Jay Gilbertson's Blog, page 2
May 7, 2018
Review: Camino Island
Camino Island by John Grisham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Camino Island
By John Grisham
Reviewed by Jay Gilbertson
A beach read novel of pure catnip for book lovers. Be warned, you may experience a sudden loss of time with this high-brow mystery set on an island off the coast of Florida. Ridiculously famous author Grisham waved a literary wand and combined Marco and Amelia Island into his clever Camino creation.
The premise of this twisty who stole it mystery is built on the fact that the Princeton Rare Books and Special Collections department has five original F. Scott Fitzgerald manuscripts. Though heavily secured behind thick, bullet-proof vault doors, they are pinched by a gang of five buddies that honestly should have stuck to deer hunting. The heist becomes the catalyst that rolls out and rocks the boat down on Camino Island.
Cue the marimba!
Meet struggling professor and long ago published author, Mercer Mann, the adjunct professor of freshman literature at the University of North Carolina. Her position has recently been eliminated and her future employment opportunities are relatively non-existent. An intriguing email drops into Mercer’s lap from a mysterious woman offering her an interesting alternative. Elaine Shelby not only offers Mercer a cushy job, but the stakes are cranked ten-fold with an opportunity to once and for all finish an old manuscript. Naturally, the caveat for acceptance of Shelby’s proposal are complex, full of risk and loaded with wine.
“We’re under a lot of pressure, okay? I have no idea what you might learn, but at this point anything could be helpful. There’s a good chance Cable and his wife will reach out to you, perhaps even befriend you. You could slowly work your way into their inner circle. He also drinks a lot. Maybe he’ll let something slip; maybe one of his friends will mention the vault in the basement below the store.”
Shelby works for a security and investigations company that insured the Fitzgerald collection for Princeton, to the tune of 25 million, and absolutely can’t allow the public to know they were stolen. Enter Bruce Cable, owner of an incredibly successful bookstore on Camino Island. Our featured suspect and most likely new owner of the Fitzgerald Five. Of course, an attractive dude, and had I mentioned Mercer is single? Shelby wants her to get close to Cable and learn what he’s got in his vault. Boy does she!
“This came from Princeton.” He opened the box, and announced proudly, “The original manuscript of The Last Tycoon.” Mercer’s jaw dropped as she stared in disbelief and eased closer. She tried to speak but couldn’t find the words.”
The novel’s minor discussion about books and publishing may place a minuscule snag in your reading pleasure, but this small authorial indiscretion can be easily overlooked. I realize Grisham normally whips up a frenzy of courtroom dramas with lawyer layered lowdowns, but this sand-in-your toes tome will take you away.
In the end, you learn, life is not your vault.
April 6, 2018
Review: Hemp Bound
Hemp Bound: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Next Agricultural Revolution by Doug Fine
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Hemp Bound
Dispatches From The Front Lines Of The Next Agricultural Revolution
By Doug Fine
Reviewed by Jay Gilbertson
At the MOSES Organic Farming Conference in La Crosse, Wisconsin, this book literally fell onto my foot! And oddly enough, I recently had started getting emails declaring that farmers in Wisconsin can now grow industrial hemp, after jumping through some minor procedural hoops, so finding this book seemed like the next logical step.
Author Fine incorporates many in-field interviews, as well as lots of facts and figures to support his eager desire to get the word out that the US should/could and is (in some states) once again growing hemp. He stresses that it will not only give farmers more choices of seed crops to incorporate into the mix, but also the opportunity to make some serious bushels of cash.
“The key to success, from humanity’s perspective and from an economic perspective, is multiple use of the plant…Basically, one hemp harvest can and should be used at once for food, energy, and industrial components (like car parts, building insulation, and clothing).”
We currently import over 600 million dollars of hemp ingredients and over 35 million lbs. of hemp seed products from several large Canadian companies alone. While this import data provides some insight into the amount of hemp entering the US, the possibilities for what is commonly referred to as ‘value added’ hemp products is pretty much unlimited for innovative US hemp farmers.
“A farmer who planted a thousand acres in 2012 netted $250,000. That’s profit. And most of the half billion dollars that Canadian hemp generates in the United States comes from value-added products like salad dressing and breakfast cereal. There’s already hemp cereal in the International Space Station.”
Since this particular book was printed in 2014, I dashed over to mister Google and learned that as of this year, anyone in Wisconsin can register and grow industrial hemp. Here is a copy of the basic guidelines:
The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection’s industrial hemp research pilot program is now accepting applications. Both growers and processors must obtain one-time licenses, and must register each year that they intend to plant/process industrial hemp. Growers and processors must also pass background checks and pay fees to participate in the program. The emergency administrative rule, ATCP 22, is effective March 2, 2018.
Though author Fine does seem to be an overzealous fan, the writing is on the wall; hemp is back and in a big way.
“The fact is, venture capital is already flowing into cannabis [hemp] because corporate bean counters see a market. The “sums” add up. That’s what winning the drug war looks like, I’m afraid. Wall Street does what Wall Street does. But you’ll soon be able to support your local hemp farmer and buy her oil at the farmer’s market and food co-op, as well as at Walmart.”
After over 70 years of our government banning farmers from growing it (keep in mind, booze was illegal not too long ago) the tide is once again turning and the possibilities seem endless. Are you considering growing hemp this year?
April 3, 2018
March 5, 2018
Review: The Fact Of A Body
The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The Fact Of A Body
By Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich
Reviewed by Jay Gilbertson
This is a non-fiction duo: both an account of a murder and a memoir of the author’s struggle to come to terms with her dark, secret past. Never before have I read such an intense and moving and well-documented and breath-taking account of someone finding their way out of the horrors of abuse.
With some of the most articulate and stunning sentences, author Lesnevich takes you on not one, but two separate journeys that though they never intersect, they do influence one story while attempting to find reasonable justification for the other.
One of the dichotomies within the book’s structure I found not only intriguing, but mind-blowing, was the perspective the author was able to achieve when sharing her life growing up. She discovered that those formative, young moments of being afraid of the secrets your parents carry, can not only bind you to them—but can slowly kill you.
“What I fell in love with about the law so many years ago was the way that in making a story, in making a neat narrative of events, it found a beginning, and therefore cause. But I didn’t understand then that the law doesn’t find the beginning any more than it finds the truth. It creates story. That story has a beginning. That story simplifies, and we call it truth.”
And yes, besides having an MFA, the author is also a Harvard Law School graduate. She lands a summer job at a law firm in Louisiana to help defend men accused of murder, she (at the time) thought her position on the death penalty was clear: against it, totally and completely, no exceptions. Then, she discovers the case of Ricky Langley.
In the little town of Iowa, Louisiana, in February of 1992, six-year-old Jeremy Guillory is looking for his friends to play with. Joey and June aren’t at their house when Ricky answers the door. Ricky suggests Jeremy wait upstairs for their return.
That is one of the stories.
The other: “The whispers that follow are sheathed knives, fierce contained urgency. Voices are not raised; doors stay closed. Behind one, I am questioned, and I know to keep my voice low, that my parents do not want my grandfather, grandmother, or brother to hear. I answer simply. Yes, my grandfather has touched me…”
This is how author Lesnevich finds her way through something unfathomable. She does it with the facts, the truth—and something more. Using a writing narrative both arresting in its rawness and filled with a wise depth painfully beautiful, you are carried into her story.
“I carry the memory somewhere inside my body I can’t control, can’t even access to reach inside and edit the memory out. I still want to edit it out. I still want to be free of it. But I know I’m bound in ways I’ll never see, never understand. We carry what makes us.”
We carry our story.
February 16, 2018
Review: The Smoke Room
The Smoke Room by Earl Emerson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Smoke Room
By Earl Emerson
Reviewed by Jay Gilbertson
Being a survivor of a house fire, I have to admit, I was a tad anxious to read this. After all, the star of this suspense novel is a firefighter and fire is his life. Boy is it. Here’s the jolt-of-an-opening line:
“Experts estimated the pig fell just over 11,000 feet before it plunged through Iola Pederson’s roof.”
I know, I know, put it back on the shelf and RUN! Right? Not so fast. And this book is a major page turner and has the attractive sizzle of a new series. Unfortunately, I think author Emerson doesn’t pursue this storyline any further. Which is really too bad. But, that’s just how much you, as a page-flipper, will come to care for the haphazard knucklehead protagonist, Jason Gum.
“…Just call me Gum.”
A 24-year-old, brand new firefighter living in West Seattle, and dreaming of becoming the chief one day. Early on, after hit after hit after hit, you wonder if the guy is going to even make it out of bed and to the fire on time, let alone live through all the incredible road-blocks he puts in his own way. Over and over this guy slams into a wall. Only to bounce right on back and hit the ground slugging.
And there is a romance too and some pretty awesome roller blading which could have been drawn out some more. After blasting through this tale and finally reaching the nearly overwhelming end, you are beyond satisfied. You not only just read a really well-constructed thriller, but you met someone you would be beyond the moon grateful to rescue you from life.
Let alone a fire…
February 11, 2018
Review: Hide
Hide by Matthew Griffin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Hide
By Mathew Griffin
Reviewed by Jay Gilbertson
Imagine my excitement when I found this book! After all, it was touted as a remarkable love story and the two main characters were Wendell and Frank, beyond charming names, right? And the fact this was a tale of ‘hidden’ love following the darkness of WWII, it certainly would be full of hope.
Hope, yes. Love, not so much.
Author Griffin created a very hidden and lonely, forbidden gay love story with very little actual love at all. Yes, the two men end up becoming extremely dedicated to one another, but the cost was so high. By severing any and all relations with friends, family—anyone that knew them, they created a self-imposed prison.
Wendell had a taxidermy shop in a declining town of Northern Carolina and Frank worked at a textile mill there. Both very macho jobs that required more hiding and posturing and pretending. True, this was during the fifties when it was illegal to have ‘relations’ with another man, but even behind locked doors and shuttered windows, there was little joy. Griffin’s excessively heavy-handed use of metaphors led to some minor skimming.
Overall, I enjoyed the story, their dedication to one another alone was admirable and there were some nuggets worth noting:
“Lightning ripped the clouds open and sewed the clouds shut. I leaned us against the sill, so he could feel the wind: how it passed through the boards of the house and between our bodies and kept on its way, how the storm moved right through us without disturbing a thing.”
In the end, after the body has gone, the face fallen and memories have all but faded, you’re left with one true thing: hope. Wendell and Frank had that in spades.
February 1, 2018
Review: Still Living in Town
Still Living in Town by Kevin Fitzpatrick
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Still Living In Town
By Kevin FitzPatrick
Reviewed by Jay Gilbertson
A friend suggested I give this book of poems by a local author a read, and the first thing I wondered was, do I know this particular Tina? She’s a featured character throughout the collection and boy does that woman put in an incredible amount of work into, well, everything she does!
Author FitzPatrick makes no bones about his on-again, off-again love/hate of his weekend farm life with Tina. And I should mention, this is not (my definition) the normal type of rhyming, cleverly paced, poetry of yesteryear. This stuff is called free verse and in my opinion, is a type of flash-nonfiction. Tiny bites of story that may, or may not wrap up in the end.
Give this one a try:
“Five o’clock, Sunday morning,
Tina and I wake to rain and clatter outside.
Our dogs—a poodle, a rat terrier,
and a huge part-retriever mutt—tear out to a ladder
extending up the side of a full wagon of hay.
They leap up like ravenous sharks.
Whoever’s up there best not slip.
Enough. No barking. Down. It’s only Don.
It’s Don Roberts, seventy-eight years old with a bad knee.
who in the dim morning light and rain
appears to be fifty feet up as he crawls
and pulls a plastic tarp across the hay.
Katie! Betsy! Stella! Enough! You know Don.
He secures the tarp and climbs down,
telling us he drove over with a tarp and ladder
when he learned from Joni we ran out of time
to stack our last load of hay in the barn.
The dogs lick and nose Don’s hands. He comes in
for coffee, and then he’s off to deliver
vegetables in Minneapolis and then back
to the other side of Menomonie to see John the potter.
I reflect to Tina after he leaves,
I sure hope I’m that active and getting around
when I’m Don Roberts’ age.
I don’t know why you’re hoping that, Tina responds.
You’re not that way now.”
This reluctant weekend country boy makes it pretty darn clear he has a love/hate of farm life and sees it as being a smidgen less than a preferred way to idle away his time. Save for the fact that it does seem to orbit around the mysterious and obviously very industrious, Tina.
Though this is a writing form I have had little experience with, it’s attraction for artfully expressing a chunk of story in quick, concise snapshots is clear and interesting and very compelling. Even though there wasn’t a single poetic rhyme to be had, FitzPatrick did manage some smooth pentameters of alternating iambic as well as anapestic feet. Yes, I spoke with Mister Google and all things pentameter were explained.
I think this, perhaps, sums up the joy for our author as he leaves the farm and returns to living in town…
“She got up to the mailbox finally, turned her vehicle toward the highway and stars and disappeared.”
• Available through the MORE system
• Try poetry!
• Do you have anapestic feet?
December 26, 2017
Review: WONDER
Wonder by R.J. Palacio
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
WONDER
By R.J. Palacio
Reviewed by Jay Gilbertson
Funny. Not the book, but the age limit of the readers suggested; 8-12 years. I’m a tad older and got totally hooked. In fact, I have had my family read it and you should too! Well, only if you like a book that starts out with a kid getting piles of love from his family, then leaves the safe home-school nest to embark on journey in public schools. Namely, the 5th grade. There he meets the harsh reality of humans at their worst. Then the story gets…
Curious?
Meet Auggie (August) Pullman. When our story opens he is ten years old and has had over 27 surgeries, mostly on his face. Born with a rare disease, he has had to endure stares from everyone meeting him for the first time. Some run from him screaming.
The disease he has is called mandibulofacial dysostosis or Treacher Collins Syndrome. One in 50,000 American births, which equals approximately 80 babies are born every year with it. The disease affects the development of bones and other facial tissues. Hallmarks of the syndrome are underdeveloped cheek bones, a small jaw and chin, a cleft pallet and eyes that slant downward, as well as an unusual ear formation.
Auggie was raised in the privileged, educated, upper-middle class neighborhood of Upper Manhattan. The book opens with him starting a new school that happens to be within walking distance from his swanky townhouse. Since he had been home-schooled, his world had been small and safe. Now, in this new and foreign place, his once contained life is blasted open in good as well as bad ways. The kids he encounters in classes and the lunchroom and even the restroom, are the backbone to what shapes the real guts of ‘Wonder.’
One clever and useful tool author Palacio uses is to have not only Auggie, but his sister and several of his close friends, narrate the story, all in first person, from their point of view. This paints a broader picture of the complex and oftentimes emotionally-charged relationships they have with one another as their lives intertwine with Auggie’s. The story takes a major jolt when Auggie’s class of fifth graders go away for an overnight school trip which goes horribly off the rails.
This story arc (not telling) culminates with Auggie moving from being shunned, avoided and sadly rejected, to stepping into something pretty darn wonder-full.
Today, more than EVER we need to be reminded that after all is said and done and undone and redone within the political web, we simply have to find a way to be kind again. Though this novel hit a slump in the middle with an unstintingly obsessive focus on Auggie’s struggles in school, one thing shined steady and true. The power of kindness. No matter what face you have been given—there is a heart inside that needs what you need: LOVE.
• Try kindness
• One size fits all
• You matter
December 5, 2017
Review: Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone
Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone by Brené Brown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Braving The Wilderness
The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone
By Brene Brown
Reviewed by Jay Gilbertson
To be honest, the title threw me, the second one more effectively describes what this book is really about. Author Brown is no stranger to self-help books and happens to be good friends with the queen of self-help, Oprah, and a regular guest on her show. The book’s main thrust is of our need to belong, how it was lost and ways to find it again. Given the increasing numbers of Americans suffering from loneliness, this topic is extremely important for all of us to look at more closely.
Brown is a qualitative grounded theory researcher. It’s a pretty vague job description and allows her to mush together many different forms of research and gear it to her own goal. In this particular book, her focus was on “…trying to understand what we call the main concern of study participants. When it comes to belonging…What are people trying to achieve? What are they worried about? They want to be a part of something—to experience real connection with others—but not at the cost of their authenticity, freedom, or power.”
One of the main issues so many she interviewed expressed was that of being ‘spiritually disconnected,’ a diminishing sense of shared humanity. What seems to bind us together now is shared fear and disdain, not common humanity, shared trust, respect or love. Emerging from their responses, four elements of what Brown describes as ‘true belonging.’
1. People Are Hard to Hate Close Up. Move In.
2. Speak Truth to BS. Be Civil.
3. Hold Hands. With Strangers.
4. Strong Back. Soft Front. Wild Heart.
Early on I was a little concerned as to exactly what was intended by spirituality. In no way is this meant as anything remotely related to any particular religion. Brown is careful to define it as recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to each other by a power greater than all of us, and our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and compassion, a cornerstone of some, but not all religions.
Once it became clear that this was a universal all-encompassing concept that we all, as humans, crave—to belong—it was simply a matter of defining how we became so separated from one another.
“In the case of the United States, our three greatest fault lines—cracks that have grown and deepened due to willful neglect and a collective lack of courage—are race, gender, and class.”
The ‘cracks’ that have driven a wedge into the basic reason we are experiencing such a major shift away from belonging is something we are all very familiar with. From Black Lives Matter to all the bathroom issues to the One-Percenters, we are overwhelmed with messages and constant reminders of our vast differences.
The majority of the book focuses on an expansion of the four elements mentioned earlier and is well worth exploring. However, it could have been edited into a much shorter read as several of the antidotes loll into lecture-mode and had me skimming. The bottom line is something we all know to be true and the main reason there is a collective, soul-deep desire to belong.
“We are wired for connection. But the key is that, in any given moment of it, it has to be real.”
As in person, not online. Imagine that.
• Hang-up and hang-out
• Re-join offline living
• Show up, in person
November 18, 2017
Do YOU Know What A Sandbakkel Is?
At every meal my dad says the Norwegian Table Prayer. Then he always follows it by saying, “Grab a root and growl.” I have always simply assumed that is pretty much part of the prayer too. At least if you want to eat at his table, it is.
Traditions.
Another one that has been going on since I can remember is the creation of Sandbakkels every Christmas season. Using the same recipe (that mom has tweaked) my dad’s mom’s mom used and with my dad mentioning before we sit down at the card table to ‘pinch’ the dough into tins,
“No pinchy, no eaty!”
Really. Every. Single. Year.
Once the little gems are in the oven and we’re working on pan two or three, I wonder why in the world I do this. It’s a lot of work and you have to sit still and then, once my dad is all warmed up and we’re there, his audience, I realize the why part.
Being together.
So, this coming year I will once again gather at my folks, my mom will have made the dough, adding the secret ingredient at the last moment and then off we’ll pinch and my dad will begin sharing the same stories I’ve heard a hundred times and I’ll look up and smile…
By the way, a Sandbakkel is a Norwegian cookie and no, we don’t fill them with anything. These are the tins we pinch them into.
(walnut-size blob of dough and pinch and pinch and pinch)
