How to Frighten Parents of Teenagers

Anne Lamott's new novel, "Imperfect Birds" (Riverhead, 2010), is a frightening one for readers who are, or will be, parents of teenagers. In this third installment (following the earlier novels "Rosie" and "Crooked Little Heart") of the story of young Rosie and her family, Rosie is 17 years old and experimenting with all that a teenager's life has to offer, including alcohol, drugs, and sex. Her mother Elizabeth and stepfather James are baffled, afraid, and sometimes angry. Rosie can be so sweet and loving, yet so rude and rebellious. She lies to her parents all the time, and they are caught between wanting to believe her often convincing stories and knowing better. What the novel illustrates scarily well is the unbearable experience of watching one's child go off the rails, and the helplessness that parents feel in the face of all this. The only allies Elizabeth and James have in battling with the situation are love, faith, supportive friends, access to relevant services, and the fact that Rosie is basically a "good kid" underneath it all. The novel - like most of Lamott's writing - is set in Marin County, California, where she lives and, as it happens, I live as well. Many of the scenes - geographical and social - are very familiar to me. Lamott's writing, although a bit workwomanlike, is effective, and kept me absorbed. And in case readers dread reading about such a painful topic, let me add that there are many positive and even happy scenes among the difficult ones, as well as quite a bit of humor, and that the novel ends with a note of hope.

Girls Wandering Through Life

I have very recently read three novels that have much in common: "The Wonder Spot" (Viking, 2005), by Melissa Banks (author of the bestseller "The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing"); "Girls in Trucks" (Little, Brown, 2008), by Katie Crouch; and "Men and Dogs" (Little, Brown, 2010), also by Katie Crouch. Each features a young woman main character, and each of those characters is a bit lost, a bit stumbling as she makes her way from her teenage years well into adulthood. Each character takes a number of unchallenging jobs and has trouble finding a "real" career. Each has a series of relationships with men ranging from those obviously wrong for her to others that seem more promising but somehow always go wrong and/or fade out. Each has mixed (but basically loving if exasperated at times) feelings about her parents, and ambivalent relationships with grandparents; two of the three, interestingly, are closer to their brother(s) than almost anyone. This description may make the novels sound depressing, and there is that aspect, but in fact all three books are quite enjoyable to read. One reason is that there are many positive aspects in each young woman's life: family, friends, enjoyment of the cities where they live, fun, and continued if shaky optimism. Another enjoyable element in these novels is humor; Sophie, the main character of "The Wonder Spot," has a particularly funny, sardonic voice that enlivens the book. Further, all three novels are well-written.

Wishful Reading

I sometimes wish I could read anytime, anywhere: read while driving, read in the shower, read while sleeping, read while walking.... Of course I don't do any of these. Actually my friend Ch. DOES read while walking, as she walks on the beach almost every day; I wish I could do that, but I don't think I am coordinated enough, or perhaps relaxed enough. And as I already read so much, it is probably just as well that I don't read ALL the time!

Large Print Blues

I have needed reading glasses for a while now. So recently I thought I would try large print editions of books, available at my local library. Strangely enough, reading the large print novels made me feel both old and childish at the same time. Old, because of all the associations with old eyes and old people, but childish because it reminded me of children's books, with their chunky, blocky print; somehow these editions even made the sentences seem shorter and simpler, absurd as that sounds. As much as I believe in the pure power of words, experiences like this remind me that the packaging and the media do make a difference in one's feelings about a book. Reading a mass market paperback with a gaudy cover feels a bit different than reading a sturdy, plain-covered hardback edition of the same book. Reading online is definitely different than reading print. Listening to books-on-tape is different from reading books. Even a book's size and the font used can make a difference. Somehow reading large print books has been a bit unsettling. I do want to acknowledge that they help a lot of people, so I am glad that they exist; in addition, I may well need them myself someday. In the meanwhile, I may have to get stronger reading glasses, but I think I will postpone the large print editions for a bit longer.

No, Thanks, Really!

I had seen a couple of reviews of Scottish writer A.L. Kennedy's new book, "What Becomes: Stories" (Knopf, 2010). I had heard she was an excellent writer, and this story collection sounded intriguing, but it also sounded very intense and depressing; I couldn't decide whether I wanted to read it or not. I kept thinking I would read one or two more reviews and then decide. Then today I read in the San Francisco Chronicle's review by Carmela Ciuraru that "One English critic has compared the experience of reading Kennedy to being 'being beaten in the groin with a hammer' - intended as a compliment - and it's an apt description. Her books are tough." Um, I think I will pass....

Another Great Day at the Literature Conference

I spent another wonderful day at the American Literature Association conference today (see also my post of 5/27/10), and heard talks on more of my favorite women writers: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Kate Chopin, Flannery O'Connor, Constance Fenimore Woolson, and Gertrude Stein. It was both intellectually stimulating and a joy to revel in hearing such interesting talks about such great writers! An added bonus was hearing Emily Toth speak, and meeting her after the session; she is a leading scholar on women's literature - especially Kate Chopin's work - and women's issues, as well as the author of the Ms. Mentor book and columns, in which she gives astute advice to women in academe. She was very funny and very friendly. Another thing I liked about the conference was the speakers' obvious dedication to, and even love for, the authors they spoke about. Yes, they are doing their scholarly work, but their sense of connection to "their" authors was palpable.

Bad Marriages, Limited Lives: "The Pumpkin Eater"

"Peter, Peter, Pumpkin eater/Had a wife and couldn't keep her./ He put her in a pumpkin shell/And there he kept her very well." I imagine you remember this nursery rhyme; Penelope Mortimer chooses to title her novel "The Pumpkin Eater" (McGraw-Hill, 1962) after it. And yes, it describes a very bad, very dysfunctional marriage. But it also illustrates the larger issue of dissatisfied women in constrictive marriages and limited lives. This novel was published in England about the same time that Evan S. Connell's "Mrs. Bridge" (which I posted about on 5/3/10) was published in the U.S., and both address these limitations on women's lives in the 1950s and 1960s. The main characters in the two novels are very different. One is English, one is American. One is urban, one is small town. One isn't very concerned with morality; the other is very proper. One is a careless housewife and mother; the other does everything correctly. But each is confused about why she doesn't feel fulfilled or happy, despite having material comforts, a husband, and several children. Both feel oddly lost; both at least briefly consult therapists (at their husbands' suggestions) who are completely useless and even harmful; both have husbands who can't or won't understand what their problems are (although in different ways: Mr. Bridge is clumsy and rigid, whereas Jake Armitage is self-centered and unfaithful). In other words, both women have the condition described by Betty Friedan in "The Feminine Mystique" -- lack of fulfillment and lack of opportunity for fulfillment.