"My Broken Language: A Memoir," by Quiara Alegria Hudes

“My Broken Language: A Memoir” (One World, 2021), by Quiara Alegria Hudes, is a striking book, a beautiful book, an insightful and revealing book. The author writes of her Puerto Rican mother and family, and of growing up in Philadelphia, in a dizzyingly vivid, exuberant style. She writes about family (she has a huge, close family that spills in and out of each other’s homes), culture, language, food, dance, spirituality, ritual, and being a second generation American. The memoir bursts with life and a rich variety of stories, told in a candid tone. It is comic, tragic, and knowing. As Hudes gets older, she begins to write, and is now the author of several plays and musicals, including “In the Heights.” I highly recommend this wonderfully written book.

"The Way of Boys," by Anthony Rao

I just read a book that is not typical of my reading, or of the books I usually write about here: “The Way of Boys: The Social and Emotional Development of Young Boys” (Harper, 2010), by the Harvard Medical School child psychologist Anthony Rao (with Michelle Seaton). Why did I read it? Well, I (with my husband) raised a daughter, and now she has a preschool-aged son, and I am learning anew about differences between the way boys and girls behave and develop. The author believes that boys are different, and that parents and teachers need to understand those differences. It is a thoughtful book, informed by the author's years of experience working with young children; there are many examples and much good advice. Over the years, I have read many books about girls, and a few about boys, both from a child-rearing advice point of view, and from an academic and feminist theory perspective. I – like many parents (and grandparents!), educators, therapists, and theorists -- have thought a lot about whether the differences between boys and girls are inherent or socially constructed, or some combination thereof. And of course I understand the many differences within each gender, not to mention the binary and other non-cis identities of some children. I don’t claim to have any conclusive insights (!), but I continue to be interested in the topic, especially now because of my dearly loved grandson. (I now have an equally beloved baby granddaughter as well, making the observation process even more interesting for me). I do have one specific critique of the book: almost all the examples and suggestions refer to “Mom” and her worries, her talks with teachers, her child-raising. The author is very sympathetic to mothers’ concerns. But his emphasis on mothers highlights that child-raising is still – by some, apparently including the author – considered to be mainly the realm of mothers. Fathers are only very occasionally and briefly mentioned. Despite this (rather large, for me) caveat, I found the book interesting, insightful, useful, and very readable. The author has a reassuring and down-to-earth style, and is obviously drawing on a wealth of experience. As a footnote: I am happy to say that my son-in-law (who is very involved with raising the two children) is the one who told me about this book, and is reading it as well.

"My Place at the Table: A Recipe for a Delicious Life in Paris," by Alexander Lobrano

Paris and French food – always a great topic! I read many memoirs; one type I have read frequently, nearly always with pleasure, is memoirs of people in the world of food: chefs, restaurateurs, restaurant critics, cookbook writers, television food shows hosts, and so on. I have written about many of these in this blog. Recently, the title of a new such memoir caught my eye: “My Place at the Table: A Recipe for a Delicious Life in Paris” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021), by the American food writer Alexander Lobrano. Lobrano writes charmingly and disarmingly about his somewhat accidental path toward this career. He had always loved good food, and seemed to have an instinct for appreciation of its fine points; he also was fascinated by the idea of living and working in Paris. Gradually he made that dream happen. His detailed, astute, and loving descriptions of various types of food he encountered along the way, and how much he learned from so many people he met along the way, are a joy to read. He has a somewhat self-deprecating style at times, one that invites the reader in. His sense of humor adds to the pleasures of reading about his journey. The stories of food are completely embedded in the larger stories of his life and adventures; of the fascinating people he meets; and of the cultures of the different places he lives and eats, most prominently, as the title indicates, in Paris and surroundings. I thoroughly enjoyed this charming and engaging book, and I think you would too!

"The Shadow in the Garden: A Biographer's Tale," by James Atlas

“The Shadow in the Garden: A Biographer’s Tale” (Vintage, 2017), by James Atlas, is a pleasure to read. Atlas, a literary critic and the biographer of poet Delmore Schwartz and of novelist Saul Bellow, writes engagingly of his own experiences as a biographer; he also puts the art of literary biography in historical and literary context. For example, he writes fairly extensively about one of the most famous biographers of all time, James Boswell, and his subject, Samuel Johnson. He also writes of Lytton Strachey, Elizabeth Gaskell, and many other biographers of well-known writers. His research and knowledge is deep, and it is clear he has a great and genuine love of literature, writers, and in particular biography. But the best part of this book is Atlas’ descriptions of the years-long, complex process of doing the research for his own biographies. He did not know Schwartz personally, as the poet had died before Atlas embarked on the biography. He did know Bellow, and spent much time with the novelist, his family members (including several ex-wives and children), his girlfriends, and his friends. Atlas’ relationship with Bellow was fraught: Bellow was sometimes friendly and cooperative, sometimes resistant and even icy. Atlas writes extensively, although with a diplomatic reserve, about his own feelings about Bellow, but these clearly became somewhat resentful at times. He also writes about his own life and struggles and insecurities, although not extensively or inappropriately. The book is truly a treasure for what we learn about the art of biography and about literature more generally. The way Atlas weaves together all the topics mentioned above is truly impressive. As I said above, the book is truly engaging, whether the reader is a scholar of literature or not. This is true for me even though I don’t know the work of Schwartz well beyond reading him in a college class on poetry, and though despite reading several of Bellow’s novels and being impressed by them in my twenties, I have grown far less enchanted with them over the years. But Atlas managed to draw me in and make me fascinated by these writers and by the process of writing biographies. I will just remind readers here of a related memoir on the writing of biographies that I wrote about with very high praise here on 2/18/20: Deirdre Bair’s 2019 “Parisian Lives: Samuel Beckett, Simone de Beauvoir, and Me.” I personally enjoyed this book by Bair even more than the one by Atlas, but I highly recommend both books.

"Are You Enjoying?" by Mira Sethi

Mira Sethi, a writer who lives in Lahore and in San Francisco, has published a compelling collection of short stories set in Pakistan: “Are You Enjoying?” (Knopf, 2021). The stories inform non-Pakistani readers about Pakistan, but never in a didactic way; at the same time the book draws us in with the many both realistic and surprising situations the characters find themselves in. Most of the stories are about young people and their relationships, including ways in which they are influenced by and sometimes restricted by the norms of their country and families. Sometimes the characters find ingenious ways around these norms. In case any readers might think the stories and the writing would be conservative because of their setting, they will soon be proven wrong. There is plenty in the stories about sex and sexualities, and plenty of frank and colloquial language about these matters and others. The stories deal with family and family connections and obligations. Sometimes sexualities and love affairs have to be hidden, even disguised by such strategems as marriages between gay men and lesbian women. Sometimes there is violence. The stories are brimming with vividly-described experiences, conversations, twists and turns in plots, and all the mixed events and feelings of life; they never allow the reader’s attention to drift.

"All the Young Men: A Memoir of Love, AIDS, and Chosen Family in the American South," by Ruth Coker Burks

I recently visited the National AIDS Memorial Grove in the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, a beautiful and moving place. I am old enough to remember well the beginning and peak of the terrible AIDS epidemic, well before effective treatments made it a chronic disease rather than a death sentence, usually a quick and very painful one at that. Making AIDS sufferers' situations even worse was the way most people, even many medical people, were too afraid to touch or even get near AIDS patients, although there were many caring people among the gay and lesbian communities and among medical personnel, especially in the big cities, who did help tremendously. Already living in San Francisco at the time, I saw many of the devastatingly affected young men (and at the time, they were mostly young men) on the streets, especially in the mostly-gay Castro District, emaciated and aged-looking, often leaning on canes, with lesions on their faces and bodies. Ruth Coker Burks’ (with Kevin Carr O’Leary) new book, “All the Young Men: A Memoir of Love, AIDS, and Chosen Family in the American South” (Grove Press, 2020), describes the way Burks almost accidentally started to get involved with helping AIDS patients in a small Arkansas town in the 1980s and 1990s. Although she had no medical training, she started providing support and care to patients who were neglected even in hospitals because of nurses’ and others’ (often including their own families') fear of contact with them. She held their hands and talked with them and stayed with them while they were dying. Later when she was contacted by those with AIDS in earlier stages, she helped them find medicine, housing, and other services, always with her own unstinting caring. Because it was in a conservative area, it was even harder to do this work than in big coastal cities such as San Francisco and New York. (But here I pause to give tribute to ALL the medical and social workers and volunteers who gave so much of themselves, even in the early years when little was known about how the disease spread, and when these personnel did not know whether and how they were risking their own health and lives. Another important and compassionate memoir from those days, also set in the South, is Abraham Verghese’s 1994 book, “My Own Country: A Doctor’s Story,” about his work with AIDS patients in a small town in the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee in the early days of the epidemic.) Burks’ work started to be more and more known, and she started working with organizations and governments and getting grants, and even eventually became a consultant for Bill Clinton when he was governor of Arkansas and later when he was President. Many of these men who suffered from AIDS became Burks’ close friends, even, as the title says, her “chosen family.” Like all human beings, these men had both good characteristics and flaws, and Burks does not sugarcoat the descriptions, but her love for them all shines through. This is a story of bravery, compassion, and resourcefulness. Burks never seems to be praising herself for this work; she just describes it in a matter-of-fact way, and it was clearly a labor of love. As sad as the events of the book mostly are, the book is also full of joy, caring, and human kindness. It is sometimes even humorous, as Burks has a cheerful, can-do, even joking-at-times, tone. She and her co-writer have created an extremely informative and inspiring book. Of course the topic is a tremendously tragic one, and that is never forgotten throughout this memoir, but it is also one that makes readers care and want to keep reading. I highly recommend this book.

"Morningside Heights," by Joshua Henkin, and "Crying in H Mart," by Michelle Zauner

I have just read two engrossing books, one a novel and one a memoir, portraying caregiving of very ill loved ones. The books have much in common in their overall themes of the meanings of family and relationships and cultures, but are also very different in many ways. “Morningside Heights” (Pantheon, 2021) is Joshua Henkin’s latest novel, and as in his earlier novels (see my posts of 8/19/12, 9/13/12, and 2/14/13), his voice is (according to Joan Frank’s perceptive 6/27/21 Washington Post review of the current book and alluding to Henkin’s earlier fiction as well) “characterized by compassionate attention to modern human predicaments” and is “unflinching yet kind.” “Morningside Heights” describes the early-onset dementia of a brilliant and highly successful professor in his fifties, and his being cared for by his much younger wife. Fortunately they have the means to employ help, as well as caring friends who pitch in, but it is still a devastatingly sad and difficult situation for her and their daughter, as of course it is for him. Michelle Zauner’s memoir “Crying in H Mart” (Knopf, 2021) shares the sadness and pain of caring for a loved one, in this case her mother, who suffers terribly with cancer and dies when Zauner is only 25 years old. Mother and daughter have had a fraught relationship, complicated by the mother’s being first-generation Korean-American and the daughter’s being half-Korean, half Caucasian-American, as well as by the daughter's youth. The author decided to drop everything (she is a musician who goes by the name of Japanese Breakfast) and dedicate herself to taking care of her mother, and witnessed all the terrible details involving doctors, hospitals, tests, and the horrifying symptoms and pain that her mother endured. The two drew closer and closer during this time. One of the ways they had always connected, and continued to do so even more during the mother’s illness, was through preparing and eating Korean food. The memoir is full of food-related experiences, memories, conversations, and meditations. Zauner writes beautifully about food and its cultural connotations and how it is the way she best understands and draws closer to her Korean family and background. Both Henkin’s novel and Zauner’s memoir are painful to read, yet life-affirming, and both are very well-written and compelling. I recommend both.