I picked up Feeling Sorry For Celia by Jaclyn Moriarty right after I got done with the very heavy Dahlia's Gone and fell in love with the book immediately. It opened with a letter expressing admiration for the winter holiday of the protagonist, Elizabeth, and inviting her to join their society, The Society of People Who Are Definitely Going To Fail High School (and Most Probably Life as Well) ("It's so impressive, Elizabeth! You had four assignments, an English essay, and a chapter of math to do. And you didn't do one single piece of homework!"). This pretty much set the tone for the book.
The story itself is a fairly pedestrian plotline, basically The Transition To Young Adulthood. But it's the way it's told that makes it so delightful. Moriarty uses a series of letters to tell the story. In addition to The Society of People Who Are Definitely Going to Fail High School, Elizabeth regularly receives letters from The Cold Hard Truth Society, The Association of Teenagers, The Best Friends Club, The Young Romance Association, The Secret and Mysterious Association of All that Is Secret and Mysterious, and The Society of Amateur Detectives, among many others. She also gets notes from her mom, an ad executive, on the fridge, asking her to take care of the laundry and also think of some good things about purple lipstick. The centerpiece is the correspondence between Elizabeth and a Complete and Total Stranger, her pen pal Christina, from a different high school. They were matched up by Elizabeth's English teacher and turn out to be a great pair.
Like I said before, the plot line is nothing special. The Celia of the title has been Elizabeth's best friend since early childhood. Celia is kind of crazy, and as they enter high school, the friendship starts to change. Elizabeth also falls in love with a boy and works out some complicated home life stuff regarding her parents, who divorced when she was little, and the stepbrother she's never met. But I didn't care, and I'm betting you won't either, for Moriarty manages to make it all fresh and fun. Even the sad parts have a sort of sparkle to them. The dust jacket says that Moriarty is an entertainment lawyer, and that this was her first novel. It was published in 2000, though, so I hope she's tried again. I bet Moriarty has more stories in her.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Farewell to Luciano Pavarotti
2007 has been a rough year. First, we said goodbye to Molly Ivins, then to Kurt Vonnegut. Tonight I'm commemorating the life of one who wasn't a literary icon, but still a favorite artist of mine: Luciano Pavarotti. I love his voice, but I also loved the way he made accessible an art form that modern audiences often find boring and elitist. I will leave you with a clip of his final public performance, at the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Torino last year, where he performed his signature "Nessun Dorma", from Puccini's Turandot opera. Please feel free to come back and visit it often, if you like it as much as I do.
Friday, September 7, 2007
A Great Big "Huh?"
I'm not really sure what Katie Estill was trying to do with Dahlia's Gone. It is a most unmysterious murder mystery, and seems as though it's trying to say something about connections and relationships without ever doing so.
Dahlia is an 18-year-old girl who is found murdered in her own bed during a late-afternoon storm in the Ozarks. The finder is a woman in her 30s or 40s, who I would dearly like to meet, named Sand Williams. Sand was born and raised in the small town, but grew up to travel the world as a photographer and have all kinds of wonderful adventures with her husband and fellow adventurer, Frank. Sand has been suckered into keeping an eye on Dahlia and her mentally retarded half-brother Timothy by her neighbor and mother of the household, Norah. Norah is much more traditional than Sand, to the point where she's rechristened Sand "Sandra Mason", disapproving of both Sand's unusual first name and her choice not to take her husband's last name. The crime is investigated by Deputy Patti (whose last name I can't remember, and I returned the book, sorry). Patti is the first and only woman on the police force, leaving her to deal with both all of the sex-related crimes (including everything from rape to drug-smuggling in a vagina) and sexist remarks right out of the 1950s.
Those are the key players, but Estill doesn't give them enough to do. From the very beginning, the murderer of Dahlia is pretty obvious. I won't name her killer, just in case anyone decides they want to read this book after all, but I will just say that I found her killer as creepy as any of the Children of the Corn or the Bad Seed herself. I'm not sure if Estill intended that or not, but for me, it further blurred the focus of the novel. The point of it seems to be the way the the murder draws together Sand and Norah, who dislike each other at the start. But what purpose does the character of Patti serve? Patti is a strong, intelligent, successful woman who has a failed marriage behind her and hungers for a baby and husband (sigh). The ending to her story feels so tacked-on, though, and her desire for a typical home life so stereotypical, as to render her character somewhat pointless.
Yet the book doesn't quite disappoint, for all of the bad stuff I've said about it. Estill's characters are great. Even Dahlia, who has just a cameo in her own tale (she's dead for about 75% of the book) feels vivid and real. They were all people I was into spending time with. I think it's hard to build suspense when the audience knows what will happen. One of the few novels I've read that does this successfully is The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Perhaps the book would've been better if she'd taken a different tack with the murder, maybe even stated the murderer's identity from the beginning, and then let the tale unfold from there. I don't know. It was an ambitious book that didn't quite hit the mark, but I do have high hopes for Katie Estill.
Dahlia is an 18-year-old girl who is found murdered in her own bed during a late-afternoon storm in the Ozarks. The finder is a woman in her 30s or 40s, who I would dearly like to meet, named Sand Williams. Sand was born and raised in the small town, but grew up to travel the world as a photographer and have all kinds of wonderful adventures with her husband and fellow adventurer, Frank. Sand has been suckered into keeping an eye on Dahlia and her mentally retarded half-brother Timothy by her neighbor and mother of the household, Norah. Norah is much more traditional than Sand, to the point where she's rechristened Sand "Sandra Mason", disapproving of both Sand's unusual first name and her choice not to take her husband's last name. The crime is investigated by Deputy Patti (whose last name I can't remember, and I returned the book, sorry). Patti is the first and only woman on the police force, leaving her to deal with both all of the sex-related crimes (including everything from rape to drug-smuggling in a vagina) and sexist remarks right out of the 1950s.
Those are the key players, but Estill doesn't give them enough to do. From the very beginning, the murderer of Dahlia is pretty obvious. I won't name her killer, just in case anyone decides they want to read this book after all, but I will just say that I found her killer as creepy as any of the Children of the Corn or the Bad Seed herself. I'm not sure if Estill intended that or not, but for me, it further blurred the focus of the novel. The point of it seems to be the way the the murder draws together Sand and Norah, who dislike each other at the start. But what purpose does the character of Patti serve? Patti is a strong, intelligent, successful woman who has a failed marriage behind her and hungers for a baby and husband (sigh). The ending to her story feels so tacked-on, though, and her desire for a typical home life so stereotypical, as to render her character somewhat pointless.
Yet the book doesn't quite disappoint, for all of the bad stuff I've said about it. Estill's characters are great. Even Dahlia, who has just a cameo in her own tale (she's dead for about 75% of the book) feels vivid and real. They were all people I was into spending time with. I think it's hard to build suspense when the audience knows what will happen. One of the few novels I've read that does this successfully is The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Perhaps the book would've been better if she'd taken a different tack with the murder, maybe even stated the murderer's identity from the beginning, and then let the tale unfold from there. I don't know. It was an ambitious book that didn't quite hit the mark, but I do have high hopes for Katie Estill.
Monday, September 3, 2007
What are Little Girls Made Of?
Sugar and spice and everything nice? Or, in the case of Bone, the young heroine and narrator of Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out Of Carolina, rusty hooks, dirty looks, forbidden books, anger and fear.
The plot of the novel is simple enough. It tells the tale of Ruth Anne Boatwright's (commonly known as Bone) first 13 years, with her half-sister Reese, her mama who was a widow before her 20th birthday, and her abusive, twisted stepfather Daddy Glen. The extended Boatwright clan is a real treat, one of the delights of the novel. There's the long-suffering Aunt Ruth, who loves gospel music and teaches Bone to love it too. A gang of uncles who blur in the reader's mind, whose kindly attitude around Bone serve as a sharp contrast to their known hobbies of getting drunk, shooting at one another, messing around with women, and winding up in jail. There's Aunt Raylene, a tough, independent-minded lesbian who's as fearsome as any of the uncles, and who scavenges stuff from the river to sell.
The character of Bone is noteworthy too. Bone suffers a lot of beatings at the hands of Daddy Glen, all with a bizarre sexual undercurrent. These, combined with the family's reputation as purebred white trash, have a strong effect on her. She describes herself often as boiling over with rage, simmering inside, all kinds of other fiery metaphors and similes, and when she does, the reader can feel it, and the futility of trying to express that kind of blind rage in words. She masturbates a lot, and has strange fantasies.
One character that I found equally captivating in terms of a statement about childhood is Bone's friend Shannon Pearl. Shannon is the only child of a couple deeply involved in the gospel music world (her father is a concert promoter and owns a Christian bookstore; her mother sews stage costumes for gospel singers). Shannon is also a sickly, scary-looking albino. You can see the veins in her scalp, you can see her skull through her skin, she has pink eyes and wears thick glasses. Even adults are afraid of her and shun her, and the other children are merciless. Yet, as Bone herself says, although you may expect Shannon to have a saintly personality, she doesn't. She is as angry, hateful and vengeful as Bone, and determined to get back at everyone who hurt her. There's little goodness in her, and there's a wonderful climactic scene in a graveyard where both Bone and Shannon's anger finally erupt at one another, destroying the fragile friendship.
I enjoyed reading this book. It reminded me a lot of the Tawni O'Dell that I was reading earlier in the summer, in that it doesn't depict total misery or total happiness. Allison draws a world of vivid characters around Bone, but she doesn't go too far in idealizing their difficult and complicated lives. She does an excellent job of getting at the complexity in people: one of Bone's favorite uncles, who is nothing but kindness and gentleness to Bone and to the ailing Aunt Ruth also is a polygamist who went to jail and then proceeded to get his stay extended by fighting. It works the other way, too: Bone's Mama, who is largely a sympathetic and kind person, fails to protect her from the beatings she suffers at Daddy Glen's hands, and can't even walk away from him for good. And although Daddy Glen's behavior is that of a monster, we also see the side of him that has never stopped striving for his father's approval and who tries so hard to succeed at any kind of job but just can't make it happen.
I read this book because I remember the title scribbled in the margins of some notes from college. I don't know which professor told me about it (I'm guessing Dr. Daphne Kutzer) but I'd like to thank whoever it was. Dorothy Allison has three other books:Cavedweller,Two or Three Things I Know For Sure and Trash. I will definitely be putting them on my list.
The plot of the novel is simple enough. It tells the tale of Ruth Anne Boatwright's (commonly known as Bone) first 13 years, with her half-sister Reese, her mama who was a widow before her 20th birthday, and her abusive, twisted stepfather Daddy Glen. The extended Boatwright clan is a real treat, one of the delights of the novel. There's the long-suffering Aunt Ruth, who loves gospel music and teaches Bone to love it too. A gang of uncles who blur in the reader's mind, whose kindly attitude around Bone serve as a sharp contrast to their known hobbies of getting drunk, shooting at one another, messing around with women, and winding up in jail. There's Aunt Raylene, a tough, independent-minded lesbian who's as fearsome as any of the uncles, and who scavenges stuff from the river to sell.
The character of Bone is noteworthy too. Bone suffers a lot of beatings at the hands of Daddy Glen, all with a bizarre sexual undercurrent. These, combined with the family's reputation as purebred white trash, have a strong effect on her. She describes herself often as boiling over with rage, simmering inside, all kinds of other fiery metaphors and similes, and when she does, the reader can feel it, and the futility of trying to express that kind of blind rage in words. She masturbates a lot, and has strange fantasies.
One character that I found equally captivating in terms of a statement about childhood is Bone's friend Shannon Pearl. Shannon is the only child of a couple deeply involved in the gospel music world (her father is a concert promoter and owns a Christian bookstore; her mother sews stage costumes for gospel singers). Shannon is also a sickly, scary-looking albino. You can see the veins in her scalp, you can see her skull through her skin, she has pink eyes and wears thick glasses. Even adults are afraid of her and shun her, and the other children are merciless. Yet, as Bone herself says, although you may expect Shannon to have a saintly personality, she doesn't. She is as angry, hateful and vengeful as Bone, and determined to get back at everyone who hurt her. There's little goodness in her, and there's a wonderful climactic scene in a graveyard where both Bone and Shannon's anger finally erupt at one another, destroying the fragile friendship.
I enjoyed reading this book. It reminded me a lot of the Tawni O'Dell that I was reading earlier in the summer, in that it doesn't depict total misery or total happiness. Allison draws a world of vivid characters around Bone, but she doesn't go too far in idealizing their difficult and complicated lives. She does an excellent job of getting at the complexity in people: one of Bone's favorite uncles, who is nothing but kindness and gentleness to Bone and to the ailing Aunt Ruth also is a polygamist who went to jail and then proceeded to get his stay extended by fighting. It works the other way, too: Bone's Mama, who is largely a sympathetic and kind person, fails to protect her from the beatings she suffers at Daddy Glen's hands, and can't even walk away from him for good. And although Daddy Glen's behavior is that of a monster, we also see the side of him that has never stopped striving for his father's approval and who tries so hard to succeed at any kind of job but just can't make it happen.
I read this book because I remember the title scribbled in the margins of some notes from college. I don't know which professor told me about it (I'm guessing Dr. Daphne Kutzer) but I'd like to thank whoever it was. Dorothy Allison has three other books:Cavedweller,Two or Three Things I Know For Sure and Trash. I will definitely be putting them on my list.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Still Wild, for all your short fiction needs
This book caught my eye at the library last time, and I decided it would be an excellent book to use to test my credit limit as far as overdue fines go (I owed $6.75 and put $3 on it, and they let me take everything. So far, so good!). It is called Still Wild: Short Fiction of the American West 1950-present and was edited by Larry McMurtry. I knew a couple of the stories: "The Mexican Girl," an excerpt from Kerouac's On the Road, and of course E. Annie Proulx's "Brokeback Mountain." I was familiar with several of the authors, like Louise Erdrich, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Raymond Carver. A couple of the others, like Wallace Stegner and Richard Ford, sounded familiar to me, but I was unsure if I'd actually read anything by them.
Many others, though, were unknown to me, and I think that's one of the joys of these types of collections. Some of the unknowns I liked enough to remember their names and look for more (that's how I got into George Saunders). There were about 20 stories in the book, so I won't go through story by story, but just pick out a few noteworthy ones to talk about.
"Brokeback Mountain" is one I could probably forgo discussing. The movie was nominated for every Oscar on the planet, after all. I still haven't seen it, but I knew the story and was pissed that people made it into a joke. I read it again, and it really is a devastating story, beautiful and sad. Proulx always does an excellent job of breathing life into locales that are probably deadly dull and uninspiring to live in. She's always a treat to read, and "Brokeback Mountain" is no exception.
"Good Rockin' Tonight" by William Hauptman was just plain fun. It was about an Elvis impersonator, and the parallels between his life and that of the King, and I dare you not to like a story that has an Elvis impersonator in it!
Like the above, "True Romance" also riffs on tabloid themes and the American subconscious. It features Baby Mama Drama, La Chupacabra and UFO's. It was not as much fun, and more metaphorical, but still a good read.
More straightforward, realistic and gritty were Diana Ossana's "White Line Fever", Richard Ford's "Rock Springs" and Robert Boswell's "Glissando". All three are about (as my mother would say) "how the other half lives." They speak to broken hearts, broken lives, petty crime, cheap sex, lives lived in motel rooms and on the run from the law or from a bad man or from themselves. Each author manages to shy away from both moralizing and romanticizing their main figures. Ossana's heroine is an ordinary, lost girl. The father of Boswell's narrator, we're stunned to learn, is essentially a romantic at heart. Ford's narrator is relatively unsympathetic, even dull, until the last paragraph of his tale, when the meaning of the story falls into place.
"Mahatma Joe" by Rick Bass is a beautiful, dreamlike tale that celebrates peace and stasis and humble achievements. It's got to be a difficult thing to do in an engaging way, but Bass achieves it. I will definitely look for more from him.
I'm not sure why "Cul-de-sacs" by Mark-Jude Poirer was included in this collection. I liked the story a lot: it was very well-done and had a lovely metaphor at its heart (his main character lives with his wife and baby in a model home, in a subdivision that was never completed) but I wouldn't call it particularly Western. True, it was set in Tuscon, but the story would've worked in any suburban setting. Still, it was a good short story, with an excellent juxtaposition of familiar elements and odd details.
"The Pedersen Kid" by William H. Gass closes out the anthology. At over 60 pages, it barely qualifies as "short" fiction. A big WTF????? to this story. I have to confess, I didn't understand it at all. There seemed to be some subtext that I wasn't getting, and part of it seemed like a hallucination, or a dream, or a fantasy. All I could determine that definitely happened in the story is that the Pedersen kid appears frozen mostly to death on the farm where the narrator (also a kid) lives. Living on the farm with the kid are his drunken and abusive father, and a hired hand named Big Hans who doesn't seem much better. The Pedersen kid wakes up with a tall tale of someone coming to his house and threatening his family, and the narrator's family goes to check it out (I think). That marks the midpoint of the story, though. If anyone out there has read it and feels they get it, please comment!!!!
Update 9/2/07: The comments section of this post now contains spoilers for this story.
Overall, I give this one a high recommendation. Like me, I'm sure you'll read some of these stories and just scratch your head, but I do think there's probably something in here for just about everyone. In the introduction, McMurtry notes a shift away from the pulpy "Western" novels of the early to mid-20th century, towards something that demands more of the reader than a quarter and an afternoon. One of these stories will probably stay with you, in some way or another. This anthology is well worth your time. Try it. Maybe it'll get you through the Labor Day Blues.
Many others, though, were unknown to me, and I think that's one of the joys of these types of collections. Some of the unknowns I liked enough to remember their names and look for more (that's how I got into George Saunders). There were about 20 stories in the book, so I won't go through story by story, but just pick out a few noteworthy ones to talk about.
"Brokeback Mountain" is one I could probably forgo discussing. The movie was nominated for every Oscar on the planet, after all. I still haven't seen it, but I knew the story and was pissed that people made it into a joke. I read it again, and it really is a devastating story, beautiful and sad. Proulx always does an excellent job of breathing life into locales that are probably deadly dull and uninspiring to live in. She's always a treat to read, and "Brokeback Mountain" is no exception.
"Good Rockin' Tonight" by William Hauptman was just plain fun. It was about an Elvis impersonator, and the parallels between his life and that of the King, and I dare you not to like a story that has an Elvis impersonator in it!
Like the above, "True Romance" also riffs on tabloid themes and the American subconscious. It features Baby Mama Drama, La Chupacabra and UFO's. It was not as much fun, and more metaphorical, but still a good read.
More straightforward, realistic and gritty were Diana Ossana's "White Line Fever", Richard Ford's "Rock Springs" and Robert Boswell's "Glissando". All three are about (as my mother would say) "how the other half lives." They speak to broken hearts, broken lives, petty crime, cheap sex, lives lived in motel rooms and on the run from the law or from a bad man or from themselves. Each author manages to shy away from both moralizing and romanticizing their main figures. Ossana's heroine is an ordinary, lost girl. The father of Boswell's narrator, we're stunned to learn, is essentially a romantic at heart. Ford's narrator is relatively unsympathetic, even dull, until the last paragraph of his tale, when the meaning of the story falls into place.
"Mahatma Joe" by Rick Bass is a beautiful, dreamlike tale that celebrates peace and stasis and humble achievements. It's got to be a difficult thing to do in an engaging way, but Bass achieves it. I will definitely look for more from him.
I'm not sure why "Cul-de-sacs" by Mark-Jude Poirer was included in this collection. I liked the story a lot: it was very well-done and had a lovely metaphor at its heart (his main character lives with his wife and baby in a model home, in a subdivision that was never completed) but I wouldn't call it particularly Western. True, it was set in Tuscon, but the story would've worked in any suburban setting. Still, it was a good short story, with an excellent juxtaposition of familiar elements and odd details.
"The Pedersen Kid" by William H. Gass closes out the anthology. At over 60 pages, it barely qualifies as "short" fiction. A big WTF????? to this story. I have to confess, I didn't understand it at all. There seemed to be some subtext that I wasn't getting, and part of it seemed like a hallucination, or a dream, or a fantasy. All I could determine that definitely happened in the story is that the Pedersen kid appears frozen mostly to death on the farm where the narrator (also a kid) lives. Living on the farm with the kid are his drunken and abusive father, and a hired hand named Big Hans who doesn't seem much better. The Pedersen kid wakes up with a tall tale of someone coming to his house and threatening his family, and the narrator's family goes to check it out (I think). That marks the midpoint of the story, though. If anyone out there has read it and feels they get it, please comment!!!!
Update 9/2/07: The comments section of this post now contains spoilers for this story.
Overall, I give this one a high recommendation. Like me, I'm sure you'll read some of these stories and just scratch your head, but I do think there's probably something in here for just about everyone. In the introduction, McMurtry notes a shift away from the pulpy "Western" novels of the early to mid-20th century, towards something that demands more of the reader than a quarter and an afternoon. One of these stories will probably stay with you, in some way or another. This anthology is well worth your time. Try it. Maybe it'll get you through the Labor Day Blues.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Getting through The Worst Week
Well, it's here. My very least-favorite time of year. Worse than those crushing, depressing days between New Year's Day and Easter when the snow's turned black and the temperature has dropped and all the TV shows are reruns but no one will venture out and there's nothing to look forward to is this, the psychological final week of summer, culminating in the abysmally depressing Labor Day Weekend, when it seems as though everything's at an end, leaving only a void in its wake.
I hate this week. It conjures up the ghosts of childhood, when this was Back to School time, and your mother dragged you away from the pool and your books and into the mall, the hair salon and all of those other places only adults like. Weather-wise, things begin to turn about now. Around here, it happened last weekend. I knew the second I woke up last Saturday that summer was drawing to a close. From now on, you'd want to keep a sweatshirt in your car, you'd want to dig your sturdy jeans out from under all those flimsy tank tops, and you'd want to make sure there was a second blanket on the bed. For the rest of the week, it hovered around 90% humidity, with the temperatures in the sixties, making it chilly and oppressive at the same time.
And everything will end soon. Amusement parks and other summer businesses will close, and other places (including the one I work at) will switch to reduced fall hours. Eight years ago this week, I had my first kiss with the ex I wrote about last month. Seven years ago this week, he left me. Three years ago, the professor I wrote about (who inspired me to stop wasting my time on bad books) was killed in a car crash around this time of year. September 11th is a date that will live in infamy for many in my own generation. Even without all of that, I'm convinced that no one actually likes Labor Day.
So let me ask you all, what do you do in order to get through this time of year? Personally, I wish I could just go to sleep right now and wake up in two weeks. And believe it or not, I actually had a GOOD weekend this week...imagine if my trip to see the BF had not gone well.
I hate this week. It conjures up the ghosts of childhood, when this was Back to School time, and your mother dragged you away from the pool and your books and into the mall, the hair salon and all of those other places only adults like. Weather-wise, things begin to turn about now. Around here, it happened last weekend. I knew the second I woke up last Saturday that summer was drawing to a close. From now on, you'd want to keep a sweatshirt in your car, you'd want to dig your sturdy jeans out from under all those flimsy tank tops, and you'd want to make sure there was a second blanket on the bed. For the rest of the week, it hovered around 90% humidity, with the temperatures in the sixties, making it chilly and oppressive at the same time.
And everything will end soon. Amusement parks and other summer businesses will close, and other places (including the one I work at) will switch to reduced fall hours. Eight years ago this week, I had my first kiss with the ex I wrote about last month. Seven years ago this week, he left me. Three years ago, the professor I wrote about (who inspired me to stop wasting my time on bad books) was killed in a car crash around this time of year. September 11th is a date that will live in infamy for many in my own generation. Even without all of that, I'm convinced that no one actually likes Labor Day.
So let me ask you all, what do you do in order to get through this time of year? Personally, I wish I could just go to sleep right now and wake up in two weeks. And believe it or not, I actually had a GOOD weekend this week...imagine if my trip to see the BF had not gone well.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
An afternoon with my friend Anne
I first encountered Anne Lamott in a writing class in college, where my professor had assigned us Bird by Bird, her book on writing. Since then, I've read one of her novels, Blue Shoe and her books on religion: Traveling Mercies,Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith and, just yesterday, the one BF bought me for my birthday, Grace, Eventually.
To me, her books have become as enjoyable for her insights and sense of humor as for the chance just to see what's up with her. It's like hanging out with an old friend: How's your son Sam doing? How's your pastor Veronica? And what have you been doing since we saw each other last? (I'm not going to tell you how Sam and Veronica are doing; you go get caught up yourself!)
I visit a blog that is occasionally about atheism, and I've been struck that many of those who comment on the blog seem to object less to the idea of God than to the things that have been done in his name. Even if you don't take the long view, the increasing right-wing Christian intolerance of the past 15 years is enough to turn any reasonable person off of religion forever. But it's OK. Anne Lamott writes for what seems to be a dying breed, but judging from the success of her books is probably more like a silent majority. She writes for what I call the "real" Christians: people who live their faith instead of just preaching it, who focus on the loving and healing aspects of religion instead of the judging ones, and are more interested in going to heaven rather than merely avoiding hell. She writes for the ones who oppose war and poverty, and who reach out (as she herself has done) to those in prison, to the elderly, to the developmentally disabled, to others in need of help.
She also writes for the Christians who aren't perfect. Anne Lamott herself has a colorful past, and although she's sobered up, she still has a colorful present. You probably won't see this many swear words in most books in religion, for instance, even those that print lists of words you're not supposed to say or even think. She is very real with her readers. She talks about the times she's given in to the most petty emotions humans feel, and times when she's strayed badly from her path, and how faith has helped her through these times.
She's not preachy or judgmental, she's just kind of saying: "This has worked for me, this is how I personally get through the tough times and through daily life, this is how I've found meaning in my life." These books do belong in the "Inspiration" section, in the truest sense of that word. They always inspire me to do something, whether it's become more active in my community, or to find a new outlook on life. Try one, and let me know if they inspire you too.
To me, her books have become as enjoyable for her insights and sense of humor as for the chance just to see what's up with her. It's like hanging out with an old friend: How's your son Sam doing? How's your pastor Veronica? And what have you been doing since we saw each other last? (I'm not going to tell you how Sam and Veronica are doing; you go get caught up yourself!)
I visit a blog that is occasionally about atheism, and I've been struck that many of those who comment on the blog seem to object less to the idea of God than to the things that have been done in his name. Even if you don't take the long view, the increasing right-wing Christian intolerance of the past 15 years is enough to turn any reasonable person off of religion forever. But it's OK. Anne Lamott writes for what seems to be a dying breed, but judging from the success of her books is probably more like a silent majority. She writes for what I call the "real" Christians: people who live their faith instead of just preaching it, who focus on the loving and healing aspects of religion instead of the judging ones, and are more interested in going to heaven rather than merely avoiding hell. She writes for the ones who oppose war and poverty, and who reach out (as she herself has done) to those in prison, to the elderly, to the developmentally disabled, to others in need of help.
She also writes for the Christians who aren't perfect. Anne Lamott herself has a colorful past, and although she's sobered up, she still has a colorful present. You probably won't see this many swear words in most books in religion, for instance, even those that print lists of words you're not supposed to say or even think. She is very real with her readers. She talks about the times she's given in to the most petty emotions humans feel, and times when she's strayed badly from her path, and how faith has helped her through these times.
She's not preachy or judgmental, she's just kind of saying: "This has worked for me, this is how I personally get through the tough times and through daily life, this is how I've found meaning in my life." These books do belong in the "Inspiration" section, in the truest sense of that word. They always inspire me to do something, whether it's become more active in my community, or to find a new outlook on life. Try one, and let me know if they inspire you too.
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