Lit, A Memoir by Mary Karr (27)

Lit is the third of poet Mary Karr's not-so-poetic memoirs. I was immediately repulsed by the phrase "knobby head" in the foreword dedicating the memoir to her son. I took a few days' break and returned to the book. I'm glad I let it (and myself, really) mellow.

The foreword may be filled with sentimental landmines of motherly love and devotion, but the memoir is honest, funny, self-deprecating and fair to all those involved. I loved that Karr often included caveats about remembering mean things her husband said because they were uncharacteristic, or that she was selfish in her addiction or irrational when pregnant. She didn't use her story to absolve or explain herself. She just told it. And for a reader with a practically anti-addictive personality, it gave me a true picture of an alcoholic's life.


It looks a lot more like my life than I would have guessed.

The Blind Contessa's New Machine by Carey Wallace (26)

A book of such beauty and sweetness could only be written by my lovely friend, Carey Wallace. I don't have a lot of published friends, so I am pretty psyched for her wondrous book and her reading tomorrow.

The Blind Contessa's New Machine is the story of a wealthy Italian woman in the 18/19th century as she grows up and becomes blind soon after she marries. I needed the first chapter or so to fall into the rhythm and accept the lushness of the setting and the focus on relationships. Like sci-fi, it worked best when I allowed myself to dwell in the imagined world and know the other dwellers. And though romantic, it reads nothing like fluffy, brainless chick-lit or a retold fairy tale.

The Contessa marries the local rich McDreamy and seems to have the perfect live. She's in love, privileged and has the resources to spoil herself with knowledge. But she loses her vision and it changes her perspective on life, marriage and her husband. Carolina also must depend on her inner life to feed her curiosity. The prose sharing her thoughts is like what I imagine was in Dali's brain or Chagall's dreams.

It's a short book - a charming, thoughtful, anti-fairy tale. Read it and support my friend!

Hiroshima by John Hersey (25)

John Hersey's Hiroshima tells the story of the first atomic explosion in Hiroshima, Japan. I hope we all learned about this and WWII in school...

But the history books don't detail the skin slipping off of victims' hands like gloves, dead babies crazily cradled by terrified parents, people who drowned because they were too burnt to move out of floods. While reading, I must have made a color wheel of faces for different shades of horror. Sometimes I just couldn't keep reading.

Hersey doesn't get poetic about any of the facts. His straight reporting only foils the bizarre tragedy, apparent randomness of survival from the bombing and following diseases, and the loss. So much loss.

Its an overwhelming story that I hardly want to remember. That's the point, if there really is any. To remember.

Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi (24)

Firdaus, the main character and narrator of most of Woman at Point Zero , is continually molested, raped and beaten by the men around her. She finally finds a sort of power when she discovers that the tools men use to abuse and control her only mask their terror of a woman who is not afraid of men. Unlike Hollywood heroines, she finds this power in murder and loses her fear of death in prison.

I can't say anything about the questions I was left pondering without sounding angry and self-righteous or after-school-specialy. I picked this book up because I'm falling behind on my 52/52 and needed a quick read. For a quick read, it certainly is lingering as I think about women who are abused like this and what it means for the fight against the mildly irritating sexism I experience as a symptom of unresolved misogyny in our society.