December 2024 Reviews

 

Horse by Geraldine Brooks (Evening Edition and Books & Banter book clubs)

In the 1850's Lexington was the country's fastest racehorse - breaking records with ease. After his racing career (cut short by both fading eyesight and the Civil War) he went on to become one of the most sought after breeding studs of the time. In Horse, Geraldine Brooks gives us a unique look at Lexington's career and legacy. Told from three different time periods and by several points of view - Kentucky 1850's by Jarret, an enslaved horse groomer and trainer and Thomas Scott, an animal artist who became known for his racehorse portraits, New York City 1954 - Martha Jackson a gallery owner known for her support of radical, new artists, and Washington, DC 2019 - Jess (no last name given) who works for the Smithsonian and Theo Northam an art history student working on his PhD. These three time periods and unlikely characters fill in the story of Lexington the horse - how he was born, trained, raced, painted, and lived through the tumultuous time of the Civil War in the South, as well as, his impact on modern day culture.

I wasn't sure how I was going to like a book all about a racehorse but I absolutely LOVED this book. I could have done without the relationship between Jess and Theo - and seriously there is SO MUCH info about ALL the other characters and I could NOT find Jess's last name written out anywhere. I also read several reviews that accused Brooks of having a "woke agenda" because of aspects of the Theo/Jess relationship and chapters. While I think those chapters and their relationship was heavy handed, I think Brooks included it to highlight both the differences and similarities between Jarret's experience as an enslaved Black person in the South around the time of the Civil War and Theo's experience as a Black American who grew up aboard but was now back in the US. I could totally see why she did that but the ending with Theo and Jess especially felt forced and over the top. But I LOVED Jarret and Lexington and their bond. As soon as I finished the first chapter from Jarret's perspective I was hooked. Overall, this is another winner (no pun intended) from Geraldine Brooks!

The House is on Fire by Rachel Beanland (Books & Banter book club)

On December 26, 1811 the Richmond, Virginia theater catches fire and quickly goes up in flames. Over 100 people die and many are injured. Rachel Beanland takes this real life tragedy and imagines what the fire and the aftermath would have been like through four characters. Jack works for the theater company putting on that evening's play, Sally attends the theater with her sister-in-law and brother-in-law and barely escapes, Cecily is an enslaved woman who accompanies her master's daughter and ends up using the fire to fake her death and escape North, and Gilbert an enslaved man who helps rescue women jumping from the second floor of the burning theater. All four of these characters have extremely different situations but the fire affects them all deeply. In the Author's Note, Beanland explains that all these characters were real people (some names and circumstances were changed) which makes the story more interesting. Rather than focusing on the actual fire, the story is more about who people reacted and how this tragedy showed people's true colors - for better or worse.

I did not love this book. I could have DEFINITELY done without Cecily's first chapter where she recounts every horrific way her master's son has been molesting and raping her since childhood. I did like the four main characters and I liked how Beanland showed various sides of the tragedy from their different perspectives. I agree with some reviews I read that it was too long and too detailed. Some of the storylines could have been cleaned up a little without losing any important parts of the story. I also hate a book that doesn't have chapter numbers and the chapters (each by one of the main characters) were too short. I would have rather had fewer chapters with more info from each character. It started out being a good example of human nature and how fear/death/tragedy can show who someone really is but it got too bogged down in details and the ending was lacking too. Overall, if not for book club I wouldn't have gotten past chapter 2.

A quote I did like:

"These men have no consciences. Not Elliot, not Mr. Price, not Archie or Tom or any of the other men she encountered in the theater. They pay lip service to the idea of civility, while doing whatever they want at all times. Even Robert, whom she has missed so terribly these last three years, was not a perfect man. She likes to believe that, were he in the theater, he'd have stayed with her until the end, but how can she be sure, after everything she's witnessed?" (p. 283)

What the Chicken Knows by Sy Montgomery

Originally a chapter in Montgomery's 2010 book, Birdology, this book is all about What the Chicken Knows - which is a lot more than people think. If you've never interacted with chickens you might think the stories in this book sound made up. Sy Montgomery shows us just how smart chickens are especially when you take the time to hang out with them. We got chickens last year and initially I did not want them because of our area having a lot of predators (hawks, owls, foxes, raccoons, coyotes, etc.) but my husband persisted and eventually I gave in. They have definitely grown on me more than I thought they would for many of the reasons Montgomery discusses in this short book - they definitely have personalities and are resourceful and fun to watch with the bonus of fresh eggs. If you don't know much about chickens this book is the perfect opportunity to learn something new.

Land of My Sojourn by Mike Cosper

Mike Cosper was one of the founding pastors of Sojourn church in Louisville, KY. What started as a dream church with a group of like-minded young pastors turned into a toxic situation that eventually fired Cosper via a reorganization chart (he was left off - that's how he found out he was fired). So, how did he get there? What would he do without vocational ministry that had been his entire career to that point? Add into the mix the huge division within many churches and Christians over the 2016 election and Donald Trump and you have a recipe for being in the wilderness. In this book Cosper correlates some of his Christian wilderness experiences with physical places that were important in Scripture and re-examines some of those places through a wilderness lens.

I agree with some reviews I read that while he was trying to not name names in relation to the issues at Sojourn, it sometimes felt like a lot of necessary information was left out. You did get the general gist and saw his struggles when his ministry and church turned against him. While I did like aspects of the book, it felt a little incomplete. But if you've ever been burned by a church, then you can definitely relate to the overall message here. I can't say it's amazing or that I would highly recommend it though.

Some quotes I liked:

"The persecution narrative merely justifies the militarization of the faith. It turns out that everyone wants to be a martyr, but no one wants to die. We want a revolutionary. We want a fighter. We want a Savior with a sword, not a cross. A pastor with a bully pulpit. A president who will shoot his enemies in the middle of Fifth Avenue." (p. 65)

"The harder question for me, though, is why was what I experienced as deception toward the entire staff not enough to make me leave?" (p. 75)

"I looked back at the seventeen years leading up to that season. We had such a profound sense of community and purpose that guided us. It felt like it would last forever...But slowly, then all at once, the spell had broken. I felt a tiredness and brokenness that I cannot, even years later, put into words." (p. 92-93)

"But when Russell [Moore] began to surface and highlight problems with sexual abuse in the SBC [Southern Baptist Convention] in 2018, I saw a groundswell rise against him - something I don't think I'll ever understand. In the years that followed, survivor advocates like Moore and Rachel Denhollander - the whistleblower in the USA Gymnastics sexual-abuse scandal and an attorney and advocate herself - were branded enemies of the church. Somehow sexual abuse became a kind of partisan issue, and the dividing lines happened to match those that separated Trump supporters and never-Trumpers in the SBC. (That doesn't seem coincidental, given the allegations surrounding Donald Trump.)" (p. 102)

The Hawk's Way by Sy Montgomery

This is the second chapter from Sy Montgomery's book Birdology that has been republished as it's own short book. I've always been fascinated by hawks and owls so I thought this would be an interesting book. I also love Montgomery's writing. But I didn't like this one much. While Hawk's are interesting and there are lots of hawk facts and photos in the book, the main focus is on falconry. I guess after reading about how wild and instinctual these birds are it just seems wrong to keep them in captivity for hunting. They could just be in the wild hunting for themselves. There was also a lot of weird commentary from Montgomery about her vegetarian reactions to the hawks hunting and training (using cut up frozen chicks). Like The Hummingbird's Gift and What the Chicken Knows it's a very quick read - like an hour or less. I still love watching hawks and other birds of prey but I didn't enjoy this book much.

One quote I liked:

[On thinking about taking up falconry] "My concern is this: Could I in good conscience take a bird out of the wild?" (p. 54)

Between Two Trailers by J. Dana Trent

Dana Trent grew up in an extremely dysfunctional home. Her parents, (known as Lady and King) who met while they were both working in a mental hospital, were both mentally ill (her father had schizoaffective disorder and her mother had a personality disorder with narcissism), enjoyed partaking in and selling illegal drugs, and lived in squalor and poverty. When Dana was six-years-old her mother left King and Indiana to go back to North Carolina where she was from. Dana feels pulled between her two parents and her two identities as King's daughter in Indiana and the Southern Belle her mother wants her to be in North Carolina. While Dana understood something wasn't right with her father, it was much harder for her to see how emotionally abusive her mother was and how dysfunctional their relationship was. In college Dana ends up becoming addicted to pills, alcohol, and food as a way to cope with the dysfunction in her life. She also ends up going to the Duke Divinity school because her older half-brother went to Duke and her mother REALLY wanted both of her children to have gone to Duke so she could feel rich and important. Only when she meets her future husband and gets engaged does she start to realize how dysfunctional she's become because of her dysfunctional family. She is really only able to untangle herself from her parents after they both die. Then she's able to reconcile her two halves.

Despite her mother having her in various therapies since she was a child, no one seemed to understand or talk to her about just how dysfunctional her situation was. Her mother also spent her entire life chasing a diagnosis she liked, while trying and quitting every type of therapy and treatment under the sun. It doesn't seem like Dana was even trying to break away from her mother until shortly before her death.

I liked the book in the vein of dysfunctional family memoirs. Some reviews compared it to Educated but it was definitely no Educated. I found it really odd that she just went along with this Divinity degree because her mother wanted her to go to Duke. She did grow up going to church, but never seemed like a true believer. There is obviously a difference between getting a Divinity degree and being a professor and being a minister or pastor. It's not super clear but in her bio it lists both as her career. Overall, it was a good book and I liked it. I do wish her path to recognizing and working on her own dysfunction was a little more detailed - that seemed kind of glossed over at the end. But it was a great story of someone who reconciled their past with their present and learned to accept and love their family for who they really were and not who she wished they had been.

Some quotes I liked:

"For the next few hours, Dr. Yancy administered a variety of tests...It was the kind of intensive analysis that would determine if Lady's hypothesis about me was right. 'You may just be a sociopath like your father,' she'd said. 'I'm seeing the signs' But Dr. Yancy disagreed. He met with the Lady to review his findings, which were decidedly healthy but reflective of my home life. Though Mom was confident I had a personality disorder, in his paperwork he declared me a youngster 'operating at a superior level of intellectual functioning,' but with 'post-traumatic stress disorder' and 'present emotional resources insufficient to cope with current stressors.' According to him, the only intelligence area I didn't excel in was process-oriented tenacity. 'Lazy!' the Lady said. 'That's it! I knew it. Just like your father...' She smiled because something had been found." (p. 104)

"I realize now that the real danger of my drug-trafficking childhood wasn't the weapons or the fight training or the drug business. It wasn't King's schizophrenic psychosis or the Lady's personality disorder. The real danger was denying what happened between two trailers. The real danger was in not accepting my parents for who they were, mental illness and addiction and poverty and all. The real danger was in not realizing that they were doing the very best the could with what they had. The real danger was in hiding it all. Maybe King was right: You can't fix crazy. Or better yet, maybe you don't need to." (p. 227)

Rift: a memoir of breaking away from Christian patriarchy by Cait West

Caitlin West grew up in a fundamental Christian home that subscribed to an extremely patriarchal theology where women were only meant to be wives and mothers and daughters were expected to be "stay-at-home-daughters" until being married off to a man of her fathers choosing. West's family attended several different churches and even started home churches when they couldn't find a local church extreme enough in its beliefs. West learns quickly that it's better to be quiet and compliant than face her father's wrath for doing something wrong. But in her early 20's she realizes that any man who approaches her father about "courting" her is scrutinized to the point where he finds something wrong and a reason to end it. She begins to realize that maybe that's the point - he doesn't want her to leave his household where only he has authority and control. Eventually Caitlin secretly falls in love and makes plans to marry outside her father's control. But getting married and finally escaping her father doesn't immediately fix everything. It's just the beginning of unraveling the years of spiritual abuse she suffered growing up and figuring out who she really is outside of that. This is a moving memoir of one woman's story of escaping an abusive (and in my opinion, blatantly incorrect theology) Christian patriarchal religion/cult.

Some quotes I liked:

p. 25 a list of ads appearing in Patriarch magazine from 2000 to 2002.

"The girls who were picked by husbands became women and moved away or became too busy to talk anymore. They became pregnant on their honeymoons. They never went to college. They didn't share the secrets of the marriage bed with the rest of us or tell us whether they were happy or whether they regretted it. We thought marriage must be like dying and going to heaven." (p. 63)

"My [homeschool high school] graduation didn't mean transitioning into adulthood, or the next chapter in my life, or the stepping stone to college. It meant nothing. It meant less than nothing. It meant staying at home but not having homework to complete. It meant being a 'helpmeet' to my father as practice for being a wife one day. I did not understand that turning eighteen meant I had a right to leave. I had never been taught that I had individual rights at all." (p. 78)

"It occurred to me that stories like Pride and Prejudice were appealing because they mirrored my life in a way that modern-day books couldn't. Like the female characters in Austen's books, I was a woman in her father's home, waiting for marriage, waiting for destiny. I had no money, no education, no prospects. There was little I could do to change my life." (p. 82)

"He would scold me every week after Will went home, berating me until I retreated to the bathroom to cry in the shower. My tears were just one more sign that I was emotionally compromised. My father was asking the impossible of me: to think about if I wanted to marry Will, without having any affection for him...I felt like he wanted me to be like stone, emotionless. And I started to think he was wrong to ask this of me. I began to wonder what else he was wrong about." (p. 113)

"The system of patriarchy thrives when we [women] hold each other back." (p. 172)

"Patriarchy thrives anywhere men are praised for their will to dominate - and Christian patriarchy blesses this pursuit of earthly power by imagining it's a heavenly duty. Like abuse, Christian patriarchy, at its core, is about power and control - at any cost." (p. 212)

The Movement: how women's liberation transformed America 1963 - 1973 by Clara Bingham

The Movement is an epic oral history of the decade that defined the feminist movement in the US. Clara Bingham spent two and a half years interviewing eye witnesses to some of the historic events that took place in the decade from 1963 - 1973. For me this made the book. It's one thing to read about a historical event and quite another to hear the people who were actually THERE tell their experiences. This book covers a LOT of information from a LOT of people - there is a helpful "cast of characters" section at the end of the book with a brief description of each person. There are also several photos included in the middle of the book. As someone born in 1979, it's hard to imagine living in the world these women lived in before the feminist movement when it was legal to fire a woman for being pregnant or tell a woman to their face that you would never consider hiring a woman. For women in college or law school to be told "you're taking a man's place here." I think the word revolution is often thrown around casually, but this decade was a revolution. Minorities and women were sick of being second class citizens and were determined to make society change - and many of those changes are discussed in this book. It's not a super easy read (although the oral history style makes it more readable in my opinion) but it's a very important read. Younger women need to see how things were before the women's movement and how quickly things can go back if we're not careful. This was a great book to end 2024 on!

There were a LOT of quotes I liked:

"A. Philip Randolph, the leader of the march, accepted an invitation to speak before the National Press Club, which at the time excluded all women reporters...If they were covering something, they had to do it from the balcony. When these women protested to [civil rights leader] Bayard Rustin about Mr. Randolph's accepting this invitation, he said, 'What's wrong with the balcony?' And they said, 'What's wrong with the back of the bus?'" (p. 10) [The struggles of Black women in the Civil Rights movement was eye-opening and sad to me.]

[Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 added the term 'sex' to prevent racial and gender discrimination in hiring] "Various women arose to speak for the amendment, and with each argument advanced, the men in the House laughed harder. When [Martha Griffiths] arose, I began by saying, 'I presume that if there had been any necessity to point out that women were a second-class sex, the laughter would have proved it,' There was no further laughter...[and that addition to the amendment passed]" (p. 22)

"When doctors first organized as a group and founded the American Medical Association (AMA) in 1847, the male doctors surveyed the landscape of reproductive care workers and phased out the existing community of female midwives and ob-gyn nurses. Most male doctors at the time did not have much expertise in pregnancy, childbirth, and abortion, which had been left to the female sphere. The AMA then began the process of criminalizing abortion and standardizing medical education, which essentially cut women practitioners out." (footnote on p. 43)

"Like most urban hospitals, Chicago's Cook County hospital devoted an entire ward to women suffering from medical complications caused by illegal abortions. By the mid-sixties, the hospital treated one hundred women with abortion-related medical emergencies every week." (footnote on p. 43)

[Marilyn Webb was working on her PhD at the University of Chicago and needed professors for her dissertation committee. Every professor she asked assumed that she would sleep with them in exchange. So she quit her program and moved away.] "Encouraged by the #MeToo movement, Marilyn Webb wrote the president of the University of Chicago in 2017, told her story, and asked the university to remedy her past injustice. After rewriting her previously published book to fit a dissertation committee's requirements, Webb was awarded her PhD at age seventy-six and walked in the graduation ceremony with the class of 2019." (footnote on p. 68)

"Involuntary and coerced sterilization of Black, Latina, Native American, and poor women in government-funded hospitals and clinics were prevalent in the first half of the twentieth century and expanded in the 1960s. Laws allowing involuntary sterilization existed in thirty-one states and were even more draconian in the South...Between 1964 and 1966, 64 percent of the women sterilized in North Carolina were African American. In 1961, when Fannie Lou Hamer needed medical attention for a uterine cyst, she was given a hysterectomy at a Mississippi hospital without her consent. Hamer...later testified against Mississippi's sterilization law, calling the procedure a 'Mississippi appendectomy.'" footnote on p. 156)

p. 254-255 The FBI stole a member of NYC NOW's wallet to have a meeting and offer her $750 a month to spy on the NYC chapter of NOW.

"I think that Ms. was seen as mainstream by radical feminists and seen as radical by most other people. Ms. had a foot in both worlds." (p. 354)

"The ERA [Equal Rights Amendment] was not considered that revolutionary. Richard Nixon supported it, and it was in the Republican platform right up to Ronald Reagan in 1980. Then the counterrevolution, led by Phyllis Schlafly, very successfully defeated the ERA. We did not see it coming." (p. 379)