It’s here. Time for the People of the United States to vote out the single most vile president in the history of our nation. Four years of humiliation, despair, alienation of our allies, and the enabling and encouragement of racist hate groups will come to an end. I have little doubt of this. When called upon to do the right thing, I believe the American people will answer.
I won’t go into the grisly history of the man’s presidency. It’s too horrific and I don’t want to remember, to be honest. Neither will I refer to him by title. He has done nothing to earn it. The world knows the history and in the future I can only imagine what our descendants will make of it.
It is our national shame.
Voting him in once was a lapse of judgement. It was soul-crushing to those of us who believed it was a disastrous choice – though we can’t have known the extent of his depravity. Voting him in twice would be a damning indictment of the character of this nation.
That would be indefensible.
The last four years have been devastating to me personally. Outrageous behavior has become normalized; it’s been staggering ineptitude, narcissism, and just plain criminal behavior for four years. Unimaginable he’s gotten away with it all. I can’t explain it away without believing the soul of the country is completely without integrity.
The supporters of this outright tyranny are so insular they don’t even listen, pay no attention to his disturbing and dangerous actions. He grabs the flag, waves around a bible, spews hatred and blares out patriotic phrases and his people cheer.
His supporters are lost. Frankly, I’m happy to move forward without them. Damn them to hell for the part they’ve played in flirting with the downfall of our country.
It ends here, America. Going forward it’s a new day filled with hope for change.
Heyyy there, everything’s normal and nothing to see here!
The president has COVID-19 and continues to recklessly endanger lives, knowingly congregating with his constituents after testing positive for the virus. I think we’re up to nine infections traced from the same “super-spreader” event at the Rose Garden, at which we know for certain he was COVID-19 positive. The entire administration’s a circus, the GOP serial liars, and we cannot trust a goddamn thing they feed us.
Fantastic, thanks! And you?
I don’t really talk politics here. Vitriol spewed on social media leaves me so drained I prefer to keep Bluestalking a forum for books and salacious gossip. Not even a fraction of what I’m reading or writing or watching or thinking about makes it here as it is. Imagine if I spouted off about politics all the time. I’d write about nothing else.
The stresses of 2020 are taking a toll; my country is under seige from within and I am literally worried sick. Each day brings new shocks, and internalizing all this has left me and everyone I know shattered, complete nervous wrecks. I’ve let self care slide and didn’t realize how bad it had gotten until I turned off the news and looked within.
Despite a respectful fear of the virus, I did go to my doctor, who took blood and ran a panel. I’m aware all isn’t quite right. A couple of readings came back concerning enough she’s prescribed medication and requested re-testing in a month.
I’m not saying I have anything fatal; I am saying all the insomnia and constant flood of adrenaline and cortisol may have contributed to a disorder yet to be diagnosed. The doctor is targeting the testing, narrowing it to a couple of suspects, and I won’t be surprised if she sends me to specialists.
No doom and gloom. Chin up! I’m following doctor’s orders, overhauling the way I look at my health, and adjusting priorities bit by bit. I’ve grown cantankerous in middle age, grumpy and difficult, but I’m not completely stupid.
Shut it.
Outside of politics and health worries, my world is – SPOILER – almost entirely literary-focused. Aside from book reviewing miscellany, I’m working on bigger projects for two specific authors: Philip Roth and Camus. There’s a huge bio of Roth coming out next April I’m dying to lay hands on, plus the painting I bought from his estate auction watches me every time I walk through the foyer. A publisher sent me two essay compliations of Camus; it’s a secondary venture.
Since acquiring Roth’s Chinese reverse painting on glass I’ve intended to actually read his books – aside from Portnoy, which I read more than a decade ago and honestly disliked. Within the past couple of weeks I’ve bought multiple works of nonfiction by and about Roth, begun The Plot Against America, and started watching various documentaries and YouTube videos.
Chinese Painting on Glass, from the Philip Roth Estate
I’m falling madly for Philip Roth and I didn’t expect that. Based on a rushed read of Portnoy’s Complaint a lifetime ago, I mentally lumped him in with the School of Testosterone, my own personal and highly subjective classification for male writers I simply have not gotten along with, for various reasons. Most of them, frankly, have to do with an obsession with sex and sweaty man things. Can I be more specific: no.
I AM LOOKING AT YOU, HENRY MILLER.
For a good many years, I ostracized Hemingway. Weirdly enough, for a writer I’d formed an early dislike to – SEE: Forced march through The Old Man and the Sea book and film in high school – I made a concerted effort to see his homes in Oak Park, IL and Key West, FL. When in Rome?
Exactly when he snuck back in the parlor I can’t pinpoint but I had relegated him to the stables, where he’d been up to god knows. Visiting Shakespeare & Co. in Paris may have been his turning point, laying eyes on that iconic bookshop and imagining what they’d gotten up to endeared him to me.
If Sylvia Beach welcomed him, how bad could he be?
Shakespeare & Co., Paris, 2016
If you’ve read or know anything about The Plot Against America, it will be no surprise this is not an anxiety-lessening novel. Roth imagines an America overrun by facism, supposing what would have happened if the extreme right-wing leaning Charles Lindbergh had defeated Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1940 election. The best choice to be reading right now? Not so sure. A phenomenal read, yes.
Its concentration on the fictional Roth family has thus far kept me engaged without raising my already sky-high anxiety. I won’t hesitate to put it aside if it gets too intense but I don’t get the impression it will.
LOLLLZZZ – famous last words.
My health is, and will remain, first and foremost over any reading. Philip Roth wrote something on the order of 30 novels. I’m not lacking in material.
It’s Sunday evening. My brain and eyes are exhausted from spending the weekend staring at books and screens. I’m trotting off to find something entertaining to watch so I can unfocus my eyes and relax my brain. No documentaries, no heavy anything. Pity I don’t have a soaking tub or I’d end all my days in it.
Aspiring bloggers, take note! Sit down. Whip out your Moleskines and disposable fountain pens. I offer you the key to my Blogging Empire.
Write this next part on a fresh page. Memorize it. Eat it, so it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. Your enemies surround you, preparing to dance ’round your smoking carcass. Drumbeats are so loud you feel it in your chest; one word from that guy wearing a big, feathery hat and they’ll step off. It’s like totally dramatic, I will not lie. You could have used all this in a story, only you didn’t heed my warning.
FFS, why do I even bother.
READ THIS SO YOU CAN LIVE. Record my words:
1). Fire off a flurry of posts of varying quality in a short space of time, generating interest and gaining followers.
2). Piss off a few months. Totally ignore the goddamn thing like that dusty, wrinkled sock under your bed next to the mechanical pencil you dropped when you fell asleep writing marginalia.
3). Misspend all your time posting political rants on Twitter, articles on Facebook, pictures of rando stuff on Instagram. Use lots of filters, apply vignette to everything.
4). Indulge in self-loathing – really dig in! Sketch out all the ways you’ve failed, opportunities lost and connections missed.
Make them up if you must!
What am I, your secretary?
THINK FOR YOURSELF, FFS!
5). Poke your face in after you’ve lost your old password and have to re-set it, and, THIS IS THE IMPORTANT BIT, SO CHANGE INK COLOR: promise to do better, then don’t.
6). Order pizza. This is hungry work!
7). Send me money for value provided. My Amazon cart will not buy itself.
Its simplicity is genius. You can, quite literally, pour your Dorito-swollen pandemibody onto the sofa, eat popcorn and binge British crime dramas, and achieve every bit as much as I have. Every. Last. Bit.
I feel waves of admiration radiating. I love you, too, and accept your thanks with open wallet.
Retreat – Stockton, IL – July 2020
Srsly, this last stage of pandemonium has been intellectually frenetic, following that cleansing week I spent off the grid. Over a hundred pages ink-vomited into an ironically optimistic dedicated 2020 journal left me dry heaving and spent. Clarity of mind lasted, oh, a week?
It’s been a trip, innit.
It was the summer of re-reading Faulkner, plowing back through As I Lay Dying and The Sound and the Fury. They ripped out my slimy guts, leaving them throbbing on the floor.
Say it with me: William Faulkner is the single greatest writer produced by the United States. Full stop.
I clawed my fingers into the words, drowned in the depths of their devastating perfection. Analytical skills cultivated from a lifetime passion for reading and writing about reading and extricating allusions and meaning reignited, like a thousand banshees screaming their fury.
It was as if I’d never deserted criticism.
So, yeah. There’s that.
In other news, five years into the divorce my ex-husband and I have begun sharing custody of the family Jack Russell Terrier. I took her in when he found himself in a bind, faced with possible cancellation of vacation plans with his current girlfriend turning him to his last resort – me. I accepted reluctantly. Having a cat who never seemed to play well with others, and a lease stipulating a one-pet limit, I wasn’t thrilled though I love her dearly.
Lo and behold, I felt tearful when he took her home.
At 14, she’s barely slowing down – not that she’s ever exhibited the full-blown JRT personality. Anxiety tempers the in-yo-face exhuberance she doesn’t realize she’s supposed to have, though she Tiggers at walkie time.
Mostly, she sleeps. And at night she grunts and dream woofs, curling up against my back and kicking me randomly. Reminds me an awful lot of marriage, only my ex-husband never peed on my down comforter.
Violet is besotted, rubbing against Lia violently. She stands on tip-toe, takes aim, and heaves herself like it’s a trust exercise at a business seminar. Lia generally takes it well, save two times she literally snapped. On the upside, Lia hasn’t caught her.
I didn’t realize my lard-ass cat could move that fast.
Lia gets me out of the house and walking the neighborhood. Painted lady Victorian-era homes proliferate here; there are hundreds. A sucker for their beauty, I take pictures no matter how stalky it looks. I cannot help myself.
Historic District, Elgin. Painted Ladies.
After a summer spent pandemidating, there’s been a sea change in my whole perspective on relationships. Fifteen men met scrutiny, none fit the suit. Visceral nausea, a literal struggle not to projectile vomit through a mask made me realize what I was doing and why it was wrong: I was looking to recreate my last relationship, to reincarnate that specific man. Each one of them had about three minutes to be him. At that point I hoped an anvil would fall on their heads.
My life is so full. I’m finding my joy again, and trying to meet society’s idea of what I should want is useless torture. Plus, toying with the emotions of other people. That’s wrong, saying sorry, but no, over and over.
There’s been little happening and much happening, depending on perspective. I don’t venture out many places. Only when absolutely necessary. Agoraphobia is an ever-present threat, the pull of the farmers market on Fridays desirable beyond the produce and freshly-baked bread. I pick up groceries, see my adult kids occasionally.
Forcing faith the world will reopen one day, a 2021 trip to homes of great writers is in the planning stages. Beyond that, possibly the UK in 2022. All the stuff I can do because there’s no need to take anyone else into account in scheduling my life.
It’s going well, two steps forward and one back as the November election looms. Barring civil war, the next milestone is the vaccine.
We’re all taking it day by day, aren’t we.
Exhausting. But hopeful. It springs eternally, as it must.
Friends and exes still stalking me (as I am you, and you still look so pretty when you sleep), I am in a funk – at once bored out of my mind and so irritated the only thing stopping me from clawing my way out of my skin is the mess. Who needs the aggravation of no-contact carpet and upholstery cleaner rental right now?
Not this bish!
I’ve only just mastered grocery pick up, FFS, and even then I hesitate to abuse the term “mastered,” as I discovered today I left three frozen dinners in my trunk, in 90 degree heat, for two days. Particularly annoying when I’m gearing up for a “let’s get off the quarantine weight” initiative, my time-tested method consisting of protein shakes for breakfast and lunch, then strictly calorie-controlled frozen dinners – preferably frozen dinners that will not result in death by e-coli, and, though this would negate the need for future initiatives of any sort, upon further review the judges have turned thumbs down on this idea, in a rare show of a united front.
Is this current mood an improvement over anxiety? It’s a change. I’ve blown past insomnia to wake me and I will bitch-slap you, whore, which my doctor assures me is even worse than not sleeping. Yet, when I was not sleeping she was all furrowed brow and have you tried melatonin, and I was all yeah, but I ran out and I could put it on my grocery list but I’ll probably just leave it to rot in the trunk with my Healthy Choice protein bowls.
Summer heat helps nothing, the charm of my turn 100+ year old apartment tarnished by the lack of forced air. Not sure you’ve noticed, but little annoyances blow up when you’re sweaty and dehydrated. It took about three days of sweating myself into a dessicated pile of dust to jump online and splash out $ 400 for a window unit air conditioner – with remote, thanks very much.
Take my money! Just let me live again!
Impressive how easy the stores make it to spend your money while totally circumventing human interaction. You pay, they email you when your stuff is ready to be picked up, then some guy in a mask heaves it into your trunk like some kind of reverse robbery. It feels illegal, like a parking lot drug deal.
I’m left wondering why on earth I ever voluntarily interacted with another person, and if they’ll continue this even after the pandemic’s over.
Note to self: call Lowe’s Monday.
Where it falls short regarding modern conveniences, building management makes up for in superb maintenance service. Once I had the unit in my trunk, I texted my landlord I needed help putting the thing in my window. An aversion to squashing people having dogged me my whole life, I didn’t want anything disastrous to be my responsibility should the thing slip from my hands. Plus, when I rented the place he’d assured me installing said appliance would be no big whoop.
Two days later the maintenance guy came knocking, masked and carrying something that looked like an industrial-sized auger. Puzzled, I acknowledged I really had no idea what tools a person needed to install an air conditioner, and, obviously, a four-foot long metal spiral was necessary.
He pointed to the bathroom door, saying In there? Having already given my landlord the heads’ up I needed the a/c brought up the stairs because I couldn’t lift it from the trunk, I figured he just hadn’t relayed the message, so I replied, No, in my car trunk, at which point the poor man looked completely confused.
Your toilet is in your trunk?
No, my air conditioner is.
Him: blink.
Me: blink.
I need the window unit a/c installed.
Hilarity ensued, as he realized the clog in my toilet was actually a 50 lb. air conditioner. Ha and ha, the laughter becoming strained when I re-affirmed that, yes, my landlord had volunteered him, the maintenance guy, to not just install the unit but also wrangle the thing up three floors.
It was then the light in his eyes died.
I left him to the installation, having received a positive response to do you think it will fit in the kitchen window. All of fifteen minutes later, it was installed and running. He handed me the remote, even offering to put the box in the attic, to get it out of my way. I tipped him for what I considered over and above normal building maintenance, wishing him a good day and thanks so much.
Only once I’d wrapped up my work day did I take time to inspect the job. The little machine that could had restored my will to live, what more did I need to know? I’d sat at my desk all day pointing the remote over my shoulder, turning the air off and on. It most assuredly worked. A little loud, but my place is small and sound carries. No big whoop.
Dinner time rolled around and I was standing in front of the air conditioner, merrily cutting Brussels sprouts to roast. Like my entire apartment, my kitchen is compact. Sub-compact. Like, really, really small. The fact my hip was so close to the vent as to become frost-bit didn’t give me pause.
Until I went to shove the sprouts in the oven.
And the oven door hit the a/c, because there was zero clearance.
Because the sweet maintenance man had not, in assuring the unit would fit the window, taken into account I may actually go crazy and, I don’t know, WANT TO COOK FOOD.
Let’s stop this here while I tell you there are no good options for windows to virtually lose in my apartment. The sofa is in front of the living room window. The kitchen area has three beautiful bay windows I refuse to uglify with a huge appliance. Then there’s the bathroom and bedroom. The bathroom would be ridiculous, even if the window weren’t too small. And the bedroom? My headboard completely blocks it, plus, that window’s over-sized. It would require some sort of extension to fill the gap left by the expandable sides coming out of the air conditioning unit.
The kitchen window is not a good one to lose, but that’s basically it. I have the choice of eating hot food or burning to a crisp in my third floor charmer.
Are you even fucking kidding me.
I did what any sensible person would do. I spent another $ 150 on a combination toaster/convection oven, in which I hope to cook all food I cannot make on the stove top. The convection oven bumped the microwave from its perch, so now my microwave is sitting on the floor, while I studiously avoid thinking any further about any of this.
So. Yeah. I’m a little irritated at the moment.
How’s your pandemic going, month fifty-thousillion?
Takes a pandemic to propel me back to blogging, apparently.
My mind had been on it prior to that, but disaster provides strong motivation to reach out. I’d have posted sooner, like two weeks ago when it began, only the practicalities of turning your life upside down pretty much overnight take one hell of a lot of time and energy.
Finding yourself tired all the time? I’m exhausted. I sleep like an angel at night, but the emotional impact of all this drains every ounce of energy. I don’t doubt you feel that, too.
I’ve been posting semi-regular daily journal entries on Facebook for the consumption of friends and family, then realized that’s not the best medium for more complex thoughts. Bluestalking’s been sitting idle a long while, waiting for me to make up my mind what to do with it. I’d rather it hadn’t taken a global crisis to nudge me back toward writing.
Thanks, but no thanks, COVID-19.
Writer’s block, a thing I’ve rolled my eyes at basically forever, hit me with a vengeance several months ago. I quit reviewing, keeping a journal, even reading. Moving away, in spitting distance of where I’d spent nearly 30 years of my life but far away in terms of culture, provoked such fear and panic and I can’t tell you why. I left the country with less anxiety – TWICE.
I lost touch with myself. It manifested itself in out-sized anxiety I struggled to control, succeeding by virtue of digging my fingernails into the ledge I nearly dropped from. The place I moved is packed with character, the apartment charming as hell, and the diversity of the area far removed from my blindingly white former home.
But I kind of fell apart.
Coming back to writing and reading will, I’m hoping, return me to myself.
I know no one who’s had COVID-19, or even knows anyone who’s fallen victim. Counting myself lucky on that score. Also fortunate my occupation allows me to work from home; I have a regular salary from a company that’s thriving – actually hiring in the midst of this dystopian nightmare, and full benefit of health insurance.
My pantries are so full, if pressed I could stay in place at least a couple of months – though, Christ, I hope it won’t be that long. I lack for nothing, save face to face contact with those I love, though that’s a huge, yawning gap. I’m thankful for video chatting. There’s that.
The State of Illinois has been under a shelter-in-place order a week now, and I abide by that strictly, leaving home only to pick up medication, so far. When I need eventually need groceries, I’ll either order for pick up or have them delivered.
Again, I’m fortunate.
But tired, and struggling to wriggle back into my skin. Pandemics just don’t show up at convenient times, do they?
We are in this together, and what we make of this time will define how future generations judge us, looking back. I, for one, want to be able to look at my future grandchildren and say I more than got through this. Not just “I learned 100 ways to cook beans,” but “I accomplished a thing” – then tell them about it.
Insert pithy phrase here about how the summer’s escaped while I was (mostly) busy with other things, because the summer’s escaped while I was (mostly) busy with other things. That’s what happens when you’re a contributing member of society, constrained by the necessity of full-time, gainful employment in order to live indoors and eat something you don’t also feed your cat. Life sneaks by when you’re not looking. Feels like yesterday I was buying patio furniture and flowers, tacking up patio lights and mixing margaritas. All of a sudden it’s getting dark at 7:30, temperatures are dipping into the high 60s at night, and a few leaves are already starting to change.
When the hell did that happen?
I can’t turn my back anymore without something running amok. How can I be expected to carry the lot of you, merely one woman as I am? We’re going to need to form committees. I don’t see any way around it. First call will be for volunteers. After that, a general election between candidates personally chosen by moi.
I tried laissez-faire, and look where that got us.
May 2019 – when lilacs last by the patio blooomed
It’s been a hot summer, a thing I revile, at the same time acknowledging I also despise and dread winter. The greater Chicago metropolitan area offers great weather roughly three days a year. I spend the remaining 362 indoors, sucking in canned air like a freshly-charged Dyson. I am a delicate flower, suited to climate control. You know, like a rare orchid. Or dandelion.
I put the hor in horticulture.
I’ve been busy supporting the publishing industry while the rest of you were out gallumphing through state parks, eating meat on sticks and corn on cobs, watching fireworks and scratching mysterious rashes. That’s a really cute picture of you and your grumpy kids at Old Faithful, but shouldn’t you use this last unofficial weekend of summer to pitch a tent or roast something?
Pssst … The outdoorsy people are gone. It’s just us; I’ll close the blinds.
Gather ’round!
From the Booker Prize longlist: An Orchestra of Minorities
Of course I ordered a few of the Booker longlisted titles, but so far I’ve managed to read just one. When I say “just,” I mean just give him the damn prize.
The book’s that good. If any of the others can surpass it, I’ll be shocked.
“He had joined many others ….all who have been chained and beaten, whose lands have been plundered, whose civilizations have been destroyed, who have been silenced, raped, shamed, killed. With all these people , he’d come to share a common fate, they were the minorities of this world whose only recourse was to join the universal orchestra in which all there was to do was cry and wail.”
– An Orchestra of Minorities
Narrated by the “chi,” or life force, of Nigerian chicken farmer Chinonoso, An Orchestra of Minorities begins and ends with a woman named Ndali facing down her own mortality. Catching her preparing to jump off a bridge at the beginning of the story, Chinonoso rushes to intervene.
Months later, stunned by the grace and beauty he’d understandably missed in the frenzy of their first meeting, he falls madly in love. Only, he’s a poor chicken farmer, Ndali a wealthy and well-educated young woman on her way to becoming a successful pharmacist.
Her parents are adamant: their daughter will not marry this man.
Together, Chinonoso and Ndali are halves of a whole. Raised in a house of privilege, Ndali throws herself into Chinonoso’s world as if she’d never known luxury. Still intent on earning her degree, she sees no reason they cannot be together. Still, Chinonoso’s pride is hurt. An intelligent man, he’d given up prospects for further education when he took over the farm from his ailing father.
Desperate to convince her disdainful family he’s capable of greater things, Chinonoso leaves his native Nigeria – and a bereft Ndali – for the promise of affordable education in Cyprus. Trusting a childhood friend to transfer tuition money to the university and secure housing, before Chinonoso arrives he realizes he’s been duped. A subsequent arrest for a crime he didn’t commit keeps him stuck in a Cyprus prison for years. By the time he arrives home, he’s no longer the man he was. His whole world is gone.
An Orchestra of Minorities lacerates the heart mercilessly. It’s about love and hope, betrayal and loss and revenge. Breathtaking.
Having less luck with Colson Whitehead’s latest, TheNickel Boys, I’m considering ditching it. It’s surprising and a bit saddening. With great faith in his well-earned reputation and the appealing premise, I curled up with it on a Friday evening expecting a rave review by Saturday. I set it aside past the halfway point, underwhelmed.
I reviewed his zombie apocalypse novel Zone One for BookBrowse back in 2011 and loved it. His 2016 blockbuster The Underground Railroad went stratospheric, winning the Pulitzer, NBA and Carnegie Medal for Excellence, even securing a place on the Man Booker longlist. All critical opinions and most reader reviews rave; it’s my sense it’s deserved.
Take out your calendars and note I said ‘I could be wrong about that’ on this date, because that doesn’t happen often.
But I don’t think so.
Holding off on TUR, I thought I’d pick it up after Nickel Boys inevitably blew me away, having myself a little Colson Whitehead binge. That would be called poor judgment, y’all. Nickel Boys is short, but manages to plod. Unforgivable in a new writer, from a seasoned one it’s far worse.
It’s obvious what happened: The Underground Railroad was SO big, SO unique and attention-grabbing the expectation of excellence was untenable. Turning out two stellar books within a couple of years is an unreasonable expectation. He had a great idea, but rushed the execution. In an attempt to keep hold of it and finish in the shortest amount of time, he played it safe. Way too safe, in prose lacking his familiar stylistic grace.
We love Colson Whitehead. He’s a fantastic writer, a quality human being, charismatic and badass as all hell. But TheNickel Boys is not a bravura follow-up.
Just to be sure, I’ll take a dip back into it. I don’t think it will change my mind, but I’m fond of him. I’d love to be wrong this time.
Because BADASS.
Colson Whitehead, badass
It was an excellent summer. The very best. My passport stayed in the drawer, and I didn’t stray further than a few hours away. For the first time in what feels like forever, that was more than fine.
In early July, my daughter married her partner. A Very Big Deal, in the form of a courthouse wedding. Thrilled for the both of them, even if it does make me a mother-in-law.
Oh dear god, I’m a mother-in-law.
I spent much of my available time getting to know the Well-Beloved. Partnering at mid-life is so different, it takes some getting used to. When you’re young, starting a relationship brings two worlds together. After marriage and kids and decades building a life, it’s more like two separate galaxies, around each of us the various solar systems of friends and family and life experience.
It can feel a bit overwhelming, but the alternative is having no separate lives, no interests and experiences of our own. That would be unsustainable. You don’t hit middle age with no track record. So you take it as it comes, enjoying the good and working through the bumps.
More than We Bargained For is an enthralling immigrant’s story about overcoming adversity.
John Stefanini’s memoir More than We Bargained For tells a hopeful story of emigration from post-WWII Italy to Canada in the late 1950s, concentrating on Stefanini’s pivotal role as a union organizer and activist in the manufacturing and construction industries.
Stefanini arrived in Toronto in 1959, speaking little English. The job he obtained as a plasterer awoke him to the fact that his fellow immigrants, especially those employed in related fields of manufacturing and construction, endured unsafe working conditions without access to affordable healthcare. Determined to make a difference, Stefanini joined a labor union. Over the course of decades, he proved to be a tough but fair negotiator who lobbied businesses and politicians to assure better wages and safer environments, bringing about positive change for workers in Canada.
Stefanini’s work also examines the influence of immigrants in a positive light, particularly in regard to their role in nation building in post-WWII North America. Reminiscing about his earlier experiences, he identifies with the plight of such invariably poor and vulnerable people, showing how they made long journeys across oceans and found assimilation difficult due to language barriers. Enthusiastic support for immigrants is apparent in accounts of Stefanini’s tireless union work, as well as his assertion that immigrants’ successes contributed much to the economy and infrastructure of Canada.
Addressing the less savory side of activism, the book does not shy away from examining the fact labor strikes occasionally led to violence. In frank language, it describes Stefanini’s frustration over his own imprisonment following a volatile altercation between union and non-union members. The experience becomes a way to delve into inadequacies of the judicial system of Canada, as does Stefanini’s explanation of how his confusion about the actual length of his sentence led to an extended incarceration—yet another challenge to be overcome.
The straight, linear narrative is journalistic in style, putting Stefanini’s story into historical context through painstaking examinations of the political climate of the time and naming key players in the unions, corporations, and governments of Canada and the United States. It doubles as a researched history of labor unions in North America, backed up with references to other works about the struggles of Italian immigrants during Stefanini’s years of activism.
Important for its statement on the positive impact one man can have in advancing a social movement, More than We Bargained For is an enthralling immigrant’s story about overcoming adversity.
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The author of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the author will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
Since reading Portnoy’s Complaint sometime back in the 90s, I’ve never been a Philip Roth fan. But tell me he’s dead and they’re selling his stuff, and I’m all over it.
I blame it on Twitter: specifically, author and Chicago Tribune“Biblioracle” columnist John Warner, who, on that fateful day, tweeted he’d won an auction for Philip Roth’s alarm clock.
Wait. What?
It was Saturday, July 20. I work part days on Saturdays, and to stave off the boredom and resentment I always have my phone next to me, left hand scrolling Facebook and Twitter limitlessly. Running bang up against John’s tweet, I grabbed the URL for the Roth estate auction.
Ebay made up the entirety of my previous auction experience. I used to drop in once in a while, to snap up old Penguin paperback editions and the occasional oddity, like a postcard from the town in the Netherlands where my family hailed from — hey, big spender.
Litchfield County Auctions is the real deal, where the rich go to pick up Persian rugs and Chippendale armoires. I felt like someone’s hick relative in overalls, sucking on a piece of straw. But such is the beauty of the internet: “belonging” there only means I haven’t reached the limit on my credit card.
It was phenomenal, like someone had taken Roth’s house just as he’d left it, turned it on its side and shook every, single damn thing out. You name it, they sold it. There were ratty old afghans, lamps and tables, fine collectible Chinese vases and figurines, paintings and so many silver pieces. So many.
As it was a live auction, all I had to do was shove my credit card information at them, watching as each item came up and bidding commenced. While some things went for tens of thousands, a few bits and bobs, I noticed, were quite affordable. Tentatively, I hit the bid button for a couple vases. When they rose too high for my blood, I went on to a Chinese figurine. Unwilling to chase it over $ 100, I scrolled ahead to upcoming items.
I had only the vaguest idea what “reverse painting” meant, but it was lovely and the estimated sale price was in the range I was willing to spend. I watched as one person bid, then another. It wasn’t getting a lot of attention; I held my breath. When last call!, then final warning!!! popped up I swooped in and bid as the gavel came down.
I imagined the glowing face of the high bidder as the auctioneer was ready to call it, mentally measuring out the place he’d hang it next to the fireplace, his new “Roth niche.”
Then, BAM!
“You’ve been outbid, sucker!”
All’s fair in love and auctions.
My impression of Roth’s writing, aside from the narrow scope of my experience with Portnoy, was that he’s a man’s writer. And when I say man’s writer, I’m staring squarely at Ernest Hemingway — poster boy for excess testosterone. Not that I imagine the scholarly Jewish writer had a penchant for big game hunting, nor that he regularly got toasted and ripped off his shirt in his editor’s office, as Hemingway was wont to do.
Roth was a bit more restrained. Just a tad.
Fairly or not (probably not), judging him solely based on a novel about a young man’s obsession with masturbation, I’ve always believed he’s a writer obsessed with sex.
Before you start going all feminist on me, I know full well women have written about sex. I have no issue with that, but, to my knowledge, none have done so quite so famously as Roth, at least not on the topic of young men and masturbation. And I’m not only not interested in young men and masturbation, I actively avoid it.
Perhaps I should use the word masturbation one more time in this post, what do you think.
Hey there, fella. You’re one magnificent bastard.
Since the Roth item arrived, I’ve begun researching his life and work, reading reviews and watching interviews on YouTube. Though it pains me to say it, I may have rushed to judgment. Philip Roth wrote some 30ish novels. The more I read, the more it behooves me to investigate him further before making up my mind he’s not my thing, if for no other reason than I own one small piece of his estate.
That I bought on impulse. Because Twitter made me.
Meanwhile, I have a lovely Chinese reverse painting on glass I need to hang in my Philip Roth niche. I don’t have a fireplace, but I do have an Ikea dresser. Chippendale it ain’t, but what did we decide about “belonging”?
A woman doesn’t always have a choice, not in a meaningful way. Sometimes there is a debt that must be paid, a comfort that she is obliged to provide, a safe passage that must be secured. Everyone of us has lain down for a reason that was not love.”
Almost without exception, uber-popular novels disappoint me. An American Marriage kicked up so much pre-pub fuss I could see the dust swirling on the horizon as it galloped for town. Each review more laudatory than the last, by the time it hit the shelves I had to wear goggles to keep out the flying debris. When it won the Women’s Prize for Fiction, that was the final straw.
Reader, I caved.
And I wasn’t blown away.
I’ve never differed from my favorite critic before. I do mean never. Ron Charles from The Washington Post is my go-to, the reviewer I trust not to kiss author ass when the rest of the world has puckered up. He praised An American Marriage. That is no small thing.
His opinions are the gospel according to St. Ron:
“Compelling . . . spun with tender patience by Jones, who cradles each of these characters in a story that pulls our sympathies in different directions. She never ignores their flaws, their perfectly human tendency toward self-justification, but she also captures their longing to be kind, to be just, to somehow behave well despite the contradictory desires of the heart.”
—Ron Charles, Washington Post
There’s a formula to hitting that blockbuster sweet spot, a tipping point at which all the review outlets are throwing out exclamation points and trite phrases like a BOGO sale. An American Marriage hit that mark. That’s why I steered clear as long as I did.
At the outset, I loved the book. Lyrically written and initially gripping, it sucked me right in. I thought to myself, here’s the rare exception to my rule about popular books. Beginning on the Friday of a long weekend I knew had to myself, since The Well-Beloved was otherwise engaged, I saw ahead of me 48 hours of reading bliss that didn’t quite materialize.
If you haven’t read it, the book is about a young couple struggling to hold their marriage together after the husband has been wrongfully jailed for assault. Celestial and Roy are still adjusting to married life when he’s convicted and sentenced to prison. Until his appeals are exhausted, the hope he’ll be freed is enough to maintain the bond. Once that’s lost, a yawning gulf opens, leaving just enough room for Andre, the friend who’s loved Celestial from childhood, to declare himself. The two fall in love.
When new evidence proves Roy’s innocence, he’s set free. Life being life, the struggle to right the balance is fraught. I won’t tell you how it ends, but you can imagine the hellish ride. There are a few well-executed subplots, but I won’t go into those. This isn’t a proper review.
A couple things stand between me and loving this book. First, what Ron Charles praises as “tender patience” was, to me, pacing that slowed to a crawl. Somewhere around halfway I put the book down. Wanting to know how it ended, but not thrilled with the knowledge that meant I’d have to finish reading it, I thought about googling for spoilers. I didn’t, deciding instead to plow through.
It’s just not tight enough. I love taut writing, extremely spare prose, and it’s the writer’s job to keep me gripped. Lyricism has its place, but Jones is an over-writer. She relies far too heavily on similes, and that grates. Her penchant for ending paragraphs with a flowery flourish yanked me out of the tale. This was the second stumbling block.
It was like trying to read attached to a bungee cord.
There’s much to admire in the book. For me, the drawbacks prevented me from falling in love. If there’s an upside, at least my disappointment with popular books remains unsullied.
Still, Ron Charles. Now that hurts. Not loving the book is one thing. The discomfort of disagreeing with The Critic is quite another.
Bluestalking has served as a portfolio of sorts, initially the humble offering stretched out to publicists when begging review copies, before I had actual publishing credentials. I needed proof I had a platform, and readers who dropped by to listen to me yammer about books, so other publishers would give me more books.
Circle of life.
That’s how early bloggers leveraged their experience to branch out and write for other venues. There weren’t that many of us back in 2006, not like today, when countless cool kids are vlogging and podcasting and going all Facebook live. We reviewed the old fashioned way, in actual typewritten prose. And weliked it.
Instagram? YouTube? Try Blogspot and Blogger — Typepad if you could afford the subscription, then WordPress, once you figured out how to migrate your posts and navigate their platform.
At present, the only book-review videocast that’s widely available is the Washington Post’s The Totally Hip Video Book Review featuring Ron Charles. Charles, the regular fiction critic of Post, writes sincere, uninspiring reviews. The success of the videocast is Charles’s ability to laugh at himself. The episodes are, of course, totally unhip but charming nonetheless.
– Sarah Fay, “Could the Internet Save Book Reviews?”,The Atlantic, May 7, 2012
Get off my damn lawn, lousy millennials. You and your fancily composed tableaux of books, coffee with pretty designs carved in the foam – how do you even have the time? We downloaded cover photos from Amazon.
Guess what? We liked that, too
There used to be websites tracking book blogger rankings. If you dropped your guard your nemesis would sideswipe you, sending you skidding into the tires like an even nerdier version of Mario Kart. Amazon was brand new and already becoming a review site superpower, bloggers an extension of their reach. We became the first top Amazon reviewers just by showing up. Try accomplishing that now.
Try it, punk.
the prolonged, indiscriminate reviewing of books is a quite exceptionally thankless, irritating and exhausting job. It not only involves praising trash–though it does involve that, as I will show in a moment–but constantly INVENTING reactions towards books about which one has no spontaneous feelings whatever. The reviewer, jaded though he may be, is professionally interested in books, and out of the thousands that appear annually, there are probably fifty or a hundred that he would enjoy writing about. If he is a top-notcher in his profession he may get hold of ten or twenty of them: more probably he gets hold of two or three. The rest of his work, however conscientious he may be in praising or damning, is in essence humbug. He is pouring his immortal spirit down the drain, half a pint at a time.
Upstarts like me were yelled at by literary critics of stature, academics bloviating about the ways we were ruining everything, taking their jobs by undercutting them. We weren’t specialized, had no idea what we were talking about. We werenot professionals.
It’s funny to me now just how much that pissed me off at the time. Sitting in my living room in 2019, I’m frankly flattered they even noticed. It’s like getting a no thanks note from The New York Times. Usually they just ignore you; embrace the rejection.
– Dorothy Parker, book critic, The New Yorker
John Sutherland lead the crusade, positively apoplectic the great unwashed civilian book reviewers put ourselves out there — worse, that readers were responding. After one particularly insulting article I sniped back at him, though I wasn’t his primary target. On behalf of those without specific educational credentials, I felt personally affronted by his elitism. The purpose of reviews is to sell books, I told him. If you don’t sell the books, no one reads them. If no one reads them, his job was rendered moot.
As for reviewers on Amazon, why did you need a doctorate to have an opinion? He engaged me briefly, then crawled back inside his ivory tower.
It was awesome.
Nothing stands still on the web. There is emerging, on Amazon, a corps of regular ‘reviewers’, so called, trusted to kick up dust and move books. Dinahbitching is becoming institutionalised.
Why do the web-reviewers allow themselves to be recruited as unpaid hacks? Partly for freebies. But more because they enjoy shooting off their mouths. And they enjoy the power.
“THE POWER!” We were mad with it: a vast conspiracy, one small step below the moon landing.
Knowing how it panned out, I can look back with a lot more empathy. His huffing and puffing appeared reactionary, half annoying and half amusing, but turns out the dude wasn’t wearing an aluminum foil hat. His fears were not misplaced.
Overall, the market for writing about books and literature has atrophied almost to distinction, comparatively speaking. Most national papers have cut books sections, those that remain no longer plump and healthy. A large percentage of literary journals have either gone belly up or migrated exclusively online, printing costs skyrocketing past the point of affordability.
It pains me to admit John Sutherland had a point.
Writing in the literary field is not a viable career path; it’s been decimated. If you’re still undeterred, you better be prepared to violently elbow other writers in the ribs and push some prams in front of speeding busses. Respect to the strugglers, but this is why I’m not quitting my day job.
Fair warning: I’d still keep an eye on that pram, not gonna lie.
The internet opened up writing and reviewing to the masses, and when publishing professionals saw that they swooped in. Given a choice between paying an exorbitant wage to an established writer or giving away a few books to popular blogger/reviewers, which do you suppose a financially-strapped publisher would choose?
Word of mouth isn’t so easily separable from book reviews. What is a good review from Michiko Kakutani but a recommendation directly from a reader to hundreds of thousands of her closest non-friends? As with word of mouth, it’s tough to measure the impact of a glowing review on sales numbers. Still, one study showed that reviews do influence libraries’ purchasing choices. Another suggested that New York Times reviews swayed sales. In 2010, GoodReads pulled charts showing massive spikes in certain books’ activity after the books were reviewed or recommended on major platforms.
Once through the door, a lot of talented people took advantage of the opportunity and carried it further. That’s called opportunity, and it’s no bad thing.
Are book bloggers responsible for the partial collapse of formal criticism? I still say no: the two markets are very distinct. Everything we’re seeing was inevitable following the explosion of the internet. It would have happened without us.
The arts aren’t immune to rules of supply and demand. When the walls came down, canny writers with drive were able to break into the old boys’ club, throwing their legs over a few wingbacks and grabbing handfuls of Cubans. But maybe this lot of mostly old, white men had grown too complacent. Maybe writing about literature needed an injection of fresh blood.
Shaking things up every few hundred years is no bad thing. A little scary, granted, but necessary for growth.
Blogging opened a lot of doors I’d never have found on my own. I’m still not published in Harper’s, but it’s paid off far beyond the time I’ve invested. There’s more I could be doing, but work-life-avocation balance is a consideration. And I’m not quite dead yet. I nominate myself as one of the top thousand-ish writers to watch under 60.
DON’T BLINK.
I appreciate the opportunity afforded to writers by the grace of the internet. It’s not all good or fair, but was it before? It’s a damn sight more accessible, this I know. It’s also dynamic, still in transition. When I revisit this in another 15 years, who knows?
The exciting part is it’s completely unpredictable; it will never, ever grow stale. As long as there are markets I can barge into, and ribs to elbow, I’m happy taking the good right along with the bad.
