A Crooked Tree (2021) by Una Mannion

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

 A Crooked Tree (2021)

by Una Mannion

Valley Forge Mountain, Pennsylvania 

Pennsylvania: 1/27

   New Year, New States!  I've run out of easily available Audiobooks from the last chapter (Maryland through South Carolina) so I'm moving forward on two fronts- back north to Pennsylvania and continuing south through Georgia and Florida while I try to polish off the Ebook/physical book portion of the prior chapter.   The first book from Pennsylvania is A Crooked Tree by Una Mannion.  This novel is from the most common category of the 1,001 Novels project:  A bildungsroman written from the POV of a adolescent girl in difficult socio-economic circumstances, sub-category white, sub-category debut novel.  Like almost all of the books in this category we've got a narrator who is trapped in her family home, in the middle of nowhere (played here by someplace called "Valley Forge Mountain.")

  Here, our narrator is Libby, an awkward 15 year old girl living with her single mom and three siblings (one older sister, one older brother, two younger sisters.)  Driving home from school at the beginning of the book, her younger sister angers her Mom to the point where mom abandons younger sister on the side of the road, forcing her to walk home.  Sister is picked up and mildly assaulted by the sinister "barbie man" an albino type dude with long blonde hair.  Sister jumps out of barbie man's moving vehicle to escape and reaches Libby's weekly babysitting gig, promising her to secrecy so that their mom doesn't get in trouble.  Events move forward from that point in somewhat predictable fashion- I was surprised at the number of reviewers who expressed enthusiasm at the plotting in A Crooked Tree but it might be a function of my day-to-day experience in the criminal justice system.

     The world of "the mountain" is well-depicted, but I wasn't particularly enthralled by Libby or her troubled family.

The New Jim Crow (2010) by Michelle Alexander

 100 Best Books of the 21st Century (New York Times)

The New Jim Crow (2010)

by Michelle Alexander

#69

    The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander is the 55th of the 100 books I've read from the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century list.  As a criminal defense attorney who has spent over 20 years practicing in state and federal criminal court,  I am intimately familiar with every argument that Alexander made AND which of those arguments have succeeded AND I also have opinions about her arguments have harmed the Democratic party in recent national elections.   Alexander presents a blue-print for the racial justice portion of the post-George Floyd era and personally, I'm pretty convinced that some of the arguments in here helped Trump to victory.

   Alexander's main thesis is that the mass incarceration that followed the declaration of the "war on drugs" is the New Jim Crow: A race based system of government sponsored control aimed mostly at young, African-American males.  It's an argument that should sound familiar, because it has won the day here in California and made inroads at the Federal level.  Both the California state government and the Federal government have adopted many of the easy fixes that Alexander proposes.   However the deeper cuts of Alexander's arguments expose how (and I say this as someone who supports and agrees with much of what she says) very Un-American the structural underpinnings of her arguments can be.

  I'll share two examples.  The first is the argument that she makes late in the book that the success of Barack Obama and his election as President is harmful to the cause of racial justice because it promotes racial exceptionalism and allows racists to claim that there isn't a race problem in the United States.  Even if Alexander is right, that is a terrible argument to make in support of her many common-sense policy positions.  Can you imagine trying to argue to a swing state voter in suburban Philadelphia or semi-rural Wisconsin that the success of individuals like Barack Obama is a problem that needs to be addressed?  You'd sound like a lunatic.

   The second example is Alexander's lengthy explanation of how the racism of the criminal justice system operates despite the explicit bar to overtly racist laws in the United States.  I'm not saying she's wrong, only that this is a terrible argument that has helped Donald Trump win over potential democratic voters.   It's a bad argument because like many arguments inspired by Marxism, it attempts to convince the listener/reader that the truth is the exact opposite of what the reader believes to be the truth.  It's a heavy tactic in Marxist inspired persuasion that goes right back to the beginning, or close to it, specifically the idea of "false consciousness" i.e. the idea that the duty of Marxist intellectuals to convince the working-class/proletariat that everything they believe about their lives under capitalism is wrong.    Think of how that dovetails with the failed Democratic attempts in the most recent Presidential election to brow-beat swing state voters into fearing Donald Trump as an existential threat to democracy.   Liberal, wealthy democrats telling middle and working class white Americans what to think is never going to win.

  Alexander also obscures a broader, more succesful theme that Trump himself has impressed- which is that law enforcement is petty and vindictive and over-reaches all the time.   This argument is present in Alexander's facts, but she is more interested in the racists implications of over-policing instead of focusing on how over-policing sucks for everyone, poor black guys in the South and Donald Trump as well.  Get the cops off our backs is a winner.

Mobility (2023) by Lydia Kiesling

 Audiobook Review

Mobility (2023)

by Lydia Kiesling

  I checked the Audiobook of Mobility, the 2023 novel by American author Lydia Kieling after seeing it described as "the perfect novel for the Baku climate summit" in the New York Times last month.  I was intrigued at the idea that an American author, a woman, no less, had written a novel that was at least partially set in Baku- which sounded far more interesting than the usual:  books written about women struggling to live in America, either dealing with abusive fathers, husbands or partners, struggling with issues surrounding family, career and child-birth.   That is, in my experience, an accurate description of 90% of literary fiction written by American women.  My literary travels through the United States via the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America project have left me with a profound lack of interest in the issues surrounding raising children in the USA.   Both in books in my experiences in real life it seems simply insane how OBSESSED "normal" parents are with every aspect of their child and its development, this despite the fact that basically every child is exactly the same (don't tell this to a parent!)

   Mobility, on the other hand is picaresque with a young woman, Elizabeth (or "Bunny" as she is known as an adolescent).  When we meet her she is a shy teen, the daughter of an American diplomat posted to Baku close to the end of the Soviet era.  Mobility follows her life as a young and then middle aged adult, where she works her way up the ladder of a privately owned "Energy Services" company while trying to navigate adult relationships and her Mom, who kind of falls apart after a divorce from her diplomat father.   It's not heavy lifting but it is nice to read about a female protagonist who has her act together.

1,001 Novels Chapter Five: Blues & Bayous, Deltas and Coasts

 1,001 Novels Chapter Five: 

Blues & Bayous, Deltas and Coasts

Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida

   I'm running so far ahead on Audiobooks vs. Physical books that I thought it made sense to open up the next two chapters at the same time to take that into account.  Chapter five is distinctly the Southeast.  I'm surprised that Chapters Four and Five aren't reversed, since it makes sense to finish off the Atlantic United States before moving inland, which is what editor Susan Straight did.  I think that there is a strong argument for an alternative arrangements which would have gone from Chapter 2, New York/New Jersey to Chapter 3, Pennsylvania/Delaware/Maryland/DC instead of doing Delaware/Maryland/DC/Virginia /North Carolina/South Carolina.

  Besides stops at the Miami airport, brief trips to the Atlanta area to see family as a child and a post-graduation college road trip that saw a stop in New Orleans (where I got food poisoning and spent all night throwing up), I have no experiences with any of these states.  During visits to Nashville I've pondered a drive to northern Alabama, home of Muscle Shoals and NASA, but that is a tough sell.  Similarly I've thought about driving south from Nashville to Mississippi and non-New Orleans Louisiana but it doesn't seem likely to happen in my current lifetime. 

   Maybe this chapter will change my mind!

1,001 Novels Chapter Four: Mountain Home & Hollows, Smokies & Ozarks

 1,001 Novels Chapter Four:

 Mountain Home & Hollows, Smokies & Ozarks:

Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas

   I have finished all the available Audiobooks for 1,001 Novels Chapter Three (Delaware, DC, Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina).  Now I'm opening up the next chapter, which covers Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas.  It's the first chapter in the 1,001 Novels: A Library in America project that doesn't feel organic.  Chapter one was New England, chapter two was New York/NJ and chapter three handles the Southern Atlantic up to Georgia.   Chapter four, on the other hand, blends the Northeast Urban center of Philadelphia with the heavy Appalachian vibes of West Virginia and Kentucky and then appends Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas.  On the map, it makes sense, I guess but culturally it seems far from distinct.  Looking ahead I do see the very first repeat author- Tobias Wolff, who represented New Jersey with The Final Club and remerges in Pennsylvania with Old School.  It is hard to figure how Wolff would be the first and not Colson Whitehead or Philip Roth, but here we are.     

  I don't have very strong connections to any of these locations.  Both my parents come from St. Louis, Missouri, so I travelled back there a decent amount as a young child but only twice since college.  I've been to Nashville escorting my partner, who had a client there for close to a decade.  As part of that experience we've rented a car and driven around the area, up to and over the Kentucky border.  I went to Philadelphia as part of my junior high trip to the Washington DC area, then we drove through Amish country on the way to DC, but that is the extent of my experience in PA.   I have never been to Arkansas.  I have a plan that involves a trip to Arkansas and Oklahoma via flying into Dallas, but I'm not sure I'll ever make it.

  It looks like the Audiobooks are going to be running months ahead of the physical books, so it makes sense to expand in two directions at once.

My Name is Barbra (2023) by Barbra Streisand

 Audiobook Review

My Name is Barbra (2023)

by Barbra Streisand 

  It is hard to do justice to the 48 hour long Audiobook of Barbra Streisand's autobiography. It is important for a prospective listener to know that the narrator is none other than Barbra Streisand herself AND that many of her recordings are used when they are mentioned in the reading.  The listener learns many, many things about Streisand and I'm sure that is the case whether you are an ardent fan or someone who only knows her as a pop-culture reference point (me).   Begin with her troubled relationship with her only surviving parent (her Dad died when she was a young child), her Mom.   Streisand and her Mom do not have a great relationship which is a frequent theme early in the book and continues to be a surprisingly robust sense of ire all the way through to the end.  Streisand delves heavily into her emotional relationship with Virginia Clinton, Bill Clinton's Mom, in the same chapter she is lambasting her own Mother for skipping her big Las Vegas anniversary show, Streisand is in her late 50's in this chapter.

   Next is her status as an actress, not a singer and later as an actress/director/producer, not a singer.  It's hard to overstate Streisand's lack of interest in her singing career despite it being her voice that leads her to nearly immediate fame as a teenager.  Streisand is not a song writer, nor an arranger of music, so most of the stuff about her singing are details about her relationships with different writers, arrangers and producers. As a result, those looking for some insight about music career might leave disappointed.  On the other hand, those interested in hearing about every damn details about every film she has ever made- get excited!

The Looming Tower (2006) by Richard Wright

 New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century(#55)

The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (2006)

by Richard Wright

   The Looming Tower is a non-fiction account of the "road to 9-11."  It landed at #55  on the New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century list and unsurprisingly it isn't a very popular Audiobook.  I did find the story interesting, specifically the way Al-Qaeda arose from a bunch of stuff that had literally nothing to do with the United States- the Egyptian repression of Islamists that led to the further radicalization of the incarcerated, the history of Saudi Arabia and the role of Bin Laden's dad in developing the infrastructure of that country and of course the fervent US support of the very same Jihadis who became our worst enemies after 9/11 but were our friends during the war in Afghanistan.

  Another theme that emerges is just how kooky Bin Laden and his obsession with hitting the United States were in the context of the global movement for jihad.  Many of Bin Laden's own people thought he was out to lunch and other US targets:  The Taliban and Saddam Hussein to name two, were only peripherally involved and on-board with Bin Laden's dramatic plans.   The other side of the coin is Wright's investigation of the failure of United States intelligence to disrupt and prevent 9/11.  Here, I was reading as a criminal defense attorney who knows a lot about law enforcement and I finished The Looming Tower with the conviction that, yes, more could have been done particularly in the area of collaboration between the FBI and CIA which was prevented for some reason I still don't understand.  On the other hand, it's hard to prevent an attack that no one had even conceptualized before it happened.   Wright is able to point to scattered foreshadowing but there really was very little to hone on before the attacks occurred.

  

Citizen (2014) by Claudia Rankine

New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century (#34)

Citizen (2014)

by Claudia Rankine

    This is another non-fiction title from the New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century.  I also think it is the ONLY book that is classified as poetry that made the list- which tells you all you need to know about the status of poetry in the literary world in the 21st century.   I listened to the Audiobook and it sounded more like a series of experiences in prose than poetry but maybe the poetry is clearer in print.  The Audiobook was under four hours making it one of the shortest books on the entire list.   My take away from this book was a better understanding of the concept of "microaggressions"- which as a cis white male working as an attorney in a rapidly diversifying legal system- I feel like I need to be aware of in order to be a good professional citizen.  As Rankine makes clear, the line between thoughtlessness and out-and-out racism can be hard to judge, and putting the hearer in that position makes their life difficult.  Citizen is a good example of a book that is useful to read so you don't have to work out your understanding of race based microaggressions with African Americans you know.

  A theme that has come up again and again in the non-fiction portion of the 100 Best 21st Century Books list is that even people who despise racism and consider themselves liberal and or "friends" of the African American people can be just as bad, if not worse than out and out racists.   Another theme from Citizen is that it can be exhausting to be a high-achieving African American who is deputized by the whites around them to be THE African American in all things concerning race.  People don't want to do that- it's exhausting and sucks the life force out of people.   A final theme that stood out is the daily compromises that high achieving minorities have to make simply to exist in certain environments while white people- particularly white men like myself can simply exist.  

  One example I was thinking about both in this book and in Heavy- where the author makes his way in academia, is the idea of the brilliant, disheveled defense attorney- something I've tried to embody in my professional life.  It is literally unthinkable that a latino or African American defense attorney could dress the way I do (carelessly) with little attention to grooming, and have it pass as normal and acceptable behavior.  Similarly for women of all races- the pressure that non white men have to maintain their appearance is ridiculous and terrible. 

Heavy (2018) by Kayise Laymon

 New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century #60

Heavy (2018)

by Kiese Layman

   One thing I love about reading is that it allows you to engage in serious subjects in a thoughtful fashion without having to TALK to anyone else about it.   If someone has an opinion or experience that is important to them they should write it down, preferably as a book, find someone who thinks its worth publishing and then publish it.  The further the experience is from my own, the more value I derive from the reading or listening experience.  I remember when Heavy- a memoir about the life of the author growing up as the precociously intellectual, overweight African American son of an equally intelligent single African-American academic mother in Mississippi and I ignored it because back in 2018 I wasn't particularly interested in what it was like to grow up obese and African-American in Mississippi. 

  In 2024 I found the Audiobook, read by the author, enthralling and the idea that Heavy is simply about being overweight is the descriptive equivalent of saying that Ulysses is about a guy taking a walk in Dublin.  One of the things I've already learned from the non-fiction section of the New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century is the impact that racism and poverty and overall oppression has on the physical bodies of African-American.   This author, who was the child of an extremely well-educated single Mother was not exempted from trauma but in his position as a teacher and author he is able to articulate his experience in a revelatory way.

   One of the points that I've seen again and again both in fiction and non-fiction about the African-American experience is that living in a society that continues to embrace the idea of white supremacy contributes to a deep stoicism in African Americans of all types- that these ideas are internalized and they cause disruptions in the process of developing a coherent self-identity which often leads high-achieving African-Americans into patterns of self-destructive behavior.  

   I thought Heavy was excellent and I'm glad it made this list so I finally compelled to read it.

Pulphead (2011) by John Jeremiah Sullivan

Audiobook Review

100 Best Books of the 21st Century (New York Times 2024)

Pulphead (2011)

by John Jeremiah Sullivan

  Pulphead by journalist/essayist John Jeremiah Sullivan placed 81st on the New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century list.  It's a good example of how the lack of guidelines that governed the balloting process (the list was picked by a bunch of folks who were just asked to list their 10 best books published between 2000 and the present without specifying what "best" meant).    The first quality of the list that the aseembly process produced is that there are BOTH books of fiction and non-fiction and within both broad categories there are examples of multiple genres- so for fiction there are short story collections, novels and a couple novellas and then for non-fiction there is biography, memoir and books of essays.  Pulphead is a collection of long-form magazine articles that were published in places like the New Yorker and Esquire.  Sullivan is an obviously capable writer who reflects the teachings of "new journalism" (frequent asides about the relationship with the editors paying for his articles and his own presence as a protagonist) as well as the wave of identify based writing that has been in vogue in recent decades.

   Sullivan is a representative of what you might call the upper South- references to Kentucky and North Carolina as "home" and subjects like the Native American caves of the Appalachians and an article about a huge Church-rock fest that discusses his high school flirtation with Evangelical Christianity.    I enjoyed much of Pulphead- his music writing, in particular grabbed me to the point where I again caught myself wondering how I had never heard of Pulphead before the 100 Best Books list.  At the same time it was interesting that this book of magazine articles placed, at all, on this list.  

 If you look at the ballots section of the project very few of the voters placed more than a couple of books on the final list. Some voters didn't pick any of the final 100- James Patterson and Elin Hilderbrand, for example.  At the other end of the spectrum you have Harvard Lit Professor Anette Gordon-Reed, who placed 7 of her 10 picks and had three of the top 10 books.  Author Daniel Alcaron placed 9/10.  Of course, there is a bias towards recency but there seems to be some people who pick only "serious" books and others who defiantly stuck to what is popular.  Overall the serious people did much better than the popular people which suggests that the group definition of "best" has something to do with a traditional definition of literary merit- a challenging book which makes the reader work for a pay-off.