Know My Name by Chanel Miller

 Known to the world as Emily Doe for four arduous years, Chanel Miller finally claims her identity and

writes her memoir of the assault and aftermath of the Stanford rape case in 2015.  The horror of the incident, the sexist culture surrounding the rapist's "good reputation", the agony of continuing to face the events of that evening over and over each time there is a hearing, a court appearance or the judge's final verdict...all of Chanel's emotions and anxieties are vulnerably documented in this book.

As the courts are selecting the jury Chanel writes, " People believed I was enjoying my afternoon, when in reality I was about to face my rapist.  How creepy it was that we could conceal these stories.  How easy it was to pretend.  The slivers we show, the mountains we hide."

This was very difficult to read, so I kept stopping to  do other things in order to digest her anger, her loneliness, her loss of identity, her fear, her depression.  But mostly I had to come to grips with the voices that had been in my head whenever I read about a sexual assault..."what was she wearing?"  "what was she drinking?" "why was she there?"  I am ashamed that I have believed these lies that our culture has fed us.  A woman does not want to be assaulted, but somehow we blame the woman instead of the man who has  mentally chosen  his actions and then follows through.  He must take responsibility, not blame the set of circumstances.

As I followed Chanel's journey through to her final Victim Impact Statement, that went viral on Buzzfeed the day after the sentencing,  I was proud that she finally found her voice and so appreciative of the thousands of supporting voices that stood up for her after months of silence.

""For the past year I had been raking through comments looking for signs of support.  I dug through opinion pieces in local newspapers searching for someone to stand up for me.  I locked myself in my car in parking lots crying into hotlines, convinced I was losing my mind.  All year loneliness had followed me, in the stairwell at work, in Philly, in the wooden witness stand, where I looked out at a near-empty audience.  Yet all along there had been eyes watching me, rooting for me, from their own bedrooms, cars , stairwells, and apartments, all of us shielded inside our pain, our fear, our anonymity.  I was surrounded by survivors, I was part of a we."

The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan

Refreshing. Humorous. Spectacular setting. Librarian Nina loses her long term London job, and very uncharacteristically leaps into a new business venture in Scotland.  She blossoms in a tiny town, initiating conversations with the locals and participating in the various Scottish cultural events.  Colgan tells an engaging light-hearted story, perfect for a snowy all-day read!

 

Born A Crime, Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah

"His stories weave together to form a moving and searingly funny portrait of a boy making his way through a damaged world in a dangerous time, armed only with a keen sense of humor and a mother's unconventional, unconditional love. "  Bookcover  

Honest, unbelievable, humorous, terrifying.  It's hard to fathom that one book can be so emotionally contradictory but comedian Trevor Noah is a great storyteller and his journey as a young boy in South African apartheid is compelling.  I enjoyed so much of this memoir.  The complicated and intense love between he and his mother, the difficult position of being "colored" on the outside but black on the inside which made his life unbearably lonely,  the mischief he created, the faith of a mother that repeatedly exasperated the son, but in extreme circumstances brought forth some true miracles.

Glimpsing racism in another country, from the top levels down, gave me another broader picture of our world and the ways that humans fight the same types of battles no matter where they live.  This book touched on some of the same themes as "A $500 House in Detroit": governments which usually take advantage of the little guy, rather than helping.  After apartheid was lifted, all manner of people who had been living under slave labor found themselves with no job and no skills.  Most men found their way to Johannesburg to look for work, but with no education he becomes a petty thief and finds himself in and out of jail.  As Noah muses," The more time I spent in jail the more I realized that the law isn't rational at all. It's a lottery.  What color is your skin? How much money do you have?  Who's your lawyer?  Who's the judge? ....He had committed a crime but he was no more a criminal than I was.  The difference was that he didn't have any friends or family to help him out."  So many people fall through the cracks of the government systems, and they just need some education and a skill set.  

This book was an interesting cultural and political experience for me.  Thumbs up.

They Called Us Girls by Kathleen Courtenay Stone

 "At the end of World War II, more American women worked outside the home than ever before.  Yet the culture, from politicians to corporations to television shows, portrayed the ideal woman as a housewife.  Many women happily assumed that role, but a small segment bucked the tide---women who wanted to use their talents differently, especially in jobs that had always been reserved for men." Cynren Press

After my most recent night of binge watching interesting films of my choice, I was captivated with  "On the Basis of Sex", a fascinating look at the early years of Ruth Bader Ginsberg.  She was driven to pursue a "man's career" as an attorney at Harvard in 1955, where she did in fact encounter a very male dominated hostile environment with only eight females in her class of 500.  Ginsberg personally faced gender equality setbacks in countless job searches, which motivated her to eventually argue six landmark cases on gender equality before the Supreme Court for the ACLU.  

Having just finished "They Called Us Girls", I was struck by the resemblances in Ginsberg's life to the seven remarkable women that Stone featured in her book:  all born before 1935, all chose professional careers, all attended respected universities in America, all faced discrimination - sometimes due to gender, sometimes due to race.  The author was interested in discovering why some women willingly took on the opposition in their attainment of a career that, for many others was not worth the agony of pursuit.  She questions, " How did they find the ambition, confidence, sense of self--whatever it was -- to have a professional career when the culture said not to, and most of their contemporaries agreed?  To find out, I would need to talk to women themselves."

And so, she did.  A Lithuanian-Jewish free spirited artist named Dahlov Ipcar who lived on a Maine farm and created heartwarming children's books.  She was asked to host her first exhibition at the Portland Museum of Art when she was 84.  A Trinidadian physician named Muriel Petioni refused to let the color line defeat her even though hospitals were segregated when she began her internship in 1937.  A violin playing Eastern European physicist named Mildred Dresselhaus was invited to the White House multiple times, meeting presidential families from the Roosevelts to the Obamas.  Born in the Dominican Republic, Frieda Garcia fought to have her dual US citizenship re-instated (for voting in a Dominican election on a family trip back to the island); and then chased her dream to become a non-profit leader and activist here. German born Rya Zobel finished law school only to discover that she could not land a job with a law firm.  "Law firms were not hiring girls", she said.  "And we were not women.  We were 'girls'." Zobel became a federal judge!   

These inspiring stories reminded me of my homemaker mother who was born in 1923.  She had none of the similarities that Stone discovered among her seven characters, but I believe she omitted one: Grit.  My mother's grit propelled her into the Navy Waves in 1943 when the program was just beginning, playing on the first Wave softball team at Cecil Field, FL.  For 70 years she believed that she had not contributed much to the war effort because she served stateside. However, at the age of 90 while conversing with young military women at the World War II exhibit in Washington DC, she was repeatedly thanked for her historic contribution to servicewomen...because she "paved  the way" for their careers.

Kudos to the women who have gone before us and paved the way!  March is Women's History Month and Stone's book is an excellent reading choice to strengthen our understanding of how the past can greatly impact the future for our daughters and grand-daughters.

A $500 House in Detroit by Drew Philp

Being a Michigander, this title has been on my "want to read" list for some time.  From the safety of Southwest Michigan, I have watched the abandonment of the Motor City.  First the whites took flight, then the car industries, then the Black middle class.  Now comes a white University of Michigan grad who hates what he is becoming: elitist, privileged, and almost heading out of state like his fellow graduates....and he chooses a different path.  He detours to Detroit and looks for a place to belong in the streets that have been looted, burned and desecrated.  He finds black neighbors who eventually accept him.  He finds an unloved Queen Anne house and two surrounding lots for $1500...and he starts to work.  As the people around him observe, he slowly starts cleaning, remodeling, scavenging, building.  And finally to his delight and unbelief, he finds community.

This story resonated with me because there is a place inside me that would like to be this radical, that would like to care enough about the "throwaway mentality" of our society to really do something like Philp's did...re-building with scraps and re-purposed items, buying from locals rather than "big box" stores, facing his fears of living in a poverty stricken crime area so that he can help make changes.  His passion is huge, even though most of us would think his perspective was a bit unrealistic at the outset.

Aside from the house-building, the other story he clarifies is the planned agenda of the corrupt city over the years; how time and time again, the City of Detroit gave big bucks to the rich who wanted to build huge stadiums, hotels, corporations but they evicted the few residents who had stayed... because they were behind on their $150 water bills, and "someone" wanted the land.  A travesty.  I cheered Drew on when he "saved" his elderly neighbor's home in an online auction. He became one with his neighborhood because he cared deeply.  

"Dear children, our love should not be just words and talk, it must be true love which shows itself in action."  I John 3:18

Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

This was a well written page turning young adult novel based on the true story of the 1945 horrendous

sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff in the Baltic Sea.  But it is much more than that.  It is the story of individuals who faced the evils of World War II and after suffering tremendous losses, banded together in their need to reach Gotenhafen Poland...where ships were ready to save them from the assaults of the advancing Russian Army.

Told from the perspectives of four members of this group of travelers, the book's very short chapters make it a quick read as it jumps from Joana to Florian to Emilia to Alfred.  Sepetys is a descriptive writer who brings the reader into an emotional bond with each of the characters who have lost parents, siblings,  homes..and innocence, at the hands of Hitler's and Stalin's henchman.

Every time I read a war story, I am once again outraged and sorrowful at the atrocities of war and how it can turn common men into greedy, debased humans who blindly follow a misguided, mentally deranged leader.  At the same time, I am thankful for the countless numbers of military men and women who were able to keep their humanity, their integrity and their kindness in their fights for the freedoms of others.

This novel brought to life yet another piece of World War II that I knew nothing about.  It was well worth the read.