Archive for the 'books' Category
October 22, 2008
The last good book I read was Theo Nestor’s divorce memoir, How to Sleep Alone in a King-Size Bed.
I can’t remember ever reading another memoir about divorce, but I enjoyed this one. The first chapter is essentially the Modern Love essay Theo wrote for the New York Times. The feedback she got from publishing her essay actually plays a small role in her transition from married to single mother. I wish the first chapter to my memoir would present itself to me in similar fashion, but no such luck.
Theo mentions that thing Dad would occasionally do when he and Mom were arguing. Dad would say, “If this were the Old Country, I could clap my hands three times and you would be divorced.” Sometimes Dad would even clap his hands once for effect. Theo says that’s a Sunni tradition, but I wonder if it isn’t pan-Arab. Dad was Catholic and he seemed pretty familiar with it.
Of course, Mom didn’t care about any clapping hands nonsense. She would just shrug her shoulders and say, “This ain’t the Old Country.”
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Tags: book review, divorce, How to Sleep Alone in a King-Size Bed, memoir, Theo Pauline Nestor
October 17, 2008
Shalom Auslander appeared at Elliott Bay last night to promote the paperback edition of his memoir, Foreskin’s Lament.
What struck me most is how serious and intense he is. I guess I should have realized this about him from his promotional photo, which simply screams I am a serious and intense author. But his work, which I love, just seems much too funny to come from anyone so grave.
Except for a single man who laughed loudly in all the right places, the reading felt a little like a wake. Despite this, I enjoyed myself. I got a chance to hang out with Matt Briggs and talk shop. And it’s always good to get into Seattle for a night.
Auslander said he considers memoir to be the literary equivalent of pornography. I’m pretty sure he was serious. I guess he only wants to write fiction, but his memoir is really good.
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Tags: creative non-fiction, memoir, Shalom Auslander, writers, book reading, Foreskin's Lament, Elliott Bay Books, narrative non-fiction
October 7, 2008
My friend Gary Presley’s interview on Iowa Public Radio is live. Gary wrote, 7 Wheelchairs, a Life Beyond Polio, which just recently came to press, so now he is doing the marketing thing. I am reading my copy of his book right now.
I also recently got a phone call from Elliott Bay Book Company here in Seattle to say that they just got the book in. I was downtown last week and noticed they didn’t have it, so I asked them to order me a copy, even though I already had mine from Amazon. I’ll sleep easier knowing that a qaulity book store like Elliott Bay has Gary’s book on its shelves.
You can check out the streaming version of the interview or download the podcast.
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Tags: 7 Wheelchairs, authors, Gary Presley, interview, public radio
May 30, 2008
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I came to Augusten Burroughs work through Dry, a memoir about his struggle with alcoholism, which is somehow both heartfelt and funny. Then I read Running with Scissors, his quirky coming-of-age story. Wolf at the Table is completely different from the earlier works, exploring Mr. Burroughs’ relationship with his father, an emotionally distant alcoholic. It would be an understatement to say Mr. Burroughs finds his father lacking: His bitterness is so palpable, the book is hard to read.
I love memoirs that explore fatherhood. In the 50s and 60s, fathers were almost always depicted as good and wholesome. As I kid, I could see my old man didn’t add up. How could he? Those depictions had little to do with reality. Nothing bad about Dad was every explored. Now we get something like Wolf at the Table, but this father is so clearly and irredeemably bad, it’s almost like a throw back to thin view of fathers from the 50s and 60s (albeit the other side of the coin). Burroughs father is as bad as Father Knows Best is good. How’s the for coming full circle?
You have to feel bad for any adult lugging around so much resentment from childhood. One good thing about being a rebellious child: With my family, I always managed to keep the resentment ledgers pretty even. If you give as good as you get, you never have to feel bitter.
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Tags: Augusten Burroughs, fatherhood, memoir, Wolf at the Table
May 16, 2008
This hulk of a book (843 pages) kept me busy for the last three months. I racked up $1.70 in late fees from the library, but it was worth it.
Peter Watson describes the intellectual achievements of the last century. If I had to choose, I would say physics seemed to be the highpoint of the last century. I didn’t realize that worm holes and time travel existed outside of science fiction. Nor did I realize what a long sad history racism has had or how persistent its theme has been in intellectual circles. Somehow I always thought racism was the domain of the working class.
For the last three months I read a little of this each morning, with coffee. Now that I’m finished, I feel a little lost.
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Tags: books
April 5, 2008
If you want to know more about food, read Michael Pollan. The man knows his food. He’s written at least three great books, one of which I already posted about. I wanted to jot some additional notes on the others.
Omnivore’s Dilemma is a look at the food industry. I got through the first part about corn, but then I had to put it down. He’s a great writer, but the market forces he describes bearing down on the food industry just became too depressing for me to bear. If you want something a little more upbeat, go with In Defense of Food, which describes how best to eat in a world as depressing as the one described in Omnivore’s Dilemma.
But what I like best about Pollan’s work has less to do with food and more to do with his ability to clarify economic and sociological forces that come to bear on an industry. In Botany of Desire he describes how the War on Drugs inadvertently gave us better and more potent marijuana. I haven’t smoked pot in ages, but I remember when it was light green flakes and often cost less than $20 an ounce. Pollan offers an entire history of pot and how the drug crackdown forced pot growers underground, where they tinkered with hybrids until they were able to grow incredibly potent pot indoors. A lot of the hooligans pulling these underground shenanigans were people right here in the Pacific Northwest (Matt Briggs’s, Shoot the Buffalo has characters in the PNW that make a living growing pot indoors).
Fascinating stuff.
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Tags: books, food, marijuana, Michael Pollan
March 3, 2008
Somehow all my Michael Pollan library requests came through at the same time. I just finished his most recent book, In Defense of Food.
Something about this book touches the part of me that naturally mistrusts doctors (and varying degrees of eggheads all over). I have only just recently learned some of the nutritionist lingo, but who hasn’t been skewered by some smug nutritionists at some point in their life? Pollan’s big idea is to steer clear of foods (what he would describe as pseudo-foods) more than five ingredients, long chemical names, and (especially) any food with a health claim on its label. Why? Because you’re better off. The whole process of getting food to your table is highly politicized, with big business looking out for shareholder interests, instead of yours or mine. Trans fats anyone?
So I was totally onboard with Pollan’s smackdown of the nutritionist until I came to the part where he suggest we should make our meals more of a social event. He wants us to engage with food in ways that foster community and ritual. Yeah, yeah.
Sounds good until I realize this means we can no longer eat meals at our desks. What? That’s where I draw the line.
It’s funny how you don’t realize how important something is to you until someone tries to take it away.
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Tags: books, food, Michael Pollan
February 9, 2008
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Of all the memoir I read last year, here are my three favorites:
Dreams From My Father: I know this was available prior to 2007, but I read it last spring and was much impressed with Barack Obama’s willingness to tackle complex subjects in a deep and meaningful way. Everyone talks about his drug use in college, but what stood out for me were the heartfelt discussions about coming to terms with his mixed race background and his complex feelings for his father, an African living in Kenya.
I’m encouraged that Obama used memoir as a vehicle for opening a frank discussion of race in America. I’m delighted he felt comfortable enough with his modest drug use to discuss it openly (in stark contrast to Bill Clinton’s quasi-admission of not inhaling his drugs).
Foreskin’s Lament: If I had to pick, this was probably my favorite memoir from 2007. Partly a discussion of fatherhood, partly a coming-of-age memoir, Shalom Auslander describes with great humor his attempts to break free from of the bonds of his Orthodox Jewish upbringing somewhere in upstate New York.
AlternaDad: Neal Pollack’s memoir about becoming a father convinced me that I should try to market some of my own essays about parenting. What I have noticed is that the best memoir always seems to inspires me to write my own.
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Tags: Barack Obama, books, Neal Pollack, Shalom Auslander
January 11, 2008
Although I rarely read fiction these days, I do read a little, especially if it’s good.
Shoot the Buffalo, Matt Briggs latest novel, is my kind of fiction. A coming of age story set in the dark woods of the Pacific Northwest, it features some of the saddest, yet most oddly compelling characters I’ve read in a long while.
I seek out coming of age stories. The best memoir is written to read like fiction, so all the coming of age stories I read actually count as research toward my own on-going memoir project. One of the inherent problems of writing this kind of story is that something big has to happen to your main character, but not so big as to prevent a minor from rising to the challenge and overcoming in a way that’s believable and (hopefully) compelling to read.
In American literature, this sort of story often presents itself as a Hero’s Quest, typically a redemptive story where the hero overcomes some great adversary. But it’s not always so cut and dry. In This Boy’s Life, Tobias Wolff’s well-known coming of age memoir, a no-account stepfather is young Wolff’s big challenge. In a stunning act of guile, Wolff manages to (literally) reinvent himself, escaping to a prep school in the Northeast. Wolff’s use of deceit to overcome his situation has always made the story stand out for me. There is nothing more poignant then a child trying to cope with grown up issues the best he can, especially if that child is saddled with lousy parents. For a boy in this situation, the most believable thing to do is make a poor choice.
Shoot the Buffalo deals with the guilt a boy feels after he leads his siblings into the woods in search of their parents and his little sister dies of exposure. What struck me was the clever way Briggs uses the story’s structure and setting to move the main character from childhood guilt and confusion to a believable resolution as a young man.
It’s fiction, but it feels real. It’s just a genuine story about a hard childhood.
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Tags: books, fiction, Matt Briggs, This Boy's Life, Tobias Wolff, writers, writing
December 27, 2007
Books I have read on how-to-write memoir occasionally suggest boiling down into the fewest words what your memoir is about. From Shalom Auslander’s new memoir, Foreskin’s Lament, here are a few words that do just that:
I believe in God.
It’s been a real problem for me.
I have very little sympathy for veal.
I find Mr. Auslander inventive, irreverent, and incredibly funny to read. Most of his stories center on his experience growing up in an Orthodox Jewish family in upstate New York. But his memoir is also an exploration of fatherhood: ambivalent memories of his father, feelings about his own role as a parent, but mostly he offers stories that feature the antagonistic relationship he has with his Heavenly Father. This is how to write memoir.
Earlier this year I read another memoir about fatherhood by Neal Pollack. For some reason, Jewish fathers who write memoir seem to fixate on the circumcision of their son’s penis. Everyone has a story. Even me!
So what’s a nice Catholic boy like me doing with a circumcision story? No idea. Maybe I was adopted.
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Tags: books, circumcision, fatherhood, Shalom Auslander, writers
