TWO-CENT TUESDAY

Below are a few (somewhat) brief $.02 opinions about books I've read or listened to recently but don't have the opportunity to review in full. Many of these titles I enjoyed as much or more than those that got the full court press. I hope you'll consider one or two for your own TBR stack if they strike your fancy whether they struck mine or not. 

And There He Kept Her, Joshua Moehling

I wish I could remember where I heard about this book, because I would not have chosen it based on cover or title, neither of which I think do it service. Almost to the other side, as much as I like gritty stuff (see Pete Farris's latest, which starts with a great line about a woman being bound in a trunk), the toxic masculinity this title/cover combo bring to mind would have put me off. Which is really a bummer, because this book is fabulous. It's Moehling's debut, which makes it even more impressive. Yes, there is a woman locked up. Yes there are horrible people. But the plot is clean and moves swiftly, no extraneous fluff that got in the way. Best of all, Moehling's characters left me hoping the small historical backstory arc that doesn't get resolved means another installment of Deputy Ben Packard's story. Here, he's returned to the small lake town in Minnesota where he has history and some family. He's running from tragedy and himself (a trope, yes, but it felt authentic here, and I'm not going to give it away because the reveal should be experienced while reading. When two local teens go missing, including Packard's taciturn cousin's daughter, he takes a personal and professional interest. As he and his team investigate, coming into contact with some great (and not so great, and some morphing) colorful locals, time is running out for the woman in the locked room. Who is she and who has her? I highly recommend taking the time to read this one and finding out first hand.

Nightcrawling, Leila Mottley

Another dazzling debut from a 19-year-old who was also the 2018 Oakland Youth Poet Laureate and the youngest author to be chosen for Oprah's book club pick. Those who live in or around Oakland as I do will likely remember the horrific Oakland Police Department sexploitation scandal of 2016, and Mottley took inspiration from those events and began writing while she was in high school. Kiara is 17, living in the Regal-Hi apartments (and its pool filled with bags of shit) with her brother Marcus, left to fend for themselves by addiction, death and the prison system. Marcus won't find a job, clinging to his dreams of rap stardom, and Ki and left to pay their increased rent, which is already overdue. Ki's responsibilities get heavier when she begins to care for the 9-year-old boy next door, whose mother is strung out and gone most of the time. A nighttime misunderstanding sucks Ki into a situation she can't seem to get out of--where will the money come from? what will happen to Trevor?--and soon she's selling her soul to keep the balls in the air. Haunting, electric, and a dazzling display of the perils the system and society heap atop the Black community and the resilience and fortitude of Black women. Mottley's writing is searing and authentic, and though my praise certainly isn't needed on top of her many accolades, she's got it.

Directed By James Burrows, James Burrows

I was raised on the genius television of James Burrows. He's been called "the greatest director of comedy in television history" by his creative partners Les and Glen Charles. He's the greatest "by any measurement: number of episodes, number of gigantic hit series, number of awards, and the amount of volume of laughter he's been responsible for." He has directed more than seventy-five pilots that have gone to series and well over a thousand show episodes. GREAT shows. The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show, Laverne & Shirley, Phyllis, Taxi, Cheers, Frasier, Friends, Mike & Molly, Will & Grace--shows that belong in the television Hall of Fame. I was so anxious to read his memoir, which he calls "a celebration of the great people [he] worked with and the joy and challenges [we] had together. Burrows begins at the beginning, his childhood as the son of legendary playwright and Broadway director Abe Burrows, his start in the theater, and his foray into his milieu, television comedy. He proceeds chronologically through each show, sharing facts and highlights. Ultimately, while I loved the content, I had some of the same feelings about this memoir as I did about Bob Odenkirk's. The work is so damn good that on the page it suffers a bit. Burrows writing is very matter-of-fact. You know the joy (or hardship) is there, but it doesn't leap off the page and sock you in the guts. Other than one behind-the-scenes story from Cheers, there wasn't much in the way of new or "wow" information. It's a great read from an individual I am SO thankful for, and maybe my expectations were too high. Burrows television is some of the best of my life, and that's a tough bar for anyone, even Burrows himself, to leap. 

JUNE GEMS

These titles are two of my favorite of the year and each will sit with me long after this year is over. One is crime fiction at its finest, filled with social themes that don't beat you over the head but work with the non-stop plot to sink into your bones. The other is flat out one of the finest memoirs I've ever read.  

Razorblade Tears, by S.A. Cosby

A kickass plot filled with potential pitfalls, extraordinarily well carried out to avoid all of them. That's really all you need to know about Shawn Cosby's latest. I've read Cosby's other work (My Darkest Prayer and Blacktop Wasteland) and enjoyed both. Even more enjoyable is seeing a really good writer hone his craft before your eyes. Each outing is stronger than the last and I can't wait to see what follows Razorblade Tears, because it knocked my socks off. 

Two fathers avenge the deaths of their sons. That's a good enough story. But add to that the fact that the sons were a mixed race couple with a daughter. Both had difficult relationships with their fathers who, surprise!, had some issues with their sexuality. One Black, one white, Ike and Buddy Lee have only checkered pasts, their sons, and a need for justice in common. When the police investigation goes cold, justice turns to personal revenge. 

This story will translate beautifully to film. On the surface a fun, high-octane buddy story with two characters that feed off each other wonderfully. At its heart a well-painted picture of grief, regret, and social failings that lie so directly in the center of our society that they can separate families. If I had to find a quibble with this book, it's just a personal one -- my own weariness of the "family in peril" plotline. Yet Cosby also handles that well enough that I had to put my prejudice away.  

Punch Me Up to the Gods, by Brian Broome

I did not know who Brian Broome was when this gorgeous little face and intriguing title captivated me. I will now never forget him, as this is certainly one of the finest memoirs to ever torture me. It's the story, like so many others, of the perils of being a young, poor, Black boy, queer to boot, and his efforts to find a place in the world. The search for a path made all the more treacherous by his father, who was an angry, violent man who would rather kill his son himself than have him killed by a white person.

While one can hate the methods, Broome does a stellar job of explaining the undercurrents of raising Black boys. This is where the memoir skyrockets from uber-talented writing to genius -- the format through which Broome tells his story along with that of our societal failings. He begins with one bus ride he shares with a toddler named Tuan and his father. One of the first things Broome observes is Tuan falling headfirst onto the concrete while waiting for the bus. Out of fright and/or pain, Tuan begins to wail. At which point his father tells him to stop crying and be a man. Thus begins the chapters titled The Initiation of Tuan. 

Through these chapters, Broome observes ongoing interactions between Tuan and his father. Each chapter then feeds into Broome's own story and the way he learned those same lessons of hyper-masculinity. Through these alternating chapters, Broome tells his story and the story of young Tuan, both of which will empty your guts out like a rusted melon-baller. At turns hilarious and raw, Broome's ability and willingness to convey his innermost emotions are extraordinary. 

EVERYTHING IS FINE :: Vince Granata

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

Vince Granata was four when his parents brought triplets home from the hospital. As the family legend goes, thrilled to have siblings, Vince stuck his head in his father's open car window and declared, "This is the best day of my life." Granata was 27 when he got the call that his brother Tim had killed their mother.

Granata's heartbreaking memoir, Everything Is Fine, recounts the years leading up to Claudia Granata's death at her son's hands and the aftermath that left Vince, his siblings and his father with differing scars from the same horrific wound. It is the story of a warm, loving family, yet also one of American tragedy. Granata demonstrates how woefully inadequate mental health care and historically deadly clashes between law enforcement and the mentally ill left his mother fighting for her son's life, yet afraid to call authorities for help.

Granata deals with his traumas through the memoir, but also uses it to educate readers on a misunderstood disease process. Signs of Tim's schizophrenia began in high school, "on an atomic level, a single cell, something misfiring, an electron hitting the wrong synapse, a chemical imbalance slowly putrefying his brain." The progression to demonic delusions is harrowing in hindsight, but in order to inform readers about the terror of the disease, Granata had to "show... the horror it wrought" and the boy it swallowed. Painful on a multitude of levels, Granata's work is thought-provoking and important. It elegantly humanizes a man who has done the most inhumane thing to those he loves most. 

LITTLE AND OFTEN :: Trent Preszler

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

Trent Preszler, born and raised on a farm, longed to live in New York since watching The Muppets Take Manhattan in a 1986 Faith, S.Dak., theater. He made the dream a reality: he earned two degrees at Cornell and, then, as CEO of Bedell Cellars, created the merlot served at Barack Obama's inauguration. Yet his successes were haunted by his estranged father Leon's words, "You ain't never gonna be man enough." In Preszler's superb memoir, Little and Often, the improbable happens--the non-craftsman builds a canoe from scratch and makes peace with his demons. 

Disowned 14 years earlier, Preszler is stunned when his dad has nice words for him during a rare trip home. Leon dies shortly thereafter, oddly leaving Trent his toolbox. Recalling a fond memory of a time in a fishing boat, Preszler somewhat inadvisably decides to build a strip canoe, following directions from a decades-old paperback he discovers at the lumberyard.

The build begins about as well as expected as Preszler, whose friends think macramé might be more appropriate, rushes in and learns on the fly. But using his father's tools and discovering more about the churchgoing Vietnam veteran and championship rodeo rider helps Preszler understand his life's traumas. Readers learn along with Preszler as he works; he thoughtfully doles out historical details over the course of the boat's construction, as he reveals the family's background. Insightful and humorous, Preszler's memoir is a deep dive to find the father he longed for and the confidence to be his own man.

BROKEN HORSES :: Brandi Carlile

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

Cross-genre musical artist Brandi Carlile seemed to burst on the scene following a multiple Grammy-winning evening in 2019. The most nominated woman at the 61st annual awards (six), Carlile blew audiences away with her Song of the Year performance, "The Joke," an anthem for those who struggle to fit into the world's divisive molds. Thanks to Carlile's intimate memoir, Broken Horses, the story of how the "overnight sensation" struggled and strived for years can be known beyond the fans who have followed her religiously even prior to her first studio album in 2005.

Carlile's childhood in Washington State was marked by alcoholism, poverty, religion, health problems, instability (14 different homes) and, as the first-born grandchild, her own "inflated sense of self-importance and burden of perceived responsibility." That said, her family was warm, close, musical and filled with characters that lay a good storytelling foundation. But it is Carlile's sense of self and her ability to be deeply vulnerable and introspective before an audience that allow her to plumb the depths of her upbringing and forge her trail to center stage.

A brilliant lyricist, Carlile adapts her gift to the long form without missing a beat. Her style is conversational, whether the topic is music, charity work, motherhood (Carlile and her wife have two daughters), LGBTQ+ rights, Barack Obama or Carlile's beloved "gay pen pal father figure," Elton John. Overflowing with thoughtfulness, wicked humor, photographs and song lyrics, Broken Horses is an epic sit around the campfire. 

THE BABYSITTER :: Liza Rodman

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

It was 2005 when Liza Rodman finally recognized the previously unidentifiable man from her long-recurring nightmares: Tony Costa, a local who often watched Liza and her sister during their summers in Provincetown, Mass. Liza's mother, a young divorcée, spent "most of her free time closing down the various bars and dance clubs with her own revolving door of suitors." She was cruel to Liza, who found solace hanging out with Tony, handyman at their motel and "one of the few kind and gentle adults in [her] life during those turbulent years." Rodman was 10 in 1969, when Tony disappeared. She never knew why, but was about to find out.

When asked what she remembered about Tony, Rodman's mother calmly replied, "I remember he turned out to be a serial killer." A shocked Rodman attempted to confirm they were speaking about the same man and her mother clarified: "Oh, for Christ's sake... don't be so dramatic. He wasn't your babysitter.... He was the handyman." Particularly telling of Rodman's sorrowful childhood: "Yeah, so what.... He didn't kill you, did he?"

A half century after Costa brutally killed several young women (when 1960s free love and ubiquitous runaways made "disappearing" someone seemingly easy), Rodman teams up with author friend Jennifer Jordan for The Babysitter. A haunting account--part memoir, part investigative journalism--of Rodman's childhood and its chilling connection with the Cape Cod Killer, The Babysitter is the astounding story of a vulnerable young girl and the consolation she found with a man who preyed on women.

THE OFFICER'S DAUGHTER :: Elle Johnson

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

"When I was sixteen, my sixteen-year-old cousin, Karen, had her face blown off at point-blank range by a sawed-off shotgun in a robbery gone awry at a local Burger King in the Bronx. It was early Saturday morning, April 4, 1981." Decades later, Elle Johnson still carries the wounds of her cousin's murder. Not until 2014, when her cousin Warren, Karen's older brother, asks Johnson to write a letter to the parole board encouraging them not to let the gunman free, does she truly begin to process the impact of her loss and upbringing. The result, The Officer's Daughter, is a memoir awash in doubt, anger and loss of innocence, told in the honed voice of a professional television writer and showrunner.

Karen's father was a homicide detective, Johnson's father a parole officer. Not only was Johnson's life filled with lessons learned in law enforcement (which would later influence her writing on such shows as Law & Order and Bosch), but on the night Karen was killed, the author overheard her father, uncle and numerous officers discussing tracking down and killing Karen's murderers. In a tale that begins as a tribute to Karen, Johnson traces her soul-searching, reflecting on the violence and control that pervaded her immediate family.

Johnson writes exquisitely about the conflicting yearnings of punishment and forgiveness as she considers each of the men convicted for Karen's murder. Yet the contemplation of her complex father is the beating heart at the center of this soulful and aptly titled remembrance. 

AMERICAN DAUGHTER :: Stephanie Thornton Plymale

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

Stephanie Thornton Plymale is the American dream. She has a long, loving marriage, wonderful children, a thriving design business and a position as CEO of the Heritage School of Interior Design. But her poignant and often distressing memoir, American Daughter, does not begin there. Plymale is also "an American nightmare," a child failed by every part of the American system and, most egregiously, by her mother.

American Daughter opens in 1974, with Plymale and her four siblings (from various fathers in the "relentless succession" of men) living out of a station wagon in a California state park. While their mother works as a motel maid, they explore the beach "like a pack of stray puppies." When they have no food, the eldest, 10, harvests seaweed (their mother responds that seaweed is healthy and "People in the city paid top dollar for it!").

Staggeringly, these were some of the best years of Plymale's childhood. Though she wildly succeeded in leading a life the opposite of her mother's, she was haunted by memories. Decades later, Plymale receives a call from her mother (in violation of the stalking order filed after she threatened to burn down Plymale's house). She has stage-four lung cancer and six months to live. Plymale's recounting of this time with her mother, meshed with her memories, is as astonishing as it is disturbing. The writing is shatteringly candid but never overwrought, the story a stark reminder that "the most difficult people are often suffering in ways we can't fathom." 

OUR LAST SEASON :: Harvey Araton

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

Harvey Araton was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a member of the print media for his distinguished coverage of the sport. In true form, he drove everyone around him crazy while trying to write his speech. Finally, his wife had two words of advice: "Call Michelle." In Our Last Season, Araton shares his years in sports media and covering the New York Knicks against the backdrop of his long, lovely and perhaps unlikely friendship with superfan Michelle Musler.  

Attending Knicks games was Musler's salve for life's difficulties, including raising five children as a single mother, even as she became a successful executive and rose through the ranks of major corporations. From her seats behind the Knicks' bench for more than four decades, she became one of the most well-known and vocal mainstays at the Garden, even straightening coach Jeff Van Gundy's tie before each game.

The Garden was where Araton and Musler's friendship took root, his seat on press row just a few feet from hers. She became "the steady voice of reason in [his] life, the proverbial wise elder, the trusted friend [he] could always count on." Our Last Season details their flourishing bond even as Michelle's health and the fan experience at the arena dwindled, with seats segregated and dedicated fans priced out. Araton writes with a reporter's pen and a friend's heart, providing great copy while making readers wish they had a Michelle Musler in their life. 

LIKE CRAZY :: Dan Mathews

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

"As an atheist in southern Virginia...I do not believe in gods above and devils below, [but] I do honor the instinct inside that tells you the right thing to do. That's why I decided to buy a house and move in my ill, unhinged mother." Dan Mathews, a senior v-p at PETA and the unattached "happy-go-lucky homosexual" in his family, felt it his duty to take in his 78-year-old mother, Perry. The "deviant son was stuck with the crazy mother," like Norman Bates in Psycho, and Perry's final years would test their limits and cement their bond.

Perry had always been different. Her children previously chalked up her paranoid or delusional conduct to the tormented childhood she rarely talked about. Living together, Mathews senses things are seriously amiss. Their hilarious but often fraught-with-danger existence shatters when Perry seems to break, and Mathews frantically tries to get her help in a system not known for its user-friendliness or navigational ease.

In Like Crazy, Mathews (Committed) memorializes his mother's life with the bawdy and raucous tale of their relationship and the merry band of misfits they attract. Side-splitting laughter turns deadly serious as things take a horrific turn, but Mathews is a force to be reckoned with and the final descent is endearingly lovely. Mathews is so funny (lamenting he can't set his mother adrift on an ice floe, "another tradition ruined by global warming") it's easy to overlook his storytelling talents until things get gritty and humor is stripped away. Like Crazy is an utter gem.

I have not laughed this hard in...I can't remember when. This was definitely the book I needed in times of little to laugh about.

THE HEART AND OTHER MONSTERS :: Rose Andersen

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

What essayist and short fiction writer Rose Andersen knows about her sister Sarah's death is this: "She died of an overdose in her bathroom. She was dead for four days before her body was found. Her dog spent those four days trying to claw and bite his way through the bathroom door.... The police thought she had accidentally OD'd." What Andersen believes began surfacing through rumors shortly after Sarah's death: the overdose wasn't accidental; Sarah was a "loose end" that required tying up.

In her poignant and distressing memoir, The Heart and Other Monsters, Andersen recounts her Herculean efforts to "resurrect" her sister via diaries, e-mail hacking, newspaper clippings, record reviews and raw reflection on a shared family history replete with suicide, betrayal, addiction and abuse. Their father was, among other detrimental things, emotionally abusive (calling Sarah "Piggy" and both girls "fat and lazy"), helping drive each to self-harm only Rose would overcome. Sarah "wanted a father, even if that father was a drunk or mean.... She wanted to be loved."

As Andersen relays their excruciating paths, parallel yet divergent, she begins to merge facts about violent men, murders and dismemberment in "Small Town," ultimately tangentially connecting them to her sister. Written as though there is blood and heroin in her pen, Andersen blames herself for not saving her sister from the "great shadowy monsters." The Heart and Other Monsters is a biography, cautionary tale and murder mystery, masterfully blended with a memoir burdened by grief and guilt for crimes committed by others.

STREET SENSE: These days it doesn't take much for me to want to punch someone, but what these girls went through is so agonizingly maddening I felt myself tense up just reading it. Andersen's memoir is part murder mystery/investigation and part recounting of the family dynamics that can often doom our children to self-harm. It's very well done and one of the best memoirs I've read this year.

COVER NERD SAYS: Something about this cover drew me. It's not pretty. It's actually kind of ugly despite the pink palette. If the pink scribble on the photo wasn't there, this would be an entirely different cover. As horrible as that scribble is, it's all-important to the theme and what lies inside. I think this is a really great, horrible cover. Well done.

MIRACLE COUNTRY :: Kendra Atleework

California has a vast literary legacy, with works by those such as Mary Austin, John Steinbeck, Kevin Starr, and Joan Didion to name just a few. A new name needs to be added to the list--Kendra Atleework ("The Atleework children are alone in the world with this name because our parents made it up. Who needs a hyphen? Robert Atlee met Jan Work and there you have it."--how cool is this?) Born and raised in the Eastern Sierras, Atleework's Miracle Country is not only a stunning look at the magic and draw of her birthplace, but a beautiful familial memoir. I loved both parts, and if I try to pick a favorite it is even more evident how intertwined they are. Add that kickass cover and you have a brilliant trifecta.

Atleework's writing about the denizens of her area is beautiful in its honesty and grit.

To understand the place we call the Eastern Sierra, you must be able to see what is no longer here. See what hides, change your definition of big and empty and small, of good and bad. Bend and search the desert floor for the near-invisible petals of a crowned muilla and then look up to mountains that seem to rise forever. This dusty margin of California draws and then replicates the kind of people who have never completely adjusted to a human scale. They don’t quite fit other places, be it the orbit of their ideas, good and bad, or the size of the sky they require in order to carry out their lives.

Her landscape writing, however, is dazzling. Great landscape writing, in my opinion, is a very difficult thing to achieve. It takes a special voice, intimacy, caring (love or hate or a complex mixture of both). Atleework hits that recipe out of the park. She grew up in Swall Meadows, in the Owens Valley of the Eastern Sierra Nevada. Annual rainfall averages five inches. In drought years that can be closer to zero.

The wind is a major force in the Eastern Sierra, earning the moniker of "Sierra Wave," and Atleework's writing about it is sublime:

On the beaches of the Pacific, gusts arrive laden with salt spray, whooshing with enough force to make your eyes water, a persistence perfect for launching kites. By the time that breeze reaches Owens Valley, it has raced over the coastal range, up the western, windward flank of the Sierra Nevada, and it has turned powerful. Dust devils tear up the dry surface of what was once Owens Lake, tossing toxic particles miles into the sky, into the lungs of the people who live near the old shoreline. The wind blows from the west over the mountains, and the willows along the river lean east. It scatters pollen in a golden film over backyard ponds. It stretches curtains across bedrooms.

I have hiked on a day when the Sierra Wave pummeled the sky, have leaned into a gale so strong it negates the work of gravity and I can almost lie down on air, can fall forward without really falling.

I have found myself caught in a canyon when the Jeffrey pines above me thrashed their branches like furious giants and the Wave hurled stones and pine cones and I ran for my car.

The Atleeworks were raised to thrive in their harsh environment, filled with scorpions, black widow spiders, rattlesnakes, cat-stealing coyotes, and mountain lions. They were "forever at the mercy of wildfires, blizzards, and gale-force winds. Above all, they were raised on unconditional love and delight in the natural world." The care and love of Atleework's unique and charismatic parents shines through in her work.

Her mother was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease when Atleework was six and died when she was 16. This loss wreaked havoc on Robert ("a man of wild plans and long shots") and his children, particularly adopted son Anthony ("pure cooked-down rage"). The family was damaged, Kendra taking off for school in Minnesota and Anthony tearing off with ill-conceived plans. Miracle Country recounts her pull home by her family as well as the landscape ("In Minnesota, the world is blanketed in snow silence. It’s safe to say: I miss familiar disaster. I miss water’s absence.")

In addition to landscape and family love and turmoil, Atleework swirls in some fascinating history of California, particularly with respect to water and the influence of William Mulholland, who became responsible for the infrastructure that pulled water away from the Sierras and allowed Los Angeles to become the city it is. The changes were not without war-waging. "'Whiskey’s for drinking. Water’s for fighting over.' This is a western adage I have heard many times. The contest over water passes between generations like a sodden torch. Bishop folks dam the shallow tributaries that pass through town, flooding their own yards and cutting off those below."

A memoir of love, loss, landscape and (to continue the alliteration) leaving, Miracle Country is a fascinating, heartfelt read that is astonishing in breadth without feeling bogged down. The advance praise will give you an even better push to pick up this gem:

“[A] shimmering memoir… More than a work of environmental change or history of place, this is a love letter of sorts to Atleework’s mother. Her presence is felt in every page, and it is in the pursuit of peace amid her loss that ultimately brings ­Atleework home. A bittersweet tribute to home and family in breathtaking prose that will appeal to lovers of memoirs and history, as well as anyone who enjoys beautifully crafted writing.”

—Library Journal

“A sensitive, thoughtful portrait of a part of California that few people see—or want to… A welcome update of classic works on California’s arid backcountry by Mary Austin, Marc Reisner, and Reyner Banham.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“Kendra Atleework has written the most beautiful book about California I ever have read. The author locates the mystery and beauty of her life in the small town of Bishop, on the eastern slope of the Sierra, decades after Los Angeles has stolen the water. Her poet's prose, on every page, honors the dry land and breathes Nature to life.”

—Richard Rodriguez, author of Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography

“Miracle Country is a soaring homage to California and to the sparsely populated and drought-prone eastern sierra, where the author grew up. Blending family memoir and environmental history, Kendra Atleework conveys a fundamental truth: the places in which we live, live on – sometimes painfully – in us. This is a powerful, beautiful, and urgently important book.”

—Julie Schumacher, author of The Shakespeare Requirement

“This eloquent narrative is both a natural history of the author's home place, a seemingly arid region, and a loving portrait of an extraordinary family. Kendra Atleework has an uncanny wisdom and a deep sense of people and their origins, and she writes like an angel.”

—Charles Baxter, author of There’s Something I Want You to Do

“Can a book be both radiant with light and shadowy as midnight? Miracle Country can. I felt the thrill I once knew reading Annie Dillard for the first time. Kendra Atleework can really write. She flies with burning wings."

—Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The House of Broken Angels

“Miracle Country is truly some kind of miracle, combining a moving family story with deft, deeply researched history. Written from the crucible of California's water wars, combined with a family story of love and loss in the high desert Eastern Sierra Nevada, Kendra Atleework's book joins the great American accounts of the West, a step beyond Joan Didion, moving from a beloved geography into a jeopardized future. Kendra Atleework is that rare writer--capable of heart-stopping memoir while performing a work of keen observation and serious history. A work of stunning acuity and candor, essential reading, already a classic narrative.”

—Patricia Hampl, author of The Art of the Wasted Day

THE POETRY OF STRANGERS :: Brian Sonia-Wallace

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

"Do you need a poem?" With this question, Brian Sonia-Wallace began his journey as the RENT Poet. Just "another unemployed millennial at the tail end of the financial crisis, looking for a purpose," he took a typewriter to a downtown Los Angeles street party and set up a folding chair and tray table with a sign: "POETRY STORE/ give me a topic/ I'll write you a poem/ pay me what you think it's worth."

When his first customer, a tough, tattooed, buzz-cut Chicana, softened before his eyes after reading his poem about her father, Sonia-Wallace was hooked. He "accidentally started a poetry business with a $20 garage sale typewriter and an impending sense of doom." Intending it as a performance art experiment slash practical joke, Sonia-Wallace proclaimed, "I'm going to pay my rent with poetry!" Since he was in despair and felt his life was over, why not do something stupid?

In The Poetry of Strangers, Sonia-Wallace shares how he not only paid his rent, but ended up with corporate jobs, Amtrak and Mall of America writer residencies, fundraisers, weddings and numerous other gigs. More interesting is that he'd never loved and doesn't consider his work poetry. It's about relationships, the "shrapnel interactions left behind, bits of other people" that left him less alone. While social connections were fraying, Sonia-Wallace traveled the country connecting with poetic empathy. "It was poetry that led [him] to discover a private America, an America where intimacy was possible, one person at a time."

STREET SENSE: This is an interesting one and I'm not entirely sure who to recommend it to. Not that anyone couldn't or wouldn't enjoy it, but it's an amorphous story. It's a memoir, but it's also about community, the state our country is in, our lack of expression, so many things. That is a positive and a negative, as it felt a little messy at times. Yet it's something of a messy story about messy life, and much of it was truly fascinating.

COVER NERD SAYS: I'm not sure what it is about this image that was unclear to me, but it feels off somehow. It's obvious the author is holding a typewriter, yet every time I look at it I think "Oh! That's a typewriter." Maybe because it's odd to see a typewriter in a scene such as that? Which is kind of the point. In any event, this completely fine cover didn't sit right with me. Maybe with the fonts it looks a bit...homemade? Maybe if it kept a faint blue sky instead of falling off into stark white? Maybe I'm just missing the message?

ROCKAWAY :: Diane Cardwell

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

Diane Cardwell grew up in a household where achievement reigned supreme, nothing short of perfection acceptable. Ninety-seven on a math test was met with one question from her father--"Why isn't it a hundred?" Unsurprisingly, she pushed herself to extremes to excel, becoming a reporter at the New York Times, marrying an equally driven man and setting out to create the perfect life. That blew up when her father died and a mid-life divorce caught her by surprise, seemingly sidelining her chances of having a child.

In Rockaway, Cardwell shares how she was saved from her longings for perfection by unlearning her father's lesson and facing failure over and over again by contesting a "liquid bully," the ocean. Watching a group of surfers from a bar in Montauk, she was dumbstruck, feeling as though she'd "stumbled upon a secret tribe of magical creatures." As she began dipping into the sport, taking lessons and renting a beach cottage, Cardwell was perpetually faced with her all too familiar fears of being pushed out of her comfort zone and not belonging.

What she ultimately found was that mastering the sport was not only impossible, but the least important part of her journey. Instead, the further she pushed herself, the more she discovered a life of meaning she never knew she wanted yet desperately needed. Rockaway is a thoughtful memoir of loss, self-discovery and what can happen when you hang on, literally and figuratively, to a piece of wood adrift in the sea.

STREET SENSE: Any book about surfing, for better or worse, has my attention. This time it was for the better. I loved Cardwell's story. Wanted to live much of Cardwell's story. Understood much of Cardwell's story. I think there are bits and pieces everyone can relate to in this one, surfer or not. We are not perfect beings. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of a life well lived.

COVER NERD SAYS: See "any book about surfing has my attention." On top of the surfing image, I love the wacky jet passing by, metaphor for whatever shit you want it to be a metaphor for. I'm not sure I understand the blue As in the title, if there is even meaning to them. I dig the colors and bands in the author identifier, though Cardwell's name is a touch lost with the yellow on orange. For me that didn't matter, as the surf image is what got me, but to others it might. In any event, a great cover I would have snatched off a table in an instant.

UNVARNISHED :: Eric Alperin

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

In Unvarnished, Eric Alperin shares how his life changed when he walked into Milk & Honey, a classic cocktail bar in New York City run by Sasha Petraske, who's credited with inventing modern cocktail culture. Alperin was an actor; after receiving his MFA but having no plan or money, he got his bartending diploma and became a "double threat." He eventually realized he had "every applicable neurosis" for bar work. People think he's a junkie, but he's really just a dyslexic who requires stimulation and organization, which he finds to the extreme behind the bar. The actor found the stage of a lifetime, a play that never stops.

Alperin fell hard, diving into all aspects of the trade. Alperin and Petraske eventually teamed up to open The Varnish in Los Angeles, hoping to create a port in a storm, to comfort and mend, celebrate and serve. A place locals and travelers alike thought of as home, gifted with the "intangible third rail of love."

Part memoir, part bar story and part captivating instructional, Unvarnished is a love story to the cocktail, its culture and those who foster it, Petraske in particular. Alperin's exquisite descriptions of bars, tool setups and mixing will have cocktail enthusiasts salivating. Newcomers will be eager to learn details they never imagined, such as the section on ice (the "bartender's flame," harvested from blocks in techniques dating back to 1800), that shows it's the little things that support a beautiful symphony.

STREET SENSE:  As a novice cocktail nerd and block-carved clear ice maker, any book that discusses cocktail ice carving is ok with me. But the entirety of Alperin's story had me entranced. As a fellow OCD-er, just the descriptions of him setting out his tools gave me chills. So yeah, this was right in my weirdo wheelhouse, but if you are at all interested in cocktails, what it takes to run or open a bar, what makes good service and a good environment, the craft cocktail revolution (not the douchey one), or how one guy makes a success out of the weirdo tools he has, give this one a read. I loved it.

COVER NERD SAYS: So listen. I love a dude in shirtsleeves as much as the next person who is attracted to dudes. And this is a great bar shot. But the bar essential lover in me would have loved a cover concentrating more on the glass, booze, garnish, wood, all that great BAR STUFF. But I can't complain (all prior words to the contrary), this is a great, inviting cover.

THE GOLDEN FLEA :: Michael Rips

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

Michael Rips grew up viewing most objects as contaminated: "The antique was a cesspool, and flea markets its tributary." His wife's family enjoyed garage sales, and one weekend he was forced by the heat to leave the car where he was waiting. The poster he discovered at the sale began his transition from artifact abhorrer to dedicated denizen of the famed market in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, the subject of his fascinating memoir, The Golden Flea.

To understand Rips's journey, one must understand the history and allure of "the flea." A staple in New York, the constellation of secondhand markets is among the best known, "widely regarded for the treasures to be found there." It rose from the vacuum left by the garment industry, which filled with the underground clubs, prostitutes, artists and junkies that flowed into the neighborhood in the '60s and beyond.

The flea was a meeting place for the various elements of Chelsea, where rare yet inexpensive items could be found to decorate apartments or provide inspiration, and people could display, create and re-create themselves. The colorful history of the neighborhood, the flea and the items sold there almost pale in comparison to the sellers, pickers and buyers that populate it. These people became part of the fabric of Rips's life, even as he needed to step away for a time due to more than a tinge of obsession. Discovering the flea through Rips's experience is magnificent, but the human influence on the transactions (Q: "Do you know what this is made of?" A: "It's made of get-the-fuck-out-of here.") give it true beauty.

STREET SENSE: This book is nutty in the best possible way and it makes me kick myself for not hitting this market while in New York. The wares sound crazily varied and fabulous (and sometimes fabulously bizarre), but the people and community make it spectacular. Some of the conversations in this memoir had me rolling. I know nothing about art or antiques other than what I like, so don't let you keep that away, that's not what this book is about. It's a look at the people, place and things that made New York City's Chelsea flea market one of the most famous (and outrageous) in the world.

COVER NERD SAYS:  This cover attracted me despite my lack of art knowledge. I love the color and though I lack art sense I love frames. It made me curious. This is a hard book to describe through a cover, yet this did a pretty good job.

SMACKED :: Eilene Zimmerman

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

Eilene Zimmerman was fooled. Not foolish--family and friends of countless addicts don't see the signs, or accept their more inoffensive explanations. How could a wildly successful, professional father of two fall prey to addiction? In her intensely raw memoir, Smacked, Zimmerman proceeds through her denial step by painful step, leading up to the morning she finds her ex-husband dead on his bathroom floor. Even then, her eyes don't take in the bloody hole in Peter's arm or the drug detritus strewn about his bedroom. It takes reviewing the pathology report and police scene photos for his hidden reality to smack her in the face.

Following the devastating discovery of Peter's body, Zimmerman goes back in time to their meeting, courtship, marriage and eventual divorce. The early details, initially feeling superfluous, eventually make sense as part and parcel of the warnings of and particulars behind Peter's deterioration. Zimmerman deftly paints the portrait of a complicated and tortured man, essential to understanding addicts as fellow flawed humans.

Zimmerman keeps herself and her children afloat through their grief and guilt by trying to understand how they could have been so "blind." She talks to other survivors, clinicians and white-collar addicts, delves into addiction and occupation studies, and sheds important light on the toxicity of the law, technology and other high-pressure careers. Professionals finding it increasingly easier to kill themselves (via drugs and/or suicide) rather than quit their jobs is a current societal trend Zimmerman lived through, investigated and shares bravely.

OUT LOUD :: Mark Morris

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

Mark Morris's Out Loud is a "memoir not a cookbook." He "can't tell you the recipe exactly," but is masterful at describing the ingredients that influence his career as one of the world's foremost choreographers. Morris's influences are many and complex. He asked to flamenco at nine and at 10 won a guest role with Bolshoi Ballet. He loves The Lawrence Welk Show, opera, country music and the traditions and religious mythologies of cultures worldwide. His talent took root at a young age--he improvised shows in his Seattle living room and listened to musical pieces over and over again to decode them.

Inspiration intertwined with Morris's humor (battle-strengthened by the "queer humiliation" of junior high), style ("old men's overcoats and a different rhinestone brooch" every day), brash defiance and sense of self to form the foundation of his multi-faceted style. He beautifully exhibits these traits in Out Loud, which feels like a Morris composition--movements within movements, fits and flows, taken together to form an entrancing and hilarious whole.

Unsurprisingly, Morris is a superb storyteller. In addition to his many professional accomplishments (Mark Morris Dance Group, White Oak Dance Project, numerous awards and honorary doctorates) and high-profile collaborators (Mikhail Baryshnikov, Yo-Yo Ma), Morris shares his private life, friendships, delightful family lore and laugh-out-loud asides (how a bidet formed "the fountainhead of [a] lifelong obsession with water features"). One need not comprehend dance to appreciate Morris's impact or be a devotee to give this work a standing ovation.

STREET SENSE: As someone who has never "gotten" dance, I was "subjected" to subscription tickets to Berkeley Repertory's dance performances for several years. There were actually plenty of performances I enjoyed, none more than Mark Morris's productions. His humor always came through and while I might not get dance, I get humor. I've always appreciated him and his take on things and this memoir was a joy to read.

COVER NERD SAYS: This cover is simply glorious and one of my favorites of the year.

I HOPE WE CHOOSE LOVE :: Kai Cheng Thom

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

"Deep down, I have always believed that I'm a bad person and that the world we live in is an awful place." The essays and poems in Kai Cheng Thom's I Hope We Choose Love forge a fiery path through the violence and negative messages the trans community simmers in. She seeks to find love--a lofty goal considering queer people, particularly queer women of color, are being murdered, dictated against and most often excluded by social norms, even within "Queerlandia." Thom's voice is one of power, her strength and ultimate hope punching through the tragedy, anger and crises of faith infusing these pieces.   

Thom became "queer famous" in 2016 at age 25, when she published several works and entered the fray of social justice. She was stalked and threatened, and ultimately lost faith in her community and herself. In three parts, "Let Us Live," "Let Us Love" and "Let Us Believe," Thom calls out the fragmentation of identity politics and the "Oppression Olympics" (harsh competition for resources), asks her community to acknowledge its own culpability, and highlights the importance of family (noting, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, how babies are ruining everything).

Thom yearns for "gender euphoria," the state of finding joy rather than hatred in one's own gender presentation. The revolution starts at home and inside each of us. "What's an overachieving yet politically disenchanted, attachment-traumatized East Asian tranny who wants to survive and also be a decent person in the world supposed to do?" Thom writes unflinchingly, a marginalized voice of laudable might.

THESE MEN AND THEIR FATHERS :: Don Waters

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

Robert Waters was part of the 1950s surfing crew on the Southern California coastline that spurred the sport after its arrival from Hawaii. Don Waters (Desert Gothic) learned this from belongings his father left behind when Robert abandoned him. In 2010, Waters wrote about surfing history for Outside magazine, hoping to confront his feelings about his father. Armed with "a paper-clipped copy of his [father's] unpublished autobiography, as well as a small plastic baggie of his ashes," Waters headed for Manhattan Beach, California, and his father's past.

These Boys and Their Fathers is a son's lyrical and sorrowful memoir of lifelong efforts to deal with the emptiness and fury connected to his father. When building a custom surfboard with legend Greg Noll (who made Robert's first board) didn't create the expected touchstone, Waters's quest took a fascinating turn--he discovered another writer who shared his name. The other Don Waters, a prolific pulp author starting in the 1920s, lived aboard a sailboat with his family, doting on his daughter, and became yet another older man Waters collected as a father figure to emulate and admire.

His decades of researching the lives of Robert and the other Don Waters provided the basis the author needed to complete the memoir he'd given up on three times. After 20 years seeking clarity by writing stories about faulty fictional men, Waters found it in complicated real men, his very human father and his historically tight-lipped mother. These Boys is a powerfully candid story of discovering "closure" through accepting and living alongside the pain and truth.

STREET SENSE: Surfing fans will love the board-building details and surf history Waters recounts. His father and the other Don Waters are fascinating and flawed men, and the author's road to peace is an interesting and curious one, impacted by his own impending fatherhood.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE: This same photo was part of my childhood landscape, only I remember it differently because my father was scissored out. There were other photographs like this one, each visited by scissors, each bearing a ghostly, uneven outline. In Mom's photo albums my father was gone, cut out, vanished. Everything was gone but his hand. Mom would have had to cut part of my tiny body from the picture to remove his hand. So there was his hand. The only image I had of him him was a hand. For seventeen years, a hand.

COVER NERD SAYS: Surfing and waves, I dig it. I like the colors and the images. It doesn't tell me a lot about what's inside, but the title helps a little (though I also admittedly find it a tad confusing, since the other Don Waters, who is such a big part of the memoir, was focused on his daughter). But I would, no doubt, pick this up from a book store table or shelf, so it's a win.