10 April 2006

Music Through the Floor

Eric Puchner

Aimless young men, rickety marriages, and children of divorce are all shopworn staples of the modern short story, so it's a delight to find someone who can make something new and sparkly of them. This tasty little book surprised me like a story collection hasn’t in a long time, making me laugh and gasp out loud. Puchner makes very subtle and complicated observations of human behavior: the ever-shifting allegiances, the difficulty of reading a person. You can skip the last story, a contemporary favorite cliche about the guy who teaches English as a second language and ends up learning from his wise students, but the others are real gems.

Scoot over, Skinny

The Fat Nonfiction Anthology

Donna Jarrell and Ira Sukrungruang

Not to be confused with non-fat fiction (diet chick lit?), or fat fiction, this is a collection of essays on fat. It’s uneven, as most anthologies are, but with some standouts: Steven Shaw’s manifesto, “Fat Guys Kick Ass”; Atul Gawande’s New Yorker piece on gastric bypass surgery; a chilling report on the practice of hogging (you don’t want to know, and if you already do, I don’t want to know about it); and, to remind us that women can treat their sex partners as callously as men can, a woman’s disturbingly unembarrassed account of her affair with “the fat guy.”

Eat, Pray, Love

Elizabeth Gilbert

My favorite writer tells the story of how she recovered from a train-wreck divorce and ring-of-fire rebound relationship by traveling to Italy, India and Indonesia – that’s the good news, and the bad news. Gilbert spent a year pursuing pleasure in Italy (food, fountains, the world’s most beautiful language), devotion in India (battling to quiet her mind in meditation at an Ashram) and the balance of the two in Bali. Yes, I devoured it, reveled in her beautiful writing, resolved to move to Italy, or, failing that, to study Italian, or at least to eat more goat cheese...but there was almost no tension in the entire book. As a palm reader tells Gilbert early on, she’s born under a lucky star, and on this journey everything she touches turns to gold. So she’s left with sharing her thoughts about herself, including quite a bit I really didn’t want to know. I wish she'd retain her dignity and give her powerful mind something more interesting to think about.

The Germ Freak’s Guide to Outwitting Colds and Flu

Allison Janse and Charles Gerba

I read this after a night of swing dancing, an activity that would surely give the eponymous author (Janse) apoplexy. What's more, I read a library copy; I'm sure she only approves of an online purchase that arrives shrink-wrapped on the doorstep. Some of its advice is good (use your own pen) some marginally useful (if everyone thinks the first toilet stall is the least used, it won't be anymore) and some downright bizarre (try to touch the part of the doorknob that looks less used?), but I enjoyed most of all the subtext: mentions of her husband hinted at the strain it must be to be married to a woman who has no qualms about berating strangers for coughing near her children. Heightened awareness of germs is a good thing; hand washing alone has saved lives. But avoiding germs has to be balanced with the cost. While a world in which people didn't come to work when they're sick would be a better place, a world without handshakes, not to mention swing dancing or library books, would be a much poorer one indeed. Sooner or later in life, you're going to have to touch something that someone else has touched. Just don't rub your eyes.

Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army

Kayla Williams and Michael E. Staub

Bent on proving what a badass hottie she is, Williams’s thoughts on the Iraq war itself are almost an afterthought. Her breathtaking lack of introspection or insight made me wonder what she would have produced without her co-writer’s help. She comes off as very young, and she is (early twenties) – it’s a sobering reminder that so many of the soldiers working and dying over there are only teenagers. Williams tells it like it is, whether discussing sexual harassment or military incompetence, so this is worth a quick read as one voice of many on a complicated topic that isn’t going away any time soon.

While They’re at War: The True story of American Families on the Homefront
Kristin Henderson

For a more delicate and thoughtful look at the war and its repercussions, turn to Henderson, the wife of Marine Corps Chaplain. She tells the story of the families the soldiers leave behind by focusing on two young wives, but weaves in other anecdotes, and her own story, as well. This is a world nearly invisible to those who don’t know – or don’t think they know – any military families. It’s hard to be left behind, a marriage on hold, managing a household alone, struggling not to burden the soldier, dreading the knock on the door, never knowing if this is just a temporary situation or if you’ll never see your spouse again. Sadder still is the predicament of the soldier who leaves a spouse, and comes back to find the spouse doesn’t want to be married anymore. Perhaps it’s the bias of a single person, but it seems being separated from one’s partner is preferable to having no partner at all.

What’s the Matter With Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America

Thomas Frank

Frank begins by reproaching red staters for the oft-repeated claim that the snobs in the blue states look down on them – and then goes on for 320 pages about what idiots the red staters are. Nice. There’s lots about himself and his Kansas hometown; it reminded me of David Brooks’s Bobos in Paradise – not really reporting so much as looking out one’s office window and typing up some off-the-cuff musings. I’m at a loss to understand Bush supporters, particularly those who are being hurt by his policies, and am concluding that it must just be a matter of seeing what one wants to see, and thus debate is futile. Belief that the government should be free from religion, provide most necessities, and be a strong social safety net lands me on the left of the divide, but I see other divisions that don’t always cut between left and right. I think it’s important not to waste – you’d think the group called ‘conservative’ would agree, but their leaders claim that “the American way of life is non-negotiable.” Which isn’t to say you won’t find a self-proclaimed liberal behind the wheel of an SUV. I also think it’s important to follow the rules, whatever we’ve agreed those rules might be, and that impulse cuts across party lines as well. As does belief that some things aren’t worth sacrificing to the right of a corporation to amass as much wealth as it possibly can. These are important principles, the foundations of a culture, and our infantile Coke-or-Pepsi party system isn’t speaking to them.

The most ridiculous book I’ve seen this week:

Not Buying it: My Year Without Shopping

Judith Levine

No, I did not read this. The premise is that the author spends a year purchasing only necessities. She has to eat at home! She has to use the public library! The horror! To have written this book is insulting enough to the thousands of people who live like this all the time—and – it’s for sale?

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