READ ALL ABOUT IT
Since 2012, I’ve been writing about books. And the act of reading. And the importance of story and narrative. But, mostly, the underlying theme of all I write is how taking a moment to stop and digest some longform text — instead of scrolling, instead of watching a video, instead of multitasking — can be one of the most grounding things we can do for ourselves. Here’s the one-stop online home for all this writing.
You can read more about me and my work by moseying over here. Want to peruse periodic “essay drops” — excerpts from my work-in-progress essay collection about Homesickness? Here ya go.
If I Survive You
“We can do [survive] hard things!” (Name the wannabe psychologist who likes to say this.) While I for sure don’t disagree with that statement, I suppose it doesn’t resonate with me (and often makes me feel kinda sad) because there always seems to be a whiff of oblivious privilege involved. While everyone needs a boost once in a while — and some people of course are in seemingly impossible (and even dangerous) situations where a “pep talk” like this might give them that extra resolve — I always wonder: Is this the first time some people have been told and encouraged that, yes, they can get through a situation? People have “survived” (done “hard things”) forever. Feel free to look up the Darién Gap in Panama and the story about the young girl who got separated from her mother there.
A Children’s Bible
My experience with A Children’s Bible pretty much blew my mind. I spent about two-thirds of it hating it/being annoyed by self-absorbed parents willingly unaware of their elite privilege while they drink to oblivion, ignore their children, and swirl around the propped-up world they’ve created full of others like them. To their children, these adults are amorphous and interchangeable and “a cautionary tale.” One child totes around an illustrated children’s Bible which sets the allegorical tone of this novel. One’s not reading A Children’s Bible as a straight-up, literal text – the parents’ debauchery and the children’s ability to completely fend for themselves will give that away. (As will the natural disasters.) So I suppose this Pulitzer finalist tiptoes into “dystopian” territory, which is not really my kind of book.
