March, 2022: Sideswiped

The last day of March found me as an unwilling and unwitting participant in a fender-bender. Doesn't that sound like too cute and trivial of a phrase? The impact really REALLY rattled my cage. I think it rattled all the words out of me. But up till then, March was a stellar month, especially for reading. I can't think why it decided to give me the finger on its way out. 

What I read:

And Never Let Her Go - Ann Rule. Nonfiction/True Crime.

The Lincoln Highway - Amor Towles. Novel. (audiobook)

Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, and the Stoning of San Francisco - Alia Volz. Memoir/Cultural History.

Mrs. March - Virginia Feito. Novel.

The Dressmaker - Kate Alcott. Novel.

Born With Teeth - Kate Mulgrew. Memoir.

What Were The Salem Witch Trials? - Joan Holub. Nonfiction.

Half-Empty - David Rakoff. Essays/Memoir. (audiobook)

My very favorite read for March was Home Baked. No one recommended it to me; I found it while browsing the shelves at the library. It's perfect. If I see this book in a bookstore, I will buy it. Alia Volz expertly weaves her own family history into the larger canvas of 1970s and 1980s San Francisco. Her writing is beautiful and audacious just like her mother, Meridy Volz who popularized selling marijuana brownies. She first got San Francisco stoned in the 1970s, then used the brownies to bring pain relief to AIDS patients in the 1980s.  I know that Home Baked will be one of the re-reads of my life.

August: Intensity Too

I was feeling common bonds with the final four books I read in August:
 Women
 Women being underestimated
Women obsessed
 Crime
 WTF? justice system
Evil men
 Slimy, shitty boyfriends/partners
Intensity

5. The Trial of Lizzie Borden - Cara Robertson.
This is the very best book about the Borden trial. Cara Robertson does a close reading of the transcript and interprets the finer points, particularly in the defense strategy. She also researched how the press covered the trial, almost to comic effect. Really, they weren't so different from social media today. The examination of the brutal murder and the trial balances with the media circus and it creates the perfect amount of tension. In the end, it was all about the all-male jury not being able to wrap their heads around the idea of a well-bred New England spinster committing such a brutal murder. Luckily for Lizzie, she was underestimated. If it had gone the other way, she would have been hanged. My only beef with this excellent book is the dust jacket cover. It looks like historical fiction, which it most certainly is not. Why not a more typical nonfiction cover? Why not a photo of Lizzie Borden?

6. Three Women - Lisa Taddeo.
Journalist Lisa Taddeo followed three women for ten years, chronicling their lives: Maggie, a teenaged girl who falls in love with her handsome, popular English teacher who allows an inappropriate romantic relationship to develop; Sloan, an upscale restaurant owner whose chef husband has decidedly adventurous sexual proclivities that she does all she can to cater to; and Lina, a housewife from Indiana who has a husband who hates kissing (they go to marriage counseling about it) Lina and her husband separate, and she takes up with her high school boyfriend who has turned into a jerk and a lout. Lina sees this, but she looks the other way to get sex from him. Also belongs to a women's group and enjoys scandalizing them with her exploits. Lina and Sloane are pseudonyms. Maggie's real name is used, presumably because she finally informs the police about her teacher's advances several years later. I was dazzled by Taddeo's narrative of the three women's stories, but the book made me uncomfortable. I recognized the thoughts and sometimes the actions of an earlier incarnation of myself, as well as potential actions. What if I'd had an English teacher like Maggie's? The thought makes me shiver.

7. I'll Be Gone in the Dark - Michelle McNamara.
The Golden State Killer eluded the authorities for decades, but technology caught up and was finally his undoing. He started his 'career' as a rapist, so there was plenty of DNA to connect most, if not all his crimes. He hadn't been caught yet when the book was published, so it's amazing to read how close the cops were to figuring the case out, even pinpointing the college he attended briefly. I'll Be Gone in the Dark is also the story of Michelle McNamara, whose blog True Crime Diary helped shine a spotlight on the case. Obsessed with solving the crime, McNamara did an amazing amount of research, poring over documents and following leads. Sadly, she died in the middle of writing this book and just months before the capture of The Golden State Killer.

8. After A While You Just Get Used To It: A Tale of Family Clutter - Gwendolyn Knapp.
This summer, I watched Florida Girls, a screamingly funny and deceptively sharp comedy on PopTV. The season consisted of only around a dozen episodes, so I've been missing my Wednesday nights with Jayla, Erica, Kaitlin, and Shelby. Knapp's book about her hilarious and horrifying family in Florida and New Orleans filled the void nicely. Near and dear to my heart (not sure I'm referencing the proper organ) was Knapp's discussion of her ongoing IBS problem. I laughed; I cried; I ran to the bathroom.

Nine Books, Eighth Month

Nine books! Not too bad.

I tried for that tenth book, but

couldn't...quite...reach.

Here's what I did read in August:

1. Dad is Fat - Jim Gaffigan. I warmed up to this memoir slowly. Not too fond of the chapters before Gaffigan and his wife were parents, but when the five (!) kids came along, it was comedy gold. I also have his book, Food: A Love Story. Audiobook, read by Gaffigan.

2. Priestdaddy - Patricia Lockwood. In this memoir, Lockwood and her husband move from Savannah, Georgia back in with her parents in Kansas City. Her father is a Catholic priest who received a special dispensation to become a priest even though he was married and had a family. They are all rather unconventional to say the least. Lockwood's writing is the star of the show. She does wondrous things with language.

3. Heartbreak Hotel - Anne Rivers Siddons. A coming-of-age story about a Southern young woman coming to grips with the changes sweeping the South during the summer of 1955.

4. My Year of Rest and Relaxation - Ottessa Moshfegh. Moshfegh has somehow become my favorite writer. Last year, I read her novel Eileen and was amazed. Enjoyable whiffs of Jim Thompson and Patricia Highsmith. In her latest, the unnamed narrator wants to hibernate for a year. It's weird and darkly funny. Brilliant. Fun fact: The picture on the cover is from a portrait by the French painter David. The US cover has been altered slightly -- the young woman's nipples have been airbrushed out. I think it's because of Amazon, but I'm not sure. It is rather a US thing, isn't it, to be scandalized by women's nipples?

5. Conviction - Juan Martinez. The prosecuting attorney in the Jodi Arias trial tells about bringing her to justice. The writing style seemed flat and forced.

6. 90s Bitch - Allison Yarrow. Yarrow goes back and explores the decade that seemed in retrospect (media, culture) to hate the hell out of women. After Anita Hill, it was all Down Hill. Read and remember. Get pissed, get woke, stay woke.

7. The Road to Little Dribbling - Bill Bryson. This is Bryson's follow-up to Notes From a Small Island, and man, it was a hard go. When did Our Bill become such a cranky old man? If he does a follow-up to At Home, I'm sure his recurring phrase will be "Get off my lawn!" Audiobook.

8. Fast Diets for Dummies - Kellyann Petrucci, Patrick Flynn. OK, I read this book because I'm interested in the concept of intermittent fasting. They go on and on too much about Paleo, though. My body is very WTF? to me when I try to do that.

9. Amy Falls Down - Jincy Willett.  Amy, a fiction writer who is rather obscure, falls down on New Year's Day (also her birthday) while trying to plant her Christmas tree and cracks her head on the birdbath. The same day, she gives an interview that she doesn't remember and it leads to her being rediscovered. Tart, lively prose laced with irony. I laughed out loud several times. I see why David Sedaris is one of her fans!

Common bonds in this month's reading:

Dad is Fat and Priestdaddy: Catholic upbringing. Memoirs. Five children.

Dad is Fat and My Year of Rest and Relaxation: Getting around in New York City.

Heartbreak Hotel and My Year of Rest and Relaxation:  Both protagonists are exceedingly attractive. Shitty boyfriends. Both take to their beds when life starts to suck.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation and Amy Falls Down: Lots of unkind but very witty observations about people they encounter.