Best of 2011 Countdown: #26

...Awkward.

You know what's fun about associating with Gianna?  The various ways such a connection pops up in my life.  Random House recently launched a cool book recommendation site called Everyday eBook, and our RH pals asked if they could use some of our blog's reviews on their site.  Who are we to say no?  However, it was a real delight for me to discover that the site also pulled Gianna's biographical statement off of our blog, and it reads:

i am the sales manager for the university of texas press. previously i worked as a sales manager with random house for about 8 years or so until liz sullivan made my life so miserable i had to change jobs. we are now married, have 9 children and vote republican. we are not happy.

It's my fervent hope that everyone I know now knows of my miserable love with Gianna, so you should follow Everyday eBook (even if you don't read eBooks; they have great picks that are available as print books too).  Anyway, moving on to our picks....

Best of 2011 Countdown: #26

Gianna:

Close Your Eyes
Amanda Eyre Ward
Random House

This dark novel was inspired by an actual double murder that happened in the author’s neighborhood when she was a teenager. Ward grew up in a small, quiet town (Rye, NY where I have attended a couple of Random House sales conferences…I could have been killed!), and the fact that such a brutal (and for many years, unsolved) crime could happen would be enough to shake you. As it would turn out, the crime was committed by a drunk teenager that Ward and her group of friends actually knew. The specifics of that crime are bizarre enough that you will want to read about it, trust me, so here is a link to Amanda Eyre Ward’s website where she explains the murder (and there is a picture of Amanda at the tender age of 17…worth the trip to the website).

http://www.amandaward.com/Close_Your_Eyes_For_Readers.php

Amanda Eyre Ward
(the adult version)

Close Your Eyes doesn’t use that plot exactly; it takes that idea and makes it more intimate. Young Lauren and Alex are sleeping in their tree house when their mother is brutally murdered. Their father is convicted of the crime and their lives are forever changed. The books moves ahead twenty years and while the sister and brother remain close (who else would understand this kind of life?), Lauren is convinced that her father is guilty while her brother is sure he is not.  While it would of course be easier for Lauren to try in some way to move forward with her life--her attempts at normalcy--she begins to dig into the past, and things get…interesting.

Amanda has hit a home run with this novel. It's dark, it's creepy, the characters are rich, and the story is perfect. A good comparison is Gillian Flynn’s Dark Places or Sharp Objects…and if you didn’t like those two books, well, what the heck is wrong with you?

Liz:

Your Voice in My Head
Emma Forrest
Other Press

I admit that I am fascinated by memoirs that are heavily psychological.  Just like I'm drawn to damaged characters in fiction, I am most intrigued by memoirs that are more internal, and at the risk of being flippant, the crazier the better.  It's the same reason that I love the HBO series In Treatment, too.  What can I say?  I've got my issues.  So there was no question that I'd be reading Your Voice in My Head when I heard the editor discusses it at our sales conference.  It didn't disappoint.

Emma Forrest

Emma Forrest has composed an intimate--sometimes uncomfortably so--memoir about the two major relationships in her life at a time when she was most vulnerable.  She was 22, living a furious existence in New York that spiraled out of control and toward depression and suicide.  Salvation came in the form of a psychiatrist, a man who became her touchstone as she began to dig herself out of the psychological hole into which she'd slipped.  In the meantime, Forrest meets and falls in love with another man, her "Gypsy Husband," an A-List Hollywood actor (Google Emma Forrest and you'll find out who it is).  Their romance is intense and idyllic...and then troubled.  One day Forrest attempts to make an appointment with her psychiatrist, only to discover that he's died.  The Jiminy Cricket on her shoulder, this man who'd seen into her darkest thoughts without flinching, the voice in her head, was gone, and she realized she'd never known anything about him.

Your Voice in My Head belongs in the same category as Girl, Interrupted and The Glass Castle, though I think that Emma Forrest is a more talented writer.  It's unsettling, loving, moving, and brilliantly written.  I love this book.

 

Banned Books

“If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.”

--Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr.

It’s Banned Book Week, always a great reminder of the amazing works of literature (as well as popular dreck with controversial subject matter) and one of the defining statements of our Constitution. I’m a fan. I like to read the books that make the list and I am intrigued by the reasons for censoring books. Back when I was in college in the mid-90’s, the idea of banning books was treated as a criminal act, and while we espoused the attributes of postmodern theory that encouraged us to move away from absolute truths, one of the few universally understood Truths (with the capital “T”) was that everyone should have access to sources of knowledge and the right to determine what material was suitable for him/herself. A decade later and I wonder what happened to our idealism.

This year more than ever, it seems, the idea of censoring books and even rescripting the narratives that comprise our collective past seems to have pushed to the forefront of the collective conscience. Maybe I have a tendency to notice the limiting of knowledge more because I live in Texas, and the state school board currently is in the process of adopting textbooks. Earlier in the year the state school board decided to limit references to Thomas Jefferson because Jefferson coined the phrase “separation of church and state.” This week the state school board made the news again, this time for decided to remove references to Islam in school textbooks. Several weeks ago, the Humble, Texas, ISD revoked an invitation to young adult author Ellen Hopkins after they decided that her books were inappropriate for their Teen Lit Festival in January, and several other authors also invited to the festival pulled out in solidarity against the censorship of their fellow author. Meanwhile, outside of the Lone Star State and just in time for the 10th Anniversary release of her book, young adult author Laurie Halse Anderson is defending her National Book Award Finalist Speak against a Missouri professor who believes the book is “soft-core pornography” because of its depiction of date rape. Banned Book Week is vital because censorship remains a common, even accepted, practice, and even seems more prevalent.

I guess I just don’t understand.

What sort of education are we providing children if we aren’t exposing them to issues and then discussing these topics? Islam is the second largest religion in the world; why shouldn’t a Texas seventh grader learn about it? Why shouldn’t they be given the framework from which to form educated opinions when they become adults? How can one claim to be a patriot and love America but also deny the contributions of a man who wrote the Declaration of Independence, just because he, one of the founding fathers normally praised by conservative factions within the country, believed that government should not interfere with the practice of religion (and therefore the opposite as well)? By denying teens narratives about difficult topics such as rape, are censors protecting innocence or isolating the victims of very real crimes, victims who might have found hope in a fictional story to which s/he could relate? A lack of information doesn’t stop the crime, it just restricts the information that might help, enrich, educate, and raise awareness.

I grew up in a tiny town and by the time I left home for college I was under no delusions about the quality of my public school education. Resources were limited and reading wasn’t always encouraged. The district wasn’t wealthy and the school only had a few class sets of books; we read The Scarlet Letter, some Shakespeare, To Kill a Mockingbird, but didn’t have the opportunity to study books like I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings or The Catcher in the Rye. Nonetheless, I was never told that I COULD NOT read a book, and knowing that I wanted to study literature in college, I regularly sought out the books other schools were reading such as The House on Mango Street and Beloved. My teachers—including my mother, who was my junior English teacher—recommended books and while they occasionally offered opinions on the quality of books, they never removed the book from my hands (or the library).  Would I have been prepared for a college literature program if these books had been denied me?  I certainly would have struggled to catch up.

I’m not sure that the same access would be available to me today, however. In the last decade we as a society have developed a black-and-white view of the world, denigrating the diversity of thoughts and beliefs that once were considered the core of our liberty. During this time, the young adult book selection has exploded and books have developed cultish devotees willing to attend midnight release parties. We should be living in an era in which books are more popular than ever, finding a wider range of readers and adding thoughtful voices to the public discourse. Yet for every Harry Potter midnight release party, there is a minister in Florida wanting to burn copies of the Koran, a school board removing all 50 copies of Girl, Interrupted because of sexual content (never mind that the book is a memoir about a teen girl’s actual experiences, nor that most of these students being “protected” would have access to the movie versions of this and similar, more graphic stories).

Books are too socialist, too sexually explicit, too violent, too pagan, too “upsetting.” What’s left, though? How do people grow without ever actually experiencing anything? And isn’t it better to read about racial violence than slipping into a “protected” society that perpetuates actual racism and violence? Even if the Texas Board of Education refuses to acknowledge Islam, it is still a major religion and Muslims are living in our communities and contributing to our society. What is the benefit of promoting prejudice and hate through omission in textbooks? This decision is as ridiculous as the renaming of “freedom fries” a few years ago when “patriots” couldn’t comprehend why France wouldn’t fight a war in Iraq. Sorry, but that country didn’t disappear simply because some closed minded people wouldn’t say “French toast.” Sexual issues, racism, different religious and political beliefs—these are all controversial topics that won’t go away by burying our heads in the sand. And often books serve as conduits for conversations. We should nurture these dialogues not stupidly deny them because they might be uncomfortable.

Happy Banned Books Week.