OCT - Harvest

October review for Eclectic Reader's Challenge 2014: Harvest by Tess Gerritsen, 1996. [Medical Thriller category]

I must say, I had a bit of difficulty choosing my book for this category. But I guess that's why it's called the ECLECTIC Reader's Challenge, huh, to make me read things that are out of my comfort zone and make my horizons more extensive (dare I say it...eclectic!). So after hours poring through Amazon shelves and Goodreads book lists, I decided to do what I do best, and go to a bookstore and wander. I ended up going with Harvest by Tess Gerritsen, a name I knew from being the mind behind the hit crime show Rizzoli and Isles (never watched, but always intrigued). I was bouncing back and forth between a few books, but when there's a quote on the back cover from thriller god Stephen King putting Gerritsen on a rank above Palmer, Cook AND Crichton (all names I'd considered for this genre), then you know it has to be good. Harvest is Gerritsen's first-ever medical thriller novel, and I opted for this one rather than any of her R&I books because I like to see how people deal with standalone stories, rather than milking a series for all it's worth (maybe I'm just jaded....thanks Sue Grafton). As it turns out, I was hella impressed.

Harvest is first and foremost about Dr. Abby DiMatteo, surgical resident at Bayside Hospital. She's got a pretty great life: just got offered a spot on the prestigious transplant team, successful live-in doctor boyfriend, everything is coming up Abby. But a fishy transplant order and a mysterious heart that appears after Abby and her friend Vivian Chao ignore the aforementioned fishy orders put abby on a path to understanding the dark and seedy underbelly of the Bayside transplant team. I am always a strong proponent of the capable, raw heroine, and I particularly loved Abby because of her flaws. She is nervous and second-guessing but still stands by her decision to supersede orders (and give the heart to the teenage boy rather than the rich middle-aged woman who was farther down on the donor list); she still pushes, trying to demystify the circumstances surrounding the appearance of the second heart that replaced the "stolen" one. It would be incredibly easy for Abby to stop, to not make waves and settle back into her perfect life--in fact, that's what Mark (the boyfriend) and the rest of the transplant team keep pushing her to do, as well as the lawsuits and the harassment that plagues her--but Abby can't help but question, she can't help but fight, and it kept me turning the page.

As a medical thriller, Harvest was indeed driven by the goings-on of Bayside and the shadows behind those everyday events. Everything felt real to me, the medicine, the dialogue, the patients--or at least it felt knowledgeable enough to create an atmosphere. I read after that Gerritsen gave up her practice to write full-time, that she used to be a physician, and this translates extremely well to the text. She offers a unique perspective with this first foray into the thriller genre, and it is certainly her familiarity with the nitty gritty part of the field that makes her leap into fiction so plausible. The hospital itself also feels real, the way the characters move through its halls and interact with their surroundings. The hospital forms a good chunk of the environment for Harvest, with short detours to wherever the other parallel story thread is tracing along, the freighter for example, and there is evidence of Abby in the outside world, but I do think one of the reasons this works so well as a medical thriller is that predominant hospital vibe, this little insular world that Abby is chipping her way into, maybe down far past where she should've been content with her position. This singularity also leads into another element that worked well, which is the paranoia, the conspiracy feel of the text. Well, alleged conspiracy. I make this distinction because there is an entirely different feel whether you are in on a conspiracy or not, and it would change the whole dynamic. Abby DiMatteo is decidedly not in on the conspiracy: she pokes at it softly, unintentionally, and her paranoia builds as that which she is poking reacts in ways outside of the ordinary. The focus on Abby as the protagonist, even with the third-person-singular tone of narration, allows that paranoia to blossom as well, showing only Abby's experiences and reactions to the thickening plot. While there are a number of departures-- most notably those of Yakov as the parallel player on the other side of the transplant table; and Katzka, the detective who doesn't feel right about Levy's death and ends up bringing the two halves together.

In fact, these departures and the figures that carried them marked a bit of a tip-off for me that something was not quite right. It is clear, for the storytelling purposes, that Yakov needed his say, as the expansion of his story knitted shut the gap between eerie conspiracy and cold steel reality, but when Katzka's voice came into play, I questioned things. I knew that Mark was somehow involved with something he was not telling Abby, but the fact that a relatively new player like Katzka was allowed to weigh in before the protagonist's boyfriend cemented my theory that perfect Mark wasn't all that perfect. A lot can be said about foil characters, and an outsider's perspective of Abby, and the fresh set of eyes that cracks the case, but I found it unsettling, all the same. As is the way with parallel storylines, some portion of the reader's brain acknowledges that these scenes are meant to inform each other, that they will knit together in various ways by the end of the novel, and as each Yakov scene cropped back up, I felt more and more reminded of this connection. Yakov's contributions to the narrative were few and far between, almost to the point where they surprised me when I turned a page expecting a continuation of Abby's situation and was faced with a one-handed little Russian boy getting into things he shouldn't. It was interesting the way that they finally met, the horrific finality of the coming together. I suppose through my years of consuming thrillers (not horror--that is a different ending concept entirely), I have become used to, almost expectant of, the last-second save, the pinprick and then the door bursting open for the rescue, that this ending was disconcerting. (If you haven't gathered by now, I am no stranger to spoilers, so beware with the next few sentences if you ever wanted to read this book with fresh eyes).It was disconcerting to say the least, when Mark actually sliced into Abby's abdomen, administers the drugs and the retractors and all the other trappings of an organ harvest ON HIS OWN FIANCEE before the lights flicker. And in the end, it was not some big blaring rescue: it was a small, one-handed Russian boy with ingenuity and dedication who set the boat on its path to redemption and justice. After Abby is cut open, around page 502, Abby is no longer present in the narration. She is barely referred to by name for the rest of the scene, and she barely regains consciousness for the rest of the book. The last page finds her lying asleep in a hospital bed, recovering, with Katza and Yakov returning to her side, some inexplicable bond drawing them back, a purely human connection forged in distress and danger. Our protagonist is not with us at the close of the book, but somehow, we are still allowed to feel a sense of resolution. Not because she escaped and caught the bad guy single-handedly with nary a shed tear, but because she went through hell and back and managed to find trust in the most inexplicable places, and that everything might actually be alright in the end.

SEPT - Whip It

September review for Eclectic Reader's Challenge 2014: Whip It by Shauna Cross, 2007. [Romantic Comedy category]

For this month's Romantic Comedy genre, I started reading something else, and I was sort of surprised by how much I didn't like it, especially because I've liked things she's written before. Something about it got under my skin, I was perpetually irritated by the protagonist, which is never a good sign. So I did what I always do. I found a book that fit for me. I picked Whip It by Shauna Cross, inspiration for the 2009 film, because I recently convinced myself to finally try roller derby and I fell in love. I know Whip It is sort of a cop-out pop-culture representation of what derby is really like, but I guess that's what happens when you find something you love, you want to get all up in it, roll yourself up with the good and the bad. Before I started reading this book, I rationalized it to myself that I was reading it for the romance as in the romance of roller derby, falling in love with roller derby, rather than a person...but it actually did have a lot to say about human love too, which I had forgotten. All in all, my decision worked out :)
The short version of this synopsis is that Bliss Cavendar is a 16 year old living in small-town Bodeen, Texas with a pageant queen mother who is attempting to live vicariously through Bliss, but Bliss is the exact opposite of that life, from her alternative band tees to her bottle blue hair. Somehow, on a trip to Austin, Bliss finds out about a Roller Derby bout that she sneaks off to with her best friend, and it is here that she falls in love. Falls in love with a sport that will change her life, and with a boy who will pretty much do the same, but in a more hurtful, t-shirt-stealing way. And thus begins the romantic comedy, during which Bliss lies to pretty much everyone in her life in order to do the things that she wants. She lies to both Roller Derby and the boy, Oliver, about her age in order to play and run with the cool kids; and she lies to her parents about derby and about the boy because they would most probably (and understandably) freak out about both novelties coming into Bliss's 16-year-old world. I'm not trying to paint Bliss as a bad kid by pointing out how much she lies and sneaks around, I'm just trying to paint the situation that she found herself in and the decisions she made to try to get herself out of it. As the story progresses, Bliss finds herself falling harder and deeper into her new worlds, caught up in a whirlwind she's never known before, and there's definitely an element of that in my own derby experience, even though I never had to lie about my age or not tell my parents or take a senior citizens bus to practice. In Whip It, Bliss acts as the quintessential derby girl, the misfit, the weirdo, the one who fits in with all the other people who don't fit anywhere else. Sure, it is a stereotype, and Shauna Cross does have her fill of those, right down to the "don't date boys in bands" line, but it almost transcends the cliché in its pure, unabashed perspective. Yes, Whip It is a gross simplification; yes, it's the thing all your friends try to remember when you announce that you play roller derby now; yes, it has a team in schoolgirl costumes like a cherry on top. But what Whip It also has is the heart of derby, the quick wit, the honesty, and the can-do attitude that is so refreshing about this amazing sport. Cross beautifully crafts a character whose words and tone speak to the tone of the entire sport, because dammit Bliss is hilarious.

Lance Hardwood Photography

The final reason I chose this book, and the final thing I'd like to touch on, is of course, Roller Derby itself. How much I love it. How the "romance" works for me. I've thought a lot about derby in the months since I took my first hit, and the thing I keep coming back to is its heart. I have never experienced a more accepting and loving group of people who can simultaneously knock your ass to the ground with a good (legal) canopener hit and then help you back up after the jam telling you how great you did. I likened my relationship with roller derby to a romantic comedy because it is one of the funniest spaces I've ever been in, with dirty jokes and teasing that somehow coexists with an incredibly earnest desire to learn and better yourself and your skills. My romance with roller derby got underway this past March, when a new co-worker told me I could always just borrow her stuff for one practice and then decide after, knowing full well that I would never be able to say no again.

AUG - The Eyre Affair / Girl Reading

August review for Eclectic Reader's Challenge 2014: The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel by Jasper Fforde, 2001 OR Girl Reading by Katie Ward, 2011. [Alternate History category]

This is the face of indecision

Although alternate history is one of my favorite things to read, I am going to be honest and say that I didn't quite know what to do for this month. Every time I thought I found something, I would over-think it and cross it off, and kept coming back to a Bobby Pendragon book I read when I was younger that dealt with the Hindenburg zeppelin crash (titled The Never War for all those interested....GOD, Pendragon was a great series...) and kept stalling. But I had two books, one was sort of on the list, another was one I bought a while back and sort of turned into something that might fit as I went along. The former was The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde, and the latter was Girl Reading by Katie Ward. But once I finished both books, I stalled out again, trying to pick which one to write about. Until I had a brilliant idea to JUST NOT CHOOSE. So here we go, two book reviews for the price of one, because I am an indecisive little bibliophile. So I will go through them both real quick before getting into the crux of my conundrum.

First up, we have The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde. The Eyre Affair is set in an alternate version of Britain in the 1980s, where literature has its own division in the police force and Dodos can be genetically reanimated as pets. Enter Thursday Next, the heroine of the story who appears to have a whole series of adventures, as I discovered once I prodded a little deeper. She is your typical hardened ex-military policewoman, cynical and mysterious about her past, which conveniently turns up in the form of the government's newest arch-nemesis Acheron Hades, or Thursday's college professor. Events ensue that leave Thursday, still cynical but now physically broken as well, in the hospital, where she is visited by an apparition which appears to be herself in a flamboyant sportscar, just showing up in the middle of the hospital room with no form of introduction. Basically the first 50 pages happen very fast in order to get Thursday to go back home, ostensibly to escape the drama that just ends up finding her and trapping her aunt in a Byron poem (yes, literally in a Byron poem--that's another point; you can go into literature using Thursday's uncle Mycroft's device, which is obviously stolen for nefarious and blackmailing purposes, but I'll get to more of that later). Thursday is quickly swept up in the small-town LiteraTec force, continuing the search for Hades that intensifies when he gets himself into the original manuscript of Jane Eyre and steals Jane just as she was about to save Rochester from the fire in his bedroom. Thursday and her new partner get Jane back to the story, but Thursday ends up having to stay in the story herself to make sure Hades doesn't cause any more mischief. Before I move on, I should point out that in this universe, Jane Eyre ends with Jane conceding to the ridiculous St. John Rivers ("that slimy and pathetic excuse for a vertebrate," pouts Rochester) and going with him to Africa because THAT is a plausible turn of events. The point is that in Thursday's world, a lot of people (including Thursday) are kinda pissed about the ending. Which will come into play. ....At the end.

Girl Reading, on the other hand, is a bit of a horse of a different color. And like the horse of a different color, it changes its color a number of times during its run: Girl Reading is a novel of vignettes that have a common, self-explanatory theme that is, yes, the title of the book. It is a series of stories written by Katie Ward all centering on the female engaged in acts of literacy (that phrase is used toward the end, I think, and I just love it). There are seven chapters, seven images, seven artists, seven women and girls engaged in reading. These images that become the kernel of a story range in time and style from a Renaissance painter to one of the first photographs to a modern-day Flickr-type snapshot. Some, like "Annunciation" by Simon Martini, are actual paintings that one can Google for reference, while others are not so concrete, as they exist more in an idealistic state, as is the case of the final chapter. As these chapters move in a slow meander through history, through art form and subject and perspective, the reader herself is drawn in, imagining. I have often done this myself, looking at a painting and trying to put flesh behind the canvas, telling myself stories about a frozen figure, forever immortalized in a singular act. (Side note: as such, I was always intrigued by Harry Potter and the moving paintings, the ones who could leave their frames and tell you how they felt and what was happening...too bad I was only 8 when Rowling thought those up, and now no one will ever be able to do that originally again >,< ). Not only does this text examine the different mediums of expression for these acts of literacy, but it calls into question the different mediums themselves, moving along a sort of predetermined path laid out by the curator of this adventure, Katie Ward. Each chapter is a world unto its own, weaving an entirely standalone world around each image, the dialogue seamlessly worked into the chapter without quotes as if the entirety of the interaction is one big observation that you are on the receiving end of. This book is a lot less simplistic in terms of its summary, but I feel like it lends itself a little bit better to comparisons and digging in.

When I was trying to choose between the two books initially, I tried to think of both of them in terms of the idea of an "alternate history." I mulled over in my head how they both deal with the idea, what I liked about each of them, trying to figure out what I would write about for each one if it were to make the cut. Eyre took a story that we know and love (Jane Eyre) and changed it to begin with. But by the end of the book, the story is as we remember it, and it is partially due to the "ruinous" hand of intervention by Thursday and Hades--it was Thursday who called outside of Jane's window, the voice that spurred her to go back to Thornfield Hall to find Rochester, blind but not bereft, waiting for her. Was it meant to change all along? Surely, we have all experienced being changed by a book, but in this case, it is the reader who is doing the changing. Can "alternate history" start out different and then end up looking much like what we are used to? Are these existential questions of destiny and timelines that are far too arcane for such a humble book blog? The Eyre Affair dealt with the past in a way that was fun and light-fingered, even giving Time its own division of the police force, Thursday's father popping in and out to ask questions about history to make sure time was "coming out right," as it were. It's true that this was one of my lighter reads of the year, but I'll be damned if it didn't get me all tangled in mindful mires. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Girl Reading went into the future for the final vignette, creating a final picture that seemingly traced a thread back through all the other vignettes that made them seem more of a cohesive whole. The last chapter describes a new virtual reality program that is equipped with images and settings that turn out to be those that we have spent the last few hundred pages traversing on our own. Ward too brings up questions of art and artifice, of meaning and design in the creation of the woman-program that holds these experiences, Sibyl. Her name holds echoes of prophecy, but she holds images of retrospect, a comparison with the human experience if I ever saw one. Both texts question the fundamentals of their existence with equal candor, albeit unequal gravitas--you can't take a book too seriously when one of it's major villains is named Jack Schitt, now can you?--but I feel as if I learned something from both authors, and isn't that the point of this whole challenge?

JUL - The Monster of Florence

July review for Eclectic Reader's Challenge 2014: The Monster of Florence: A True Story by Douglas Preston with Mario Spezi, 2008. [True Crime category]

I chose this book for the True Crime category, obviously, and it made me think about a lot more than a historical string of murders taking place in Italy. It gave me questions about the nature of crime and crime stories, the human mind's cry for a resolution or an ending, the nature of storyteller and story. The Monster of Florence is a book about the killings in Italy perpetrated by an as-yet undiscovered Monster, attacking young couples in the Italian countryside while they were having sex in cars and campsites. The story is split into two parts: first is Mario Spezi's story, the journalist who had been there from the very beginning, the one who told Preston the early tales and introduced him to the story; second is Douglas Preston's story, beginning when he picked up his whole life and transplanted it across the water to a quaint little Italian villa with the ostensible goal of writing another of his heavily-researched crime books. What he got was much, much more than he bargained for.

The dual structure of this book allowed for a segmented interpretation of the section of history it covers, as well as the perspective. With Spezi's story, we are focused on the murders, the impending doom of another to be had, the helplessness and misinformation that ran rampant through the Italian police system at this time. With Preston's, however, we get that history layered with the new events being colored with that history, with those layers. I do not know how to fully discuss this book as a good portion of the plot points represent turning points in then-current case strategy or understanding, so I believe with this review I will suffice it to continue on a more theoretical and philosophical point.

There is an interesting idea in terms of the crime genre that there is a crime that takes place, either before the open of the novel or during the first few pages, that will be solved by the end of the book. This is an idea that is decidedly unequipped to fit a true crime novel, but one which I nonetheless found myself pining for as the book wore on. This is not to say that I have regretted at all my choice in reading The Monster of Florence, only that I noticed a trend in my thought processes as the text drew to a close. I noticed that I kept waiting for a conclusion: I kept waiting for a solution to the mystery, a name to put in front of the title, "The Monster of Florence." But it did not happen. The book was written up until the present-day (as of the time of publishing, 2008), and it closed without any idea as to who the real killer is. It outlines the way the larger-than-life character of The Monster has been infecting Italian criminal discourse, being applied to the trial of Amanda Knox with little to no evidence and resulting in one of the greatest miscarriages of foreign justice for an American citizen in recent history. The idea that the crime is solved at the end of the crime novel, the idea that it is planned out and wrapped up in a perfect little fictional package, was a constant reminder to me that this was not an ordinary crime novel. It was true crime, and for reasons that I will get into in a moment, this brought up a whole host of questions for my literarily-inclined mind.

The idea that there isn't an "end," there isn't a solution to the problem, that it just keeps going right up until the last page, reiterates the fact that this is true crime. This book readily acknowledges the lack of answers that it puts forth, and in this way gives no illusions about what it is trying to be, in the end. Because this is a true story, questions arise concerning the nature of storyteller and story, as well as the conflation of the two: at one point late in the book, Douglas Preston actually enters the story, not as a narrator and observer, but as someone accosted by the Italian police as suspect and mastermind, erasing his journalistic integrity and privilege as an American journalist in the face of a single-minded vendetta for apprehending The Monster. The conflation of storyteller and story again highlights the fact that these are actual events that happened to actual people--facts further underscored by the mid-text insertion of photographs and evidences from the case--which is a sobering one, at best. This line is blurred because of the nature of this book, and it made me think about the nature of these two normally distinct entities in crime novels. I'm not sure that I have any sage words to offer as to the necessity of any or either of these in crime novels, but I felt acutely aware of them as I read Monster of Florence, and to me that is as good a start as any.

Another aspect of the "true" or "non-fiction" part of this book that I have noticed with other such books that I have read recently is the presence of a "Reading Group Guide" at the end, a collection of questions for discussion and perusal. My only concern is that while this sort of "guide" can be informative and helpful to readers who do not usually read deeply for pleasure, I wonder whether it would affect the way someone reads? Does it quash personal opinion in favor of established questions? Or am I just being a superdouche here (this is entirely possible...). Misgivings aside, I did appreciate the interview with both authors included here, and there was a certain question that stirred more of the same questions I had earlier: this question had to do with the word "satisfying," and led me to question what is the point of a story without an ending? Can a story sans ending be satisfying? Is there a sort of elegance, a sort of beauty in an open, quasi-resolution? And moreover, are the questions raised throughout the examinations in this book worth the "dissatisfaction" of there not being a face at the end to pin all the hatred and malice onto? Again, I have few answers because I am a lowly college graduate with a proclivity for close reading and cheap cabernet, but again it is my firm belief that the elicited questions are worth all.

I'm a Big Skater Now!

So tonight begins my official career as an Ypsilanti Vigilante. I guess I could've gone to Vigi practice last week, but it was hours after I'd found out my assessment results, and I was a little dizzy still from it all. It's hard to believe that I've come this far in five months. It's not precisely that I feel *different* than I did at the start of Fresh Meat, I don't think I'm a different person, but there is definitely something that has shifted. I almost feel more like myself. Like there was this girl inside of me for years, ever since I first heard the term, and she just sort of chilled out in a beaten up lounge chair at the back of my mind with my dreams of owning a bookstore and a world-class hunter-jumper horse.
My fellow wave-mates and I have talked about the "roller derby blur", and I sure as hell felt it on Sunday. Sunday was our first scrimmage day as a wave: normally I guess we get to do a little scrimmaging before the skills test, so some of our pack skills are better, but our timeline just didn't really work out that way I guess. So Sunday, first real scrimmage. I was excited, but nervous as sometimes my body has a tendency to forget how to derby after a while, and I hadn't skated in a whole week (since we didn't skate on Wednesday, just answered endless amounts of questions....) so I was already on edge. This was new ground. I didn't know how I would be or what I should expect or whether it was something I was actually good at. I mean, sure I'm "skilled" in the eyes of WFTDA and Frac and Whiskey, but what if that wasn't enough?
Now, I will readily admit that I suffer from anxiety, and it used to be really bad in high school. I haven't had a anxiety attack it a few years, I felt like I'd sort of mastered how to deal with myself through self-awareness and meds and timing. Imagine my surprise, then, when the tell-tale shakiness started to creep back after our warm up. My heart got tight like I'd been pumped with too much coffee, and every time I tried to turn around toe stop my toes just kept sliding and I'd end up on my ass. I sat out a few to work on my damn toe stops and make them behave, so I thought I was good again and returned to trackside. We had started to play a game called Secret Service that was designed for newbies to be able to focus on one job and not get so overwhelmed trying to think about everything during a jam, and I'd been handed the jammer star for one round. I got through the pack (not lead, but I got through), and I hauled ass to get back around, but I came in too hot around the curve and ended up diving through the pack and wiping out rather than getting through on my own 8 wheels. I got up, play resumed, and then I got pushed out and called for a track cut. I got up and the jam was called and I shakily made my way over to the penalty box. I sat down and then silently handed the jammer star to one of my derby wives, who I knew could tell something was amiss, but she had to be out on the track and she'd ask me later, her eyes said. I stood up, legs still almost vibrating. I skated slowly, head down, to the locker room across the rink, tension building in my chest the closer I got to the door. When I got inside, I broke. I had begun to feel terrible, like such a spaz and not in control of my own body, or my mind was not connected to my muscles anymore. I took off my helmet and my wrist guards and put my head between my knees and let myself sob a few times. Every time I heard voices near the door as skaters went by on the track, my heart did a funny little flip flop, and I remembered all the times when I was little when I would hide far longer than necessary just to see if someone would come see if I was alright. More often than not, I gave people too much credit and ended up alone on the steps next to my house angry that no one had noticed my pain, but not registering the fact that they were probably rolled up in a coat of their own hurt. I didn't want that to happen now. I didn't want to wait to see if my friends or derby wives came in to find me, I didn't want to let myself get angry at them for enjoying practice or hell, respecting my space. I tried to repeat as much as I could remember of Bonnie D.Stroir's "Puppy Talk" podcast to myself, breathing into each phrase. When I'd calmed myself down enough, when I didn't think I would cry at the drop of a hat anymore, I ventured back out and joined in stretching. I stretched silently, eyes on the floor, and geared down faster than my peers. I went to the bathroom to wash my face, when my wife Nailer came in and just asked if I wanted a hug. Of course I did, but I didn't want to cry, and she knew it but she hugged me anyway. Trauma came in shortly after, and then Belle, and soon my body was wracked with sobs and apologies as my wives just hugged me and were sweet.
I was reminded over and over that day of the safe space that derby can be if you let it, the space where you can feel your feelings but also be propped back up by every other girl who's going through the same confusion and learning as you are. That is one of the reasons I love roller derby. One of the reasons I am excited for tonight. We get to practice with the other Vigilantes, women who are talented and strong and vulnerable just like me, and I cannot wait to be able to love myself and this sport like they do.

JUN - The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

June review for Eclectic Reader's Challenge 2014: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, 2010. [Award Winning category]

This month's book is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, a groundbreaking journalistic/biographical endeavor that has won countless awards to date. Published in 2010, this book has attracted the public eye for its hard-knock story, as its dealing with non-fiction in a way that is decidedly engaging and enthralling, and of course its picturesque cover image, one of the only surviving images of the book's subject, Miss Henrietta Lacks, the quasi-faceless woman who became known as HeLa. I am a sucker for judging a book by its cover (and a beer, and a notebook, et cetera et cetera), and this cover has stayed with me since its arrival on the scene. I have never been much for non-fiction, although my dalliance with being a historical fiction writer caused me to give it another chance, and I have also never quite been one to keep up on "the It book" of the year, as much as I want to read them. When I saw this book on the buy two get one free table at Barnes & Noble, I figured I should probably go for it. I knew two categories for this year were Award-Winning and Medical Thriller, and I figured I could decide which one to file Immortal Life under later. Being the procrastinator I am, I pretty much left it until the writing of this post to decide which category to read it for, and I came to the conclusion that while it is a medical text, it is not much of a thriller, per se, and Award Winning seems to be the better fit. Although I do not really know how to write about an Award Winning book in terms of its awards (as a category/genre/manner of reading it), but I will do my best.

First and foremost, I should mention the various things I liked about the writing, the composition of the book. Rebecca Skloot's journalistic voice still allows itself to be poetic at times, and her flow is easy and lends itself to storytelling rather than stark reportage. On the note of storytelling, I know I've talked before about finding the hidden or buried stories, and I think this book is a perfect example. It is not just the data, not just the facts. Skloot masterfully builds them up from behind in her dedication to finding out who Henrietta Lacks actually was. I love that. I loved reading about Henrietta's obsession with toenail polish and how her best friend cried out when she saw Henrietta's dead body because the nails were so chipped and it made her finally realize the extent of pain that Henrietta was experiencing. The purely human glimpses like that, the arresting tidbit--like the story Skloot gave us to illustrate that first spark of interest she had in the mysterious yet ubiquitous Henrietta Lacks.

I like to think that I, too, would've been entranced by that sliver of Henrietta. Even though Skloot did not put herself too much at the forefront of the book, I felt myself identifying with her, if only as the recipient of this story. I found myself simply soaking up the story, facts and figures about Henrietta's life and cells, the controversy that these small things engendered. It is interesting to note that Henrietta herself is also not physically in the book for very long, only for the first section, Part I: Life, which ends with her death on page 86. Just like she was not physically a part of her fame. That in itself is an interesting separation of sections: Life, Death, Immortality. The first chapter of Part One: Life begins with the exam that Henrietta demanded from the doctors, the exam that would set her down the path to being one of the most famous cell lines in all of science. It starts with the beginning of the end rather than the beginning of Henrietta, choosing to loop back instead of starting cold from the moment she came into this world. It seems to echo the ostensible "One Thing" that made up Henrietta Lacks, her body, her cells, and then move back into the woman, the way that Skloot herself made her way through Henrietta's past. The first chapter of Part Two: Death is the first intersection of Henrietta's family with science and Johns Hopkins, when George Gey learned of her death and asked David if an autopsy would happen. Part Two re-cements the focus on Henrietta's body, tracking the diminishment of her person until no one really even knew who the woman behind HeLa was. And finally, Part Three: Immortality begins with the next intersection of Henrietta's family with Science: when Bobbette is talking to a man who works with HeLa cells, ostensibly marking the first time anyone in the Lacks family knew anything about Henrietta's cells being taken and used. This section comes more to the forefront of the mind, in that it is in the more recent past and Rebecca Skloot herself comes more into play. She begins to describe her courtship of the Lacks family, her dogged desire to uncover the truth, leaving countless phone messages and writing letters and even just driving to Lacks Town to see what she could see. This section, to me, seemed about the different kinds of immortality Henrietta Lacks is experiencing, the interplay between these kinds, and also a meditation on the consequences of such immortality. There is the immortality in the simple fact that her cancer cells did not die. There is the immortality that said cheating of death brought to the cells, the aura of something exciting and groundbreaking that ripped through the medical world with the pervasive distribution of her cells. And then there is the more intimate immortality, the one born of motherhood and friendship, the one that everyone who knew Henrietta will carry on, that they pour into the conferences and museums and ideas for books in order for her name to live on. This almost unconscious examining of immortality is really what tied this book together for me.

I wanted to touch on the idea of religious faith versus scientific understanding, and how, in this text, they don't seem to rage against each other as much as usual. I noted this most in the "faith healing" scene, where Deborah is "healed" by her cousin Gary and he seems almost possessed by the spirit of God (p289). Again, Skloot does not present this interaction with any sort of judgment or skepticism, instead opting for an almost awe-inspired tone of sheer observation. It is clear that the Lacks family fall on the side of religious faith and seem diametrically opposed to the scientific understanding of Johns Hopkins and the rest of the scientific community, and while Deborah's brothers rage and want to sue everyone who has ever used their mother's cells for science, Deborah tries to isolate herself from it. She has stress attacks and stops talking to people about it. But with the influence of Skloot's presence and their combined quest to find out everything they can about her mother and her cells, Deborah actually starts to embrace science, seeing Henrietta as a sort of bridge between the two. At one point, Deborah mentions that the cells did something or other because it was Henrietta up in heaven being mad at the people down there poking and prodding without permission, so there is a conflation here with the inexplicable and the not understood that takes form in a celestial Henrietta. I liked it, I thought it gave meaning to some things that I can imagine would be difficult to grasp with only a middle school education. It seemed almost as if it was Deborah's way of keeping her mother alive and in her world, after losing her so quickly and violently.

Before I close, I think I should muse on importance of this book, the fact that it won the 19 or so awards listed in one of the first pages of the book, the afterword talking about "How you should feel about all this isn't obvious." (p316) In the reader discussion guide at the end, there was a question that particularly struck me:

As a journalist, Skloot is careful to present the encounter between the Lacks family and the world of medicine without taking sides. Since readers bring their own experiences and opinions to the text, some may feel she took the scientists' side, while others may feel she took the family's side. What are your feelings about this? Does your opinion fall on one side or the other, or somewhere in the middle, and why?

I was unsure of what my answer to this question was for a long time, and I think it's possible that that is why it took me so long to finish up this review. But I came to a conclusion after a discussion I had with my boyfriend a few days ago about learning. I figure, the very first step is to be unsure, to ask yourself these questions. One of the most rampant and unnerving things about our social culture is our knee-jerk need to share something or post something we "read" (see: agree with the title and skimmed the article), asserting our knowledge or competence or what have you. I say we because I know I fall prey to this, and I am trying my best to work on it. To let myself slow down and really read through things, get my critical eye back, allow for some questioning. It's ok to have opinions that others disagree with, but there is nothing worse than a strident voice with nothing to prop it up but bluster. If there is one overarching insight I think I gained from reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks it isn't necessarily a solidified opinion on tissue property rights or scientific freedom. It is that my year out of school, while fruitful, has softened me into a passive learner, and I don't want to be that anymore. There are always attractive ways to gain more information--you don't have to read the Wall Street Journal every day. Search them out. Make use of them.

MAY - Mr. Churchill's Secretary

May review for the Eclectic Reader's Book Challenge 2014: Mr. Churchill's Secretary by Susan Elia MacNeal, 2012. [War/Military Fiction category]

For May, I chose War/Military Fiction as my category, something I do not read often--but I suppose that is the point of Eclectic Reader, is it not?--and what better way to fulfill this category than to chose something that encompasses so many things I love? Mr. Churchill's Secretary by Susan Elia MacNeal is chock full of feminist sass (Maggie Hope), peppered with historical fun facts (the P.M.'s cat named Nelson), and seams together seemingly disparate storylines (there are spoilers in the seeming), among other elements. I do believe I'll have to mention some spoilery things in this post, so beware!

First of all, this book has a pretty excellent first line: "Half an hour before Diana Snyder died, she tidied up her desk in the typists' office of the Cabinet War Rooms" (p3). I am a sucker for dramatic irony, though it gives me no end of anxiety. To introduce a book not only with a death, but a death that is almost unrelated to anything you've read about the book--on the back, in a summary, etc--is a pretty ballsy move. With the infamous carelessness of writers like George R.R. Martin these days, death in literature has become something of a conundrum. The old assumption "Oh, he's the main character, he can't die," no longer stands as tall as it once did. Now, beginning a book that I had chosen for a war/military category, I had expected to be confronted with death, but what I did not expect was that it would follow a minor, albeit causative, character home from work and once she thought she narrowly avoided assault, only then would it strike. I believe it set me up to expect the unexpected, in a way, for the rest of the book, although there were in fact things I did not see coming. Diana Snyder gets a prologue and some scattered mentionings throughout the rest of the tale, but really she is only there to allow a vacancy at Number 10 Downing Street for our protagonist, Maggie Hope, to fill. It becomes more apparent that this vacancy is more intentional and relevant than simply an author's machinistic choice, but more on that later.

So, brief summary: Maggie Hope, an American who has come to London to sell her grandmother's house but ends up living there and working in London as the Blitz looms ever nearer, finds herself the newest typist at Number 10, Downing Street, or the center of Churchill's operation. She is incredibly smart, gave up a PhD program at MIT--hard to come by for a girl in 1940--to come to London, but even with her skills the establishment laughs in her face when she applies for anything higher up or more stimulating than a typist job. Which she doesn't really apply for, a friend corrals her and essentially makes her take it, after listening to a poignant rant about how "a mouth breather who probably still has to sound words out and count on his fingers" gets the job she has been turned down for job without question just because he has a penis (p19, getting into the good stuff right away). The stage has been set for Maggie to become an integral part of the War Effort, eventually typing for Mr. Churchill himself (hence the title). She even tells him off for yelling at her at one point, which is excellent to watch play out, especially when the condescending, demeaning word he is searching for to describe her in his head is finally "girl" (p68). Which brings me to one of the major themes I enjoyed in this book: the strong, girl power, "anything you can do" vibe that resonates just under Maggie's skin and lashes out in the above-mentioned situations. Most of the women in this story are allowed strength and depth of character and space to grow, most notably Maggie and the woman who is ostensibly her opposite Claire, who really represents the other half of sentiments/actions on the war. Although some of her scenes were difficult to read, especially when she first meets the founder of The Saturday Club, a group of Nazi sympathizers who think that "The Jew is our enemy--our common enemy, Germany's and ours. The Jew is our absolute enemy who will shrink at nothing" (p49), somehow the reader still got a sense that Claire was strong in her own way, using everything she had to fight for what she believed in, although I do believe that could've been shown more than it was exhaustingly explicated. She holds her own in the same way that Maggie does, even subtly telling off a man who is her elder and considerably more powerful than she, simply because he underestimates her:

I fucking loved this scene, because Claire was very collected and gets to slap Pierce in the face with her a) book learning b) translation skills and c) freedom of speech. Granted, a second later she retreats to the squealing "But why?" character that she must play in order to fleece Pierce, but it cannot really be helped. The scene where these two halves of the female activist come together in the end--and they do come together, and their meeting is unlike anything to be expected, in my opinion--is equally as much a test of their character and resolve as when they are confronted with the men who underestimate them.

In terms of the category, I definitely think I chose a quirky book. It is true that this book is about war, but not in the sense that one normally thinks about a war novel. This is a story of the behind-the-scenes, the construction that props up Winston Churchill's famous words, the undercurrent of micromanagement and symbolism and fatigue that makes up any campaign, but especially a military one. I loved this story because it is not one we often hear. I have read very little about secretarial or typist positions through the years, possibly in an attempt to distance myself from any lingering stereotypes or assumptions, but Mr. Churchill's Secretary allowed me a way in that was easy and full of intrigue that kept the pages turning in spite of any exasperation I might feel on the state of women's issues in the milieu of the story. In fact, there is a historical note at the end of the text that reiterates that this text is not a history, nor is it meant to be, and details the author's motivations and discussions with real-life typists--ones who never had time for such "intrigues or romance," as one described them. Sure it is a romanticization of events, molded to fit the guise of a mystery story, but there is that kernel of Truth with a capital T, an inkling of History that is why I love to read things like this. It is why I wanted to write historical fiction and be a History major for a long time: I love finding the story behind the facts. The face behind the nameplate, the feelings behind the events. Particularly for the faces that are not often noticed, like a new typist in the War Rooms. (This feeling will carry on to the next book I have chosen for the challenge...) This novel gave me a picture of not only the Winston Churchill as seen by those who took down his words and observed his process, his fabrication, but a picture of those women who are so often brushed over as a conduit, simply the means to the end that is Churchill's amazing speeches and thousands of statements and letters and memos.

Perhaps a tad bit ironically, to end I would like to discuss the epigraphs in the book. Shown in the image below, there is a quote from Winston Churchill about wartime, and a passage from Christopher Morley's novel Kitty Foyle, essentially highlighting the nondescript and thankless position of typists. Morley's novel is about a working class girl in the 1930s coming of age, finding her place in a new world after moving from small-fry Philadelphia to NYC.

I think the addition of these two quotes is particularly important to set the tone of this book--ok, duh that's what epigraphs are, but I feel like to some extent epigraphs give something away in their lines. These lines, however, ask questions of the reader to keep in the back of their minds as they progress, questions of truth and agency and war and what it is to be a woman, and it is these questions that make Mr. Churchill's Secretary all that it is.