The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles (Books & Banter book club)
In June 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska after serving time at a juvenile work camp for manslaughter. His mother left when he was 10 and his father recently passed away after losing their farm to foreclosure. Emmett plans to pick up his eight-year-old brother Billy and head West. But, unbeknownst to him two of his friends from the work camp stowed away in the car bringing Emmett home. They have very different plans that rope Emmett and Billy into 10 days of unplanned adventures.
I wasn't particularly interested in reading this book even though I'd heard only good things about it. If a book is 576 pages it better be amazing. And this was definitely one of those books that is so long, but you wish it was even longer so you could stay with these characters. Told from several perspectives, but mainly Emmett, Duchess, and Woolly (the two stowaways), the ten days of traveling, mishaps, close calls, and adventures draw you into each character. Each of the main characters are so different and yet so lovable in their own way. I was prepared to not like Duchess as the ringleader of this whole fiasco, but he grew on me too. He is probably a sociopath, but you couldn't help but like him and feel sorry for him as more of his backstory was revealed. Woolly and Billy were my favorites and I wish Woolly's story could have ended differently. Billy was the focus of some of my favorite scenes - Billy and Ulysses, when Billy meets Professor Abernathe, and the scene with Billy and the safe. His character really brought an overall lightness to the book because he was so young and innocent. Emmett didn't stand out in obvious ways, but you could tell he was level-headed, observant, and determined to be there for his brother.
I could have done without the chapters about Sally - that just seemed kind of randomly added. Maybe implying a romantic relationship down the road with Emmett? But, I didn't like her very much and don't feel like she added much to the overall story. The only other character/scene that seemed odd was the Preacher - especially when he finds them the second time. That seemed highly unlikely. And probably only because it was the 1950's, but it also seemed miraculous that all these Nebraskans traveled in and through New York City so easily and found each other over and over again.
Overall, I loved each of the main characters and was impressed with how the storyline progressed in unexpected, yet not outlandish ways. This was a surprisingly well-written book with characters I'll be thinking about for a long time.
B.F.F.: a memoir of friendship lost and found by Christie Tate
Christie Tate always struggled with relationships. Once she was finally in a healthy dating relationship she felt like she had grown up. But, then Meredith, a friend from her recovery meetings, tells her now it's time to work on her friendships with women - "the work never ends, right?" Soon Christie is looking back at all her past friendships to see what went wrong - and a lot of the time it was her. While I can't relate to her specific relationship/friendship issues (which are many), I can relate to the struggle to make and keep friendships. And I have plenty of my own, different, issues as well. As Christie works through her issues around friendship, her relationship with Meredith grows into the kind of friendship she always wanted. When Meredith is diagnosed with cancer, Christie has the opportunity to really show up as a friend to Meredith during a very hard time.
I wasn't sure what to expect with this one. I didn't read Tate's previous memoir Group about her group therapy work, but I loved her writing. She is real and extremely honest even when it doesn't make her look good, but it's not so self-deprecating as to be off-putting. She is also very funny and there were several times I laughed out loud while reading. Overall, a very unique, but heartwarming look at one woman's struggles with friendship.
Bang Bang Crash by Nic Brown
Athenaeum is one of my all-time favorite bands. I've seen them live probably dozens of time in the late 90's and early 00's. One of my first official dates with my now-husband was to see Athenaeum at Tremont Music Hall (which is now high-end condos). So, when I saw this book and realized it was a memoir of the original drummer with Athenaeum I couldn't wait to read it. Brown is a great writer and I absolutely loved the first 1/3 of the book where he talks about his childhood, how he got into playing the drums, and starting Athenaeum with Mark Kano. That section really took me back and it was fun to read about the band from the insider perspective. Brown graduated from high school right when the band really took off and a record deal was imminent. He was accepted to Duke, Columbia University, and Princeton and turned them all down to be a rock star. But, shortly after Athenaeum signs a record deal with Atlantic Records Brown starts being embarrassed by their music. I could never really figure that out. He talked so highly of Mark Kano and the connection they had in making music, but didn't seem to enjoy music at all once they were "successful." He tried playing with some other bands when he quit Athenaeum and went to Columbia University. Eventually he starts writing and is now a published author and professor at Clemson University. He is still reluctant to talk about his time in the band and seems embarrassed by it. But, it was his idea to do the reunion show for the 20th anniversary of the Radiance album (which I had tickets to and then my husband got the flu and I couldn't find anyone to go with me at the last minute so I missed it). By the end I found this whole book odd. Once he started being embarrassed of Athenaeum's music I started not liking him as much. I really don't understand why he seems so embarrassed and almost ashamed of his time in the band and as a musician. I don't know why Athenaeum never made it bigger after their record deal, but in this book I was hoping for more time with the band and less in Brown's head.
I was also super disappointed with his drum teacher Pete. Once Brown started playing with Mark Kano and Athenaeum was forming he played some of their music for Pete. Pete was VERY into jazz and showed his disappointment that Brown was playing rock 'n roll instead of jazz. I think that opened the door to Brown being embarrassed of Athenaeum because he looked up so much to Pete. I don't know why Pete couldn't have been happy for Brown's success at the time even if it wasn't his personal taste.
Some quotes I liked:
"You spend hours in the attic with Mark, who can already drive, so sometimes when you get home from school his red Nissan pickup truck is already parked at the curb. Inside, his baby sister will be sitting on the chopping block with your mother, who will say hi, and then you will rush upstairs to find Mark working on a song called "Summertime." Or you will find him working on a song called "Haircut." Or you will find him working on a song called "On My Mind," a song that after you play it with him for the first time fills you with such amazement that later you lay on your bed imagining just what it means about your life to have been involved in its creation." (p. 3-4)
"And how great is it that you get to make that music with Mark? Because Mark is, why not admit it, so much more talented than you are. He has a gift so great as to be almost a burden to him. He hears things you cannot - that the harmony is off, oh, the compression is too much, I need to adjust my new chorus pedal et cetera, et cetera - and these things that he hears complicates his life much more than your life is complicated...And Mark has also become your closest friend, something you can now look back on and see clearly, but at the time you would never acknowledge, because already you and Mark treat each other like something beyond merely friends. Friends hang out and have fun. You two, though - it's a type of human alchemy. You create magic from nothing, just pulling sound from the air." (p. 5)
"The main complication for me was that, as a drummer, I'd been yoked to the projects of others for so many years that now, as a writer, I had suddenly become so intoxicated by the opportunity to have an artistic project be all my own that any hour potentially spent working on someone else's art seemed like a waste of my time." (p. 106)
The Exceptions: Nancy Hopkins, MIT, and the fight for women in science by Kate Zernike
In 1999, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology admitted to discriminating against women scientists - paying them significantly less money, cutting them out of opportunities, taking away desirable classes, giving them less physical space, etc. Nancy Hopkins was the woman who led the charge to look into how MIT treated it's women scientists differently than the men scientists. While for a long time Hopkins didn't consider herself a feminist, once her eyes were opened (because of two specific instances in her career at MIT) they were OPEN and she knew she couldn't be the only one experiencing discrimination. She pulled together 16 women in higher ranking positions and couldn't believe how similar all their experiences were - and they all thought it was only happening to them or was for other reasons than that they were women. Together the banded together and forced the university to see there was a problem and not just see it but deal with it.
The Exceptions is Hopkins's story of how she got into science, her experience as one of very few women scientists and professors, and how eventually she became a leader in the fight for women in science. Hopkins and the overall story of women in science is interesting, but VERY detailed. I found the book picked up steam in the second half of the second section and the third section. I think the author was trying to really show the progression of women in science and highlight these pioneering women who not only showed that women are just as smart as men, but did so under extreme duress and harassment. But, a lot of the other women's stories, particularly in the first section, tended to kind of drag the overall book. There was also a LOT of detailed science in descriptions of what the women were working on, their mentors in science, etc. But, without all that it would have been harder to show all these women's achievements and just how hard they worked to get into this field. What's sad is that in a lot of ways it feels like not all that much has changed. Women are still expected to be primary caretakers of children/elderly/household/etc. whether they work outside the home or not. There may be less overt sexism, but there is still plenty of unconscious bias and subtle discrimination. Probably more so in fields like science and technology. Overall, I did like the book even though it took me a little longer to get into it because of the level of science and detail.
Some quotes I liked:
"Then as now, I saw the story as one of remarkable persistence and risk on the part of sixteen women who did not consider themselves activists...They were not interested in publicity; they just wanted to get on with their work. As I explored their story - and the story of women in science before and after them - the word that kept coming up, in different conjugations, was exception. Women who succeeded in science were called exceptional, as if it were unusual for them to be so bright. They were exceptional not because they could succeed at science but because of all they accomplished despite the hurdles. Many had pushed past discrimination for years by excusing individual situations or incidents as exceptional, explained not by bias but by circumstance. Only when they came together did the MIT women see the pattern. That recognition alone made them exceptional, too." (p. xv)
"...while the first white woman to get a doctorate in math in the United States was in 1886, the first Black woman was not until 1943." (p. 38)
"A psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania recognized her own struggles in what [Patricia Albjerg] Graham had written (an article in Science magazine titled "Women in Academe."). Day care would help, she wrote, but it would not change the assumptions that constantly undermined professional women with children: employers considered them uncommitted to their jobs; teachers, guidance counselors, and judgmental neighbors considered them uncommitted to their children. 'Until children are considered a family responsibility for two consenting adults, women cannot have equal opportunities in employment,' the professor wrote. 'Only when social roles require comparable efforts from professional men and women can equality of opportunity be said to exist.'" (p. 98-99)
"The civil rights legislation of the 1960s had established broad protections against discrimination in hiring and promotions, but those protections had not extended to women in academia. It had been a hangover from the anti-communist panic of the McCarthy era, when hundreds of professors were hauled before Congress or fired by their universities under suspicion of left-wing beliefs or affiliations. Congress wanted to show that the government would no longer meddle in university employment decisions, so it exempted higher education from the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and from Title VII, which prevented job discrimination on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, or religion." (p. 103-4)
"The most commonly reported problem, however, was not sexual assault or the rank discrimination that civil rights statutes had made illegal. It was what Mary [Rowe] called 'the minutiae of sexism,' the slights against women that were so casual that in isolation they weren't 'actionable.' 'Most are such petty incidents that they may not even be identified, much less protested,' she wrote in a presentation for the American Association of University Women in 1974. These were invitations to seminars and meetings that were not extended, the pages that were not typed, the professor who refused to learn his female students' names or vowed that if a woman were given tenure, he'd make her life so miserable she'd quit: 'It is her work which by mistake is not properly acknowledged, not reviewed, not responded to, not published, her opinion which is not asked for.'" (p. 162-63)
"Nancy understood that she came from a cohort of women who considered themselves lucky to be hired onto university faculties at all. Sometimes it was easier not to think about how you were treated." (p. 280)
"'Each generation of young women, including those who are currently senior faculty, began by believing that gender discrimination was 'solved' in the previous generation and would not touch them,' Nancy wrote. 'Gradually however, their eyes were opened by the realization that the playing field is not level after all, and that they had paid a high price both personally and professionally as a result.'" (p. 336)
"Almost two decades later, there's still work to do. A landmark report in 2018 by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found that 50 percent of female faculty members had experienced sexual harassment, and that the biggest complaint was not 'sexual coercion' but put-downs about their intelligence, exclusion, and the kind of marginalization that the women of MIT had described twenty years earlier." (p. 351)
Under the Henfluence by Tove Danovich
We're getting our first flock of laying hens any day now, so I figured it would be a good time to read this book. Tove Danovich always wanted chickens, but living in New York City made that pretty difficult. But, when she and her husband moved to Portland, Oregon her chicken dreams could come true. She initially started with three chickens and almost immediately realized that was not enough. Because of her own chickens Danovich dives into all things chickens - from visiting the hatchery where she purchased her chicks to meeting chicken trainers and people professionally showing their chickens and everything in between. She also explores the dark side of chickens - mostly in the food industry, but also when it comes to roosters and dealing with them when people either don't want them or local ordinances don't allow them. This was a quick read and an interesting book, but I just didn't love it. She is VERY much a chicken person and spends a LOT of time with her chickens. I never really wanted chickens, but my husband wore me down over time. I love animals and I'm sure I'll enjoy our chickens, but they won't be pets for us - they are for eggs and if that goes well we might branch off into meat chickens too. While she didn't push it on the readers, Danovich quit eating chicken after getting hers and I'm not interested in doing that. I am interested in sourcing local, humanely raised meat/eggs/dairy which is why we're getting our own chickens to begin with. I think this book has a lot of good information, but is more geared towards people who want to keep chickens as pets with the bonus of getting eggs.
A quote I liked:
[I was impressed that Danovich sought out spent commercial laying/battery hens to keep as pets/let them live a natural rest of their lives] "I noticed that the flock I raised from chicks only made a purring noise when they were at their absolute peak happiness - a dust bath in the sun when the weather wasn't too hot or too cold - Thelma and Louise [the rescued battery hens] did it constantly. For them, every day was the best day they'd ever had." (p. 185-86)
