BOOKS ON A THREAD

Well, two weeks since I last put anything in this journal. Two very busy weeks, might I add. End of semester stuff: getting the last papers into writing portfolios, finals given and graded, final grades turned in. Then the ESL graduation ceremony, where this year there were quite a few students whom I've known since they entered the program. This is the first year that's been true, and I felt quite maternal seeing their pride and self-confidence as they stepped up to receive their certificates. It was a joyous occasion, and is a good reminder of why I'm there.

Even with busyness, I've read a few things - nothing of great literary merit, the sort of thing that can be read while eating a sandwich or in those moments before fading into total unconsciousness at night.

Thinking over what I've read recently, I find an unexpected thread linking all of them - they have all been largely concerned with children, in one way or another. Nevada Barr's latest mystery, Hard Truth, was deeply disturbing to me because of its loathsome villain, an abuser of children. I guessed who the vile creep was quite early on, and endured the story to the end anyway. Barr has never had anything quite this difficult to deal with – I don’t read her mysteries for nitty-gritty hard core evil; I read them for the ambiance more than anything else. The National Parks where her hero Anna Pigeon is stationed – a different one in every book – are the focal point for me. As well, of course, as Anna herself. A strong, gutsy, outdoorsy, middle-aged woman is an unusual figure and one I enjoy knowing. I'm sure horrible things happen in national parks, but I didn't expect this. This book left me distressd and depressed. I’m not going to be so eager to pick up the next Anna Pigeon book.

Then I read Sue Miller’s most recent novel, Lost in the Forest, which was quite a compelling read. The story of a family in northern California and their response to the tragedy that happens at the very beginning of the book, it features three very real child protagonists. The middle child, Daisy, bereft at a crucial point in her early teens of the stepfather she loved, is left open to the chaos of the Real World. It is again a story of child abuse, in its way; for Daisy anyhow. We come to know these children much better than the kids in Nevada Barr’s book, as we also come to know their divorced parents and their community of friends. Sue Miller is a wonderful writer, but her books – from The Good Mother on up to this latest novel – always bother me. Her fictional parents seem too detached from their children, too unaware of what they deeply need. I’m sure this is often the case, but nonetheless disturbing.

Then came Meg Wolitzer’s The Position, another family story, another set of parents completely unaware of their children’s real selves, real lives, real needs. It is a terrific book, and did NOT leave me distressed or bothered. These four kids took care of each other and of themselves, and we follow them into adulthood, thus learning how they all turned out. The "position" of the title is a sexual position invented by their parents, the infamous authors of the first ever aboveground sex guide, called Pleasuring: One Couple’s Journey to Fulfillment. I imagine the book as something along the lines of The Joy of Sex, as it is illustrated with drawings of their actual parents in sexual poses and positions. Imagine being a child in fourth or sixth grade, even worse –high school! and having such a book making giant waves everywhere. The horror is unthinkable. The children are affected by the book’s publicity, and then by the subsequent divorce of their parents when Roz, their mother, falls in love with the artist who illustrates the manual. All of the characters were real to me, like people I actually know now, with the exeption of the oldest daughter, Holly. The gay son, Dashiell, was my favorite, even though he ends up as a Log Cabin Republican – in reaction to his ultraliberal parents. I loved this book, and do recommend it highly. I love Meg Wolitzer, and am currently reading an older book of hers which I can’t remember previously reading - Surrender, Dorothy.

The last book in this group is Joyce Maynard’s The Usual Rules. Again about a family, again divorced parents are an important component (this is true for all of the books mentioned here, with the exception of the Nevada Barr – where the children’s family structure is truly strange: a Mormon offshoot group with a stern patriarch and several young wives.), as is the tragedy of parental loss. Here Maynard has taken on the seminal tragedy of our time, the destruction of the WTC. The mother of the two young characters, Wendy and Louie, dies in that attack, leaving them and their father (Wendy’s stepfather, Louie’s birth father) devastated and lost. The story is told through thirteen year old Wendy’s voice and viewpoint, and is quite an affecting one. There are perhaps too many really nice and quirky characters, especially when Wendy gets to California where her own birth father now lives, but they are all there to help Wendy decide that it IS possible to continue living, even through the terrible grief, confusion and guilt she feels. The kids in this book are great, and I totally fell in love with Louie, a very believable four year old. It’s a little too pat, too predictable; it’s a book I could recommend for a kid Wendy’s own age to read, even though it’s written for adults.

So, that’s where I’ve been, bookwise. And I only just realized, as I began to write about my recent reading, what a theme ran through it. There are several books in my stack that I’m reading over a period of time, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, Garlic and Sapphires, Plan B – books that don’t come from the library and can be dipped into when the mood strikes.