Re-post: Book Review: Autism's False Prophets by Paul A. Offit, M.D.

I reviewed this way back in 2009. I wish I could say, five years later, that this kind of evidence-based research has made a bigger difference. If more people would read a book or two instead of getting their science from flaky movie stars and "shocking" Facebook postings....

This is a really well-written, timely, important book. And just thinking about it makes me tired, and sad and angry. Thinking about trying to write this review makes me tired. Because this book is well-written, timely and important, and it's completely preaching to the choir. It's not going to convince anyone who isn't already convinced, or leaning that way. The book itself contains the argument that explains why this is the case. I'm sure Paul Offit understands that he is preaching to the choir with this book, which makes it brave of him to have written it.

Some people think that brave ones are the doctors and experts who say that mercury in vaccines or vaccines themselves have caused an autism epidemic. They think these people are brave because they are going against the medical establishment and Big Pharma, who are unscrupulous if not downright evil and only care about big profits, not about the lives or health of patients.

In fact, many, if not most, of these people are surprisingly well-funded and demonstrably unscrupulous when regarded a little more closely. Andrew Wakefield, the doctor who raised the possibility of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, is a prime example of this. On the strength of what was little better than a hunch, he published a paper in the Lancet that led to years of bitter controversy. Later it was discovered that he had claimed that his investigations were sanctioned by the Ethical Practices Committee, which they weren't. He had also received hundreds of thousands of dollars from personal injuries lawyers who were suing the government for compensation, which he failed to reveal. He paid researchers who produced favourable results for him. He disregarded information that didn't support his claims.

Despite all this, and multiple solid scientific studies that provide no evidence that the MMR has any link to autism (in fact, when Japan discontinued the MMR on the strength of Wakefield's paper, the rate of autism continued to rise), many people still will not be convinced. One of Offit's main points is that science is unfortunately a weak match for splashy headlines and celebrities who passionately advocate for unprovable theories, and claim that the medical establishment ignores them or tries to cover up their 'proof'.

Offit refers back to the silicone breast implant 'fiasco', in which the industry was basically decimated by anecdotal, unsubstantiated claims that silicone breast implants caused connective tissue disease. Massive class action suits were settled, although people who waited in hopes of winning more money individually were out of luck, since eventually the science showed no evidence to support the claims.

One of the major 'problems' with epidemiological studies, which are the most reliable, is that they cannot prove a negative. The most scientists can ever say is that 'there is no evidence' that the MMR or mercury has any link to incidence of autism. In the face of 'miraculous' cures and improvements touted by charlatans who offer chelation therapy and other useless and sometimes harmful 'treatments', this simply isn't sexy enough for the public.

Vaccines are not without risks, and no doctor has ever claimed that they are. Offit refers to incidents where vaccines caused sickness and even deaths. In all of these cases, the CDC detected the problem and halted the use of the vaccines. There was no cover-up, and the deaths caused by vaccines are far, far fewer than the deaths caused by the diseases the vaccines prevent.

In face of the various conflicts of interest, cynicism and suspicion surrounding this issue, Offit asks "if everyone appears to be in someone's pocket, who or what can be trusted? How can people best determine if the results of a scientific study are accurate? The answer is threefold: transparency of the funding source, internal consistency of the data, and reproducibility of the findings." Wakefield's results were never reproducible, or transparently funded.

There are many reasons why parents of autistic children would accept wild theories and unproven therapies over solid science. The so-called experts who propound these theories and therapies generally have simpler aims: publicity, and money. Some of them may actually believe they're trying to help autistic children, and their parents. They aren't.

Offit has been the target of public vitriol, accusations of being paid to say vaccines are safe, and death threats against him and his family. It was brave of him to write this book. I wish I could believe it would make more of a difference.

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

For the most part, when you have a baby, the night becomes a different country. There is no longer the day when you are awake and the night when you sleep (assuming you roll that way to begin with). The whole twenty-four hour period turns into chopped-up segments of sleeping, waking and a zombie-like, in between state where you often appear to be functioning normally but frequently you discover you've put the phone in the refrigerator or poured yourself a bowl of diet coke.

My husband and I were lucky with our babies sleep-wise. Both of them slept through the night early on and were quite easy to put to bed. My profound sympathies are with those who go through years and years of being woken by children or enduring three-hour bedtime fiascoes consisting of crying, screaming, emotional blackmail and absolute desperation.

That's not to say our nights are uneventful, though. I don't know if couples exist who go to bed together, read books side by side, turn out the light at the same time and go directly to sleep, or if this is a construct of TV sitcoms and fictional literature. It sure as hell doesn't happen in this house. My husband has traditionally been the kind of person that can sleep anywhere, any time, no matter what -- you know, the person you want to beat up on the airplane when you're sleepless and cranky at three in the morning overflying the Atlantic and he has closed eyes and a look of perfect serenity on his face. I'm a crappy fall-asleeper, an uneven stay-asleeper and a horrible waker-upper. He's always had nine to five jobs, I usually have crazy hours. He likes getting up early and then having a nap in the afternoon, I prefer staying up late and sleeping in late-ish.

Many nights I'm in bed reading by the time he comes to bed, and he sleeps while I read for a couple of hours. If I go to bed as early as the kids, they fight over who gets to sleep in his spot until he carries them back to their beds in order to reclaim his spot (this is becoming an increasingly impressive and awkward feat, in Angus's case). On week-ends he usually goes to bed and I stay up baking, writing, fooling around on the computer and watching whatever I've PVRed during the week until 2 a.m. or so. Sometimes I take a sleeping pill and crash early and I'm asleep when he comes to bed (and if he tries to get friendly he either gets a loving embrace or a black eye, neither of which I usually remember). Usually if one of the kids gets up in the night, it's a simple matter of fixing their blankets, re-tucking them in and kissing them again (except when Eve was three and always wore her slippers to bed; then she'd come toddling in at three a.m. saying solemnly 'my flipper's gone', and no sleep would be had until the flipper was found). My husband can normally go right back to sleep, but once I'm up that's generally it for me. Also, my husband seems to be developing some sort of restless-leg problem, so sometimes he gets up in the night and goes down and sleeps on the couch, so he won't disturb me and so he can sleep with his top half covered and his lower legs and feet bare, because they feel like they're on fire: I worry this will make the kids think we had a fight, but it doesn't seem to perturb them at all -- it just means he's readily available to fetch them some breakfast when they come down.

Yesterday Eve had an Irish Dance competition in the morning and both kids had a piano recital in the afternoon. I stayed up too late Friday night, got up very early on Saturday morning, made it through the day fairly well, but was nodding over my book at nine p.m., which is almost unheard of for me. I thought screw it and went to sleep. I woke up later feeling like it must be at least 5 a.m.

It was eleven-thirty. P.M. AGH!! I laid there until one. I felt jumpy and uncomfortable. I changed my pajamas. I thought about changing the sheets. Matt had departed for couches unknown. I decided to turn on the light and read again. Half an hour later, Angus came in and said he couldn't sleep. I told him to bring in his fishies (he still uses a Fisher Price Peaceful Planet to lull him to sleep, don't tell him I told you) and climb in with me. It took him an unusually long time to fall back asleep. We chatted a bit about the recital ("that Chinese boy had NO BOOK! It was all in his head! At first I thought the book must just be invisible"). I rubbed his back and his head. I read until about four, then turned out the light. I still couldn't sleep, but I didn't care any more. Angus flung his arm over me and left it there. He woke up at about six-thirty and before he left he said "thanks for letting me sleep here. I was awake a lot, but I didn't really mind". I felt the same. I get stuck sometimes, too wakeful to sleep but too tired to get up and do anything other than hate being awake, feeling like I'm failing at the simplest act, feeling miserable and neurotic and disconnected from the world. It was so much better to just say screw it, if I can't sleep I might as well do something enjoyable, to be awake in a little pool of light, escaping into a well-crafted world, not worrying about when I had to stop reading, with my son breathing (and occasionally snoring) beside me. Matt let me sleep in because he's a really really nice husband (and he knew he was going to have a nap later anyway) and everything was fine.

It could have been a really crummy night. Thank-you Louise Thank-you Angus.

Life is Good

My recent reading list has included Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese, The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway, and February by Lisa Moore. So today I'm going to be grateful for living somewhere where I don't have to lie sleepless on the floor of my hallway in fear of being bombed in the night: for being able to pour a glass of water from the tap whenever I want: for being able to cross the street without wondering if I'm in a sniper's sights: for knowing my husband goes to work somewhere where his life isn't constantly endangered by poor safety standards and the capriciousness of the ocean.


I think it's important to read books like this, to know that some places and some lives are so different, to know why people flee their homelands and what they've left behind, to know, in my case, how good we really have it. No place and no life is unassailable, of course. Catastrophic illness and injury and horrible accidents can happen anywhere. The expression 'live every day as if it was your last' has often bothered me. How is it really possible to live every day as if it was your last and then have something left over for the next day when that day doesn't turn out to be your last? Then I think I realized that it doesn't mean to spend all your money and burn your house down -- it means not to miss any opportunities to have an adventure, to wear the clothes that make you feel like a princess, to tell people you love them, to help someone without worrying about looking odd, to sing out loud and laugh until your cheeks hurt.

I'm so far from perfect. I've gotten better at not collapsing in hysterics when tiny little things go wrong, but I still behave really indefensibly sometimes, considering how great my life is. It makes me feel helpless in a way, knowing that this is fiction based on horrible things that really happen, all the time -- bearing witness somehow doesn't seem to be enough. But for a start, I'm just going to try to be more grateful.

Book Review: February, by Lisa Moore

February. February can't possibly suck as much as November. I've been trying to drag my ass out to the gym all morning. My ass is not cooperating.

February is about Helen O'Mara, whose husband Cal died when the oil rig Ocean Ranger sank. This really happened, which I didn't know until I read the acknowledgements. Helen's husband died when she was thirty, with three kids and one on the way. The book jumps around in time, but essentially tells the story of Helen moving on with her life while still mourning her husband fully and completely for twenty-six years. Jumping around in time can be a dangerous thing to try, but it really works here, particularly because it demonstrates that, raising her children, dealing with her daughter's teenage pregnancy, travelling with her sister, she is always thinking of Cal, remembering what time they had, thinking of the time of which they were robbed, feeling guilty for not being strong enough or sad enough to follow him.

Lisa Moore is a fantastic writer. Except, man, she uses the word spank a lot in this book. The first time I read it I thought "wow, what an innovative, wonderfully descriptive use of the word spank". The fourth time I thought, hmm, the editor didn't want to say, 'Lisa, hon, any chance you're beating your kids a little too much lately? Or, well, you know, what happens in your bedroom totally stays in your bedroom, but..." No, obviously this is inappropriate November humour, but look:
18-“John was this kind of kid: You’d have to say Stop bouncing that ball. The loud spank of it had an echo and the light over the dining room table would vibrate from the noise.”

57-“You don’t want to remember him that way, Dave said. She heard a loud spank of water, a great gushing slap, and looked out into the hall. She had let the bath run over and the water had come through the ceiling.”

212-“Helen’s shirt was soaked under the arms and it stuck to her back. The other cars were very bright in the sunshine. The sun spanked on their red hoods and blue hoods and on the chrome.”

221-“Massage is her area of expertise. Lulu believes every tender hurt and sorrow collects in the flesh and can be worked out with warm baby oil and a good spanking.”

Okay admittedly, that last one was a conventional use of the term. And the others are all innovative and effective. Maybe it would have helped if I hadn't had to read the book in a day and a half so I could give it to my mother because there are a million requests at the library so we won't be able to renew it. Still, shouldn't a good editor catch that kind of thing? Or am I completely overthinking this because it's November and my ass so devoutly wants to stay stuck to this chair and not get dragged to the gym?

It's a great book, my (or her) strange preoccupation with the word spank notwithstanding. It's not easy to make someone's grief seem keen and sharp and distinct from the general grief of the world, but Moore does it. November is bad. February is good.

How Much Information is Too Much?

I did just post a couple of days ago that I'm not against lying to children. And I do believe that some books do not belong in an elementary school library. So I guess I can't write this post with quite the snotty, outraged tone I kind of had in mind before I started. That said, some things do make me think some people have way too much time on their hands.

We had a copy of Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl in the library. One of the poems has the word 'slut' in it. It's British, so slut doesn't mean sexually promiscuous woman, it means untidy person. A mother objected. Then she said maybe we didn't have to take the book out of the library, we could just white out the word. But, um, it's a rhyming book. And the kids aren't stupid.
Even our library technician questions a lot of the subject matter in books for young adults these days. Books about dealing with a parent's depression, books about bullying and drugs and such. I don't know. I tend to think kids in real life have more to deal with these days, and maybe having a few books about those things is not bad. We also have truckloads of Mary Kate and Ashley, Star Wars and Geronimo Stilton and his bad cheese puns.

Yesterday I read Looking for Alaska by John Green. I liked it as much as the other two I've read by him. I think he delineates the struggles and perils of adolescence really well -- plus he's a laugh-out-loud funny writer, who slips the odd devastating insight in.

The main character moves from his home state of Florida to Alabama to attend the same boarding school his father went to. He is intelligent and quirky and has no real friends at home, and he's in search of a new start, a "Great Perhaps", a la Rabelais. He finds it in spades at his new school -- a roommate who becomes a great friend, and a cute, messed-up, irresistibly self-destructive girl named Alaska. It was kind of refreshing that, even though he's captivated by her personality and looks, he does get tired of her being moody and bitchy.
There is mention of sex in the book. The main character receives his first blow job (and it's a hilarious, realistic description), his roommate alludes to having sex with his girlfriend, and condoms are found under someone's mattress. That's pretty much it. A few of the reviewers on Goodreads think this is way too much sex for a YA novel. That's their right, of course. "Too much information", one reader says. I think it's a little naive to think that a book written for teen-agers should pretend that adolescent sex doesn't exist. Show me a teen-ager who, even if they're not having sex, doesn't spend a good portion of their time thinking about it. And whoa -- one blow job, and a reference to someone having safe, responsible sex with her boyfriend. Call me crazy, but could it not be a whole lot worse?

Anyway, that's not even the real reason I had to write this post. The real reason was the comment left on that offended reader's review. The comment that I really really hope was supposed to be a joke: "I read Looking For Alaska and learned things about sex that I hadn't learned in 30 years of marriage".

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Favourite Quotes from Not-Necessarily-Favourite-Books

“I don’t expect that much from God. Maybe I used to. But the older I get, the easier I am on him. God’s getting older, too, I figure.” -- Ten Miles West of Venus, Judy Troy (short story -- spoken by a priest): I like this even though it doesn't really make sense. It says much more about the speaker than it does about God. It makes him the kind of priest whose church I would want to belong to if I still belonged to one.

"The night advanced, the earth rotated on its axis, and they talked about the problem of why a flag in the wind, a stiff current of air, flutters and why the waves in Max’s hair did not move as his hair grew but remained in the same place, just the opposite of the sea, where the waves moved horizontally but the water remained in the same place; and about the war, about Adolf Hitler, whom they called the “A.H.-Erlebnis”; and about the twin daughters of Max Planck, the founder of quantum mechanics: the first gave birth to a daughter and died in childbirth; the other looked after the child and married the widower, became pregnant herself two years later, and also died in childbirth. Added to that, one son died in the First World War, while his second son was shot in the Second. Planck’s constant!" -- The Discovery of Heaven, Harry Mulisch: This was a great, sprawling, metaphysical epic that I'm still not sure I understand. I like this because it's sort of a microcosm of the book's wide range in the conversation between two characters. Also, I had read about the fate of Max Planck's children in A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson and thought it was unutterably sad. I guess then I should be offended that it is reduced, here, to a fairly shallow witticism, but I'm not. It's more indicative of how these characters see everything mathematically and can reduce even messy, tangled humanity to equations.

“I’ll tell you the problem with being happy. Because you cannot conceive of ways to make your life better than it already is, you end up repeating yourself: today is a facsimile of yesterday, and tomorrow of today. Slowly, inevitably, the image loses its sharpness. The decline is so predictable, you could chart it mathematically. Euphoria + time = Happiness, Happiness + Time = Contentment, Contentment + Time = complacency, Complacency + Time + Boredom.” -- The Amnesiac, Sam Taylor: How funny, I didn't realize when I put this one down that it's also a mathematical equation for human experience. I just thought it articulated something very well that I've often sensed dimly. Also, it's a way to put a positive spin on a shitty day when the library was way too hot and all the books to be reshelved had to go on the bottom shelf, which makes me feel like my head is going to explode from bending over, which reminds me I really need to lose some weight, and makes me really cranky about all the kids that go around pulling out books on sharks and spiders and paper airplanes and hot rods and volcanoes and NEVER EVER EVER EVER putting them back IN THE RIGHT PLACE... anyway. Clearly I dodged that being-happy-for-too-long bullet today.

“Their photo album alternated between drought and glut. They would add no new pictures for years. Then someone would shoot a dozen exposures of five people hanging around the front door, giving a misleading significance to a moment whose importance, if any, was soon forgotten.” -- Prisoner's Dilemma, Richard Powers: I should write a review of this book, because this doesn't nearly capture it, but the family is crazy and normal at the same time, and doesn't this just say it all about photo albums? Before digital cameras, anyway?

“I can’t see the point of Mozart. Of Mozart I can’t see the point. The point of Mozart I can’t see. See I can’t of Mozart the point. Can’t I of Mozart point the see...I can’t see the point of Mozart... That’s not a tune, that’s an algorithm. An algorithm in a powdered wig.” -- Engleby, Sebastian Faulks: I'm not even sure I really liked this book. It's one of those unreliable-narrator things, quite a departure for this author, and although I don't really object to the unpleasant subject matter, I think some of it could have been done with more subtlety. But this snotty quote by the snotty narrator -- I mean, counterpoint? Get it? Fucking brilliant!

“And what amazes me as I hit the motorway is not the fact that everyone loses someone, but that everyone loves someone. It seems like such a massive waste of energy – and we all do it, all the people beetling along between the white lines, merging, converging, overtaking. We each love someone, even though they will die. And we keep loving them, even when they are not there to love any more. And there is no logic or use to any of this, that I can see.” -- The Gathering, Anne Enright: Well, yeah. Again, even though I liked this quote, it doesn't really capture the beautiful bleakness of the book. But almost every other quote had florid descriptions of sexual organs in it. And it's only Thursday.

"This is because it is never really very cold in England. It is drizzly, and the wind will blow; hail happens, and there is a breed of Tuesday in January in which time creeps and no light comes and the air is full of water and nobody really loves anybody, but still a decent jumper and a waxen jacket lined with wool is sufficient for every weather England’s got to give.” -- On Beauty, Zadie Smith: and this is why I love Zadie Smith.

Borne up from the Blahs by a Good Book

I tried to come up with a synonym for good starting with b to preserve the alliteration (I almost typed illiteration and didn't notice, things are really really bad) but all I could come up with was Beautiful or Blessed or Beneficent and that's NOT what I mean.

I've been a little wobbly lately. I almost said 'flat' but that's not really it. I'm quite happy a lot of the time. I'm managing alright when Matt's away, I'm decluttering small areas of the house in fits and starts, I'm walking a lot, I have a little more free time and the kids are great.

Right, actually, everything's fine, never mind.

So what's my problem? Hell if I know. Partly Eve starting grade one which means both kids in school under 2:45 which is a pretty drastic alteration of the routine. Mostly this is great -- more free time. Although when you factor in that I'm still in the school library one day a week, volunteer in the classroom, theoretically should still take time to eat, and have a very short attention span, it doesn't seem to be enough free time to justify the pressure that I feel to have something to show for that free time. If you know what I mean. Yeah, me neither.

Partly I just have trouble with new routines. It's only been... what... about ten weeks. I should be hitting my stride around the time they graduate.

Anyway, part of the slide towards depression/anxiety for me always affects my reading. It's not that I do less of it. Frequently I do more of it, but it becomes more of a compulsion and an escape (the huddled, miserable, guilty kind, rather than the enjoyable, playing-hooky kind). And when I start to feel like reading isn't wonderful, I get really scared.

Lately, what I've been trying when reading feels stale is going to Young Adult Literature, for a change-up, a refreshing pause, a sort of mental palate-cleanser. I was thinking that, based on the books I've read lately, YA has come a long way from when I was a Y.A., but then I remember reading Madeleine L'Engle and Roald Dahl and George Selden, so maybe it hasn't but there's more of it.

Anyway, I highly recommend John Green. One of my friends put a link to his blog on Facebook and it was hilariously twisted and twistedly hilarious. I put a few of his books on my request list for the library, but I deactivated them because I had way too many books to read, I just wanted to have them in the queue so I wouldn't forget about them. Wow, queue looks funny when you type it. Did I type it wrong? So somehow there was a glitch in the system and I got all three of them at once. I decided to try to lever myself out of the literary doldrums with Paper Towns and An Abundance of Katherines.

It's hard to tell, sometimes, if the book you're reading is really as flat-out kick-ass fantastic as it seems or if you're just reading it at the precisely perfect time so that it just appears that way. I marathoned both books in a day and a half, and they were the perfect antidote -- not to the other books, necessarily, just to my mood. They really captured the desperate, tormented hopefulness of adolescence, the friends who know you better than you know yourself, the transports of success and the abject despair of failure -- all with slightly wittier banter than I ever exchanged with my particular high school friends. There are some really insightful musings along the way, too. I guess maybe it was good to get out of the problems of my stage of life and remember that no stage is without its own attendant torments. And that, no matter what, you really need your friends, even if it's just to tell you that you're being a huge jackass.

Book Review: Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for the Cure by Paul A Offit, M.D.

This is a really well-written, timely, important book. And just thinking about it makes me tired, and sad and angry. Thinking about trying to write this review makes me tired. Because this book is well-written, timely and important, and it's completely preaching to the choir. It's not going to convince anyone who isn't already convinced, or leaning that way. The book itself contains the argument that explains why this is the case. I'm sure Paul Offit understands that he is preaching to the choir with this book, which makes it brave of him to have written it.

Some people think that brave ones are the doctors and experts who say that mercury in vaccines or vaccines themselves have caused an autism epidemic. They think these people are brave because they are going against the medical establishment and Big Pharma, who are unscrupulous if not downright evil and only care about big profits, not about the lives or health of patients.

In fact, many, if not most, of these people are surprisingly well-funded and demonstrably unscrupulous when regarded a little more closely. Andrew Wakefield, the doctor who raised the possibility of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, is a prime example of this. On the strength of what was little better than a hunch, he published a paper in the Lancet that led to years of bitter controversy. Later it was discovered that he had claimed that his investigations were sanctioned by the Ethical Practices Committee, which they hadn't. He had also received hundreds of thousands of dollars from personal injuries lawyers who were suing the government for compensation, which he failed to reveal. He paid researchers who produced favourable results for him. He disregarded information that didn't support his claims.

Despite all this, and multiple solid scientific studies that provide no evidence that the MMR has any link to autism (in fact, when Japan discontinued the MMR on the strength of Wakefield's paper, the rate of autism continued to rise), many people still will not be convinced. One of Offit's main points is that science is unfortunately a weak match for splashy headlines and celebrities who passionately advocate for unprovable theories, and claim that the medical establishment ignores them or tries to cover up their 'proof'.

Offit refers back to the silicone breast implant 'fiasco', in which the industry was basically decimated by anecdotal, unsubstantiated claims that silicone breast implants caused connective tissue disease. Massive class action suits were settled, although people who waited in hopes of winning more money individually were out of luck, since eventually the science showed no evidence to support the claims.

One of the major 'problems' with epidemiological studies, which are the most reliable, is that they cannot prove a negative. The most scientists can ever say is that 'there is no evidence' that the MMR or mercury has any link to incidence of autism. In the face of 'miraculous' cures and improvements touted by charlatans who offer chelation therapy and other useless and sometimes harmful 'treatments', this simply isn't sexy enough for the public.

Vaccines are not without risks, and no doctor has ever claimed that they are. Offit refers to incidents where vaccines caused sickness and even deaths. In all of these cases, the CDC detected the problem and halted the use of the vaccines. There was no cover-up, and the deaths caused by vaccines are far, far fewer than the deaths caused by the diseases the vaccines prevent.

In face of the various conflicts of interest, cynicism and suspicion surrounding this issue, Offit asks "if everyone appears to be in someone's pocket, who or what can be trusted? How can people best determine if the results of a scientific study are accurate? The answer is threefold: transparency of the funding source, internal consistency of the data, and reproducibility of the findings." Wakefield's results were never reproducible, or transparently funded.

There are many reasons why parents of autistic children would accept wild theories and unproven therapies over solid science. The so-called experts who propound these theories and therapies generally have simpler aims: publicity, and money. Some of them may actually believe they're trying to help autistic children, and their parents. They aren't.

Offit has been the target of public vitriol, accusations of being paid to say vaccines are safe, and death threats against him and his family. It was brave of him to write this book. I wish I could believe it would make more of a difference.

Summertime, and the Blogging is Breezy.

I'm happy. We're having a great week. For once I didn't overplan, and we had a nice quiet Monday and Tuesday, ran a couple errands and got school supplies and lazed around and the kids acted like they liked each other. Yesterday we went to the beach with friends and it was hot but cloudy enough to shield us from the blazing sun, and the kids frolicked in the water and played in the sand and my friend and I went in and out of the water and talked and then we went over to her house and the kids disappeared upstairs, and when I had to take Angus home for baseball practice Eve refused to leave, so I left her there until bedtime. Today we went over to another friend's house and the kids were great and I made lunch for everyone (to make up for the fact that I had basically invited myself and my kids over to her house). I'm happy.
It's hard to blog when you're happy. Well, it's hard to blog and not feel like you're being really cheesy and boring. So I will not blog any further about myself. I went to see the movie Julie and Julia last week (well yes, I saw the movie, but... well, just listen). I enjoyed the whole movie, but the parts with Meryl Streep as Julia Child were so amazing, so magical, that I sort of felt like they couldn't help but overshadow the parts with Amy Adams playing Julie Powell, even though I love Amy Adams.
I read the book a few years ago, not long after it came out. It's Julie Powell's autobiographical account of how she decided, in a period of job-hating and self-loathing depression, she decided to cook her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and blog about it. Her blog caught on and resulted in her getting a book deal. She currently has another book coming out about butchery and her extra-marital affair.
Last week there was a column in the Ottawa Citizen which ridiculed Julie Powell's original project and characterized her as frivolous and self-involved. It would have been good if I had kept the column so I could quote from it and capture its acid tone. But I didn't. Suffice it to say that it was mean enough that it struck me, and made me think -- really, what's your issue? Julie Powell wanted to be a writer, was stuck in a job she didn't love and couldn't figure out a way to be a writer. She figured out a way to be a writer, which succeeded in a very public, fairy-tale kind of way. For some reason, her writing struck a chord in enough people to make her successful. Okay, it was a rather obvious gimmick, but how exactly do you break into publishing these days without a rather obvious gimmick, if you don't have powerful connections or a stupid amount of dumb luck?
I'm not saying this columnist was just jealous. I'm saying that I'm curious about how she thought she could write a column like this and come off as anything but jealous. Maybe the whole "if you have nothing nice to say, it's better not to say anything at all" should be revised to include "because it just makes you look jealous". Unless it's really really funny. Somehow it's okay to be bitchy when you're really really funny. So maybe it just wasn't funny enough.
It's true that Julie Powell sort of climbed to fame on the sturdy back of Julia Child. So what? There are very few works of art, literature or music that can't be called in some way derivative. Everybody's on everybody else's back (ooh, did that sound dirty? See? Julie Powell would have made that sound dirty).
If I was in a midwinter funk I'm sure I could work this up into a more rigorous thesis of something or other. I don't really know where I'm going with this at all. In fact, I hate it when other writers only ever say positive, glowing, fake-sounding things, so I'm not sure why I felt so prickly about this. I guess there are some things I think it's fair to attack someone else's writing on, and some things that there are not. I mean, if someone wasn't self-involved to a fairly high degree, how would they be a writer at all? Julie Powell isn't always likable -- maybe she's a little too honest. Julia Child probably wasn't always likable either (oh, but she was so full of life and joy, she was so boisterous and spirited, she was so...tall!), but she didn't keep a blog.
Go Julie. Get over yourself, columnist whose name I can't remember. Go blog friends. Maybe someday someone will call us frivolous and self-involved. I'm certainly in there trying.

Book Review: Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner

I don't know how to do this other than as a sprawling, messy, off-in-all-directions thing. I can't do book reviews like Emily, who has her own little New York Times thingy going on at Edge of the Page. I remember this one professor I had for a few courses -- he was French, and big and bearish with spiky black hair and a beard, and it always seemed to me that he carried this towering body of knowledge around right on top of his head, and all he had to do was reach up and pluck out a few facts and an allusion or two, and there was another fucking brilliant off-the-cuff insight. In contrast, I always felt like I had a much smaller body of knowledge, and it was all tucked away in my pockets or left on my dresser at home, so I was always saying something like "well, it's like the goat in the desert and... wait!... something about Flaubert and feet, or everybody dreaming about Zeus and then walking funny..." I guess there's a good reason why I ended up writing about playdough recipes rather than Melville.

Anyway, Crossing to Safety. My brother-in-law recommended it. Highly. Which didn't make me think I wouldn't like it, but makes me concerned that I won't get it in the right way and then my brother-in-law will stop talking to me and it will cause a rift in the family and I'll never be able to see my nephew again. And for the first few pages, I didn't get it. It seemed very seventies. A new professor starting a teaching job at a midwest university, a beatific, pregnant, insanely supportive wife... I could see it as a movie with a young Dustin Hoffman. Even the cover image, a dirt road between rows of blazing fall trees, was only waiting for the professors in matching harvest-coloured tweed.

But that was only the first few pages. The story actually takes place in the mid-thirties. And what is it a story about? The jacket says things like "love and loyalty" and "steadfastness and fidelity" and "several beautifully rendered American landscapes". When I ask which story it is all I get is a voice saying "this one". It's about two couples, one relatively poor, one relatively rich, who meet at a crucial point in their lives and become lifelong friends. The rich friends are dynamic, intelligent, and generous to a degree that strains all credibility. The poor couple is sweet, genuine and accepts the largesse of the rich couple with gratitude and graciousness. The plot twists do not consist of adulterous partner-swapping or war-time catastrophes, but of the small vagaries of fate that skew the courses of our lives, and how differences in character shape how people react to those changes of course. What would be, in another story, a character flaw mentioned in passing becomes, in Stegner's hands, elevated to the level of Greek tragedy.

Stegner poses the question of how much honesty can be borne by a marriage, or a friendship. Is equality a necessity, or possible, or even desirable? Charity Lang is a wonderful character -- someone you want to know, and at the same time, someone who fully illustrates my conviction that nothing is as terrifying as someone who is certain about things.

Sometimes it makes me sad how the lives of people, even fictional people, can be contained within the pages of a single book. There is definitely sadness here, but it's the sadness you feel when things end more or less the way they should, the way you expected them to, as well as possible.

I worked at a small independent bookstore in Toronto about thirteen years ago, for a little over a year between finishing my Master's and moving to Ottawa. There was a book club doing this book, so we sold a dozen of them at one point. One of the women I worked with always said 'Stenger' instead of 'Stegner', and this made me crazy. I kept meaning to read it, but I don't think I ever even read the jacket copy. It would have been interesting to read it then, having just been married, and again now, with a few more years of marriage, and a clearer picture of how complicated it can be for a married couple to be close friends with another married couple.

I like a good anti-hero as much as the next person. But sometimes it's nice to feel that an author is sympathetic to his characters -- that he sees them clearly, but forgives them, and loves them anyway. Like a really good friend.

I recommend it. Highly.

Badass Mommies Book Review: The Maternal is Political

The Maternal is Political: Women Writers at the Intersection of Motherhood and Social Change
Edited by Shari MacDonald Strong

I was interested but somewhat skeptical when I decided to read this -- skeptical about any of it applying to me, anyway. I couldn't think of anything indicating that motherhood had turned me into anything much different from the same timid, wishy-washy, non-confrontational person I was before I gave birth.
The book is quite interesting. As is often the case with this sort of project, most, if not all, of the contributors are quite highly educated, politically aware and articulate, so the reader must be aware of a possible lack of range. However, the writers do include a physically disabled mother, a mother who has spent time institutionalized for mental illness, a Guatemalan woman who has witnessed horrific atrocities, and a lesbian mother trying to adopt her partner's baby, so clearly there was an attempt to achieve a variety of viewpoints.
The essays are divided into three sections: Believe, Teach and Act. The 'Believe' section contains terms such as 'consciousness raising' and 'if we want a mother's movement... we have to give birth to it', which I have to admit tend to provoke a slight cringe reflex in me, although who can argue that consciousness doesn't need to be raised? The women in this section write about how becoming a mother expands your worldview, in both existential and practical ways. There's nothing like emerging from the rosy glow (or the sleepless fog) of the first few weeks or months of motherhood and realizing that your employment prospects, earning potential, benefits and personal freedoms have been severely impacted to suddenly make a woman sit up and take notice of certain practices that are unhelpful, if not downright hostile, to mothers (I apologize wholeheartedly for this sentence, I'm just too tired to rewrite it any more).
Trying to find suitable day care opens up many other cans of worms, including the reality of women from other countries caring for North American babies while spending years away from their own children. If nothing else, having children raises these issues on our radar, erases some of that blissful ignorance that might have accompanied a pre-child-encumbered state. Government policies on paid childcare leave, job protection, subsidized childcare, immigration -- these all become immediate and personal realities, which lead some women to start questioning, with varying degrees of loudness, the validity of certain protocols and assumptions.
In "Mom, Interrupted: Toward a Politics of Maternal Mental Health", Marritt Ingman interrogates the notion of postpartum depression, asking whether it is completely a matter of hormones, or rather "a falsely medicalized perspective on a problem that is at least partly political and cultural?" In other words, maybe they should be depressed, given that "for too many mothers, political reality is bleak". I tend to believe that actual postpartum depression is largely a matter of hormones and chemicals, but in a larger context Ingman's question is certainly worth asking. Violeta Garcia-Mendoza, in "Of Volcanos and Ruins and Gardens", writes about her decision to adopt a Guatemalan child, and the realization that "adoptive motherhood bears the secret that the lines we erect to partition ourselves off from others, to protect ourselves against the heaviness of the human experience, are arbitrary." The implication is that it is this inescapable realization that drives mothers to act politically not only on behalf of their own children, but for everyone's children.
Marion Winik's brave and unequivocal essay "Mothers Against Faith" really blew me away, given my own daily see-sawing between agonized half-belief and tormented skepticism. "Faith moves mountains, they say. That may well be true. It certainly knocks over buildings. Wonder, I think, may be a gentler way to live." I love this.
The "Teach" section, predictably, features educators with concerns about curriculum issues (stupid standardized tests), and also a woman with black sons in school, dealing with the reality of black men being viewed as athletes, entertainers or criminals rather than scholars, and a white woman living in India with her golden-haired fair-skinned daughter, who wonders why a rhyme they say at school reflects the reality of her appearance and not that of the Indian children (and I've done irreparable violence to another sentence). "All-Consumed: The Restoration of One Family's Values" by Alisa Gordaneer describes her really impressive committment to anti-consumerism, and how she has raised her children to be avid trash-pickers, recyclers, haters of 'cpc' (cheap plastic crap), and watchers of documentaries about how factories in China cause environmental damage. Her children prefer these, apparently, to Disney movies. Seriously. I'm thinking of asking her if she wants to adopt my children before I corrupt them any further.
The "Act" section actually answered one of my questions, which was something like 'can't I go to a political activism boot camp or something?' Beth Osnes, author of "Performing Mother Activism", actually presented a workshop called Rehearsal for Activism; she acknowledges "how similar activism is to performing, in that both force you to present yourself in public and express some predetermined content." This is what I was looking for, from someone; the admission that activism isn't something you can just leap into (okay, it isn't something I can just leap into) without some kind of coaching and encouragement. The other question floating around in my mind, which was something about how to act in the face of overwhelming odds and probably failure, was addressed beautifully by "The Mother is Standing" by Denise Roy. She writes about her passage from a former goody-two shoes rule-follower to getting arrested in a Good Friday protest at a nuclear weapons facility which did not change the world, but changed her and her community. She relates the story of A.J. Muste, a Vietman War protester who stood outside the White House nightly, and when asked if he really thought he would change U.S. policy, said "Oh, I don't do this to change the country. I do this so the country won't change me." That was one of those a-ha moments for me.
"Peace March Sans Children" by Valerie Weaver was honest and comforting, in its admission that "caring for the world or caring for the kids" are sometimes "incompatible", and that sometimes mothers of young children might need a little time off from the revolution, before coming back to "advocate from a deeper place within ourselves than we had known existed".
I'm glad I read this book. It gave me a lot to think about. And a few weeks after I had finished it, I was at a baseball game where we had some trouble with the other team's coach. The whole matter of the coach of a team of six-year-olds needing to win no matter what is a matter for another post, but at one point, when he was being fairly nasty and confrontational, I suddenly found myself up out of my comfortable lawn chair, on my feet.
I didn't actually punch out the coach, or get arrested or anything. Still... I think I might have been ready for a little activism. I am mother... hear me squeak in a vaguely threatening and self-assured manner.

The King's Last Song, by Geoff Ryman

I just finished The King's Last Song by Geoff Ryman, which I read while in the throes of a head-poundingly miserable virus. This left me in awe not only of Ryman's breathtaking talent but my own ability, even when reading about centuries of war and almost unimaginable human suffering, to maintain a really impressive level of self-pity. I mean, sure, millions of Cambodian people lack the basic necessities of life and have lost family members and the situation is horrifying, but I feel like I have spikes being driven into my ears, I've pulled every muscle in my torso coughing, and I am a dictionary, nay, a veritable encyclopedia of snot. It's all about my pain, people.

I've only ever written (e-mailed) three fan letters, and they've all been to fantasy writers. My husband says he always wants to meet people he admires, because he has this fantasy that he'll be able to come up with something witty and brilliant to say that will impress them and make him memorable. The only time I've ever handed an author I loved a book to be autographed, I just stood there beaming like a slightly backward three-year-old after one too many trips to the sundae bar until she cleared her throat politely and said "um... what's your name?"

Anyway, one of my fan letters was to Geoff Ryman for his book The Child Garden, which was amazing -- one of the few books that made me feel like I'd truly never read anything like this before. He wrote back and was very gracious (all three of them were). Unfortunately (for me) I didn't love his next few books as much. Still, one of the things I admired about him was how he could differ in style and approach so much from book to book -- he's the furthest thing you can find from a formulaic writer. The Child Garden was fantasy -- subversive and thought-provoking fantasy, dealing with themes of social engineering, thought control and repression, among others. The King's Last Song moves between fiction and historical fiction. The modern narrative deals with the archaeological discovery of an ancient book written on gold leaves at Angkor Wat. Luc Andrade, a professor who grew up in Cambodia, is kidnapped along with the book. William, Andrade's motoboy, guide and friend, and Map, an ex-Khmer Rouge member, are two of the men involved in the attempt to rescue Andrade and the book. The other narrative is the story of Jayavarman VII, the Buddhist King who ruled Cambodia in the twelfth century.

Usually when a book alternates narratives, especially one in the present with one in the distant past, I find myself rushing through one of them in order to get back to the other. I didn't feel that way in the least with this book -- both stories are equally riveting, and wrenching. Perhaps Ryman's greatest strength is his characterization. His characters are so fully realized, so nuanced and multi-dimensional, that you can almost see them right in front of you. There are no types here -- good people commit unthinkable atrocities, and evil men are capable of amazing feats of generosity. Ryman also evokes Cambodia vividly, its heat and beauty and poverty and desperation.

I've heard that connecting something you're learning with a strong emotion makes it much more likely that you'll retain it. I feel as if the events and characters in this book are burned into my mind permanently. Luc Andrade, the French professor who grew up in Cambodia -- he's taken prisoner, held hostage and in fear for his life, and he still cares more about the people of Cambodia and protecting the book than he does about himself. William, the touchingly earnest motoboy who keeps files on everyone he meets in order to learn from them, who "buys fruit and offers you some, relying on your goodness to pay him back. When you do, he looks not only pleased, but justified." Map, who confronts every situation with a frightening zeal and hilarity, who acts with the single-minded fearlessness of someone who has nothing at all left to lose. Jayavarman, the prince who becomes a slave and then a King, a rare King who thinks about the lives and needs of all of his people. Jayarajadevi, his first wife, wise and enlightened but tormented by the need to accept the second wife he brings home from his period of enslavement. Rajapati, the king's son, born with twisted legs and struggling to temper his bitterness by finding a way to be useful.
Nothing happens the way you expect it to in this book, which I guess is also one of the themes. At one point it says that 1985 was the worst year of Map's life, and then a number of good things happen, which naturally you read with a sick feeling of foreboding because clearly something horrifying is coming. The Khmers Rouges committed unthinkable atrocities, and yet many of them were just poor, uneducated young boys who joined the army out of desperation or ignorance. The book is full of searing moments of honesty and unlikely friendships that make small redemptions seem possible, in the midst of despair, which seems the very best one can hope for (for which one can hope?) It is a passionate, eloquent, moving, disturbing story. I am now going to buy a copy (I got it from the library) and obnoxiously demand that everyone I know read it.

In which I forget to review the actual book.

I had one of those meaningless-but-cool things happen, where after one of my last posts a friend mentioned reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy, and I had just picked it up at the library the day before, so I figured that was a sure sign that I should read it. Right away, I mean, as opposed to shuffling it somewhere into the dangerous, teetering triple pile of books on my bedside table and then renewing it the maximum number of times allowed and finally having to read it against a deadline because I'm trying not to singlehandedly subsidize the Ottawa Public Library this year.

So anyway... The Road. I said my friend mentioned reading it, because you couldn't properly say she recommended it, which kind of makes sense. There are books where it seems ludicrous to say "I loved it" even when you feel glad you read it. It got me thinking about what I'm looking for when I read, which you might think I should have done before considering how much of my life I spend doing it, but hey, ask an addict why he's doing that heroin and see how lucid and well-thought-out an answer you get.

Finding out things you didn't know. That's an easy and obvious one. It seems incredibly decadent to me that if I want to know about how vaccines were developed, or what eighteenth century London was like, or if Robert A. Heinlein really was a big old fascist bastard, all I have to do is type in keyword in subject and away we go. I can lay my hands on any number of informative and surprising facts; unfortunately I don't seem able to remember most of them for more than a day or two, but if you catch me in that forty-eight-hour period I'm a veritable font of genius. Of course, if you'd like to talk about something other than the debatable merits of deliberately infecting oneself with cowpox, you might find me a little annoying that day.

Sharing someone else's mind space. It's such a brave act, publishing something, isn't it? In Zadie Smith's On Beauty, there's a quote about the main character being shaken by another man's appearance: "This second fellow had such lucent white skin and so prominent a plate of bone in his forehead that Howard felt oppressed by the sheer mortality of the man. Never had another living being shown him this much skull". That's often how I feel when reading a really great book where the author's little beating heart seems to glow right through.

Wallowing in envy of great writing. I discovered Michael Ondaatje in university. I've since become slightly more ambivalent about his books as stories, but man, no one can wallop you with the sheer force of his imagery like M.O. I remember a scene about someone having to go into freezing cold water to rescue a cow, and you could have sworn that this man had actually stuck his head under water in February and then come up with words that not only described it but actually made you feel it -- that numbing ache behind the eyeball. I love that feeling, when the same words that I use every day, often to indifferent effect, suddenly combine in a way that takes away my breath or renders me completely weightless for a moment.

Living in another world. Sometimes for escape, sometimes to bear witness, sometimes for the sheer admiration of the fact that someone can create one. I've tried writing fiction -- straight fiction, no genre attached. It's not pretty. Even if I manage to create minimally credible characters, I can't seem to manage to get them from the kitchen to the living room without making them seem like talking radishes. When someone can make a world that I can live in without constantly being aware that I'm 'reading a book', then they deserve my royalties. Or the library's royalties. Or something.

Trying to reach the literary tipping point. I'm convinced that at some point, when I finish the last word of the last sentence of a certain book, I will suddenly be replete with wisdom and talent, at which point I will either know everything or be able to write a great masterpiece, or possibly my ass will just become rock hard. Either way, it's going to be good.

Excuse me while I conspicuously consume this space.

Eve and I went to the mall on Thursday. I had bought jeans for Angus at Old Navy on Wednesday and they were too tight (ended up exchanging them for ones that were too big -- I know this is tangential, but WHY is there only 'slim' and 'husky' with nothing in between? But also, adjustable waistbands rock) and we were looking at a rather drastic pants shortage. We exchanged the jeans and had lunch in the food court, and practiced getting on the escalator, and it was lovely. But I also caved in and bought her a little Disney Princess doll. And this is why I can't 'go shopping'.

I don't really get 'going shopping'. In university, I had friends that would just drive around on the week-ends looking for different places to walk around buying stuff. When I shop, it's a hard-target search, get in, get what you need, get out. Because as long as I don't see stuff, I don't want it. When I'm out where all the stuff is, I end up buying stuff I don't need. I know not everybody is as weak and easily distracted by bright shiny objects; but I personally think I would benefit from fewer shopping hours and maybe having to answer a skill-testing question before being allowed to buy another t-shirt or candle-holder.

photo credit
creative commons license

When I was a kid, there was no Sunday shopping and no evening shopping except on Thursday and Friday. Obviously this was inconvenient for a lot of people, and extended shopping hours are helpful in a lot of ways, especially for groceries. But with so many people talking about 'simplifying' and 'de-cluttering', and the glaring imbalance in lifestyles between our society and others, doesn't it seem a bit -- I don't know -- unnecessary, unhelpful, something like that -- that we place so much emphasis on shopping that we have to be able to do it whenever, wherever?

I end up with a headache every time I try to buy toothpaste. The toothpaste aisle seems to denote the very essence of first world decadence and self-indulgence. Because Jesus, how many different kinds of toothpaste can there be? Whitening, freshening, bubbling, bursting, scouring, cinnamon, freshmint, gel mint, vanilla mint... it's enough to make you yearn for the days when they just chewed on a splintered twig after they ate their bannock and bear grease.

photo credit
creative commons license

I just flipped through my copy of The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver looking for this quote, but I can't find it. The book is about a Baptist minister who takes his four daughters and his wife to the Belgian Congo in 1959, and the effects it has on their lives. One of the girls marries a Congolese revolutionary and has four sons. On one occasion she brings them home to Georgia and takes one of them to the supermarket. When he's staggered by the amount and variety of goods on display, she tells him Americans have a lot of things they don't need, and he says "But Mama, how can there be so many kinds of things people don't need?" I think of this every time I try to buy toothpaste.

I know, I know; we live in a capitalist society, supply and demand, blah blah blah. It's up to me to learn to buy only what we need, to teach my children that new is not always better, to cut down on waste. And not only because we don't have space for any more bookshelves.

Book Review: Couldn't Keep it to Myself, by Wally Lamb and the Women of York Correctional Institute

I just finished the book Couldn't Keep it to Myself: Testimonies from our Imprisoned Sisters by Wally Lamb and the Women of York Correctional Institute, and I can't stop thinking about the book, and prisons, and power. One morning I was lying in bed pushing the snooze button more times than I care to admit, and I kept hearing pieces of this interview that finally made me stop pushing the snooze button. It was a man talking about visiting a women's prison and running a writing group. It became clear that he was a well-known writer, but I didn't find out who he was until the end of the interview, when I already knew I was going to have to read this book. I haven't read anything written by Wally Lamb, but at this point I would willingly be his slave in any capacity required.
Lamb was asked to visit the prison and speak to the women after a rash of suicides and a cutting back of educational programs. A single visit turned into a bi-monthly (bi-weekly? whatever means he went every second week) writing program, which eventually resulted in this book.
It's not the kind of book that makes you want to pull quotes out and marvel over them; these aren't the kinds of stories that hinge on well-turned phrases and poetic imagery. It's the kind of book that sits heavily on your heart, or maybe in your gut, as a kind of sick sadness. I wasn't sure what to expect, and I admit I was probably ready with a bit of knee-jerk judgement -- how were these women going to attempt to justify their crimes, and would it be in any way convincing? That wasn't it at all, though. They were just telling their stories, after a lifetime of not believing that their stories were worth telling, or that anyone would listen or care. The matter-of-fact litanies of abuse and neglect and fear and powerlessness filled me up until I had to stop reading for a bit and digest it all. I think the central image that has stayed with me from this book is power, and the lack of it. After being taught repeatedly by parents or partners that they were worthless objects, useful only as objects for mistreatment by or gratification of others, what chance did these women really have?
It's frustrating in a way, feeling so moved by this book and not really seeing how to act on it. It's not prescriptive in any way, it's not telling you to do something. I guess it shows, in a way, how important witnessing (testimony, like the title says) can be. I do believe in personal responsibility, and I agree that having a crappy childhood doesn't give you a free pass to commit crimes and get away with them. And I understand also that agencies like the Children's Aid are overworked and it's easier to judge their performance than offer solutions. So I don't have any grand "after this book I will now..." pronouncements to offer. But a greater awareness of power distribution in our society is not a bad thing, I think.
The use and abuse of power was brutally emphasized by the way in which the state of Connecticut and the prison administration reacted to the publication of this book. Lamb was careful to inform everyone of the book's acceptance and release, but the authorities waited until just before the book came out, and then used some vaguely-worded seldom-enforced law to charge the inmates for their prison stays. The advance for the book was split among the writers, which amounted to about $5000 a person, and most of them were being asked for hundreds of thousands of dollars ($117 a day). Nice, huh? Clearly, it was not acceptable for these women to discover a voice and achieve some success; they needed to be shown their place. After one of the writers was nominated for and won an award given by PEN, an organization that campaigns for imprisoned writers all over the world, the prison cancelled the writing program and deleted all the women's writing that was contained in prison computers. Can you believe the ham-handed punitive immaturity of it all? 60 Minutes got involved and then somehow the writing program was mysteriously restored and the women only had to pay a nominal amount for their prison stay.
I was talking to a friend about this book and she mentioned the absolute wrongness of women's prisons being staffed by male guards -- talk about the potential and likelihood of abuse of power. Several of the essays also mention the emphasis of correctional institutes being taken off of rehabilitation and put on punishment. I understand the view that prison should not be a 'country club', but how can we think that locking people up and treating them like animals unworthy of respect or kindness is going to result in anything positive? Is it not better to allow them education and some degree of autonomy and self-respect, in the hopes that they will be contributing members of society when they are released? That sounds canned and sappy, and I can't figure out a better way to say it.

Book Review: The Man Who Melted by Jack Dann

I tried sitting around bugging my kids to do something cute and bloggable for a couple of hours today. Didn't work. In fact, they asked to go visit my Dad. I guess I was being kind of annoying. My Mom is away helping my sister out after surgery, and I thought my Dad would probably really appreciate the break from eating whatever he felt like and watching curling twelve hours a day.

Then I thought maybe I should try to post on something of import, something timely and fact-filled, with figures, and footnotes. But then I realized it was dinner time and my kids were gone and my husband was staying to have a drink with my Dad, so I decided to eat my stir-fried broccoli beef and watch the L Word instead.

We're all supposed to be trying to achieve balance, right? I think something deep within me actually hates and resists balance. We did a couple of weeks of the fun party family -- we cooked, we entertained, we were festive and social -- which was great and made me feel like I wanted to die by the end. Following that we had a couple of weeks of the gym-groceries-gymnastics-library-tap-dance routine, where there's lots of time for everything and not so much rushing around, and should the mood strike me to make vegetable stock or apple cookies I can make that happen without undue hardship to the hockey schedule or the sparkliness of my load of whites. And I feel like I've lost the will to live.

Why does it seem like I only get things done in mad, resource-sapping flurries of activity? When I end up with an entire afternoon clear why don't I work on the disaster area in the basement for an hour and clean out a closet, rather than reading through a foot and a half pile of newspapers just in case there was something in there that might make me sound intelligent at the next playgroup? Or I just huddle in my big chair, reading joylessly, reading just to make the pile disappear, as if when this pile is gone I'll be able to stop, and feel some sense of accomplishment.

So I go like some demented double-clutched Thomas the Tank Engine for a bit, and then I get smashed flat for a while.

Crap. Is it possible that that IS the balance? Because that totally blows.

The Man Who Melted
by Jack Dann
I had trouble finding my way into this book, and keeping a hold on it once I was in. The synopsis was interesting, if a bit misleading. The premise is that the Earth has been scoured by a "Great Scream", some sort of telepathic tidal wave of insanity that killed millions and left millions more mindless. Ray Mantle lost his wife and all his memories of their time together in the Great Scream, and is trying to find her. Religions have formed around groups of 'Screamers', who enable people to telepathically link with each other and with the dead. The other half of the story involves Joan, a woman Ray has become involved with while searching for his wife, and Pfeiffer, a man from Ray's past who shows up unannounced and tries to resume their very strange relationship, which seems to consist mostly of Ray and Pfeiffer insulting, condescending to, and one-upping each other.

Dann does a good job of creating a viable future world -- considering the book was written in the early 80s, his worldwide "Net" is quite prescient. The technology is convincing; the highly sophisticated casinos where one can gamble with one's own organs while telepathically linked with one's opponents in order to compete on a mental level as well as in the traditional way is vivid and disturbing. I was less engaged by the ceremony which Ray undergoes in yet another attempt to locate Josiane -- his wife, who, as it happens, is also his sister (yep, we're that far in the future and things are just that hip and crazy. Whatever, I'm not here to judge. But ew). All of the religious characters are sort of half-drawn, to my mind -- they're all solemn and kind and ready to comfort anyone with sex who might need it, but there's no real articulation of their beliefs that I could see.

So there's an aborted attempt at a telepathic linking, interrupted by men with guns, then the eventual reuniting of Joan and Pfeiffer with Mantle, who engage in a strange and sad ménage a trois which continues until they all end up on a re-enactment of the voyage of the Titanic. Again, this episode seems strangely truncated, and the ending sort of rushed.

Maybe it's just me. Apparently this is a science fiction classic, and I really did feel that there was a great story in here. I think it was mentioned that it was a combination of three or four short stories -- maybe that was the problem, that they didn't sit easily together as a whole novel.

Or maybe it's simple. Marry your sister and you're asking for trouble.