Genius

We found out this week that The Bean's IQ tested in the top 99.5%. Yay! Right? Not so much. I am worried (because that's my go-to emotion with anything Bean-related). I won't start into the particulars because this will turn into a neurotic manifesto and I don't have time for that right now... I want to watch New Girl and read my book.

But then she cut off all her bangs because she couldn't figure out how else to get tree sap out of it. Later she repeatedly hit herself in the head with a pillow until she got dizzy and fell down. Why? Because she's six and that's what six year olds do.

Tonight she started planning her science fair project on electromagnetism while singing a song about the scientific method and asking me questions I had to look up the answers to. Five minutes later she was laughing so hard she almost peed herself because I was singing Chic's "Everybody Dance" chorus: "everybody dance, da-da-doo-doo, crap your pants, crap your pants" instead of "clap your hands, clap your hands."

I've always known she was smart. She started talking at nine months old and reading before she was two. But because she's silly and goofy and clutzy and fun, I assumed she was bright or moderately gifted. But genius? That looks different, right? That's serious and studious and maladjusted and unpleasantly weird, yes? Apparently not. Genius is a six year old with stupid bangs, a wicked sense of humor, and a collection of weird things she finds on the ground.

Bean is a genius. Her IQ places her in "genius range."

And she likes poop jokes and blowing bubbles and having dance parties.

I can do this. She's Bean. I've got this.

Review: We Disappear (Scott Heim)

This novel could have been so much better than it was. It was one of those cases where you finish the book and think "where the fuck was the editor? why didn't somebody cut out about 30% of this and have him rewrite some of the stronger parts?" It was unnecessarily frustrating.

Scott Heim's protagonist is the meth-addicted gay son of a woman dying of cancer. He's a tweaker, truly and fully, and Heim pulls absolutely no punches showing exactly what this means. It's unapologetically real and raw. But the reader truly cares about him. He's flawed but you want to know him, you wouldn't leave him alone in your apartment but you'd meet him for coffee any day. Heim also doesn't write a stereotype. His sexuality is only brought into focus in the most relevant ways and there is never any dramatic "coming out" moment. He doesn't use the character's sexuality as a theme, as so many authors still do (thus creating a sense of "otherness" that is disrespectful and exploitative at its core). His homosexuality is simply is part of who he is, like his brown hair or the fact that he has a sister. I found that profoundly respectful and was quite moved by it.

However the story is slightly far-fetched, there are far too many unnecessarily confusing plot twists, many of the characters read like extras from central casting, and the conclusion is a unsatisfying pathetic little sigh. But again: I think this could have been fixed in editing. Perhaps this kind of editorial sloppiness is a side effect of e-publishing and print-on-demand, perhaps not. But it has to end! Too many good books are being lost in their own "should have been cut" detritus.

Review: Dora: A Headcase (Lidia Yuknavitch)

I wasn't sure I even wanted to read this book. A retelling of Freud's quintessential case study but from the perspective of the case study herself? Freud in present day? Really? No one even offers Freudian psychotherapy anymore (and for good reason!). But after reading the first few pages, I was hooked.

Yuknavitch's Dora is a sharp-edged hilariously profane Seattle punk being raised by distant dysfunctional wealthy parents. She may be a bit more savvy than most seventeen year olds and far wittier than any seventeen year old. But you like her. She's fucked up and fabulous.

Freud is... well, Freud. Except the reader gets to experience more of Freud (truly!) than we've been privy to before. Jung's in there too in all his ethically questionable rave-attending drug-fueled goodness. Jung fits modern day so much better than Freud ever could. The relationship between Freud and Jung was the only disappointment in the novel. It's never fully explored. Yuknavitch's inclusion of it seemed perfunctory and obligatory rather than truly part of the plot.

Yuknavitch's writing is fast, funny, and good. Solidly, profoundly good. Her plots are slightly unbelievable and there a few too many coincidences, but the novel is readable and highly enjoyable. Also, Yuknavitch's construction of Dora's home life is gloriously rich for Freudian analysis and was truly a nod to Freudian theory.

Review: Where'd You Go, Bernadette? (Maria Semple)

Suspend disbelief.

Put aside your hatred for the wealthy worried-well.

If you're from Seattle, set aside your cold Nordic humorlessness.

This book is fun. It's not brilliant, it's not life-changing, it's not The Next Great American Novel. But it works for what it is: a light, funny, epistolary novel chronicling the minorly disastrous consequences of one woman's snobbery, social phobia, and artistic discontent. It is also about her fifteen year-old daughter who is trying desperately to find her now-missing mother and save her parents from their stupid selfish decisions.

The mother-daughter relationship is what holds this book together and makes it something more than the dreadful "breezy beach read" it seemed destined to be (seriously... the cover? Why not just put lipstick and a shopping bag on the front. Jesus H. Christ...) However, the husband/wife relationship is not as well developed. It feels hollow and flat and we never truly understand why Bernadette is with her uptight computer-programming husband.

Semple skewers Seattle-ites, Microsofties, gifted teens, and grasping middle-class soccer moms. Many of Semple's jabs are predictable and clichéd but her region-specific pokes are spot-on and appreciated by this region-specific reader.

Review: A Rage in Harlem (Chester Himes)

Why I haven't read Chester Himes before now is beyond me.

As the title suggests Himes writes Harlem,  not about Harlem, not stories set in Harlem. He writes Harlem. Harlem becomes more than a setting, it becomes bigger than the story, bigger than the characters, bigger than Himes. Harlem is a presence, a power, a force that can not/ will not/ should not be stopped. It's filthy and violent and gorgeous and alive. Harlem breathes in this book. It exists in a way that the human characters don't. His writing takes you there and you're horrified and thrilled and left feeling like the safety net of "just reading about it" isn't enough, you feel vulnerable. It's wonderful. Truly wonderful.

But... there has to be a "but"... you may not like Himes's Harlem. The book is a blood-soaked hard-boiled crime-ridden romp. Yeah, I said romp, you dirty mother-rapers... forgive me that Himes-ism; my brain is Himes-drunk and happy. But I digress...

There is no good or bad in this novel. You cannot point to anyone and say "s/he is the hero/villian." The main characters are either seasoned criminals and con-men or "squares." And even though you probably wouldn't want to know them in real life, you find yourself rooting for Jackson (the square), his dope-fiend twin brother who makes his living dressing as a nun and selling tickets to Heaven,  and Jackson's anything-but-faithful girlfriend Imabelle. The detectives are brutal, crooked, and intentionally create an environment of terror in order to hold onto the little power their badges give them. Despite this, you actually like the detectives. They are the very definition of bad ass.

Some books I finish and wish I could have written. I finished A Rage in Harlem and wondered why this hadn't been made into a movie. Turns out, it has. There's a 1991 film version that I must now track down.

I am praying that it won't suck. PLEASE PLEASE don't fuck this one up, Hollywood! Himes, and his writing, deserve so much more than that.

Review: After Life (Rhian Ellis)

Rhian Ellis's "After Life" is the first novel I've read from Nancy Pearl's "Rediscoveries" series, a collection of previously out-of-print books Librarian of the Gods and NPR Morning Edition regular Pearl identified as unread and/or under praised gems of the 20th century.  Hand-picked by Pearl, these novels have been republished and given a second chance (helped along with a heavy dose of publicity and buzz by Pearl herself).

I trust Nancy Pearl. She has an infectious passion for books and while I don't always agree with her opinions on certain books and authors (don't get me started on John Irving or Ann Patchett) I trust anyone who dedicates their life to books. Not just writing, but books, and getting people excited about reading.

"After Life" is full of mediums, spiritualists, and New Age tarot-reading psychics. Not usually something I'd go in for, but Ellis's novel is surprisingly down-to-earth and relatable. She presents spiritualism in a solid, respectful, meticulously well-researched way that gives the reader a better understanding of its history and evolution.

Ellis's novel is also a novel of a dysfunctional mother/daughter relationship novel. Except where other novelists paint their characters as grotesquely unhealthy and abusive, Ellis's women are realistic and live in the real world, specifically the world in which mothers and daughters destroy and rebuild each other with everyday slights and gestures. It's subtle, something sadly lacking in most books that exploit the modern domestic relationship trope.
And then there's murder. It's not a whodunit, you know the who from the first page. But it asks the much more interesting and relevant question: why. This question ("why") kept me reading and I was not disappointed.

My only complaint is pacing, something I've become all but obsessed with lately. It drags in parts and moves far too quickly in others. However, this is mainly an issue of editing and I would have liked to see what could have been done with this novel under the hand of an expert editor.

An exceptionally brief mid-life crisis

It's a horrible cliche: middle-age woman in her second marriage and third career decides to pursue a particular path - an adult path, an "appropriate" path, certainly not the path she wanted but one she can "live with" - and she commits to said path.

And then everything breaks down. She overreacts to normal office politics and administrative ass-fuckery, she becomes withdrawn and uncommunicative, and in an impressive example of psychosomatic resistance she comes down with a stomach flu and ends up in bed for four days. She's not unhappy; she's miserable. She's trapped and depressed and starts to isolate and she thinks her life is a giant out-of-control lie. 

Now here's where it starts to get... if not good, then at least better, more specific. Husband #2, being frighteningly adept at reading her sometimes mercurial moods, though she tries her best to hide these things, says to her "something feels off, I think we need to get the hell outta Dodge for a while." They plan a weekend trip. Several destinations are discussed but they decide on- correction: she decides on the town in which she felt most like herself, the last place she felt completely whole and (though she cringes at the term) "fully realized."

When they get there she is reminded of all of this, of how she felt the first time she spent any significant length of time in a community of like-minded people. Back then she felt, if not happy, then the absence of an overwhelming sadness that she had not noticed until it was missing. In the absence of this sadness she realized that she could never go back to it. She scrapped her old life and started a new one, a better one, a happier and more complete one. It was hard but it was good.

And now, in the present, she walks with Husband #2 to all the places she remembers herself. She goes to the locations of (unironic) Major Life-Changing Decisions. She sees signs of her past self, her real self, everywhere. Literal signs. It's awful and heavy-handed and part of her rolls her eyes at how obvious it all is. She is sad and desperate and wants to change her name and run from The Wrong Path. She falls apart. Husband #2, who calls her on her shit better than anyone she has ever known, who is not afraid of her anger or her tendency to withdraw, who tells her to knock that shit off because he's on to her and knows what's she's trying to do and she's not fooling him... tells her to start being honest with herself and him. So she is. And the world starts to feel right again.

She's not good at being honest with herself but she's much worse at trying to live a life that doesn't feel right. She is, quite frankly, awful at being an appropriate adult and doing appropriate adult things and would much rather spend her days thinking and writing about books and writing. She has always been this way; she prefers books to people. She prefers books to sleep, food, sex, drugs, children, husbands, breathing. She prefers books.

And now she feels like Bartleby and will call The Arbiters of The Wrong Path and tell them she'd rather not continue on that path but rather to pursue The Right Path. The Only Path. And she realizes, at last, that there was never really any question, the choice had already been made years ago. This is her One True Thing and she has grown tired of trying to make it be something else.

And while she feels foolish that she again tried to deny what is obvious to herself and to everyone else, she does take some small pleasure in the fact that hers was, perhaps, the most succinct and efficient midlife crisis in history. This small pleasure is of course diluted by the sudden bitter realization that she likely could have successfully angled for some kind of murdered-out souped-up V12 Hemi-powered muscle car in the process.

Fuck. Maybe I should try that again.