"Seize," by Brian Komei Dempster

My colleague, the poet Brian Komei Dempster, previously wrote the wonderful collection of poems, “Topaz,” which I posted about on 11/26/13. Now I have read his brand-new poetry collection, “Seize” (Four Way Books, 2020), and it is both gripping and moving. The main focus of these poems is the poet’s son Brendan’s severe physical and cognitive disabilities related to epilepsy and other health conditions, and the complicated, serious, sad, challenging, painful but loving experiences that Dempster, his wife Grace, and Brendan have gone through and are still going through in consequence. The details he gives about their daily struggles, so utterly frustrating, are a transcendent sharing of pain and suffering, as well as of deep parental love. Nothing is sugarcoated, and there are no overt “silver linings” presented, but there are small, meaningful victories along the way. Readers are privileged to see the insights and deep connections this family experiences. The poems are candid and wrenching. Dempster also makes connections between his family’s situation with Brendan, on the one hand, and his family of origin’s experiences with discrimination, denigration, and painful suffering because of their Japanese American identities. (The earlier collection, “Topaz,” is named for one of the internment camps during World War II.) Besides writing here about the content and focus of the poems, I want to testify to the beauty and the power of the poems, and the language that simultaneously captures the unique and the universal.

"The Secret Lives of Church Ladies," by Deesha Philyaw

Deesha Philyaw’s small (179 pages) collection of short stories, “The Secret Lives of Church Ladies” (West Virginia University Press) packs a strong punch. First, what a great title! Second, each story individually, and even more the collection as a whole (some of the stories are interconnected), creates a small universe that pulls the reader right in. The focus is on Black girls and women at various ages, in various situations, often to do with love, sex, family, connections, faith, hypocrisy, loss, and grief. And yes, there are many secrets, including forbidden attractions and affairs. There is some (rather grim) humor too, as in the story “Instructions for Married Christian Husbands” who want to have affairs with the narrator; these include practical, non-negotiable guidelines regarding parking, phones, Facebook, religion, health, the man’s wife, and more. In “Peach Cobbler,” a girl writes about her mother’s affair with their church’s pastor. There is “Snowfall,” about women from the South who have trouble with the snow up North; the first line of the story is “Black women aren’t meant to shovel snow.” And poignantly, in the story “When Eddie Levert Comes,” a woman with dementia waits every day for a man she met once years ago, a minor celebrity, to come visit her. Each of these stories shows a writer in complete control, and on every page evokes emotions and insights. This is Philyaw’s debut book of fiction; I look forward to reading more by her in the future.

"We Need to Talk: A Memoir about Wealth," by Jennifer Risher

Some readers of this blog may recall that I am academically and personally interested in matters of social class, and have studied and published about some aspects of class. So I was intrigued by Jennifer Risher’s “We Need to Talk: A Memoir about Wealth” (Xeno, 2020). Risher and her husband both worked for tech companies, and her husband’s success in particular made the couple very wealthy. They were not born to wealth, so although they were happy to be so financially secure, it took them a while to feel comfortable spending a lot of money. Just for one example, they -- especially the author -- initially didn’t feel right about spending the money to travel first class, so they chose Economy Plus as a compromise. By the end of the book, they have graduated to expensive private planes. The same hesitations occurred regarding designer clothes and other luxuries. But they gradually adjusted to spending freely. They also appreciated the freedom to leave their jobs when they wanted to do other things. The most interesting part of the book is the portrayal of the psychological aspects, the doubts, the worries of newly (very) affluent people. It may be, very understandably, hard for readers and others to sympathize with their situations, but from a sociological point of view, it is useful and interesting to understand more about the process of changing social and economic classes in this way, especially since there is an increasing category of such people made wealthy by the tech world (something very visible to those of us living in the San Francisco Bay Area). The writing of this memoir is only workmanlike. But the work the author has done to understand this identity of becoming wealthy is revealing, and I admire her (seeming, at least) candor. I also admit that although this author doesn’t make her life sound fabulously exciting, it is fun -- in a slightly voyeuristic way -- to read some of her stories about the lives of the wealthy.

"Eat a Peach," by David Chang

Longtime readers of this blog may remember that I have posted about quite a few chef/restaurant memoirs. I love the world of restaurants! But for the past eight months, because of the coronavirus pandemic, I have been in strict stay-at-home mode, and have not eaten at any restaurants; gradually, I have found myself much less interested in such memoirs. Every time I saw a mention of, or a review of, David Chang’s new memoir, “Eat a Peach” (Clarkson Potter, 2020), I fleetingly considered reading it, but just couldn’t sustain interest. But recently I went ahead and bought it, and as I started reading it, I was inhaled back into the restaurant world. Chang is the enormously successful founder of Momofuku in New York, along with several ensuing restaurants there and elsewhere around the country and world. He has won numerous awards, including six James Beard Awards and several Michelin stars. Of course I had heard about Momofuku, a refined, original noodle place that became incredibly popular, although unfortunately I have never eaten there. I loved hearing the backstories, and the author’s takes on other chefs, critics, and related people and events in the food world. But what adds another dimension to this memoir is Chang’s description of his own struggles with depression and bipolarity, along with his blend of confidence and insecurity. He is candid about his own bad behaviors as well, including much screaming at workers in his restaurants. Although readers can never be sure if candor is sincere, or an attempt to win sympathy and to pre-empt criticism, I believed Chang, and felt for him. He also writes of his own blind spots about the restaurant world, and how it took him too long to recognize sexism and other problematic issues in that world. In any case, this fascinating memoir drew me back to the world of restaurants, and now I am sadder than ever that the pandemic has been so devastating for restaurants. And on a selfish personal note: I remember, pre-COVID, when I was sometimes sorry that I couldn’t try ALL the wonderful restaurants I read and heard about (although I did try a good many!); now I am sorry that I can’t try ANY of them for the foreseeable future.

Short Takes: Three Novels and a Memoir

Due to pandemic shelter-at-home, I somehow am reading (even) more but too busy with work (from home) and everything else to post about the books I read. Some books I don’t post about at all, as they are perfectly fine but don’t stand out (in my humble opinion), but others I want to at least mention, so a backlog has developed. Thus my collective post of 10/20/20, about five books. Today my post covers four books that I recently admired and enjoyed, but am writing about in one post to reduce the backlog. First is the novel “Payback” (Pantheon, 2020) by the always-superb Mary Gordon, whose work I have been reading and been in awe of for many years. “Payback” is a novel of revenge, not against the man who took advantage of the main character when she was a vulnerable teenager, but against the kindly teacher who inadvertently put her into the situation leading to the sexual assault. The main character changes her name, bides her time, becomes a celebrity, and plots the “payback” of the title. It is a very timely and unsettling story. Second is Caroline Leavitt’s novel “With or Without You” (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2020). I have also read and enjoyed several of Leavitt’s earlier novels. This one is about an unexpected and complicated love triangle, precipitated by the illness and two-month-long coma of one of the characters. It is also about the main character’s discovering her artistic and psychological powers. Third is Nick Hornby’s latest novel, “Just Like You” (Riverhead, 2020). Hornby’s reliably sensitive, humorous, psychologically aware, and always entertaining novels are a joy to read. This one is about a fortyish woman and a twenty-two year old man, of different classes, races and educational backgrounds, who somehow unexpectedly fall in love. The path is hard but touching and the story is witty and engaging. Hornby is also an author many of whose prior novels I have read. The only “new” author to me, in this group of four, is Melissa Cistaro, and her book is a memoir rather than a novel: “Pieces of My Mother” (Sourcebooks, 2015). It tells the story of how Cistaro’s mother suddenly left the family when Cistaro and her brothers were children. Thirty-six years later, Cistaro goes to see her mother as she is dying, and finds unposted letters that explain at least some of the reasons for the abandonment. The story is very sad, but at the same time shows how families somehow survive so much, and how resilient people can be. As a side note: the author is (or at least was at the time of this book's being published) the events coordinator of the wonderful bookstore, Book Passage, which is located just a few miles north of where I live in Marin County, just north of San Francisco. I have been going to that bookstore, one of my absolute favorites, for decades, not only to browse and buy books (including almost all my Christmas gifts every year), but to attend many readings by local, national, and international authors.

"What Are You Going Through," by Sigrid Nunez

Sigrid Nunez is a truly original writer, in a somewhat quirky way that takes getting used to. On 2/7/19, I posted about her novel “The Friend,” which is about a woman who unintentionally and somewhat against her will acquired a dog companion (left to her by a friend who died), and with time, found the dog to be a treasured friend. This perhaps sounds annoyingly sentimental, but it definitely isn’t. It isn’t a book that I would have expected to like, and I had to warm up to it, but then I was completely captivated, perhaps won over as the main character was by the dog. In Nunez’s new novel, “What Are You Going Through” (no question mark) (Riverhead, 2020), there is a similar strange, uncomfortable vibe in the sense that it involves the main character being drawn into something that she never asked for or wanted to do: she reluctantly agrees to accompany her friend who has a fatal disease in her final days, knowing that her friend plans to commit suicide (self-euthanize). But in this novel as in “The Friend,” the main character is drawn in, wanting to be a good friend, and also somewhat fascinated by the decision her friend has made. The novel is about death, yes, but really it is more about life, about friendship, about enduring what seems unendurable, and about savoring the time together as the story moves toward the inevitable end. As with “The Friend,” the description makes the novel sound sentimental (the friendship part, not the dying part), but it is in fact quite unsentimental and unsparing in its observations about how people feel and behave in such circumstances. The main characters in both books are a little prickly, although caring, and do not make it easy for readers to immediately appreciate them or desire their company, but they end by being compelling, as are both the books themselves. In other words, in both novels, the characters and the stories sneak up on the reader. Both novels are beautifully written. This is a small book, physically (just over 200 small pages), but it shows us so much about friendship, connection, and what human beings do for each other over and over again.

RIP Diane di Prima

I heard San Francisco poet Diane di Prima read within a month of my arriving in San Francisco for a new teaching position, many many years ago. I was excited to be in this fabled city, with its beauty and vibrant culture. As an English major, I had studied the Beat poets, but of course those were mainly men. The reading was in Golden Gate Park, and sure enough, the poets were almost all men. I was thrilled and starstruck to see them and hear them read their work. But Di Prima was a revelation, and she is the one whom I remember from that evening of poetry. That evening came back to me when I heard of Di Prima’s death on October 25th, at the age of 86. She was originally from New York City, and started writing poetry at a young age. One of her high school classmates, with whom she shared her early poetry, was another gifted and legendary poet, Audre Lorde. De Prima was a teacher, an editor, an organizer, an activist, and at one point, San Francisco’s poet laureate. She was also the mother of five children. She was unafraid to write about female sexuality, graphically at that, and about motherhood. She never stopped writing, even during her final eight years during which she suffered from Parkinson’s disease and other health problems. She lived life fully, literarily and otherwise, and she was a pioneer in poetry. I know she inspired many, including this blogger/reader/feminist. (Thanks go to reporter Sam Whiting at the San Francisco Chronicle, in his 10/29/20 obituary, for some of the details included in this post.)