Randy Susan Meyers's Blog, page 55
October 22, 2010
Thank Goodness for the Good Men
"Women decided long ago that they wanted men's violence against them to stop. Men, as a gender, have not made that decision. When we do decide and act on that decision, violence against women will end."
The above is written on the wall of the website of Men Ending Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault in Texas. I thought about the truth in those words as I read these horrifying ones:
"Four armed men barged into Anna Mburano's hut, slapped the children and threw them down. They flipped Mrs. Mburano on her back, she said, and raped her, repeatedly." Thus begins the New York Times article Frenzy of Rape in Congo Reveals U.N. Weakness.
Mrs. Mburano is eighty-years old.
I don't even know where to start on my thoughts. My breakfast cereal soured as I read the article.
And lest we think this is a problem of other countries, other cultures, a recent story about a girl raped in America tells us "Tina Anderson was only 15 when she said she was forced to stand terrified before her entire Baptist congregation to confess her "sin" -- she had become pregnant. What she wasn't allowed to tell the group was that the pregnancy was the result of being raped by a church deacon, a man twice her age."
Each time an article goes online about domestic violence, a rash of subsequent replies appear, accusing women of being just as bad or worse, as though there is a contest to win, as though denying the truth that all people of good will can work together.
Good men know that women writing about women getting hurt is not a statement that men are never hurt. It's not a statement that women are all perfect. It's simply a statement about stopping violence against women. It's an essay asking how do we end the violence and where does it start?
How do we teach our daughters and sons? Whose responsibility is it? Does it belong to men or to women to stop emotional and physical violence towards women? For years we've educated women about domestic violence and about ways to stay safe on the streets (Carry a whistle! Don't go out after dark! Dress appropriately! Don't walk alone on the streets! Learn the warning signs of domestic abuse!)
While we educate women on how to remain safe, can we also teach men how to be non-violent on the streets and at home?
In women's restrooms signs are affixed to the back of stalls asking: Are You Being Hurt? Underneath those words will be a number to call for help -- a local domestic violence shelter, or perhaps a domestic violence hotline.
Where are the signs in the men's rooms asking: Are You Hurting The Woman You Love? Underneath those words there could be a number to call -- a hotline where men can learn to change -- because the way I see it (even in my most hopeless moments, like when I read about an 80-year-old woman being raped by a gang of young soldiers) we can learn to be better.
I pray, especially in this month of Domestic Violence Awareness, that men will notice all the strong and good men preaching against using violence against women as a tool in war -- whether they be the wars in our homes or the wars in our streets.
For these men strong enough to fight this fight, I am thankful:
Men Against Domestic Violence, in Seattle.
Strong Men Don't Bully in Gloucester Massachusetts.
Be There For Your Kids in Colorado.
Muslim Men Against Domestic Violence.
Men Against Domestic Violence in California.
These are the men who understand love and the meaning of being a father. These are the men who are willing to take a stand:
The Good Men Project.
Men Can Stop Rape.
Nicholas D. Kristof.
Ten Things Men Can Do to Stop Rape.
Men's Anti-Violence Council at University of Iowa.
Professor Abdoulaye Saine of the Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, The Gambia Echo.
Thanks to all the good men, unafraid to stand up and be counted.
The above is written on the wall of the website of Men Ending Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault in Texas. I thought about the truth in those words as I read these horrifying ones:
"Four armed men barged into Anna Mburano's hut, slapped the children and threw them down. They flipped Mrs. Mburano on her back, she said, and raped her, repeatedly." Thus begins the New York Times article Frenzy of Rape in Congo Reveals U.N. Weakness.
Mrs. Mburano is eighty-years old.
I don't even know where to start on my thoughts. My breakfast cereal soured as I read the article.
And lest we think this is a problem of other countries, other cultures, a recent story about a girl raped in America tells us "Tina Anderson was only 15 when she said she was forced to stand terrified before her entire Baptist congregation to confess her "sin" -- she had become pregnant. What she wasn't allowed to tell the group was that the pregnancy was the result of being raped by a church deacon, a man twice her age."
Each time an article goes online about domestic violence, a rash of subsequent replies appear, accusing women of being just as bad or worse, as though there is a contest to win, as though denying the truth that all people of good will can work together.
Good men know that women writing about women getting hurt is not a statement that men are never hurt. It's not a statement that women are all perfect. It's simply a statement about stopping violence against women. It's an essay asking how do we end the violence and where does it start?
How do we teach our daughters and sons? Whose responsibility is it? Does it belong to men or to women to stop emotional and physical violence towards women? For years we've educated women about domestic violence and about ways to stay safe on the streets (Carry a whistle! Don't go out after dark! Dress appropriately! Don't walk alone on the streets! Learn the warning signs of domestic abuse!)
While we educate women on how to remain safe, can we also teach men how to be non-violent on the streets and at home?
In women's restrooms signs are affixed to the back of stalls asking: Are You Being Hurt? Underneath those words will be a number to call for help -- a local domestic violence shelter, or perhaps a domestic violence hotline.
Where are the signs in the men's rooms asking: Are You Hurting The Woman You Love? Underneath those words there could be a number to call -- a hotline where men can learn to change -- because the way I see it (even in my most hopeless moments, like when I read about an 80-year-old woman being raped by a gang of young soldiers) we can learn to be better.
I pray, especially in this month of Domestic Violence Awareness, that men will notice all the strong and good men preaching against using violence against women as a tool in war -- whether they be the wars in our homes or the wars in our streets.
For these men strong enough to fight this fight, I am thankful:
Men Against Domestic Violence, in Seattle.
Strong Men Don't Bully in Gloucester Massachusetts.
Be There For Your Kids in Colorado.
Muslim Men Against Domestic Violence.
Men Against Domestic Violence in California.
These are the men who understand love and the meaning of being a father. These are the men who are willing to take a stand:
The Good Men Project.
Men Can Stop Rape.
Nicholas D. Kristof.
Ten Things Men Can Do to Stop Rape.
Men's Anti-Violence Council at University of Iowa.
Professor Abdoulaye Saine of the Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, The Gambia Echo.
Thanks to all the good men, unafraid to stand up and be counted.
October 4, 2010
The Blazing Love of Friends: LET'S TAKE THE LONG WAY HOME
When we were younger (in our twenties) my best friend and I talked about the unimaginable horror of being without each other. Now that we’re older, and the idea of folks our age dying is no longer as unthinkably shocking as it was back then, we barely talk about it—it’s too frightening, too awful, and too possible a thought.
Nevertheless, when we did talk about it, we’d wonder why there wasn’t a name for having your closest friend die. Who was the one left behind?
There is widowhood.
There is being orphaned.
We hear that someone has lost a sister or a brother and our hand flies to our heart in sympathy. We blink back tears at the thought of losing our own sibling. And, the phrase is almost impossible to write, that greatest of horrors, losing a child, those three words connote such horror, simply using them brings forth the images which turn our innards icy.
What is the word for the awful loss of a best friend, that friend who you can call daily, multiple times daily if the need arises; who is not only there for emergencies, but is willing to chew over the most mundane details of your day and listen to the details of your tooth extraction in excruciating detail?
How do you describe the death of that person who you can tell anything—absolutely anything—and know that not only will they still love you, but that your pain will not send them to a therapist, because they don’t swallow it in the same way as might your family. Family feels responsible for our pain, wondering if perhaps they caused it, or if they will suffer because of it—in the way that a child’s pain will trigger one’s own. This friend is family who doesn’t need to worry at same genetic fabric together.
The friends we love, the family of our heart, family we choose—we have no customs for mourning that loss. No leave from work. People don’t come to our home to sit shivah. Casseroles don’t show up at our door.
Gail Caldwell writes about this grief in Let's Take The Long Way Home. She shows us the friendship she shared with Caroline Knapp (the author of Drinking: A Love Story) and then takes us through the heartbreak—as rending as the loss of any loved one—of Caroline’s terminal lung cancer.
The details of dying are sad and grinding: breathing and waiting and breathing and waiting. The body, brilliant machine, knows how and when to close up shop. But Caroline was so strong, and so determined, that even in this final task she moved toward the end with bracing force. I had watched her on the water for years; now she was in the midst of what Anne Sexton had called the “awful rowing toward God.”
Gail Caldwell writes with simple elegance of the love she and Caroline Knapp shared. I felt the joy of their connection, remembering similar moments with my closest friend. The circumstances were different, the blazing friend-love the same. Reading this story allowed me the same shock of recognition one feels when reading of a love affair that matches the depth of one’s own romantic love, and though Caldwell and Knapp’s story is eventually soaked in grief, reading their joy makes it worth the pain of going through their sorrow.
Experiencing the bleakness Caldwell faces, suddenly alone after having found the perfect partner, the most satisfying of friends, I felt I received more than was on the page. The writing is so finely rendered, that it seemed to provide vision beyond the words on the page.
Nevertheless, when we did talk about it, we’d wonder why there wasn’t a name for having your closest friend die. Who was the one left behind?
There is widowhood.
There is being orphaned.
We hear that someone has lost a sister or a brother and our hand flies to our heart in sympathy. We blink back tears at the thought of losing our own sibling. And, the phrase is almost impossible to write, that greatest of horrors, losing a child, those three words connote such horror, simply using them brings forth the images which turn our innards icy.
What is the word for the awful loss of a best friend, that friend who you can call daily, multiple times daily if the need arises; who is not only there for emergencies, but is willing to chew over the most mundane details of your day and listen to the details of your tooth extraction in excruciating detail?
How do you describe the death of that person who you can tell anything—absolutely anything—and know that not only will they still love you, but that your pain will not send them to a therapist, because they don’t swallow it in the same way as might your family. Family feels responsible for our pain, wondering if perhaps they caused it, or if they will suffer because of it—in the way that a child’s pain will trigger one’s own. This friend is family who doesn’t need to worry at same genetic fabric together.
The friends we love, the family of our heart, family we choose—we have no customs for mourning that loss. No leave from work. People don’t come to our home to sit shivah. Casseroles don’t show up at our door.
Gail Caldwell writes about this grief in Let's Take The Long Way Home. She shows us the friendship she shared with Caroline Knapp (the author of Drinking: A Love Story) and then takes us through the heartbreak—as rending as the loss of any loved one—of Caroline’s terminal lung cancer.
The details of dying are sad and grinding: breathing and waiting and breathing and waiting. The body, brilliant machine, knows how and when to close up shop. But Caroline was so strong, and so determined, that even in this final task she moved toward the end with bracing force. I had watched her on the water for years; now she was in the midst of what Anne Sexton had called the “awful rowing toward God.”
Gail Caldwell writes with simple elegance of the love she and Caroline Knapp shared. I felt the joy of their connection, remembering similar moments with my closest friend. The circumstances were different, the blazing friend-love the same. Reading this story allowed me the same shock of recognition one feels when reading of a love affair that matches the depth of one’s own romantic love, and though Caldwell and Knapp’s story is eventually soaked in grief, reading their joy makes it worth the pain of going through their sorrow.
Experiencing the bleakness Caldwell faces, suddenly alone after having found the perfect partner, the most satisfying of friends, I felt I received more than was on the page. The writing is so finely rendered, that it seemed to provide vision beyond the words on the page.
September 28, 2010
Tony Soprano, Rhett Butler, or Atticus Finch: Who's Your Type?
I’ve been accused of harping on domestic violence, and after working in the field (with batterers) for many years, I admit my abuse-radar may be higher than some. There were times my daughters dreaded my meeting their boyfriends, anticipating my narrowed eyes as I looked for signs of danger.
Recently I took a hard look at this, after the woman editing an article I was writing warned me not to throw ‘exciting’ men in the same pot with ‘dangerous’ ones. Was I being too hard in my judgments? How does one know the difference between edgy and over-the edge? You may think you have HansSolo, when in truth you’re harboring Hannibal Lector. Are you always overlooking Jack—the savior of Lost—in favor of Sawyer?
What’s your usual type?
The Thug:
Example: Tony Soprano. Will sweet-talk you while trying to get some. Smack you away when done. Unless you’re his wife. In which case, he’ll buy you a fur coat after giving someone else the big O.
Upside: Frenzied excitement.
Downside: Black eyes and heartbreak.
The Romantic Lead:
Example: Rhett Butler. Heart of gold hiding inside a scallywag. Has tons of money or none. Disappears for months then shows up to rescue you. Lots of roses and/or jewelry. May sweep you away to a fully staffed mansion and the best big O you’ve ever had—but don’t ever count on couples counseling.
Upside: Smooth-talking excitement.
Downside: Low, low, low, on the trust factor.
The Grown Up:
Example: Atticus Finch. Won’t lie, cheat, or steal. You’ll never starve and there will always be gas in your car. The one you want holding your hand while waiting for scary news and at your side during the tough times. Known for dry sense of humor. You’ll be the only one getting the O from him.
Upside: Broad shoulders to lean on.
Downside: Furrowed brows.
Which guy do you have?
1) When you speculate about whether he’ll ever cheat on you, your instinct tells you:
a. Of course. He cheated with me before we got married.
b. Um . . . I guess it’s possible.
c. Are you kidding? Before or after he finishes sorting out receipts for the taxes?
2) During an argument, he is most likely to:
a. Swear, call you names, pin all the blame on you.
b. Yell until you back down.
c. Walk away until he calms down.
3) For Christmas, he'll:
a. Have his mistress or secretary pick something out for you.
b. Run into Macy’s on Christmas Eve and buy the most expensive thing he sees.
c. Agonize so much that whatever he buys, you feel the effort and love.
4) When you’re sick, you expect:
a. Nothing.
b. He’ll move the remote to your side of the bed.
c. He’ll ask if you need him to stay home.
5) When your mother becomes ill, he might:
a) Yell because you’re not home to make supper.
b) Ask how long this is going to go on.
c) Offer to let her come live with the two of you
If your man is an ‘a’ – get yourself to a therapist, if you’re not yet married, and to a lawyer if you are.
If he’s a ‘b’—do you have lots of girlfriends to mop up your tears? Thank goodness!
You have a ‘c?’ Congratulations, you’ll have someone to watch the Emmys with at the end of the month.
Recently I took a hard look at this, after the woman editing an article I was writing warned me not to throw ‘exciting’ men in the same pot with ‘dangerous’ ones. Was I being too hard in my judgments? How does one know the difference between edgy and over-the edge? You may think you have HansSolo, when in truth you’re harboring Hannibal Lector. Are you always overlooking Jack—the savior of Lost—in favor of Sawyer?
What’s your usual type?
The Thug:
Example: Tony Soprano. Will sweet-talk you while trying to get some. Smack you away when done. Unless you’re his wife. In which case, he’ll buy you a fur coat after giving someone else the big O.
Upside: Frenzied excitement.
Downside: Black eyes and heartbreak.
The Romantic Lead:
Example: Rhett Butler. Heart of gold hiding inside a scallywag. Has tons of money or none. Disappears for months then shows up to rescue you. Lots of roses and/or jewelry. May sweep you away to a fully staffed mansion and the best big O you’ve ever had—but don’t ever count on couples counseling.
Upside: Smooth-talking excitement.
Downside: Low, low, low, on the trust factor.
The Grown Up:
Example: Atticus Finch. Won’t lie, cheat, or steal. You’ll never starve and there will always be gas in your car. The one you want holding your hand while waiting for scary news and at your side during the tough times. Known for dry sense of humor. You’ll be the only one getting the O from him.
Upside: Broad shoulders to lean on.
Downside: Furrowed brows.
Which guy do you have?
1) When you speculate about whether he’ll ever cheat on you, your instinct tells you:
a. Of course. He cheated with me before we got married.
b. Um . . . I guess it’s possible.
c. Are you kidding? Before or after he finishes sorting out receipts for the taxes?
2) During an argument, he is most likely to:
a. Swear, call you names, pin all the blame on you.
b. Yell until you back down.
c. Walk away until he calms down.
3) For Christmas, he'll:
a. Have his mistress or secretary pick something out for you.
b. Run into Macy’s on Christmas Eve and buy the most expensive thing he sees.
c. Agonize so much that whatever he buys, you feel the effort and love.
4) When you’re sick, you expect:
a. Nothing.
b. He’ll move the remote to your side of the bed.
c. He’ll ask if you need him to stay home.
5) When your mother becomes ill, he might:
a) Yell because you’re not home to make supper.
b) Ask how long this is going to go on.
c) Offer to let her come live with the two of you
If your man is an ‘a’ – get yourself to a therapist, if you’re not yet married, and to a lawyer if you are.
If he’s a ‘b’—do you have lots of girlfriends to mop up your tears? Thank goodness!
You have a ‘c?’ Congratulations, you’ll have someone to watch the Emmys with at the end of the month.
August 13, 2010
Writing The Motherhood Uglies
"At work, you think of the children you have left at home. At home, you think of the work you've left unfinished. Such a struggle is unleashed within yourself. Your heart is rent." -- Golda Meir
I suspect that it’s easier to find authentic novels about the difficulty of being a daughter or son than down-and-dirty tales about being a mother. Great books about being the child of bad parents, evil parents, and crazy parents abound. Rarer are books about the authentic experience of being a mother that don’t explain away negative thoughts moments after putting them on paper. er
I understand this. We writer/mothers fear judgement. What in this world is less revered than a bad mother (and thus the shelves of novels and memoirs devoted to recovering from them.) But how soothing it can be to learn that one is not alone in experiencing the ambivalence of mothering—and that feeling does not mean doing. Inside thoughts that pop up even as one murmurs soothing words to a screeching
infant, calms a toddler in midst of a tantrum, and watches one’s words (even as one’s teenager don't) can terrify the thinker.
Or perhaps Mom is just being tired of it. Perhaps the kids are fine, but Mom is bored to tears. Or maybe she’s too caught up in sparkly sex with a new guy to pay enough attention to the kids. Or she’s had too many drinks. Or maybe she’d like to be anywhere but there.
Which novels are brave enough to capture these moments from the mother’s point of view?
The Good Mother by Sue Miller. I read this book years ago, but I still remember its power. Miller forces the reader to ask themselves whether this woman was so caught up in the frenzy of love and sexual awakening that she lost sight of her child, or if she was punished for her choices by her ex-husband and the court system.
Rosie by Anne Lamott. What happens when your love of whiskey and your love for your child bump into each other? Lamott reaches deep into the well of good intentions not being enough in this book, and she’s never afraid of showing the character’s flaws. With Rosie you can pray for the rescue of everyone.
Before and After by Rosellen Brown. What if your love of your son collides with your moral code—which side will you fall on? And what if this internal battle inside is also a battle with your husband—the father of your son. Brown does a brilliant job of turning the prism of the family to catch the light bending with each character.
Jump at the Sun by Kim McLarin. Grace, the mother at the center of McLarin’s novel doesn’t just wrestle with ambivalence, she’s fighting a family legacy. Her grandmother gave up Grace’s mother. McLarin’s exploration beneath the surface of the seemingly perfect family uncovers the emotions never spoken by mothers.
Writing the motherhood uglies can be the toughest write of all. Women are not forgiven transgressions of motherhood, not even just the sins of the mind. We’re not supposed to say some truths aloud—and not just the truth of motherhood’s obvious downsides—the stretch marks, being bored to tears—but also the harder truth of the terror of being a hostage to motherhood. The health, happiness, and success of our children can make or break us on any given day. Done right, motherhood begs the question, do you mind stepping aside for, um, a lifetime.
Done perhaps not so right, one might ask, can they ever step aside for me?
It takes some brave writers to lead us through this thicket (for who else leads the exploration, but the writer?) I know I came through the early years of motherhood grateful for every woman willing to tell the truth. (I’m talking to you Jane Lazarre, author of The Mother Knot, my own touchstone of my early years of mothering.
All of us mothers, we owe a debt to those willing to take on the mother uglies. Keeps a grown woman from crying sometimes. Sometimes it feels like we have someone to cry with. And it gives a mother a friend in the dark of night.
“Grown don't mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown? What's that suppose to mean? In my heart it don't mean a thing.” Toni Morrison, Beloved, 1987
I suspect that it’s easier to find authentic novels about the difficulty of being a daughter or son than down-and-dirty tales about being a mother. Great books about being the child of bad parents, evil parents, and crazy parents abound. Rarer are books about the authentic experience of being a mother that don’t explain away negative thoughts moments after putting them on paper. er
I understand this. We writer/mothers fear judgement. What in this world is less revered than a bad mother (and thus the shelves of novels and memoirs devoted to recovering from them.) But how soothing it can be to learn that one is not alone in experiencing the ambivalence of mothering—and that feeling does not mean doing. Inside thoughts that pop up even as one murmurs soothing words to a screeching
infant, calms a toddler in midst of a tantrum, and watches one’s words (even as one’s teenager don't) can terrify the thinker.
Or perhaps Mom is just being tired of it. Perhaps the kids are fine, but Mom is bored to tears. Or maybe she’s too caught up in sparkly sex with a new guy to pay enough attention to the kids. Or she’s had too many drinks. Or maybe she’d like to be anywhere but there.
Which novels are brave enough to capture these moments from the mother’s point of view?
The Good Mother by Sue Miller. I read this book years ago, but I still remember its power. Miller forces the reader to ask themselves whether this woman was so caught up in the frenzy of love and sexual awakening that she lost sight of her child, or if she was punished for her choices by her ex-husband and the court system.
Rosie by Anne Lamott. What happens when your love of whiskey and your love for your child bump into each other? Lamott reaches deep into the well of good intentions not being enough in this book, and she’s never afraid of showing the character’s flaws. With Rosie you can pray for the rescue of everyone.
Before and After by Rosellen Brown. What if your love of your son collides with your moral code—which side will you fall on? And what if this internal battle inside is also a battle with your husband—the father of your son. Brown does a brilliant job of turning the prism of the family to catch the light bending with each character.
Jump at the Sun by Kim McLarin. Grace, the mother at the center of McLarin’s novel doesn’t just wrestle with ambivalence, she’s fighting a family legacy. Her grandmother gave up Grace’s mother. McLarin’s exploration beneath the surface of the seemingly perfect family uncovers the emotions never spoken by mothers.
Writing the motherhood uglies can be the toughest write of all. Women are not forgiven transgressions of motherhood, not even just the sins of the mind. We’re not supposed to say some truths aloud—and not just the truth of motherhood’s obvious downsides—the stretch marks, being bored to tears—but also the harder truth of the terror of being a hostage to motherhood. The health, happiness, and success of our children can make or break us on any given day. Done right, motherhood begs the question, do you mind stepping aside for, um, a lifetime.
Done perhaps not so right, one might ask, can they ever step aside for me?
It takes some brave writers to lead us through this thicket (for who else leads the exploration, but the writer?) I know I came through the early years of motherhood grateful for every woman willing to tell the truth. (I’m talking to you Jane Lazarre, author of The Mother Knot, my own touchstone of my early years of mothering.
All of us mothers, we owe a debt to those willing to take on the mother uglies. Keeps a grown woman from crying sometimes. Sometimes it feels like we have someone to cry with. And it gives a mother a friend in the dark of night.
“Grown don't mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown? What's that suppose to mean? In my heart it don't mean a thing.” Toni Morrison, Beloved, 1987
July 23, 2010
Reading Across the Racial Divide
I read a post on author Tayari Jones’ blog earlier this month, that hasn’t left my mind. She asks why books by black writers aren’t considered universal, starting her post with these words:
“In the last few years, black writers have been speaking out about double standards in the world of publishing. Among these are Martha Southgate's NYT essay, "Writers Like Me" and more recently, Bernice's MacFadden's Black Writers in A Ghetto of the Publishing Industry's Making. In these articles, both writers (who also are novelists) put into a public conversation the issues that black writers have been complaining about for years-- like why is that stories about black folks that are written by white folks get so much traction. (The Help, The Secret Lives of Bees, Little Bee, etc.) How come books about us by us are not thought to be "universal"? Why are black faces on the cover of a book thought to be so alienating? At this point in the gripe session, I break out my favorite oh-no-he-didn't moment-- when someone asked me what percentage of my work is "black" and what percentage is "human."”
It’s not only a great post, it’s an important question for all readers and writers. For readers: you/we are missing a vast store of great books by staying within one’s cultural boundaries. We missing great reads, and asimportant, we’re missing that most important (to me) method available to understand each other. How better to understand other’s experiences, than to immerse in their lives through novels and memoirs? Whether or not one has issues with The Help, it is beyond argument that one will be immersed in a more honest experiential read with Anne Moody than with Kathryn Stockett.
Not that I think we should be reading across racial and cultural lines to do good, read for the common good, or as an act of charity. But Jones’ point in her post is important: as regards the need for black writers to be considered American authors as well as Black American authors, “It is going to be up to readers.”
I am not going to belabor her points—she makes them far better than I could. I will say that I am grateful that I found her through Twitter (another point for Twitter!) And I am grateful that it led me to read one of her books, because now I can look forward to reading all her work.
My main question is this: I gobble novels. I read a certain sub-genre (the troubled family in a troubled culture) like crazy. Leaving Atlanta is a perfect gem of the genre. I also read reviews, magazines, papers—you name it—like crazy. (My home would be a candidate for Hoarders, if I weren’t also addicted to recycling and clear surfaces.)
So why didn’t I know about Jones before Twitter? Why is Kim McLarin, a great writer, not a household name? Why are there so few readings by black authors in Boston—a city rife with author visits?
Yes, it’s up to us as readers to discover the gems we’ve been ignoring, such as Leaving Atlanta. Based on the true story of the Atlanta child murders from 1979-80, this, the three narrators in this book will break your heart. Jones’ writes in the transparent manner I love—calling no attention to itself, while wrapping words seamlessly around the story with clarity, precision and beauty. Describing a scene of traumatized children, she writes”
All of the kids wore weird expressions, like their eyes had been reversed and they were all staring inside their own heads.
When we can read page-turning work, learn about history, and drink in great writing, that seems like a good deal to me—especially if we can pull away from ghettoizing writers at the same time.
“In the last few years, black writers have been speaking out about double standards in the world of publishing. Among these are Martha Southgate's NYT essay, "Writers Like Me" and more recently, Bernice's MacFadden's Black Writers in A Ghetto of the Publishing Industry's Making. In these articles, both writers (who also are novelists) put into a public conversation the issues that black writers have been complaining about for years-- like why is that stories about black folks that are written by white folks get so much traction. (The Help, The Secret Lives of Bees, Little Bee, etc.) How come books about us by us are not thought to be "universal"? Why are black faces on the cover of a book thought to be so alienating? At this point in the gripe session, I break out my favorite oh-no-he-didn't moment-- when someone asked me what percentage of my work is "black" and what percentage is "human."”
It’s not only a great post, it’s an important question for all readers and writers. For readers: you/we are missing a vast store of great books by staying within one’s cultural boundaries. We missing great reads, and asimportant, we’re missing that most important (to me) method available to understand each other. How better to understand other’s experiences, than to immerse in their lives through novels and memoirs? Whether or not one has issues with The Help, it is beyond argument that one will be immersed in a more honest experiential read with Anne Moody than with Kathryn Stockett.
Not that I think we should be reading across racial and cultural lines to do good, read for the common good, or as an act of charity. But Jones’ point in her post is important: as regards the need for black writers to be considered American authors as well as Black American authors, “It is going to be up to readers.”
I am not going to belabor her points—she makes them far better than I could. I will say that I am grateful that I found her through Twitter (another point for Twitter!) And I am grateful that it led me to read one of her books, because now I can look forward to reading all her work.
My main question is this: I gobble novels. I read a certain sub-genre (the troubled family in a troubled culture) like crazy. Leaving Atlanta is a perfect gem of the genre. I also read reviews, magazines, papers—you name it—like crazy. (My home would be a candidate for Hoarders, if I weren’t also addicted to recycling and clear surfaces.)
So why didn’t I know about Jones before Twitter? Why is Kim McLarin, a great writer, not a household name? Why are there so few readings by black authors in Boston—a city rife with author visits?
Yes, it’s up to us as readers to discover the gems we’ve been ignoring, such as Leaving Atlanta. Based on the true story of the Atlanta child murders from 1979-80, this, the three narrators in this book will break your heart. Jones’ writes in the transparent manner I love—calling no attention to itself, while wrapping words seamlessly around the story with clarity, precision and beauty. Describing a scene of traumatized children, she writes”
All of the kids wore weird expressions, like their eyes had been reversed and they were all staring inside their own heads.
When we can read page-turning work, learn about history, and drink in great writing, that seems like a good deal to me—especially if we can pull away from ghettoizing writers at the same time.
July 16, 2010
Food and Loathing and Cookies from the Hamper
Everyone hates a fat woman. Or is it that a fat woman thinks everyone hates her? Or does a fat woman simply hate herself?
As someone who’s measured her worth in dress sizes, waistbands, and, when in the midst of bravery, the hard-core truth of pounds, I’ve felt all of the above. We are a harsh country, filled with both self-loathing and a Calvinist push towards walking off, dieting away, running away from, and when all else fails, surgically sucking out unwanted fat.
Do men suffer as women do? I’m not sure. I don’t think so, not as much—not when fat men on screen are allowed to bed and wed women as lovely as Katherine Heigl. I think being fat is painful for men. I simply don’t think they’re as reviled; they need to climb far higher up the scale to merit as much hate as heavy women.
I recently re-read (even re-bought, when I couldn’t find my copy) Food and Loathing by Betsy Lerner. From far too young, Lerner’s existence rested on her body size—real and perceived. The book begins thusly:
“It is 1972. I am twelve years old. It is the first day of sixth grade, and I am standing in the girls’ gymnasium waiting to be weighed.”
If your flesh doesn’t crawl with those words, if you don’t want to either go running for a cream cheese smothered bagel, or conversely, vow to stop eating as of tomorrow, this book will still interest you, but you may not swallow it whole.
The hatred of our flesh often has no bearing in reality. One of my best friends in the world begins each day pinching her flesh with callipered fingers and living for her daily-rationed cookie. She is tight and muscled and yet lives each day as though a sorcerer might drop fifty pounds on her at any moment.
Do I understand this?
I do.
I grew up with a thin mother who lived for leanness and beauty. My sister’s body mirrored hers. To the day she died at eighty, my mother would ask, “how’s your weight” each time we spoke, as though my ‘weight’ was a living-breathing entity separate from that which she liked about me.
I sloughed her words off with sarcasm and sighs, still my life was frozen in moments: My mother hiding cookies in a pot on the top of the cabinets. (I got exercise climbing up.) Swiping the icing from the middle of the Entenmanns, until the cake became thinner and thinner (but not me.)
I remember the horror of looking for a dress for my cousin’s Bar Mitzvah as my mother rolled her eyes and complained to the sales women about her disgust at the lack of gowns into which I could zip. Last week I had to search for old family photos for an article. While doing so, I came across a picture of me at the Bar Mitzvah, wearing the gown.
The me that wanted to die from being so fat looked good. I can’t believe I suffered as I did. Of course, I also found pictures where I really was plump. But deserving of loathing?
We’re hated, we hate ourselves, and we learn to sneak our food. I devoured cookies that I hid in the bathroom hamper.
Betsy Lerner joined Overeaters Anonymous in junior high, where she learned to divide food into forbidden and good. She became a compulsive eater or a compulsive dieter, depending on the day, the month, and the moment. When binging, real life was always a day away. When dieting, she considered herself abstinent—except that sex became her comfort.
Mixed in for Lerner, was her struggle with depression and anxiety, finally ending up in a New York mental hospital after a suicide attempt, where, after years of being ill-treated by shrinks, she is diagnosed as bi-polar. This is presented neither as an answer to her relationship with food, nor as separate. It is part of her ongoing puzzle.
Food and Loathing is not a self-help book; it’s no guide for losing weight. Nor is it a companionable hug for staying heavy. It’s a mirror. It’s looking back, looking forward, or looking at who you are right this moment.
After finishing it, I thought (not for the first time, not for the last) about how much space I want to rent in my head to the mirror and to the scale. Right now, at this moment, month, minute, I am sorta-okay, and that’s probably okay. I think that perhaps, sorta-okay is as good as it gets with acceptance for some of us.
Yeah, when you grow up with hamper cookies and sighs, getting to sorta-okay when you look in the mirror can be a damned miracle.
That’s what I loved about Food and Loathing. Betsy Lerner tells that particular story very well.
As someone who’s measured her worth in dress sizes, waistbands, and, when in the midst of bravery, the hard-core truth of pounds, I’ve felt all of the above. We are a harsh country, filled with both self-loathing and a Calvinist push towards walking off, dieting away, running away from, and when all else fails, surgically sucking out unwanted fat.
Do men suffer as women do? I’m not sure. I don’t think so, not as much—not when fat men on screen are allowed to bed and wed women as lovely as Katherine Heigl. I think being fat is painful for men. I simply don’t think they’re as reviled; they need to climb far higher up the scale to merit as much hate as heavy women.
I recently re-read (even re-bought, when I couldn’t find my copy) Food and Loathing by Betsy Lerner. From far too young, Lerner’s existence rested on her body size—real and perceived. The book begins thusly:
“It is 1972. I am twelve years old. It is the first day of sixth grade, and I am standing in the girls’ gymnasium waiting to be weighed.”
If your flesh doesn’t crawl with those words, if you don’t want to either go running for a cream cheese smothered bagel, or conversely, vow to stop eating as of tomorrow, this book will still interest you, but you may not swallow it whole.
The hatred of our flesh often has no bearing in reality. One of my best friends in the world begins each day pinching her flesh with callipered fingers and living for her daily-rationed cookie. She is tight and muscled and yet lives each day as though a sorcerer might drop fifty pounds on her at any moment.
Do I understand this?
I do.
I grew up with a thin mother who lived for leanness and beauty. My sister’s body mirrored hers. To the day she died at eighty, my mother would ask, “how’s your weight” each time we spoke, as though my ‘weight’ was a living-breathing entity separate from that which she liked about me.
I sloughed her words off with sarcasm and sighs, still my life was frozen in moments: My mother hiding cookies in a pot on the top of the cabinets. (I got exercise climbing up.) Swiping the icing from the middle of the Entenmanns, until the cake became thinner and thinner (but not me.)
I remember the horror of looking for a dress for my cousin’s Bar Mitzvah as my mother rolled her eyes and complained to the sales women about her disgust at the lack of gowns into which I could zip. Last week I had to search for old family photos for an article. While doing so, I came across a picture of me at the Bar Mitzvah, wearing the gown.
The me that wanted to die from being so fat looked good. I can’t believe I suffered as I did. Of course, I also found pictures where I really was plump. But deserving of loathing?
We’re hated, we hate ourselves, and we learn to sneak our food. I devoured cookies that I hid in the bathroom hamper.
Betsy Lerner joined Overeaters Anonymous in junior high, where she learned to divide food into forbidden and good. She became a compulsive eater or a compulsive dieter, depending on the day, the month, and the moment. When binging, real life was always a day away. When dieting, she considered herself abstinent—except that sex became her comfort.
Mixed in for Lerner, was her struggle with depression and anxiety, finally ending up in a New York mental hospital after a suicide attempt, where, after years of being ill-treated by shrinks, she is diagnosed as bi-polar. This is presented neither as an answer to her relationship with food, nor as separate. It is part of her ongoing puzzle.
Food and Loathing is not a self-help book; it’s no guide for losing weight. Nor is it a companionable hug for staying heavy. It’s a mirror. It’s looking back, looking forward, or looking at who you are right this moment.
After finishing it, I thought (not for the first time, not for the last) about how much space I want to rent in my head to the mirror and to the scale. Right now, at this moment, month, minute, I am sorta-okay, and that’s probably okay. I think that perhaps, sorta-okay is as good as it gets with acceptance for some of us.
Yeah, when you grow up with hamper cookies and sighs, getting to sorta-okay when you look in the mirror can be a damned miracle.
That’s what I loved about Food and Loathing. Betsy Lerner tells that particular story very well.
June 16, 2010
DIAMOND RUBY: I Already Want to Re-Read This One!
The only thing I didn’t love about Diamond Ruby by Joseph Wallace was finishing it, because then it was over and I had to leave her world. Lucky you, you can still look forward to it.
If you want the perfect book to read while you lie in your hammock this summer, even if it’s only the summer hammock of your mind, get Diamond Ruby. (And then you’re going to want to pass it on, so you may want to buy an extra.)
I don’t want to give much away, but I’ll say this: Joseph Wallace’s inspiration for his book was Jackie Mitchell, who was signed (in 1931) to an all male-team in an all male baseball league in Tennessee. She struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. A few days later, the baseball commissioner banned her (and all women) from the league on the grounds that the sport was “too strenuous” for women.
Diamond Ruby begins in 1913 Brooklyn, when Ruby Thomas is seven, and then shoots us into 1920’s New York in a manner which, for me, captured the danger and wildness of that era in a way I’ve never experienced. Ruby’s story is half fairy-tale, and half knuckle-biting suspense (there were times towards the end when my stomach did actual flip-flops.) This book never lectures, but it teaches, in the best way, about the world girls lived in before the doors of opportunity creaked open.
This story drew me in, then captured me and then rocketed to an intense ‘gotta know.’ Finally, in my best Brooklyn ‘fuggeda bout it’ I put everything away until I finished the story. This is the book I’m forcing into my daughter’s, sister’s, cousins, and friend’s hands. You can share it with your 14-year-old daughter and your 84 year-old Grandma, and even though I guess it’s a baseball story, neither of them has to care a fig about baseball (I don’t—although now I may start.)
Truth in posting: I am not a sports fan, but I am a rabid fan of sports movies, from Slapshot to Any Given Sunday (something my husband still finds baffling—he who can’t get me to watch even three minutes of football.) I am not usually a YA fan (not that I think this is even vaguely a YA book, but some might try to box it and thus push it out of sight) though A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is my most beloved book.
Diamond Ruby may be A Tree Grows In Brooklyn meets Any Given Sunday.
The author, Joe Wallace, a friend from Twitter and Facebook, wrote a post for this blog on Monday. He wrote about the courage it took to write in a female voice (a child and teenager’s female voice.) Joe, you did the voice proud.
This is a book I wished I’d never read, so I could still look forward to reading it. This is a book I wish I’d had when I was 13-years-old. This is a book that was a perfect read for me right now.
You’re so lucky to have it in front of you.
If you want the perfect book to read while you lie in your hammock this summer, even if it’s only the summer hammock of your mind, get Diamond Ruby. (And then you’re going to want to pass it on, so you may want to buy an extra.)
I don’t want to give much away, but I’ll say this: Joseph Wallace’s inspiration for his book was Jackie Mitchell, who was signed (in 1931) to an all male-team in an all male baseball league in Tennessee. She struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. A few days later, the baseball commissioner banned her (and all women) from the league on the grounds that the sport was “too strenuous” for women.
Diamond Ruby begins in 1913 Brooklyn, when Ruby Thomas is seven, and then shoots us into 1920’s New York in a manner which, for me, captured the danger and wildness of that era in a way I’ve never experienced. Ruby’s story is half fairy-tale, and half knuckle-biting suspense (there were times towards the end when my stomach did actual flip-flops.) This book never lectures, but it teaches, in the best way, about the world girls lived in before the doors of opportunity creaked open.
This story drew me in, then captured me and then rocketed to an intense ‘gotta know.’ Finally, in my best Brooklyn ‘fuggeda bout it’ I put everything away until I finished the story. This is the book I’m forcing into my daughter’s, sister’s, cousins, and friend’s hands. You can share it with your 14-year-old daughter and your 84 year-old Grandma, and even though I guess it’s a baseball story, neither of them has to care a fig about baseball (I don’t—although now I may start.)
Truth in posting: I am not a sports fan, but I am a rabid fan of sports movies, from Slapshot to Any Given Sunday (something my husband still finds baffling—he who can’t get me to watch even three minutes of football.) I am not usually a YA fan (not that I think this is even vaguely a YA book, but some might try to box it and thus push it out of sight) though A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is my most beloved book.
Diamond Ruby may be A Tree Grows In Brooklyn meets Any Given Sunday.
The author, Joe Wallace, a friend from Twitter and Facebook, wrote a post for this blog on Monday. He wrote about the courage it took to write in a female voice (a child and teenager’s female voice.) Joe, you did the voice proud.
This is a book I wished I’d never read, so I could still look forward to reading it. This is a book I wish I’d had when I was 13-years-old. This is a book that was a perfect read for me right now.
You’re so lucky to have it in front of you.
June 15, 2010
A Furious Love
While readying to write about Professor Cromer Learns to Read, I searched for a quote or statistic that would put in perspective the overwhelming job families have caring for brain-injured loved ones, words that said how much we are failing brain injured soldiers returning from war, athletes cast aside after they’ve suffered irreparable damage to their brain, those who’ve fallen, those who’ve been in car accidents—all our mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, friends, partners, and children who struggle to make it back and most of whom will never be the same.
As Cromer says about many things, “all the above is true”, but instead, I’ll offer the words Janet Cromer said to her brain-injured husband each night:
“Alan, the joy of my life is waking up with you each morning. The joy of my life is going to sleep with you each night.”
Before his acquired brain injury, anoxic brain damage (and later dementiaand Parkinson’s disease) engendered by his massive heart attack and cardiac arrest, before he suffered dementia and Parkinson’s disease, Alan Cromer was a prolific author and physics professor at Northeastern University. Like so many of us, reading was the center of his life.
In Professor Cromer Learns to Read, author Jane Cromer takes us on an unprecedented love story. The author struggles through the caretaking of her brain injured husband—years when he is often scary and sometimes unmanageable, and yet this is a love story so tender that one finds many moments to envy their relationship.
Janet and Alan Cromer traveled from Boston to Chicago for a family reunion. A few days later, on the return flight, Alan’s heart and the Cromer’s life stopped. Both were resuscitated. Neither remained recognizable.
Most books of recovery end when the healing begins—leaving the reader uplifted and with the ability to imagine a trajectory of continuing good change. Janet Cromer brings us through the entire cycle of her husband’s tortuous road, first to some semblance of recovery—but never of a return to his former life—and then lets us into their lives and their marriage as medically and emotionally things become worse, leading towards Alan’s death seven years after his heart attack.
This book grabbed me by my heart and held tight until the final page. Cromer, both a poetic and a plainspoken writer, offers shining tough honesty. She shares her fear of losing this man for whom she has a ‘ferocious love.’ She also shares the loneliness, grief and exhaustion of living with this new Alan, who in the grasp of brain injury could become rage-filled and frightening. Calling it “all the above is true” the author paints a picture of her life ricocheting from hope to tenderness to her own dark rage.
Janet Cromer brings the ultimate gift to the reader: opening a door to her furious experience with authenticity, openness, and a page-turning craft. She captures the medical information gracefully and clearly, never turning away from the difficult parts. She opens the door to her marriage and lets us in every room. Never do Alan or Janet Cromer get saint treatment (though at times I thought they should.)
Professor Cromer Learns To Read is a memoir, a story of medical courage, but at its’ core it is a love story.
I read this book because it was written by one of my closest friend’s dear friend. When Diane promised it was a magnificent read I tried to believe her, but I worried. I didn’t open it with great hope. I was prejudiced by most of my experiences with self-published work (which lacked proper editing and suffered from the lack of an objective eye pulling out the weaker parts.)
Professor Cromer Learns To Read so surpassed my expectations (reflecting the authors’ dedicated participation in writer’s groups in Provincetown, Cambridge, and Boston) that I wrote the author asking why she’d not taken the traditional publishing route. In her answer she wrote:
“Timing was my main consideration. Alan had been dead for a few years already and I wanted the story to be timely. Brain injury (BI) is in the news constantly due to the estimated 300,000 returning vets with some degree of BI, and I want to be of some assistance to their families. Last summer as I raced to finish the book, I was in a whirlwind of preparing my 12 room JP house to be sold after living there 25 years, undergoing unexpected spinal fusion surgery with a long recovery, and planning my wedding. I remarried last August and moved to Bethesda, MD. My husband has been terrific in this bizarre situation: his new wife is spending their first year together promoting a book about her first husband!
So, with all that going on, I didn't want to spend another year sending out book proposals, then another year for the book to be published if I was really lucky. My plan was to publish first with Author House, then send out proposals to traditional publishers. I'm still interested in that route.”
Lucky is the agent and publisher who adopts this book. Janet Cromer has already received an award for "Excellence in Medical Communication" and the “Neil Duane Award of Distinction” from the American Medical Writers Association New England Chapter.
Janet Cromer’s book can be purchased at Amazon and through janetcromer.com.
I loved this book. Buy it now, and then later you can say you were one of those smart early readers.
As Cromer says about many things, “all the above is true”, but instead, I’ll offer the words Janet Cromer said to her brain-injured husband each night:
“Alan, the joy of my life is waking up with you each morning. The joy of my life is going to sleep with you each night.”
Before his acquired brain injury, anoxic brain damage (and later dementiaand Parkinson’s disease) engendered by his massive heart attack and cardiac arrest, before he suffered dementia and Parkinson’s disease, Alan Cromer was a prolific author and physics professor at Northeastern University. Like so many of us, reading was the center of his life.
In Professor Cromer Learns to Read, author Jane Cromer takes us on an unprecedented love story. The author struggles through the caretaking of her brain injured husband—years when he is often scary and sometimes unmanageable, and yet this is a love story so tender that one finds many moments to envy their relationship.
Janet and Alan Cromer traveled from Boston to Chicago for a family reunion. A few days later, on the return flight, Alan’s heart and the Cromer’s life stopped. Both were resuscitated. Neither remained recognizable.
Most books of recovery end when the healing begins—leaving the reader uplifted and with the ability to imagine a trajectory of continuing good change. Janet Cromer brings us through the entire cycle of her husband’s tortuous road, first to some semblance of recovery—but never of a return to his former life—and then lets us into their lives and their marriage as medically and emotionally things become worse, leading towards Alan’s death seven years after his heart attack.
This book grabbed me by my heart and held tight until the final page. Cromer, both a poetic and a plainspoken writer, offers shining tough honesty. She shares her fear of losing this man for whom she has a ‘ferocious love.’ She also shares the loneliness, grief and exhaustion of living with this new Alan, who in the grasp of brain injury could become rage-filled and frightening. Calling it “all the above is true” the author paints a picture of her life ricocheting from hope to tenderness to her own dark rage.
Janet Cromer brings the ultimate gift to the reader: opening a door to her furious experience with authenticity, openness, and a page-turning craft. She captures the medical information gracefully and clearly, never turning away from the difficult parts. She opens the door to her marriage and lets us in every room. Never do Alan or Janet Cromer get saint treatment (though at times I thought they should.)
Professor Cromer Learns To Read is a memoir, a story of medical courage, but at its’ core it is a love story.
I read this book because it was written by one of my closest friend’s dear friend. When Diane promised it was a magnificent read I tried to believe her, but I worried. I didn’t open it with great hope. I was prejudiced by most of my experiences with self-published work (which lacked proper editing and suffered from the lack of an objective eye pulling out the weaker parts.)
Professor Cromer Learns To Read so surpassed my expectations (reflecting the authors’ dedicated participation in writer’s groups in Provincetown, Cambridge, and Boston) that I wrote the author asking why she’d not taken the traditional publishing route. In her answer she wrote:
“Timing was my main consideration. Alan had been dead for a few years already and I wanted the story to be timely. Brain injury (BI) is in the news constantly due to the estimated 300,000 returning vets with some degree of BI, and I want to be of some assistance to their families. Last summer as I raced to finish the book, I was in a whirlwind of preparing my 12 room JP house to be sold after living there 25 years, undergoing unexpected spinal fusion surgery with a long recovery, and planning my wedding. I remarried last August and moved to Bethesda, MD. My husband has been terrific in this bizarre situation: his new wife is spending their first year together promoting a book about her first husband!
So, with all that going on, I didn't want to spend another year sending out book proposals, then another year for the book to be published if I was really lucky. My plan was to publish first with Author House, then send out proposals to traditional publishers. I'm still interested in that route.”
Lucky is the agent and publisher who adopts this book. Janet Cromer has already received an award for "Excellence in Medical Communication" and the “Neil Duane Award of Distinction” from the American Medical Writers Association New England Chapter.
Janet Cromer’s book can be purchased at Amazon and through janetcromer.com.
I loved this book. Buy it now, and then later you can say you were one of those smart early readers.
May 31, 2010
My Father Bought Me Pretty Shoes
Most of what I’ve written about my father has been unhappy snapshots based on memories I’ve inherited or been given. Once he tried to kill my mother once. He drank to excess and when he did, he became (according to my cousin who saw more than I did) quiet, sometimes angry, depressed or sullen. According to others, he took pills. Many of them, and they were the cause of his death at 35.
Today is Memorial Day. My father served in WWII. This is all I know: He served in Africa. He was responsible for something to do with writing. In the photos he sent back to my mother he was often wearing a bathing suit and he typed messages on the back of them. As a fatherless child (who hadn’t yet uncovered all the family secrets) I read the simple sentences on the back of those photographs repeatedly; trying to know out who my father was through those eight or ten words. He compared the beaches of Africa to Coney Island. He wrote funny messages to my mother; in my mind, I pumped those messages up until they became sonnets.
I have heartbreakingly warm memories of my father, despite the family history. I don’t remember him high or drunk. When I cried, he told me to “stop the banana splits” and then bought me something special. (I don’t remember why I was crying. I know it was on a weekend I spent with him, my sister and my grandparents. He and my mother were divorced.)
He played ragtime on the piano. He seemed to love me. He seemed sad. All the time.
After he died, no one ever mentioned him again. When I was old enough to be less afraid of upsetting my mother, I tried teasing bits information from her.
All she professed to remember was that she married him because he was handsome. And everyone was getting married. So I hold onto the love I feel for no reason I can truly remember, except that he once bought me pretty patent leather shoes with straps you could swing to the back.
When he fought in WW II he was so young—perhaps 21? He was handsome. He played the piano. He fought in World War II when he was barely in his twenties. And when I cried, he noticed.
Today is Memorial Day. My father served in WWII. This is all I know: He served in Africa. He was responsible for something to do with writing. In the photos he sent back to my mother he was often wearing a bathing suit and he typed messages on the back of them. As a fatherless child (who hadn’t yet uncovered all the family secrets) I read the simple sentences on the back of those photographs repeatedly; trying to know out who my father was through those eight or ten words. He compared the beaches of Africa to Coney Island. He wrote funny messages to my mother; in my mind, I pumped those messages up until they became sonnets.
I have heartbreakingly warm memories of my father, despite the family history. I don’t remember him high or drunk. When I cried, he told me to “stop the banana splits” and then bought me something special. (I don’t remember why I was crying. I know it was on a weekend I spent with him, my sister and my grandparents. He and my mother were divorced.)
He played ragtime on the piano. He seemed to love me. He seemed sad. All the time.
After he died, no one ever mentioned him again. When I was old enough to be less afraid of upsetting my mother, I tried teasing bits information from her.
All she professed to remember was that she married him because he was handsome. And everyone was getting married. So I hold onto the love I feel for no reason I can truly remember, except that he once bought me pretty patent leather shoes with straps you could swing to the back.
When he fought in WW II he was so young—perhaps 21? He was handsome. He played the piano. He fought in World War II when he was barely in his twenties. And when I cried, he noticed.
Three Terrific Memoirs
An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken
Just, just finished this. Sad and yet hopeful, this is the story of the author’s experience of the stillbirth of her first child. McCracken calls her book “the happiest story in the world with the saddest ending,” as she gives birth to her second child not long after the anniversary of her stillborn son Pudding’s death.
She manages to infuse humor into a story where we have no doubt that her heart had been broken. McCracken’s writing is poetic and yet totally accessible. Her honesty and goodness shine through. By the end, I adored this writer and woman.
Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption by Jennifer Thompson-Cannino and Ronald Cotton, with Erin Torneo
Jennifer Thompson woke up to a man raping her at knifepoint. She identified Ronald Cotton as her attacker. Though she eventually moved on, the attack on her body left a wide swath of emotional scar tissue.
Ronald Cotton swore his innocence as surely as Jennifer Thompson testified to his guilt. At times, his lock-up seemed what allowed Jennifer to walk through the world. But after eleven years, DNA proved Ronald an innocent man, and he somehow walked out not only an innocent man, but also a strong one.
Since then, they’ve worked together on the issue of ensuring innocent men and women don’t remain in prison. I closed this book sorry for the ordeal Jennifer and Ronald suffered, but grateful they had the wisdom and grace to offer themselves to us: through this memoir, through speaking out, and through their example of true goodness.
Ice Bound a Doctor's Incredible Battle For Survival at the South Pole, by Jeri Nielson co-written with Maryanne Vollers
Ice Bound fits every criteria I have for a great read: an engrossing plot, writing that flows, and gotta-find-outness (while in Antarctica, where she is the only doctor and there is no way in or out for months, Neilsen discovers she has breast cancer) and all intriguing subplots (family troubles, check; intriguing setting which is a story in itself, check; side characters who you deeply care about, check; heroics large and small, check, check, check.
Just, just finished this. Sad and yet hopeful, this is the story of the author’s experience of the stillbirth of her first child. McCracken calls her book “the happiest story in the world with the saddest ending,” as she gives birth to her second child not long after the anniversary of her stillborn son Pudding’s death.
She manages to infuse humor into a story where we have no doubt that her heart had been broken. McCracken’s writing is poetic and yet totally accessible. Her honesty and goodness shine through. By the end, I adored this writer and woman.
Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption by Jennifer Thompson-Cannino and Ronald Cotton, with Erin Torneo
Jennifer Thompson woke up to a man raping her at knifepoint. She identified Ronald Cotton as her attacker. Though she eventually moved on, the attack on her body left a wide swath of emotional scar tissue.
Ronald Cotton swore his innocence as surely as Jennifer Thompson testified to his guilt. At times, his lock-up seemed what allowed Jennifer to walk through the world. But after eleven years, DNA proved Ronald an innocent man, and he somehow walked out not only an innocent man, but also a strong one.
Since then, they’ve worked together on the issue of ensuring innocent men and women don’t remain in prison. I closed this book sorry for the ordeal Jennifer and Ronald suffered, but grateful they had the wisdom and grace to offer themselves to us: through this memoir, through speaking out, and through their example of true goodness.
Ice Bound a Doctor's Incredible Battle For Survival at the South Pole, by Jeri Nielson co-written with Maryanne Vollers
Ice Bound fits every criteria I have for a great read: an engrossing plot, writing that flows, and gotta-find-outness (while in Antarctica, where she is the only doctor and there is no way in or out for months, Neilsen discovers she has breast cancer) and all intriguing subplots (family troubles, check; intriguing setting which is a story in itself, check; side characters who you deeply care about, check; heroics large and small, check, check, check.
