FREEMAN'S LOVE :: John Freeman

 A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness and is republished here with permission.

In Freeman's: Love, editor John Freeman tackles one of the weightiest, most amorphous subjects yet in this ongoing anthology series (Freeman's: California). Growing up, Freeman was blessed with unconditional love, living in its "constant, endless return." He grew to understand love could break him, endanger him or be used against him. As adults, we all wear love's lessons differently. "How we move our bodies is shaped by how love has entered our lives."

Freeman wanted to explore "the biggest and most complex emotion, the most powerful." Because "it cannot be held in the palm of our hand... we put it into the only container made stronger by such contradictions--a story." The container contributors are an impressive bunch, with varied backgrounds and numerous awards. Many of these pieces have been translated from, among others, Japanese, Bosnian and Polish.

Starting with seven short pieces, the anthology packs an emotional wallop from the start. Maaza Mengiste tells of a bracelet given by her grandmother, her "first definition of love and compassion," before Mengiste left East Africa for the U.S. Mengiste promises never to remove it as a symbol of their bond. She did not foresee a future where an Ethiopian woman in an airport refusing to break a vow could be viewed as a threat. From there, the likes of Anne Carson, Tommy Orange, Sandra Cisneros, Richard Russo and Louise Erdrich share how love uplifted, scarred and changed them. Although love is a universal language, its nuances are poignant and moving. 

WHITE HOT LIGHT :: Frank Huyler

A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness and is republished here with permission.

"When they brought him in, he was almost alive.... He tried to save the boy.... So he acted, right then, without waiting for anything or anyone.... There was beauty in his ruthlessness.... Flesh parts to a scalpel effortlessly, like the wave of a hand." Frank Huyler has practiced emergency medicine in Albuquerque, N.Mex., for more than two decades (The Blood of Strangers). As he shows in White Hot Light, Huyler is also a poet, his prose as smooth and cutting as the aforementioned scalpel.

A selection of 30 essays, White Hot Light begins mercilessly with "The Boy," as the trauma team tries to save a teen gunshot victim. Huyler then pointedly flips his perspective to the other side of the lights in "Hail," contemplating the fetal heart monitor tracking the health of his wife and yet-to-be-firstborn child. Huyler's insightfulness paints his pieces, particularly as he ages, as a new generation joins the trauma unit and technology advances. In "The Machine," Huyler eschews the use of a chest compression machine that brutally breaks ribs in its mechanical attempt to restart a heart. In the end, he's wrong, but never shies from self-scrutiny, for better or worse.

Whether in a standalone piece or one of a theme--violence ("The Gun Show"), opioid abuse ("The Motorcycle"), nurses and other staff ("The Sunflower")--Huyler brings a beauty and thoughtfulness to crucial issues affecting medicine and society at large. Within the visceral brutality, the writing is thoughtful and self-reflective, the collection a study of caring.

SLOUCHING TOWARDS LOS ANGELES :: Steffie Nelson

A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness and is republished here with permission.

Joan Didion has long been a symbol of literary and cultural cool. Marked by a pervasive sense of place, particularly her native California, Didion's writing created what style and culture writer Steffie Nelson felt as a "visceral pull" to Los Angeles. Nelson, former editor-in-chief of Pasadena magazine, further sensed Didion's impact while organizing a literary event examining the "promise of the West." Conversations with other writers "who had also migrated to the City of Angels with their creased copies of Slouching Towards Bethlehem" (Didion's 1968 collection of pieces on California counterculture) buttressed Nelson's belief that "every writer in Los Angeles probably had something to say about Joan Didion." She has now gathered them together to say it.

Slouching Towards Los Angeles contains 25 essays by writers, editors and journalists, 20 of whom are women, "a ratio [Didion] helped make possible." Wide-ranging in subject, "perhaps even a little schizophrenic," these entries speak to the influence Didion's multi-faceted legacy had on each author's personal encounters with the Western United States. Whether contemplating a particular Didion essay, a public interaction, a lesson learned, an architectural marvel, an iconic photograph or a '60s benchmark (the Manson murders make multiple appearances), the pieces reflect Didion's depth of substance and unflappability.

Didion enthusiasts will experience themes through sharp and clever new lenses. Newcomers to the canon will likely be moved to acquaint themselves. Nelson's "love letter and thank you note, personal memoir and social commentary, cultural history and literary critique" is an eccentric trip through Didion's California.

AXIOMATIC :: Maria Tumarkin

A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness and is republished here with permission.

When Australian literary legend Helen Garner says, "No one can write like Maria Tumarkin," one sits up and pays attention. Cultural historian Tumarkin teaches creative writing at the University of Melbourne while writing novels and essays. Axiomatic testifies to Tumarkin's captivation by and insight into sociology; these five extended essays explore themes that stir intriguing communal reaction and response.

In "Time Heals All Wounds," several youth suicides rock a school community. Students grieve through English papers, "submitting their heartbeats as assignments." Tumarkin delves into the cultural reaction to suicide. The school's administration tries to comfort, but Tumarkin signals the particular difficulties with suicide by deftly contrasting the handling of multiple student deaths in a car accident.

Perceptions of historical trauma and the inadequacy of children's courts are depicted in "Those Who Forget the Past Are Condemned to Re--." A Polish couple abducts their grandson and hides him in a Melbourne "dungeon." Discounting the grandmother's argued protection of the boy as a misapplication of her own trauma (hiding from Nazis to survive the Holocaust), authorities prosecute her and send the boy "home" to unfit parents.

Tumarkin's writing is often hauntingly beautiful, but the exploration of the generational influences of trauma, addiction and suicide always feels journalistically balanced. The past marks us, but is only one element on the road to "junkie or philanthropist," businesswoman of the decade or abject failure. There are no Hollywood endings, just a fascinating reflection of life in the tarred trenches.

STREET SENSE: Tumarkin is a cultural historian with a knack for exploring how communities and bureaucracies handle various traumas and crimes, as well as the generational impact on those affected.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE:  Nothing is more human than the experience of feeling trapped. And everything's a trap, your past, family, genes, addictions, loneliness, that feeling that pretty much everyone else is galloping gaily ahead while you are crawling backwards like a lobster or lopsided baby.

COVER NERD SAYS:  Covers for a collection of essays feels like they would be more difficult than a straight story or non-fiction arc. That leaves me grading this cover with a less heavy hand. It's a fine cover, but I have no clue what these essays are about, or even that it's a collection of essays. But I knew this was an Australian author writing about Australian things, so I didn't really need to be sucked in by the cover. Had that need been there, I can't say this cover would have attracted me. (Though the Helen Garner quote would have, crimping my "blurbs are the worst" theory.)

AMATEUR HOUR :: Kimberly Harrington

A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness and is reprinted here with permission. This book was also one of my Nerdy Special List picks for May. Go see all of the May recommendations here.

You don't need to be a mother (or foulmouthed) to enjoy Amateur Hour: Motherhood in Essays and Swear Words. A self-described "Real Piece of Work," freelance creative director Kimberly Harrington lets her yearning, indignation, exhaustion and attitude fly in pieces that span far beyond motherhood.

Harrington has a caustic, intelligent wit, and her humor pieces, generally laced with biting sarcasm or satire, are exceedingly entertaining. Yet her talent shines most when that wit merely eases the sting of deeper candor about challenging subjects--grief, divorce, the desire to be seen--particularly when jarringly juxtaposed with a comic listicle.

Harrington evokes a swaggering Hell yes! vibe with her take on "If Mama Ain't Happy, Ain't Nobody Happy" ("If Mama ain't yelling and instead is very, very singsongy, ain't nobody getting out of this one alive"), then pulls the emotional rug out with the devastation of a first-pregnancy miscarriage in "Tiny Losses." "What we finally saw, as she held the wand still, was a small gray jelly bean resting on its side at the bottom of my uterus, like a stone in an empty bucket."

The collection varies widely in form and substance, grounded by Harrington's insight and sincerity. Pinpoint observations communicate an intimacy that compels appreciation regardless of personal experience with the subject matter. One does not have to be a mother to enjoy Harrington's work. If the promise of swear words isn't enough, come for the humanity.

STREET SENSE:  I was so happy Shelf Awareness starred this review to hopefully give Ms. Harrington's work a little extra notice. Her essays are hilarious and often touching, hitting such a variety of subjects (motherhood, marriage, parenting, bodies, bake sales, grief, careers and other perils of adulthood) there really is something for everyone and even those about a subject far from one's own experience is read-worthy. In fact, those were often the ones that grabbed me the most.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE:  Actually, a few one-liners(ish) I loved and portions from a piece on the invisibility of women:

From Your Participation Trophies are Bullshit:  "We are good-jobbing kids right into incompetency."

From If You Love Your Grandparents, Go Visit Them: "The powerless and the vulnerable, forever the canaries of our own morality."

From Dear Stay-at-Home Moms and Working Moms, You're Both Right:  "Of course reducing all of mothering to two opposing sides is such an American thing to do, isn't it? To make it a catfight wrapped in apple pie."

From Ashes to Ashes: "The surgery scars sprinkled across her body marked every time age or disaster tried to take a swipe at her. They did not mark her deficits; they were a tally of her triumphs."

From Hot-Ass Chicks:  Because no one really sees middle-aged women, do they?..So. Pardon me if by the time we are middle-aged and it seems we are not making enough of an effort to be on proper display while not grossing men out with our very existence and teaching our daughters how not to be assaulted and arranging the magazines on our coffee tables just so, pardon me if I don't get a bit down about how it'd be great to just have a tighter neck or a thinner waist. Because I feel like I'm owed something for having juggled all these chain saws for so long, that all that balancing and "on the other hand"-ing should've resulted in some killer core strength right now. That I should be rewarded with just the right amount of visibility.

COVER NERD SAYS: I admit it, I picked this one for the subtitle. Promise me swearing and I'll follow you just about anywhere. There is an art to doing it well, however, and Harrington nails it. This cover is not directly in my wheelhouse, but I recognize it's super well done. The grenade with lethal heart fragments is spot-on. I get the target audience might be primarily women and mothers, but I think that doesn't do the book justice. I wonder if having the grenade a color other than pink might draw more varied sets of eyes. But that's likely just my anti-pink self and overall this cover is a winner.