21st Meeting: Same Kind of Different As Me

Wow, I am very far behind in blogging about book club meetings. Four meetings behind, actually. Totally unacceptable, right? What if I give you a sob story about how I've been working on my dissertation and haven't had time to use any energy writing about anything but construal level and social comparison (trust me, it's interesting... or not). You're right. No excuse!

Without further adieu, let's get back into the swing of things with talking about the 21st meeting of Eat, Drink, and Be Literary. Way back in November, Sarah hosted and picked the book Same Kind of Different as Me: A Modern Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman who Bound Them Together, by Ron Hall, Denver Moore, and Lynn Vincent. She picked the book because it was on some New York Times "best of" list, and because she is a fan of memoir/ non fiction. The rest of us were skeptical to say the least when we found out what book was picked. The book not only fits into the genre of memoir, but also into the genre of Christian writing, and somehow this was a red flag for everyone. While some of the book club members, myself included, are Christians, the religious works we typically read are more academic or philosophical (think C.S. Lewis) or more veiled in symbolism (think The Giving Tree.) An overtly "Jesus saves" book just didn't sound too appealing.

When the book club meeting began, we were all very surprised to admit that we almost kind of liked the book, or at the very least, we didn't hate it. The book follows the lives of two men-- one poor black man named Denver, who lived as a modern day slave and ended up homeless in Dallas, and one very wealthy white man named Ron who with his wife, began volunteering at the shelter and soup kitchen where Denver spent time. The two men became close friends, and helped each other to grow in a really beautiful way.

Typically, both the first and last question we ask at book club is "did you like it?" Usually, everyone's approval rating increases from the beginning of the meeting to the end, but this time it was different. Instead, the more we talked about the book, the less we liked it.  I think we all just felt that the truly special part of the story was Denver's life, and we felt that the book maybe spent too much time focusing on Ron's life instead. Obviously Ron was writing his portion of the book as a way to reflect on how much growth he'd had since Denver came into his life, and as a way to heal from the loss of his wife (oh yeah, spoiler alert, his really wonderful wife dies of cancer and I might have cried a little), but after awhile, it started to come across as self-indulgent. It's hard for me to say, because I know that everyone has a story worth telling-- especially when that story is about making themselves better, but we just didn't find Ron's story as compelling as Denver's.

18th meeting: Stone Butch Blues

On Sunday, the 18th meeting of Eat, Drink, and Be Literary was hosted by Tana-- it also marked her last meeting since she is graduating (color me jealous) and will be moving to Boston to start a post-doc.  For her last book, Tana chose Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg.

Our meeting was small this time-- only five people-- but we had a great discussion of the novel. It is the story (seeming based loosely on Feinberg's life) of a young butch lesbian, Jess growing up in the 1950's-60's in Buffalo as she struggles with her her gender identity and finds a place in the world. It was brutally hard to read at times (emotionally, I mean), but I am so glad I got through it. This book helped me to really take the perspective of a group of people that I haven't ever before.

The struggles that Jess faced as a child and young adult were horrific, and while this story was fictionalized, I assume that it s representative of so many people's stories. The entire group mentioned how glad we were to be living in a time where women can't be arrested and beaten and raped simply for dancing with one another. While the fight for equality in this country is far from being won, I am thankful that we are closer now than we were 50 years ago.

As happy as I am that I read this, I didn't love all of it. I thought that the first hundred pages were incredibly powerful and eye-opening, but the middle of the book just dragged for me.  A huge part of the novel dealt with the formation of unions and other social movements of the 60's, and while I find this whole era incredibly important and fascinating, I almost thought that there was too much going on in certain points of the book. Too many characters, each with so many struggles I almost became desensitized to them. I guess I just think that the plot could have been streamlined somehow.

14th Meeting (and a blizzard): Caramelo

We have had the most mild winter that I can remember this year. (I realize I probably just jinxed us to have the coldest snowiest March ever, but oh well). In fact, we've only had a few days with our typical sub-zero temperatures, and only one significant snow storm. Because I am so fantastic at planning things, that one measly blizzard we had fell on the day of our January book club meeting. Because of the craptastic weather, we had a pretty small group, but a great meeting. I was the host for the meeting (which meant I didn't have to drive in the snow! yay!), and I picked the book Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros.

I picked Caramelo for several reasons. First off, despite reading a wide variety of literature over the last year and a half, our book club hasn't read very many books by female authors; and we have read exactly zero books by women that are told from a woman's point of view. Considering the fact that the club is predominantly female, this is somewhat surprising! Caramelo fit both of these criteria-- Sandra Cisneros is obviously a woman, and the book is semi-autobiographical and told from the point of view of a young Mexican American girl named Celaya. The second reason I selected this book, is that Sandra Cisneros went to Loyola University Chicago for her undergraduate education (just like me!) and to the University of Iowa for her graduate education (just like me!). The third reason is that her graduate degree was from the Writer's Workshop at Iowa and I want to support anything coming out of Iowa! And the fourth and final reason I chose this book was that I already owned it. In college, I took several hispanic or latina women's writers courses with the most amazing professor, Dr. Cavallo. My friends and I adored Dr. Cavallo, her amazing pencil skirts, and her ability to make us passionate about any piece of literature. It was in her classes that I really learned how to be a critical reader and I will never forget her impact on me! Anyway, Caramelo was on the syllabus for one of her classes-- however, we got behind thanks to a discussion about some other great book, and never got around to finishing it. I have held on to the book since (for 7 years) and figured it was time I actually read it!

After that huge amount of back story, it might be fairly obvious that I was expecting great things out of the book. Seven years of build-up do that to a girl! I don't know if it was just because of my exceedingly high expectations that this book couldn't stand a chance, but I didn't really like it all that much.

Oddly enough, everyone at book club agreed with me. I say this is odd because we have all been in agreement about our feelings towards a book exactly ONE time in the 14 meetings we've had (it was at our second meeting, back when we uniformly all loved Willful Creatures by Aimee Bender picked by Beth). I am bummed that this time our unanimous opinion wasn't so great, but we still had a great discussion.

The book reads like a memoir, but is technically a novel. It is the story of a a young Mexican-American girl named Celaya and her huge, vibrant, and dysfunctional family. What was interesting about the book club's unanimous "meh" feelings towards this book, is that we all agreed that it was pleasant to read. There were passages that we thought would have made wonderful short stories, or even novellas. Throughout the entire novel, Cisneros used creative and memorable turns of phrase, and described things so colorfully that on occasion I dog-eared pages so I could jot things down later. The novel was fairly engaging, but, none of that seemed to matter-- nobody felt especially connected to any of the characters, so as pleasant as the book was, we wouldn't have thought twice about setting the book down and never picking it back up. I guess that is actually one of the good things about book club: it forces me to finish books that would otherwise turn into "never-enders" for me.

The real hit of the meeting, for those who were brave enough to rough the blizzard conditions, was the food. Since the book was largely about life in Mexico, we decided to have a Mexican inspired feast. I made tacos-- I had a chipotle pulled pork filling and my very favorite sweet potato black bean filling for the vegetarians. We had plantain chips c/o Jillian, guacamole thanks to Rachel, and the most amazing little short bread cookies with spicy chocolate dipping sauce made by Mandy. Josh and Beth brought margarita fixings (which made me wonder why we don't celebrate the "drink" portion of this blog more often) and they also managed to find the same brand of soda that Cisneros talks about in the book at Hy Vee. We had lime, mandarin, and pineapple Jaritos. (The pineapple was my favorite.) All in all, it was one of our best meals ever, especially since it fit so perfectly with the book.

Tenth Meeting: Stiches A Memoir

When Eat, Drink, and Be Literary regular Sarah told me her pick for book club I was excited and very nervous. Sarah picked Stitches: A Memoir by David Small which happens to be a graphic novel. I had never read (er.... looked at) a graphic novel before so I was nervous that I wasn't going to do it properly. I realize how crazy that sounds, but I stand by it. I was afraid that I wouldn't "get" the book fully or notice what I was supposed to. Luckily, it seemed to go pretty well. Small's story was actually best told through images.

Since I have recently been on a memoir-about-a-messed-up-childhood kick, this fit right in. Small grew up in a love-less and silent home. His mother, who he later found out was a closeted lesbian, was harsh and cold and silent. His father was fairly absent. His brother barely in his life. If that wasn't enough to be considered a "messed up" childhood, Small had a growth on his neck removed, and the doctor took half of his vocal chords leaving him voice-less. Several months later he found out that this growth was actually cancer that had gone untreated for years. Small spent the rest of his youth, and much of his adulthood dealing with the fact that he couldn't speak above a raspy whisper, and that he had been lied to about his life.

The minimal words and dark artwork in this memoir were incredible vehicles for the theme of silence in Small's life. The silence of anger, of confusion, of unhappiness, and of actually being voice-less were all uniquely powerful depicted in one scene after another.

Sarah did a great job hosting a discussion about this book. Our discussion drifted back and forth from the content and the format of this book almost seamlessly.

If you have never read a graphic novel before, this is a good gate-way novel as it is not comic book-y or super hero-ish, but is definitely a piece of literature. I'm very glad it was picked for book club and that I was able to expand my horizons.

Jeannette Walls Extravaganza!

I am always a few years behind on summer beach reading. I don’t know if it’s because I am too busy reading other books, or just never have the attention span to read a whole book while I’m at the beach, but I typically don’t hear about , let alone read, the “fabulous” best seller types until after the movie interpretation has come out on DVD. So, in true fashion, I am six years behind the craze for Jeannette Walls’ incredible memoir The Glass Castle. However, I’m only 2 years behind in reading Half Broke Horses: A True Life Novel which could be considered a prequel to her memoir.

Because I’m a rebel, I decided to read Half-Broke Horses first. I figured it happened first chronologically speaking, so what was the difference? Also there was the tiny practical matter that I already had that book in my possession.  Last month I was in Tucson for four days visiting my boyfriend’s family, and I figured the flight down was the perfect time to start the novel. I was pleasantly surprised by the book. Walls wrote in the voice of her grandmother Lilly Casey, whom there are not enough adjective to describe. Born in 1900, she practically defined my idea of feminism-- she spent her life surviving and trying to find her purpose and never let a matter as small as her gender get in her way.  The “true-life novel” was the perfect format for telling this incredible woman’s story, and it is a concept I’ve fallen in love with.  I’m jealous of Walls and her ability to so beautifully bring to life the mythology of her grandmother and I wish I could do the same for my own grandparents!I finished Half-Broke Horses over the first few days of my visit to Tucson, and I relished every minute of it. As I experienced the desert in the summer for the first time, I got to read about Lily and her family living in that very desert—conquering it at times, and allowing it to conquer them at others. I felt a great appreciation for the fragile but harsh environment I found myself exploring, and some of Lily’s pluck rubbed off on me and I felt empowered and strong (which came in handy when hiking through the Sabino Canyon).

The last morning of my trip, as I packed my bags to travel back to Iowa, I serendipitously found The Glass Castle which my boyfriend’s mom had laid out for me to read. I started it over my morning coffee while I sat by the pool, and then somehow managed to finish it before my flight landed in Iowa. The Glass Castle is Jeannette Walls' memoir, and chronicles her simultaneously fascinating and disturbing childhood. Her parents, Rex  (a brilliant but irresponsible and somewhat abusive alcoholic), and Rose Mary, (an artist, the daughter of Lily, and in my opinion the worst mother of all time) were constantly on the run from bill collectors and raised four children, Lori, Jeannette, Brian, and Maureen on "adventures" around the U.S. The family lived in poverty most of the time, and while never short on creativity, or story-telling, the family was constantly short on food, and, well, responsible parenting. It was shocking to me that a family like this existed in the not-so-distant past, and that the children raised in this way were able to overcome.

Most of all what shocked me was a look at mother daughter relationships across both of the books. My own mother recently told me that the most surprising thing to her about motherhood was that when I was born I was my own person with my own opinions and values and personality right away. I thought of this while reading these novels because as different Lily was from Rose Mary, Rose Mary was from Jeannette. While I of course know plenty of sets of mothers and daughters in real life, these books offered a unique view of the mother/ daughter dynamic. I got to experience firsthand through Walls' descriptions how three generations of women were from childhood to womanhood to motherhood and how beautifully complex their relationships were with one another.

In short, I would recommend both of these books to any woman whether read alone or as a set. I would also recommend reading them while sitting poolside overlooking the Catalina mountains, but that's another story!

Va bene!

A few years ago my friend Elena got me Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr for a bridesmaid's gift. It was a great gift, and so personalized for me, since I studied in Rome while in college and she visited me there. The gift was a great symbol of our friendship. And I took approximately two years to read it.... but, better late than never, right?

The book was a memoir of sorts about an author who lives in Rome for a year struggling to write a novel with his wife and infant twin boys. In one sense, I loved the book-- the descriptions of the city made me feel like I could breathe in the essence of Rome. I could smell the fresh bread baking, and see the vivid colors of grafitti on trains, and hear the constant whir of motorinos flying through the city, but the book completely lacked a plot. Doerr wrote the book like one long list of things he encountered over the year. Each individual paragraph could be complete and beautiful as a poem providing a fragmented glimpse of a city, but the paragraphs together offered me nothing. I felt no connection to any characters, and I saw little (if any) development or growth of the characters-- including the city of Rome. There are so many novels where a city comes alive and grows like any other character, but other than a few exceptions the city was only described like a set of a play would be throughout this book.

I still enjoyed the book, and was also incredibly jealous of the author being around when the new pope was chosen. I was in Rome the year before the author, and had a papal audience with Papa Gianni Paolo II. It was an experience I will never forget-- the man glowed, literally, on stage. It was so apparent that he was a holy man, and it was really powerful to hear him speak and receive a blessing. I feel so lucky to witness that. A year later I watched from home as millions of people went to view the pope and waited for the announcement of his successor. From my living room I watched the eternal city grieve and celebrate the life of one man while hopefully awaiting a new leader. I ached to be there-- though after living in Rome I realized just how inadequately the city handles the normal number of tourists, and assume that trying to do anything while millions of Catholics made pilgrimages would have just been a nightmare. In any case, being able to appreciate this experience first hand vicariously through the words of Doerr was wonderful.



While reading this book, I gradually began to crave more and more Italian food. So, to celebrate completing the book, I made myself some Spaghetti Carbonara and caprese salad-- two dishes I miss most from Rome because they are just never quite as good on this continent. It was molto delicioso.

"mini" caprese

The cast of characters for my Carbonara