Heft (the book)

  In order to really love a book, I  have to care about the characters.  Heft by Liz Moore clearly fits into that category.  The opening chapter is actually a letter written by Arthur Opp, one of the main characters.  It begins:

"The first thing you must know about me is that I am colossally fat.......Second, in my letters to you these past two decades I have been untruthful by omission.....Last and most important: I no longer go out of my house."

   There is something so honest about Arthur and that is obvious in the opening letter.  As the story unfolds, we learn that Arthur is not only honest, he is also honorable.  As Arthur's life begins to  change, the reader can feel his insecurities.  His fears and flaws become palatable and I, for one, wanted to be his friend.

   A parallel story features 18 year old Kel Keller.   The first time the reader meets him, Kel has just arrived home to find his mother passed out on the living room floor.  His thoughts?  "My God she's dead is what I think.  She's dead this time."  Clearly, Kel has been down this road before.  Kel has become his mother's caretaker, the way children of substance abusers sometimes do.  And, like some  children of substance abusers, Kel is also resilient and mature beyond his years.  He is an athlete, bound, he hopes, for the world of professional sports.  Even though he has perfected the act of "cool high school guy", he is not arrogant and, in fact, I wanted to be his friend too.

   There is an interesting juxtaposition here.  In some respects, Arthur seems like a scared child who has lived a very confined and "safe" life.  Kel seems like an adult who has risen to take on the world.  By the end of the story, Arthur has grown up and Kel has been able to grow down. Arthur becomes someone who can care for himself and others and Kel becomes someone who can let others care for him.

   How these two connect is a fascinating and poignant story.  In the end, it is a hopeful story, a tale which demonstrates that change can happen.  It is never too early or too late to be who you want to be.  I think Lisa Moore has created inspiring characters to prove this point.  I came to care about the characters and, yes, that is one sign of a good book.

Brothers and Sisters

     I have always defined myself, in part, by my place in my family.  I am the fifth child in a family of nine siblings and the first daughter of two daughters.  My sister is the eighth child in the family and we are separated by 7 years.  Our parents were married at the close of WW2 and we grew up under the strong influence of the Catholic Church.  Our parents remained married until my dad's death in 1996 so there were no step siblings or half siblings involved in my life.

    My sibs shaped who I am in ways that I can only imagine.  I know their impact on who I am today was huge and, frankly, they remain the most influential people in my life.  They matter  to me.  Growing up, I counted on them for companionship, for guidance, for goofiness, for friendship.  Who they are now and the struggles and joys of their lives today matter to me a great deal.  

     My sister, who shares my outlook on family, gave me this book for my birthday and I found it to be an absorbing read.  Really, there were no surprises in it but it was enjoyable to read and to relate to the families referenced.  The author, Jeffrey Kluger, grew up as the second child in a family of four boys (which later expanded to include two half siblings and a step sibling).  His childhood seemed so much more tumultuous than mine but his observations and documentation of siblings, in general, are interesting to me.  Chapters include discussions of birth order, how families change (the family I was born into is not the same family that my oldest brother, my youngest brother, or my sister, or any of my siblings were born into), 

the presence and consequences of favoritism in families, siblings raising siblings, and the ties that bind siblings during the adult years.  

     I know my brothers and sister would agree that we were fortunate to have each other.  There was support, comfort, and companionship in numbers.  I know that there were times when we each "got lost in the shuffle" and I suspect that the sheer volume of noise and personalities overwhelmed me and at least some, if not all, of my sibs (not to mention the 'rents).  It was easy to be overlooked and to stay quiet to avoid being seen when you didn't want to be seen.  It was also easy to hide in the shadow of a sibling or to delight in the friendship of a sibling.  

       My siblings are the people who have known me the longest.  They grew up with me, through little kidhood, adolescence, marriages, child rearing, and who will continue to stand with me at funerals until, sadly, there is only one standing.  We watched each other make choices in life and play them out.  I suspect one of the surprises of my later life might be the connections I continue to grow with my brothers and my sister.  

      As I noted, Mr.  Kluger's book doesn't really hold new information for me.  I've lived his book and maybe that's why I found it interesting.  Maybe you will too.

Slouching Towards Bethlehem

    Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion was one of those novels I read in a contemporary literature class back in 1973 or 1974.  I've always thought fondly of it though I sure couldn't tell you the plot or theme - other than fragmentation and alienation in Los Angeles in the 1970's.  I've had Ms. Didion's book Slouching Towards Bethlehem on my "to read" list for years and this week I finally got to it.  It did not disappoint.

    This book is a collection of essays focused on America in the 1960's and, within that, primarily on California at that time.  She tackles lots of topics including John Wayne, Howard Hughes, what it was like to grow up a girl in California, and investigating Haight-Ashbury at its height as the counter-cultural capital of the world circa 1968.

    Ms Didion's words just knock my socks off.  The opening essay is entitled "Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream".  It clearly demonstrates how "the future always looks good in the golden land because no one remembers the past.  [California] is where the hot wind blows and the old ways do not seem relevant, where the divorce rate is double the national average and where one person in every thirty-eight lives in a trailer.  Here is the last stop for all those who came from somewhere else, for all those who drifted away from the cold and the past and the old ways."  The essay focuses on "the conventional clandestine affair in a place like San Bernardino, a place where little is bright or graceful, where it is routine to misplace the future and easy to start looking for it in bed."

   Listen to that:   ".... routine to misplace the future and easy to start looking for it in bed."  Does that not send chills along your spine?

   Another essay that I found particularl poignant and insightful is entitled "On Keeping A Notebook".  In it, Ms Didion reflects on why she keeps a notebook anyway:  "Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss."  Agree or disagree, you must admit the words are compelling.

    Later in the same  essay, Didion is remembering a particular line that she wrote in her notebook and how that line impacted her:  "It all comes back.  Perhaps it is difficult to see the value in having one's self back in that  kind of mood, but I do see it;  I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not.  Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.  We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget."

    There are so many thoughtful words in this collection of essays.  It's not the kind of book you'll want to read in a breezy way.  You'll want to take your time.  You'll want to put those post it notes all over the place.  You will want to read parts aloud, simply because they sound so cool, they evoke such images.  At least I did.

Tell the Wolves I'm Home

      "Don't you know?  That's the secret.  If you always make sure you are exactly the person you hoped to be, if you always make sure you know only the very best people,  then you won't care if you die tomorrow.......It's the most unhappy people who want to stay alive, because they think they haven't done everything that they want to do.  They think they have't had enough time.  They feel like they've been shortchanged."

      These words are from the newly published debut novel  Tell The Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt.   I liked this book.  A lot.  It's a death story.  It's a life story.  It's the story of family, of sisters,  of what it means to come of age.  It's the story of the early AIDS epidemic and how it damaged families and made people scared.  It is a well told story.  Finally it is, at its core, a love story.

      The book unfolds over about a two month period.  June, our narrator,  is an awkward and uncomfortable 14 year old.  Shy and serious, she does not like parties:  "The worst thing about them [parties] is the stupid hopefulness.  Every new party, every new bunch of people, and I start thinking that maybe this is my chance.  That  I am going to be normal this time. A new leaf.  A fresh start.  But then I find myself at the party, thinking, Oh, yeah.  This again."  


    June's sister Greta is sixteen and much the opposite of June - party hardy, talented singer/actress, and the sister that the 'rents clearly see as the successful one in life.  But as June notes,  "It is hard to say exactly when we stopped bring best friends, when we stopped even resembling two girls who were sisters.  Greta went to high school and I was still in middle school.  Greta had new friends.  Greta got prettier and I got ...weirder.  I don't know.  None of those things should have mattered, but I guess they did.  I guess they were like water.  Soft and harmless until enough time went by.  Then all of a sudden you found yourself with the Grand Canyon on your hands."

    Through particularly engaging dialogue, Ms Brunt writes a story full of insight, anger, pain, and tenderness.  The dialogue moves the story along but here and there you will find wonderful short pieces of wisdom from a 14 year old:  "...I fell asleep.  The bed was warm and ordinary and perfect, and it had been such a long, long day.  Probably the longest day of my life.  I felt like I had proof that not all days are the same length, not all time has the same weight.  Proof that there are worlds, and worlds and worlds on top of worlds, in you want them to be there."

    In short, I really liked this book.  I grew to care about the characters in a way that made me think and feel.  I bet you will too.

Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake

     I have enjoyed several of author Anna Quindlen's novels.  She wrote  One True Thing which is  one of my all time favorite books.  She also wrote another very compelling novel entitled Black and Blue.  She was a columnist for the NY Times and has written several collections of essays, all of which I have read.  I was delighted to discover that she was coming out with a memoir and was on the pre-order list for Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake.

      My copy arrived last Wednesday and I dove right into it.  In some ways it resonated with me.  This is a woman about my age with whom I share a cultural history.  We came of age when the second feminist movement was being born and we have lived with the confusions of that time.  As she so nicely put it, "We were the heiresses to a woman's movement that had broken the world wide open.  But we were completely making it up as we went along, at work, at home, in our own minds, trying to be both our mothers and our fathers simultaneously.  That wasn't easy."  From where I sit now in life, I know that struggle.  I am happy, however,  to have had the benefit of a changing culture and it all seems so normal now.

     The book is really a collection of essays, each of which could stand on its own, about what it means to be in the second half of life.  Quindlen tackles many of the expected issues:  marriage, girlfriends, acquisition of stuff, bodies, parenting, changing perspectives, and more.  Although I admire her writing style, I found the book somewhat disappointing.  For one thing, it seemed repetitious.  It dragged at places and it seemed as if she was putting words on the page just to add to the page number.  The second criticism is my own bias but Quindlen is a woman of privilege.  She was raised in a wealthy family and she is a woman of personal wealth now.  I have a tough time relating to her life of relative ease.  Additionally, Quindlen is a reporter and her book reads like a newspaper article.  It lacks humanity and warmth and that actually surprised me.  So, I got this just released book on Wednesday, finished it by today, and sold it back on Amazon already.  Off in the mail it goes tomorrow.  It will be leaving me with a few things about which to think and write but without much misgiving.

One word review:  Meh

Q: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

       I have identified myself for years as an introvert who has learned how to play the extrovert role.  It is important in my work to be social and engaging and to make with the chit chat.  I do it all day.  It is exhausting.  When I get home from work, all I really want is SILENCE.  I want to be alone with myself.  I want to retreat.  My idea of a great weekend is one where I can read, paint, walk alone, write, futz in the yard, that sort of solitary pursuit.  Okay, I will go to the beach with my family or go out to dinner with the mister and that can be relaxing but I won't do baby showers, family fun nights, spectator sports events, cocktail parties, or anything where I have to be with a bunch of people that I don't know well and where I have to make with the chit chat.  That is the last thing I want on a weekend.

        When my children were younger, I forced myself to get out there and mingle.  That's what you do for your kids.  I tried to get them to mingle too.  Aren't you supposed to that too?  After they went off to college, I got to remember again what it is like to come home and not have to do all that stuff.  I started to just say no.  No to evening volunteer things, no to school social gatherings, no to casual drinks at the local watering hole on Fridays after work.  I started to be more comfortable with the introvert that I am.

    As Susan Cain demonstrates in her book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, the cultural ideal has become one of extraversion.  In her opening chapters she delineates how extroversion came to be the norm.  I was flabbergasted to read that child rearing experts in the 50's and 60's promoted the idea that outgoing, extroverted personalities were the ticket (the best ticket) to success.  Parents were told to push the child who wanted to go within, out.  A kid who liked solitude and reading and quieter activities (though not necessarily a shy kid) was seen as somehow defective.  Parents in mid 20th century were told they shouldn't accept this behavior.  I am so grateful that my parents didn't heed this piece of so called wisdom.  Instead, imagination was encouraged, reading was king, and a child who could entertain herself was seen as a blessing.

     I am tempted to summarize all of the subjects covered in this book but another way to convey her ideas is to refer you to  Susan Cain's Manifesto.  Some of the points she makes include:

1. There's a word for "people who are in their heads too much": thinkers.

2. Our culture rightly admires risk-takers, but we need our "heed-takers" more than ever.

3. Solitude is a catalyst for innovation.

4. We teach kids in group classrooms not because this is the best way to learn but because it's cost-efficient, and what else would we do with the children while all the grown-ups are at work? If your child prefers to work autonomously and socialize one-on-one, there's nothing wrong with her; she just happens not to fit the model.

5. The next generation of quiet kids can and should be raised to know their own strength.

6. Sometimes it helps to be a pretend-extrovert. There's always time to be quiet later.

7. But in the long run, staying true to your temperament is the key to finding work you love and work that matters.

8. Everyone shines, given the right lighting. For some, it's a Broadway spotlight, for others, a lamplit desk.

9. It's OK to cross the street to avoid making small talk.

10. "Quiet leadership" is not an oxymoron.

11. If the task of the first half of life is to put yourself out there, the task of the second half is to make sense of where you've been.

12. Love is essential, gregariousness is optional.

Susan Cain explores introversion through psychological research old and new, personal experiences, and even brain chemistry.  The information is delivered in an engaging and highly-readable fashion. It's well worth a trip to the library.