I'm Kind of a Big Deal and Other Delusions of Adequacy

By Stefanie Wilder-Taylor

New York, Gallery Books, 2011

206 pages    Non-Fiction Essays

Stefanie Wilder-Taylor has been a waitress, a limousine driver, a would-be dating show contestant, a joke writer for television shows, and now is an author of short, humorous essays about her life and her career. I’m Kind of a Big Deal is her third such book. Part memoir, part stand-up act, part sitcom set-up, Wilder-Taylor entertains with short pithy stories about how she almost, but not quite, became something funny, famous, influential, or rich.  A few of the essays are poignant—particularly the essay about her alcoholism and the essay about her father, who used to be “kind of a big deal.” Many are self-deprecating. Most are funny.

The funniest is a letter written to Angelina Jolie following the birth of her twins. Wilder-Taylor has three young daughters including twins, and the letter is a send-up of the differences in the parenting styles of the two families based mostly on Jolie’s ability to afford nannies, housekeepers, and other help. I remember watching an interview with Sarah Jessica Parker when the interviewer remarked about how wonderful she looked following the birth of her son. Parker reminded the interviewer that she was just like all new mothers, except that she had the money to hire a trainer and lots of child care.

I'm Kind of a Big Deal stops being funny when Wilder-Tayler suggests that all her searching for a modicum of fame in the killer atmosphere of Los Angeles had resulted in her becoming an alcoholic. According to a New York Times article, she indicated that drinking became the way she coped with parenting and the other aspects of daily life.  She says, “It seems to be that because I worked so hard to avoid the simple lows, I inadvertently couldn’t experience the simple highs. Now (as a recovering alcoholic) I get them all. And it’s mostly good. The other night I was playing a rousing game of Candy Land with Elby when I realized something: I was always the sort of mom who would be down for a game with the kids but I’d do it knowing that there was an end point and that end point included an adult beverage. All of a sudden I got it: Candy Land is the point.” I was glad that I found the Times article and her website, because it helped me identify with her in ways that her book didn't. I would encourage you to read the article to help you understand Wilder-Taylor better.

Last week we went to see comedian Jerry Seinfeld in Grand Rapids MI. He was marvelous. I was laughing so hard that I was crying and couldn’t catch my breath. In April for my birthday, I saw David Sedaris in Kalamazoo. I had a similar experience. He had one routine about visiting Beijing that had everyone rolling in the aisles and vowing to never visit Beijing. In both cases, both men have such ironic views on life, we laugh at what we know. We see our own humanity in their stories.  And here is my complaint about I’m Kind of a Big Deal. We get too few glimpses of Wilder-Taylor’s humanity. The Kirkus reviewer reflects this opinion: “Wilder-Taylor's often self-deprecating candor is the book’s greatest strength, but also its greatest weakness. While she freely provides gossipy tidbits about her life and adventures, her capacity to move beyond the superficially funny into the meaningfully humorous is lacking.”

I never got to the “rolling in the aisles” point with I’m Kind of a Big Deal, but I was amused. I will probably give the book to my daughters-in-law to read as they sit on the beach watching the children play in the water at Lake Michigan next week. It is a book that can be read in short spurts without a lot of caring involved.

I received the book as part of a blog tour. It hit the bookstores last week.

The Kirkus review: http://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/non-fiction/stefanie-wilder-taylor/im-kind-big-deal/

Stefanie Wilder-Taylor’s website: http://stefaniewildertaylor.com/  These are her observations about parenthood that will probably be her next book. They are very funny by the way.

The New York Times article about Wilder-Taylor: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/fashion/16drunk.html

I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl

By Kelle Groom

New York, Free Press, 2011

238 pages     Memoir

Kelle Groom, the author of I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl, was an alcoholic at 15, and a pregnant college student and mother at 19. The guilt that settled in when she gave her son, Tommy, to an aunt and uncle to raise caused her to descend into the watery depths of alcoholism, self-mutilation, blackouts, and horrendous relationships. The descent continued with the death of Tommy from leukemia when he was barely a year old.

It took Groom several years to become sober, finish her education, and have a career as a creative writing teacher and poet. It took her even longer to ask the necessary questions in order to gain some peace about her son and the circumstances surrounding his death. But for the twenty-five plus years since her son’s death, Groom has visited his grave, watched other children and their mothers, and seen herself in a life she never had. I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl deals primarily with her addiction, her stalled life, and her tentative recovery—all through the lens of her child.

Kelle Groom is a renowned poet, and her memoir is a long prose-poem. The Kirkus reviewer says: “The language of this brooding and obsessive memoir is exquisitely compressed, yet beneath the taut imagery and diction are palpable, powerful surges of emotions.” The heartbreak is so omnipresent that sometimes the beautiful language is the only thing that pulls the reader through. Here is what she says about herself as she begins to recover: “For the first time, I’m grateful for being alive, as an everyday thing. Not just in flashes. I thought I had to become someone I would be willing to approve of, love. I didn’t know I was her already.”

As a woman in her 40s, she has a long weekend visit with her aunt and uncle and is able to talk with them about her son Tommy for the first time, and the three of them arrive at some closure—the pain has been debilitating to them all. On her return to her job she is “reluctant to talk about anything that happened, afraid I would talk it away. The way so many things can be talked away, minimized into anecdote by a listener, a commenter.” A friend told her that the visit had been “a touchstone for change.”  This book, then, becomes that touchstone for change in her life.

Six weeks ago, our son and daughter-in-law waited in the next room while a young college woman gave birth to the baby girl who would become their daughter and our sixth grandchild. Although we were hundreds of miles away, I was there in the room with that young woman, surrounded as she was by her own family. I was so excited for the new parents but in grief for the young woman. How must she be feeling? How palpable must be her agony? Now I know.

Kelle Groom is the author of several books of poetry. This is her first foray into prose literature. I read I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl as part of a blog tour sponsored by the publisher, The Free Press. The book appears on shelves in bookstores today.

Kelle Groom’s website: www.kellegroom.com

This is the trailer for the book: http://vimeo.com/23750495

Fall to Grace: A Revolution of God, Self and Society

by Jay Bakker with Martin Edlund

New York, Faith Words, 2011

205 pages     Spiritual

The question I asked myself when I began reading Fall to Grace by Jay Bakker was: “What can an 68-year-old theological school trained liberal Christian learn about grace from a punked-out thirty something alternative preacher?” The answer is: “A lot!”

Fall to Grace is a study of the Apostle Paul’s book of Galatians. With paraphrased scripture and real-life examples, Jay Bakker makes the case that the message of the New Testament is a message of extravagant grace—grace so overwhelming that it is there for the grasping by anyone. He tells his readers that grace is revolutionary. Instead of an unwinnable game, “Christ presents us with a game we can’t lose.”

After a brief introduction in which Bakker establishes his credibility as the “fallen” son of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, themselves fallen televangelists, he weaves a narrative of revolutionary grace: first the revolutionary grace that changed the course of Paul’s life, the revolutionary grace that changed the course of Jay Bakker, the revolution that comes to the self when grace takes over, and then the revolution that comes to society.

One of his key concepts is that of “grace plus.” He believes that many Christians understand in a limited way the concept of grace, but they are unable to accept it for themselves and others around them without adding a plus to it—and that plus is something else that you have to do in order to be fully accepted by the God who is doling out the grace. “Grace Plus argues that we’re truly saved only if ‘little rules’ are tagged onto the end of receiving grace. This works in subtle and dangerous ways. We don’t talk about circumcision or clean foods in the church anymore, but we do make new rules, just as arbitrary that are used to determine our damnation or salvation.” He says that every generation writes their own version of this and make up new rules to be obeyed, new rules to frighten, and new rules by which to judge others.

One of my favorite concepts is what Bakker calls gossiping about God. He says: “We gossip about God in all sorts of ways. When we tell people that they have to wear the right clothes to church, or listen to the right music, or not see certain movies to be a good Christian, we make God petty and small. When we say that he favors one group of people over another, we make God mean and heartless. When we take it upon ourselves to use God’s judgment to intimidate someone else, we abuse God’s good name."

Bakker feels that once a person accepts the radical grace that is extended from God to everyone, nothing is ever the same. The individual looks at him/herself in a totally different light and looks at those who surround him/her with the same glow of God-induced love and acceptance. This is the message of Galatians and Paul’s message to the world. Accepting God’s grace means looking with new eyes at the world and the people in it.

This is not a new message, but with Bakker’s candid, fresh take on the scripture, it becomes profoundly new once again. It is direct, unvarnished, unwavering. And when Bakker says God’s grace is for all, he truly means “for all.”

I was totally taken aback when I was reading other reviews about Fall to Grace and I came upon a review that condemned the book and Bakker because of his acceptance of GLBT persons as equally worthy of God’s grace. I had to say, “Wait a minute!” Did the reviewer even read this book? Did he even read about “Grace Plus?” Did he even read the stories about grace at work in the lives of families of homosexual young people? Did he even read the Biblical references?

I am the mother of a gay man. At the point that I realized my son was gay, I had to tell myself and those around me that this son was no different than my other son; that this son was conceived and born with the same love, baptized in the same church, raised in the same Christian home. Why would my gay son be outside the grace of God? No arbitrary rule, no judgmental someone, or no legalistic doctrine was ever going to separate my son from God’s love and grace. NO ONE!

This is the message of Jay Bakker’s concept of grace. It is powerful and true, and I was blessed to be reminded of it once again.

This is an excellent review in Christian Review of Books: http://www.christianreviewofbooks.com/index.php?page=view/article/898/Fall-to-Grace-by-Jay-Bakker-with-Martin-Edlund

Here is a lovely review of the Fall to Grace by a fellow blogger: http://www.myfriendamysblog.com/2011/01/review-fall-to-grace-revolution-of-god.htm

Jay Bakker’s New York Revolution Church website: http://www.revolutionnyc.com/ Watch the video from Yale Divinity School.

Jay Bakker was the subject of a six-part Sundance Channel documentary called: One Punk Under God. It is available on Netflix. 

One Good Turn

by Kate Atkinson
New York, Little, Brown, 2006
418 pages     Fiction

Just for the record, I love Kate Atkinson. I think the structure and the characters of One Good Turn are brilliant, and it is a fitting sequel to Case Histories which is the first in the series of four books about Jackson Brodie who “used to be a policeman.” One Good Turn is followed by When Will There Be Good News? and Started Early Took My Dog. You can find my review of Case Histories here: http://mimi-cyberlibrarian.blogspot.com/2010/11/case-histories.html

Jackson Brodie is an ex-cop, ex-private detective, new millionaire, and full-time conflicted personality. The beauty of Jackson Brodie is that he is endearingly conflicted about his relationships, about being the “idle rich,” and about his place in the world. He is, in the eyes of a woman detective, “someone who had weathered the world and still had something left to give.”

Unlike Case Histories, which spans a lot of years, One Good Turn involves a lot of people over a few days. It is the week of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and Jackson comes to be with his girlfriend, Julia, who is acting in a play at one of the venues. Jackson has a lot of time to spare and in his wanderings is involved in an incident of road rage. The people impacted by the incident all spiral together into a total mess of murder and mayhem which sorts itself out over the next few days. Jackson Brodie is not the most important character in the plot; he just happens to be one of those involved.

In a book by Kate Atkinson, it is not the mayhem itself that is important, it is how the carefully crafter characters respond to the mayhem. As the New York Times reviewer says, “how much easier it is to explain a death than to solve a life.” These lives are extremely complex, and the reader finds herself so engrossed in the messed-up lives and messed-up relationships it feels like there are several jigsaw puzzles to be put together.

The plot ties all the diverse characters together. And there are plenty of questions to be answered. Why hasn’t Gloria told the company that her husband, the owner, has had a stroke and is dying in the hospital? How did teenagers Archie and Hamish find the memory stick with Martin’s book on it? What is the mystery involving Martin and a prostitute in Moscow? Who is the girl who washed up on the beach? Who in the world is the man who caused the road rage that caused these events to spiral out of control? Why have we read no more about the man in the Peugeot? And what in the world do the Russian nesting dolls have to do with anything?

Atkinson is such an insightful and humorous writer that I found myself wanting to write down comment after comment and wry insight after wry insight. I wanted to share it all. Let me just share a few. Here is what she says about Martin: “He had never strived for greatness and his reward had been a small life.” Martin’s sister-in-law: “. . . a woman who ran with hyenas.” A gay character: “. . . more camp than a scout jamboree.” Well, I could go on and on. Ultimately, Atkinson is so clever, so funny, and so insightful that the words and phrases fairly jump off the page. This is not the usual stuff of murder mysteries.

The reviewer in The Guardian says this about Atkinson’s writing in One Good Turn: “She’s less interested in bringing perpetrators to justice than in exposing the engines of complicity, weakness and ego that drive seemingly innocent witnesses and victims.” And: “. . .the pleasure of One Good Turn lies in the ride, in Atkinson's wry, unvanquished characters, her swooping, savvy, sarcastic prose and authorial joie de vivre.”

As the book was winding down, and I was sighing with the delight of it all, Jackson Brodie rides off into the sunset in his rented car, windows open with Motown music filling the air. And the Motown group that was singing was the Velvelettes—Kalamazoo’s call to musical fame! It was like the book was written just for me.

Here is the New York Times review: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/books/review/Schillinger.t.html

The review in the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/aug/05/featuresreviews.guardianreview13

An interview with Kate Atkinson on NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6506906

The Case Histories series has been turned into a BBC six-part series with Jason Isaacs in the role of Jackson Brodie. I couldn’t find when it will be on BBC America. Hopefully soon.

A Conflict of Interest

By Adam Mitzner

New York, Gallery Books, 2011

370 pages   Fiction

A Conflict of Interest was a welcome diversion for me from the non-fiction I have been reading for the past week. I was tired of trying to learn something so I could sound knowledgeable on my blog postings. Adam Mitzner has written a law procedural novel that has some surprising twists and turns which leads to a satisfactory conclusion. I enjoyed every minute of it. Pure escapism.

Alex Miller is a young partner in a large New York law firm. At his father’s funeral in Florida, he meets a good friend of his father who is facing prosecution in New York for securities fraud. He asks Alex to represent him. The hefty retainer puts Alex in good stead at the firm, and he is assigned a beautiful second lawyer, Abby, to help him with the case. Just before trial, Alex’s mother is found dead in Florida, an apparent drowning. The trial, his mother’s death, problems in his marriage, and an impending infidelity with Abby all serve to cause the usually unflappable Alex to become unsure of himself and his place in the world. His grounding is his young daughter, and his love for her keeps him moving forward as the world shakes beneath his feet. As Alex deals with the challenges of a difficult client and the fallout following the securities trial, he confronts the demons that would ensnare him and discovers new meaning for his life and the life of his family.

Adam Mitzner knows his way around New York City law firms, and much of the first third of the book establishes his authority as an author who knows this world very well. There may be too much time spent setting the stage, but on the other hand, it is written in a style generous enough that it continues to hold the reader’s interest. Once the premise is firmly established, the law office and courtroom details become minimal and the reader becomes engrossed in the twists and turns of the plot. And the plot is very good. I am always intrigued by characters that face moral dilemmas, and I try to determine what is in the author’s mind as he wrestles with the dilemma. Will the author choose the good and true? Will he choose the morally expedient? Will justice come at the expense of the protagonist? Will the wife forgive? Alex Miller is more finely drawn protagonist than many, and I was satisfied with the final choices he made as a lawyer, a son, a husband and a father. The actions he took were valid and truthful.

It is a good book for a casual read. The characters are interesting, the plot is diverting, and the writing style is more than serviceable. My sister and her husband are veteran police and lawyer procedural novel readers. I am at their cottage today, and their shelves are full of Michael Connolly, and David Baldacci. I will leave A Conflict of Interest here for them to read this summer. I appreciate having received this book from the publicists. It brought me out of a non-fiction funk.

Most bloggers whose reviews I read enjoyed it as I did. The following review confronts some of the weaknesses of the book, which I can understand. However, I wouldn’t let this review keep you from enjoying a great escape.

The Kirkus review: http://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/fiction/adam-mitzner/conflict-interest/

A complementary review in the Seattle Post Intelligencer: http://www.seattlepi.com/default/article/Book-Review-A-Conflict-of-Interest-by-Adam-1370794.php

Adam Mitzner’s website: http://www.adammitzner.com/

                               

Give Food a Chance: A New View on Childhood Eating Disorders

By Julie O’Toole


Portland, Perfectly Scientific Press, 2011

294 pages Non-Fiction

If I had a child that had been diagnosed with anorexia nervosa or some other eating disorder, Give Food a Chance by pediatrician, Julie O’Toole would be my first source of information. It is extremely down-to-earth, comprehensive, and practical. I learned so much.

At the outset, I must say that I had no practical experience with anorexia nervosa, but I have had plenty of experience with children who overeat (my own childhood eating patterns) and children whose diet is extremely specific and narrow (a grandson and a nephew). So, I can understand the trauma that parents experience over the eating (or non-eating) patterns of their children.

O’Toole is very direct in saying that anorexia nervosa is a disease of the brain, and it is “neither a lifestyle choice nor a result of poor parenting, it looks organic, it acts organic, it is organic.” Therefore, it must be treated like a disease; it is biological rather than behavioral. She says, “Diseases of the brain are too severe, the brain being the core of who we are; too affecting of family, school, and social functioning for any approach but a holistic one to work.” In other words, parents, the child, and a team of medical practitioners are needed for an afflicted child to heal.

The major misconception of eating disorders O’Toole dispels is that somehow the disorder is the parent’s fault or that the child is being willful. She affirms strongly that parents seek medical intervention for all sorts of diseases in their children, and anorexia nervosa needs medical intervention as well. Psychological intervention is needed, of course, but the first acknowledgement must be that the child is sick. Parents do not let a child determine whether they receive medical treatment if they have a high fever; parents must not let their child determine whether they will receive medical treatment if they develop an eating disorder.

O’Toole runs the Kartini Clinic in Oregon, which specializes in the treatment of children with eating disorders. In a step-by-step fashion, she outlines their clinic’s methods—diagnosis, food plans, inpatient and outpatient treatment. The book discusses individual cases and individual families, because O’Toole emphasizes that treatment must involve the entire family in order for the child to heal. Eating disorders run in families, and an afflicted parent can influence the entire scheme of treatment.

Throughout the book O’Toole throws in lists of “Clinical Pearls” which summarize the chapters. Because I knew virtually nothing about the subject, I thought the plan for treatment outlined by O’Toole seemed logical and intuitively right. Reviewers have noted that although some of her thinking may be at odds with conventional wisdom, her body of work provides irrefutable results.

I would think Give Food a Chance should be required reading for pediatricians who are on the front line of diagnosis. I plan to give this book to a mother of my acquaintance whose 10-year-old daughter has been diagnosed and is being treated for anorexia. As Dr. O’Toole suggests, this mother needs to be her daughter’s strongest ally.

I received Give Food a Chance through the publicist. It is available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

 Website for the Katini Clinic: http://www.kartiniclinic.com/

What Did I Do Wrong? What to do when you don't know why the friendship is over.

by Liz Pryor
New York, Free Press, 2006
192 pages   Non-Fiction

Liz Pryor is the advice guru on ABCs Good Morning America. She wrote What Did I Do Wrong? several years ago in response to discussions she had been having with women over failed friendships. It is an anecdotal account utilizing conversations with women who have either been dumped by a friend, or women who have done the dumping. The major gift of the book is to let women know that they are not alone in the experience. Pryor does not offer advice, but does have some suggestions; mostly suggestions made by other women involved in the endings of friendships.

She quotes one woman who was dumped by two women who she thought to be her friends. “Women can be vicious. . . Vicious, as in vicious. Some of the worst betrayal in my life has come from the women I’ve known. It must be the way it takes you so off-guard. See, men have been betraying women for centuries. Literature, movies, television, all have warned us to expect betrayal from men, but not so much from women. When a girlfriend betrays you, it’s a shock.”

Pryor tells story after story of betrayal and abandonment. Many of the stories come from the woman who was dumped or abandoned. Many of the “unendings,” as Pryor calls them, come when one friend decides she just doesn’t want to be friends any more, or because she “wants to move on,” or because the friendship just isn’t a good fit any more.

When my daughter was about twelve, her best friend of five years told her they couldn’t be friends anymore because they had “nothing in common.” Rachel said to me, “That’s ridiculous Mom. We have everything in common.” I responded that this was just a momentary blip in their friendship, and of course, I was right. They remained fast friends through high school, and although their lives have taken different roads, they connect frequently. Last week when Rachel was in labor, her friend in Chicago was in constant contact with her. Are they as close as they were as teenagers? Of course not. Do they love and respect each other? Of course they do.

My step-daughter had a very important friendship break apart over religion. Her friend thought that Felicia wasn’t following her religion closely enough and told Felicia that she couldn’t be her friend any more. Felicia says that her hurt was so deep it felt like her friend had died, and she went through all the stages of grief. She has not spoken to her former friend in over a year, and she grieves every time she allows herself to think about it.

When I asked my daughter-in-law if she had an experience to relate, she told one that could have been a story right out of Pryor’s book. It was a story of unreturned phone calls, snubbing, and then a few vicious words on a Facebook posting. She did remind me that the reason why her best friend has remained her best friend since childhood is because they have no expectations for each other. They each have three children and extremely busy careers. If one doesn’t call the other for several weeks—or even months—the other friend understands. It is a friendship of great depth, understanding and a history that transcends pettiness, time, and place.

Here are some questions I have about the kind of friendships that end in other ways than by people moving away from each other or drifting apart because of time and circumstances:

• Can you call a friendship you want out of a “truly close” friendship?

• In a friendship you want out of, are you feeling smothered by your friend?

• Is this a friendship that comes from your children’s friends, or a sports team, or the gym, or some other casual meet-up?

• Do you have more in common than just proximity?

My major concern about What Did I Do Wrong? is that Pryor offers no real advice for either how to dump a friend gracefully or how to accept the end of a friendship gracefully. She does offer some suggestions including letter writing and confrontation, but nothing that a woman could really latch onto. One reviewer suggests: “While the book may be reassuring for a person currently hurting from the end of a friendship, it offers little in the way of real answers as to why friendships end, nor any sort of emphasis into the value of self-inquiry to address why a friendship may have ended. I would have liked to have seen a chapter devoted specifically to the subject of WHY which I felt could have provided readers with wisdom going forward in their relationships.” The book remained superficial, although interesting. I had to question the depth of the relationships and why they were so easy to walk away from in the first place.

I wanted to see a chapter devoted to what makes a good friendship. Also a chapter could have been devoted to good endings to friendships. Sometimes it is OK for friendships to end. Perhaps Pryor has another book in mind which can address these issues. Certainly issues of social media, such as Facebook and email, should emerge in this discussion. I am surprised there was nothing about Facebook and social media in the paperback edition. It is so easy to maintain long distance and long time relationships with social media. It helps keep friendships intact. It can also cause devastating “defriendings” and rude and hurtful comments.

What Did I Do Wrong was an interesting book for me to read because I had a hard time personally relating to it, although I must say that the book probably rings true for a lot of people. My daughter says, “Mom, you’re just not that kind of person.” And what is intriguing about that fact is that my step-son had just told me that one of my strengths as a reader and reviewer was my ability to personally connect with the books I review. This one left me a bit baffled. I had to rely on my children to fill in the blanks for me.

What Did I Do Wrong was published in hard cover several years ago, and has just been released in paperback, most likely to capitalize on Liz Pryor’s new popularity as an advice columnist and television personality. I received this book from the publisher, and it is part of a book blog tour today. Wonder what others are saying?

Liz Pryor’s website: http://www.lizpryor.com/, which, by the way, looks really interesting.

Here is her website at ABC: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/AdviceGuru/