BOOK REVIEW: "One Big Happy Family" by Rebecca Walker

I picked up One Big Happy Family, a collection of essays on family and love, because I love knowing the private details of other people's lives, and I love high-quality essays. One Big Happy Family satisfied both urges for me, and like all great collections, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Editor Rebecca Walker brings together a varied group of writers to share their experiences of family – topics range from open marriage to open adoption, green card marriage to intercultural marriage. Many of the essays have themes of race and culture, and sexuality is construed as more than just a gay/straight binary. This is a book you will want to read straight through – it pulls you in and leaves you rethinking your own definition of family.

Many of the essays have an amusing but earnest tone. Nearly all are positive and strong, written by individuals satisfied by their choices and their family lives, even as they share the difficulties and heartbreaks associated with their families. Neal Pollack writes a standout, hilarious piece on being home with his young son. Z.Z. Packer's entry also shines, explaining the strange reality of having your parenthood questioned by strangers when your child doesn't appear to share your race. Liza Monroy engrosses readers in a story about entering into a green card marriage – while her mother works for the State Department. Dan Savage's essay and Susan McKinney de Ortega's also are memorable parts of the collection.

Some of the stories in the book are of a more informative tone, such as the one from from Paula Penn-Nabrit on home schooling her African-American sons or Marc and Amy Vachon's enlightening essay on equal parenting. We also hear from a proud (and anonymous) sperm donor, interracial and intercultural partners, parents of disabled children, members of large families, adoptive families, and a woman in couples therapy with her sister. As the book winds itself up, you start to wonder if there are any styles of "family" that aren't workable for someone out there. Perhaps that is the point.

With a variety of writing styles and topics that will speak to many readers, Walker's collection is a fascinating read if you enjoy the genre. Despite not quite seeing my own situation in any of the writers', I felt part of the collection – its inclusiveness made me rethink and relabel my own experiences and wonder what insights I would be able to contribute to such a collection. Midway through the book, I began to feel that it was extremely New York and Los Angeles focused, although later essays helped to mitigate that. Issues of poverty were not frequently addressed, either, which was a hole in the collection. However, with the understanding that even the most varied collection can't include everything, I thoroughly enjoyed my time immersed in other people's families.

---Katy Wischow
imagineatrium.com


Check out author Rebecca Walker at www.rebeccawalker.com
Keep your community thriving. One Big Happy Family is at your local, independent bookstore now. Visit Indiebound.org to find it.

BOOK REVIEW: "Blue Genes: A Memoir of Loss and Survival" by Christopher Lukas

The only thing misleading about Blue Genes: A Memoir Of Loss And Survival , a moving tale of how self-inflicted death leaves wounds in the living, is the title. While acknowledging the genetic predisposition towards depression in the title, author Christopher Lukas barely touches on what that means. This is a book about nurture more than nature.

Although recognizing that his family is genetically predisposed to severe depression, Lukas nonetheless searches for understanding in the events of the individuals' lives. He clearly grasps the genetic factor and both brilliantly and emotionally describes the symptomatology, but never quite gets you inside a depressive's head to understand the actual mindset of depression.

Of course, that is a tall order. As one who also comes from a family with a history of clinical depression (though thankfully not suicide) and having fought a fierce battle with the illness myself a decade past, the only writer who I have seen achieve this is William Styron in his memoir of depression, Darkness Visible.

That said, Blue Genes is a very moving memoir of two brothers cyclically driven incredibly close and vastly apart in a world where depression and suicide were the rule, not the exception. Through reliving his memories of his older brother, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Tony Lukas, from their early youth to Tony's suicide in 1992 at the age of 59, the author comes to understand himself better. Stretched out as it is from the Great Depression through to the Modern Age, this is a moving look at how siblings hurt, protect, and shape each other over a lifetime.



---David Norman
imagineatrium.com




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BOOK REVIEW: "Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life" by Kathleen Norris

This thoughtfully written part memoir/part meditative essay centers on the idea/term "acedia," a complex and interesting word imbued with layered meanings, which traces its origin back to the early and medieval church texts, in which it is described as a "noonday demon."

Norris, through a series of personal and poignant narratives, defines this timeless concept as a kind of modern-day spiritual torpor characterized by apathy and slothfulness (both on the level of the individual and society). She explores the word by relating it to many facets of her life, in particular to her personal struggles with respect to her marriage (including seeing her husband through illness and subsequently to death) and her writing life, as well as other episodic biographical sketches.

To help clarify and demystify the concept, Norris weaves select etymological and historical accounts of acedia into the fabric of her own personal contemplations on her struggles, while at the same time illustrating the trying nature of coping with this modern-day spiritual indifference and the negative after-effects of it that permeate our culture. In the end, what we get through her search for meaning is the realization of the need for a balancing act. Whether it be through reciting the psalms in silence, or finding a spiritual connection inside an ancient religious text by Evagrius (or a modern-day thinker like Kierkegaard), or through counseling and treatment with or without drugs, the balancing of all of the options one has at his or her disposal in managing acedia or depression is ultimately a personal choice.

Through the various accounts she gives of other people's experiences in dealing with acedia, Norris illustrate how important is is to pick and choose the right support system that works. Religion, psychiatry, and psychology ultimately support this idea of balance, which leaves much room for a broader exploration into this important topic.

Norris' prose is direct and honest. This, along with the inclusion of many insightful quotations from thinkers across the centuries, makes Acedia & Me an enjoyable, worthwhile read.

--Jung Hae Chae
imagineatrium.com

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Picture of the Week

How to Solve Marriage Problems: Cat Edition

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Worried your man's cheating? You might wanna check his genes!

Scientists in Sweden have recently completed a study that links a gene, apparently one that 40% of all men have, to a man's ability (or inability) to be interested in monogamy and have a successful, long-term relationship. The presence of this cheating gene, called an "allele," also seems to predict the likelihood of a man getting married or simply living unmarried with a woman, as well as how happy or unhappy the woman is in her relationship with the man.

The allele regulates the activity of a hormone in the brain called vassopressin. In earlier studies, other scientists studying voles found that certain species of male voles were monogamous and mated with the same female for life, while others were dirty rats...or let's just say more promiscuous. The scientists found that by experimenting with vassopressin and receptors in the brains of voles, they could change the males of the promiscuous species to faithful husbands (and vice versa).

Ethics aside, maybe one day you too can know at the start of a relationship whether your guy's gonna be good to you by making him take a simple test to check for a promiscuity gene. Then you can decide if he's worth the inevitable drama to follow. If you find the gene, and are hell-bent on garnering his affection, it may just be a simple matter of cutting his head open and rearranging things a little until he's perfect!

Ladies, don't act like you weren't fantasizing about this already.

Read the full story from The Washington Post.