The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence - Gavin de Becker

This short book was terrifying and enlightening and in the end, somehow comforting. We are all gifted with an inherent ability to sense and react to real threats. Not the uneasy feeling we get in a little airline turbulence, but the visceral (gut) reaction we feel when we are in the presence of real danger. The Gift of Fear tells us to listen to that voice. 

Whether or not we listen to this feeling can be the difference between life and death. de Becker introduces many scenarios of people who have listened or not listened to this voice. And most of these scenarios are terrifying. Ask yourself, he says, what is the worst thing you can ever imagine one human could do to another? And then, he says, rest assured that that thing, that thing that you can only imagine has been done to someone somewhere in the world. And that thought sends chills through my body. Man's capacity for cruelty is only limited by the imagination. And most often the target of those limits are children. Which, is the most horrifying and unpardonable fact I have ever encountered.

So, I'm glad I read this book, because keeping myself and my children safe may (hopefully not) be necessary sometime. May I never let politeness, social norms, or societal expectations override my natural instincts to react to fear.

4/5 Stars. 

The Glass Castle - Jeannette Walls

I had so many moments where I forgot that I was listening to an audio book and lapsed into full-fledged conversation with Jeannette Walls. "These parents in the Glass Castle... WTF on every page." is what I texted to my sister when it just seemed like the never-ending train of neglect and abuse rolled on. I couldn't understand how Jeannette turned out so normal. How she could forgive her parents. 

The story starts with a grown up Jeannette seeing her mother picking items from a garbage dumpster in a New York City alley. Then it travels back in time to a three year old Jeannette who is terribly scarred when a stove top flame catches her dress on fire. And then it travels forward. With Jeannette, her older sister Laurie, younger brother Brian and baby sister Maureen transported across the country by their parents. Who can never seem to settle down or "straighten up." 

Their mother, a trained teacher, elects to spend her time painting and writing novels and stories that are consistently rejected. Their father, a former Air Force pilot and engineer, works for about six months at a time before being fired. He is an alcoholic. Neither parent ever seems to be able to put their children first, a fact that becomes painfully more obvious when the family moves from the desert landscapes Jeannette and the older siblings are used to, and on to Welch, West Virginia, where their dad grew up and where their grandmother probably sexually abused him. 

Good grief. A multi-generational horribleness sets in. But all of this is told in a rather matter of fact way, by a woman who is entirely grateful to have had her siblings to navigate and survive with. Even when their parents chose booze or jewelry over putting food on the table and let their kids dig food from the trash, the siblings look out for one another and each gain they get is hard won and hard fought. 

I won't go into detail of every issue of neglect that's committed by the parents in this story, but ultimately, Laurie is able to leave for New York where she pursues her dream of being an artist. Rather than wait out her time in Welch, Jeannette follows to finish her senior year in New York. Brian follows suit the next year when he enters the 12th grade. And much to the relief of the siblings, Maureen is permitted to move to New York under Laurie's care at the age of 12. 

Their children all gone the parents wait a while and then follow them to New York, where they spend time homeless and on the streets and then eventually squatting in an abandoned building. If it wasn't a memoir I would have thought I was reading a piece of hard fiction. But the fact that this was someone's life is rather amazing. 

It's a sad truth that some people are not able to set aside the mental illness or addictions that prevent them from being fully there for others. And in the end, I think Jeannette forgives her parents for that, if she even felt like she needed to. She knew they loved her in their own flawed ways. If she can forgive them, who am I to hold a grudge. But I am going to hug my kids tighter today AND when I see them, my own mom and dad.

5/5 Stars. 

Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” - Zora Neale Hurston

This is a really hard book to review. Barracoon was initially written by Hurston in the 1930s based on interviews she conducted with Kossulo (renamed Cudjo Lewis following his freedom), abducted and forced onto the Clotilda, the last ship to carry enslaved people to the United States.

Hurston insisted on maintaining Kossulo's original dialect and vernacular, one of the reasons the piece was originally rejected for publication. In the afterward, many pages are devoted to analyzing a plagiarizing issue with Hurston's earlier articles about Kossulo, mainly that she lifted entire background passages from an un-cited work. Although not mentioned, this could also be problematic in getting this later work published. 

Kossulo's story is a sad and cruel one. A teenager in Africa, his tribe is attacked by another and he is sold into slavery in 1859, at a time when the international slave trade is supposed to be outlawed. The importing of enslaved peoples to America has been prohibited but three brothers and a ship captain have decided they will run the risk. Of course, they have no qualms about accepting enslaved peoples, but when they get to America, the market has become a little dry and the brothers and ship captain end up retaining most of their "cargo." 

Not much is said by Kossulo about the time he spent enslaved aside from the loading and unloading of river ships. He does recount the day he is told he is free. And it's a stark moment because there is no where to go and he's not quite sure what he should do. But he and some other men manage to work and save and buy some land together to make their own town. He eventually marries and has six children. 

And then, tragically, his six children are killed one by one. He also loses his wife and is left bereft and lonely in Africa Town, waiting, it seems, for someone to come and listen to his story and show an interest in the life he has led. And it is interesting, and devastating. There is little redemption in the story except to say that Kossulo persisted and tried to make a life for himself, but even a life after slavery was filled with hardship and loss. 

The story of Kossulo itself garners 4 stars. The forward pieces and afterward were long on words, but somehow short on information. What became of Kossulo? What else can be said about his family or Africa Town (Plateau, AL)? I think the style of non-fiction written by journalists has developed so much over the last almost 100 years, that this story is almost unrecognizable in its current format and it left me wanting so much more. 

So this story is so important because there are so few first hand narratives of actual enslaved people. And the Clotilda represents such a dark and reprehensible period of our country's history. But I wish there was more. I wish someone had advanced Hurston the capital and independence necessary to really get the whole of Kossulo's story.

4/5 Stars

Love Wins: The Lovers and Lawyers Who Fought the Landmark Case for Marriage Equality - Debbie Cenziper, Jim Obergefell

There's a few things that I love the come together in Love Wins. 

1) The Law - it's not perfect but it's ours and in some respects it gives people who would otherwise be disenfranchised, power to make real and lasting change (but also see Dred Scott v. Sandford ugh). 

2) Narrative nonfiction - I love journalism that is told like a story. And this is done so well in podcasts but sometimes gets very very dry in book form. Not this one. This one was intriguing and moving and very well put together. 

3) Cincinnati - my hometown with all its warts and problems still feels special to me now that I am far away with no reason to return. 

4) LOVE - In 2004, I angrily stared at my absentee ballot from Ohio. Wondering how it was possible that a constitutional amendment proposing targeted discrimination was even considered. But it was. And it passed. The idea, the simple idea that you meet someone, you fall in love, and you decide you want to spend the rest of your life with someone - make a symbolic commitment - is really not that hard to understand. The fact that two people of the same sex want to do this is irrelevant to the inquiry. Or it should be. 

I didn't know John Arthur and James Obergefell's story. How they met, fell in love, and committed to each other over and over, until after the Windsor case, decided to get married, even in the midst of John's battle with ALS. Having read Every Note Played by Lisa Genova this year (read that review here), ALS is something I feel I'm more familiar with than ever before. Understanding the creeping devastation and loss it requires of its afflicted day after day. 

Most of all, the Obergefell v. Hodges is a love letter, a legacy, from James to John every day and into the annals of history. And that is beautiful.

Also, hat tip to narrator George Newbern who is an excellent audio book reader. 

4/5 Stars. 

This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America - Morgan Jerkins

This is the third nonfiction book I've read by a WOC this year (black woman to be specific) and I'm so glad to be hearing these new voices and growing in understanding of a life experience I am not closely familiar with. So This Will Be My Undoing was a deliberate pick by me to do better, to be more aware and to really just appreciate the story of someone who I might otherwise never had heard from.

I loved Morgan's essay which explored living in Harlem and what Harlem meant and how she saw it. I loved thinking about spaces outside of a white gaze. I am accustomed to looking at culture through my own white lens. My own (flawed and often unconscious) judgments are based on the white norms I have accepted and reinforced. The ways in which I expect people to ask, the conformity I expect them to accept is based on expectations that have their origin in white supremacy. 

Maybe the first step of allyship is to really listen to the stories of POC and specifically WOC and specifically black women. I'm there. I'm doing that part. And now it feels not quite enough. Like this is the baseline. This is the absolute minimum. Morgan talks about going to Japan as a middle school and then undergrad student. And during that time there she would walk into a store and the attentive sales people would help her and ask if she needed anything. This was such a mind blowing experience that she couldn't wait to see her own mother experience it as well. 

Wait, back up. Yep, that's what I wrote. This brilliant, beautiful, multi-lingual woman was feeling truly seen, by a sales clerk. Shit, America we are doing something dreadfully wrong if we can't even up our game to baseline dignity and respect for women of color by saying hello and asking if they need help when they enter our shops. Phoebe Robinson told a similar story about going to a Michael's store and standing at the framing counter waiting to be helped. (You can read my review of Phoebe's book, You Can't Touch My Hair here). She wasn't even acknowledged and several other customers walked in later and were helped in front of her. So, yes. This is a problem. This is a embarrassing basic problem. We need to not only see WOC, but we need to allow them to take up whatever space they need AND be fine with it.

4/5 Stars. 

Warlight - Michael Ondaatje

I've been sitting on this review all day because I felt a lot of things while reading Warlight that I wasn't sure I'd be able to succinctly describe. After a few days I'm more comfortable about how I felt about the book so here goes:

First off, I'd like to say that I listened to the audio version of this book and I believe this was a critical and exquisite mistake. Exquisite because the vocalist did a fantastic job and had a wonderful voice. Critical because the language of the novel, the dreamy quality and the trustworthiness of the narrator led to a really hard narrative to follow in audio format.

The story opens with our narrator, Nathaniel, thinking back upon a very formative period in his life during his early teen years when both of his parents left him and his sister, Rachel, in the care of strangers. Their father, an emotionally distant, blurry figure who, as an executive at Unilever has been called to relocate to the company's Singapore offices for a year. Their mother, Rose, has decided to accompany him for the year, sending the children to boarding school. Their London home is to be looked after by a boarder whom the children refer to as "The Moth." During the months after their father's departure and the start of school whereby their mother will leave, the children grow close to their mother, whom they have no real connection with, having lived with their grandparents during much of the war years.

Once they are ensconced at boarding school, both Nathaniel and Rachel determine they hate it and sneak out to return to their home. The Moth promptly visits the schools and has the children converted to daytime only students. It is once they are back home that Rachel discovers their mother's steamer trunk, carefully packed with all those Singapore gowns, tucked away in a corner of their basement. Both children feel bereft and abandoned. With no way to get in touch with their mother they are left to wonder at the true depths of their abandonment and their parents' deception.

Left to their own devices, Nathaniel and Rachel grow close to The Moth and his case of vaguely criminal friends who frequent the house. Nathaniel especially grows close to a once successful amateur underground boxer nicknamed The Pimlico Darter. While The Moth encourages Nathaniel to get his first real job, The Darter teaches Nathaniel about the back waterways and alleys of the Thames while they smuggle racing dogs of questionable provenance. Un-moored, Nathaniel strikes up a relationship with a girl whose real name he never knows and manages to become close to her while still keeping her at a distance.

And all of this was very interesting and Ondaatje's writing is really fantastic, but then... well the story changes and Nathaniel starts telling the story of his mother, for reasons I don't want to say in this review for risk of spoilers. And given the wonderful distance and mystery Ondaatje spends the first 1/3 of the book creating, the credibility of the knowledge of the last 2/3 is stretched and destroyed by what Nathaniel is able to share about his mother.

The novel is really 1/3 a telling of a child's story from a child's point of view, and 2/3 a telling of a child's story from an adult point of view. It brings up questions and vulnerabilities that are touching and deeply moving and asks us to look at our parents anew from the distance of hindsight and the earned wisdom of adulthood. But it doesn't undo the damage done and the hearts broken in accepting a new perspective.

So all this is to say there were things I really really loved about this book, but when it's all put together it left me wanting a more believable mechanism for getting to the heart of Rose's story without damaging Nathaniel's credibility.

3.5/5 Stars.

Ploughshares Winter 2018-2019 - Edited by Ladette Randolph and John Skoyles

The Winter 2018-2019 edition of Ploughshares really brought the short of short fiction. Most of the short stories are ten pages or less. And the poems in this one are interspersed. For only 221 pages, this one packs a lot of different feels. 

I've been doing this Ploughshares thing for a while now, so I'll stick to what was best, but know that every edition is solid and worth the time. 

What was the best of the best were the Emerging Writers Winners. While I enjoyed reading many of the stories and poems in the collection, it's these three that I return to again and again in my mind. Like running a new stone in between thumb and forefinger until it's worn smooth and I know the shape of it.

I'm not sure how the winners are deemed "emerging". For instance, in fiction, Anne de Marcken has been writing for quite some time. Her story, "Foil" she says took her twelve years to right. It's artistry is evident in the first sentence:

"My mother gives birth to me again and again, multiplying my body to outnumber the deaths she foresees, until I can do it myself and can no longer tell the difference between the first me and the many who follow."

I mean, what? The story is short but you have to stay with it - to feel it, again and again. Here's another which is a repeated theme and which is an example of the language I love here:

"My silence is lit by the stroboscopic flutter of an entire generation of moths clambering at a bare bulb. If I were a bare bulb, which I am, I would know what it feels like to be mistaken for the moon, to suffocate." 

The language is so strange but beautiful but not in a pretentious way that I found myself reading, re-reading and re-reading the paragraphs again and again. 

The same mood can be said for poetry winner Alycia Pirmohamed for her collection of poems that explore the second-generation distance between the origins of her ancestors and her own genetic make up. The poems are chock-full of metaphors that poetry judge Roger Reeves says are "at once embodied and cerebral, emotionally rigorous and intellectually arresting." I can't describe that better so I won't try. I'll just leave you with this phrase from "Ways of Looking":

"This mosque is a cut of apple-I mistake each slice for a mouth"

You can continue here after you're done puzzling on that one.

Lastly, the Nonfiction winner, Laura Price Steele's essay "These Bodies Will Undo Us" is such an open, honest reflection of her relationship following her partner's transition. This story has three things going on, the partner's transition, a hunting trip to Montana, and an ill dog. And for whatever reason it all just works. It's probably because of these arresting insights:

"It surprised me just how much of myself I had to cut away to avoid the subject, how my new tentative friendships seemed drained of the lifeblood they required to survive. The more I spoke about myself, the more misshapen my life became. Just saying that I had moved to the city where my husband found a job felt deeply dishonest, as if I was tapping into a long line of history that was not mine to claim."

4/5 Stars.