But Rushdie wrote the screenplay. He rewrote the 533 pages into a two and a half hour movie. And what’s the best news after that? Rushdie himself is the narrator. So all doubts disappear. The bard has become the voice.

Almost a month ago the movie production company started an autographed book or movie poster giveaway on facebook. All you had to do was tag a friend that you would see the movie with. I did and won an autographed book!

Here I am, after work, showing off my prize to my colleagues.

Note the autograph!!

And perhaps this book is so great it deserved two photo shoots. The previous one for the original Booker prize it won in 1981 and this one here for the Booker of Booker prize it won in 2008.

I’m incredibly pleased with my prize, because as much as I love Midnight’s Children, I’m afraid I don’t know what I would do with the poster. (Much like the blow up academy award I caught at a Chuck Palahniuk reading). But they sent me the book, and so here it is, nestled in its new home with all my old books.

I visited my Aunt Eva in New Mexico last summer. It’s one of my favorite places in the world. Everything is so beautiful, so solitary, so noble. The desert’s soundtrack on a sunny day is obscenely loud in its emptiness. There are no vehicles, no phones, no planes. There are grasshoppers, bees, birds, and cattle. There’s the ever-present fear of the rattlesnake and so you hear fake sounds in bushes. You avoid holes in the arroyo. You hear the wind blow the bushes and see the tumbleweed push past. And the smell. Of dirt. Clean, non-allergenic dirt. Not that city dust that affects your allergies. Just clean dirt pounded down by the rain then dried and cracked in the sun.

Below are images I took on her ranch.

I took a walk further down on her land, it’s off the dirt road and I was the first person to walk there since the last rain. I enjoyed listening to the sound my sneakers made as they cracked the dry dirt. Small pleasures knowing you alone are breaking a smooth surface. Lovely sinking sensation as your feet adjust to the terrain shifting under your weight.

I found a little rabbit skull on my walk.

Here is her porch. A great place to read. The bees get so loud here. Probably one of the greatest feelings I’ve ever experienced is sitting here in a thunder storm. Day or night. Alone in the desert with only a few people.

The view from her porch. 

Here is the side of her ranch. Comfy seats on all sides to match the weather and your needs.

This is the view from the side of her home. Here is her windmill.

And finally, the view of her windmill from the interior of her home.

Below are images from Sky City, of the Acoma Pueblo. My Aunt and I took the guided tour and then walked down the mesa. I felt like Frodo in Shelob’s lair in The Lord of the Rings. Sky City is by far one of the greatest places I have ever visited. The Pueblos are situated on top of a mesa.

On the Road is about Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac driving across country, searching for something. It’s about their relationship with each other and the rest of the world. And it’s also about how Jack defines himself in relation to Neal and society. Jack Kerouac consciously creates a mythology through story, thought, and dialogue. Jack writes for a literary audience and to define his place in society. He uses Neal to both reflect and define himself. Jack likes the idea of being seen as a madman, he wants to be perceived as an outsider to society, to be aligned with alcoholic hobos, and defined as a hoodlum. He sees himself as an outsider that is too intelligent and wild to be understood by the common man.

From the very first page, Jack creates the myth that will surround Neal Cassady forever:

At one point Allen Ginsberg and I talked about these letters and wondered if we would ever meet the strange Neal Cassady. this is all far back, when Neal was not the way he is today, when he was a young jailkid shrouded in mystery. Then news came that Neal was out of reform school and was coming to New York for the first time; also there was talk that he had just married a 16 year old girl called Louanne (109)

And so the legend has begun. And when Neal finally appears, it is reiterated over and over by countless people, both friends and strangers, that Neal “was a madman” (111). Jack quickly aligns himself with Neal. The Columbia University student looks to the hoodlum as mentor. Jack has problems ‘making’ women and doesn’t like to drive. He worships Neal for being able to do both with ease.

If Neal Cassady is the hero, and Jack is sitting at the right hand of Neal, as he literally is for most of their time together on the road, then Jack is part of the myth as well. Their friends perpetuate the dialogue of legend. ”He brooded in his basement over a huge journal in which he was keeping track of everything that happened everyday – - everything Neal did and said.” (150) Not only is Jack writing about Neal, so is Allen Ginsberg. The mythology soon turns to religion. Jack elevates himself by creating a social hierarchy and nominating himself as prophet, transcribing all that happens. He spreads the gospel of Neal and defends him to all non-believers. When friends point out Neal’s flaws, Jack defends Neal, and claims, ”they envied that about me, my position at his side, defending him and drinking him in as they once tried to do.” (294) They fail because they lose sight of the Word, and wish they could return to that former religion.

Using third person’s dialogue allows Jack objectivity as he describes himself and Neal. His sister’s friends ask “What kind of friends does Jack have anyway?” (215). The two are so crazy that the common man is confused and often afraid of them:

Who’s this?” “That’s Jack.” “So that’s the famous Jack. What is he doing sleeping on the floor?” “He does that all the time.”  ”I thought you said he was a genius of some kind.” “Oh sure he is, can’t you see it?” “I must say it requires some difficulty.” . . . After which I rose from the floor and shook Mr. Brierly’s hand. He wondered what Hal saw in me; and still did in Denver that summer and never really thought I’d amount to anything. It was precisely what I wanted him and the whole world to think then I could sneak in, if that’s what they wanted, and sneak out again, which I did. (154)

Jack wants to be crazy, impulsive, unattached, and uncaring. He hops trains and hitch hikes. He takes care to define himself as a vagrant, irresponsible, drunken youth. And yet, he always goes back to his mother to recoup. He buys his mother a house. Jack’s family, while disapproving of his friends, are constants in his life. He visits his sister for the holidays. His mother lets Neal stay with her. Jack sends his paychecks to his mother. He eventually writes On the Road, so he is not as unmotivated as he wants to be perceived. He thinks that if he is with interesting people that he must be interesting himself. He takes on their characteristics:

When Pauline saw me with Neal and Louanne her face darkened…she sensed the madness they put in me. ‘I don’t like you when you’re with them.’ ‘Ah it’s allright, it’s just kicks. We only live once. We’re having a good time.’ ‘No, it’s sad and I don’t like it.’ (226)

As the prophet, Jack doesn’t dictate the gospel, he merely lives by Neal’s words and actions. Jack says, “I didn’t want to interfere, I just wanted to follow.” (233) Jack notes people lose faith in Neal. Jack himself loses faith when Neal abandons him in San Francisco,”I looked out the window at the winding neons; and said to myself ‘Where is Neal and why isn’t he concerned about our welfare?’ I lost faith in him that year. It was . . . the beatest time of my life.” (272) When he loses faith, he suffers worse than he ever has before. Worse than when he walked fifteen miles after taking the bus and hitchhiking across country. Worse than when he is broke and hungry. He loses himself when he loses his faith and connection to Neal. When Jack and Neal are apart, Jack looks for Neal; he wants to be with Neal. Every part of America is connected to Jack’s friends, and almost always specifically Neal.

The night was getting more and more frantic. I wished Neal and Allen were there- -then I realized they’d be out of place and unhappy. They were like the man with the dungeon stone and the gollom, rising from the underground, the sordid hipsters of American, a new beat generation that I was slowly joining. (156)

Jack continues to align himself with the men that challenge and inspire him. He doesn’t always understand them; he calls Neal mad more than once. Jack enjoys the us vs. them feel to this new friendship. He needs something to drive and inspire him. He doesn’t have a wife nor does he have any passionate friendships beyond Neal. Jack is a brilliant writer who changes literature but enjoys the reputation of a troublemaker. He savors writing about getting out with hands up to police because he looks that dangerous. Over and over he tells us what a vagrant he is. And how mad Neal is. And yet, we have On the Road. Jack’s mother told him he “was wasting my time hanging around Neal and his gang. I knew that was bull too. Life is life, and kind is kind.” (229) Jack needs to be with Neal, he needs to learn from him and record what transpires. They are brothers from different families. And more importantly, he needs to be around Neal to realize who he is.

Jack Kerouac, On the Road: The Original Scroll. New York: Viking, 2007

“You must accept the reality of other people. You think that reality is up for negotiation, that we think it’s whatever you say it is. You must accept that we are as real as you are; you must accept that you are not God.” (88)

J. K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy is about reality and stories. Every paragraph is tailored to the character she is describing. A clumsy, pompous deli owner who is Chair of the Parish Council and First Citizen of Pagford. His self-righteous wife. His immature and irrational daughter-in-law. His kind but oblivious son. His cool but distant lesbian daughter. A teenage girl and her three year old brother with a heroin addicted mother. A boy with an abusive father. His bullying best friend whose OCD father is the deputy master of the high school. A solicitor who doesn’t love his girlfriend and falls in love with his best friend’s widow. A doctor who doesn’t care about helping people but cares about winning a fight. A social worker who does not realize her boyfriend doesn’t love her.

The novel takes place in a small idyll, where almost everyone knows everyone. Turmoil ensues when city councilman Barry Fairbrother dies unexpectedly. Why? Because the city council was up for a controversial vote that would drastically change their lives. After his death he speaks from the grave, revealing dirty secrets, destroying people’s carefully constructed lives. Someone is repurposing his respect in the community to lend credibility to their own agenda. Everyone has their own version of reality and believes their reality is the truth. Whoever knows the stories, owns the stories, controls reality, and therefore has power over the uninformed. They market information to support their beliefs, preferences, and politics.

The characters are always reconstructing a story, even as it is happening. They revel in disaster because they get to tell someone about it later. The night that Fairbrother dies, Miles Mollison and his wife are at the restaurant. They accompany Fairbrother and his wife to the hospital. The next morning, Miles calls his father, Harry Mollison, to tell him the news. Initially he says, “Fairbrother’s dead. Collapsed at the golf club last night.” (7) Miles offers more details at his father’s request. “Samantha [Miles' wife] noticed how Miles’ second version emphasized what you might call the more commercial aspect of the story. Samantha did not blame him. Their reward for enduring the awful experience was the right to tell people about it.” (8) Instead of focusing on their neighbor’s they are focusing on the story of his death. “Some of Samantha’s irritability lifted as she chewed. . . . Then she imagined telling customers at the shop about how a man had dropped dead in front of her, and about the mercy dash to hospiral. She thought of ways to describe various aspects of the journey, and of the climactic scene with the doctor.” (10) And so we see how people react to a man’s death. Krystal Weedon, a troubled teen has an honest outburst of emotion. Because of her reputation, it is misconstrued as laughter, and she is sent to detention. But she is one of the few who genuinely care for Fairbrother without any ulterior motives. And we see her grieve for him throughout the novel.

Stories are another way of defining reality and these characters are living in different states of unreality. Ruth, a nurse, lives in a false reality where her husband is not abusive or a scheming thief.  Stuart “Fats” Wall, comes from a good home but rebels and becomes a bully. Krystal’s mother, Terri, lives in a constant high, either on heroin or methadone. Kay, a social worker, moves to Pagford to be with her uninterested boyfriend. She is so unhappy that when she notices Terri high, Kay thinks, “right now, not to feel, not to care. . . she’s happier than I am.” (72) Kay is so unhappy in her own reality that she is jealous of an addict’s unreality.

Gavin, who isn’t a bad person, just a stupidly selfish one, allows his girlfriend to move from London with her daughter to be closer to him. But all he wants is to leave her because he views her as a nuisance. She offers to go to Fairbrother’s funeral with him but he rudely declines. After helping carry the coffin, he realizes he has nowhere to sit. No one has saved him a seat. And he thinks to himself that he is a “sad bastard at funeral.” (161) And later, when he considers actually breaking up with his girlfriend, Kay, he ”[spends] the whole weekend brooding on how it would feel to be seen as the bad guy.” (269) Instead of worrying about how Kay will feel if he leaves her, he wonders how it would feel to be perceived as the bad guy. He doesn’t consider that he is a bad guy for letting a woman he has no interest in change homes and jobs for him.

Unhappy with his reality of two loving parents, Fats portrays himself as a delinquent and aligns himself with students from the slum. He starts having sex with a classmate, Krystal Weedon. During one of their trysts, they smoke pot in a cemetery. He gets paranoid and cannot get away from her and the situation fast enough:

“Fats was thinking about how he would be able to work this into a funny story for Andrew, about being stoned and fucking Krystal and getting paranoid and thinking they were being watched and crawling out almost onto old Barry Fairbrother’s grave. But it did not feel funny yet; not yet.” (255)

Once again, Fats is unhappy with what actually happened and he is eager to rework the event into a funny story to entertain his friend. He has no concern for Krystal. He recreates reality into short vignettes composed of 3-5 words, revealing what is important to him.

Language reflects the reality of the characters. When Rowling writes dialogue for two teenage boys, their words are trite, filled with cliches and curse words. The boys think that they are having a philosophical discussion:

“Fucking. That’s what matters. Propogun. . . propogating the species. Throw away the johnnies. Multiply.”
“Yeah,” said Andrew, laughing.
“And death,” said Fats. . . “Gotta be, hasn’t it? Death.”
. .
“Yeah, said Fats. “Fucking and dying. That’s it, innit? Fucking and dying. That’s life.”
“Trying to get a fuck and trying not to die.”
Or trying to die,” said Fats. “Some people. Risking it.”
“Yeah. Risking it.”
…
“And music,” said Andrew. . .
“Yeah. . . And music.” (175)

What have the teenage boys discussed? Sex, death, and music. While these are universal themes that countless philosophers have written tomes about, the teens eloquently offer: fucking, death, and music. Nothing new there. But the conversation reads authentic, something that Fats is obsessed with, and something he does not understand. Teenagers would believe this discussion erudite and original. Rowling illustrates the naivete lost beneath their public personas.

Rowling’s authorial voice is so tender, her language almost whispers descriptions, “his visit had been so brief that when Mary, slightly shaky, poured away his coffee it was still hot.” (456) And when she describes a woman’s unwanted love for a man, she describes it as a “threatening and agressive barnacle.” (162) A woman hungry for gossip, is “like an ancient baby bird, or perhaps a pterodactl, hungering for regurgitated news.” (279) The Casual Vacancy overflows with beautiful symbolism and figurative language.

The teenagers in the town have their own interests that initially do not correlate with the adults, but eventually, somehow, slowly, without notice, all of the characters are intertwined. And there’s the beauty. All these seemingly unrelated people, from different parts of the idyll, from various economic, social, and political backgrounds interact with one another in a very natural, unforced way. You fall in love with the protagonists and pity the antagonists.

J. K. Rowling, The Casual Vacancy. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2012.

Having a cat makes reading so much better. This heavenly creature is named Hermione, after Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter series. He is a rescue kitty (yes, he is a boy, he was taken from his mother too soon and the SPCA told us he was a she—apparently this happens quite often) who sits on my lap and keeps me from moving while reading. He’s a big fan of books; he is always rubbing up and laying on them. I think he would make a wonderful bookshop cat. He’s great company and makes my apartment warm and cozy. Also, living in the city, you need to be careful of cockroaches. They like to eat the glue in books and cats scare those horrid pests away.

A good mug for your coffee or tea is essential. Having a beverage becomes a ritual and it improves immensely with the quality of your cup. My friend Sada gave me the mug pictured here. It is made from porcelain in Japan. Blueberry and peppermint tea are my favorites.

I live in a small studio, so there’s not a lot of space for furniture. Ok, maybe I could make more room if I didn’t have an eight-foot long bookcase. But I’ve got my priorities straight. I asked my dad to make a little table for me. He made this beautiful table that I use everyday. When I’m reading I can use it to keep my coffee or tea near me. Also a pencil to make notes.

I tend to take notes when I read. I draw squares around each character’s name the first time it is used. I underline my favorite passages. I circle words I need to look up. I draw hearts around Arthur Rimbaud’s name every time I find it. Childish I know, but he’s one of my favorites and his name pops up quite often in a myriad of places.

One of the pencils I bought at the Missouri History Museum in St. Louis. An old friend had a dozen pencils made that said Mrs. Salman Rushdie’s pencil as a joke. The Amateur Astronomer pencil my friend from Colpa Press gave me.

A good bookmark will hold your place. You don’t want to bend the pages of your book and ruin them! This cutout bookmark is sold at the SFMOMA bookstore. And all proceeds benefit the museum.

A warm and cozy blanket. I don’t think I need to say anything else about that.

A French press makes all the difference. You can make loose leaf tea or fresh coffee to wake you up in the morning. Again, it’s the ritual. Wake up, rub the sleep out of your eyes, get out of bed, make coffee, return to bed with cat, coffee, and book. (Another friend gave me this coffee maker.)

A good chair helps keep you from falling asleep while reading in your bed. I’ve had this one for years. It’s from my first apartment in the Bay Area. It’s not very attractive so I covered it with a vintage blanket. However, it’s quite comfortable. One day I’d like to upgrade, but this chair has been with me through five apartments so I can’t complain.

T R A N S P O R T I N G   Y O U R   B O O K S

You also should have some proper totes to carry all your books. You can support Green Apple with this amazing bag that states, “So many books, so little time.” Truer words were never written.

This tote bag proclaims my love for The Hobbit. It even has a little zipper pocket in it. But honestly, you were sold at hobbit, weren’t you?

And  it always helps to have a purse large enough to fit a book. You never want to leave your book at home due to lack of space. What if you get stuck on the train? What if you have an extra hour to kill because your friend is running late?

Obviously a serious reader doesn’t need any of these things. But it certainly makes reading even better.

Perhaps what you need most though, are friends. Good people who remind you to get out of your head, out of your apartment, and live your life.

So sometimes you just want a good read. A book that will keep you interested regardless of how fun your vacation will be once your airplane lands. A book that you read until your eyes burn and you can no longer keep them open. A book that is unpredictable. When that’s what you want, pick up Charlaine Harris’ Vampire mystery series that HBO made into True Blood.

I have written before that I never considered reading Harris’ books because the covers were so off-putting. A vampire on a flying coffin? No thank you. Also, they seemed to become popular around the same time that Twilight was taking over bookstores. And I mistakenly lumped True Blood into the current pop culture obsession with vampires. I thought she was just cashing in on something that was already popular. I was completely wrong. The books have strong characters and the narrative efficient. She describes the Southern town of Bon Temps with such precision that you are immediately immersed and never want to leave. You want to eat the greasy food at Merlotte’s, have a piece of Sookie’s grandmother’s pie, and read on Bill Compton’s porch. I can’t help myself, I just want more of these characters.

With the advent of a synthetic blood, vampires reveal their presence to humans and attempt to integrate themselves into society. They have their own vampire government with representatives that lobby for vampire rights. Waitress Sookie Stackhouse is an outsider because can read people’s minds. The first time she meets a vampire she is relieved because she doesn’t hear anything. While there is a bit of romance, it is minor and Harris uses Sookie’s relationships to place her in different mysteries. They are not the point of the books, they are factors that create a larger story. And Sookie constantly admits that she is only in situations as a result of these new relationships. And yes, they are scary, and yes, she gets scared, but she doesn’t wait silently. She takes charge. She may get beaten up at times but she continues to fight. She is a feminist. She refuses to be kept by a man or a vampire’s money. Sookie doesn’t make a lot of money and this is an recurring issue in the books. She is a working woman without much education trying to survive.

Not all the characters are the same as the HBO series. The series films 12 episodes from one tiny book. And you could fit 30 True Blood books into one Game of Thrones book. Some of the major characters are completely reinvented and one of them never dies as he does at the end of book one.

The important thing to remember about these books is that they are fun. They allow you to escape without getting frustrated that some ditzy blonde is waiting for a man to save her. I wouldn’t call them literature but I would recommend them. They are the equivalent of a piece of chocolate cake. You certainly don’t need it, your life doesn’t improve having it, but you enjoy it in the moment. Maybe there’s a bit of guilt that you didn’t read Harold Bloom, but isn’t reading supposed to be fun?

L   A   U   R    A      &      C    H    E    L    S    E    A

Laura is a merchandiser. Her roommate Chelsea is in landscaping. They have integrated their books into the same bookcases, which is a testament to their friendship. They have a lot of great vintage books. They’re in different sized bookcases and curated with amazing tchotchkes.

Some of Laura’s favorite books are:
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Franny and Zoey by J.D. Salinger
Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo
Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk

Some of Chelsea’s favorite books are:
Shame by Salman Rushdie
Tales of Ordinary Madness by Charles Bukowski
A Question of Power  by Bessie Head
The Place of Dead Roads by William S. Burroughs
Jesus’ Son by Dennis Johnson
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

S            A               R              A              H

Sarah studied art in college and now works in a museum. She has numerous art catalogs and monographs. Oh and a lot of great literature.

S             C              O               T              T

Scott is a merchandiser and studying graphic design. His books are artfully displayed. He has a lot of fashion and art books. Oh, and he just got a dreamy book all about fonts. I can’t wait until he’s finished reading it to tell me all about it.

Some of his favorite authors are:
Allen Ginsberg
Kurt Vonnegut
Douglas Coupland
Aleister Crowley
Note: Battle Royale is mine. I forgot it was my copy until Scott reminded me.

V      I       R       G       I       N       I       A

Scott introduced me to Virginia. When she moved here from Ohio, Scott said, you’ll like Virginia, she reads. That was all that I needed to know and we’ve been fast friends since the day we met. Virginia works in a bookstore. She lives and breathes books. She’s introduced me to so many great books that I love. She is the only other person I know that always has a book in her purse. Her apartment is overflowing with books. Every surface is covered with them. It’s as though her apartment is one big bookcase and she has tried to carve out a living space for herself. It is one of the coziest apartments I’ve ever been in.
Some of her favorites are
Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre
Muriel Barbery’s The Elegance of the Hedgehog
Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games
Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass
J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series
Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s The Shadow of the Wind

L   I    N   A      F     E     L    I    C    I    A

Lina is an artist from Sweden. She has so many treasures compiled together. Pictures of her family along with books in Swedish from her home country. I can’t help but get excited when I see books I’ve read in another language. Why do they look so mysterious and glamorous? She also has a lot of beautiful art catalogs as well.
Two of her favorite authors are:
Unni Lindell
Stieg Larsson
Both Swedish. She told me that The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was originally called Men Who Hate Women in Swedish. She gave me Studio 69 by Swedish author Liza Marklund and she bought me a ticket to see Marklund speak with other Nordic writers.

C            L            A            I            R            E

Claire moved to San Francisco from Seattle a few years ago. Her first apartment was temporary and she knew she would be moving in a few months. She is a curator and a bit of a minimalist. Her book case reflects her life, clean and beautiful without anything she doesn’t totally love.
One of her favorite authors is Wallace Stegner and one of her favorite books is Gone with the Wind.

C    H      R      I      S      T      I      N     A

Christina recently moved to Seattle from San Francisco. She’s originally from Portland. She moved these books from Portland to SF and then to Seattle. She bought a lovely new bookcase. It is handmade and she bought it off of etsy. It’s so much nicer than her old bookcase she had in SF. One of her staff sewed the red cat for her. Her grandma used to wear those boots as a little girl. She loves Courtney Love and you can see the face out of Love’s book.
Some of Christina’s favorite authors are:
Chuck Palahniuk
Anthony Bourdain
Jane Austen
Pablo  Neruda
Sylvia Plath
Vladimir Nabokov

M    Y          B    O    O    K    C   A    S    E

When I moved last, I didn’t have room for all my books and bookcases. My dad made this bookcase to fit in my studio. My parents are kind and let me store the rest of my books at their place. I have always kept my books in alphabetical order and rearrange them when I get a new book. Here are Scott and Christina trying to convince me that my alphabetical order needs to change. They want me to reorganize my books by color and size. They are insistent that it will change my life. I haven’t done it yet.

I am in a Professional Ladies Group that started September 2011. We meet roughly every other month to discuss goals and careers. Almost everyone in my group has read or is reading Lean In. One of the  over-arching themes of Lean In is that we as women need to support one another and share our stories. We need to work together instead of against each other. And when we work together as a community, we learn and accomplish more. I’ve found this to be true for myself with my group of professional lady friends.

Note: Not all Professional Ladies are shown and although Frankie the chihuahua is male, he is a feminist.

It seems that a lot of the negativity surrounding Lean In is based on Sheryl’s priviliged background and that she cannot be speaking for all women. However, what those critics don’t realize is that there are women like me, whose world used to be so small, and we are reaching beyond anything familiar to us, interacting with people so different from us, and we just want to know what is out there if we lean in.

I am so fortunate to have such wonderful parents that worked so hard to improve their own lives and mine. They came from extremely large, poor families. My mother’s family were migrant workers. I have learned more from my mother than any other woman. She’s incredibly smart, strong, driven, and kind. She didn’t have the luxury of going to college or graduate school. She missed the first two weeks of her senior year of high school because she had to work to buy groceries for her siblings. She was leaning in her entire youth, but leaning in to survive and move out of her old life. She dealt with crushing racism in high school from teachers. She went to key punching school and became a professional working woman. She got married to the wrong man who she later divorced.  She met my dad and they got married. They bought a house. They bought a second house. They traveled the world. We went to China when she was 68 and she walked on the Great Wall. I thought, this woman once got paid based on the weight of how much fruit she picked. I wonder what she thought about when she was picking fruit. Did she think she’d be here?

My mother was always honest with me and taught me from her mistakes. She was always reminding me that I could do whatever I wanted. Education is the most important thing. If you have that, no one can take it away from you. There was no question about my attending college. I was going. My dad worked as much overtime as possible. My mom worked five days a week as a preschool teacher (while rewarding, completely exhausting) and then on Sundays she sold at a flea market. All of this so I could attend Fordham. It was stressful for them and I felt bad, but my mom kept on with her mantra, “no one can take away your education. You will always have that.” She also taught me never be supported by a man and never support a man; while the words sound the opposite of Sandberg, they actually mean the same thing. Don’t let a man have the upper hand in any situation. Always be equals in the relationship. And don’t let anyone step on your toes. Stick up for yourself. My mother taught me everything I needed to succeed. I can’t help wondering what she would have done had she read Sheryl Sandberg’s book. My mother didn’t know anyone like Sandberg but she had so much ambition and was a staunch feminist.

The most important thing about Lean In is that it is opening up a dialogue that has been forgotten for too long. Why are there so few women in leadership? What has happened to feminism? What has happened to us? And while the system still needs to change, this book offers insight and advice to women who want to move ahead. Maybe we can’t change the system as a whole overnight, but we can change ourselves, (which if done on a large-scale, can change the system). Sandberg writes,

This book is not a memoir, although I have included stories about my life. It is not a self-help book, although I truly hope it helps. it is not a book on career management, although I offer advice in that area. It is not a feminist manifesto–okay, it is sort of a feminist manifesto, but one that I hope inspires men as much as it inspires women. (9)

And the book is a feminist manifesto. It’s about equal rights for women in the work force. It tackles the issues she has suffered throughout her entire career. She urges women to lean in at the conference table in meetings. She urges women to lean in to their careers; don’t wait until you are ready to take on more work. Just do it and learn as you go.

There are inspirational posters on the walls at facebook. Sheryl Sandberg notes one of her favorites declares, ”‘Done is better than perfect.’” I have tried to embrace this motto and let go of unattainable standards. Aiming for perfection causes frustration at best and paralysis at worst.” (125) I like order and things to be neat and tidy. I have gotten so frustrated about things that aren’t important. My boss has told me the same thing many a time, “Melanie, let it go.” And he’s right. Sometimes when I’m in a k-hole of unreasonable organization, I hear my boss’s voice, and I let it go. There is no reason to waste all your energy making something perfect that does not need to be.

I strongly urge you to pick up this book. It’s incredibly well-written, smart, funny, and inspiring. And then make sure a friend reads it so you can discuss it together.

Sheryl Sandberg with Nell Scovell, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. Alfred A. Knopf: New York, 2013.

Having been a fan of the Beat generation for years, I’ve read and explored and reread and revisited their writing. I started of course, with Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. I slowly made my way through all of his books. I read William Burroughs. I read some Ferlinghetti and Ginsberg. I backtracked to Kerouac. And then I wondered about the women in their lives. What did they do? How did they deal with these men?

I remember reading On the Road and being so excited. The language was energetic and inspiring. I wanted to drive across country. I wanted to hang out with artists. I wanted to write. I wanted to be a Beat. But I couldn’t find any writing by women. I searched and searched. I discovered Jan Kerouac’s books. She was the daughter of Jack Kerouac. I also read Carolyn Cassady’s memoir, Off the Road. And then last year, One and Only: the Untold Story of On the Road was published. Both authors were going to be at the Booksmith on Haight Street: Gerard Nicosia had interviewed Lu Anne Henderson, (Neal Cassady’s first wife) and Anne Marie Santos, Lu Anne’s only daughter.

Lu Anne met Neal when she was 15. Neal walked into a soda shop with his current girlfriend and saw Lu Anne. His girlfriend knew Lu Anne and he asked for an introduction under the auspice that he would set up his friend with Lu Anne. However, that was not the case, and Neal, while living with his girlfriend, pursued and married Lu Anne within three weeks. Sadly there are a few hints as to why Lu Anne eagerly accepted his proposal. There is a photograph of Lu Anne dressed as a pin up girl with the photo credit going to her stepfather. Firstly, she’s too young to be taking pin up photos and secondly, it’s incredibly creepy that her stepfather took the photo. Her mother wanted to Lu Anne to move out because her stepfather was making advances on her daughter. Neal was 19 when they met, old enough to feel like a protector, but young enough that he was still a kid.

Neal had been arrested numerous times for stealing cars; he later boasted of stealing over 500 cars in his teens. By the time Carolyn Cassady had given birth to Cathleen Joanne Cassady, Neal told Jack that “she was his fifth child, but only the first one that he would acually keep and raise” (84). Neal didn’t take responsibility for his actions in any useful way. He married Caroline because she was pregnant. He then divorced her and married Diane Hansen because she was pregnant with his child. One time when he tried to punch Lu Anne, he missed and broke his thumb instead. He said that’s what he deserved for trying to hit her. But then Lu Ann said that ”most of the time [Neal] didn’t get mad enough to use physical violence–except with me. And when Neal would hit me, that was simply emotion. I mean, that’s the way it was with us. It was either loving or fighting, one of the two, with us–especially at that age.” (87)  Neal was definitely the guy to party with but not the guy to devote your life to. Lu Anne wanted to believe in him and their life together.

Neal met an admissions advisor to Columbia University who set up oral exams for Neal (a high school dropout) with the promise of matriculation if he passed. Of course, Neal missed the exams, but he still went to New York to visit his new friends at Columbia. Through them he met Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. Neal and Jack did not initially like each other. Lu Anne got along well with Jack and acted as a buffer between the two young men. Eventually Neal and Jack became extremely close.

One and Only attempts to shed life on the relationship between Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac. It feels like a bit of a literary gossip rag, who slept with who. And yes, I’ll guiltily admit, that part is fun. But the heartbreaking thing is when you step back and see a 15 year old girl running away from a creepy (probably pedophilic) stepfather. She marries Neal and then works to rent an apartment for the two of them while he runs around. He divorces her so he can give his child his name but then constantly returns to Lu Anne. She is engaged to another man who is at sea and runs off with Neal. She constantly makes poor decisions. But she’s still a teenager. Neal is mentally and physically abusive, but not enough for her to leave him. Later, she leaves two other men for being abusive.

“Lu Anne brought Neal and Jack close enough for the nuclear fusion to finally occur–and with it, the explosion that changed America forever . . . there can be no doubt that the overall impact of two such very different men joining forces, and joining consciousness . . . created at least one of the viable starting points for all the seismic social and cultural shifts of the sixties and later decades. The beatniks were born; the hippies were born on their heels; and after the short stutter step of the early seventies, the punks were born. All owed a huge debt to the coming together of Kerouac and Cassady, the confluence of those two very different energies. And the coming together of Kerouac and Cassady owed a great debt to Lu Anne Henderson. Who says one person can’t profoundly change the human universe?” (173)

And while I want to think that one person can make a difference, I cannot agree with this train of thought. So if Lu Anne wasn’t around, Neal and Jack wouldn’t have become so close? Which means, that without Lu Anne, we wouldn’t have the Beats, or hippies, or punk, or if you follow Nicosia’s line, grunge, and then indie. I want there to be a female presence in the Beat generation, and yes, Lu Anne definitely made Neal’s life easier, and yes, Lu Anne made it into Kerouac’s novel, but it is hard for me to think she was the silent partner. Lu Anne wasn’t Vera Nabokov, reading and editing Vladimir Nabokov’s writing, nor was she Nora Barnacle, the stable partner and muse for James Joyce. Lu Anne was a young girl who went on some car trips, and provided emotional and some financial support.  Coming to this realization makes me sad. I really wanted to believe that there was more to her role in the Beat Generation. But reading this biography just makes me sad. She had a tough past and some fun with the Beats, but let’s be honest, would you really want to be married to Neal Cassady?  She had many chapters in her life, and while the Beat chapter is the most dog-eared, she kept moving. Trying to make a better life for herself and her daughter.

The Sense of an Ending requires our attention to our individual senses and feelings. Although the book must end, the title implies that the ending is a feeling and is not concrete or final. The book’s plot and language are not the only things to pay attention to. We are to be aware of our personal interpretations of the book. By placing the ending in the title, Julian Barnes makes the reader conscious of how the novel will end and how Barnes will build up to the ending. Because not only is it about the ending, but the sense, the feeling, the leading up to the ending. You are cognizant of the ending throughout the work. The novel begins in the present reflecting to the past which quickly leads up to the present and the ending.

This book is obsessed with time, how it passes, how it feels as it passes, what is personal versus universal time. The book seems to mirror the passage of time. Descriptions are longer and passages more detailed when he is younger. As he gets older, the scenes are shorter with less details. So time appears to pass as it does with life. When you are younger, time is slow and you cannot wait to grow older. When you are older, time moves forward so quickly that you forget what day it is. Childhood memories seem vivid even though they are from so long ago. Why? Because we have had time to play them over and over in our head, examining them from all angles, and different ages. Incomplete memories are a bother, and we fill them out with deduction and imagination.

Barnes intricately explores what time does to memory. He lays out the plot through his narrator’s memories. His narrator, Tony Webster, has a few images of memories, mental photographs that he calls up when he thinks of his high school. When prompted, he delves more deeply and chronicles conversations he both heard and participated in. But Tony admits that his memory may be faulty and inaccurate, “Was this their exact exchange? Almost certainly not. Still, it is my best memory of their exchange” (Barnes, 20). Again, he is giving us the feeling of that memory, what he remembers happens, but he cannot be sure that it is exactly what happened. He is the narrator that Barnes has given us, and we can try to read between the narrative but it is hard to guess as Tony does not give us much to work with. And at a very late point in the book, we realize that we have stumbled upon the most glorious type of narrator-the unreliable narrator. And that is when our senses truly take over. Because his details seemed so precise when he was younger, we believed what he told us happened. But when we realize he is unreliable, we must go back and rethink what he has told us. We must reevaluate what happened as a result of his words and actions.

The Sense of an Ending plays with history, perception, and written documents. We have an unreliable narrator who tells us how he remembers things happened. He relates letters he wrote and his feelings as he wrote them. As the novel unfolds, more characters from his past emerge. And with them, a will, a letter, and a journal. So no longer must we rely only on Tony Webster. Now we can reinterpret his words with other people’s accounts. As we reevaluate Tony’s perceptions, we are also asked to consider what is reality and what is literature? What is friendship? What is love?

“This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn’t turn out like Literature. Look at our parents––were they the stuff of Literature? At best, they might aspire to the condition of onlookers and bystanders, part of a social backdrop against which real, true, important things could happen. Like what? The things Literature was all about: love, sex, morality, friendship, happiness, suffereing, betrayal, adultery, good and evil, heroes and villains, guilt and innocence, ambition, power, justice, revolution, war, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, the individual against society, success and failure, murder, suicide, death, God. And barn owls.” (Barnes, 16)

As a teenager, Tony had lofty ambitions for his future. He imagined that he would live a life worthy of literature, worthy of being written down, published, read, studied, annotated. Instead, he was married, had a child, and then divorced. His life is hardly the stuff of literature. But this novel, this retelling, this reinterpretation and reevaluation is the stuff of great literature.