Normal Family

By Chrysta Bilton

Back Bay    2022

272 pages     Memoir

The subtitle, “On Truth, Love, and How I Met My 35 Siblings” created some anxiety in me. I had just watched a documentary called Taken at Birth about Dr. Thomas Hicks, who sold over 200 babies from his clinic in Mississippi in the 1950s and 1960s. I worried that this might be a similar story, but Normal Family has a totally different perspective and is a first-person account of Chrysta Bilton’s life as the daughter of a single gay woman and a paid sperm donor.

Bilton’s mother is quite a character, and Chyrsta and her sister Kaitlyn had a very unstable childhood. Debra, their mother, wanted more than anything for joy in their lives, but because of alcohol, drugs, and an off-and-on career, she was pretty much unable to provide what the girls needed. Jeffrey, their father, shows up whenever Debra pays him to come over, but what they don’t know is that he is regularly donating sperm to a fertility clinic, resulting in more than 35 half-siblings.

As the girls grow up, they come to understand their mother better and see less of their father, who has his own demons. Jeffrey, on the other hand, is beginning to realize that the other children of his sperm may want to know him and starts to reach out as Donor 150. This realization came as a result of a New York Times article about sperm donors and Donor 150. In his own way, he was proud of Chrysta and Kaitlyn, and wanted his other children to know him as well.

Bilton tells this story in such an delightful way that the reader is totally engaged with her life story, the trials she and her sister experienced, and the strength that guided them through to adulthood. At one point, Bilton even tells about how she was dating a guy, who turned out to be her brother. The Kirkus reviewer says, “Bilton’s warts-and-all depiction is sometimes hilarious, sometimes horrifying, always grounded in extraordinary forgiveness and resilience.”

Of course, this happened in the early days of sperm donation and sperm purchase. Now, DNA and ancestry websites help people find their relatives. Chrysta tells about how several of her siblings met each other, in part because of the urging of her husband, who felt that Chrysta needed to have that closure in her life. The meetup made her sister, Kaitlyn, very uncomfortable, and she only stayed for a short time. On the other hand, the meetup helped finish Chrysta's journey.

I have an acquaintance whose son was the sperm donor for a lesbian couple, and they had a beautiful little girl. Right away, the couple  asked my friend if she would fill the role of grandma to the little girl. My friend was thrilled because she doesn’t have any other grandchildren. The little group meets several times a year, and my friend and her granddaughter Zoom with each other frequently. I certainly recommended Normal Family to her. Actually, I would like to recommend it to anyone who likes memoirs. It is fascinating and a “wholly absorbing page turner.” And you thought your childhood was crazy!!!

Chrysta Bilton’s website

Holy Food

 By Christina Ward

Feral House     2023

368 pages     History/Cookbook

The subtitle for Holy Food reads: How cults, communes, and religious movements influenced what we eat.

And here is a summary from the publisher: “Religious beliefs have been the source of food "rules" since Pythagoras told his followers not to eat beans (they contain souls), Kosher and Halal rules forbade the shrimp cocktail (shellfish are scavengers, or maybe G-d just said "no"). A long-ago Pope forbade Catholics from eating meat on Fridays (fasting to atone for committed sins). Rules about eating are present in nearly every American belief, from high-control groups that ban everything except air to the infamous strawberry shortcake that sated visitors to the Oneida Community in the late 1800s. Only in the United States—where the freedom to worship the God of your choice and sometimes of your own making—could people embrace new ideas about religion. It is in this over-stirred pot of liberation, revolution, and mysticism that we discover God cares about what you put in your mouth.”

Until I looked over Holy Food, I really had not considered the food implications of religious movements and cults. I knew that we could get a really good meal in Amish Shipshewana, Indiana, and that cereal came from religious Dr. Kellogg in Battle Creek, Michigan, but I had never looked very deeply into the topic. Christina Ward truly has done an incredible job of delving into the topic of food and religion in the United States. One reviewer says, “As Ward demonstrates, by no means were all relationships wacky, coercive, or deceptive. But the centrality of food to people’s lives meant that again and again—especially in a country that was inventing itself repeatedly over centuries—new ideas about religion came with new ideas about eating and drinking.’

Of particular interest to me was the section on The Lost Tribes of Israel that included the group called the House of David in Benton Harbor, Michigan. When I first moved to Southwest Michigan, we visited the House of David several times. In the early 1900s the cult had created a resort near Lake Michigan that included an amusement park. Because of their vegetarian and kosher background, the resort created an atmosphere that was comfortable for the many vacationing Jewish people from the Chicago area. By the time we got there in the mid-1960s, the House of David was in its last days. Only a few practitioners were left and the amusement park and restaurants were closed. We walked the grounds and imagined what it must have been like in its heyday. Oh, and I do have to say that when my father was a teenager in southern Minnesota, he played a baseball game against the famous House of David baseball team.

I also enjoyed the section about the Kellogg sanitarium in Battle Creek, our neighboring community, and about how Dr. Kellogg created cereal as a way to clean out the bowels. The Seventh Day Adventists, of which Kellogg was a member, is a very strong denomination in Southwest Michigan, in part because of Kellogg’s notoriety. Berrien Springs MI, in the southwest corner of the state, is the headquarters for the Seventh Day Adventists, and they have one of the very best vegetarian grocery stores I have ever been to.

Ward includes lots of very interesting recipes from the many denominations, cults, and cultures. “It is a fascinating exploration of the American soul and table” By the way, there is even a recipe for Funeral Potatoes.

The publisher sent me this amazing book, and I discovered that I had another book by Christina Ward on my Kindle, American Advertising Cookbooks. I've got to look at that book next. 

Sure, I'll Join Your Cult

 By Maria Bamford

Gallery     2023

288 pages     Memoir

It was the title Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult that really caught my attention when the advanced readers copy was offered to me by the publisher. I had been going down a cult rabbit hole with books and TV shows, and I thought Bamford’s book would fit right in.

First, I am sorry to say that I had no idea who the author was because of my lack of familiarity with stand-up comedy. I also had no idea what her interpretation of the word “cult” would be, but I dove into the book and read and laughed my way through it. The book hit home with me on many levels.

I loved her understanding of cults. I had never looked at cults the way she did. She used the term to describe Overeaters Anonymous and other 12-step programs, Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People and even to describe Suzuki violin training. Once she described these programs, I bought into her idea that these are very cult-like although non-religious operations. I completely understood her predilection for joining these organizations to help her out of whatever mental state she was in—and at the same time to participate in something, even when she’s not very good at it.

The Washington Post reviewer says that the book becomes a “portal directly into Bamford’s mind.” The review also suggests that there is an “authenticity to her words that elevates them into something beyond the category of comedy memoir.” The reader is able to identify with her even as we are laughing at her pain and misfortune—because of the very clever way she presents her life to the reader. Each chapter closes with a crazy recipe (not real recipes), and I found myself looking forward to these recipes because they tied the entire chapter together.

I particularly appreciated her honesty about her mental health issues—even though they are told with self-deprecating humor. She mentions in the introduction: “I do not know what I’m talking about. And full disclaimer: cults, books, books about cults, and comedy are no replacement for meds. Medicine is the best medicine.”

I listened to the first third of the book on a car trip and then read the rest on my Kindle. I recommend that you listen if you can. The audio version of the book is extremely funny because it is read by the author, and she has a quirky and wonderful way of emphasizing words, sentences, and even whole paragraphs that makes listening a fantastic experience.

I watched several YouTube videos of Bamford’s comedy and a couple episodes of her Netflix series, Lady Dynamite. So, I was really surprised when I read that she had grown up in Duluth, Minnesota, my hometown. She had even gone to the same elementary school my siblings and I had attended. More than that, her mother had belonged to the same women’s organization that my mother had belonged to and her father had been active in the community theater—just like my dad.

More of the Washington Post review: “Some of her misadventures—among them, being committed to a psych ward and accidentally killing a beloved pug — feel like anything but laughing matters. But it’s a testament to Bamford that she’s able to fill these pages with stories that are relatable and consistently hilarious, even when they’re harrowing … This material, and the quirks of its presentation, make the memoir feel like a 270-some-page portal directly into Bamford’s mind. That notion would probably be terrifying to Bamford, who worries frequently on the page that she may be coming across as a massive narcissist. But there’s an authenticity to her words that elevates them into something beyond the category of comedy memoir.”

Recommended

Small Things Like These

 By Claire Keegan

Faber     2022

110 pages     Literary

When I was a girl in the 1960s, I knew a couple of girls who disappeared from school for several months, only to return after “visiting some relatives” or “living with Grandma and Grandpa.” Claire Keegan explores this all-too-common occurrence in her 2022 Booker Prize-nominated novella, Small Things Like These. And just like in 1960s Minnesota, in 1980s Ireland, these things are not talked about and remain a secret.

Small Things Like These is so intricately woven in only 110 pages, that I realized after I read it the first time that I was missing something. So I read it again, and my heart broke at the integrity of Bill Furlong, an almost 40-year-old man who owns the village coal and lumber company. Bill is married and the father of five daughters. He is a stalwart, well-respected  member of the community. He goes to mass every week and his daughters go to school and get music training at the school run by the local nuns. One day he makes a discovery that makes him confront both his past and the complicit silence of his community—a community completely controlled by the Catholic Church.

Christmas plays a role in the story line. In one delightful scene, Furlong’s children all write letters to Santa with their lists of presents. Bill and his wife Eileen read the letters after the children go to bed, choose the presents they can afford from the list, and then burn the letters in the fireplace. We are made completely aware of the unity and the love within this family.

Yet Furlong yearns for more. This paragraph is profound in the way he thinks about life. “Always it was the same, Furlong thought; always they carried mechanically on without pause, to the next job at hand. What would life be like, he wondered, if they were given time to think and reflect over things? Might their lives be different or much the same—or would they just lose the run of themselves?”

Claire Keegan is one of Ireland’s most prominent authors, and this was the first book I had read written by her. It is brilliant in the concept as well as in the composition. I am absolutely amazed at her ability to say so much in so few words. We understand Bill Furlong; we understand his community; and we understand the secret the community is holding. I was overwhelmed.

Two awesome reviews of her book.  New York Times and NPR.

A Darker Shade of Noir

Edited by Joyce Carol Oates

Akashic Books     2023

266 pages     Noir/Horror

Joyce Carol Oates has written a remarkable introduction to A Darker Shade of Noir, Akashic Books’ newest addition to their collections of Noir fiction. It really tells you everything you need to know about the book and its outstanding group of women authors, each of whom contributed a story to the collection, including Oates, Margaret Atwood, Tananarive Due, and Megan Abbott—authors that I knew about and had read before. The introduction can be found here.

 The stories in the collection tell every type of modern versions of female-related horror similar to the mythological figures whose names we know, such as Medusa, or the Salem witches. Each of the stories considers one type of female horror. For example, “Frank Jones” by Aimee Bender really captures your attention when she tells the story of a young woman with skin tags that she saves to horrifying results. The woman in the next story by Tananarive Due can’t stop dancing. She has been dancing ever since her grandmother died.

I think most women understand the idea of body horror in its more basic forms, as well as the history of the subjugation of women through the centuries. Joyce Carol Oates addresses this superbly in the written diary of a woman in a mental asylum in the mid-1800s. And, of course, there is the accounting by Margaret Atwood of a snail that invades a woman’s skull, her soul, and her psyche. Way creepy!

But I really got spooked by Megan Abbott’s story about a haunted house in Penny’s neighborhood. Apparently the doctor who owned the house killed his wife and children many years before. Through the years, neighborhood children told the story of the killing and the haunting. Young Penny decides to investigate one night to disastrous results. I remembered a big deserted house on the river in the small Minnesota town I lived in as a child. The really brave kids would run up the steps and knock on the door on Halloween. One Halloween,  I thought I saw a light in one of the upstairs rooms, and everyone ran out of that yard as fast as we could! I had a bad dream the night I read Abbott’s story!

I could go on and on. These are marvelous stories that touched a real nerve—in both my body and my mind. Highly recommended.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Saving Myles

By Carl Vonderau

Oceanview     2023

33 pages     Thriller

It is every parent’s worst nightmare: Wade and Fiona Bosworth are shocked to find that their 18-year-old son, Myles,  is using drugs and may even be selling them.  They had already spent a huge amount of money at a drug-rehab program at the Hidden Road Academy in Utah, and now, he seems to have stooped even lower. The stress has caused his parents to separate, and the carefully crafted training Myles has been under has crashed. He has a new girlfriend, and together they cross the border to Tijuana to buy drugs to sell.

Myles is kidnapped by a drug cartel, and the kidnappers are asking a huge amount of ransom. Although Wade is a banker, he does not have the resources to meet the ransom demands until Fiona’s boss at the nonprofit she works for says he can help with the ransom. Everything in all of their lives falls apart at the moment.

The first half of Saving Myles is very much concerned with Myles’ welfare—his training at the Academy, his rebellion, his kidnapping, and the ways his parents negotiate to pay the ransom with help from Andre, Fiona’s boss. It is then that Wade’s banker training kicks in. We learn more than we might want to learn about real estate bankers, the complexities of banking, and possible collusion with rich Mexican criminals. Everything bogs down for a while, and then in the last quarter of the book, we reach a satisfactory conclusion on all fronts.

It is obvious that Vonderau knows a lot about banking, because, of course, his first career was as a banker. I have often chuckled about how many thriller authors are former lawyers, and now we have a banker. The kind of business he does is very much like the kind of business my husband did, real estate investment. I understood the complexities that Wade is negotiating as he works to find the money to pay the kidnappers, but I could only imagine what the reader who knows nothing about this type of finance is thinking.  Luckily, readers are so concerned about saving Myles that they can just read through the morass of business dealings.

In other words, the worry about Myles supersedes the complexities of the narrative. One reviewer says, “Carl Vonderau masterfully weaves a complex and twisted narrative, exploring the depths of a parent’s love when faced with seemingly unfathomable criminal situations, intrigue, suspense and tension.”

I don’t think that I would have found Saving Myles on my own, but it came to me from the publisher. The cover and description intrigued me, and the tension of the plot kept me reading. I think you will as well.

Carl Vonderau website.

The Cabin

 By Landon Beach

Landon Beach Books     2019

327 pages       Thriller

On we go to Lake Ontario and another book by Landon Beach, part of his Great Lakes Saga series of books. While Lake Huron is a major part of Huron Breeze, which I read last week, Lake Ontario is just a minor player in The Cabin. Here is the summary.

“A potential worldwide catastrophe looms large, while CIA Officer Jennifer Lear waits in a Berlin café to meet with her agent who has critical information regarding the chilling emerging threat. But the agent is late, and the meeting turns into a frantic struggle to survive, generating many questions about how it all could have gone so wrong--the first being: Who exactly is Jennifer Lear?

Six months later, Iggi and Maria Hilliard arrive at their secluded log cabin on the southern shore of Lake Ontario to celebrate the 4th of July with two friends. One is a co-worker of Maria's, Haley Girard, who is struggling with the idea of turning thirty and just looking for a place to relax away from Rochester. The other guest is recently divorced Detroit Detective Cal Ripley, a man who has been on the front lines since 9/11 and needs time away from his job and Detroit.

The plan is to relax, reflect on life, and reconnect. Maria is also hoping that Haley and Cal find some chemistry. However, as the weekend unfolds, it becomes clear that not everyone in the cabin is who they say they are.”

One of the major attractions of the book are the delightful main characters, who are all in their early 30s and are trying to make sense of adulthood. Maria, a teacher, is trying to connect her friend and fellow teacher, Haley, with Cal, who she knows from her youth. Iggi, a sports journalist, is not particularly eager to spend the weekend with people he doesn’t know, but as the weekend wears on, and the men kayak and swim, they realize that they have more in common than they anticipated.

The plot is intense, and the reader gets so caught up in the unfolding espionage that it is very difficult to turn out the lights and go to sleep. I guess that I was expecting The Cabin to be more like Huron Breeze as a mystery set on a beach, but instead the beach is only part of the setting. The story spends time in Detroit, Berlin, Vietnam, New York City, and Langley Virginia.  Be sure to read the title of each chapter, because the time, the year, and setting changes in every chapter, and reading each title carefully will eliminate confusion that may arise.

Much of the story takes place in the early 2000s, with 9/11 still very present in everyone’s minds. There is quite a lot of political discussion—some of it quite intense. Frankly, I found this to be the one drawback to the novel. There is no denying, however, that the action and suspense overrides the politics.

Landon Beach has had an interesting career as an educator—and now a novelist. I love that he has based most of his novels around the Great Lakes. He was interviewed by The Real Book Spy, Ryan Steck, who by the way is a Kalamazoo writer and reviewer. Steck has reviewed most of Landon Beach’s books. Tune in to his great interview podcasts.

Landon Beach website. Here is what he has to say about his Great Lakes Saga, of which The Cabin is the Lake Ontario setting. “I have always thought that the Great Lakes region, beautiful and rich with history, would provide the perfect place to set stories. My approach for the 5-book saga is to tell one story set on or around each Great Lake. Don’t let the different genres dissuade you. The books are all summer reads full of drama, tension, betrayal, murder, lust, romance, mystery, and suspense.”

So now, my summer reading journey is complete. I have re-read The Long Shining Water (Lake Superior), Famous in a Small Town and Tom Lake (Lake Michigan), Huron Breeze (Lake Huron), Cleveland Noir (Lake Erie) and The Cabin (Lake Ontario). Where shall I go next?