The Help by Kathryn Stockett--a review!

Hi all! I recently read _The Help_ by Kathryn Stockett and since it is the book du jour right now (or at least a couple months ago it was. . .) I thought I'd post a brief review here.

I know a lot--A LOT--of people liked this book. I did too, mostly. BUT, overall, this book underwhelmed me. It wasn't that it was a bad book or poorly written. I thought it was well paced. I thought a lot of the characters were warmly drawn and likable--especially Miss Celia! Mae Mobley was so stinkin' cute she was unreal, but she was so cute I didn't care :) (I did find a lot of the characters' actions highly, and annoyingly, predictable. Stuart was predictable and so was Minny. The big secret about the "terrible awful" was pretty obvious. The fact that Miss Celia was not actually a drunk but suffering multiple miscarriages was also obvious.)

What bothered me most was that I felt like Stockett really wanted a book about the experience of black maids in the South but instead of actually writing *that* book, she wrote a book about writing a book about black maids in the South. Why did she need to have a Skeeter character? What did Skeeter add to the book? Nothing for me. I think Stockett used Skeeter as an escape and as an avenue for excuse. Reading the afterword Stockett's ambivalence about trying to write in a black voice was pretty clear. It was a very difficult task to do without falling on stereotypes--which is what I think Stockett ended up doing. I think Skeeter was her comfort zone, her fallback, her easy road out. That's the big question for me: Why didn't Stockett just write a book about the experience of black maids? I get that it would have been harder and a little more controversial, but the outcome could have been much more powerful. Going all meta on her subject matter didn't enrich it one iota.

My other beef with the book was that it pushed my willing suspension of disbelief a little too far. The poop in the pie was predictable (talk about heavy-handed over-theming!) but not believable. It never would have happened. The antagonist, Hilly, also crossed over into unbelievable land with her breakdown and the threat of telling Skeeter's mommy what she did. It was too scripted and unnatural, too much like what our adolescent selves all dream will happen to the mean girls in middle school. The book would have been much more powerful for me if had Hilly stayed in a more restrained and catty characterization. For me this book was a lot like _Fried Green Tomatoes_, sure "the secret's in the sauce" is funny, but just pushes things that are supposed to be grounded firmly in reality too far into unreality. I think it didn't do the racism/civil rights theme justice because it was over-the-top. It just made it all a little cheaper for me.

I think overall I wanted this book to read more like Literary Fiction, but what it really was was genre fiction--some sort of cross between Chick Lit and Historical Fiction. I'm not a hater, though. I did enjoy the book. I just felt like it fell far, far short of its potential.

More Summer Reading Thingy books (and a new link!)

Like so many of my other posts, this one starts off as a confession: I've been avoiding you.

It's true. I've had a lot of stuff happening in my life the last couple weeks that I can't blog about. It's big, emotional, personal stuff and I can't put it out here right now. Part of me wants to, but there are only so many ways you can make yourself vulnerable at once. There have to be limits. Most of the time being open about stuff gives it the light and fresh air it needs to clean itself out. But sometimes being open about stuff just makes the sores bigger. I mean, Band-Aids exist for a reason. I'm telling you all this because I'm pretty sure you'd see right through me if I tried to pretend that things are hunky-dory (does anyone besides me still use that word?). And because I believe in being honest and asking for support when you need it. But being honest doesn't always mean piling all your guts on the table.

So I'm going to talk about books instead. Here are a couple reviews for LDS Publisher's Summer Reading Thingy.




* Abinadi by H.B. Moore. I was excited for this one since it won a Whitney (which is sort of like a People's Choice Award for Mormon Literature), but it really didn't work for me. It won the award for best historical fiction but I have to admit I don't see how it was super-historical. The book is really a romance. Any historical detail is completely overshadowed by the drama of the love story. The characters are completely modern--making choice based on modern motivations, using modern speech, and holding modern values. I'm not a big romance fan in the first place and the fact that Moore chose to take the story of Abinadi, which raises a lot of interesting questions, and turn it into a love story really bothered me. The book felt like one long red herring. To be fair, a lot of people liked this book--as evidenced by the Whitney award it received and the glowing reviews it's been gotten over at LDS Readers. But it didn't work for me. (I detail some of my specific gripes in this post over at AMV.)

*Long After Dark by Todd Robert Petersen. I liked this book so much I'm working on an interview/review for A Motley Vision. It was also an award winner--it got an Arty Award from a Salt Lake City newspaper. For more info on the book check out William's review at AMV.

* The Conversion of Jeff Williams by Doug Thayer. Can't remember if I mentioned this one here. I recommended it over at AMV for Father's Day and I bought a copy for my dad. This is actually one of the single best pieces of LDS fiction I have ever read. Can't recommend it enough. Here's what I put on my Goodreads review: "This book blew me away. One of the best Mormon books out there. It manipulates the tension between LDS faithfulness and earnest questioning with such skill; this has got to be Thayer's best work. . . Everyone should read this book."

I also read Jodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper (I had to know what all the fuss was about), The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards, Hoot by Carl Hiaasen. Fun stuff.

I hope you all are doing some good reading this summer, too. Tell me, what new favs have you picked up?


Also, FYI, there's another depressed (but not unhappy) Mormon blogger out there. She's completely anonymous but here's her blog:

Kaylanamars

Summer Reading Thingy Reviews

Well, I didn't make good on my goal to read less and write more. The bad news: my book is still without an ending. The good news: I read a bunch of great books! (My apologies to those of you who are on Goodreads. These reviews will look mighty familiar to you.)

1. River Secrets by Shannon Hale It was okay. Very disappointing portrayal of Enna. I did like Razo's spunk, though. If you have a young reader (maybe 5th or 6th grade) this would be a good bet for them.

2. Austenland by Shannon Hale I've never--really NEVER--been a Jane Austen fan so I'm pretty sure I wasn't the target audience for this book. Still, it was spot-on in it's depiction of the modern woman's obsession with the the P&P-type romance. (Well, if I'm being honest I did sort of like the completely Americanized version of Pride and Prejudice--but only because it was nothing like the book!)

3. Dragon Flight by Jessica Day George I remember enjoying the first book in this series, but this was, I don't know, bleh. It wasn't bad but it wasn't really good either. It failed to move me. Maybe because it is too similar to other young adult fantasy novels?

4. Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow by Jessica Day George I probably didn't enjoy Dragon Flight because I read this one first and it was far superior. You can tell that George is writing about her passion in this book. I loved this Norwegian twist on the Cupid and Psyche myth. I would recommend this to teens and to adults who enjoy YA lit or mythology.

5. Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams Okay, so this one isn't fiction but I read it and I want to discuss it. I started this one for my ecobiography writing retreat and actually found it too intense to finish. Terry Tempest Williams' place in nature writing and Mormon writing compounded by the drama/transcendence of her mother's and grandmother's slow deaths overwhelmed me. I had to walk away from the book. I was glad that I picked it back up and I'm glad I bought it; there was so much to underline! A sample: "To acknowledge that which we cannot see, to give definition to that which we do not know, to create divine order out of chaos, is the religious dance" (196). Oh, there's also a fun story about a run-in her parents had with President Monson when he was in the Quorum of the Twelve. I totally recommend this book to anyone who likes memoirs or nature writing.

6. The Conversion of Jeff Williams I saved the best for last. This book blew me away. One of the best Mormon books out there. It manipulates the tension between LDS faithfulness and earnest questioning with such skill; this has got to be Thayer's best work. I loved this one so much I recommended it over at AMV and bought it for my dad for Father's Day. Everyone should read this book.

P.S. I've read 52 books this year and 22 of them have been Mormon/LDS titles. If I can get these titles so can you! They are definitely worth it.

_Ecology of a Cracker Childhood_( a reader response review)

Ecology of a Cracker Childhood by Janisse Ray

I am having an extremely intense reaction right now.

As I type my chin is chattering uncontrollably. My teeth are rattling in my head like muted machine guns. My back is tightening in small spasms, up and down and at random, and I keep rolling my shoulders and stretching my neck to offset the tremors. If I try to hold my back and shoulders still I tic and twitch like someone with Tourette's. My breath is ragged between my teeth and I sound like I am freezing to death. Unless I clench my jaw. Then I can drag my breath through my nose. But it won't come fast enough and it makes me shake my head which makes me nauseous.

My body is out of control but my mind is not. I've been here before and I know what it is. I am panicking. In a severe way. I haven't had one like this in quite a while. I did this once after orienting a new Primary teacher to her class, after having a argument with a friend, before singing for Enrichment (which I enjoyed doing anyway; I hope they ask me again some time),after a New Year's Eve party, and while giving birth to my second child. Usually, I curl up in the fetal position or try to find a yoga pose that calms my body and just let it shake out. Because there is no controlling this. It's like a roller coaster; once you're on the ride you have to keep your arms and hands in the car and remain seated until the ride has come to a complete stop.

So what brought this on tonight? A book. Actually, a paragraph. The written word, when wielded with thought and effort, is powerful. The book is Ecology of a Cracker Childhood and the paragraph goes like this:

Daddy [who was genetically predisposed to manic episodes/bipolar disorder] said that after lunch he began to feel unusual sensations. He felt shaky, his insides turning to gelatin, then shakier, as if he operated a noiseless and invisible jackhammer. He couldn't calm down. His heart sped up, beating like a crazed vulture inside his chest. By the time [his friend] delivered him to his door, he no longer controlled much of his body, the mind chopped from it the way you'd chop a chicken's neck, leaving the carcass to go dancing off in it manic convolutions of nerve endings. He had begun to hallucinate (p 92).

Yep. It's like that. Postpartum depression is like that. Uncontrolled anxiety disorder is like that. My body remembers it. My muscles, my nerves, my bones, they know it. They've memorized it. It is second nature to them.

Ecology is a memoir of the best kind: honest and soul searching. For Ray, who can list relative after relative who suffered from mania and whose own father took three years to recover from his nervous breakdown, mental illness is a specter that looms in every shadowy corner and every unuttered word. Ray takes to the woods, the almost extinct longleaf pines, which her parents say bore her, for her salvation. She looks to her ecology to ease the pain of her genealogy.

I haven't finished the book yet, but I find myself wanting to tell the author that her ecology will never solve her genealogy. Our environments shape us, but our parents made us. The answers are in them and in loving them--maybe even accepting them.

When, as an adult, Ray questioned her father about his nervous breakdown he wrote her this letter:

Mental illness, or nervous breakdown as some call it, is nothing to be afraid of, or to put it in better perspective, nothing to live in fear of [. . .] Thirty years ago I had what people call mental illness. I call it one of the greatest experiences of my life. I would not erase it from my past even if I could. I would not sell it for a million dollars. Its value to me cannot be measured. I can only assume that God allowed it to happen and was with me all the way through it--one in the Church said mental illness is of the devil, which I do not agree with.

It taught me: 1) greater love for people. 2) greater love for the earth, the trees, the hills, the valley, the streams, the soil, the animals. 3)the future is everything. 4) My wife is me. 5) to love my family. 6)the true value of my sanity, my health, my well-being. 7) to respect our Creator. I will not list the minuses because everybody knows what it would be like to be called crazy [. . .]

In closing, I would like to remind you of what our Creator said many times. Fear not.

Perspectives like his are almost as scarce as the longleaf pine and, I daresay, have as big a need for nuturing.

Book Review: Hold on the Light Will Come

Hi friends!

One quick note: I updated my goodreads widget so check it out to see what I've been reading!

Now to business.

I recently read Michael McLean's book, Hold On, the Light Will Come, and I have to say that I was a little disappointed. I suppose it was because I had my hopes all up and that rarely leads to a good reading experience. You'd think I'd know better by now.

McLean and I go way back. Fifteen years in fact. I remember getting a tape of his for Christmas when I was eleven (I think it was the only tape I ever owned; I got cd's after that) and my dad was in the bishopric of a student ward. I was doing community theater by that point and was gone a lot. Anyway, I came home from play practice one Monday night to a house full of college students and my parents nowhere in sight. I mean, the place was packed. It was a Family Home Evening group and since we lived in Utah there were probably forty giddy co-eds kicking it in our house. They were in the kitchen, the living room, the backyard, everywhere. So I did what any tweenaged girl would do. I panicked. I locked myself in my bedroom (which I was sharing with my older sister) and turned on the tunes. Michael McLean's "You're Not Alone" came pouring out of the speakers on my little boombox and soothed me. I rewound it and listened to it over and over until my sister finally came in and asked me what the heck I was doing and didn't I want refreshments?

As an older teen I liked listening to his music and I would sometimes put lines up on my wall (I wallpapered my room in quotations from music, poetry, and books), but even then I knew they didn't make whole lot of sense. Emotionally they were satisfying but artistically they left something to be desired. (His song about anger, "If it's not love, simply let it go", is a perfect is example. Since when is anger like an innocent, injured bird? Only if that bird is an angry goose and you're the last picnicker and you're all out of bread crumbs.) Nevertheless, I still looked forward to our family's annual attendance of The Forgotten Carols concert at USU and even the cheesy hand holding and singing at the end.

I eventually got too sophisticated for Michael McLean and forgot him completely until my sister mentioned the fact that he was depressed. She said she'd read about it in one of his books and she liked what he had said. My heart thrilled a little. What? Another depressed Mormon? One who's open about? One who used his art to help fix it? Maybe, just maybe, Michael McLean had a few more thoughts worth hearing. So I read the book.

Here's what he said about depression:

I know life's hard and things are tough . . . I know how dark it can feel . . . why do you think I'm waiting in line for antidepressants? But when i hear a story in a song, and someone overcomes something, or finds a way to hold on or learns how to let go or discovers something that alters the way they view their life, I want to celebrate it[. . .]I want to know that somewhere inside of me I'm capable of feeling hope" (p. 3).

And that was it. The rest of the book is just as cheesy and campy as his music. At first I took it personally that he glossed over all the struggles and I wondered if Deseret Book had pressured him keep the depression talk to a minimum. And maybe they did. Maybe I should just be happy that he owned up the fact that he's depressed and on antidepressants. Besides Marie Osmond, who also sings campy music (coincidentally? hmm. . .), McLean is one of the few Mormons who owns up to mood disorder struggles and needing help.

But I wanted more. I still want to know if he has suicidal thoughts or violent visions. Has he ever been so depressed he couldn't feel the Spirit? How does his wife live with it? How has it affected his children? How could he hear the music through the crazy? Really, I wanted to know if he was like me and if had any survival tips. This book didn't answer any of those questions.

It's funny to me, though, that I can't let Michael McLean go. I still have his autograph tucked away in one of my journals somewhere. Seriously. I actually waited in line at a book store so that he could sign a bright green sticky note for me.(My only thought at the time: "Man! He's old!") A lot of the time, when I'm really frustrated and overwhelmed random lyrics will come to me. "Which part is mine? And, God, which part is yours? Could you tell me one more time? I'm never quite sure?" is like a muzak-ghost some days. Or even, "like an awkward dancer on a crowded floor, I'll learn to dance once more, someday." And, of course, "You're not alone." My brain still pulls that out as a reminder sometimes.

Despite my general frustration with his music, there is one song of his that I have always loved. "Gentle" really meant a lot to me as a high schooler and I still think it has some merit. Here's my favorite part (for all the lyrics click here):

Life can hard, but we need not be
so hard on ourselves, if we will see…

Like the shepherd leads his flock with gentle commands.
With his gentle voice that only hearts understand.
One thing we can know for certain, He has borne the awful burdens
So we can be gentle with ourselves.

Still gets me. Every time. I guess I shouldn't write him off after all.

Book Review: Your Child in the Balance by Dr. Kevin T. Kalikow

I'm pretty tired tonight. I've been trying to keep up on the housework this week. Yeah. I'll be giving that up pretty quick.

So.

I have a book recommendation for you: Your Child in the Balance--an Insider's Guide for Parents to the Psychiatric Medicine Dilemma by Kevin T. Kalikow, MD. This was a great read for anyone on psychiatric medicine, anyone who is considering psychiatric medicine, and especially anyone considering medicine for their child.

Written by a prominent child psychiatrist, Your Child in the Balance comes at the issues from all sides. Dr. Kalikow approaches psychiatry from social, historical, economical and, of course, medical perspectives. He fills the book with anecdotes and examples that illustrate the many, many questions surrounding psychiatry and children. He avoids mincing words and doesn't give simple answers. What he does give is information. Lots of information. And even though that information is focused on children and psychiatric medicine it is easily applied to adults.

It was a frustrating book to read because it was frightening to realize how little we know about "psychopharmacology". Psychiatry is a relatively new specialization. Psychiatric drugs are even newer--Prozac was invented only 20 years ago. We know so little about the long-term effects. But it was also a great book to read because it was full of information. Considering how young the whole shebang is it seems that society as a whole and most doctors are being careful and learning from the research. There IS a fair amount that we know. The most important thing we know? Ask questions and work with your doctor.

Near the end of the book Dr. Kalikow gives what he calls
The Ten Commandments of Medicine:

1. Have your child (or yourself) appropriately evaluated by a trusted professional.

2. Before jumping to medicine as the answer, ask whether changing your child's (or your own) environment would be helpful. Understand whether psychotherapy would be helpful and how.

3. Never use medicine based simply on your neighbor's response to that medicine. Everyone is different. However, if closely related biological family members have responded to a specific medicine, inform your physician. Sharing similar genes might indicate a greater chance of success or side effects.

4. A diagnosis is not an excuse. Your child (or you) should understand that he or she is still responsible for his or her behavior.

5. Know what you're treating. Know whether you're treating a disorder or a symptom and if the medicine is FDA-approved to treat the disorder or if it's being used off-label.

6. Give the medicine time to work. Don't bail out early . . .Many side effects are mild, not severe or dangerous, and will disappear in time. Also, beware of polypharmacy (the use of many medicines or "cocktails").

7. Medicine must be monitored. Don't avoid your doctor. Make follow-up appointments.

8. Avoid the medicine rut, the use of medicine year after year without re-examining your decision.

9. Parents (or spouses) should be unified in the decision to take medicine. [To my mind, this is an ideal that may or may not be possible but it is certainly a good things to work for.]

10. Know when to quit your search for the medicine solution. Medicine is not the solution for every problem.

Room For Two: Abel Keogh Responds

You all remember my latest book review, right? Room For Two by Abel Keogh? Well, Mr. Keogh got wind of my review and took the time to respond! Here is the email he sent me:

Hi Laura,

I’m an occasional reader of A Motley Vision as was surprised to see a link to your review of my book, Room for Two, on your other blog. After reading your review, I thought I’d offer some clarification as to the purpose and message of the book.

I’m not “horrified” you had the reaction you did to Room for Two. I actually received a lot of comments on the depression issue from readers – usually from people who have some degree of depression themselves. Like you, they feel that scene with Julie on the mountain perpetuated some misconceptions about antidepressants. The purpose of that scene wasn’t to preach one way or the other about medication but to show that I loved Julie enough to move forward with the relationship even though that meant dealing with an issue that I had dealt with before.

"A memory of Krista flashed through my mind. She was having one of her bad days and telling me that there was no hope for anyone and that we were all going to die. The look in her eyes was dark and dreadful.

"Though I doubted Julianna’s depression would lead to any dark episodes like I experienced with Krista, it was enough to make me pause and wonder if it was something I was willing to live with….

"I looked at the ground....Krista’s dark days had been difficult. There was no guarantee that Julianna wouldn’t act similar or that one day she could wake up and her depression would be much worse. I had to decide if this was something I could live with. It was tempting to simply give up and find someone who did have depression. I’d been through a lot. Who would blame me if I decided to throw in the towel?

"Then my mind went back to Krista. Despite those hard days, I never thought once about giving up on her. I wanted to see her through those hard times because I loved her. She had meant more to me than anyone else and I was willing to be help no matter how bad the situation became. And in that moment I realized it didn’t matter if Julianna would have good days or bad. She was trying her best to work through her depression, and I was willing to take a chance and love her not matter what lay ahead." (p. 165-166)

My comments about antidepressants weren’t intended to perpetuate stereotypes about medication or those who are on them. In context, Julie’s approach contrasted with the approach Krista and her family generally took. I was just happy she was trying to do something other than medication to fight it.

Early drafts of the manuscript actually dealt with the depression issue quite a bit. I cut them out however because after feedback from editors and others I showed the manuscript to before shopping it to publishers felt it slowed down the pace of the story and detracted from the story I was trying to tell – one of putting a shattered life back together. I have no regrets about cutting that material.

I’m not against depression medication. I think it does wonders for a lot of people – especially for those who are severely depressed. However, I also believe, like you, it’s a mix of approaches (e.g., exercise and medication) than just one approach alone that usually works the best. However, I also believe it overprescribed by doctors to a lot of mildly depressed people (those who are in no way suicidal but simply feel blue occasionally) who simply prescribe antidepressants to patients instead of trying to make changes to their life (exercising, getting out of a bad relationship, changing jobs, taking a vacation etc.) to see if that helps before taking medication.

Finally, I didn’t link Krista’s death to depression because no one knows what actually pushed her over the edge. There were signs in the weeks before she died that she may have been schizophrenic or bi-polar. There were probably a lot of factors contributed to her death and, as I wrote the book, I felt it wouldn’t be right to pin her suicide on depression or anything else when no one could prove as to why she put the gun to her head in the first place.

I will admit, however, I was surprised you thought I should focus on the storm clouds more. The feedback I generally receive from LDS readers is that the book was too dark, heavy, and depressing for them. Non-LDS readers generally feel the books strikes a good balance. But this is my “reader feedback” basis kicking in. :-)

I want to thank Abel for responding and for letting me post his email. I also nosed around his site, www.abelkeogh.com, a little more and came across his letter to Elizabeth and found it quite moving. The other writing on his site was worth checking out.

Book Review: Room for Two by Abel Koegh

I usually end up posting my in depth reviews on my other blogs: A Motley Vision and LDS Readers, but my reaction to this book was too personal (and therefore unprofessional?) for AMV and too conflicted for LDS Readers (they have a policy of not saying anything negative--which makes it difficult to review stuff. . .) so I'm posting this here.

Anyway, the book was a memoir, Room for Two by Abel Keogh. It literally starts with a bang--that of gun that Keogh's pregnant wife's has aimed at her own head. He runs to the bedroom of their apartment and holds Krista while she bleeds to death. You see Krista was born to two people who met in a mental hospital--her father was manic depressive and her mother was schizophrenic--and was given a genetic legacy of mental illness which manifested itself as severe depression. Keogh sits numbly through the police investigation and then struggles through the nine days of his little baby girl's life. Because Krista killed herself the baby had to be delivered nearly four months early after being deprived of oxygen for an extended period of time. It is a sad, sad, complicated story.

But that only occupies the first fifty pages--less than a quarter of the book. The other one hundred and sixty-six pages chronicle Keogh's search for a new wife and drives home the point that a person can get over these things. You can love again. You can be happy again. You can move on.

I should probably stop at this point in the review and say this: I respect Keogh's experience and his right to move on. I am glad for him and his current wife and children. I'm sure he has helped a number of people through his openness and honesty about the pain he suffered as a widower. I applaud his courage to tell a story a lot of people in LDS culture wouldn't. I am glad he is happy.

But. . .

As a depressed LDS woman, I'm a little hurt. As a woman who struggled with perinatal depression three times and with PPD three times and is now fighting run-of-the-mill depression every day, I feel a little betrayed--not by his remarriage or his eagerness to move on, but by the fact that he abridged his wife's incredibly complicated and IMPORTANT story into fifty pages and managed to spend one hundred and sixty-six on what it was like to hold hands for the first time again. I mean, love IS magical, but depression is a transforming experience too. If his book is a true reflection of his experience, he didn't seem to spend more than few days wondering what his wife must have been suffering. And, what is perhaps the worst part to me, he didn't seem to even try. It was as if he thought that since he wasn't mentally ill there was no way to comprehend the strangeness of her experience so he closed himself off completely from any type of sympathy for her. He missed her after she was dead, but, from the way the book reads, he seems to have misunderstood her while she was alive. And that makes me sad.

Granted, I might have taken Keogh's book a little too personally and my reading may not be an accurate reflection of his experience; he might be horrified to find that I feel this way. But I wish that he had chosen to spend a little more time in the rush and tumble of the storm cloud and a little less on the silver lining.

It also angered me that this book perpetuates a lot of stereotypes about depression:

*His wife had been on Prozac for a long time previous to her pregnancy and chose to go off it because of the baby. Now, he may or may not know this, but SOME antidepressants are safe to take during pregnancy and most OBs and psychiatrists agree that if the mother's health--mental or physical--is at risk. I wish he had taken the time to correct this misconception while he had an audience.

*As luck would have Keogh's second wife also has depression--although obviously not as severe as his first wife's. She herself says she's never been suicidal. When his soon-to-be second wife tells him this he praises her for not taking medicine and handling it through excessive running (I say excessive because she ran at least three marathons in a single year, one of which was run on a broken femur). He says, "Her [solution] intrigued me. Maybe it was because I had spent so much time with Krista's family, where prescriptions were preached as the cure-all for every ailment; this was the first time I'd heard someone say they'd rather not be on anti-depressants [sic] . . . Some people would say there's nothing you can do about the way you feel. Take a pill and enjoy the ride." His soon-to-be second wife replies, "I'm not saying the medication isn't helpful. I just think people have more control over the way they behave and act than they think" (165-166). Now there are a lot of things that bother me about this conversation but the glaring misconception is that medicine is an exclusive option, an all-or-nothing deal, a zero-sum game. I've blogged about the stereotypes surrounding antidepressants before and I've blogged about the wonders of CBT and therapy too, and I hope that people are beginning to understand that antidepressants and therapy (and exercise) work best in combination! It's not an either/or scenario. Taking medicine is not a cop-out. What it is, is a responsible choice. Oh, and it doesn't take away your agency. If anything it restores it after illness has taken it away.

*Another problem in the book's treatment of depression was its complete silence on the fact that depression has spiritual ramifications. The above conversation illustrates this and the implication--and all too Mormon idea--that we are better off doing things ourselves and not asking for help. This is echoed by the author's insistence that he doesn't need to see a therapist and that others around him aren't "progressing" as much as he is because their grief lingers longer than his. The way he present himself in the memoir, he comes off as proud that he was the one who actually suffered the most and needed the least help. This idea of needing to do things alone and for ourselves is not only untrue, it is absurd. Yes we have our agency and we are accountable for our actions, but the point of this life is to learn to partner with Christ. There is no way to yoke ourselves with Him without asking for help--both temporally and spiritually. The idea that we need to pull ourselves up by our spiritual/emotional boot straps keeps too many depressed people from seeking the help they need and from building the support structure they cannot live without.

I could probably go on but it would cease to be helpful. There's just one more thing that I feel like I need to mention: depression is a deadly illness. For all the pain Keogh's first wife's death caused, he only barely links her death with her depression. If the memoir is an accurate depiction of his mind's workings it takes him months to realize/accept that Krista was not in her right mind when it happened--that she could not have done something different. So I'll say it again: depression IS a deadly illness. It needs to be taken seriously.

Anyway, I'm not trying to slander Keogh or disrespect his experiences. They are his and I'm grateful to him for being willing to start a scary conversation. I just disagree with the way the story was framed. Like I said before: I would have appreciated a little more time of the storm cloud and a little less on the silver lining. It might not only have been more interesting, but have done a lot more good.


P.S. It is interesting to me that Keogh blogged through much of the aftermath of his wife's suicide and almost none of it is included in his book. The blog posts are raw and, a few of them, powerful and interesting. It seems natural to me that, as a writer, you would want to use some of what you had already written about the experience. After looking at his blog his memoir feels sanitized.

Breaking Dawn: A Review but Not a Spoiler! (hopefully)

Before I get into this post I want to say thanks. Thanks for all your considerate words about my aunt. And especially to those of you, Jessica and Myssie, who have children with RTS--thank you. I can't imagine the things you deal with everyday but I also know I can't imagine the blessings you receive because of your sacrifices and love. I consider the people who loved and took care of Barbara as heroes and you definitely are too. Again, thank you all for being a part of her passing.

And then there was Stephenie Meyer. When I recently blogged about the first three books in the Twilight saga I didn't know the fourth one was coming out so soon. I also didn't know I'd be getting my hands on it so soon. I know a lot you are interested in it and haven't read it yet so I will do my best not to spoil it for you. If anyone is looking for plot synopsis I'm not doing that here. These are just my thoughts about how it felt to read the book.

My opinion of the first three books was mixed. I enjoyed reading them but was a little disturbed by some of the more erotic moments and some of the violence and the mixture of the two--especially in the third book. I had also been bothered by the lack of character development and what I refer to as the "theme mallet". (The theme mallet is employed when an author relies on the frequent repetition of key facts and ideas rather than artistic skill or the reader's ability to convey meaning in a book.) A friend of mine who is pretty much a superfan of the Twilight saga said she had read one interview (sorry I don't have a better source for this quote) in which Stephenie Meyer basically said, "I'm not a good writer, per se. I'm a good storyteller." That is how I felt about the books. They weren't particularly well written (from an arty/literary point of view) but they were great stories, even if they were a bit disturbing. After all was said and done, I did want to find out what happened.

The fourth book fell into my hands rather serendipitously. Our ward had a quarterly Enrichment activity Tuesday evening and a sister and I had gotten into a heated debate about whether or not Bella and Edward "made out". (For a fleeting moment I was pretty sure I was fourteen years old again!) After a few glances from our perplexed Relief Society president the other sister asked me if I had read the fourth book. "No," I snorted. "I don't even know anyone who owns it. Short of buying it, I have no idea how to get my hands on it." The other sister offered me her copy so long as I promised not to harm it in any way.

So it was that I picked up Breaking Dawn with trepidation. As I read the first few pages Bella was her usual self-deprecating yet competent self. Edward was the same, old, mercurial Ken doll. I sighed and settled in for what felt like the vampire novel version of a sitcom. But then something surprising happened. What is normally the denouement for a sitcom season finale, the wedding, happened in the first hundred pages. With 600 plus pages left to fill I was absolutely lost as to what Ms. Meyer planned on talking about. And she continued to surprise me until the final page, although the ending was not quite as satisfying as I'd hoped.

I finished it quickly and with a relatively light heart--a lot of the things that had bothered me about the first three books weren't problems in the fourth. Since Edward and Bella get married the teenage eroticism is toned down quite a bit. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty details about how their intimate affairs are going but the tension is gone. Once they are married it just doesn't feel as dirty. Instead of Bella trying to be a sexpot and seduce Edward it becomes more of an exploration of female sexuality and how it works in a marital relationship, which isn't necessarily inappropriate.

Anyway, Edward and Bella's sex lives aside, the book was just better written. Meyer takes a few narrative risks and changes point of view in different sections of the book. Those sections are a like opening the curtains in a stereotypical vampire's crypt: such a welcome change! She'd tried it for a few paragraphs at a time in the other books, but here other narrative voices are firmly fleshed out. (Jacob fans, get excited!) The theme mallet was still in operation but I let it go since these books are aimed at teenagers. Bella also becomes more nuanced. In the fourth book I start to appreciate her as a character and not just as a plot device. Edward and Jacob don't grow as much but they have their good moments too. Oh, and Meyer finally trusts the reader to remember how much Bella likes Edward's eyes and chiseled chest. She refrains from mentioning them every other sentence. (Thank goodness!)

The other thing that struck me about the first three books was how "nonmormon" they felt--besides the fact that Bella and Edward hadn't, shall we say, consummated their relationship (which is the main subject of book three), there was nothing there that made them intrinsically Mormon. Which I guess was a little disappointing. I guess some small part of me was hoping that the success of these books pointed to a little bit more opportunity for LDS writers to go mainstream and that just wasn't so. However, the fourth book is very LDS in its overtones and values. It turns out that signature LDS doctrines (like forever families and agency, to name a couple)were driving the books all along. Who knew?

Anyway, to sum up the review: these still aren't my favorite books but they were fun to read. And while I am still uncomfortable with the combination of violence and eroticism in the books I can see why so many readers are pleading that us literary types just let these books be.

3 books in 3 days (thanks, Stephenie Meyer)

It's probably because my husband is out of town and I don't sleep well when he's not here, but I just read three books in three days. So much for being burned out on reading!

A friend of mine(Hi, Jerilyn!) wisely realized that I wasn't truly burned out on reading. I just needed a change of pace. So she brought me some books she'd been meaning to give me for quite some time now. What are the books? Well, they happen to be the Twilight books by Stephenie Meyer.

Now, I have had several lengthy conversations with friends and family about these Mormon vampire books so I will try to keep it brief here, but they really gave me a lot to think about.

Twilight was the 29th book I've read this year, New Moon the 30th, and Eclipse the 31st. I picked them up having read a lot of the internet stuff about it. How can you live in America and not know about these books? I was trying to keep an open mind though. After all, so many people think these books are the only thing to fill gaping void that Harry Potter has left in their hearts. However, plenty of people also seem to think these books are, well, bad--with the definition of that word ranging from poorly written to inspired by Satan. Well, after having FINALLY read them I don't sit in either camp.

Don't get me wrong. Stephenie Meyer is definitely talented, especially when it comes to finding a popular nerve and stiking it just right. If you are wondering if that is actually a talent just check out how many impoverished writers are haunting the coffee shops in Borders stores all over America. Knowing what a massive audience wants to hear and producing it fast enough to keep them happy is a huge talent and one that so many writers lack.

Also, as far her craft goes, I was able to appreciate how she seamlessly interwove archetypes from romance, horror, and fantasy genres. I didn't find any of the characters themselves new or original (Edward might as well be named Angel for the way he mirrors Buffy's exceptionally sensitive vampire lover and Bella is SUCH the stereotypical romance ingenue I could pracitically predict how many paragraphs it was unitl she was going to do something) but I do think the combinations are interesting. However, as Edward and Bella entwined their fingers in each other's hair and smacked their icy/hot lips together for the gagillionth time I found myself wondering about Carlisle's story or even Rosalie's. For me the books would have been a lot more fascinating had the story been about Carlisle's tranisition from pious preacher to bloodlusting monster to "vegetarian"-vampire-surgeon and spiritualist. Alice was a hoot until she got to be such an obvious foil for Bella that I thought I was the psychic one.

What really made the books interesting for me was not the story line or the characters (no surprise there, huh?) but the puzzle of their cultural significance. My mind seemed to come back to two questions: Why were these books so fascinating to so many readers? And how did they square with Meyer's being LDS?

As for the first question, I came to a couple of conclusions. First off the books are deliciously distracting. I read each one almost straight through not realizing how many hours ticked by. That was fun. Also, of course, the books are titillating and in some places, downright erotic. And pop culture loves eroticism like it loves Paris Hilton. It was the eroticism that led my mind to a darker, more complicated conclusion too.

Now, maybe this the literature degree in me, but I couldn't help but read Edward as a curious mix of the sexual predator and knight in shining armor. For as much as he is the classic abusive boyfriend he is also the classic prince charming. As I understand it, for as long as they have existed in literature vampires and their lethal bites have been thinly veiled versions of rape stories.(Poor Rosalie! What an ironic moment!) And, to me, Edward's physical affection with its intensity and roughness fits with this. The disturbing part to me was how hard Meyer worked to rescript all this as goodness and how much Bella liked the violence and desired it--with such fervency that it gave her ardor an almost pornographic air. To be sure, the books aren't pornographic nor are they dirty--if they were I wouldn't have read them--but they have a tone that seems similar to those things. And I wonder if that isn't why they are so popular. There is something about that aspect of the books that jives too well with the gender stereotypes presented in hip-hop music, the tabloids, and even in our politics. There is a level of sexual hype or stimulation that our current American culture demands--and is quickly normalizing--that these books tapped into. And I find that a little disturbing. Especially considering these are supposed to YA novels. I just couldn't shake the violence lurking behind every "loving" gesture--whether it came from Edward or Jacob, Bella was being crushed every time she was being "loved"--and that creeped me out. That's not what sex should be and that certainly isn't what "true love" is.

As for my second question, about Meyers' religion and the role her Mormon worldview plays in these books, I was a little disappointed. I remembering reading in an interview somewhere (I'm sure her superfans can cite the source for me) a statement by Meyers saying that these books were built on essentially Mormon themes of unconditional love and redemption. Those are definitely themes in these books, but only in the most general way and certainly not in any way that alluded to Mormon theology and doctrine. I don't hold that against her or anything. I just wish it had given me a little more to think about there. But really, her being Mormon had nothing to do with the books at all.

I know most of you readers have an opinion on these books so let me know what you think! Most of my friends tell me I think too hard and that's probably true in thise case too :) Oh, and just for Maryam, let's do a quick poll: Edward or Jacob? Be sure to comment!

Book Update:11 books down, 39 to go

I have now read two more books in my book a week challenge.
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo.

Could I have found another pair of books to read closely together that were more opposite than these two? The House of Mirth is one of those literary institutions: beautifully crafted, filled with compelling charcters, and sad. Very sad. Edward Tulane is, well, happy. Imagine it this way: what if the velveteen rabbit had a happy ending? That's what Edward Tulane is. While Wharton's work is all about being lost and unable to accept or find love, DiCamillo's book is all about learning to love. I did enjoy both books and I would recommend them to anyone.