Memoir – Page 7 – …on the B.L.

The Glass Castle

July 31, 2017 RaeAnna

Read Yes
Length 288
Quick Review A memoir about the difficulties of growing up in a dysfunctionally transient family with a fascinating and intelligent alcoholic of a father leading their way.

I read this book a few years ago, and it has stayed with me not just for the story but because of Walls’ writing. With the movie coming out in a few days, I power read it over the weekend. It is just as resonating a second time.

Jeannette Walls is a journalist in New York City with a degree from Barnard College. These are wonderful achievements, which help define her character and intelligence even more so considering what she overcame as a child. The Glass Castle is a testament to her resilience.

Walls was born in 1960 to Rex and Rose Mary. She is one of four children. Growing up she lived a nomadic life. Her father was a brilliant man. His children adored him before growing up to resent his alcoholism and inability to conform even a little. He was able to capture his children’s imagination through storytelling and science. The children were home schooled a great deal with an emphasis on living life through the absence of fear. With one parent abhorring the conformity of society, the children needed a grounded parent. They did not find it in their mother, Rose Mary. She was an artistic free spirit looking at feminine domesticity as a prison she would not tolerate. She dismissed her role as parent and mother.

Walls writes about the difficulties of growing up in secluded environment. She describes the bond between her siblings; how they would lean on each other for support, nourishment, clothing, and protection in a world where their parents were barely present.

All four Walls children went on to live in society as fully functional and present participants ending up in New York City. Rex and Rose Mary followed their children to New York. Rex died in 1994 from a heart attack after he and his wife chose to remain homeless despite offers of help from their children.

Walls is a wonderful writer. She does not shy away from brutal honesty. She meets her childhood trauma head on with the maturity in the realization it formed her into the well-respected and successful journalist and writer she is today.

Memorable Quotes
“You’ve got to get right back in the saddle. You can’t live in fear of something as basic as fire.”
“You have to find the redeeming quality and love the person for that.”
“She had her addictions and one of them was reading.”
“Life’s too short to care about what other people think. Besides, they should accept us for who we are”

Title: The Glass Castle
Author: Jeannette Walls
Publisher: Scribner
Copyright: 2005
ISBN: 9780743247542

Books

Shame by Annie Ernaux

July 19, 2017 RaeAnna

Read Yes
Length 112
Quick Review A very short yet punchy memoir about a woman reminiscing on the events of her twelfth summer, and how her perception was forever altered by the trauma.

Annie Ernaux is finally able to commit to paper the life altering event which shaped her life’s perspective. Since the event, she has been marked by a feeling of never ending shame. This book is different from others she has written. She had been able to name her hometown previously, but found herself unable to after writing the first page.

Ernaux starts the book out with a stunning sentence: “My father tried to kill my mother one Sunday in June, in the early afternoon.” Normally a writer would leave something like this for further into the book; however, she starts with this and uses the rest of the book to explain her life leading up to the event.

As the daughter of store owners, a religious zealot of a mother, and a push-over of a father in a small, rural town in France, Ernaux felt oppressed, confined, controlled, and watched. Ernaux was “lucky” enough to go to private school meaning a school in a convent. Her parents had a shop in their home. Her town was small full of watching eyes. These aspects culminated in having to always maintain a facade of perfection in order to maintain a good standing at school, keep her parents happy, allow the family to look perfect, and never stray from the path.

Her father, who had been nothing but acquiescent to her mother, lost it and held a scythe to his wife’s neck in front of his daughter, Annie. By the afternoon, everything went back to normal in the house. For Ernaux, nothing was ever normal again. She viewed life as before and after. She was constantly waiting for the next time; nervous she would arrive home to a disaster.

Though it’s a short book, it is relatable. Everyone experiences shame in one way or another. Shame is felt by people for different reasons in different ways, but it is a burden we all bear silently because we feel alone in our own shame.

Memorable Quotes
“We have no true memory of ourselves.”
“Politeness was the supreme virtue, the basic principle underlying all social behavior.”
“Believing and having to believe were the same thing.”
“For me the word private will always suggest deprivation, fear and lack of openness. Including in the expression private life. Writing is something public.”
“The worst thing about shame is that we imagine we are the only ones to experience it.”
“…that the shame will never cease and that it will only be followed by more shame.”

Title: Shame
Author: Annie Ernaux
Translator: Tanya Leslie
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Copyright: 1998
ISBN: 9781888363692

Books

Me Talk Pretty One Day

July 1, 2017 RaeAnna

Read Yes
Length 272
Quick Review As one of the most prominent contemporary authors, he has a unique voice filled with poignant moments and an outrageous sense of honest that will leave you laughing.

I have read several of David Sedaris’ articles in The New Yorker since I have a subscription and he is a regular contributor. Coincidence? I think not. Other than that, I just knew his name. I highly recommend him to anyone who likes to laugh and is not afraid of the perverse. My only complaint is his unfortunate habit of forsaking the oxford comma. I don’t know if it’s political, his publisher trying to save money on ink, or his rebellious nature, but it bothered me immensely.

This is not one of his recent books; it was published in 2000. So I am late to join the Me Talk Pretty One Day party. Oh well I’m here now. It is a memoir recollecting time from childhood as one of six children through his present (meaning 17 years ago present.) He has a wonderful sense of humor. I rarely laugh out loud when reading, but I did often causing my dog to jump and look at me funny.

Sedaris talks about his time as a child having a lisp. In order to teach his speech therapist a lesson he took to the thesaurus learning how to dodge the ever looming ‘s’ giving him a large vocabulary. I would surmise this adolescent subversion has aided his writing career and later helped him dodge the ever present difficulty of gendered nouns in the French language.

I would like to think Sedaris could see the future when he noted (predicted?) nachos at the movies was a gateway to hot dogs, hamburgers, and full blown meals with cutlery… Way back in 2000, he didn’t know then that the theater-restaurant would exist less than two decades later. What else does he know?

Me Talk Pretty One Day is one of my favorite reads this year. I’m looking forward to picking up more of his work. He also inspired me. He showed me at 26, I have not wasted my life because at my age he hadn’t even finished college, but he had started and stopped twice. So there’s still time for me to be a success! Although, I will skip the methamphetamine stage.

Memorable Quotes
“Although I had regularly petitioned for a brand-name vacuum cleaner, I’d never said anything about wanting a guitar.”
“To me, one of the greatest mystery of science continues to be that a man could father six children who shared absolutely none of his interests.”
“I don’t know who invented the template for the standard writing workshop, but whoever it was seems to have struck the perfect balance between sadism and masochism.”

Title: Me Talk Pretty One Day
Author: David Sedaris
Publisher: Little Brown and Co.
Copyright: 2000
ISBN: 9780316776967

Books

Gracious

April 11, 2017 RaeAnna

Read Yes
Length 256
Quick Review A comprehensive overview on how to be gracious… Or, as I would phrase it, being gracious is easy but takes a little bit of thought, and if you have a hard time being a good person, this will help you get there. It’s also incredibly funny in an honest kind of way.

Full of unwaivering grace, humor, and optimism, Kelly Williams Brown forgoes asterisks for pineapples. This is just the beginning of all the wonderful tidbits, side notes, anecdotes, interviews, opinions, and solicited (because you’re reading it sans force, hopefully) advice. I had high hopes after her debut best selling book Adulting, and she exceeded my expectations: Brilliant!

Gracious is an important book on how to be a decent, if not good, person in this world full of hardships and less than pleasant cohabitants. Brown spent, what I imagine to be, a good amount of time talking to the gracious people surrounding her; from those she’s looked up to since childhood to those she encountered through her career. Giving credit where credit is due, she mentions so many beautifully souled people I wish I knew.

She writes exceptionally well. Maybe it’s because I connect so thoroughly to her topics (shameless plug: I wrote a thing about living through kindness before I read her book, but KWB did it so much better. You can read it if you want at: Living Out of Kindness). Basically, I think we could be best friends because reading her book is like having a one way conversation with your close friend over cake and adult beverages on a comfy couch. She has a remarkable sense of candid humor. Fearlessly Gracious tackles awkward situations such as how to be gracious when a lover (teehee) spends the night. Let’s be honest, there is no guide book on how to make that not awkward, so tips on grace are always welcome.

Gracious is a straightforward easy read with an incredible amount of depth and brevity. Vacation season is just around the corner, so if you have a beach or pool in your future, this will be the perfect companion.

I will recommend Kelly Williams Brown to anyone and everyone. Go buy it; link is below! Or it is available at Target, in case, you are out of toilet paper and going on a late night run today. I’ve never been there…

Side note about the publisher. I love that Rodale is eco friendly; meaning Gracious was printed on acid-free recycled paper. So buying this book is good for the environment! She’s even gracious in publishing.

Memorable Quotes
“It’s a word that is both feminine and divine, unlike most ancient feminine words, which often seem to be something along the lines of root vegetable/soil/something to put a penis into, etc.”
“The 1800’s, ladies and gentlemen! Definitely not as long ago as we’d like.”
“Our lives are filled with beeps that don’t stop, and each time we hear that sound, we hear that someone needs us, which means we exist.”

Title: Gracious; A Practical Primer on Charm, Tact, and Unsinkable Strength
Author: Kelly Williams Brown
Publisher: Rodale, Inc.
Copyright: 2017
ISBN: 9781623367978

Books

What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding

March 9, 2017 RaeAnna

Read Yes
Length 291
Quick Review I am in love with this book. It is the perfect story all wanderers will lust after whether single or coupled.

I am completely in love with What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding. The best way I can describe it is: If there were ever a book that could be a mirror of my soul’s desire, this would be it. (There are only two differences between Kristin Newman and I: 1) She saw herself getting married and having children, and I don’t. 2) She had a career at 26… Yeah, nope.)

Newman is hilarious. I don’t laugh out loud often while reading, but I did. She is able to give words to feelings I have had for a very long time. The biggest theme throughout this book is when things get rough, she takes a trip. Which, now that I think about it, sounds like running from her problems. Anyways, it did end up working out for her, and I am jealous.

The book follows her through a decade or so worth of trips around the world both solo and with girlfriends. Through telling her travel stories, she lets the reader into her life. Allowing the world to see her deepest fears, her desires, her heartbreaks, her aspirations, and her inadequacies. With an almost too honest narration, she shows the world it’s ok to be alone and be both happy and sad about it.

It is the narration of a woman who won’t settle for less than awesome. When awesome comes along, it’s ok to be sad when trading awesome for awesome. Her unique brand of feminism screams “This is who I am, and I’m not that ashamed of where I’ve been.”

Memorable Quotes
“I didn’t think being in a relationship with someone I didn’t want to marry was a problem, mostly because, as I’ve said before, I had never really wanted to get married, period.”
“…as tempted as I would be by the completeness of his love in the face of a new world surrounded by men who seemed to see me as some sort of little brother, something deep within me was screaming that I wasn’t ready to be half of a whole.”
“I realized they didn’t look at travel the way I looked at it, like medicine, like my chance to right all the wrongs that might exist in my life.”
“ I think that, generally, most of us have a total of about twenty thoughts. And we scroll through those thoughts, over and over again, in varying order, all day every day.”

Title: What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding; A Memoir
Author: Kristin Newman
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Copyright: 2014
ISBN: 9780804137607

Books

Adulting

January 22, 2017 RaeAnna

Read Yes
Length 273
Quick Review Easy, breezy, beautiful, might as well be Covergirl. It’s a hilarious step by step introduction into the wonders and horrors of standing on your own two feet.

Kelly Williams Brown is not afraid to be funny, young, energetic, readable, or covers literally any topic in Adulting: How to Become a Grown Up In 468 Easy(ish) Steps. It’s a great read if you want to laugh and have a learn a few things. I like to think of myself as a fairly self-sufficient adult with quite a bit of experience under my belt, but I still learned a few things. It’s like having a discussion with a friend. She shares her adulting tips in a non-pushy, non-judgemental, hey this worked for me kind of way.

One of the more poignant moments that reverberated deeply in my soul is the commentary on how nothing whacks you into the reality of adulthood quite like the comprehension of having to repeatedly buying toilet paper. Many years ago, when I realized I was truly an adult was the moment I was sitting on the toilet with no toilet paper because for some reason it no longer magically appeared. Since then, I tell every newly branded adult to buy two packs of toilet paper in order to delay this instance. This touching moment occurs within the first twenty pages of the book. It was the moment I knew Kelly and I could be best friends, and I committed to finishing the book.

She’s full of the kind of advice your mom won’t necessarily hand out like: don’t hook-up with people in your office or HPV is a thing or friends with benefits isn’t always bad or sometimes you have to kiss ass. Then again she’s full of advice your mom (or someone) did tell you but you didn’t listen to because they’re old like: clean your cuts don’t suck them or know how much money you have coming in or RSVP it’s polite or send thank you notes.

In my opinion, she’s a successful adult. She has a job, a place to live, a cat, a bestselling novel, and another on the way all by the age of 27. I wish I were that good at adulting, but a girl can dream.

Memorable Quotes
“Oh love. It’s great, except when it’s awful.”
“Nothing is beneath you, right now, except doling out handjobs by the water-cooler. That is beneath you.”

Title: Adulting; How to Become a Grown-Up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps
Author: Kelly Williams Brown
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Copyright: 2013
ISBN: 9781455516902