Dead, by Peter Nelson 

(Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2010)

 Summary:
 "For Paul Gustavson, a hack writer for the wildly popular For Morons series, life is a succession of obstacles, a minefield of mistakes to stumble through. His wife has left him, his father has suffered a debilitating stroke, his girlfriend is dating another man, he has impotency issues, and his overachieving brother has invested his parents' money in stocks that tanked. Still, Paul has his friends at Bay State bar, a steady line of cocktails, a new pair of running shoes, and Stella. Beautiful Stella. With long, sleek legs, kind eyes, lustrous blond hair. Their relationship is the one true bright spot in his world. She offers him sage advice on virtually every topic. And she only wets herself every once in a while.

"Stella is Paul's dog, and she listens with compassion to all his complaints about the injustices of life and gives him better counsel than any human could. In fact, she seems to know Paul better than he knows himself. It's their relationship that is at the heart of I Thought You Were Dead, a poignantly funny and deeply moving story about a man trying to fix his past in order to save his future, and about a dog who understands just what it means to be a man's best friend."

Opening Line:
"In the winter of 1998, at the close of the twentieth century, in a small college town on the Connecticut River, on the sidewalk outside a house close enough to the railroad tracks that the pictures on the walls were in constant need of straightening, not that anybody ever straightened them, Paul Gustavson, having had a bit too much to drink, took the glove off his right hand, wedged it into his left armpit, and fumbled in his pants pocket for his house keys."

My Take:
Surprising. I wouldn't have expected to enjoy a novel that opens with a run-on sentence like this, or one where the protagonist's talking dog is an important character -- but this is a sweet, gentle story about a lonely man at a crossroads trying to come to terms and move forward with his imperfect life. (And the talking dog works, even for a diehard realist like me, if you read it as Paul simply talking to his dog while they're alone, and imagining what she might say if she could indeed respond. Don't all pet owners do this?) Paul's relationship with his struggling father, which evolves primarily over the internet, is especially poignant. His ill-defined relationship with Tamsen is an interesting plot line as well, though I wasn't as satisfied with the way Nelson resolved this one.