Novels Now

Otherwise by Farley Mowat

Pages: 309
First Published: Oct. 28, 2008
Genre: non-fiction, memoir, autobiography
Rating: 3.5/5

First sentence:

Born in Mid-May 1921 — lilac time in the small town of Trenton on the northern shore of Lake Ontario’s Bay of Quinte — I spent my early years messing about in swamps, woods, and farmyards; falling in and out of boats; and surviving in various decrepit houses while establishing fundamental relationships with such disparate beings as snapping turtles, portly spiders, rapier-billed herons, honeybees, a bear who visited me in dreams, Charlie Haultain’s silver foxes, crayfish and eels, water snakes along the Murray Canal, a passel of mongrel dogs, and Beatrix — an enormous earthworm who lived through an entire winter in a tin can by my bedside.

Comments: Otherwise is Farley Mowat’s memoirs of his life between the years 1937 and 1948. The opening pages quickly get us to his teen year’s and his last year of living in Saskatchewan where he became a friend for life of the Others (the wildlife). Farley’s family moves frequently but he always manages to find local wildlife whether they be living in small rooms or on a boat. Farley, along with his pals, volunteer and join the service where he was to spend the days of World War II fighting mostly in Italy. Finally after the War he comes home, marries, but is unable to settle down to ‘post-war’ life and he goes on ventures for the scientific community back to Saskatchewan and finally up to the northernmost parts of Canada where he spends time with the in-land Inuit.

The time frame this book covers parts of his life that are written in more detail in such books as And No Birds Sang and The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be. While those books are about certain experiences in his life, this book is about him directly and the defining years of his life, the years that made him the man that he came be. Beautifully written, compelling reading, humorous and touching at times Mowat knows how to write and fans of the author will not be disappointed with his latest foray. While not exactly a page-turner, it is the type of book that is hard to put down and I often picked it up to read over my current fiction book before turning the lights out at night. An all-round enjoyable read with fascinating information about Saskatchewan wild-life, scientific procedures of the thirties and forties, Canadian army life and the Inuit. This would also be the perfect book to read for those who have never had the pleasure of reading Farley Mowat.

Here’s the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice by Maureen McCormick

Pages: 274
First Published: Oct. 14, 2008
Genre: autobiography/memoir, non-fiction
Rating: 3.5/5

First sentence:

This story begins in the fall of 2006 in Los Angeles.

Comments: In the prologue, Maureen McCormick starts with when she came out of the woodwork to appear in the reality show Celebrity Fit Club. Then she begins a chronological story of her life as a child appearing in many commercials, especially for Mattel, on to the Brady Bunch years, her unsuccessful attempts to achieve acting status beyond Marcia Brady, her eventual success on Broadway and her life now. She gets into the nitty-gritty describing her early introduction to drugs and sex, her eventual addiction to cocaine throughout the seventies and eighties and then her life current life as a born-again Christian. She talks of her struggles with her dysfunctional family and her love for her mentally challenged brother. Maureen names names but keeps a respectful tone by concentrating on her own troubles and not dwelling on others. In once instance she uses a pseudonym for a famous person she was involved with in the drug/sex scene.

I found Maureen’s tone and narrative extremely readable. Her story of her childhood is written with a child-like wonderment as she entered the life of show business and became a cultural icon. Her voice becomes more mature as she herself matures and she presents herself as someone who can take the blame for her own actions. Not often do I find biographies page-turners. I love entertainment memoirs but non-fiction doesn’t often grip me to that extent. But this book was one I couldn’t put down, I kept picking it up in favour over the fiction book I was co-currently reading. While the book only partially concerns the Brady years, (which I wish there was more of) any fan of the show is bound to enjoy this look at the behind the scenes aspects, to find out what the real Marcia Brady was like, and whatever happened to her.

The Lost City of Z by David Grann

Pages: 299 (+extensive Notes, Bibliography & Index)
First Published: Feb. 24, 2009
Genre: Biography, Travel, Memoir
Rating: 4/5

First sentence:

Comments: This is a biography of early twentieth century explorer, Percy Fawcett. Fawcett was an accomplished explorer of the Amazon jungles and recipient of the Royal Geographical Association’s Gold Medal. He is most known for his determination in finding a lost city and civilization hidden in the depths of the jungle, often called El Dorado, Fawcett labeled his unfound city “Z”.

I pulled the map from my back pocket.

The book begins with Fawcett’s early days as an explorer up to his infamous journey in which he took his 22-year old son with him and simply vanished from the face of the earth. Many others have gone in since to find him and either disappeared themselves or returned defeated and emaciated.

Between chapters of Fawcett’s story, the author occasionally jumps to his own tale of following in the footsteps of Fawcett’s ill-fated last journey using modern technology.

A very compelling read. Fawcett is truly a larger than life character and his story makes for good reading. I really enjoyed the time period, 1900s-1920s, and am fascinated with exploration of that period. A well written biography with plenty of original source quotations including from Fawcett’s own journals. I only wish the book had included some photographs. I like to see who I’m reading about but all in all a very interesting and compelling biography and description of the days of exploration.

Edited to Add: While my arc edition has no photographs, the finished book *will* have photos and maps. That’s great news!

Wife in the North by Judith O’Reilly
Memoir
2008 Public Affairs Books
Finished on 12/12/08
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher’s Blurb:

Perhaps it was because she was pregnant and hormones had eaten her brain that Judith O’Reilly was persuaded by her husband to leave London for the northern wilds. But pregnancy hadn’t addled her enough not to have a back-up plan: If life in the country didn’t measure up, the family would return to the city.

Far from home, Judith, a journalist and mother of three young children, discovers just how tough an assignment making a new life is. In the heart of the country, with no decent coffee in sight, Judith swaps high heels for rubber boots and media-darlings for evangelical strangers and farmers’ wives in an effort to do that simple thing women do—make hers a happy family.

Her headlong foray into the country invites adventure at every turn. As she adjusts to the lay of the land and searches for her own true north in an alien landscape, her story offers a hilarious, heartfelt reflection of how to navigate the challenges and rewards of motherhood, marriage, and family.

Oh, my gosh! I couldn’t have chosen a better time to read this hilarious book. With its bloglike daily posts, it was a perfect read for the hectic holiday season. I could pick it up and set it down without losing the moment of the narrative, much like catching up on a favorite blog after being away from the computer for a week or so.

O’Reilly is a wonderful storyteller. She had me laughing out loud one moment and bringing a lump to my throat the next. And as with any good book, I wound up marking numerous passages with Post-it Notes.

On mothers and daughters:

One day you wrap, in acid-free tissue layers, the daughter in you. You admire it as you put away its girlish chiffon colours, you mourn its passing as you stand on tiptoe to put it away on the very highest shelf. From a hanger, you take off and shake out the sensible navy role of mother and slip it on. Mother not only to your children but to your own mother. I am at that moment.

On friendship:

Real friends I count like beads on a rosary… You do not keep every friend you ever make. If you are lucky, you keep one or maybe two from the pigeonholes of life: study, jobs, children. One of the best places for making friends is, of course, the office. I have friends from all of the places I worked, newspapers and TV. If you invest wisely, you double them as they grow old and marry. Some friends become another family. Some friends you talk to once a year. A few are there in every crisis and extremity. You hurt when they hurt. There are times you put down the phone when they have read you the latest chapter of their life and weep for them. Some occasionally disappoint. Occasionally, you disappoint back. You try to listen. In sadness and disaster, you say: “I love you,” and hope they can hear between their shouts of pain. You say: “I’m here for you,” and hope they can see you in their darkness. It seems the least that you can do.

On country life and laundry:

I do things in Northumberland that I would never do otherwise. I hang out washing. I enjoy the weight of a wet shirt in my hand, the reach of my arm and the tidy clip of the plastic peg. Sunshine in my eyes, I squint and string the clothes along the line which runs across the common grass between the sea-fringed fields and the cottages. Then, I catch and heave and hoist them up to the clouds; a length of skinny, metal piping, standing guard, the line caught in its wooden, snake-tongued mouth. They flap and flurry in the northern breezes, lift, noisy and excited in the whippy gusts straight blown from the world’s other side to here. It relaxes me to do it, see it, hear it.

On grief:

I took the Yorkshire Mother out to lunch. It was a strange sort of occasion. She has four sons, sprawling, brawling sorts of boys, much like my own, and an older daughter. She should have five sons, not four. Her eldest would have been twenty-one today but no key to the door for him. Dead before his time, seven years ago. Last week, waiting for our boys to come out of school, she said: “Wednesday would have been his birthday. I’ll be going to his grave instead.” My heart took on the colour of her sadness. I said: “Would it be weird to have lunch with me before you go?” A mother does not forget a son’s birthday however far from home he is. We chinked our glasses, drank up the champagne fizz, wiped out the bubbles with our fingers, then filled the empty glasses with our tears.

I truly enjoyed this gem of a book and can think of several friends I’d recommend it to. However, I do have a couple of minor quibbles. About halfway through, I began to grow tired of the author’s sarcastic complaints about her husband and her unhappiness in her new location. I suspect she wanted to show an honest reaction to the family’s relocation 350 miles north of her beloved London, yet I couldn’t help but cringe when she started to complain once again. Kind of like that awkward feeling you get when you’re at a dinner party and a husband or wife begins to criticize the other spouse in front of the guests. You feel badly, wishing you weren’t a witness to their rants. You love them and enjoy their company, but would rather not have an intimate knowledge of their unhappiness.

On compromise and dissatisfaction:

My husband left for London for two weeks. Let me see, how long have we lived here. Oh yes, three weeks. How pregnant am I? Seven months. How many children do I have? Two and a bit. Do I want to be here? No. Excellent. He has a deadline, he always seems to have a deadline. He is the one who wants to live up here, yet he is the one who has to work away for weeks at a time. I knew he would have to go back soon after we moved: he can do part of his job down the line but not all of it. Seeing him go—not having him here—is about as hard as I thought it would be. He called me. He said: “I miss you.” I gripped the phone, said, “If we lived in London, you wouldn’t have to miss me.”

and

One of my acute frustrations living up here is the lack of space. Outside it’s all glorious green rolling acres everywhere while the beaches are empty stretches of washed sand. Inside this rural dream country life, it is hell. Five of us squished together in what is effectively a two-bedroom, toy-strewn hovel. Six, counting Girl Friday when she is here. The house is like something from eighteenth-century pre-revolution England—all cottage industry and screaming children with a little less smallpox.

I also feel Wife in the North would have been even more enjoyable if it weren’t quite so long. The stories (good and bad) became repetitious and I actually considered setting the book aside for a bit, if not entirely. I’m glad I continued on, though. The author shares a touching piece of personal history in the final pages and I would have hated to have missed reading those passages.

Wife in the North is a bit reminiscent of Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence
(yes, there’s a home renovation) and Jeannie Laskas’ Fifty Acres and a Poodle (no, there aren’t any cute animal tales). Great laughs, touching stories, and a lovely glimpse into life in the country.

You can peruse Judith’s blog, but be aware if you plan to read her book, many (if not all) of her posts prior to December 31, 2007 are included in the book.

There’s also a very good review by a Waterstone’s bookseller here.

Stalin’s Children: Three Generations of Love, War, and Survival by Owen Matthews

Pages: 287
First Published: Sept. 16, 2008
Genre: memoir/biography
Rating: 3.5/5

First sentence:

On a shelf in a cellar in the former KGB headquarters in Chernigov, in the black earth country in the heart of the Ukraine, lies a thick file with a crumbling brown cardboard cover.

Comments: This is the story of 20th century Russia told through the lives of one family, three generations long. Starting just after the Russian Revolution the author talks of his grandfather who was a good communist and belonged to the Party. Unfortunately, he said something he shouldn’t have at the wrong time and was executed as a dissident against the Party. Then we are told the lives of the author’s mother and father. The mother was a Russian girl and the father was a British man who had a deep interest in Russian literature, language and the people. So he went to Russia on a scholarship and fell in love with the Russian girl. They tried to recruit him into the KGB but he refused to betray his own country and was blacklisted from Russia. The two of them then spend the next 6 years writing letters almost daily to each other as he tries to get through the communist bureaucracy and blackmark on his name so he can marry his sweetheart and take her out of Russia. Meanwhile, the author inserts himself into the story when he is born and speaks of events that happened in the past then returns to his experiences in modern Russia. The author is a journalist and currently works for Newsweek in Russia.

This is a very interesting book if you are interested in modern Russian history. The author manages to combine the new trend of biography/memoir very well. The author never makes the book about himself, even though he does write of himself. He keeps the story of his ancestors in the forefront. By telling his families history he also tells the history of Russia, its transformation to Communism, perestroika and finally to today’s democratic society. I found at times the political parts made me start wool-gathering but, of course, it is necessary to understand the politics to understand the lives these people lived and the book is definitely not heavy-handed with politics. The people always remain in the forefront. Recommended to those with an interest in Russian history.

American Widow by Alissa Torres
Art by Choi

Pages: 209
First Published: Sept, 2008
Genre: Graphic Novel, Memoir
Rating: 3/5

First sentence:

The World Trade Center was just hit by a plane! Turn on your TV!

Comments: This is the author’s memoir of the tragedy of her life, becoming a widow on 9/11. Her husband was on his second day at his new job above the 85th floor and she was pregnant with their first child. The book jumps from moment to moment as she learns of his death, hopes that he is alive and missing, finding out he was a jumper, joins victim groups, goes through the bureaucracy of the charity help organizations and remembers past moment with her husband.

The book lacks a cohesive narrative jumping from one event to another and sometimes just showing the author’s grief and emotions rather than telling a story. Of course, this is a depressing and sad story and it is hard to ‘review’ the story of someone’s grief. The author’s emotion and pain is clearly at the centre of this book rather than a story with a plot or characterization. For those interested in the after effects of 9/11 on the families left behind by those who were killed this sad, tragic tale of a woman who survives her grief and starts a new life for her baby, this book will certainly appeal.

We Bought a Zoo: The Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken Down Zoo and the 200 Wild Animals That Change Their Lives Forever by Benjamin Mee

Pages: 261
First Published: Sept, 2008
Genre: memoir
Rating: 2.5/5

First sentence:

Mum and I arrived as the new owners of Dartmoor Wildlife Park in Devon for the first time at around six o’clock on the evening of 20 October 2006, and stepped out of the car to the sound of wolves howling in the misty darkness.

Comments: Benjamin Mee is a journalist living in Southern France with his wife and 2 children, writing DIY articles for a British magazine. One day his sister calls to say she’s found the perfect thing for him, a zoo is for sale in England. Why doesn’t the family by it with the money from their recently deceased father. Ben’s mum, brother and sister all jump on board and so begins the journey of buying a dilapidated zoo full of animals.

At the beginning of the story Ben’s wife has recently been given the all clear after struggling with brain cancer but we soon know that she is not going to make it very far into the book when she has a very bad recurrence.

When I first was interested in reading this book I had sort of imagined a modern day Gerald Durrell and possibly set expectations too high. The book was readable and at time humorous but really didn’t have much substance to it. We’re taken through the whole process from trying to find finances, rebuilding to the first few opening months of the running zoo. There were fun antidotes about the animals and the employees but nowhere near as many as I had expected. Instead there were pages of evolutionary musings which were tedious and Ben’s frequent use of “DIY” irritated me to no end. Didn’t that expression go out with the nineties?

Ben comes across as having a bit of an ego and his observations are always from how they affected him, while I would have enjoyed more of an objective view which brought the other zoo keepers to deeper light as characters. While the book’s title notes “200 Wild Animals” most of the antidotes were about wolves, tigers, pumas and peacocks, with only a few other animals briefly thrown in for variety. I expected a wider variety of animal discussion and more about their characteristics and habits than about there evolution. Just not what I expected, perhaps others will get more out of it than me.

303 pages

Laura Miller

The Magician’s Book is about the author’s experiences with The Chronicles of Narnia. First, as a young student who is offered a copy by her teacher, then as a teenager when she re-reads them and discovers the “hidden” messages that are in the story, and lastly, later on as an adult.
The first time she read these books she was captivated by the story and fell in love with them. When she re-read them as a teenager she felt betrayed by the messages it contained. When she read them again as an adult she finds that she truly does love the story though she doesn’t care for some of the other messages that are present.

I found this book to be very accessible and I enjoyed the author’s writing style. I don’t know if I necessarily agree with all of her conclusions but that was not entirely unexpected. I did enjoy seeing Narnia from a different perspective. I have only read the first two books of The Chronicles of Narnia and only as an adult so I didn’t necessarily have the innocent wonder that a child would have. I am also not a skeptic but a believer. These are two probable reasons why my perceptions are different.
Still, I would recommend this thoughtful book to anyone interested in pondering Narnia.(3/5)

Regina’s Closet: finding my grandmother’s secret journal by Diana M. Raab

Pages: 166
First Published: Sept. 30, 2008
Genre: memoir
Rating: 4.5/5

First sentence:

I was ten years old the morning I found my grandmother dead.

Comments: This is the author’s fascinating memoir of her beloved grandmother who killed herself in 1964. Her own mother comes to visit her and each time she brings some nostalgic memento from the past to pass on to her daughter. One year, she brings a portfolio of typewritten pages which turn out to be the grandmother’s retrospective memoir written some years before the author’s birth. Regina Klein, Jewish, was born in 1903 in Poland and lived through the first world war. Subsequently her family moved to Vienna, then Paris and lived there until the very early days of WWII. They were then fortunate enough to decide to emigrate to the United States before France could be invaded by the Germans.

Actual entries from the journal are used in the book with the author’s comments interspersed throughout adding more detail and information for the reader. Thus aiding in a deeper understanding of this woman. After the journal ends Ms. Raab continues the story of her own birth and the life of Regina, both through the eyes of her childhood self and with the deeper insight of her adult self.

This is a short book, which is a very fast read that includes both photographs and copies of documents as well as a map of the pre-WWI area. This book isn’t about anyone famous or heroic but about a normal, yet very determined, woman and her family and the events of history that lead to that woman taking her own life at the age of sixty-seven for no apparent reason.

This is a truly wonderfully well-written book. The author inserts just enough of herself into the book that it does not overshadow the main story of the grandmother. A beautiful book full of life, death, chaos and how both war and suicide effect families many years after the events themselves. Recommended.

It was just after dark in a lonely reach of the South Pacific. As we sped westward, the ocean floor was a mile below us - or it was supposed to be. Like when microphone feedback suddenly fills an auditorium until you must cover your ears, a deafening shrill exploded through the boat. It seemed to come from everywhere. Then a big jostle. horrible, gouging, scraping chalkboardlike sounds. The twin hulls under us were screaming. John looked at me the way someone in the next seat of an airplane might look if, at forty thousand feet, all the engines just quit. I had never seen him so instantly confused and horrified - then came the great shaking and crash as we bounced more violently between the iron-hard treetops of submerged coral, sharp as butcher knives. Seconds later we slammed full on into the coral reef. Our home, the Emerald Jane, came to a ripping halt, and the great waves of the Pacific exploded around us in a deafening, continuous roar. -From Black Wave, pages 5, 6-

John and Jean Silverwood lived with their four children in Southern California. They seemed to have it all - a beautiful home, comfortable income and lots of friends. But beneath the happy exterior, lay a family in a struggle with addiction and a search for larger meaning in life. They made a decision, which would change their lives, to set sail on the 55 foot catamaran Emerald Jane. For two years, the Silverwood family sailed the high seas, visiting remote islands, running from pirates and seeing some of the world’s most beautiful scenery and wildlife. Their adventure was full of challenges, but it forced them to grow and come together as a family. And then, near the end of the voyage on a velvety dark night, they collided with a coral reef. Black Wave is the story of their survival and how it changed them forever.

This true life adventure is narrated in two parts. In part one, Jean Silverwood describes the shipwreck that threatened their lives, and then looks back to recollect the weeks and months of their voyage. Her story is one of inner meditation - of her children and how they grew up in those two years, and of her marriage which was challenged by John’s alcoholism. She writes with a poetic style that is easy to read. She bares her soul and so the reader feels that they know her.

In part two, John Silverwood takes over the narrative. He reveals the aftermath of their voyage and parallels their story to one which happened in 1855 when a ship called Julia Ann struck the exact same coral reef and sank into the wild Pacific waters. Although the historic tale lends some perspective (and perhaps a link to our shared pasts), it changes the direction of the book to an historic rendering versus a personal family saga. I was much more captivated with Jean’s narration…perhaps because the real story here is less about the wreck and more about a family who discovered their strengths in the face of disaster.

This book is a quick read - and I enjoyed it. Although the two parts felt disconnected to me, this is a book which will entice adventurers and sailors. Filled with images of star studded skies over the vast ocean waters, Black Wave is also a book for romantics and dreamers.

An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination
By Elizabeth McCracken
Completed November 5, 2008

I think there’s an old saying that you should never have to bury your child. Outliving my kids ranks number one in things “I don’t want to happen,” but sadly, there are parents who face this reality every day.

While some parents lose children days, months or years after their births, some parents lose their child before the baby is born, experiencing a stillborn birth. This happened to popular novelist Elizabeth McCracken and was the subject of her memoir, An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination.

I have never read a book like this before. As a mom, I am uncomfortable with the thought of losing a child, so I was not sure if I could read McCracken’s story. But with McCracken’s easy writing style, I finished her memoir in one day. Every page sucked me in. And while it’s filled with sadness, you get equal doses of hope and warm memories. She touched on so many important parts of the grieving process, and her reaction to other people’s reactions taught me a lot about how to support someone experiencing a loss.

There were touching moments too. Her chapters about her husband and best friend’s support made me teary-eyed. What a lovely tribute to them both.

McCracken took an uneasy subject and made it very human, very real and very approachable. While it will strike a familiar note with women who experienced the loss of a baby, I think all parents can learn from McCracken’s story. Having gotten to know her at this level, I hope to read her fictional books some day. ( )

North to Alaska the land rises gently from the Arctic Ocean and an ice pack that extends over the pole and beyond. South of Patagonia, it plunges into the Drake Passage at Cape Horn. Six hundred miles away is Antarctica. Start at one of these ends of the earth - if only in your mind - and aim for the other along a ten thousand mile line of mountains. You’ll meet in your travels along the ridge all kinds of landscapes, all kinds of animals. You’ll learn the temperaments of all kinds of weather. You’ll meet people so different - and so much alike. Visit the high places, and the rest of the world will be less of a mystery. -From Alpine Americas-

Olaf and Gitta Soot spent 40 years collecting photos of mountains, villages and the people and animals who inhabited them. Their adventures led them to the Western ranges of the Americas and an idea began to formulate - to create a book which celebrated the long and beautiful line of mountain ranges which run from the north to the south poles. They collaborated with Don Mellor (who they had worked with previously when they published Adirondacks Alive, a photo-essay collection of the Adirondacks of New York State) to piece together the jaw-dropping and beautifully written Alpine Americas.

Alpine Americas is a gorgeous “coffee table book” which examines the 10,000 miles of peaks from the Arctic to Patagonia. It is organized by chapters which look at each mountain grouping - beginning with the far North mountains of the Brooks Range along the Northern rim of Alaska, and ending with the ragged Patagonian ranges and fjords. Each chapter describes the unique weather, people and animals of the region and is filled with breathtaking photographs. It is a feast for the eyes.

Those who love the isolation and beauty of the mountains, and specifically those who climb them, will find themselves enthralled by Mellor’s captivating prose and amazed at how the lens of Soot’s camera has captured the majesty of the west’s highest places.

For the real threads that hold this wondrous earth together are those of her own design - the currents of the sea, the jet stream, the great rivers. The real threads are the physical realities that we cannot change but to which we can adjust. And must.  The real threads include the squiggly line of mountain peaks that defines the edge of two continents and in so many ways, defines those who explore. -From Alpine Americas-

Alpine Americas is recommended for arm-chair explorers, as well as those who have actually been there. My thanks to Lisa Roe, online publicist, who sent me this gorgeous book.

221 pages

A couple of years ago(before I had a blog) I read Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich. While I learned a lot from that book and I enjoyed Ehrenreich’s sense of humor quite a bit, I was left feeling sad and a little irritated at the premise that the American Dream is dead.

Apparently, I am not the only one who felt this way because Scratch Beginnings is in Adam Shepard’s own words:

Socioeconomically speaking, my story is a rebuttal to Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch, the books that speak to the death of the American Dream. With investigative projects of her own, Ehrenreich attempted to establish that working stiffs are doomed to live in the same disgraceful conditions forever. I resent that theory, and my story is a search to evaluate if hard work and discipline provide any payoff whatsoever or if they are, as Eherenreich suggests, futile pursuits.

- Scratch Beginnings pg XV, Introduction

Adam Shepard’s story begins after he has graduated college. He is frustrated by what he sees around him: lack of initiative, whining, entitlement mentality, and reminiscing about the “good ole days”. So he decides to do a test. Armed with only $25, an 8?X10? tarp, an empty gym bag and the clothes he is wearing he travels to a random city(name drawn from a hat) by train. He is not allowed to use his college education or personal contacts to advance himself in any way and he a goal for himself. Within a year, he must move from homelessness into a productive member of society as defined by: having an operable vehicle, a furnished apartment, $2500 in cash and be in a position to continue improving his position either by going to college or starting his own business.

There are a lot of things to be learned both from Ehrenreich’s book and Scratch Beginnings. For someone like me who grew up in a stable, suburban home, both Nickel and Dimed and The Invisible Poor by David K. Shipler can go a long way toward educating us about the difficulties that are out there. The playing field is definitely not level: that is to say that not everyone starts out with the same advantages. But Scratch Beginnings reminds us that no matter where you start out, there comes a time when you must accept responsibility for your own life. As stated by Leo, one of the guys that Adam meets during his 70 day stay in the homeless shelter:

Some of the people in the lower class start out behind. We all have the same freedoms, true, but those of us born into poverty don’t necessarily have the guidance.

But I’ll tell you this. There comes a time for everybody that it’s time to grow up. I mean, look at me. I came from a broken home. Mama’s got six kids. No daddy. Maybe the lights will turn on today; maybe not. Eatin’ mayonnaise and pickle sandwiches. I started out less fortunate than most people, and I lived my life accordingly. Streets, drugs, violence…all that. But then I turned twenty and realized that it was time to shape up or dead just like everybody else I knew.

- Scratch Beginnings, pgs 102-103

I highly recommend reading Nickel and Dimed and The Invisible Poor to compliment this book. They offer more information on the adversities but they are less hopeful.

For that reason, I loved Scratch Beginnings. I think it presents a balanced perspective between understanding the lives of those less fortunate than ourselves and the adversities that must be overcome, understanding personal responsibility and holding out hope that hard work and perseverance are not vain pursuits. (5/5)

A child dies in this book: a baby. A baby is stillborn. You don’t have to tell me how sad that is: it happened to me and my husband, our baby, a son. -From An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, page 6-

Author Elizabeth McCracken lived briefly in France, with her husband, in her early thirties. It is there she conceives her first child - a son named Pudding - and begins to dream of his life and how it will enrich her life. And then the unthinkable happens. In her ninth month of pregnancy, the child she and her husband have been anticipating dies. An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination is the story of loss and how one woman moved through it.

Elizabeth McCracken has written a stunning memoir from the heart - a love letter of sorts to her first son and her husband. Her writing is never maudlin, yet is profoundly moving - and despite the bleak subject matter, it even manages to be funny at times. But it is McCracken’s honesty which makes the memoir powerful. She never pads the emotions or avoids the uncomfortable - instead she takes the reader through one of the most devastating years of her life with candor and grace. Lest the reader shy away from the book because a baby dies, it would be remiss of me not to mention that a child is also born and lives in this book…an event that is at the same time joyous, healing and bittersweet.

I will admit that this book hit me like a sledgehammer. It sent me reeling. I felt blindsided by the intense emotions it stirred up for me…because I lost a child too. No, I have never been pregnant. My loss arrived through infertility. And McCracken’s prose resonated with me. She writes about other women’s pregnancies after her unbearable loss:

Still, I wouldn’t have minded a pause in the whole business. A sudden harmless moratorium on babies being born. Doctors would have to tell the unfortunate pregnant, “I’m sorry. It happens sometimes. Tidal, we think. For everyone else, nine months, but for you, eleven months, maybe a year, maybe more. Don’t go outside. Don’t leave your house. Stroke your stomach, fine, but only in your own living room. Keep your lullabies to yourself. We’ll let you know when it’s time.” -From An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, page 43-

AND

No, I insist: other people’s children did not make me sad. But pregnant women did. -From An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, page 111-

She writes of that horribly destructive behavior called Blame which threatens to stand in the way of moving forward through grief:

Blame is a compulsive behavior, the emotional version of obsessive hand washing, until all you can do is hold your palms out till your hands are full of it, and rub, and rub, and accomplish nothing at all. And so we grieved but looked straight ahead. -From An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, page 143-

I found myself nodding in agreement when McCracken spoke of the pain of answering those innocent questions about children posed by unsuspecting strangers. She wishes for a stack of cards she can hand out which say ‘My first child was stillborn‘ whenever a person coos over her second son and asks, “is this your first?” How I wish I had a similar stack of cards reading “I am infertile” for every time someone asks if I have children.

McCracken writes:

I want people to know but I don’t want to say it aloud. people don’t like to hear it but I think they might not mind reading it on a card. -From An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, page 73-

Yes. I agree.

McCracken’s great gift is that she reveals to her reader her deepest sadness, and her greatest hope. And in the end, she leaves us with a message which can sustain those who have experienced intolerable loss:

It’s a happy life, but someone is missing. It’s a happy life, and someone is missing. -From An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, page 184-

This memoir is highly recommended, but with a cautionary note. I believed I had accepted my childlessness until I began reading McCracken’s words. I found myself closing the book often to weep, and yet I kept going back to read again. For women who have either lost a child or have never been able to conceive, this is a difficult book to read - but, it is also a hopeful book and one which reminds us we are not alone in our grief.

My Name is Number 4: A True Story from the Cultural Revolution by Ting-Xing Ye

Pages: 230
Finished: Oct. 26, 2008
First Published: September 2008
Genre: YA, memoir
Rating: 4/5
Reason for Reading: Received a Review Copy from the publisher. Also qualifies for the Canadian Challenge.

First sentence:

The morning of my exile to the prison farm arrived, a characteristic November day in Shanghai, damp and chilly with an overcast sky.

Comments: This Young Adult memoir is an abridged edition of the author’s 1997 adult book of memoirs A Leaf in the Bitter Wind. I find the Cultural Revolution amazing to read about. It is almost impossible to believe it happened as it sounds so much like dystopian literature. But the reality is that it did indeed happen and millions of Chinese people were brutally treated in their own country. Ting-Xing relates her childhood at the beginning of the Revolution and the hardship of her 5 orphaned siblings living with an adored Great Aunt who wasn’t really a relative at all. The story of how her life quickly changed from school girl to political exile on a prison farm out in the countryside.

An astonishing and tumultuous tale from beginning to end. I was hooked from the outset and felt deeply for this girl who spent her late adolescence on a work farm. The story ends with her finally leaving the farm after six years and being allowed to go to university as an English major.

Not included in the book is how she became an English-Chinese interpreter and eventually defected to Canada in 1989 and now lives with fellow Canadian author, William Bell. Highly recommended!

Resistance: A Woman’s Journal of Struggle and Defiance in Occupied France by Agnes Humbert
Translated by Barbara Mellor

Pages: 270 + 100pgs of extraneous material (Afterward, index, etc.)
First Published: 1946, 1st English translation Sept. 2, 2008
Genre: memoir, WWII
Rating: 4.5/5

First sentence:

Rumours are flying, all flatly contradictory, but it seems clear that the Germans are advancing on all fronts.

Comments: Originally published in 1946, Agnes Humbert’s journal became the most quoted source on the early days of French Resistance. Though being quoted frequently the book soon became obsolete and obscure obtainable only by academia. Republished in France in 2004, the book was finally translated into English this year, 2008.

The first and last sections of the book are taken directly from Ms. Humbert’s day to day diary. Here we are told of her experiences as the Germans occupy France and how she and her colleagues started the first outright resistance to the occupation. We are also told the day to day reflections of the days after France were liberated and the part she played in helping to separate the chafe from the wheat where the German citizens were concerned.

The bulk of the journal was written almost immediately after the war and while not being an actual day to day journal it is a very closely remembered memoir of her German trial and sentencing as a political prisoner sent to Hard Labour camps and prisons, starting in France and eventually moving to Germany.

This is a fabulous book, full of atrocities and monstrous behaviour by human beings but also shows the determination of one woman and those who surround her of keeping their dignity and holding their heads high as they are degraded each and every day.

Highly recommended.

Fun Cat Memoir for Cat Lovers

This is Chloe Anne’s memoir, written for her by her mother Valerie Oblath.

Poor Chloe Anne, her family is moving and gave her to the Humane Society. She lives in a little cage until her new mom and author, Valerie Oblath adopts her. Chloe Anne loves her new home and cat sister, Cinders. Her new mother is very good and patient with her. Chloe Anne shares with us insights into her new family and her escapades.

This is a fun and entertaining romp with a real-life cat. However, since Chloe Anne lives with a Jewish mother, there is one chapter that makes a lot of references to Jewish Holidays and some of the customs. Some readers, who do not know much about these, may not get a few of the references. None the less, this is a great book for most cat lovers.

4/5

The Loveliest Woman in America: A Tragic Actress, Her Lost Diaries, and her Granddaughter’s Search for Home by Bibi Gaston

Pages: 335
First Published: June 10, 2008
Genre: nonfiction, memoir, biography
Rating: 3/5

First sentence:

For forty-three years, all I knew was that Rosamond was beautiful and that she had killed herself.

Comments: This is the story of Rosamond Pinchot told through the eyes of her granddaughter and Rosamond’s own diaries which she kept for many years. Rosamond was a stage actress in the 1920’s who garnered great fame and later tried to get into film, and while she did appear in a few movies, she never reached any fame or satisfaction through that venue. She killed herself at age 33 leaving behind two sons from a very rocky marriage to Big Bill Gaston.

Not only is this the story of Rosamond, it is also the story of the two Manhattan society families the Pinchots and the Gastons. It also is the story of Rosamond’s descendants, her first born son William (Billy) and his youngest daughter Bibi (the author). Part memoir and part biography the book presents how suicide affects future generations and how feuding within a family creates a rift in one generation that continues on through the ages.

I enjoyed this book on some levels but not very much on others. I loved the story of the 20’s and 30’s. The tale of Manhattan, the theatre and Hollywood in this era was enjoyable as was the tale of Rosamond’s sad life. The personal diary entries brought this all to life and the woman led both a fairy tale and traumatic life. The story of her son, William, held no interest for me. He was a man who felt he was cheated by his brother and devoted his life to legal endeavours against both his ex-wife and brother. As well, the author’s own story is implanted into the biographies and the biography within a memoir doesn’t do the trick for me personally. The author tries to relate how her life was affected by Rosamond’s suicide and how family patterns continue through the generations. She succeeds on this point but I, personally, am not interested in that type of memoir. A non-biased portrait of Rosamond’s life or the publication of her diaries themselves would have made a more interesting and enjoyable read for me.

We must set our children free from our adult agendas and our frenetic, goal-oriented pace. The path that we have accepted for ourselves is the wrong path for children. Children do need a foundation upon which to grow and children do need their parents. They need to belong to a community, not an interest group. They long to know right from wrong and long for adults in history and in their lives to look up to. They need time to play and to forge meaningful relationships with family and friends. They need the opportunity to retreat within themselves - to find out what is there. -From Ships Without A Shore, pages 248-9

Anne R. Pierce holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and has published articles and books on social and political issues and intellectual history. In Ships Without A Shore she sites a great amount of research regarding day care, child development, political philosophy, psychiatry, brain science and genetics to support her theory that childrearing in the United States and our educational system in this country are on the wrong path.

Pierce’s book is divided into four sections which deal with:  1. The dangers of day care, the woman’s liberation movement, and the pressure for women to conform to societal demands to work outside the home, 2. Maternal love and normal child development in the context of current societal mores and expectations, 3. The impact of moral relativism on modern parenting, and 4. The failure of America’s educational system.

Throughout the book, Pierce simultaneously argues for more nurture while allowing a child’s nature to develop - the classic nature vs. nurture argument is debunked early on.

Given the advances in brain research and in anthropological techniques, it is simply impossible to deny the influence of genetics and of natural foundations for behavior. Given the abundance of evidence, confirmed by recent research in psychology, psychiatry, neurobiology, and sociology, that parents and communities (especially parents) have dramatic effects upon the emotional and developmental outcomes of children, it is simply implausible to deny the influence of the environment. -From Ships Without A Shore, Introduction-

She also questions current parenting practices which place children very early on into day care when so much research indicates the importance of early attachment to mother.

It is unlikely that children’s developmental needs should miraculously and conveniently change just when adult career patterns and life styles required them to change. - From Ships Without A Shore, Introduction-

The practice of detaching from our children, Pierce argues, is fueled by a media which makes women feel they are neither intelligent nor contemporary if they choose to stay home to rear their children. She further argues that although Feminism was ‘right to call for a less subsuming vision of motherhood,’ it was wrong to suggest there should be a detachment between mother and child (ie: placing children into childcare situations from infancy onward). Pierce’s arguments in her first chapter are supported by reams of research, but she lost me a bit when she began relating horror stories about children who were placed into the hands of uncaring or negligent providers. To read these examples, one might think it foolish to even hire a babysitter for the night. Despite this, Pierce makes a good point when she questions the objectivity of media reporting when it comes to research dealing with day care and its affects on children.

Our willingness to buy into the superficial and partial picture painted for us has stemmed in part from our belief in the larger social cause. The cause of women’s liberation has been thought so worthy that we have been willing to accept less than clear thinking and less than accurate reporting in support of it. -From Ships Without A Shore, page 58-

I found Pierce’s second chapter the most compelling. Pierce examines normal child development in the context of institutionalized care and points out that all developmental evidence points to  the fact that ‘children thrive upon love‘ and that attachment to a maternal figure is paramount to normal development. She then goes on to say that no one can love a child as their parent does and that it is reasonable to expect a paid caregiver will be less responsive to a baby’s signals than a mother would be. Pierce observes that children become over-dependent or “anxiously attached” not because they have had too much care, but because they have not had enough.

The truth is that even high quality day care centers cannot provide the optimal conditions for development. -From Ships Without A Shore, page 115-

In the last two chapters of Ships Without A Shore, Pierce delves into the area of politics, the welfare system, morality, liberalism, and the failure of our education system. Although she provides ample research to support her conclusions, I was less convinced by her arguments because I felt there was an underlying political bias. Pierce is careful, however, to temper her opinion that the best family for a child is a traditional one with one father and one mother.

I should note that I do not agree with those that advocate a return to the stigmatizing of unwed parents and their children as an alternative solution. I do believe in a return to the valuing of fathers’ essential role in the family, of the intact family, of responsible parenting, and of firmly founded mother-child attachment. - from Ships Without A Shore, page 152-

Pierce convincingly writes about the frenetically busy life-style of American families and the pressure on children to achieve constantly - whether it be in advanced classes, sports teams or other extracurricular activities. This, along with over-stimulation from technologies (such as television and computers), leaves children exhausted, stressed and depressed. Pierce goes on to attack an American educational system which by empowering girls, degrades boys; neglects American history and philosophy while ‘providing students with a “social conscience”‘; and teaches multiculturalism while ignoring American culture.

Unfortunately, multiculturalism has been twisted by the agendas and, yes, the biases which hide behind it. It is often a code word for anti-Americanism. -from Ships Without A Shore, page 231-

Ships Without A Shore is a provocative and penetrating look at American culture and how it has impacted societal views on child rearing. Pierce does not mince words, but speaks strongly in advocating more parental involvement in raising our nation’s children. She supports her opinions with ample research. I did not always fully agree with Pierce’s conclusions, which at times felt excessively right-leaning. But despite my disagreement on some of her points, I believe this is an important book to read for those individuals working in the child care industry and school systems…and for those adults who love children and care about where our society is headed. Pierce’s prose is easy to read and the book is well-organized. At the very least, this is a book which will generate dialogue on one of the most compelling issues of our society - how we choose to raise the next generation and how those choices will impact our future.

Recommended for readers interested in child development and social issues.

Queen of the Road: The True Tale of 47 States, 22 000 Miles, 200 Shoes, 2 Cats, 1 Poodle, a Husband, and a Bus with a Will of Its Own by Doreen Orion

Pages: 289
First Published: June 10, 2008
Genre: Travelogue, Memoirs
Rating: 4/5

First sentence:

When my long-dreaded thirtieth birthday arrived, I really wasn’t as upset as I imagined I’d be, for I had achieved a much more important milestone: my sartorial centennial.

Comments: Doreen and her husband, Tim, are both psychiatrists in their mid-forties. Tim is a dedicated workaholic with a demanding practice. Doreen has given up practice and works filing insurance claims from the comfort of her bed in her pajamas and is proud of the fact the she hardly ever leaves the house. Out of the blue, Tim convinces her that they will take a year off and drive around the United States in a converted bus. This book details that journey.

At first I wasn’t sure whether I would like Doreen’s narrative as her rich, material world lifestyle is the exact opposite of my own lifestyle but I couldn’t have been more wrong. I found myself relating to her throughout the whole book. Doreen is simply hilarious, an outspoken person who will say just about anything. I was chuckling joyously chapter after chapter and even found myself reading parts aloud to my husband quite often, which rarely happens around here as he is a non-reader.

Humour aside, the journey they take was very interesting and informative to me. As a Canadian my knowledge of US geography is middling but even those who are experts on the topic will find Ms. Orion’s journey of interest. While they do go to some famous tourist spots, Doreen chooses mostly to talk about lesser known tourist attractions, RV parks, the automotive challenges they experienced and the people they met on the way.

This is the type of book one can pick up and read a chapter at a time and pick up again later and not loose the flow of the narrative. Highly recommended, especially for summer beach reading or winter armchair travelling.