Pat Benatar review for WVFC

I reviewed Pat Benatar's memoir for WVFC.

And now I can confess... I'm pretty sure I had Pat Benatar and Joan Jett confused for the first third of the book.

Whoops.

Still, a good book. A woman rocker of substance and ethics, balancing family and music. Impressive!

How Did You Get This Number-- A book that has my number!

How Did You Get This Number
Sloane Crosley
Riverhead Books July 2010

I'm absolutely sheepish about how long it's taken me to read and review this. I got a copy from a very nice publicist, Katie Grinch, who also sent me Crosley's first book. And then my plan was to read the second... with a few books in between. Surely, by mid-August?

Oops!
And double oops... because the second essay in this collection was so resonantly right on target, I wanted to hug the book. "Lost in Space" felt like something I could have written. Having miserable trouble keeping the SAT answer sheets straight with those bubble answers and the booklet. Getting off at the wrong side of a familiar looking subway entrance every single time. Utter helplessness with maps and schedule grids. Yes. Me too, Sloane. Me! TOO! Though I haven't found a funny way to write about it, or the courage. Yet?

"Whatever natural inability I had to orient myself, I had doused with a self-made need to cover it up. People get lost and invert numbers. They make plans for Tuesday the 16th when the 16th is a Wednesday. Most people would claim that they are 'terrible with' something. Names, dates, places. Even make-believe characters on TV had these problems. But did they feel the need to lie about them afterward?"

Beyond my wanting to scan "Lost in Space" into my computer and send it to just about everyone in my family, and a few friends, too... the rest of the essay collection is good, solid writing. Crosley's at her best, her funniest, writing about New York. I should do a bit of Googling to read reviewers who don't share a city with the author. It would be interesting to see how her rants about apartment hunting, or even the oddities of teen girlhood and movies, play out to a reader who can't smile and laugh knowingly. Sometimes it's awkward, mostly it's funny. An excellent book to read and pass to friends you love for a shared sense of humor.

"Lost in Place," though... that made the book for me.

Short Reviews Round-Up

This was Sassymonkey's idea.

Put a bunch of small reviews in one post, so as not to get bogged down in writing a whole long post. Hopefully, this will limber up my brains for the reviews I actually have due to the Ledger.
It amazes me that I'm still keeping a list of the books I've read this year, and it's getting into the 80s!
A sampling:
Prime- Poppy Z. Brite. Picks up where Liquor left off, with G-Man and Rickey running a restaurant in New Orleans. I really like Rickey and G-Man, I like their relationship, and the way they play off each other. Mouth-watering descriptions of food, this time steak as well as fusion cuisine. Oh, and good, sordid murder mystery. Finding a mystery this well done is rare.
I Still Dream About You- Fannie Flagg. (will be released Nov 9.) Tremendous fun- eccentric midlife ladies running a real estate agency. Cozily improbable plot twists. A fun, fast read that made me smile.
Buffy Season 8. Joss Whedon, and many talented artists. Technically, this is a series of books, or of comics bound into issues. I only realized a few weeks ago that I could get these from the library, and so I'm chugging my way through. I love what they can do with improbable plot twists, freed from the limits of television. And, although the dialogue is as fantastic as ever (one of the things Joss does especially well) I wish I could hear the voices. Not just because of Giles' accent.

The Purity Myth

The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession With Virginity is Hurting Young Women
by Jessica Valenti
Seal Press
2009 $24.99 263 pages

Valenti takes a thoughtful look at the idea of virginity, how it's symbolized, fetishized, how it can't be measured, and how it sets up a dichotomy for women between pure-passive-ideal, and problematic sullied-sexual. Reading this right after both a book exploring Christian pop culture and a book about rock stars as dads made for a fascinating juxtaposition.  The last chapters of Radosh's book address the purity balls that begin Valenti's discourse, making for a really interesting bridge between the two.

And forcing me to think about the disturbing, gruesome idea of purity balls, or of fathers taking their daughters out on "dates," to reinforce the idea of fathers as the guardians' of daughters chastity, til the daughters are handed off to husbands in marriage. Yikes!

I spent most of Valenti's book cringing, or angry. Where Radosh, exploring purity balls in a pop Christian context, is anthropologically bemused at weird customs, Valenti is angry and often incisively sarcastic. And she brings the reader along for the whole troubling ride. I spent most of reading this book alternately cringing and being outraged, being glad I grew up in New York, and even in a Catholic school, had decent, sane sex-ed. Thank God! How did abstinence ed ever get to be federally funded, anyway?  But New York doesn't make me immune... This is the kind of book that stays with you, makes you more alert to questioning media and news.

Timely, then, for the  media coverage about Ines Sainz being harassed by the Jets to show up on the news. And make me mad on a whole other level. What does it matter how she was dressed? As a football fan and a media consumer, this makes me very angry. Bad enough that Jets players were being disrespectful jerks, but every time I read about news coverage that questions how she was dressed, I want to scream.

It's right there- in rhetoric about sexuality and ownership and purity, in Valenti's book. As I was reading this, reading about Girls Gone Wild, conservative moral panic about girls being powerless... I started to wonder about other people choosing to read Valenti's book. I like the idea of high school and college classes discussing it- high school teens would be fine with Valenti's pithy humor and conversational prose. I wonder, though, if the people reading it are the ones who, like I did, will have their beliefs confirmed and echoed. Women should own their bodies and decide about their sexuality. Sex isn't bad. It's a good idea to be informed about it. What you say, "no," or "yes please" decides whether you want sex, no matter what you wear. Being reminded that not everybody takes these assumptions for granted, and being reminded of media constructions that pervasively don't... just makes me angry.

I'd kind of like to mail a copy to Elisabeth Hasselbeck. (Again, the football connection for me. Mrs Conservative Whackjob on the View is the wife of a football player who used to be my fantasy QB. Didn't drop him cause she's awful, but because he wasn't giving me yardage.)

But I think-- that this is the kind of book that won't necessarily change someone's beliefs, but provide an array of sources for evidence and well structured arguments, for someone getting into this kind of discussion, or paying keener attention to media messages.

Fortunately for this kind of book making me fume-- Valenti does conclude with a few chapters and resources on further taking action. Blogs and books for further reading and understanding. Acknowledgments that it's hard to enact a vision of "a post virgin world" where virginity is irrelevant and a sexual double standard is atrocious-- yes, absolutely. But she provides a convincingly inspired map to further reading, even ways to inspire legal and social activism and greater discussion.

Don't know what I'm going to read next... I'm working my way through Buffy Season 8, which might be a very good follow up here.

How's Your Dad?- Book Review

How's Your Dad? Living in the Shadow of a Rock Star Parent
Zoe Street Howe
Omnibus Press Sept 2010, $24.95, 272 pages

Chatty, and loaded with stories about debauched dads and devoted ones, this was a great fun read. Even when name-checking rockers I only vaguely knew. (For example, I couldn't have told you any of the names of members of Yes, before reading this.) Some of the characterizations were about what I expected. Ozzy Osborne, Frank Zappa, and Brian Wilson are legendarily weird. Yoko Ono is beyond strange, with John a huge presence in both his son's lives. Reading this, I really felt for Julian. Of course living in their houses would be strange. I knew Paul McCartney gave his kids a cozy and supportive home life.

Some stories of sweet moments made me grin. I love the Rolling Stones. So seeing Keith Richards be a proud and caring dad made me say "aww" out loud (and earned me a couple odd looks on the subway.) Ringo telling inept bedtime stories made me giggle.

The book was well organized, with chapters devoted to the kinds of things fans and readers would most want to know. What's teenage embarrassment like, when your father is famous, and sometimes badly behaved? What are tour buses like when you're a toddler? The answer- apparently great fun. Unsurprising. Of particular interest in discussions of children who went for the music business- not every father helped launch a musical kid. Though some later played together, some talented dads seemed to shrug and let their kids figure it out. Drugs- for father rockers who used with their kids, and the dads who impressed me more, by steering their children away from drugs. Discussions of absent fathers, whether standoffish or touring, were well constructed, affecting without being mawkish.

On the whole- a fantastic book. There were a few bits that lost me, because the book is definitely British. So I was missing a little bit of the context on some of the rockers and their kids, as well as some of the events. But, keeping it mostly a British perspective makes sense. As the author quotes Bob Geldof, "London doesn't have a Hollywood," so rockers are the reigning and most interestingly lionized celebrities.


Thanks to Beth Brody for sending me this to review.

Starting From Scratch- book review

Starting From Scratch
Susan Gilbert-Collins
Touchstone, August 2010 $16.00 336 pages

Introducing the Tschetter sisters as they mourn the death of their mother, Vivian, provides an immediate, and intimate view of their relationship to each other and to their father, as they attempt to piece their lives back together. One sister's a successful local meteorologist. One sister's balancing the demands of a husband and children with her own health puzzle. Their brother is attempting to find love with such perplexity that it becomes a family joke.

And one sister, Olivia, appears to be frozen in place. She's spent months living at home, cooking elaborate meals from her mother's cookbooks, not finishing her doctorate. Her aimlessness and grieving are just as obvious to her family as to the reader. I feel mean addressing Olivia's food-as-grieving psychology as plausible, but contrived. Her sisters are just as frustrated with her aimlessness as I was. I don't understand why she doesn't tell them she's already defended her thesis, or why brooding over that revelation occupies her to that extent.

Olivia's family gives her a kick in the butt, to start doing work at Meals on Wheels, and finish her mother's last issue of the newsletter, Cooking With Vivian. Despite her determination to stay standoffish, she finds herself relaxing, even reaching out to someone connected to her mother's past, and re-engaging in family life, with its ordinary, life-goes-on dramas. (I love the big Tschetter clan, eating, fighting, talking, laughing. Reminds me of Thanksgiving.)

Reading about Olivia's deliberate aloofness confused me, even annoyed me in spots. Again, I feel mean for judging even a fictional character's grieving process, but I found Olivia's interior life hard to read. Is it shyness? Anguish? Her sisters seem like such good sisters, ready to reach out and help her, if she'd let them, even though life without their mother is just as hard on them. Olivia's aunts are ready to share the work of cooking, if Olivia would only reach out. Once Olivia begins to emerge from isolated brooding and reconnect, the book gets much more interesting. And to my delight, there are recipes at the back of the book. Haven't tried them yet, but definitely curious about the pink dessert.

(thanks to Shida Carr at Touchstone/Simon and Schuster, for sending me this to review.)

Jesus Junk and Thoughtful Prose

Rapture Ready! Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture
Daniel Radosh
Scribner, 2008. Hardcover $25.00 310 pages

I picked this up at the book swap. I don't really know much about Christian pop culture or evangelical Christian life, beyond a news article here and there or a commercial for mail order CDs of bands with people swaying. So I came to it with more of a sense of voyeurism than I really wanted to admit.

I'm impressed with the extent of Radosh's study. He did thoughtful interviews with Christian bookstore owners, authors, media developers, skateboarders(!!!) musicians, pastors, TV personalities, and historians and academics who also studied Christian pop culture from different perspectives. Of course, everywhere he went, he encountered consumers of these various forms of Christian media, from teens at concerts to parents, to church staffers.
What impressed me most was how respectful these encounters were. Mutually respectful, even when discussing charged issues around faith. Some of the evangelical Christians Radosh interviewed came to their respect for him out of an odd misinterpretation. (Variations on "You're Jewish! You're God's Chosen people! Jesus was Jewish!!" left a few nuances to be desired.) Radosh kept his discussion respectful, by acknowledging his own misapprehensions (chiding himself for looking for "miniature Pat Robertsons" and being surprised by thoughtful discussions.)
For the most part, Radosh let people within the Christian community provide their own analysis of trends and beliefs, whether as scholars or as people talking about their own community. That kind of clear description placed commentary properly in context, and made for a great read. Great reporting, too, I think. Including some surprising scenes- Christian stand up comedy, dance club culture, and wrestling! Yes, pro wrestling, as a Christian allegory. Not kidding. Fascinating. Radosh and his sources impressed me by not shying away from some of the tougher issues- like belief versus action, charity versus consumption, and even questions about choice or sexuality.

True to form, I was most interested in the discussions of Christian books and music, what they say, how they're marketed, how they're consumed. There are New Testaments marketed to teens to look like teen magazines with glossy covers about crushes and quizzes! Different people and institutions hold the rights to different translations and interpretations of the Bible, including specialty marketing niches like families, women, even skateboarders. Speaking of skateboarders- Stephen Baldwin, Alec's brother, is heavily involved with an evangelical skateboarding group. Christian musical culture is a lot more complex than "sing love songs to Jesus in whatever genre." Radosh's discussion of the Christian music culture hinges on three main types: separational- characterized by a desire to be out of the mainstream, and sing more overtly about God, integrational- where lyrics aren't exclusively tied to Jesus because the artists see themselves as entertainers and artists primarily, rather than embroiled in their ministry. The third category, transformational, is what Radosh's source describes as more complex musically and lyrically, 'getting people to ask all the right questions," even if that means talking about failure and doubt. Much more nuanced and self aware than, I admit, I was entirely expecting.
But- the entire book works along those lines- challenging my expectations with thoughtfulness and information, and a glimpse into a different, wholly realized perspective.
Will definitely keep this on my shelf for rereading, and possibly handing off to friends who might be similarly intrigued.

Plain Kate (book review)

Plain Kate
Erin Bow
Arthur A. Levine
September 2010 336 pages

I picked this one up at the Book Expo, knowing only that it was "YA fiction with some magic and supernatural." So I knew I was probably going to like it.
But... wow. Just. Wow.

Plain Kate, a girl who's "as plain as a stick," is a talented woodcarver. So talented, that the townsfolk murmur of witchcraft, a rumor that could spell a death sentence, especially as the town suffers famine and looks for someone to blame, or to burn. Fleeing for her life, she strikes a bargain with the mysterious albino, Linay. (Has anyone ever noticed how albinos are almost always bad, or at least dubious, news in literature?) He asks for her shadow, in exchange for helping her to escape. Because magic is always a trade, an exchange. At first, Plain Kate thinks that life without a shadow is no big deal, and that all her problems are solved. But--- the creeping mist that leaves sleeping sickness, famine and destruction in its wake, appears to be following Kate, leaving its menacing mark on those she cares about. It may be that Linay's gift was also a curse, and needs to be undone.

I appreciated the way Bow set up her magic system, and her world in general. There are strong elements of Russian culture and of gypsy culture, reimagined and set against a magic system that relies on gifts, sacrifices and bargains. Bow's apparently won poetry prizes- and you can tell, in the rhythms of her language and her story. The rules and names she sets up for magic and belief underpin her story's culture, making it whole with its own internal logic. It has the wonderful depth of a newborn fairy tale, one with unfamiliar twists and turns, but the heft of tradition behind it.

A densely, dreamily magic tale, well-told, Plain Kate reminded me of several of my favorites. If you're a fan of Robin McKinley, particularly Sunshine or Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast. Read this if you like the way Guy Gavriel Kay, or Jacqueline Carey draw on recognizable history and culture to fuel their fantastic stories.
For me, this story unfurled in a similar, excellent way to Karen Healey's Guardian of the Dead. Plain Kate is also grounded in a reinvention of a culture's mythic and symbolic history, towards an inventive and engrossing story.