Educated -- A Memoir

A friend recommended this book so enthusiastically that I purchased it at once. Then I saw a discussion about it on FB and mentioned that I'd just gotten it. 

"Well," said someone, "don't start it unless you have a lot of free time. It's unputdownable."

That proved to be the case as I read late into the night.

Westover's unusual upbringing in Idaho, in a very conservative, survivalist, anti-government, anti-traditional medicine, anti-school, Mormon family and her burning desire to be educated that led eventually to Oxford and Harvard are two parts of this compelling narrative.  

But the overarching story is Westover's learning about herself  -- and realizing that the abusive treatment one of her brothers doles out is, indeed, abuse. Abuse that her parents have overlooked and denied. Her coming to terms with this and her family's mix of reactions to her complaints about the abusive brother kept me going into the wee hours.

And the next day, I went online to find out more. Evidently the parents have responded to the book with a lawyer's statement that the book should be taken 'with a grain of salt.'

And such is the nature of gas-lighting that I found myself wondering briefly if it should.

It's a fascinating read. And there's a rather interesting secondary story -- that of Westover's mother who, in the beginning of the book is an amateur herbalist, concoct-er of homeopathic remedies, and reluctant midwife, completely subservient to her husband. By the end of the book, she has defied her husband in many  ways (all but the most important one of siding with her daughter, saved his life, and built a thriving and lucrative herbal business that now employs all of the family except for Tara and the few family members who side with her.

As I was warned -- don't pick up this book unless you have a free block of time ahead. 

Braving the Fire -- Writing About Grief and Loss

I've been fortunate, so far, in my life not to have been faced with an overpowering loss that left me grief-stricken and wanting to write about it. So why did I purchase this book?

Well, I've been around Jessica on several occasions and I know that she's a very talented writer (as well as an all round fascinating person.) Plus, I often get folks in my workshops of classes who are writing memoirs, thinly disguised as novels. So I thought this might be useful.

Handler organizes the process of writing about grief using Kubler-Ross's Five Stages of Grief as experienced by the dying -- Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance, with the addition of a sixth, so necessary for the survivor -- Renewal.

Renewal is the goal for the grieving survivor -- the ability to continue on. 

"But grief is never over," Handler writes. ". . . There isn't closure, really. We don't want to forget or be forgotten. We want to develop the ability to celebrate what we love as we move forward, even if that dear person, place, or thing is no longer actively in our lives."  

The process of writing a memoir can help the survivor to come to terms with that loss, to, as Handler puts it, build a bridge that connects the person you were before the loss to the person you are now.

The book is full of the most excellent advice -- not just for writers (or teachers) of memoir but for those of us who write fiction too. As I read, I kept thinking about several characters in my work in progress, characters who suffer major losses, and reading Braving the Fire is helping me to deepen those characters in a very meaningful way. Funny how that works.

Jessica's website and more about the book are HERE.

The Natural Laws of Good Luck

This is an amazing book.

Ellen is a poet and artist, a forty-six year old divorced woman who wishes she had someone to share the joys and beauties of her rural life -- someone with whom to watch the circling hawk, the setting sun. And if he could fix some of the broken things around her ramshackle farmhouse -- well that would be nice too.

She imagined a man with "a sweet and burly personality, and he came over after work in his tight, dirty blue jeans. He was wily and strong and always smiling. He would swing me up over his head, I would bubble with laughter, and then we would fix stuff."

This is the story of the man she got -- the man who, at the suggestion of a friend, Ellen went to China to meet and, after two weeks, marry. Zhong-hua is a stoic survivor of China's Cultural Revolution. When they met, he spoke almost no English and in the beginning he broke far more things than he fixed, but he was the man with whom she fell in love and with whom she began slowly to piece together a life.

Romantic, funny, sad, baffling, practical, and maddeningly impractical by turns -- the story of Ellen and Zhong-hua is, in the end, a love story and a lesson in acceptance -- in surrendering to the moment. I loved the poetic descriptions, the wry humor, the philosophical insights, and the down-the-rabbit-hole quality of the entire adventure that is the marriage of these two amazing people.

Full disclosure: I know Ellen slightly -- she's the sister of a good friend -- and I read bits of this book while it was being written. It's possible my view of the book isn't totally objective. But I really am enthusiastic about it -- read it in less than 24 hours. If I hadn't liked it, I just would have kept quiet. I do, however, love this book and think that many of you will too.