Kristin Conard

Tillie Olsen: One Woman, Many Riddles

admin — Sun, 30 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Part of Panthea Reid’s title seems to allude to Tillie Olsen’s 1961 collection of short stories, Tell Me a Riddle. It also seems to highlight the layers of complexity in a woman hailed as an iconic writer and feminist. Reid doesn’t idealize Olsen. This was a woman who began lying at a young age and continued throughout her life. She cheated on her husband, cheated Random House out of an advance for a book she never wrote, and cheated her daughter out of the experience of having a devoted and attentive mother. However, Reid does give full credit to Olsen’s work as a writer, feminist, and social activist. All great figures in history, I feel, have complicated relationships to the world and to other people. It is important to understand and acknowledge a great figure’s humanity as well as celebrating his/her greatness.

Reid was able to interview and get information from Olsen herself before Olsen’s death in 2001, and she also spoke with Olsen’s siblings, one of her daughters, other relatives, and Olsen’s colleagues and fellow writers. The book is well-researched and provides an in-depth look at her life. It doesn’t seem to have been an easy task for Reid. Reid worked on the book for ten years, and the ins and outs of Olsen’s life seem at times overwhelming.

Olsen had many roles throughout her life, and in a quote from her diary from age eighteen, she wrote: “With dozens of selves, quarreling and tearing at each other—which then is the natural self? ...None.” This seems fitting for a woman who ended up intertwined in some of the century’s most historic moments: she was a communist and revolutionary in the 1930s, promoted equal work for equal pay in the 1940s, earned the nickname “Tillie Appleseed” for planting the seeds of feminism and women’s studies, was an anti-war activist in the 1960s and 1970s, and was investigated by the FBI for subversion. The book is broken down by chapter into time periods from “Magnetic Personality: 1925-1929” and “Early Genius: 1934” to “Image Control: 1981-1996” and “Enter Biographer: 1997-2007.” It includes some black and white photographs of Olsen from childhood through to adulthood.

Reid doesn’t necessarily unravel all the riddles around Olsen, but she does an incredible job at bringing the parts of the riddles to light. We see Olsen as a self-absorbed and manipulative woman; Reid definitely knocks Olsen off any saintly pedestal. But she does this without lessening the impact of Olsen’s work. The book is readable and engaging; it isn’t just for scholars.

Written by: Kristin Conard, May 29th 2010

Makeover TV: Selfhood, Citizenship, and Celebrity

admin — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:01:00 +0000

By Brenda R. Weber

Duke University Press

Makeovers are everywhere in today’s society, though I had never really given much thought to them until I read Brenda R. Weber’s Makeover TV. Weber points out that we are making over everything: bodies, houses, cars, hair, lifestyles, wardrobes, and even pets. Now that I am more sensitive to it, I realized we seem to be obsessed with change. Nearly every magazine cover focuses on how to change something (get better abs in thirty days) or someone who has already changed something (like Heidi Montag’s new body and face).

Televised makeovers are being consumed not only by those featured in the show, but also by a large viewing audience. What is emphasized throughout, no matter what the show, is that there are definitely the "right ways" and "wrong ways" to do things. The more you go with the flow and only stand out in ways that are determined to be aesthetically pleasing, the more people will love you and, therefore, the more you will love yourself.

The role of shame is emphasized in all of the makeover scenarios. Whether the people featured have nominated themselves or by friends and family, they are made to feel embarrassment for their actions. To simplify Weber’s well-crafted and researched prose, if one really cares about oneself, one wouldn’t let these things happen; one would keep a cleaner house, wear better fitting and trendy (but not flashy) clothes, weigh less, and have a nicer car, a more obedient child, and a well-trained pet. Once the shame has been heaped upon the person's head, the pieces are picked up and fashioned into a gender-normative, middle to upper middle class ideal of life.

Weber provides a critical analysis of makeover TV. The book isn’t light reading, as the text can be dense and often references academic studies, with an emphasis on the psychological; however, it is still accessible for non-specialized readers. She includes quotes from the shows and the occasional image to illustrate her points.

It was a bit scary to realize how right Weber is, and that so much “entertainment” on TV is focused on making people conform to the norm. Makeover TV is a good, eye-opening read.

Written by: Kristin Conard, March 12th 2010

Goodbye Wifes and Daughters

admin — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:01:00 +0000

By Susan Kushner Resnick

University of Nebraska Press

In 1943, as the world dealt with trauma and tragedy in Europe and the Pacific during World War II, another catastrophe unfolded in Bearcreek, Montana. The Smith Coal Mine was one of the largest employers for the town, and the men worked six days a week around the clock to help provide coal for the war effort. But one morning, a fire broke out in the mine and 80 miners were trapped underground with little hope for escape. The rescue effort took days, and many women and children of the town waited with little rest or food outside of the mine waiting to see if their loved ones would come out alive. Only three made it out. One small group of miners holed up in a passageway, trying to trap and save some precious oxygen and block the poisonous carbon monoxide. As they waited, they wrote messages, and one wrote “Goodbye wifes[sic] and daughters.”

In the book of the same name, Susan Kushner Resnick tracked down the stories of what had happened. She interviewed family members and townspeople and tracked down newspaper reports, correspondence and other information to bring the 60+-year-old story to life. It reads quickly and smoothly. As a reader, you know what’s going to happen, the explosion is inevitable as is the death toll, and yet, Resnick keeps the book moving and engaging throughout.

The tragedy tore the community apart with the deaths of main earners in many families. Some women lost multiple loved ones: husbands, fathers, brothers, and uncles. Some men had to pull their fathers, grandfathers, or brothers bodies from the mine. But, it has also held the community together in a way. In present day Bearcreek, there are still anniversary events that commemorate the tragedy.

Resnick looks into those at fault for the fire and subsequent explosions. Faulty equipment, mismanagement, safety measures ignored in place of higher profits seemed to combine to cause the disaster, and yet the widows of the miners were given no money by the Montana Coal and Iron Company, who was, arguably, to blame.

I would have liked more information about the responses of the women after the tragedy, though the women are definitely mentioned and featured throughout. How did the women piece their lives back together? For those who left the town, were they ever able to leave the tragedy behind? For those who stayed, did they ever revisit the mine? Were all the deaths mourned? How did those who may have lost abusive or angry husbands or fathers responded (sadness, relief, and guilt, I would imagine)? Resnick touches on these questions, though I wanted more. Yet, perhaps it is unspeakable to sit and wait for days on end for the body of your husband or father. Perhaps some stories cannot be told.

Written by: Kristin Conard, February 10th 2010

Murder in the Name of Honor: The True Story of One Woman's Heroic Fight Against an Unbelievable Crime

admin — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 09:00:00 +0000

By Rana Husseini

Oneworld Publications

Rana Husseini is a journalist from Jordan, and in Murder in the Name of Honor, she writes of the aftermath and trauma of honor killings in Jordan and around the world that she has researched and witnessed. Honor killings are defined as the murder of a woman by a family member(s), usually a man or men, because the woman has in some way brought dishonor upon the family. Some of the examples of dishonor, and reasons for death, include rape, marrying without permission, leaving home, falling in love, or even the rumor of impropriety. In some countries, including her home country of Jordan, the punishment for the murderer is generally quite lenient, under five years in prison. While some believe that honor killings only take place in Jordan and neighboring countries, in fact, there is a disturbingly large number of killings that take place in the Western world, including America.

Husseini has become determined to shed light on honor killings and to change the laws that allow those who commit the killings such lenient punishments. The book traces her journey of reporting and researching the crimes throughout the world. It is filled with touching and terrifying anecdotes, along with the challenges of trying to change minds and laws. Many “tribal” customs and courts support the killings; a family’s honor, but most particularly a man’s honor, is to be held in the greatest esteem. In the cases of these murders, a man’s honor is worth more than a woman’s life. Women going to the police or authorities can face disbelief or they are simply returned to their families, and it is the families that are the women’s worst enemies in these cases.

Husseini also addresses the challenge faced by such a polarizing and politicized issue; it can be easy to stereotype and assume; however, she makes it clear that not all men and women from Jordan (including Jordanian royalty), or other countries where honor killings are prevalent, believe that murder is honorable. With the interviews that she conducted with some of the murderers, many stated remorse and regret over the actions, but most state that they had no choice. It was something that had to be done. The book illuminates the problem for the complex and convoluted issue that it is, and it offers no easy solutions because there are none. I would have liked to know more about what could be done by the “everyday” reader: writing politicians, etc., though at her website, there are links for more reading and some sites with calls to action.

Written by: Kristin Conard, January 23rd 2010

Woman as Design: Before, Behind, Between, Above, Below

admin — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 18:34:00 +0000

By Stephen Bayley

Conran

Stephen Bayley’s Woman as Design is a large, and fairly heavy, coffee table book that examines how a woman’s body has inspired and changed the world. A woman’s body has been used as the inspiration (whether conscious or unconscious) for a myriad of products including cars, soda bottles, and buildings.

Divided into two parts, part one focuses on the sexualized and eroticized parts of a woman’s body and dress in a more historical context. Part two moves to the outside world and the changes and trends that advertising, fashion, movies, cosmetics have undergone through time in relationship to women’s bodies. The general lesson is that those in power have shaped and changed women’s bodies, sometimes literally in terms of corsets and bras. Women are, in turn, seen as sex objects to be desired and claimed or virgin Madonnas who are sacred and untouchable.

The organization seems a bit convoluted, and it could have been made more concise. With the seemingly non-linear direction of the book, it’s one you can pick up and flip to a page at random, but it isn’t one you sit down and read through. Woman as Design is also not a book that you pick up as a scholar looking to further your knowledge on the topic, but it does provide some great illustrations that really help prove Bayley’s points.

Woman as Design is filled with large color photographs, some of which are reproductions of famous paintings and sculptures, like the Venus de Milo. Quotes from historical figures, actresses, designers and architects accompany many of the photos. There is a stunning set of images of a woman using her breasts as a type of performance art, and I have never seen breasts move like that before. Since many of the images involve nudity and close-ups of various parts of the female form, the book is not recommended for young people without accompanying text and context.

Bayley’s text does not necessarily present any new or radical ideas on how women’s lives and bodies have been shaped by culture, but it does make the idea easily accessible.

Written by: Kristin Conard, January 2nd 2010

Another Life Altogether

admin — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:01:00 +0000

By Elaine Beale

Spiegel & Grau

Elaine Beale crafts the engrossing coming-of-age and coming out story of Jesse Bennet in Another Life Altogether. Jesse lives on the northeast coast of England, one of the world’s fastest eroding coastlines. The constant threat of the breakdown of the cliffs is mirrored by Jesse’s mother’s constant threat of mental collapse. The book begins with her mother in Delapole, the local mental hospital, though Jesse tells her classmates that her mother is on a cruise; her hope is to impress a girl she has a crush on in her class. But when her mother is discharged, in an attempt to escape judgment and get a fresh start, her father moves them into a dilapidated house in a small village.

Jesse is desperate to begin her own new life at the new school somewhere higher in the pecking order. She gets her wish as she develops a friendship with Tracey, a girl with a mean streak and an older sister, Amanda, that Jesse falls for. With her unrequited love for Amanda, and a mother who spends most of her days and nights in bed, Jesse spends much of her time writing letters to Amanda that she never sends. The letters allow her an escape and provide an outlet for her feelings in a world where she feels no one understands her or cares about her.

The layers of life develop throughout the book as Jesse battles to reconcile what she thinks her life should be and what it actually is. She wrestles alone trying to understand her sexuality and steals a book from the local mobile library on homosexuality that still doesn’t help her reconcile her feelings towards Amanda to the fact that nearly everyone around her judges homosexuality as perverse and wrong. Her father ignores the stress and trauma of the family life, preferring to yell at the television, hoping that his wife will snap out of it, and assuming Jesse can carry on by herself. Jesse’s mother struggles with what seems to be bipolar disorder; manic at times and nearly catatonic at others, she is trapped by her own brain.

The idea that mental illness is something that can be shaken off like a blanket permeates the book; the mother wants to be better but can’t. Another theme throughout is the almost impossible cruelty that kids can inflict upon each other; regardless of the time period (the book is set in the 1970s), those who are different are relentlessly picked on.

At the book’s climax, I kept desperately hoping that Jesse would do the right thing. (Don't worry. I won’t spoil it for you!) And at the end of the book, while Jesse has changed and grown throughout, we see that her life still has to carry on. There is no happily-ever-after, but there is a waking up: an acknowledgment that appearances and popularity often mean nothing and that ignoring things won’t make them go away.

Another Life Altogether is an extraordinary true-to-life book, and Beale tells a number of important and poignant stories all at once with great skill.

Written by: Kristin Conard, December 3rd 2009

Keeping the Campfires Going: Native Women’s Activities in Urban Communities

admin — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:05:00 +0000

Edited by Susan Applegate Krouse, Heather A. Howard

University of Nebraska Press

Keeping the Campfires Going: Native Women's Activism in Urban Communities is a collection of essays featuring the struggles and triumphs of Native women living in urban communities. Written about people living throughout North America from San Francisco to Chicago to Vancouver to Anchorage, the essays focus on the role that women have played in keeping their native people connected as a community. The range of women and communities presented gives a broad, yet still specific, view of the conflicts overcome and those still being addressed.

Traditionally (based on reading the book and not attempting to generalize) Native and Aboriginal communities were rural, at times isolated, and not urban. Increasingly the Native and Aboriginal population is growing in cities. The challenge to holding onto one’s past and identity in the face of pressure and a changing world is magnified. The struggle in finding a home, literally and metaphorically, as both a woman and a Native American or Aboriginal is illuminated and discussed. The women are negotiating finding and keeping a place within the native community as well as making a place for themselves within the larger, non-native community.

The women are standing up to be heard and to be seen, and to confront and to change the stereotypes and misconceptions about their place in the world. A quote from a flyer distributed in Vancouver sums up much of the book for me: “We are Aboriginal women, givers of life. We are mothers, sisters, daughters, aunties and grandmothers. Not just prostitutes and drug addicts. Not welfare cheats. We stand on our Mother Earth and we demand respect. We are not here to be beaten, abused, murdered, ignored.” They are embracing their past and their heritage, and they are claiming a place in today’s society.

The essays are well-researched and professional, and while there are personal stories and anecdotes given, the focus is on academia. Many of the contributors are anthropologists and professors. The challenge they face as women is made two-fold because of their Native or Aboriginal background, and I had not before been as truly aware of the depth of the challenge.

Written by: Kristin Conard, November 17th 2009

Prospect Park West

admin — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:07:00 +0000

By Amy Sohn

Simon & Schuster

Brooklyn’s famously high-end and yuppie Park Slope neighborhood is nearly a character itself in Amy Sohn’s Prospect Park West. The book follows the lives of four women living in the neighborhood. There is Melora Leigh, a troubled actress, who joins the neighborhood co-op for good PR. Her time there ties her to Karen Shapiro, an overly protective mother and social climber desperate for a new apartment in the best school district. Lizzie O’Donnell is a “former lesbian” living with her husband and child, but still drawn to women. Her attention focuses on Rebecca Rose, another mom, who hasn’t been touched by her husband in the year and a half since she gave birth.

The book seems aimed at subtly making fun and illuminating the foibles of stereotypical yuppie mothers as well as the new hipster mother. It’s like a filled out gossip column or blog on the lives of overly privileged women. The struggles of being a mother are mentioned, but it is incidental to the women’s sex lives and neuroses. The stories weave together fairly well, though the plot line that connects Karen and Melora seems overly fanciful. At times, I found myself forgetting the connections between the characters and having to flip back to figure out who was being discussed.

Occasionally throughout the text are small chapters written in italics and from the perspective of a few of the male characters in the book. They don’t seem to add much to the book, as they don’t flesh out the male characters enough.

The book ends a bit anti-climactically. I didn’t feel let-down, but more "oh, now it’s done." I suppose Prospect Park West is simply giving a snapshot (in this case a 400 page snapshot) of the women’s lives. There is no grand climax in the action, because the women’s lives simply carry on, much like in real life.

For fans of chick lit and lighter fare, pick this book up. Otherwise, you can give it a miss.

Written by: Kristin Conard, November 16th 2009

Lost Alphabet

admin — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 01:11:00 +0000

By Lisa Olstein

Copper Canyon Press

Lisa Olstein’s second collection of poems, Lost Alphabet, is a beautiful book of prose poems. The poems are written as entries in a naturalist’s notebook, and the entries are split into five sections. The speaker of the poems is never given a name, but is a lepidopterist living on the outskirts of a village of people that are not her own. Her companion Ilya is with her as she works catching, studying, collecting and cataloging moths and butterflies.

I generally judge poetry based upon a quote from Emily Dickinson: “If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?” Indeed, Olstein’s book took off the top of my head with its dreamy and reflective tone. Her use of language is magical and incredible. She creates scenes and emotions in poems that are never more than a dozen lines long with seeming effortlessness. As someone who teaches creative writing to college students, I know it’s incredibly challenging to write poetry that reads so smoothly.

The poems range from reflections on the world and people around her to musings on her own life and feelings. She observes the natural world and becomes intimately acquainted with moths and butterflies: “I am training myself to identify species solely by the sound/of their wings. I sit blindfolded and one by one Ilya sets them/flying. The papery whispers are remarkably easy to hear, but/it is by the weight of their bodies-cloud hands-that I am/learning to know them, when they land on me, as they are/more and more apt to do.”

At the beginning of the book, Olstein was simply observing, but by the end she knows the insects by the sound of their wings and their weight on her hands. It is Olstein’s attention to detail and vivid imagery that draws the reader into her world. She grows throughout the book, and in turn, we grow along with her.

The narration is helped by her male companion, Ilya. He is there to provide support and help with the research, but it is the female narrator that guides the poems and stories. While she utilizes his help, she doesn’t rely on him as an absolute necessity.

While many poetry books or collections have poems that can be read in any order, here the poems craft a type of story when read all together and in order, although there are glimpses of captured moments and emotion in each one.

Written by: Kristin Conard, November 10th 2009

Life Is a Verb: 37 Days to Wake Up, Be Mindful, and Live Intentionally

admin — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 08:26:00 +0000

By Patti Digh

skirt!

Thirty-seven days after being diagnosed with cancer, author Patti Digh’s stepfather died. It is this moment that inspired the book Life Is a Verb: 37 Days to Wake Up, Be Mindful, and Live Intentionally. The book provides ways to think and ways to act that will help give meaning and intention to life because, as cliché as it may be, we really don’t know how much time we have left.

The book includes a number of writing exercises and journal entries that can help you come to terms with things from your past, as well as current roadblocks that are preventing you from living with purpose. We live our lives with certain patterns in place, and while certain patterns and habits can be helpful, negative thoughts and behaviors may have become unconscious. Digh’s book will help force awareness of the negativity and helps counter it.

Spread throughout the text are collages and images created by the author that add to the creative flavor of the book. Digh uses personal examples along with her own pictures to support her points. She is a woman who knows that life can be hard, and wants women to improve themselves, not for a man or to fit any societal image of how we "should" act, but a personal journey to enrich our own lives.

Chapters focus on a variety of topics that seem like common sense, but that can be hard to put into practice: giving back (to others as well yourself), trusting your intuition, loving yourself and others, and saying 'yes'. Working on being mindful and living intentionally can be challenging. Changing ingrained habits takes work, awareness, and time. It is easy to get lost, but Digh provides a road map.

For those without the money to buy the book (thank you recession!), check out Digh’s blog. She updates regularly and it’s full of inspiration and the acknowledgment of life’s challenges. The blog was an impetus for her first book, and she is currently working on a follow-up, specifically for the artists entitled Creative is a Verb: 37 Days to Unleash Your Inner Artist.

Written by: Kristin Conard, October 15th 2009

The Importance of Being Iceland: Travel Essays in Art

admin — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 16:40:00 +0000

By Eileen Myles

Semiotext(e)

Eileen Myles’ The Importance of Being Iceland: Travel Essays in Art begins with travels in Iceland. Myles writes about her own writing and research on art and culture in the little island country. From there, it moves in any number of ways, yet always comes back to an affirmation of life for all of its complications and trials.

Myles is an intensely alive and proud woman, lesbian, and artist with a widely varied and beautiful personal history. She ran for president in 1992, lived in a box in Manhattan for a week, was close friends with Allen Ginsberg, and has been lauded as a post-punk and modern poetry hero. Many parts of The Importance of Being Iceland are written in long, fluid, stream of consciousness paragraphs. The writing is lyrical and smooth while also unsettling. Whenever I’d been reading the book for more than twenty minutes at a time, I felt like I was emerging from a dream.

Included in the book is an interview with Daniel Day-Lewis, an actor well known for his intense need to dive into a role and be in character constantly during a shoot. The two seemed well-suited to each other. Myles seems to live life with an intensity and awareness that others can’t or perhaps don’t. We hear about her time with a therapist, with lovers, and with family, but it is not a memoir in any traditional sense of the word. She discusses art, poetry, literature, and beauty, though it is not a set of critical essays.

The book has an intense amount of detail and incredible storytelling. Life and its varied experiences (including a Björk concert, flossing your teeth, and menopause) are examined and celebrated. The Importance of Being Iceland is profound and passionate. We are never forced to think a certain way about anything; Myles simply introduces us to her way of thinking and details her reasoning for why she thinks that way.

Written by: Kristin Conard, October 10th 2009

Crazy Sexy Cancer Survivor: More Rebellion and Fire or Your Healing Journey

admin — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:03:00 +0000

By Kris Carr

skirt!

Kris Carr was diagnosed with chronic cancer and instead of sitting around and waiting to die, she began to really live. She reshaped her life from the inside physically and mentally. Her first book was Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips and this follow up book gives the reader more support and inspiration.

I do not have cancer, but I found incredible strength and numerous fabulous ideas in this book. Many of the lessons and advice from Carr can be taken by anyone. There are a number of exercises and tasks to do, and blank pages are left to answer the prompts given. I particularly liked the following: “How do you find stability in the midst of unsafety?” and “What does the woman or man you desire to become look like?”

Crazy Sexy Cancer Survivor is peppered with plenty of attitude and humor from Carr, and quotes from famous writers and philosophers are throughout. Carr seems like a trusted friend and adviser, but one who doesn’t take herself too seriously. She looks to her support system—doctors, friends, and her mother—to write brief essays on diet, meditation, and beauty tips.

Many of the ideas seem like common sense, yet it is easy to get bogged down into repetitive and destructive ways of thinking. Writing this as a woman who hasn’t been diagnosed with a life-threatening disease, I can only imagine that challenge is multiplied for cancer patients. Carr reminds us to break out of these patterns, get off our butts, and make things better for ourselves. No one else is going to do it for us, and as she says, we are the CEOs of our own lives.

Carr's website has more support and tips. There are continual updates on physical, emotional, and mental well being, but if you don’t just want to read about how to change your lifestyle, the website gives you the tools to change your physical self as well. Carr recommends juicers, water test kits, raw foods, vitamins, yoga mats, body wash, essential oils, lubricant, and even saunas! Also posted online are Carr's upcoming workshops and events; her passion for life in her book is inspiring, so in person, I’m guessing she’s pretty incredible!

Written by: Kristin Conard, October 7th 2009

So Happy Together

admin — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 23:30:00 +0000

By Maryann McFadden

Hyperion

So Happy Together is Maryann McFadden’s second novel in which the themes of love, change, and nature—along with a strong and very human woman protagonist—are at the heart. Claire Noble is a forty-five-year-old woman in the “sandwich” generation; she has to juggle living her own life while caring for her daughter, as well as her aging parents. As the book begins, Claire is planning her new life with her fiancé Rick, who loves golf nearly as much as he loves an easy and uncomplicated life. But Claire’s life is anything but uncomplicated. Her daughter, to whom she hasn’t spoken in months, abruptly returns home and has a baby. Claire’s father is diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. An environmental writer moves into the area and asks Claire to take the photos for his upcoming article. The beautifully planned life she and Rick used to have becomes very messy very quickly, and all that Claire thought she wanted, all she thought she was, comes into question.

The book is set in New Jersey and Cape Cod. McFadden writes beautiful descriptions of both areas, and there is a strong emphasis on embracing nature and family. There is also a strong focus on images, which makes sense considering Claire is a photographer, and the culminating scene takes place at her art show.

I wholeheartedly applaud the telling of the story of a woman in Claire’s position, and I also appreciated the story being told, at times, from the perspective of Claire’s mother. The lives and challenges of middle aged and elderly women aren’t often represented in today’s fiction world. The women in _So Happy Together _have a pocket of emptiness in their lives, and we get to see them fill in those pockets as the book goes on.

While the book has a fairly interesting plot and characters that are generally believable, the book tries to do just a bit too much. The layers of stress and trauma from side characters get to be overwhelming, and at times, the writing suffers. The effort to show the real complexities of the world is admirable, but it gets too heavy handed in places.

That being said, I love McFadden's (mostly) subtle agenda of protecting the environment and raising awareness about the beauty and magic in the natural world. Inherently, the book rejects cookie cutter suburbia and development, and this is a lovely addition to the text. So Happy Together is a decent followup to The Richest Season. It is not a step up in quality, but it is certainly not a step down.

Written by: Kristin Conard, October 6th 2009

Trailer Trashed: My Dubious Efforts Toward Upward Mobility

admin — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:20:00 +0000

By Hollis Gillespie

skirt!

Hollis Gillespie is a mother, writer, friend, sister, girlfriend, daughter and more. Her third book, Trailer Trashed, is comprised of touching and hilarious essays that shed light on all the different aspects of her life. Personal memoirs and essays are very much “in style” as far as writing styles go, but Gillespie’s book is the most up-front, unapologetic, laugh-out-loud, emotional one I’ve read recently.

Gillespie's father sold trailers and drank heavily and her mother made missiles for the government. Her sister moved to South America and runs a bar. She collects trailers (yes, this inevitably stems back to her upbringing and her father’s job!) and worked as a flight attendant while being terrified of flying. The collection of people in her life is beautiful in it’s variety and eccentricity.

Gillespie's writing seems to flow without fear and without rancor for situations that could cripple others: her father drank, she’s a single mother, her family moved a lot, she gave up drinking, etc. The collection is honest and forthright with messages of life and love woven throughout. The general message—though never written so banally as this—seems to be to carry on, persevere, and get things done no matter what obstacles or challenges you might face. Surround yourself with people you love and who love you.

If you are in the Atlanta area, take advantage of the many classes and workshops that Hollis Gillespie offers. She teaches everything from new media and blogging to get your book published. The workshops run every couple of weeks. One of the little gems I gathered from simply looking around her website is that if you’re writing about yourself, particularly about trauma or stress you’ve gone through, make sure that you don’t write with pity or with bitterness. It’s a tidbit I’ve begun reminding myself of as I write.

Written by: Kristin Conard, September 27th 2009

The Cult of Celebrity: What Our Fascination with the Stars Reveals About Us

admin — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 23:56:00 +0000

By Cooper Lawrence

skirt!

I must admit that I have a minor addiction to so-called celebrity news. I’ll read People magazine at the gym and admit to having a fascination with hearing more about my favorite stars. This addiction is explained in The Cult of Celebrity.

The book breaks down our addiction by first equating it to worship. Celebrities are, to some extent, deified. They are put on a pedestal, separate and special from the rest of us. They can get away with all sorts of things that us ordinary mortals cannot. Part of the draw, as Lawrence explains, is the charisma that most celebrities have in spades.

We are inundated with celebrity culture in today’s world, and as Lawrence says, “The number of people we know in the ‘artificial world’—actors, singers, sportspeople, TV hosts—is much larger than the number of people we know in the real world.” We’re drawn to know more about celebrities because of a kind of personal connection we may feel with them; the relationship we have with a celebrity (all one-sided) is easier than many of our real life relationships. Yet, our connection to a celebrity can bring us closer to those around us. When in doubt, you can often gossip about the latest celebrity info with an acquaintance and find common ground.

Not only do we love celebrities, but many of the teens and twenty-year-olds today want to be celebrities. Our culture has emphasized the importance of fame, and many people are desperate for it. We think it is a quick fix to our lives, and that when we’re discovered, all our dreams will come true. Why else would shows like American Idol and America’s Got Talent be so popular?

Thankfully, Lawrence addresses the issue of young girls and celebrity. Films, TV shows, music, magazines, advertisements, and books are everywhere that cater to the young consumers desire to be famous and beautiful. Much of this emphasizes the purely superficial as the most important. The book has tips and hints for parents to provide positive parenting for children, including how to become the role model for your children.

The complicated cult of celebrity examined by Lawrence also encompasses celebrity endorsements and celebrities doing good. More people know about the crisis in Darfur thanks to celebrities like George Clooney; whether this is a good or bad thing is another issue. Not simply revealing her opinions on celebrity, Lawrence uses psychologists, philosophers, academics and researchers to support the points she makes.

Written by: Kristin Conard, August 30th 2009