THE CHANGE :: Kristen Miller

Kristen Miller's The Change is not a book that would normally be on my radar, but I joined an Instagram buddy read group and this was their selection. I could have skipped it, but it sounded like it could be a bit of fun. I was so wrong - this book was SO MUCH FUCKING FUN! I understand some readers felt it was heavy-handed on the feminist front, but first, why the hell not? We certainly have plenty of heavy-handed books with women as the forever victim. Second, the heavy-handedness is, from my perspective, done intentionally and very well by Miller.

At its base level, The Change is about three women "of a certain age" taking their power back. They discover each other at the right time in their lives where they are ready to take control and take charge. While the plot is serious (young girls have been murdered), large parts of the goings-on are underpinned by fantasy and social commentary. 

Harriett is a former advertising exec who is responsible for her husband's success while he gets the credit. She left the corporate world and is now divorced, tending to her outlandish garden (that breaks every HOA rule to hilarious end) and "helping" people with her plant-based potions. No surprise she's known as a witch. She is the embodiment of a strong woman who does what she wants, takes no prisoners and suffers no fools ("That’s why I choose vengeance. She’s the only mistress I serve.").

Jo used to work in the hospitality industry, but now runs an all-women's gym where she can rage-run to her heart's content. When she gets angry, her power manifests in extreme strength and heaven help those who piss her off. 

Nessa is a former nurse who inherited the family legacy of being able to hear and see the dead. Her gift is what sets off the action, as the women discover a dead body surrounded by more dead young women and are bound and determined to figure out what's going on in their neighborhood. 

The book was not without its flaws, and at one point I thought it was over, but it still had quite a few pages left. Some of the characters' intentions and true colors were telegraphed, but honestly, it just didn't matter. These issues didn't detract enough to keep me from finding this a fantastically enjoyable trip. 

I'm a sucker for good character work and Miller's is stellar. Each of the women is multi-faceted and fascinating in her own right, with backgrounds and issues that kept the narrative fluid and on point rather than dragging it down. I wanted to know more about these women, especially Harriett, who is someone I would want to hang out with any day. 

I'm so glad I was convinced to read The Change and will definitely seek out more work by Miller. It was by turns moving, hilarious, serious, outlandish, educational, motivational, and fun. A definite E-ticket ride. 
  

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.

FATAL FAMILY TIES, by S.C. Perkins

This third installment in the charmingest of the charming cozies is proof positive I'm a convert to the light side. Texas genealogist Lucy Lancaster's Flacos Tacos lunch is interrupted by her least favorite former co-workers. Camilla Braithwaite now needs a favor--a recent article accuses Camilla's ancestor Charles, a civil war corporal, of being a phony and a deserter rather than a hero, and Camilla wants Lucy’s help clearing his name. Of course, shenanigans ensue before Lucy can get to the bottom of the mystery. This series leaves me longing for more time with the recurring characters. Thankfully, we got some of Lucy's Grandfather and more of her delightful parents. That meant a little less of her office best friends and Neil Patrick Housecat, but their on-screen time is always fun. 

GUILTY ADMISSIONS, by Nicole LaPorte

A thoroughly researched and detailed account of the college admissions scandal that caught several big Hollywood names in its snare. I found the audio a great way to listen to the tale, and the meat of the story was fascinating. It started with a lot of background detail that seemed a tad superfluous, but overall I enjoyed this account of aholes aholing.

100 POEMS TO BREAK YOUR HEART, by Edward Hirsch

Edward Hirsch's Gabriel: A Poem was the work that got me started on a mission to read more poetry. It is a set of poems, longlisted for the 2014 National Book Award, about the life and death of Hirsch's son. When I saw Hirsch had collected this set of poems I was all in. Turns out it's much more than I bargained for. Not only does he lay out 100 poems, he analyzes them and assists in the reading and internalizing of them. Which means this collection is lovely, educational and lengthy. I'm still working my way through it in little snippets, but it came out some time ago and I didn't want to delay writing about it any further. A great place to start if you're trying to get more out of the poetry you read.

GOOD NEIGHBORS, by Sarah Langan

The premise had me really looking forward to this one, but it ended up a bummer. A picturesque neighborhood in suburban Long Island is thrown into chaos when the Queen Bee regrets telling one of the new, "misfit" neighbors a very personal secret. So she begins to sabotage the family. Which really makes no sense, but I went with it. As the Wildes are turned into outcasts and the tension builds, a sinkhole opens in the area. Not only does it keep widening without explanation, it sucks whatever gets close into its black hole, including the Queen Bee's daughter, leading to more accusations to...what end? I found the plot disconnected and a story written around issues and events the author wanted to address. I'm all for unlikable characters as I find them more interesting, but these left me cold. If I never read the word "bitumen" again I'll die happy.

FOOTBALL'S FEARLESS 

ACTIVISTS, by Mike Freeman

A fascinating and highly-recommended look at the story behind the protests of numerous Black athletes following the ongoing string of police killings of Black men, as well as the pushback they received from not only the fans but their own organizations and ownership. It's no secret 45 is shameful and to be honest I didn't expect much more from the NFL and I was still surprised by some of the reporting here. I'm glad there are athletes like these, who will risk it all for what's right. I did lose a little respect for the book when Barack Obama's name was misspelled twice. Once is a typo, twice is disrespectful. 

SHELTER, by Catherine Jinks

Jinks's The Shepherd blew me away last year and I was eagerly anticipating this title, which couldn't have been more different. Far from the sparse, cracking prose of the former, Shelter was told in a much more descriptive and "mainstream" hand. Which isn't bad, it was simply a much different experience. In Shelter, Meg lives alone in the bush outside town as a way to avoid her abusive ex. Knowing what it's like to try to escape that horrible situation, Meg agrees to provide shelter to Nerine and her two daughters. Of course all three are traumatized, but then odd things begin to happen. Not the least of which is Nerine asking Meg to get a gun (remember, this is Australia, where the people sensible about gun control live and this is no normal request or easy feat). Of course things spiral and questions come from all fronts, including Meg's past. Shelter is, if I have to label it, more domestic thriller than lean, gritty crime fiction. Thankfully, Jinks is a good enough writer to pull both off quite well. 
 

THE SALT FIELDS :: Stacy D. Flood

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

In Stacy D. Flood's gorgeous novella, Minister Peters boards a train in South Carolina in 1947, laboring under the burdens of very personal loss and the generational damage to a Black man from the South. Minister was a single father after a killing took his wife (in "the age when the murder of a black woman didn't warrant the pen, ink, or gasoline that it would take to investigate"). Now, after losing his daughter also, Minister departs for the promise of the North and an escape from his ghosts.

The Salt Fields puts Minister at a crossroad, with little left to breathe life into him and nothing to lose. He's seated on a train with three strangers, and the dynamic flows from there. Flood packs generations into a novella not much more than 100 pages long, with language cradling the horrific thorns of the past. If prose about lynchings and whippings could ever hold beauty, Flood accomplishes it. Words are never wasted in this compact work, and Flood is proficient at painting the piece with few strokes. Sometimes this occurs on a small scale, with a line or two (e.g., the action in a club is "a long kiss between everyone in the room."), but he's equally adept regarding societal issues such as racism and sexism. In a short yet significant description, the whites-only entrance to the train station is freshly painted with Romanesque pillars, the Black entrance chipped paint over old pine. Yet both lead to a common platform where everyone awaits the same train to somewhere else.

WE OWN THIS CITY :: Justin Fenton

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

Justin Fenton, Pulitzer Prize-nominated crime and police accountability reporter for the Baltimore Sun, covered protests following Freddie Gray's 2015 death in police custody. Gray, a 25-year-old Black man, was arrested though he had committed no crime, and his murder was an indicator of a nauseating pattern of police malfeasance in Baltimore. We Own This City is Fenton's explosive recounting of years of cover-ups and lies by hard-charging officers handpicked to combat poor crime statistics by targeting violent repeat offenders. A blind eye was turned to these "knockers," whose expanded independence was abused in the most abhorrent of ways, further damaging an already drug-and-violence-weary city.

Authorities struggled to reduce violent crime, leading to desperation and breakdown of discipline that allowed officers to run amok. "The message from up on high was clear. Do whatever it took to stem the tide of violence. Whatever. It. Took." Some officers carried this edict to incredulous extremes, stopping and searching without justification, planting evidence, searching homes, and seizing money and drugs that they would then sell back into the community they were sworn to protect. Perhaps none were more egregious than Sergeant Wayne Jenkins.

Fenton zeroes in on hard-driver Jenkins and the Gun Trace Task Force, meticulously laying out the years they ran roughshod, garnering acclaim for results stemming from their own misdeeds. Tracking Jenkins's history and the FBI investigation into the GTTF, Fenton details the lives ruined and damage caused by both under- and over-policing of Black communities. For anyone who fails to understand why Freddie Gray ran, the Wayne Jenkinses of the world provide a life-or-death rationale. 

MS-13 :: Steven Dudley

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

Steven Dudley's MS-13: The Making of America's Most Notorious Gang comes when an educated voice is needed on the subject of the gang's impact on world violence and, equally importantly, political maneuvering. Dudley is abundantly qualified to write on the subject as the co-director of InSight Crime, a foundation dedicated to studying organized crime. Dudley works with numerous investigators and contributors to offer a more complete and accurate view of how organized crime works and its impact on public policy.

MS-13 is specifically about the Mara Salvatrucha, the ruthless street gang that has spread across countries and continents. Dudley details the origins of MS-13 and its operations, both generally and through specific experiences of a few individuals. "These stories allow us to trace the history of the gang from its beginnings in Los Angeles to its export to El Salvador and other Central American nations, and back again." The sections of the book (origins, maturation, efforts to extricate) mirror life faced by members who are enveloped, become serious, then try to leave.

Dudley addresses the Trump administration's comparison of the gang to Al-Qaeda as a means to rid the U.S. of "criminal aliens." While MS-13 is a threat that trades on its reputation for brutal murders, it is also greatly misunderstood, its power erroneously likened to much more sophisticated groups. Dudley's reporting is unsurprisingly complex, with extraordinary sections on methodology and notes, bibiography and index following the main text. A deep dive written in plain prose backed by years of research, MS-13 is a remarkable resource for thorough understanding.

TOMBOY :: Lisa Selin Davis

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

"It started with a tie and a button-down shirt. When my daughter was three, she asked for that ensemble for Christmas." When journalist Lisa Selin Davis's daughter announced she was a tomboy, it caught her by surprise, though Davis grew up with tomboys as heroines on favorite TV shows (Laura Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie, Jo Polniaczek on The Facts of Life) and in beloved literature (Jo March in Little Women, Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird). Ubiquitous when Davis was growing up, tomboys were uncommon in her daughter's 2015 crowd.

After recurring instances of people questioning her daughter's gender identity, Davis wrote a "hotly contested" op-ed for the New York Times pondering her daughter's experiences. Partly in response to the criticism, she began to study gender and tomboys. In Tomboy, Davis reports on numerous aspects of gender while acknowledging it's "one of the hardest subjects to talk about." She addresses the judgments embedded in the word "tomboy" that provide only cisgender girls the privilege of "blurring the boundaries," and how overly restrictive categories (the pink/blue divide) have tremendous social and psychological implications.

Davis (Belly) traces the origin of the word tomboy, as well as movements of the pink/blue line in history and the impact of commercialism, homo- and transphobias, the media, racism and privilege. Who gets to draw the line? The single unequivocal truth about gender Davis uncovered is "it's complicated," but the more we know, the sooner we can undo stereotypes.

STREET SENSE:  This book was fascinating, especially for a tomboy who grew up around the time Selin Davis did. I had no clue of the changes in the term or the ability to "be" a tomboy and this was a great eye-opener. Anyone interested in gender issues should pick this one up. And that should be everyone.

COVER NERD SAYS:  Perfection.

HANDCUFFED :: Malcolm Sparrow

"If a police organization applies relentless pressure on its officers to maximize revenues (as in Ferguson), or to lower the recorded crime rate (as in the NYPD), but no counterbalancing controls are imposed on methods, the use of force, fairness in targeting, or integrity in reporting, from the public's perspective the resulting organizational behaviors can be ineffective, inappropriate, and potentially disastrous."

Malcolm Sparrow is a former British police detective who now teaches at Harvard's Kennedy Business School. His forthcoming book, Handcuffed: What Holds Policing Back, and the Keys to Reform, is one of the results of a collaboration of leading police chiefs and academics who met twice a year between 2008 and 2014 to debate theory and practice of policing.

More formally known as the Executive Session on Policing and Public Safety, the collaboration included members of the National Institute of Justice and the Program on Criminal Justice Policy and Management at the Harvard Kennedy School. Sparrow worked on the steering committee, which identified the critical themes to be addressed, managed the portfolio of papers commissioned, and acted as the editorial board for the 23 papers that were published.

Are you feeling anxiously over your head already? Good, as was I. Sparrow's book is heady stuff, really aimed, from my perspective, more towards police executives. It quotes and cites to countless studies and papers, talks in heavy police and executive jargon, and is, in many respects, quite complicated. But we are living in the age of a policing crisis. These complicated issues are important ones, and even I, no police executive or academic, was able to glean pertinent and interesting information from my reading, even if some of it banged around the room a bit before I got it.

In short, many of our police departments are failing to implement and/or follow the foundational working models of community and problem-oriented policing that came about roughly 35 years ago. Instead, many departments, as a result of various pressures, have reduced their measure of success to a very narrow front.

In Ferguson, for example, studies performed following the Michael Brown tragedy showed the department's "practices are shaped by the City's focus on revenue rather than by public safety needs." The emphasis on revenue and the constant pressure on police executives to generate revenue through enforcement trickled down through the ranks and was one of the factors that lead to procedural and due process concerns and resulted in unnecessary harm to the community.

[A] powerful and singular focus on maximizing revenue was accompanied by loose controls on means: FPD has communicated to officers not only that they must focus on bringing in revenue, but that the department has little concern with how officers do this.

The Department of Justice report following its investigation into the Ferguson Police Department is a recommendation of reform by a refocus on the foundational ideas of community policing. Sparrow takes a look at various ways departments, like Ferguson and the NYPD, get off track and how we can implement change.

Interestingly, even those departments, such as the NYPD, who focus on reduction in crime rates aren't getting it right. When that narrow focus leads to tunnel vision without contemplating of other facets of policing and community needs, things go off the rails fairly easily.

Strange as it may sound, even though the NYPD and the Ferguson Police Departments had settled on quite different central imperatives, the fact that they each had a single central imperative, strongly emphasized and highly quantitative in nature, leads both departments into similarly dangerous waters. A dominant focus on one dimension of performance suppresses other legitimate concerns. A focus on ends, if not matched by effective controls on means, can lead to behaviors that are unwise, risky, or illegal.

In addition, a focus on reducing crime rates isn't even necessarily a proper focus in the first instance, since they are, in general, "very corruptible indicators." One of the most fascinating and telling experiences discussed by Sparrow was a "police simulator" scenario presented at the Executive Session. Given three scenarios, the leaders expressed their opinions on what might be happening.

Two of the three scenarios showed a reduction in the reported crime rate, traditionally thought to be one of the markers of success. But overall, those scenarios suggested various forms of overall failure despite that marker of "success." The third scenario was the only one that suggested an effective policing strategy, and it evidenced an INCREASE in reported crime rates and a DECREASE in conviction rates, generally markers of poor performance.

What the hell happened? The executives felt the third scenario might be early evidence of an energetic and successful campaign against domestic violence, which is exposing the problem more effectively (higher reported crime rates) and using arrests and prosecutions as effective deterrents. This is just one example of how and why focusing on one element of policing as a measure of success is a recipe for disaster, particularly where certain types of crimes (domestic violence, sexual assaults, crimes involving intimidation) are notoriously underreported.

[P]ressure to reduce the numbers is counterproductive when dealing with the whole class of invisible crimes (classically unreported or underreported crimes). Successful campaigns against these types of crime often involve deliberate attempts to expose the problem by first driving reporting rates up, not down.

Handcuffed goes into much more detail on many more levels, but the above provides just an inkling of the issues faced by those trying to straighten out the areas where our law enforcement practices are lacking. Certainly events of the recent past indicate we have much work to do. I hope those that should be reading this book read it and take note. I also hope lay people will read it to increase overall awareness of the hurdles we face. Let's also not forget the many men and women out there who ARE taking part in community-based policing and have standards in place that take into account more than just the bottom line.

STREET SENSE: Sparrow acknowledges that while the audience for this book includes policy professionals, his hope is that interest extends beyond that. He wrote the book for "anyone and everyone who is concerned about the quality of policing in a democracy." I hope that's all of us. While some of this book was beyond my scope, it was definitely a fascinating and worthwhile read.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE: Not a "favorite" in the sense that's it's beautiful, but more a recognition of the power of the statistics on fatal police shootings. First, a statistic:  Australian police shot dead ninety-four people in a nineteen year period (1992-2011). According to the Guardian's tally, U.S. police shot dead ninety-seven people in just one month, March 2015.

"America is not an outlier...it is the outlier."

COVER NERD SAYS: I'm a sucker for neatness and clean lines and images, so this cover is right in my wheelhouse. I think it could have used a little bit more oomph in the font, but when you're covering what's really a scholarly paper on a serious topic, you don't want to do too much fooling around. This one is a win for me.