A Literary Life

Like most readers, I was drawn into literature by fiction, and by and large, fiction is what I read. Non fiction often reeks of the classroom, lectures, homework or obsession with a certain subject (World War II anyone?). But it’s non-fiction books like Voluntary Madness that cause me to see the beauty of the form, how the truth creatively told can be more engrossing and entertaining than any made up tale. Of course this tale — of a writer with a history of depression who voluntarily has herself committed — was one of the most engrossing autobiographical works I’ve ever experienced.

Determined but uncertain about maintaining her own mental equilibrium, Norah boldly commits herself to three different facilities up and down the socioeconomic ladder, and brings to life an astonishing range of tragic and comic inhabitants of these wards. We are with her as she navigates the byzantine rituals of the urban hospital with its overburdened staff and underattended, near indigent patient population dazed on a buffet of powerful psychotropic drugs; a calm private clinic in the Midwest, populated largely by lonely middle-class substance abusers on court referrals; and, finally, an alternative-therapy private clinic, opposed to medication with a focus on human process.

Revealing as to the human psyche, the state of mental health care in our country, the prevalence of often dangerous pharmaceuticals as well as the author’s personal history and emotional struggles, life inside the loony bin is very well rendered in a can’t-look-away-from-the-car-accident manner. Craziness fascinates us, craziness scares us, and in the end, craziness is something that we “other,” drawing a line between it and us that’s thinner than most people imagine.

But you, reader, are the sane person reading this now, and you are thinking that these people on this page are not you. By no means are they you. They are the other, put away, out of sight — and yes I, too, laugh at this expression newly now — out of mind.

It is a significant expression in this context — out of sight, out of mind. But out of whose mind? Who is out of whose mind? The lunatic is out of his mind and so we put him out of sight — not because being out of sight is necessarily good for someone who is out of his mind, but because when the lunatic is out of sight he is out of our minds. We can forget him, forget his resemblance to us, forget he is a member of the family. Thus he is made into not just “an,” but “the” other.

But as I mentioned, this, by the author’s admission, is not an objective account of anything, but becomes…

… the very persoanl account of a bona fida patient’s search for rescue and, if possible, a touch of lasting self-awareness along the way. The journalist and the patient are both me: one doing a job, or trying to; the other slouching, in her own time, toward bedlam; and each, by turns, pushing the other up and along or dragging her down.

This is non fiction that flies by, that you can’t put down, that you don’t want to be interupted from. It’s a book that anyone with experience personally or tangentially with mental issues or anyone with a healthy curiousity about mental health won’t regret picking up.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars – Buy the hardcover

I tend to intellectualize things. Things like life, culture, social interaction, language. I like to see what our words and actions really mean, see what makes the world tick, see it for the complex system of signs and symbols it is. I should have taken more sociology in school.

I also, in the interest of full disclosure, like our current president, voted for him and eat arugula, so of course my enjoyment of this book stems partially from those preferences. But the other part of me that enjoyed this read comes from the way Obama describes himself intellectualizing as I do, dissecting himself and his place in the world in a way that both made sense and entertained me.

Half black and half white, growing up among the white part of his family, he has no one to teach him how to be black. No one can tell him how to exist in both worlds, or if that’s even possible. And so this book is the story of his journey to become comfortable in his skin and find his place — his unique, personal place — in society at large.

From his college days:

The minority assimilated into the dominant culture, not the other way around. Only white culture could be neutral and objective. Only white culture could be nonracial, willing to adopt the occasional exotic into its ranks. Only white culture has individuals. And we, the half-breeds and the college-degreed, take a survey of the situation and think to ourselves, Why should we get lumped in with the losers if we don’t have to? We become only so grateful to lose ourselvs in the crowd, America’s happy, faceless marketplace; and we’re never so outraged as when a cabbie drives past us of the woman in the elevator clutches her purse, not so much because we’re bothered by the fact that such indignities are what less fortunate coloreds have to put up with every day of the lives — although that’s what we tell ourselves — but because we’re wearing a Brooks Brothers suit and speak impeccable English and yet have somehow been mistaken for an ordinary nigger.

Don’t you know who I am? I’m an individual!

No, he’s not a Pulitzer Prize-winning genius writer, but he does know how to tell a straight-forward, descriptive and interesting story. (As a writer, I know that’s quite a feat itself. I’ve met and helped many who couldn’t.) But I wasn’t really in this book for its literary value. I wanted to know Obama’s story in detail. I wanted to know how he came to be the man he is, if he’s for real. And because I admire him, I wanted to know how he came to be the person he is today. Without being dry or boring, this book certainly quenched my thirst.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars – Vacation book-club reading

I love the man. I really love him. I love him in print, on the radio and in YouTube clips. I even love the man’s sister, for Lord’s sake. But I really, really sadly did not love this book.

Not that it was bad by any means. It was amusing and witty, typical of Sedaris, but let’s just say that it was a little forced, as if a publisher with a  five-book deal wanted No. 5 already and was breathing down his neck. As if all the stories of his childhood and every interesting anecdote of his life had been thought, re-thought and mined for publication long ago. What we’re left with is the day-to-day journal of a very funny man, just not the same funny man as he’s been in the past.

Can’t blame him. After all, he’s had more than 40 years to gather those best-ever stories. Now he’s an adult, and he’s not about to take guitar lessons/become a performance artist/come out of the closet/stop smoking by taking a $20,000 dollar, three-month trip to Japan ever again, now is he?

If you’re a Sedaris fan, it’s still worth picking up, like checking in with an old and beloved friend. But if you’re not a Sedaris fan, start earlier with “Me Talk Pretty” or “Naked.” Then you’ll fall in love, breeze through his whole series and wind up back here, where you’ll be mildly disappointed without losing faith in the author all together.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars – Book club vacation reading

Alright, let’s get it out in the open now, because I know everybody is thinking it, but maybe no one wants to say anything because it’s rather uncomfortable. Yes, they’re fake. The legs on that book cover that is. Totally Photoshopped out of human proportion. Because, uh huh, all women have legs twice the size of their torsos. Yup.

Fhew. Now that I got that uncomfortable subject out of way, let’s breeze right on to the sex, shall we? This book, which was amalgamated from a blog written in 2003 and 2004, is exactly as advertised: It’s the daily journal of a London-based, high-class “working girl,” a legal profession in the UK. And it’s sallatious and fun and silly and sad and witty, all of what you’d expect. And just as you’d expect, there’s a good dash of kinkiness thrown in just for kicks — HIGH kicks with those legs. Very “Sex in the City” in its tone, it never jumps over the line into downright crudeness, but remains a light and entertaining read.

Not much more than that, though. After all, it was a blog. There’s no character arc or plot development. There’s really no point. It simply ends, and that is that, which is rather disappointing. I’m told — by the boldface advertisement on the cover — that Showtime is making a series out of the concept, and I’m thinking that’s a much better venue for this material than literature.

Still, sometimes you need an easy, breezy and naughty story. At least I do now and then, so in that context it’s worth the 290 pages.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars – Vacation reading

I can guarantee right now that this post will probably drive more traffic and hit more search queries than most other things I write and, in fact, I actually considered not reviewing it. Why? Because this book is the memoir of an abortion doctor. That’s right, a sane, kind, intelligent female doctor who aids other women in ending unwanted pregnancies. Here’s the word again in case the search engines missed it: Abortion. Oooooo. Get a soapbox and a fire extinguisher, because someone is going to get up on the former and someone else is going to violently spray them with the latter. That’s just the nature of the passion the subject sparks.

This calm, measured and thoughtful book, however, is anything but incendiary in my opinion. Granted, my opinion is firmly in the pro-choice camp, so perhaps it’s easy for me to say that. But Susan Wickland’s story could make a more convincing case for safe, legal abortion than doubtful readers out there may expect. After suffering a horrific abortion as a young woman and then becoming a mother, Wickland became a doctor later in life, specializing in women’s health issues. She had to fight for the right to learn the abortion procedure, thinking that it was a necessary thing to know when you dealt with women who, you know, get pregnant and might want to, gee, have a perfectly legal procedure done to stop that pregnancy from progressing.

She had little idea what she was getting into. Because of the high personal risk of the job, very few doctors are willing to step into the shoes of “abortion provider.” They’re stalked, libeled, threatened — as are their families. From 1977 until 2005, these doctors have seen seven murders, 17 attempted murders, 52 bombings, 100 acid attacks, 3 kidnappings and 480 cases of stalking. Needless to say, few have the courage to provide the services anyway and more women than you would ever guess are thankful for them every year. And Wickland? Well, she even had the courage to provide services to the very women protesting outside her door, who would then use privacy protections to be out on the front lines the next day, harassing other women in the same situation.

“Smile: Your mom chose life!” read several billboards around my city, the very conservative town of Colorado Springs. These ads make me very angry, because they assume that every pregnancy is potentially unwanted, that women make arbitrary decisions about such important things. (Should I dye my hair red? Should I have this baby? How insulting to our intelligence. No wonder some think they have the right to make choices FOR us flippant women.) The experiences Wickland describe have nothing to do with women using the procedure as birth control or making offhand choices. These are real women making hard choices, women who would have no where else to turn except dangerous, back-alley, illegal providers. These are the victims of rape, abuse and incest. They are women who don’t want to bring their child into the wrong situation. They are women who know they aren’t ready. Women who don’t need to share their motivations with anyone, really, just as they need not make if or what form of birth control they use, what career choices they make, who they love public. It’s a hard choice no doubt, but one they have the right to make.
Wickland writes: “Abortion is about life: quality of life for infants, children, and adults. Everywhere and in every sense of the word. Life, not death.”

If you don’t believe this, or don’t believe that the above could be true for ANYone in ANY situation, read the book. Perhaps it will change your mind.