To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
1960
Reviewed by Diane K.M.
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
OK, everyone needs to stop what you're doing and go find a copy of Sissy Spacek reading this book. I am not exaggerating when I say it is the best audiobook performance I have ever heard.
I have read To Kill a Mockingbird perhaps 10 or 12 times in my life, and it is one of my favorite books, but this was the first time I listened to it. Sissy was the perfect narrator for Scout, and she also did a fantastic job at all of the other voices. If you like audiobooks, this is a must-listen. (And if any publishers are reading this, please hire Sissy to narrate more Southern literature. Her voice is so soothing she could charm a cat out of a tree.)
What struck me about the story this time is how sadly relevant the issue of racial prejudice and inequality still is, even though the book was first published in 1960. At the heart of the novel is the trial of Tom Robinson, a black man who is accused of raping a white woman, Mayella Ewell. What quickly becomes apparent is that Tom is innocent, and Mayella was actually beaten by her father, Bob Ewell, when he caught her trying to kiss a negro.
Atticus Finch, the hero of the novel, does his best to defend Tom, but the jury (and most of the town) convicts him anyway, and Tom is condemned to death. Atticus' two children, Jem and Scout, are deeply upset by the case, especially when Bob Ewell continues to threaten them.
This book reminded me of the police shooting and riots in Ferguson, Missouri, and of innumerable other stories in the news of African-Americans not being treated fairly by officers or the courts. I would like to find hope in what Atticus said when he's trying to explain the Tom Robinson case to Scout: "Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win."
There is so much to love in this book. Scout, whose real name is Jean Louise, is a tomboy and she is our narrator. The story occurs over several years, and we watch her grow up. Harper Lee has a terrific sense of humor, and Scout's antics always make me laugh.
One of Scout's best friends is a boy named Dill (a character reportedly inspired by Harper Lee's real-life friendship with Truman Capote) and at the start of the book, the kids are obsessed with a reclusive neighbor named Boo Radley. Boo is a mystery throughout the story, and when he finally appears, well, I usually have to wipe a few tears from my eyes.
Oh Harper Lee, why did you only write one book? This novel is a gem, a true American classic. It has been a favorite of mine since I first read it in 8th-grade English, and I think it has had an impact on every generation who reads it. And based on the news, it sounds like it is still needed.
Favorite Quotes
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view ... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”
“The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.”
“As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it — whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, he is trash.”
“I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks.”
Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
1992
Reviewed by Diane K.M.
My rating: 3 out of 5 stars
This book is beautifully written, but I did not enjoy it. It is a grim story of poverty, child abuse and rape. The prose may be lovely but the drama is harrowing.
"Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies."
Bastard Out of Carolina is the story of Ruth Anne Boatwright, but everyone calls her Bone. She was born out of wedlock and doesn't know who her daddy is. Her mama tried several times to get the word "illegitimate" removed from Bone's birth certificate, but the courthouse clerk just smirked at her.
"Mama hated to be called trash, hated the memory of every day she'd ever spent bent over other people's peanuts and strawberry plants while they stood tall and looked at her like she was a rock on the ground. The stamp on that birth certificate burned her like the stamp she knew they'd tried to put on her. No good, lazy, shiftless. She'd work her hands to claws, her back to a shovel shape, her mouth to a bent and awkward smile — anything to deny what Greenville County wanted to name her."
Her mama eventually married a man named Glen, and that is when Bone's real troubles began. Glen couldn't keep a job or pay the bills, so the family often went hungry and had to move a lot. Glen also had a fierce temper and started molesting and beating Bone, and she didn't know what to do. Her mama seemed to know Glen disliked Bone, but she said she loved him so much that she wouldn't leave him. After several years of abuse, Bone's aunt saw the bruises on her, and she was finally taken away.
Poor Bone. She blamed herself for making Glen angry, and she hated that her mama couldn't protect her. At times she would get so mad that she wanted to fight him, and other times she just wanted to disappear. Those passages were some of the most heartbreaking in the book.
"I was no Cherokee. I was no warrior. I was nobody special. I was just a girl, scared and angry. When I saw myself in Daddy Glen's eyes, I wanted to die. No, I wanted to be already dead, cold and gone. Everything felt hopeless. He looked at me and I was ashamed of myself. It was like sliding down an endless hole, seeing myself at the bottom, dirty, ragged, poor, stupid. But at the bottom, at the darkest point, my anger would come and I would know that he had no idea who I was, that he never saw me as the girl who worked hard for Aunt Raylene, who got good grades no matter how often I changed schools, who ran errands for Mama and took good care of Reese. I was not dirty, not stupid, and if I was poor, whose fault was that?"
I had previously read Dorothy Allison's memoir Two or Three Things I Know For Sure, so I knew that this novel was semi-autobiographical. From the author's afterword:
"Writing Bastard, I had imagined that girl — or rather some girl of thirteen or so who hated herself and her life. I had imagined that, reading Bone's story, a girl like her would see what I intended — that being made the object of someone else's contempt and rage did not make you contemptible. I was arguing against the voice that had told me I was a monster — at five, nine, and fifteen. I was arguing for the innocence and worth of that child — I who had never believed in my own innocence."
"The mythology of rape and child abuse had done me so much damage. People from families like mine — southern working poor with high rates of illegitimacy and all too many relatives who have spent time in jail — we are the people who are seen as the class who does not care for their children, for whom rape and abuse and violence are the norm. That such assumptions are false, that the rich are just as likely to abuse their children as the poor, and that southerners do not have a monopoly on either violence or illegitimacy are realities that are difficult to get people to recognize. The myths are so strong they subvert sociological data and personal accounts."
Truthfully, the afterword was my favorite part of the book. Besides sharing her motivations for writing the novel, Allison also discussed how some schools around the country have censored and banned the book, and how she grieved whenever she heard such news. If you want to read Bastard Out of Carolina, try and find a copy that has the afterword (mine was the 20th anniversary edition).
That said, I don't know if I can recommend this novel because it was so grim. I am glad that some readers have found comfort in seeing issues of abuse brought to light, but it will be awhile before I can shake those awful images.
"I do not want to be the person who acts always out of fear or denial or old shame and older assumptions. I want to be my best self — the one who set out to tell a story that might make a difference in the lives of people who read it. Unafraid, stubborn, resilient, and capable of enormous compassion — someone like Bone."
First Impressions by Charlie Lovett
2014
Reviewed by Diane K.M.
My rating: 2 out of 5 stars
This novel is ridiculous. The writing could be cliched and cringe-worthy, and I came close to abandoning the book several times. If the story had not involved Jane Austen I would not have finished it.
Despite these irritations, there were a few things I liked about "First Impressions." It opens in 1796 in Hampshire, with Jane Austen meeting Richard Mansfield, an elderly clergyman. Eventually the two become good friends, sharing ideas about books and literature. We see the fictional version of Jane becoming more confident as a writer, and sharing early drafts of her novels with Mr. Mansfield. Lovett invents numerous letters, taken from the text of Austen's real novels, and even though I thought it was twee, some fans might get a kick out of this.
Meanwhile, the story also follows Sophie Collingwood, who is a modern-day bibliophile in London. The novel alternates chapters between Jane's life and Sophie's, and Sophie gets caught up in a mystery about something Mansfield wrote back in 1796. Sophie goes on a hunt to prove that Jane Austen wasn't a plagiarist, and this melodramatic mystery quickly became absurd.
What I did like were the bookish aspects of the novel. Sophie was close with an uncle who is also a bibliophile, and the two had long conversations about their love of literature. Sophie also starts dating a guy who collects 18th and 19th century books, and another guy who shares her passion for Jane Austen's works.
What I did not like was the trite writing and two-dimensional characters. I almost hurt myself doing exaggerated eye rolls while reading. Here are a few examples:
* Sophie describes one of her fellas as a "drop-dead gorgeous, charming, intelligent man." BLECH.
* During the ridiculous hunt for clues, Sophie comes to a locked door, kicks it open and says something like, "Good thing I took those kickboxing lessons." OH MY GOD. DID YOU SERIOUSLY WRITE THAT?
* During the final showdown with the villain, there is a pause in the action so the bad guy can explain his evil plan. Lovett wrote that he was "leaning against the fireplace, seeming to enjoy prolonging his moment of triumph." DO YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN, PEOPLE? THIS NOVEL IS SO CORNY IT'S ANNOYING.
The book is filled with references to Austen's writing, but I cannot in good conscience recommend it to my fellow Janeites. I was disappointed because I had been excited to read this book involving Jane Austen as a character. However, I think this will be one of those silly stories that I shall forget as soon as I return it to the library.
Food: A Love Story by Jim Gaffigan
2014
Reviewed by Diane K.M.
My rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Warning: Do not read this book when you are hungry. The discussions of pizza, cheeseburgers, bacon, doughnuts, steak, and all kinds of yummy foods could break your diet.
Comedian Jim Gaffigan loves food and talks a lot about it in his standup routines, including his popular bit on Hot Pockets. This fun book talks about the different foods he likes and dislikes, and his favorite restaurants around the United States. I was tickled to note that I had eaten at a few of the places he mentioned, and filed away other recommendations for future trips.
He has a good sense of humor about being overweight, and says he never takes food or restaurant advice from a skinny person because they aren't passionate enough about food to overdo it. He also takes issue with the dieters' claim that Nothing tastes as good as thin feels. "I for one can think of a thousand things that taste better than thin feels. Many of them are two-word phrases that end with cheese. Even unsalted French fries taste better than thin feels."
I think my favorite section in the book is when he shows a map of the U.S. and has divided it into different food sections, such as Coffeeland in the Northwest, Seabugland in the Northeast, Steakland in the Plains, Wineland in Northern California, Mexican Food land in the Southwest, Super Bowl Food land in the Midwest, etc. He reserves the distinctive name "Food Anxiety Land" for New Orleans, because the food there is so good and he whenever he visits he panics because he feels he never has enough time to eat enough of their delicious food.
I also liked that Gaffigan doesn't call himself a foodie; instead, he prefers the term "eatie."
"I don't have anything against foodies. I appreciate their love of food and I envy their knowledge and culinary escapades, but I'm generally satisfied with what I've been eating. Foodies seem to be on a never-ending search for new restaurants and interesting dishes. I don't have an insatiable desire to discover what makes something taste good or to find exotic combinations ... There is plenty of regular food I still want to enjoy."
This is an amusing and enjoyable book and I frequently laughed out loud while reading it. I recognized some parts from his standup routine, but it was still funny in print. My one criticism is that it is a bit long for a humor book — it's more than 350 pages. It was my mistake that I tried to read it straight through, when it's better to give comedy a little time to breathe, like wine. Trying to gulp a humor book down in one sitting means it will get repetitive and taste like slop. However, I would still recommend this to anyone who likes Gaffigan's humor or who also likes American food; just don't try to imbibe it all at once.
Now if you will excuse me, I need to go order some pizza.
The Wild Truth by Carine McCandless
2014
Reviewed by Diane K.M.
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 5
Reading this book was like pulling over on the Interstate to gawk at a 20-car pileup. You know you shouldn't be staring at the mess, but you can't look away.
Carine McCandless is the younger sister of Chris McCandless, who became famous after his story was published in Jon Krakauer's book Into the Wild (which was also made into a movie, directed by Sean Penn). This summary is from Krakauer's Author's Note:
"In April 1992, a young man from a well-to-do East Coast family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. Mckinley. Four months later his decomposed body was found by a party of moose hunters ... His name turned out to be Christopher Johnson McCandless. He'd grown up, I learned, in an affluent suburb of Washington, D.C., where he'd excelled academically and had been an elite athlete. Immediately after graduating, with honors, from Emory University in the summer of 1990, McCandless dropped out of sight. He changed his name, gave the entire balance of a $24,000 savings account to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet. And then he invented a new life for himself, taking up residence at the ragged margin of our society, wandering across North America in search of raw, transcendent experience. His family had no idea where he was or what had become of him until his remains turned up in Alaska."
I have read Into the Wild many times and loved it. I had a strong, personal reaction to McCandless' story because he reminded me of a loved one. When I heard that Christopher's sister had written a book about him and their family, I knew I had to read it. While I am glad I did, the story now bothers even more.
Carine said she wanted to write this memoir to show why Christopher chose to leave his family. "I wanted to explain that going into the wild was far from crazy; it was the sanest thing he could have done."
Her book does give some context to Chris' actions. The simplest explanation is that their parents, Walt and Billie, fought a lot, yelled a lot, and things often turned violent. When they were younger, Chris tried to protect Carine from the abuse, and he once told a friend he felt guilty for abandoning her when he left for college.
A more complicated explanation is that in addition to the domestic abuse, Walt had another family. He had six children with his first wife, Marcia, and was still married to her when Chris was born. Walt split his time between the two homes, and he constructed elaborate excuses for his extended absences and the other children. (Walt's "fiery temper" and the marriage overlap are briefly mentioned in Krakauer's book, but Carine's memoir is much more explicit.)
It wasn't until Chris and Carine were much older that they learned the truth about Walt's first wife and their six half-siblings. Carine wrote that Walt's duplicity greatly upset Chris, and he fumed for years about it.
"I believe Chris went into the wilderness in search of what was lacking in his childhood: peace, purity, honesty. And he understood there was nowhere better for him to find that than in nature."
I was fascinated by Carine's story, but also repelled by it. I liked learning more about Chris' life, but she spends a lot of time discussing her boyfriends and her failed marriages and her materialistic needs. It doesn't take a psych degree to see that Carine made the same mistakes as her mother, and some of those choices upset Chris. I would not recommend this book unless you really want to learn more about Christopher McCandless, or if you want to delve into a seriously dysfunctional family.
P.S. One good thing that came out of reading this memoir is it prompted me to reread Into the Wild. Man, I love that book.
Call the Midwife: Farewell to the East End by Jennifer Worth
2009
Reviewed by Diane K.M.
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Blimey, this memoir was bleak.
Jennifer Worth's third book about her years serving as a midwife in London's East End in the 1950s was much darker than the first two. It was well-written and the stories were all compelling, but it covered some serious stuff, including babies who died during delivery, botched abortions, children killed by tuberculosis, a father who prostituted his daughter on a ship, and the Contagious Diseases Acts.
I need to pause here to explain how horrified I was to hear about the Contagious Diseases Acts, which was passed by British Parliament in the 1860s. It allowed police officers to arrest any girl or woman they suspected of being a prostitute and to check her for venereal disease. Reportedly some officers took full advantage of this and basically raped the women while doing their "exam." There is such a story in this book, and it is dark, man.
"Any woman of any age could be subjected to this horrifying treatment. At the time the age of consent was thirteen, so a child of that age could legally be regarded as a woman. The Contagious Diseases Act affected only working-class women, because upper-class women never walked in the streets alone, but would be accompanied or in a carriage. Men of any age or class were exempt from arrest and examination, even if caught in the act of soliciting, because the Act of 1864 was specifically designed for the control of women."
The Acts galvanized the women's movement in England, and mercifully the CDA was repealed in 1886.
The case of the sea captain who encouraged his daughter to sleep with every man on ship, including himself, was also shocking. The midwives learned about her because the girl had become pregnant, and good ol' Chummy was the one who helped deliver the baby on board the vessel. The story had a nice coda because that night Chummy met an officer she eventually married.
There are also lively stories of Sister Monica Joan, who discovered the joys of taking a cab ride instead of the bus, and we learn about the woman who runs the local pub. The end of the book discusses how the neighborhood changed in the 1960s, and why the midwives and nuns eventually closed their practice.
"One by one the docks closed; air freight had replaced the old cargo boats, and the dockers became redundant. At the same time demolition of bomb-damaged and slum property started, and people were rehoused out of London in the new towns. For many this was life-shattering, particularly for the older generation who had lived their entire lives within a radius of two or three streets, close to their children and grandchildren. The rehousing programme tore apart the extended family, which had provided the unity and been the strength of East End life for generations."
I listened to all three of Jennifer Worth's Midwife memoirs on audio, read by Nicola Barber, who was an excellent narrator. This third book is filled with a lot of history and social issues of the day, which was interesting, but I had hoped for a little lighter fare. I would still recommend it, just be prepared for some sad tales.
Without You, There Is No Us by Suki Kim
2014
Reviewed by Diane K.M.
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
This was some incredible and dangerous reporting. Suki Kim pretended to be a Christian missionary so she could teach English at a prestigious university in North Korea. Yeah, that's right — she went undercover in the country that hates Westerners and puts political prisoners in a gulag.
North Korea is such a fascinating place. Every book I read about that regime only feeds my curiosity. This memoir was a nice addition to the field because of Kim's reporting. She took extensive notes during her stay, but she had to do it secretly because her evangelical colleagues thought she was just a novelist who wanted to teach.
Kim taught at the all-male Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST) for two semesters in 2011. The school was funded by missionaries, even though the teachers were not allowed to discuss religion or Christianity with the locals. Many of Kim's students came from elite families and spoke good English, but they were suspicious of foreigners. Kim was born in South Korea, and she wrote that her ability to speak Korean helped her win the trust of some of her college students.
Kim and her fellow teachers were constantly monitored and followed wherever they went, and they were only allowed to leave the campus when given special permission. Even visits to historical sites were tightly controlled outings, with no freedom of movement or speech. Kim said the college was like a prison, and she felt very isolated and lonely during her time there.
"Time there seemed to pass differently. When you are shut off from the world, every day is exactly the same as the one before. This sameness has a way of wearing down your soul until you become nothing but a breathing, toiling, consuming thing that awakens to the sun and sleeps at the dawning of the dark. The emptiness runs deep, deeper with each slowing day, and you become increasingly invisible and inconsequential. That's how I felt at times, a tiny insect circling itself, only to continue, and continue. There, in that relentless vacuum, nothing moved. No news came in or out. No phone calls to or from anyone. No emails, no letters, no ideas not prescribed by the regime ... Locked in that prison disguised as a campus in an empty Pyongyang suburb, heavily guarded around the clock, all we had was one another."
The book is told in mostly chronological order of Kim's time at the school, with some personal flashbacks and historical details of Korea. The teachers were given a long list of rules to follow while in North Korea. Things like: Don't discuss politics. Don't brag about your own culture. Don't say anything negative about Kim Il-sung or Kim Jong-il. Don't wear jeans or flip-flops. Don't pray at meals. Don't start conversations with the locals. Don't ask questions about the government. Also, bring lots of flashlights and batteries because the electricity is frequently out.
Suki Kim was nervous when she met her students, and was always anxious that she would slip up and say something she shouldn't. Each assignment she created had to be approved by the local administration, which caused more anxiety.
It turned out that Kim was in North Korea at an interesting time. The other universities were all shut down and the students were sent to do construction work. However, the elite students at PUST were exempt from this manual labor, for some reason. And then, at the very end of the author's stay in Pyongyang, Kim Jong-il died, which caused much grief for her students. At the time, she hoped that things would improve for the citizens of North Korea, but she was also pessimistic about the fierce control of the regime.
"Being in North Korea was profoundly depressing. There was no other way of putting it. The sealed border was not just at the 38th parallel, but everywhere, in each person's heart, blocking the past and chocking off the future. As much as I loved those boys, or because of it, I was becoming convinced that the wall between us was impossible to break down, and not only that, it was permanent."
This memoir is not perfect; Kim's comments about her boyfriend were distracting, and she would constantly waver between trying to teach her students about the outside world, and then fearing that anything she told them would put them in danger. The back-and-forth about sharing Western ideas and then worrying for the kids happened a few too many times.
But overall, this was a fascinating read. I appreciated that she shared her own family's story and what her mother experienced when the Korean war started. Kim also included good details about Korean culture and history, which provided context for what she experienced there.
In the end, she knew her book would anger the regime and the people who worked at PUST. In her author's note, she wrote that she felt an obligation to tell the "stark truth" about North Korea, and she hopes that the lives of its people will one day improve. I would highly recommend this memoir.
Two or Three Things I Know For Sure by Dorothy Allison
1995
Reviewed by Diane K.M.
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
This is one of the best memoirs I have ever read. I was so blown away by Dorothy Allison's writing that it felt like she had lobbed a grenade into the room, exploding with beautiful and haunting language.
The memoir tells the story of Dorothy's family and her childhood in rural South Carolina. The title comes from something her Aunt Dot used to say: "Lord, girl, there's only two or three things I know for sure ... Only two or three things. That's right. Of course it's never the same things, and I'm never as sure as I'd like to be."
This is how the memoir begins:
"'Let me tell you a story,' I used to whisper to my sisters, hiding with them behind the red-dirt bean hills and row on row of strawberries. My sisters' faces were thin and sharp, with high cheekbones and restless eyes, like my mama's face, my aunt Dot's, my own. Peasants, that's what we are and always have been. Call us the lower orders, the great unwashed, the working class, the poor, proletariat, trash, lowlife and scum. I can make a story out of it, out of us. Make it pretty or sad, laughable or haunting. Dress it up with legend and aura and romance. 'Let me tell you a story,' I'd begin, and start another one. When we were small, I could catch my sisters the way they caught butterflies, capture their attention and almost make them believe that all I said was true."
Isn't that a fantastic opening? This memoir is slim, only 94 pages, but it was so powerful that I had to set the book down a few times to ponder it, or I would stop and reread a page to fully appreciate a lovely phrasing. While there is a lot of sadness in this book, especially when she writes about her mother or the abuse Dorothy suffered as a child, overall her voice was confident and inspiring. The book includes photographs of Dorothy and her family, and those black-and-white pictures added even more depth to the stories.
Throughout the memoir, Dorothy ends a section with something she's learned. These morals were always well-written, and I could imagine this piece being incredibly moving if performed live, with the repetition and the beats of those sayings. These were some of my favorites:
"Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is that no one is as hard as my uncles had to pretend to be."
"Two or three things I know for sure, and one is that I would rather go naked than wear the coat the world has made for me."
"Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is that if we are not beautiful to each other, we cannot know beauty in any form."
Besides being a good memoir about the American South, I also appreciated that it was about a writer finding herself, and how she tried to make peace with her unhappy past. I may only know two or three things, but one of them is that I cannot wait to read more of Dorothy Allison's books.
Favorite Quote
"Women lose their lives not knowing they can do something different. Men eat themselves up believing they have to be the thing they have been made. Children go crazy. Really, even children go crazy, believing the shape of the life they must live is as small and mean and broken as they are told. Oh, I could tell you stories that would darken the sky and stop the blood. The stories I could tell no one would believe. I would have to pour blood on the floor to convince anyone that every word I say is true. And then? Whose blood would speak for me?"
Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham
2014
Reviewed by Diane K.M.
My rating: 1 out of 5 stars
This book reminded me of that scene in an action movie when an older man performs a stunt, and then he mutters to himself, "I'm getting too old for this sh*t."
I am, indeed, too old to have any patience for this kind of sh*tty, self-indulgent writing.
I had wanted to like this book. I like the idea of having a voice like Lena Dunham in the world, telling a different story of womanhood. And I thought the introduction to this book was good. It had this quote:
"There is nothing gutsier to me than a person announcing that their story is one that deserves to be told, especially if that person is a woman. As hard as we have worked and as far as we have come, there are still so many forces conspiring to tell women that our concerns are petty, our opinions aren't needed, that we lack the gravitas necessary for our stories to matter. That personal writing by women is no more than an exercise in vanity and that we should appreciate this new world for women, sit down, and shut up."
I agree with that sentiment, however, I don't think that gives one license to then write drivel about a silly email you wrote to a boy, or about weird boyfriends, or all the times you shared a bed with a guy but didn't have sex, or your burgeoning interest in exhibitionism, or entries from your food journal, blah blah blah.
After a strong introduction, this book quickly became painful to read and I had to skim to get through it. It's a hodgepodge of essays that are fine for a blog, but it doesn't make for a compelling read in print. I cannot recommend this.
The Greater Journey by David McCullough
2011
Reviewed by Diane K.M.
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
This book made me wish I could travel back in time to Paris in the 1830s. The collection of artists and writers there was remarkable.
In "The Greater Journey," David McCullough tells stories of a varied group of Americans who went to Paris in the 19th century, and then returned home with new ideas, new art, new writings and even new inventions. The group included James Fenimore Cooper, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Mark Twain, Henry James, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Mary Cassatt, among others. One of my favorite chapters was about Samuel Morse, who studied to be a painter, but also ended up inventing the telegraph and Morse Code.
I also liked the story of Charles Sumner, who studied at the Sorbonne. When Sumner saw black students in the class with the same desire for knowledge as white students, it profoundly changed how he thought of African-Americans. After he returned home to the States, he became a powerful spokesman for abolition.
"It would be a while before Sumner's revelation -- that attitudes about race in America were taught, not part of 'the nature of things' -- would take effect in his career, but when it did, the consequences would be profound. Indeed, of all that Americans were to 'bring home' from their time in Paris in the form of newly acquired professional skills, new ideas, and new ways of seeing things, this insight was to be as important as any."
This is the third McCullough book I've read, the others being "Truman" and "1776," and I really like his writing style. He is a gifted storyteller and weaves in interesting details from history. I listened to this on audio (read by Edward Hermann), but I was glad I had a print copy to review because it includes some great photographs and pictures, especially of the artwork that was created in Paris.
There were so many fascinating people and great stories in this book, and I would highly recommend it to fans of history.
Flyover Lives by Diane Johnson
2014
Reviewed by Diane K.M.
My rating: 3.5 stars rounded up to 4
This was a charming memoir, even though it rambled in parts. But even the rambling parts were rather interesting.
Diane Johnson grew up in Moline, Illinois, which is part of the Midwest, which has been derisively called "flyover country" by those who live in big cities on the coasts. I was keen to read this book because I grew up in Iowa, which is next door to Illinois, and indeed, many of Diane's stories were similar to my experiences there, even though there is a 40-year difference in our ages. Much of the Midwest is not very changeable, you see.
"I had always wondered how the first settlers in Illinois, in the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth, survived the ruthless climate and isolation, how they managed to clear the tough woodlands to make their farms, how they taught their kids something about Shakespeare and Mozart, and eventually pitched in for a war like the Civil War though they'd barely seen a black person or encountered a slave. No one writes much about the center part of our country, sometimes called the Flyover, or about the modest pioneers who cleared and peopled this region. Yet their midwestern stories tell us a lot about American history. Migration patterns, wars, the larger movements, are after all made up of individual human beings experiencing and sometimes recording their lives."
Diane was one of those restless kids who dreamed of traveling and moving away from her small town, and eventually she did. At the beginning of the book she is living in France, and while at a house party, a French friend tells her that "Americans are naive and indifferent to history."
This quote bothers Diane to the point where she spends months researching her ancestors, going through family heirlooms and diaries, and ends up writing a book about them. (So take that, you obnoxious woman!)
"I became especially interested in some testimonies by long-departed great-grandmothers, simple stories but all the rarer because the lives of prairie women have usually been lost. Perhaps prairie women at the end of the eighteenth century didn't have the leisure to pick up their pens, or maybe they didn't think their lives were of interest."
Most of the history Diane dug up involves her great-great-great grandmother Catharine Martin (born in 1800), who took time to write a hundred pages about her life when she was in her 70s.
The prose in Diane's memoir is lovely, and I flagged numerous passages while I was reading. My only complaint was that some of the chapters jumped around in time and perspective, which was a bit jarring. Some pieces felt like they should have been magazine articles or essays, but got shoved in this book wily-nily. For example, there is an interesting section about Diane's experiences with writing screenplays and working with movie directors, including Stanley Kubrick, Merchant Ivory and Mike Nichols, but the placement seemed random. And some of the chapters were so short that they felt like afterthoughts.
Overall, this was a very enjoyable read, and I appreciated the historical details about Midwestern life in the 1800s, and also Diane's stories about growing up in the 1940s. Before this memoir, I had only read one of Diane's novels (Le Divorce), but I liked this so much that I think I'll look up her other books.
Favorite Quote:
"As a little girl in Moline, I didn't expect to be a writer, because I didn't know a writer was something you could be; I had no sense that books were still being written."
