A Visit from the Goon Squad

It's unusual for a book to get the same kind of pre-release press that a movie does.  Books don't have a limited theatre engagement and they rarely, if ever, spawn a merchendising frenzy (unless they are Twilight and/or books made into movies).  But every year there's a couple that stand out, usually because they are big name authors or because the author has taken so long to write something new. Because a book takes more time to read than it takes to watch a movie, I usually feel pretty smug after reading the current "it" book (like Netherland, or, A Gate At The Stairs). Since Freedom hadn't been released yet, I was stuck reading A Visit From the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan.

Reading the reviews I knew that Egan had taken her time to deliver a near multi-media event-- layers of time, voices and even a penultimate chapter in PowerPoint (surprisingly effective).  Sure, the book was just challenging enough, but it also read really quickly, not unlike the power punk songs Benny and his friends played at the beginning of the book.  Egan took stock stereotypes (drug addled wannabe musicians and the groupies that follow them) and turned them inside out, revealing parents, children and even countries making them become real people.  If we can't identify with Sasha as a messed up runaway, maybe we empathize with her as a mother of two kids who lost her best friend in college and never got over it.

I hope A Visit from the Goon Squad is more than a flash in the pan--it, and Ms. Egan- -deserve to be read and respected. 5/5 netflix stars.

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress

Think you have nothing in common with Mennonites? Think again.  Did you ever bring weird lunch to school? Did you ever wear ill fitting/out of style clothes? Were you ever forbidden (even if it was for the best) to participate in a school play? Has your mom ever tried to fix you up with your cousin? Despite all that, do you still love your parents? Rhoda Janzen's memoir, Mennonite in a Little Black Dress was like Eat, Pray, Love, but the food is borscht, the praying happens in her family's Mennonite community in California and the love...is her family.

After her heart is broken by her husband leaving her for a man he found on gay.com and her body crushed the same week in a car accident, Ms. Janzen returns home to recuperate and write.  She weaves hilarious and poignant stories from her childhood alongside stories of her more recent past (now over 15 year marriage) and her parents' past.  She reminisces with her sister and finds herself at odds with her brothers. But despite having broken with the traditional ways of the Mennonite, she holds no bitterness.  We're allowed to laugh not at her family, but with them, and that makes all the difference.

This memoir gets 5/5 netflix stars in part because I'm easy with the stars but mostly because it was a wonderful read and made me want to shove it in the hands of several friends right away.