Review: Life Is Short Laundry Is Eternal by Scott Benner

Parenting memoirs swing between kid worshipping eye crossers and bitterly frustrated justifications of career abandonment. It's pretty rare to find one that doesn't wear it's welcome out long before the final chapter. I wanted Life Is Short Laundry Is Eternal to be that memoir, but it wasn't. Instead Benner offers a weird hybrid of both ends of the genre, leaving the reader struggling to catch up. I still think you should consider reading it.

In the last third of the book Benner's infant daughter is diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, which is sort of like being diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. Without diligent management Type 1 diabetes will kill you fast. With diligent management Type 1 diabetes will kill you slowly, quietly eroding your body despite all your efforts. The terror of a parent facing the disease is well captured and Benner is matter of fact in his explanation of what is required to keep his daughter alive. He might have been better served to narrow the memoirs focus to this topic, abandoning the first two thirds of the book as extraneous.

When we first meet Benner he's right out of a Hollywood movie. Who gave me this kid? how do I keep it alive? Hey, I changed a diaper, am I awesome or am I awesome? Why is my wife mad? Should I be nicer to her? Wow, I'm a jerk! My wife works hard and misses everything. The sunlight on a tear in my child's eyelashes is a metaphor for the ephemeral beauty of the impermanent world. Stay at home moms keep the world running, am I right or am I right, ladies? It's a scattershot blog to book style read. His kids are awesome, fatherhood satisfies his soul, he's a frail imperfect man doing his best and occasionally stricken with panic. Great blog content but not a page turner in book form. When Benner is down on himself the reader feels like he's looking for validation. When Benner praises himself the reader wants him to slow his roll. It's probably a realistic look at his life but Enjoyment of Life Is Short Laundry Is Eternal will depend on the reader's tolerance for our narrator explaining it all.

Review: She Left Me The Gun by Emma Brockes

I want you to read this book. It's going to win a basket of awards. It's the memoir of the year, for certain. I don't care who writes a memoir this year, Brockes has the top spot sewn up. There are some second half issues and the author occasionally loses her way but it doesn't matter. Because this book is everything. She Left Me The Gun is about the complexity of the mother / daughter relationship. It's about clashes of culture and class. It's about the inability to have cross generational understanding until one of the parties has gone. The questions come too late, the understanding of what we didn't know part of the hole left in the leaving.

Brockes and her mother speak different languages. They come from different countries, homes, classes and times. The thing that holds them together is the parent child bond, something Brockes mother has had to create from whole cloth. I found She Left Me The Gun compelling because Brockes is very clear eyed about her own reactions. She sees where she resisted when her mother would allude to her life. She sees the involuntary judgements she makes on her distant family as she meets them. Brockes is aware that she has not lived the experiences they have, that she is unknowingly shaped by them but apart from them.  There is a passage midway through the book between Brockes and a friend that I think (by it's inclusion) sums her self awareness up.

"Fascists under our bonnet," I say to Pooly. 

"Yeah," she says. "Be grateful you're not the black one."

By the time the third biker pulls over we are so numb to the situation that when he takes his helmet off and turns out to be a woman, with long blonde hair and a weather beaten face, the relief hardly registers. - Emma Brockes

Brockes gets many of the small details right. She understands that she cannot, on a fundamental level, understand. The rules of her world don't apply to those of her mother or her mother's siblings. In the same way that she was a British daughter of a South African woman so too is she the protected child of an unprotected parent. Some gulfs of experience cannot be filled, they can only be bridged. Ultimately, Brockes is writing a letter of love and respect to her mother and in so doing she offers a unique insight to what it is like to be successfully raised by an abuse survivor. Too many memoirs focus solely on  unbroken cycles while the world itself offers far more possibility. 

Review: Chaplin A Life by Stephen Weissman

Despite it's flaws, I loved this book.

Charles Chaplin was a complex man. His life story is a compelling one. From a child among many in London's poorhouses to the single most famous man in the world, Charles Chaplin walked a unique road. No one (save perhaps his brothers) knew what it was like to be Chaplin. No one ever will.

Weissman undertakes what could easily have been a tedious conceit in his approach to biography. Chaplin is placed on the couch, his childhood explored and analyzed in the context of his work. While Weissman is at times repetitive, on the whole this offers a fresh look at the man inside the costume. The author's respect for Chaplin's talent is deep. He discusses both the early life of the family and the influences the boy carried into adulthood. From early stars of the London stage to lessons in the family home, Charles Chaplin was a born mimic who absorbed all then refashioned it into the new media. He was a genius in the true sense of the word. Viewed through Weissman's eyes, Chaplin's film works are recreated scenes from his life. Coogan flips his pancakes as The Kid in a facsimile of Chaplin's own home. The streets they walk are replicas of the streets Chaplin walked. He is a stand in for young Charles in multiple ways.

My complaint is that for all it's length, Weissman wraps up too soon. His book is not so much Chaplin, A Life as it is Chaplin, A Career. The author is interested only in Chaplin's childhood as it is explored in his films. (The book ends shortly after Chaplin leaves Keystone.) Weissman spends small amounts of time on Chaplin's life in exile and his later films, but his heart belongs to the pre war era. As a reader I enjoyed the author's insights into Chaplin's professional process and longed to see them applied to his private life as well. What drove Chaplin's possibly self destructive personal choices? How did his broken relationship with his parents alter the choices he made with his children? What did exile from multiple homelands mean to him? These, as well as his professional partnerships outside of the Keystone years, are passed over. As a starting point, Chaplin, A Life is well worth reading. It would be a shame, however, if a reader left the book thinking they'd experienced the sum of the man.

Review: The Cross In The Closet by Timothy Kurek

I have to give it up to Kurek's marketing team.  They 50'd me into The Cross In The Closet. It seemed like everyone was talking about it so I decided to buy it. (Not my best idea.) How do you review the book and not the author when the book is about nothing but the author? Under the guise of advocating for the gay community, Kurek has written a book about himself. He is an exhausting companion. In desperate need of an editor, The Cross In The Closet takes a meandering path through Kurek's psyche. (I think part of what attracted me to The Cross In The Closet is that I used to know this guy. And a few like him, if less ambitious.)

Kurek doesn't set his bigotry aside through education, he reinvents himself as something he isn't - a gay man. Telling his friends and family of his new sexual identity, Kurek begins living what he thinks is an authentically gay life. This leads to Kurek writhing in self loathing while everyone else gives him cookies. You'd expect that finding out someone put you through the emotional wringer for their own gratification would lead to serious recriminations but (with the exception of Kurek's sister in law) the people in the author's life think it's just awesome.  While the denizens of the book are compelled to stroke Kurek's ego the reader is not. Whether is it Kurek feeling all super smug for letting someone who sexually repulses him feel him up or Kurek comparing teenagers drinking lattes to dropping a six pack at an AA meeting (the teens all avoid the coffee?) The Cross In The Closet is all Kurek, all the time.

An editor might have shaped this into a more cohesive (and less self serving) tale of a misguided mission, but Kurek appears to be going it alone. The book wanders. Basic errors of word choice (most often involving homophones) further distance the reader from the text. Most of this memoir comes in the form of quoted text, yet the speakers share very similar speech patterns. Without distinctive idioms or pacing to indicate natural conversation paths the quotes appear to be fictionalized or paraphrased. This leads the reader to doubt the veracity of the whole. The overall impression is not of a man so moved by discovering his own shortcomings that he radically changed his life. It is of a man at loose ends who saw others writing stunt books (he mentions Kevin Roose in passing) and decided to write a My Year As piece. While he calls it The Experiment, the reader is hard pressed not to cynically view his actions as being content motivated. Without much context (hey, you all know who they are, right?) Kurek decides to cold call Westboro Baptist under the guise of reaching out. He tries to manipulate his way into their world through the same methods he used successfully in the gay community - lying. When faced with hostile suspicion he goes for mentioning their recently born baby. Because that is not creepy at all. If I lived in an us against them mentality and a stranger showed up at my door talking like he knew me and referencing my newborn I would totally embrace him. After that fails Kurek again pretends to be gay. He might not have been able to infiltrate Westboro, but he can certainly show how much he loves them and all his fellow men by... I just can't. (Proverbs 14:5 dude)

I grew up around the gay community. I grew up around fundamentalists. I should have been a sympathetic audience for this book. It's a feel good moment for those who want to believe that the differences between the two can be easily overcome but The Cross In The Closet is little else. Kurek is not Tim Wise for gay people. I was repulsed by a section where Kurek, who has asked a good friend to play the role of his partner, lets things get physical. He lovingly details his revulsion then gives himself another cookie for allowing his friend that moment of joy. I lost all sympathy for the author. Using another person for your own ends, letting that person develop a hopeless emotional attachment to you and then praising yourself for giving up a kiss? Take the male / male dynamic out of it (and thus the martyr aspect) and you've got an old as time dynamic as distasteful as it is transparent. While those in the book are moved to tears by Kurek's Lady Bountiful turn, I was not. Given context and shaped by an uninvested eye The Cross In The Closet might have made an excellent book. We'll never know. Worth reading for a look at how privilege operates through the underlying assumptions Kurek makes and his framing choices, but not a read I can recommend.

*Note - I put my short review up first as I wanted to consider the tone of this long review. As I say above it is difficult not to review the author in this context. While engaged in an exchange with a commenter who felt The Cross In The Closet deserved bonus points for Kurek's intent (and his not being a racist hate monger) Kurek chose to obliquely weigh in. Thus relieved of any considerations of tone, I didn't take another editing pass at this longer opinion. Kurek may choose to consider today's timely DA piece - his PR team is doing excellent work on his behalf, work he can easily undo.

Review: I'd Like To Apologize To Every Teacher I Ever Had By Tony Danza

First, the title. This thing is Fiona Apple long. I'd Like To Apologize To Every Teacher I Ever Had: My Year As A Rookie Teacher At Northeast High. That's like, 19 words. Let's just call it My Bad and move on. You know, the way one of Danza's students tells him her name and he thinks "Oh, I'll just call her Nick." (But Black Nick cause we already have White Nick.) My Bad is kind of awesome. It sidesteps most of the Rich Man Teaching pitfalls to deliver a straightforward look at what standardized testing has done to American's teachers and students. Of course Danza's students need more resources, better home lives and a more supportive system. But Danza doesn't condescend. When he encourages his kids to grab the opportunities they do have he never comes off as above them. Danza speaks to the students and the reader directly, as an imperfect man in an imperfect world.

In doing so he does the teaching memoir a great service. People who would never read a book about schools (unless it had recently been made into an uplifting Oscar film) will read My Bad because Tony Danza wrote it. His celebrity will illustrate that the grades given your child's school are not an indication of the passion or performances within it. His writing style is open and engaging. While nothing in the book is particularly surprising, the journey is pleasant. Danza admits that he struggled greatly with 20% of the average teacher workload and far more resources. He illustrates how the tasks we are asking our teachers to perform are impossible. As well, he doesn't fall for the One Teacher Who Cares myth that many teaching memoirs do. He recognizes that the teachers care. It is our society that does not.

My Bad is imperfect, like the subject it covers. Danza is a product of his times. While he works to keep race out of the book there are times he slips. Faced with a racist parent he blames "the culture" of the other children. A student on a downward slide demonstrates her unhappiness through the "extreme hairstyles" of an afro or cornrows. His good old days are of a certain tiny slice of American life. These things appear to be based more in ignorance than bias, as Danza otherwise presents himself as an open and rational man. Danza admits his imperfections to the reader, often harsher on himself than we would be. As a result he comes across as sincere and charismatic. Working in the story of a failed reality series (the excuse for his year at Northeast) Danza is desperate not to fail his students. He certainly doesn't fail the reader. My Bad is well worth checking out.

Review: Yes Chef by Marcus Samuelsson

From the exceptional cover design to the last page, I loved almost everything about Yes, Chef. I loved it's honesty, I loved it's style, I loved the unique life it describes. Holding me back from outright glee were some minor construction problems and Samuelsson himself. He is such a complicated man. I have so much compassion for him yet his honesty also leads me to impatience. There is a myth that one can have everything in life. The thing about everything is that you can't have it all at once. In Samuelsson's case he has had the work ethic, the family support, the drive, the charisma, the intelligence - but he is an absolutely (spoiler alert!) horrible father. Yet his honesty makes him the most charming failure of parenting I've read about in a long time. At the same time he ignores his own child, Samuelsson mentors others. He has a strong desire to bring African Americans into the world of fine dining. He believes in diversifying the upcoming kitchen crews and showcasing Harlem as the convergence of color and culture it has always been. He is a a fascinating person to read about.

With all the honesty Samuelsson eloquently brings to his life story, he has a blind spot. This is a man who feels safest in the kitchen, who has a flight response to emotional damage. Samuelsson has emotions I don't think he's even labeled yet. For all he has overcome, there is much lying in wait for him. What to make of such a conflicted individual? While sponsoring scholarships for relatives in his native Ethiopia and working with the youth of Harlem, Samuelsson also abandons his only child. How will she read this book, as an adult? What will she make of his revelations? Inside is a portrait of a young man who was plucked from impossible odds to land in a safe and loving home. Fortunate enough to find a calling when his first dream died, he applied a single minded focus to achieving it. But this man who is so clear in the dynamics of a kitchen family is adrift in his own. His love for his child is clear, his conflict obvious. But both are presented in terms of himself, and only himself. He didn't want to be "that guy" who fathered an out of wedlock child, so he kept her a professional secret. His career had to come first, but if it had derailed (he claims) then he would have been present in her life. He paid his child support diligently (after his parents insisted) but never called, never wrote. He discussed her life with her mother, but not with her. There were no gifts. Until she was 14, her father was not accessible in any way. When she confronts him, he says he just didn't know how to find the words, how to make the time, what to do. So he didn't.  He is proud she has seen him as a success, proud he was able to introduce her to Kanye West, ready to take responsibility now and face her anger because he prides himself on being able to take the heat. The heat is over. His daughter is a young woman. At the end of the book he lists all of the things he has to be thankful for. It's a list both personal and professional. It's not brief. It doesn't contain his child.*

In the first 2/3 of the book Samuelsson's story is linear and focused. He knows who he was and why he made the moves he did. He talks with love and insight about his family and himself. In the last 1/3 of the book Samuelsson founders. His unresolved emotional conflicts are exposed. The book jumps about in time and becomes less concise. While powerful, it is obvious that these are parts of his life that are in progress, still being weighed and cataloged. Unable to ask if his own parents abandoned him, unable to face what abandoning his daughter really meant, Samuelsson leaves a document of explanation for her if she is able to see it. When his birth mother was dying she used the last of her strength to seek medical attention for her children. His father was in parts unknown. A man can be great without being famous. A man can be great without being perfect. Marcus Samuelsson is a great man who has (and will) impact many lives in positive and meaningful ways. Yes, Chef is completely worth reading. I say go ahead and pre-order it.

*I read this book in ARC form. I hope she's added before publication.

Review: Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson

Jenny Lawson, I love you.

This is the story of my life, except completely different. A normal conversation between me and just about any other human on the planet goes something like this - "No, that's not the weird part. So then we - what? No that's not the weird part. I will tell you when we get to the weird part. Can you just listen? None of that is important, the important thing is..." Because apparently my entire life differs greatly from the average human experience. People give me the half cocked flopped ear expression of the RCA Victor dog. (You probably have no idea who that is. It's ok. I expect that.) Then they slowly say "You... should write a book." I don't want to write a book.  Jenny Lawson just wrote it for me. (Did I mention I love you?)

Let's Pretend This Never Happened is the best memoir I've ever read. Because it is about me. Except, as I already said, completely different. (Mine had way less taxidermy but far more domestic violence. I'm the ABC AfterSchool Special to her Independent Lens.) I even love the subtitle A Mostly True Memoir. Every person in my life (except my sibling) either has or will at some point turn to me with a horrified expression to say "Wait, you've been telling the truth. Everything you've said is true. All of those things, they happened." Of course they did. Why would I bother to make something like that up? I've learned to be polite about it but it's really kind of offensive. I never understood what they were feeling. Because of what I was feeling, their hand to mouth horror didn't mean anything. Until I read Let's Pretend This Never Happened. (Oh my god. Jenny Lawson. All those things. They happened.) Suddenly I knew what it was like to be a normal person waiting for me to get to the weird part. That was a gift.

It was such a gift I said thank you, because I am polite like that. I also called Let's Pretend This Never Happened something like Angela's Ashes, but for Rednecks. Hopefully that didn't offend her. Rednecks isn't quite the right term, but People Raised By Vaguely Southern Parents With An Affinity For Rural Poverty And Scaring Their Neighbors doesn't roll off the tongue the same way. Folks get what you mean by Rednecks, even if it brings a scary KKKonnotation you didn't intend. (Even Malachy McCourt told me to write a book. Mr. McCourt, if you're reading this - please check out Jenny Lawson. I think you'll like her.) Let's Pretend This Never Happened is much higher on the laughter scale than Angela's Ashes was. There is no dual citizenship or starving Irish children but we can't hold that against Lawson. I am sure if the opportunity to starve in an Irish slum presented itself she would have taken mental notes for her future memoir. She is also not a teacher. (This is a loss to children everywhere but possibly a relief to their parents. People don't understand the importance of diversity in education.)

Look, I don't even want to tell you what's in here. Just buy it. Pre-order it. Make a note. Set a calendar alarm. I don't care. Because if you can't laugh at a book filled with dead animals, vultures digging up graves and a young high school girl giving a cow a pelvic exam, then I don't know what you would enjoy. Frankly, I'm concerned. Because I thought it was hilarious. Yes, this is something of a blog to book experience. It doesn't read like one. While I would have moved a chapter here or there and ended in a different place those are minor quibbles. Jenny Lawson deserves a cabinet full of awards and a truck full of money dumped into an empty swimming pool for her enjoyment. Because I'm not the weird one in the conversation.

Review: Paris In Love by Eloisa James

Paris In Love is going to be a tough review for me to write.

First, there's cancer. I hate cancer. I hate cancer so much I don't even like Cancer Memoirs, the exceptional Mom's Cancer aside. In the beginning chapter we discover that Eloisa James has been diagnosed with cancer a short two months after losing her mother to the disease. Furthermore, she herself adores cancer memoirs and has Inspirational Friends with cancer. Look, I gave at the cancer office (more than once) in all sorts of ways. I have Opinions about Cancer and Parenting Post Cancer or With Cancer and all of that. I can't help but bring a giant boxcar of baggage to any cancer book and that is one of the reasons I don't read them.

Secondly, there's Facebook. (I don't dislike Facebook as much as cancer. Given a choice between eradicating Facebook and eradicating cancer I would totally choose to end cancer. Most days.) Paris In Love is not  a wholly original work. James has retooled her Facebook entries into quick snippets of experience assembled into chapters and interspersed with a few multi page transitions. Wait, you might be asking, if I buy this book I'm essentially getting a curated version of the author's Facebook wall? Yes. You are.

Thirdly, my class issues are triggered. Like Eloisa James, I was not raised in anything like affluence. Like Eloisa James I can travel Europe pretty much at will now and I could also live as an expatriate if I so desired. I think this is the sort of thing that must be acknowledged as it is a deeply abnormal life. Most of America cannot sell their home, live without strong financial concerns in Paris for a year, then return to purchase a property in New York City. (Actually, I can't purchase a property in New York City. Fiscal advantage James.) That's pretty 5% at the bare minimum. The sheer lack of logistics in Paris In Love throws this into sharp focus. Due to the snippet nature of it's telling, there are no practicalities. Nothing on how to find the Paris apartment or acquire the proper paperwork. I wasn't looking for a How To Guide, but some nod to the intricacies would have been welcome. After all, she includes several pages of her favorite shops at the end.

Once I got past judging Paris In Love for what it wasn't, I got around to judging it for what it was. James does not value stability in the same way I do. To me, taking tweenage children (who have recently lost their grandmother then had their mother threatened by the same disease) to a country where they do not speak the language and will almost certainly struggle in the schools is unthinkable. Military obligations aside, the tweenage years are not generally served by upheaval. With the snippet style of recollection, the family life comes across as the things they saw, the things they ate, the homeless they encountered, and the meetings with teachers. While the children eventually adapt, they do so just in time to relocate once again. (I am sure their trilingual abilities will serve them in life, I am sure the breadth of experience they have gained will only benefit. Void where prohibited by law, etc.)

James' way with descriptions and eye for interesting detail save the book from complete tedium. While she makes no revelations about her self or life on the bigger scale her observations of lunch remain compelling enough to keep the pages turning. Paris In Love could be summed up with "I felt lost. I ran away. The hairdressers didn't understand me. The kids were confused. I calmed down. I came back." But I see Paris In Love speaking strongly to a different reader, a reader who wants to sit and dream on a rainy day about a different life. A reader who wonders what it would be like to just toss her cares aside for a year and reinvent herself in another place, without losing the things she loves in her current place. As a wistful daydream Paris In Love works well. I'm just not a daydream kind of girl.

Review: Ali in Wonderland by Ali Wentworth

I did not enjoy Ali Wentworth's book. It is entirely possible her material plays better if you have some frame of reference for her as a comedian. When I read Kathy Griffin, I heard her voice in the story. When I read Mindy Kaling I lacked that voice but the book stood up on it's own. For Ali In Wonderland I had no voice to hold up what was ultimately very weak material.

There could have been a great book from the bones of her story, but Wentworth didn't write it. I felt alienated from the author. Unlike Sedaris, where the joke is generally on him and the evisceration of others is done with some kindness, Wentworth's came across as a child of privilege resenting others judging her for that privilege. It was difficult to find a way to commiserate with her. When I would start to get some interest in her life she would throw something out that derailed it again. Getting through the book was such a chore I posted to Twitter every few pages as an encouragement to finish. Perhaps instead of a proper review I will follow the path taken by the book and offer you my loosely connected and highly personalized thoughts, direct from Twitter and chat.

I am not enjoying this upcoming release. Everyone in the memoir but the heroine sucks and it is saturated in unexamined privilege.


Author Washington insider, assures us all the family money gone, then launches into elite life. Own your status.


Opens with castle rented to propose to her, segues into DC life. Currently in prep school where she can do things like fly home at will.


Her life could be a funny and fascinating memoir but her writing style is SO off putting. Hasn't a kind word for anyone, really.


I could see the material being amusing in certain verbal delivery styles. Not coming across in print at all.


Book has a lot of marketing money behind it, expected to be huge. I'm going to get pummeled for hating it. Whatevs. Kiss my Ammy rank g'bye.


Oh hello, Girl Interrupted.


The author of this book just called out 153 lbs as an impossible tipping of the scales, her own mother doesn't recognize her.


Talking about an ex with a clunker, she relates how her mom is worried about safety so sells him her car at token price of 1k.


She and mom lie to him about why, because crazy pride! But hey, worth it for safe boyfriend car!

Not for boyfriend safety, mind you, but for hers. We should always lie to the poorer classes.

Author started to win me over, promptly killed it with dismissive remark about girls with less advantages than she. Calls them Escorts.


Her class issues are flying through the whole thing, triggering all of mine. She pisses away choices then judges people without them.


She calls herself middle class while jaunting about the world and dining with world leaders.


She walks off on an internship at Christie's because they had a dress code and expected her to fetch tea. London housing, even.


Author wants it both ways. Does not want to be judged for her silver spoon, yet wants to judge them for their lack of utensils.


This next tidbit... Almost gang raped by Mexican crack heads, go to the Four Seasons for 2 wks of pampering. Tries to tie in that old car would have been safer.


Situational humor requires a heart. Author saves her warmth for herself.


I am not sure why this book is funny. 3 big blurbs on it, but I haven't even smiled.


Omg. 9/11 has hit and the author takes to her bed at a luxury hotel when she has a perfectly good hotel room farther away.


No really,  9/11 just used as an anecdote to demonstrate how skewed her family is.


Halfway through. Second time author has said yes to an unwanted proposal. It's easier.


On page 215 I laughed. Yes, it was because she compared baptism to preparing a baby for roasting, but it was a welcome drop in this desert.


By page 234 I am back to frown faced reading.


The book is done! The review will wait. I might start a new personal blog since last night I killed Jesus. (Didn't mean to.)


And thus we conclude our first real time review of a book. I appreciated the opportunity to read Ali In Wonderland, it was an advance copy and I always regret disliking a gift. Ali Wentworth is probably perfectly lovely in real life, charming and amusing on a chat show. I have no doubt she is a better person than she came across to me in this book. If I had to guess, I would predict Ali In Wonderland will hit big and satisfy a core market. The crossover appeal is limited. On to the next. 

Review: The Autobiography by Elisabeth Sladen

This is a far better book than it needed to be. Isn't that the hallmark of Elisabeth Sladen's career? Without her careful attention, would Sarah Jane Smith have been the icon she became? Of course, Sladen was far more than just Sarah Jane Smith. She was a wife, a mother, a theater actress and a woman with a serious work ethic. In that order.

Sladen preserves her private life in what is largely a career memoir, but when she does dip into her personal situation it is to illustrate a career moment. Given a choice between her family or herself, Sladen chooses her family. It answers the question of why she wasn't a larger star in her post Doctor Who years and it also answers how she and her husband were able to manage a two actor marriage. Elisabeth Sladen, for all her career regrets, lived a life that placed the personal above the professional. I respect her even more for putting her humanity above her ambition.

The Autobiography is so clearly in Sladen's voice that the fan in me felt the loss all over again when I closed the book. Even when telling of her frustrations and personal conflicts Sladen looked for a brighter side of things. The joke is always on her, the buck always stops at her desk. She is not one to ignore professional conflict, neither is she one to belittle the person with whom she conflicted. Sladen follows every bitter memory with a tasty one. The result is the reader feeling as though they have spent an afternoon with her, hearing her actor tales firsthand. Sladen reveals that she, like many of us, thought Eccleston ended his Doctor Who run too soon. Perhaps he was the wiser man, as one who has watched several leave the role Sladen knew that the drop from star to mortal is stunning. The show is the star and the actors merely participants.

I don't know how a reader who is not a fan of Doctor Who would respond to this book. Although Sladen discusses her early days and her post Who days it is largely a story of her days as Sarah Jane Smith. Sladen understands where her core fans reside and she meets them there. From her frustration with the BBC's failure to properly monetize in America to her appreciation for Whovian loyalty, Sladen knows the audience for this book. When she began, she had no idea she was ill. I wonder if she would have changed it? Would the sharp feelings be further muted? Perhaps it is for the best that Sladen set the manuscript in a drawer, forgotten, and let her family decide to bring it to market. As the book ends and the afterword begins, Elisabeth Sladen (like Sarah Jane Smith) is looking forward to her next adventure. Neither of them will be forgotten.

Review: Shatner Rules by William Shatner and Chris Regan

What do you say about William Shatner that hasn't already been said? Revered or reviled, Lionized or devoured, he is an American institution (all while being Canadian). At a certain point I wondered what Shatner would say about himself. (Disclosure; I've read books by Nichelle Nichols, Jimmy Doohan and George Takei.) I approached Shatner Rules wondering if Shatner is a deeply misunderstood man or a raging egomanic with an improper understanding of his talents.

The answer is yes.

 He's sort of a less destructive Charlie Sheen. When he yells winning, you get the idea that it requires others to be losing. After going after (almost) all of his former costars for various reasons (they were not the stars, they are fame whores, etc etc) he then claims all their hard feelings are born from their own imaginations. He's apologized for any imagined slights (as opposed, I imagine to the ones in the book) and moved on. Why do they still feel so angry? If I loved the guy and he talked about me the way he does his ex costars I'd have to rethink it.

There's a lot of that who-could-possibly-know faux innocence to Shatner. He invites Henry Rollins to the same event as Rush Limbaugh and expects everyone to make nice. (Why would there be a problem there?)  Rollins handles it with incredible grace, but the fact that Shatner never gave it a thought shows a lot about his personality. Discussing the absolute brilliant cover of Common People he did with Joe Jackson, Shatner takes several swipes at Joe. While ending with an acknowledgement of Jackson's utter genius, he leads with a ton of negativity in front of the praise. I imagine this is just how Shatner operates. It's not the most effective way to make friends.

So. Does Shatner think he is a brilliantly underrated performer who does not deserve the mocking he's graciously borne over the years? Absolutely. He is not entirely wrong. Shatner has a serious work ethic that demands the best he can offer from himself and others. Shatner has created multiple memorable characters in a career where people are lucky to produce one. He delivers what he is hired for, no matter what that might be. Shatner is a pro. His musical attempts are often better then he has been credited for. They are not, however, even close to his own assessment of them. The contradiction of William Shatner is that both sides are right. He is a charismatic and professional talent. He is also far from innocent of the various charges lain at his feet. In the end, Shatner Rules is an illuminating look at both sides of the man, the side he prefers to see and the side he unwittingly reveals. I am absolutely a fan.

Review: Don't Kill the Birthday Girl by Sandra Beasley

Love this cover. I think I was almost 2/3 of the way done before I really looked at the little cupcake decoration. It's clean, it's eye catching, it relates to the contents. I have no complaints at all on this one. The book is great too.

While I expected to dislike Don't Kill The Birthday Girl I loved it so much I should marry it. I live in in area where fake food allergies are common and yet I am all too familiar with real food allergies. If I throw a party I know at least two children will arrive with special instructions and an EpiPen but six more will have mothers standing by to explain their allergies as the so called allergic children graze openly on forbidden foods. Sandra Beasley finds this as infuriating as I do. Describing food dislikes or sensitivities as allergies endangers the truly allergic. Sandra Beasley is one of those so endangered.

Almost completely free of self pity, Beasley intersperses important information about the recognition and rise of true food allergies with anecdotal tales of life as a fragile child. With the impatience of anyone restricted, she longs to be normal. Sandra would rather eat what you're eating than draw attention to a myriad number of ingredients that can kill her. She doesn't feel a little queasy or get a headache after encountering an allergen - she goes to the hospital. Addressing the facts of food allergies calmly (that peanut allergy is not an airborne danger but touching someone with a hand that touched peanuts could be serious) Beasley offers insight into the current wave of food fear. Often amusing, at times frustrating, her goal to lead as normal a life as possible makes a great memoir.

Review: Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived In That House by Meghan Daum

I've had this one kicking around for awhile. I share the same disease as Meghan Daum, that of house envy. (There is nothing wrong with my home.) Since I was a child I've looked at other houses and thought "If I lived there I would be happier." It's led me to move across the country, across town, down the street. At this moment I can tell you three places I'd rather live and the prices on each, but I won't be moving again. (It's a property tax thing, I can't afford to move even if I downsized.) I understood what Daum's book would be about just from the title. So why didn't I finish it in a timely manner?

Life would be perfect if this was a slightly different book. While I totally identified with both her wanderlust and her desire to invent herself into a person she isn't, there wasn't much past that point to hold me. I read the first third quickly, then set the book down for months. Something brought it to mind and I sought it out again only to stop before finishing it. Today, while going through some notes, I realized I'd never completed the book and found it, bookmark intact. I had stopped six pages from the end. That's not a great sign. While I enjoyed the time I spent with Meghan, we weren't meant to be together.

It's interesting, there was a lot of buzz for the hardcover release (which had what I think was a terrible cover) and not as much for the greatly (visually) improved paperback. The Kindle version uses the hardcover image. In classic Agency fashion, the going rate (if not list price) for the paperback is lower than the Kindle version. (Way to kill those impulse buys, guys!) So perhaps my preference in cover design is completely off the market. Granted, the paperback cover is a little Mod, a little Retro, but the original cover was very Christian Inspiration to me, which the the book could not be further from. I wonder how the book feels? Does it cover shop and think it's sales would be everything if it only had a gatefold?

Review: My Father At 100 by Ron Reagan

I love this book. Flat out love it.

Let's get the politics out of the way first. I was not a fan of Reagan as a President. I think a large part of our failing economic situation today is a direct result of his True Believers perpetuation of ill conceived faith based economic policies. When he talked about his America I wanted to drag him to my America for a session of Compare And Contrast. This made my interest in reading My Father At 100 pretty darn low. (On the other hand, I respect the hell out of Ron Reagan. Your father is the most revered conservative icon since ever and you've consistently got the fortitude to calmly say "Well, I don't agree.") Back to my point - the cover of this book does not say Portrait Of An Icon it says My Father At 100. I've never respected the former president more than I did at the close of Ron's ruminations on his father's life.

Partly a biographical sketch, partly an examination of the father and son dynamic, partly a love letter, My Father At 100 isn't shy about saying "Well, I don't agree." Ron leaves the myth making behind yet - through his detailed examinations of his father's flaws - the strengths are exposed. Reagan was a diplomatic man. He did not encourage the level of hostility his worshippers have embraced. He was a man with a vision and the determination to see it through, even if that vision was hopelessly rose colored. Reagan was a man who strove to overcome his own limitations through hard work. If 99% of success is just showing up prepared, his move into politics becomes less surprising.

Ron explores his father's childhood, Ron Sr's troubled relationship with his own father and their strong family values. The picture that emerges is of an imperfect man that I simply didn't agree with. Ron's father being an iconic American is secondary to the man that Ron reveals, a man I might have liked to sit and talk with about things not related to Communism or Economic Policy. Ron Jr and Sr could not have been farther apart. Born of different generations, inclined toward different politics, one a cynic and the other a pie in the sky idealist, the two men are held together by a core honesty, a willingness to speak their minds. My Father At 100 was truly a rewarding read.

Review: The Girl's Guide to Homelessness by Brianna Karp

I wanted to like this book. Actually, I wanted to love this book. Sadly, Brianna Karp has done the unforgivable with The Girl's Guide to Homelessness. She has forced me to defend Fox News.

"Baby, you can't watch this. This is Fox News. It's not real news. No wonder " Duh. I grabbed the remote from his hand before he could hurl it in Nancy Grace's monologuing face. "How about we try a little CNN?" - Brianna Karp, TGGTH, 2011.


The most obvious problem is that Nancy Grace is not an employee of Fox News. If Nancy Grace is speaking, they are already watching CNN. The second is her tone. Her lover is making an error in his ignorance that she can make all better through her higher knowledge. Except she's wrong. So she's adopting this arch silly boy my culture let me show you it pose on a topic she knows nothing about. This isn't a small error of fact, this is proof of fiction. I don't doubt she and her lover watch television news.  I do doubt the truth of Brianna Karp's presentation of her life. She is simply too victimized and too noble and too good and those around her are too flawed and too evil and too everything else. As we used to say on the playground, "Get off the cross. We need the wood."

Karp takes pains to show how much better she is than every single soul she knows. When her trailer is towed after a written warning, she is not at fault. She had a verbal statement from the local manager that the written warning was simply corporate's posturing. Nothing to worry about! The little boss has said the big boss is all smoke! When her lover has a child with another woman, that woman is at fault for improper planning. When she has her own unplanned pregnancy*, the other woman is still at fault for manipulating her lover through their now present child. If only her lover had listened to her it would all be different! She knew what a problem that woman would be! (Insert her diatribe on how women don't appreciate men after they give birth and the good men she's seen wronged by crazy hormonal new mothers as a result. Oh yea, she goes there.) Her unemployed, cheating, unmedicated lover was just too sweet to see it. Wait a few pages though, he turns into a heartless monster who leaves her to die in the snow. Better to freeze than disbelieve, I suppose.

Karp starts off strong, but what begins as a journey into housing uncertainty (even she agrees she is not fully homeless) becomes a long list of ways she has done everything right only to be cruelly betrayed. This is a personality type I am more than a bit familiar with, so here Karp sets my BS meter off again. For example, the reader is supposed to believe that she is doing everything she can to change her situation, but Karp continually redirects money into nonessential areas.  She also prides herself on not using programs meant to assist her into stable housing, because those are for people that need help, not people like herself. (Yet she's willing to pursue Walmart for money after her illegally parked trailer is legally removed from their property. Go figure. She is absolutely one of those 'it's the principle of the thing' types.)

I felt tired after spending time with Karp. While the problem of homelessness and housing uncertainty is very real in America, Brianna Karp doesn't offer much to the reader's understanding of either. I believe a memoir from the other people in her life would illustrate a very different tale of a young life going wrong, and for that she has my compassion. What she doesn't have is my endorsement. If her goal was to change one person, she's changed me. I have often tried to explain my mother's propensity for hoarding with the line "She probably has the wrappers from her first trip to McDonald's." Now that Karp has used a similar phrase I will have to move on. I never want to be accused of lifting from her material.

*I find a great deal about this unplanned pregnancy and the subsequent loss of her child troubling. If true, she shows herself to be a deeply damaged woman. If not true, she shows herself to be the same. No matter which way the reader decides the truth lies, the result is a fervent hope that no child is placed in her care. It is an uncomfortable judgement to make about a stranger, but it is an extraordinary series of events the reader is asked to accept.

Review: Composed by Rosanne Cash

It's interesting - in trying to write a love letter to her father  with Good Stuff Jennifer Grant ended up making the reader think less of them both. Rosanne Cash takes a different path. In Composed Cash is at pains to be honest, about herself, about her father, about her conflicted feelings.  Her fearless style reminds me of a lyric by Simple Kid.

"Buddy, it's as simple as that / When you see past all of the crap." 


Rosanne Cash absolutely sees past the crap. While completely unfamiliar with her musical work, I left the book interested in exploring it. She's a likeable narrator, a woman you'd want to spend a day hanging out with. Her memoir is not a linear or exhaustive work. She focuses on brief periods of her life and her feelings about them before turning the light to a completely different time. She does not exploit a life made for exploitation, reserving what she should and illuminating what she wants. I respect her all the more for protecting her children from a blow by blow account of her relationships. I respect her for confessing her frustrations as a parent and as a child. What emerges from Composed is a portrait of a woman finding herself while multiple lives pull at her. The life she's set her feet on suits her, the city she's chosen to live in is a good one for maintaing perspective. Her parents emerge as people sometimes overwhelmed by their circumstances yet leaving their children a legacy of love. Not an easy achievement, and one that requires the child to meet them more than halfway.

For me the most resonant passage is during a trip to Ireland. Rosanne happens to meet a living link to her father in the form of a shopkeeper. I have had those moments, I have had a letter from a woman who played in the street a hundred years ago with my lost family member. She had pictures too. It's an amazing and inexplicable experience to find yourself somewhere you didn't really plan to be only to find your family waiting for you. Truly a memoir rather than an autobiography, Composed is out in paperback next month and it's worth spending some time with.

Review: Good Stuff by Jennifer Grant

I don't do a lot of editing on reviews. My style (obviously) is to go with my gut reaction, give it a pass over for spelling and grammar, then walk away. I am not the carefully crafted multiple draft reviewer. Therefore, reviewing Good Stuff is difficult. I feel so much compassion for Jennifer Grant the person. She has not put out a book. She has put out the version of her father she wishes the world would cosign. How do you review someone else's reality?

Good Stuff is the way Jennifer would like to recall her childhood and her father. Bad Stuff is anything not in that very, very narrow track. Grant's style reads as if she is talking to herself and you are permitted to listen in. She repeats herself, she jumps around in time, she reflects with oblique comments of a word or two. It's a very stylized approach and not a fully successful one. Her dislike for breaching her privacy is obvious and yet she has written a book to be sold to the public. Her dislike for the public's less respectful questions is also obvious, and again, she has written a book to be sold to the public. It is an absolute case of having her cake and eating it. While deliberately choosing not to explore her father's past or put the events of her life in context Grant raises more questions than she answers. Her father appears obsessed with her, it seems to go a bit beyond the average. He creates an archive of personal effects, complete with a bank vault style safe to store them in. He tells his young daughter that she is "his type" and as she grows older marries a young woman with a bit more than a passing resemblance to her. He's controlling, although Jennifer sees him otherwise. She cannot wear makeup in her teens, he prefers the silent treatment to conversation, imperfection is for others. There is a lot to sort through but it is left unexamined.

Grant doesn't explore the complexity of her father's personality, his past or the ten year custody battle for her person. She delivers a love letter to the concept of her father she has built in her mind, a concept she has every right to hold, but which a reader will find implausible and confusing. Any 'why' the reader may have is shied away from by the daughter. I question if Grant was ready to write a true memoir of her experiences. There is a lot of hero worship and no true introspection. Readers wanting a peek inside the gates, a reinforcement of the Grant image will be satisfied with Good Stuff. Readers wanting a true memoir balancing adult understanding with childhood impressions will come away thinking less of both Grants than they did at the start of the book.

The Grants adored each other and adored their privacy. I am not sure what purpose Good Stuff serves. It may have helped Grant to write it, it may be useful to children of much older parents who wish to compare experiences, perhaps it will be treasured by Grant's son Cary, but Good Stuff doesn't offer much to most who would read it.

Review: Beaten. Seared and Sauced by Jonathan Dixon

Man, I wanted to love this book.

It's not like I hated it, but five minutes after I finished it I couldn't remember much about it. In theory, this is the perfect book for me. Obsessive memoir about food and the creation of it? Absolutely. (The only way to make it more appealing would be to add a romance and WW2 with a Tudor era European tie in. But those are my fetishes, not yours.) Right, so it's a good book. It's a solid B. There's nothing glaringly wrong with it. I'm sure a number of people will adore it and disagree strongly with me for giving it a firm rating of 'Meh'.

Here's the thing - I didn't like Jonathan very much so I never cared if he succeeded. I know he likes the Grateful Dead, hates salmon, had a girlfriend who helped support him (heavily) through culinary school and that he considered himself a bit of a slacker. Also, he enters culinary school without intending to work as a line chef. That's about it for him. Dixon introduces you to several of his fellow students without much purpose. One or two get a word at the end or a comment through the book but most can be shelved as interchangeable people he knew and we'll never know more about. There's the girl who shares a look, the guy who takes orders, the one who smokes weed, but none of them ultimately matter because this is a book about Dixon and his feelings.

Generally in a memoir there is a wider arc, a larger tale told through the lens of the experience being recalled. This isn't that book. There's no foreshadowing, no passage filled with meaning later illuminated, this is a straightforward telling of the classes he took, the teachers he had, and how he felt about all of them.  If I was considering attending the school I would probably find more value in the book as a 'what to expect' primer, but as a casual reader the experience was ultimately empty. Dixon enters school as a slacker who wants to learn how to cook and he leaves it as a slacker who knows how to cook. Interviews with his classmates or instructors might have given the book more weight, as some alternative perspective is craved toward the second half of the book. It is interesting, however, to watch the development of the fresh food snobbery many chefs understandably adhere to. A discussion of how attainable that standard is for people outside a fairly narrow section of the country might also have added interest. As it is, if you're the sort that can run out to a few local farms to assemble your groceries (or not American), you'll eat better than those that can't. (I think we all knew that.)

Review: This Life Is In Your Hands by Melissa Coleman

I've struggled with this review. While I think Melissa Coleman's book deserves all the acclaim it will gather, I also have a serious problem with fictionalized memoir. Adding complexity, I have strong feelings about the movement that she (and I) grew up in.

This Life Is In Your Hands is an exceptionally beautiful telling of a story too rarely told, by a modern day Laura Ingalls Wilder.

This Life Is In Your Hands is a fictionalized memoir. Conversations, expressions, interactions are presented as directly factual where the narrator has no knowledge of events. Things in quotes may be imagined, not documented dialogue.

Each of these two sentences is true. Melissa Coleman relates conversations her parents had upon their meeting - conversations she could not have been present for and they are unlikely to have written down. She is also a gifted writer who has composed a memorable telling of her upbringing with far more forgiveness in her heart than I have. During this resurgence of food-as-medicine anti-technology all-organic glorification, her tale is even more important.

The author strongly defends her parents against charges of neglect, despite laying a strong case for parental neglect with her own words. As another child raised in the glow of kerosene lights and left to my own devices while my formerly affluent white parents found themselves through poverty, I think she is too kind. When she relates her public school experience, it rings very true for me. There are things to embrace in the lifestyle that her parents chose. If her parents had been present and engaged, not worn down by hard work and their own hubris, perhaps her story would have gone differently. Sadly, it did not.

Perhaps her most important message is that food is not medicine, organic will not solve all, and diet cannot prevent everything. (Having faced cancer at 39 and 43, with a sibling who became a type 1 diabetic at a young age, I certainly have trouble being polite to people who beg me to consider holistic and homeopathic care. Been there. Done that. Pass the modern medicine my way, please.)  If there is a secondary flaw to This Life Is In Your Hands it would be the relationship between Coleman's parents and their mentors. Her disappointment in them is obvious, the cause obscured. How she feels failed by them remains veiled. In all other respects, she has presented a brilliant illustration of her childhood and the forces that shaped it.  After reading the book, my spouse largely agreed with my take. I asked him for a second opinion as I recognized my own experiences were coloring my feelings about the work. "Her mother would have been better off in a Burka." was his one sentence summary. I am not sure I disagree.

I do think this is an important book, and an important read. Each generation has a certain amount of people exactly like her parents - driven to cast off what is wrong with their lives they go to the extreme edge. The Coleman's eventually pulled back to make a contribution in the world of organic farming, a goal we can all recognize as in our interests. It's the extreme edges that too often get overlooked.

Review: Ice by Ice-T and Douglas Century

I just want you to read this book.

Simple as.

If you're American you probably know Ice-T as either an actor, a rapper or as a symbol for what's wrong with the country. I think we need to flip that over and look at Ice as a symbol of what's right with our country. Ice is every American myth distilled into one man. Orphaned? Check. Troubled relationship with remaining family? Check. Lived in a war zone and / or wore our uniform? Check that twice. Self made man? Strong personal values? Honest about his faults? Works with our youth? Faced down political enemies? Willing to compromise? Strong work ethic? Whatever you've got on that Great American list you can go ahead and check it off. I have long respected Ice-T, but if the book was bad I'd tell you straight. So would he.

It's not. Ice: A Memoir of Gangster Life and Redemption-from South Central to Hollywood (who titled this thing?) is fantastic. It's his voice, it's his story, it's uncompromising, and it's valuable. If you pay attention, you might learn something. Plenty of people have judged Ice without really knowing much about him. Was he a criminal? Yes. I would argue that there are any number of criminals respected in this nation, and Ice is far more honest than most in repudiating the sins of his youth. He's also a man capable of facing down the right and left when his career was hijacked to serve political interests. Faced with a public stoning, he reinvented himself and thrived. (Even at the time I found it ironic that the man doing the most to speak out against gang violence and thug life was being demolished as a symbol of the same. America, bunch of idiots, God love us.) 

If nothing else, it's a good read. If you pay attention, it's a real look at how America eats it's own and what a person with integrity can do to stay ahead of the mob.