Category Archives: book review

The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy

Posted on September 30, 2009 | 1 Comment

dudavocado This New York Review Books classic reissue claims to be the kind of book that people are always rediscovering and adoring and then rediscovering a few years later. The introduction says that this is because Americans can’t respect funny books, and I think that is probably about true- also we tend to be terrible prudes. And this is a funny sexy book- as others have said, a female counterpart to Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis.

I really enjoyed it, although the flighty character made me extremely nervous. She drinks too much and sleeps with the most wrong men and makes bad decisions and doesn’t think of her friends. And she’s an actress. And basically it hit too close to home. But very funny, and very fifties bohemian.

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Vacation Reading

Posted on September 22, 2009 | Leave a comment

vacation reading

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Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan

Posted on September 3, 2009 | Leave a comment

I brought this Smith novel along for a weekend with my vibrant college friends and tried to see them as these characters: no go.  Although there were some (extremely implausible) exciting plot points and a feminist core, it was buried under calorie fixation and pale blue tank tops.  Boring.  And even Sullivan’s buddies at the NYT pointed out that one (brooklyn based) character’s drinking problem is unexamined, even though she memorably wakes up alone and covered in blood.

However, she wrote the whole damn thing and sold it and has 40 people still on the waitlist to read it in my suburban library system.  I will take that as inspiration.

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Little House on the Prairie

Posted on August 26, 2009 | 7 Comments

Interesting article last week (I think- the sedimentary record of incoming magazines is fallible) in the New Yorker on Rose Wilder Lane, daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder. She was a drunk, a divorcee, a rotten but prolific journalist, and a hardcore founding libertarian. She is thought by some scholars to have written all the Little House books, and she definitely helped shape the writing of the series.

I haven’t read the books since I was a little girl, but they remain very popular- and I was naively surprised to find out that Little House is a contentious title for its portrayal of Native Americans.  I hadn’t given the books any serious thought since third grade.

The Hidden Adult by Perry Nodelman is a new book that attempts to tease apart the agenda and messages embedded in writing in English for children.  Why do people write books for children?  What kinds of things are children allowed/encouraged/forced to read about?  Authors are part of their culture and they tend to reinforce the values of that culture, especially when they are writing for kids.

Children’s book authors HATE this idea.  A lot of them have the most preposterous reasons why they write for kids and they seem to believe in some magical muse that comes and generates characters and story lines for children that are too pure for the kind of academic and psychological scrutiny Nodelman pursues.  There are also plenty of “scholars” that engage in criticism of texts they have not read based on the presumed bias of the author, policing the shelves for what is appropriate for children.  I imagine this goes on with adult literature as well.

I like finding out the foibles and motivations of authors- but after six and a half years I still have no idea what to tell parents when they ask me what is appropriate for their child of a certain age.  I see these shelves of books seething with adult psychology, fictionalized biography to put James Frey to shame, hagiography, religion, hate, daddy and mommy issues, gender minefields, beautiful artwork, prose by committee and market forces and ask the child, “Well, what sort of things do you like to read about?”

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Born Standing Up by Steve Martin : Book Review

Posted on August 13, 2009 | Leave a comment

I brought some crappy books on CD to NYC last weekend. The Art of Racing In the Rain is about a neurotic, dying, talking dog that can smell cancer and loves TV. My response: are you fucking kidding me?
Thank goodness Eric lent me Steve Martin’s book, read by the author.

Steve Martin’s standup superstardom happened largely before I was born. The distance from the time and his skill have concentrated the story into its essence. It is not a particularly funny book, although it gives his comedy a context that it never had to me before. He tells of his troubled relationship with his father and softens this cliche with the statement “I want you to know I am qualified to be a comedian.”
It’s a thoughtful book and it’s a saga- what happens when someone is profoundly driven from a young age and that drive aligns with his culture and he becomes a symbol and a superstar. Martin is intelligent and hardworking and this book is cunningly structured. It shares some, but not too much. I am obsessed with romantic relationships and would have liked to read more about them. But this is a book about Steve and his dad whose coldness drove him to such efforts. Or maybe that is how you get folks to sympathize with fame, by putting it in terms any Jerk can understand.

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Courage to Write: How Writers Transcend Fear by Ralph Keyes: Book Review

Posted on July 27, 2009 | Leave a comment

The Courage to Write: How Writers Transcend FearDid I ever tell you about the time Kurt Vonnegut called me a coward to my face? And made me cry? The old smoky bloodshot dragon had burned down his apartment in NYC and set up residence at Smith College for a semester my senior year. I was taking a couple writing classes and psyched myself up to give him some of my (earnest, dark, Andre Dubus, Raymond Carver esque) stories to read. Then I went to his office in the library to hear what he thought of them. He said “You’re a coward, aren’t you?” and couldn’t stop laughing and wheezing.

This book talks about writer’s block plainly- as fear. Fear of what other people will say and fear of what you will say. Good writers know this and use that fear and anxiety to their advantage. Scared writers don’t write, write and don’t publish, or write in an obscure abstract jargon filled literary style that is preferred by academics and intellectuals because it cannot be pinned down. (If I can’t understand it, it must be pretty good writing, and no one will figure out what I’m really talking about.) Anyone who is struggling with their writing should read this book.

Thanks to the late Mr. Vonnegut for calling me out ten years ago and putting a name to my problem.

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Back to the Land, again

Posted on June 24, 2009 | 5 Comments

Interesting article in this week’s New Yorker on “Shop Class as Soul Craft” by Matt Crawford, placing it in some historical, social and political context. By doing this, it effectively defangs his argument and finally, condemns it to being a motivational text- useful for corporate HR managers.

My parents were craftspeople- my dad just told me he is building a sailboat this summer, and my mother made clothing- not just baby bibs and coasters; edwardian style wedding dresses. They grew up in the city and suburbs and set off for the hills to do real work. My maternal grandparents were very happy with modern conveniences, for the obvious reasons- my grandmother grew up under difficult circumstances and vividly remembers moving to a house with the toilet inside.

So, what is the value of slow food and handcrafted everything? Well, the food tastes better. And the clothes and furniture are more beautiful. And the time spent making them is mindful time- you choose to spend those hours developing skills. Does it need to be universal and political? Do I need everyone to make their own mozzarella? Absolutely not.

Many of my friends into their 30s and 40s and 50s are still grasping for a vocation, hoping to find the perfect fit in the same way we look for a perfect partner, I’m afraid. Instead of simply making cheese or pasta or a new outfit or a dining table, suddenly we are running the best artisanal _____ in Brooklyn, writing a book about it, and selling the screenplay. Sigh.

But perhaps that is what I want? When I have my feminist shaker furniture studio in Red Hook employing pregnant teens from the projects and rehoming puppies while supplying my woodburning pizzeria (burning scraps from the shop!) with fresh organic vegetables from the greenroof garden, will I still get to work and think- this isn’t quite right. I’m not quite where I want to be.

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The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling

Posted on May 29, 2009 | 1 Comment

Thank [whoever is responsible for my life] that I get to read to children. It is one of the only times that the awful chitter chatter in my skull ever stops. And for a whole hour at a time. I read to a “bad” class of 3rd graders this morning- to get their attention I said I could read them something from this book that would probably be too scary for them. And too grown up. It terrifies me. The evil warlock keeps his heart in a crystal coffin and it gets so weird that it grows long bristly hair all over. When his new bride asks him to put the heart back, he cuts open his chest but it has grown too perverse. Their families find him crouched over her dead body licking and stroking her pure heart. Wildly inappropriate for third graders.

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Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient by Jennifer McLagan

Posted on May 22, 2009 | Leave a comment

Reading this 2009 winner of the James Beard award for best cookbook, is like being stuck entertaining an obsessive condescending relative. It is “larded” with distracting magazine style fat factoids, likely found by having some intern do internet searches- Did you know in Tibet they drink butter tea???
It begins with the saga of how Americans lost their way from real food, a tale well told elsewhere, and from a fat evangelist this story is disingenuous. Foodies never gave up on fat- so the justification of the topic seems self congratulatory because that is clearly the audience of the book.
That said, the photos are gorgeous, I particularly like the marbled endpapers. And the recipes are clearly written and not overloaded with ingredients or fussy techniques. However, I don’t think organizing the book around the fats used in the recipe makes it very versatile. How often will I say, oh the Grenhams are coming for dinner, let’s make something with Leaf Lard?

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The Real John Henry and Michael Vick

Posted on May 21, 2009 | 1 Comment

One in thirty-one adult US citizens is either in prison, parole or on probation. This is absolutely fucking crazy. Some of my colleagues back in Brooklyn are doing amazing work with prisoners, in juvenile detention centers, even doing storytime on Riker’s Island. But, as was pointed out in an excellent training session we had- Everyone who works with the public works with prisoners and their families. That’s where we’re at as a nation.

This book is a quick thriller about one historian’s discovery of the real John Henry, mythologized in the song. He was a freed slave, imprisoned for ten years on trumped up charges in Reconstruction Virginia. To satisfy the need for laborers for grueling work on the railroad, prisoners were provided at one quarter the going wage. They died by the hundreds of black lung and were buried in hidden graves on the grounds of the penitentiary. Some survived and they spread the song and the story of John Henry (and how the system screwed him.) I had never thought before about the history of the disproportionate number of African Americans imprisoned that started once they were freed.

What does this have to do with Michael Vick? (Former quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons, now in disgrace) Well, he’s a black man who’s been to prison. What does his story tell us about our culture? Football has some disturbing parallels to dog fighting itself, the way it uses up its athletes, leaving them physically wrecked and with brain damage if they play too long in the league. How do you think the media would be talking about this if he had been convicted of hurting his wife? The media is debating whether he should be allowed to play again, as if it were something that pundits could decide. I’m very curious to see where he ends up playing and how it’s spun.

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