Telling Memories Among Southern Women, Susan Tucker

The Help brought me to this book. An edited collection of first person stories from both the black and white sides of the southern experience of life with domestic servants.

Like life in general this book was full of every imaginary take on domestic servility. Servants that hated white employers, were approached or molested by their white male employers, whites who didn't see anything wrong with the frighteningly low wages paid to servants, didn't see the truth that the servants felt obligated to agree to anything their white employers suggested, the trap that this whole position was. I find the explanations for the white employers ignorance of the black servants situations revealing and completely understandable. I can see how some white employers would have to live in ignorance, if only to be able to live with themselves.

This reminds me of the book American Pictures by Jacob Holdt. In his travels through the southern United States in the same time frame that these interviews were taken, Mr. Holdt found what he thought of as remnants of the Master/Slave environment. He found whites with serious alcohol problems and little soul, blacks with problems getting ahead, as if they didn't know how to grow or change with the times.

Both books wrote of changes and over twenty years has passed since both transpired, plus I lived in the deep south for ten years and witnessed a different world. I expect that times have changed for both groups by now but it is extremely interesting to read these edited first person accounts of life as they knew it. A little bit of history is always a good thing and so very important to our future as healthy human beings. I wish everyone could read both of these books and learn of a better way to live and think. I wish all of us could be forced to address our inner bigots.

The Help, Kathryn Stockett

This was recommended as a nice easy summer read and I have to say that it was. The story drew me in quickly. The personal account of domestic servants in the south was so moving. I have read similar stories in the past that touched on the lives that servants lived in the south but I don't think I have ever read one that seemed so complete.

It was heart renching to read of the love and caring that the servants had to supress for the children they raised, the hurt they had to live with when the children turned into bigoted tyrants like their parents.

I wanted more, I neede more. So I read the next....

The Alienist, Caleb Carr

This was first recommended to me a few years ago by my friend G, then I picked this up from a friend about six months ago. I really really enjoyed this novel. It seemed to be a mystery/historical novel. It covers the profiling and search for a serial murder around the turn of the century.

Theodore Roosevelt is police commissioner, trying to clean up New York City's polie regiments but with a mind that was open to trying new detective methodsHe allows a secret group to form a search for the killer of several children in New York City.

Reading this was like watching Law & Order, CSI or NCIS, of which I enjoy. I enjoy a story with twists and turns, that keeps my on my toes and keeps me questioning what is going on and when the various sub plots are going to come together.

Hoarders among us.

Homer and Langley, E. L. Doctorow



A historical fiction of the infamously hoarding Collyer brothers of New york City, I found this story a bit melancholy in nature.

Based on the true story of Homer and Langley Collyer this gives a possible first person narrative of these men who were both found dead in their Harlem home, Langley after several days search.

In this story Homer speaks of his life and involvement with his collecting brother Langley. While both are described as anti social and anti establishment, Homer is presented as a follower in his brothers fancies.

This was beautifully, if not hauntingly written. I hurt for the blind Homer's being drawn along with and into his brother's madness. I found myself reminded of my maternal aunt's hoarding and fearful that I could become like a Collyer.

In life the character's were a bit different, I was compelled to find out more about the two & the true story as it is known is a bit different although no less moving or sad. Langley was found in a tunnel of his own making, having been crushed to death by his own created booby trap, 8 - 10 feet from where his brother was found, paralyzed, malnourished and dead. It took days for police and firemen to find Langley hidden underneath his own collections.

Voyeurism at it's best!

Why do I find myself attracted to the screwed up lives of celebrities, especially musicians? Fall to Pieces by Mary Forsberg-Weiland, helped me fulfill this sordid attraction to famous drug addicts. I suppose there's something to my attraction to the screwed up men, yes, I'm one of those which is why I married "out of type", I have at least acknowledged that my "type" is very, very bad for me.

I remember in the nineties when Stone Temple Pilots were recording in Atlanta. Many of my friends thought STP sucked but I have always liked Scott Weiland's voice & thought it was very cool that he was hanging out at my bar when they were in town. He was playing eye contact with my friend one night when he suddenly disappeared. Later she was waiting for the bathroom line, which was always a long wait on a busy night but was particularly long this night, when he came crashing out of the bathroom, pin holed eyes, crazy looking and grabbed at her. This was the last attraction for her, she was scared & left the bar shortly after.

This same week it turns out that he turned my friends sister onto shooting heroin. She had been snorting it but didn't shoot until he came to town. She's dead now, she ended her life with a shot to the head. My friend had to identify the body, a gruesome thing for him to do. He will always blame Scott Weiland for this, although I'm not sure he is entirely to blame.

So reading this autobiography was a step back in time in a way. It was also a filler for what I figured was happening in the life of this rock star. Mary Forsberg-Weiland had a love affair with Scott Weiland for years, whether consummated or not. Scott Weiland was married to someone else for many of these years yet Mary loved him anyway.

Like Scar Tissue, Anthony Kiedis' autobiography of his life with drugs, I believe this was written to set the record straight, for redemption & even for money I'm sure. For me it was just an easy read, fulfilling my voyeuristic tendencies reminding me that life could be so much worse and making me thankful that I can at least see now that my type is such a bad idea.

If you're into biographies I would recommend this as an easy read, simply written.

Very sweet.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

My second Lisa See novel, I am finding I like her writing. I believe this novel has more renown that Peony in Love, however, as sweet as this story is I think Peony in Love was a much more complicated, and for me, interesting story.

This story was a relatively simple one of great friends and a rift in the friendship. A classic betrayal and redemption tale. A heart wrenching story but one I've read before albeit with less beautiful detail.

Again I loved the detail into Chinese life and times, the foot binding was torturous to read. I still cannot figure out how or why this was such a common practice for so long. But that's just me not seeing history & being caught up in my own opinions and emotions

This was very nicely written, easy to follow, beautiful and sweet, I would recommend it to others.

Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble and Coming of Age in the Bronx by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc.

My oh my. This non-fiction story of several interconnected Latin American young people growing up in the Bronx was at times frustrating and at other times so sad it made my heart hurt.

These young people lost their innocence at a very young age, most of the young women were sexually abused at a very young age, I counted 9 girls that were noted as having been sexually abused, some as early as 2 by family members such as their fathers. Most, if not all and including the young men, had lost their innocence even earlier by experiencing physical or mental abuse by their parents or loved ones, watching a parent be abused by a loved one or by living with a drug abusing loved one.

This is the second time I read this book. My thoughts are more clear about it this time around. Someone asked me why I chose this book for our book club and I couldn't answer. All I knew was that it moved me. This time around I put effort into answering that question.

There was something about these women, no girls, that moved me, I have decided it was the tradegy of their lives.

I found that the men, again change that to boys, in this story would train their daughters to expect men to hold the power in their relationships, in fact they trained them to accept powerlessness at a very young age. The fathers or male figures would give love with strings, handing out "I Love You's" after being unkind or even cruel. The father figures controlled the pleasure and pain in their relationships creating girls that were literally desperate for kindness, love and attention.

Women teach their daughters submissiveness by attaching themselves to their dreams of these cruel men, the dreams were often very different than the reality - often overlooking their cruelty, accepting humiliating circumstances out of a determination to win the battle of who would or could love more...between couples or between a woman and her rivals.

These women are desperate for attention which stems from their relationships with their own fathers. They are children without the skills or role models to become responsible adults or parents