Friday 5ive- February 2, 2024

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly post featuring five things that caught my eye this week. Can you believe that it is February already? Where did January go?

1) Tuesday evening we went to the Cutting Room in midtown to hear Steven Maglio and his 12 piece orchestra. Steven Maglio sings mostly Sinatra songs and he plays a tight set of about an hour and fifteen minutes. There was a nice mix of the usual Sinatra classics and a few more obscure songs. We arrived at 6pm when the doors opened, enjoyed a Caesar salad and strip steak dinner and a bottle of Oregon Pinot Noir. It was a good-sized crowd by the time Maglio ook the stage after an opening act of comedy by Chris Monte. The whole night had a Rat Pack feeling and we really enjoyed it. I'd love to return to the Cutting Room to see more live entertainment. They have a lot of tribute bands (Fleetwood Mac, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) and original music. I highly recommend it for a great NYC evening out. 

2) We noticed that our neighbor across the way still has their Christmas tree up on February 2nd. I enjoyed our Christmas tree but I don't think I could have it up until February. What do you think?

3)  It was a week to watch documentaries. First we watched American Nightmare on Netflix like everyone else in the country. It tells the story of a woman kidnapped from her boyfriend's home in the middle of the night in California. The cops zero in on the boyfriend immediately after he tells them a crazy story of how the kidnapping happened. After searching everywhere for her dead body, the woman turns up 400 miles away at her father's house where she says the kidnapper dropped her off. The cops brand the incident as a hoax perpetrated by the couple, similiar to the movie Gone Girl which was popular at that time.

But it wasn't a hoax, it was a horrible story and this couple's lives were destroyed first by the kidnapper and then by the police and media who hung onto the story like a dog with a bone. 

A few years later, a female detective in another California town is investigating a sexual assault and she works hard to put the pieces together to solve her crime and the kidnapping from years ago. I wonder if anyone in the media apologized? (Nancy Grace). It's a riveting story and an example of how women who are victims of sexual assault are treated so poorly. 

 4) The second documentary we watched was much happier. The Greatest Night in Pop (also on Netflix) gives a true behind the scenes look at the making of the 1985 song We Are The World, featuring 40 of the biggest names in music gathering together on one night to create a song whose proceeds went to famine relief in Ethiopia. Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie wrote the song, and cassettes were sent to the hottest names in pop music inviting them to show up for one night to make the record in Los Angeles. They decided to do it the night of the American Music Awards when most of the performers would be there. Everyone was put in cars and driven from the awards ceremony to the recording studio. It was very hush-hush, they didn't want word to get out and fans to show up. 

Bruce Springsteen flew in from his last concert on his Born in the USA tour in Buffalo to perform. (Fun fact- I was at that Buffalo concert and it was amazing.) They all sang the chorus, and then the musicians who had solo parts stayed to sing their parts. Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Kenny Rogers, Daryl Hall, John Oates, Harry Belafonte, Huey Lewis, Cyndi Lauper, Dionne Warwick, Willie Nelson,  Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, my favorite Bette Midler- it was an astonishing group and Quincy Jones had to herd them to get them all together to complete the recording in one night. If you remember the song, you'll love this documentary and if you're too young to remember, watch it anyway. It's fabulous. 

 

5) Sticking with the theme of true stories, I read Lara Love Hardin's memoir The Many Lives of Mama Love.  Lara was a surburban mom to four boys, Little League coach, and PTA mom whose descent in drug addiction led her to steal pills, cash, credit cards and more from neighbors and cars in the school parking lot and eventually to jail. She ends up in county lockup where she becomes Mama Love to the younger prison residents as she tries desperately to work within the system so she doesn't lose custody of her four year-old son. Her husband, who was also arrested with her, is bailed out by his wealthy mother, and somehow he ends up with a better deal than Lara. Lara ends up on probation for nine years until she can make restitution and the labrynth of red tape that she goes through to get out from under her legal case is confusing. It's an honest look at addiction, and if she doesn't always take responsibility for her actions, that too is a honest look at an addict. Eventually Lara ends up working at a literary agency where she ghostwrites books for Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dali Lama because someone believed in her and gave her a chance. This is an eye-opening book and she makes a point of how the system makes it difficult for people to get a second chance. (And her point about using the female prisoners as cheap labor to clean the county jail and sheriff's office is enlightening.) I highly recommend this book.  

I hope you all have a safe and happy week. Until next time.

The Love You Save by Goldie Taylor

The Love You Save by Goldie Taylor

Published by Hanover Square Press ISBN9781335449375

Hardcover, $28.99, 298 pages

Goldie Taylor's coming-of-age compelling memoir The Love You Save shares Goldie's story growing up in a tough East St. Louis neighborhood in the 1970s. After Goldie's father was murdered and her brother beaten and robbed, her grieving mother took Goldie and her two older siblings from their home near family in a mostly Black East St. Louis community to a mostly white St. Ann.

Her mom worked long hours at a hotel, and Goldie and her siblings were left alone for long periods of time. When she was eleven years old, Goldie was raped by a neighborhood boy and found little comfort from her mother.

She was sent to live with her Auntie Gerald and Uncle Ross back in East St. Louis. Gerald and Ross' home was filled with all kinds of relatives, many of them younger. The younger children had to scrounge for space to sleep on the floor and food to eat before it was all gone.

Auntie Gerald was a deeply religious woman who kept a clean household, but she had a temper that she frequently took out on Goldie. Ross was kind to all the children, he gave them the love many of them didn't get from their own parents. They did their best to keep everyone on a good path in trying circumstances.

Goldie's saving grace became the gifted classes she was put into at her middle school. The school was falling apart and at times violent, but a few of her teachers took Goldie under their wing and believed that she had a special talent, especially in the area of speech, for which she won many awards.

While the rest of her life was chaotic and sometimes dangerous, Goldie shined in her classes. She taught herself math from her older sister's books, and her refuge was the many books she borrowed (and appropriated) from the library, Jane Austen a favorite.

Eventually Goldie became entranced by James Baldwin. His writings spoke deeply to her, and she hungered to learn about him and others like Toni Morrison and Martin Luther King Jr. 

Taylor's writing is striking and she pulls the reader in from page one with her vivid portraits of Auntie Gerald and Uncle Ross. She makes the city of East St. Louis come alive on the page, and shares its history of how Blacks moved there from the deep South for work in factories and the white flight that followed that. The scourge of crack cocaine in the 1980s left many families and neighborhoods broken.

 Goldie Taylor shows us the resiliency of the human spirit, and how education can be a lifeline for those who reach for it. Readers of such books as Sarah M. Broom's The Yellow House, Jesmyn Ward's Men We Reaped and Tara Westover's Educated should put The Love You Save at the top of the TBR list. I read it in one sitting and found it incredibly moving. It makes a great book for Black History Month.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Goldie Taylor's tour. 

Two Powerful Reads to Start 2023

Reprinted from auburnpub.com

Welcome to 2023 and a new year of reading. This month’s Book Report has two books- one fiction, one nonfiction- that, although published in 2022, will start your year off right.

Celeste Ng continues her streak of writing outstanding novels (Everything I Never Told You, Little Fires Everywhere) with her latest and most powerful novel yet, Our Missing Hearts.

Bird is a twelve year-old boy who lives with his father on campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His father used to work as a linguist professor, but now he shelves books in the campus library.

Bird’s mother Margaret is a Chinese-American poet, whose most famous poem, “Our Missing Hearts”, unintentionally became a rallying cry for people protesting the US government policy of removing children from families deemed “unpatriotic.”

In order to keep her son safe, Margaret left the family three years ago. Bird’s father disavowed his wife and he has warned Bird to keep his head down, avoid the police and military, and obey all authority. Many people blame the Chinese for the economic downturn that destroyed the global and American economy, and Asians have become targets for hatred and violence.

When Bird receives a letter that consists of only a drawing, he believes it is from his mother and sets out to find her. In his journey he discovers a network of librarians who work underground to try and reunite children taken from their families by the government.

Our Missing Hearts is about a mother’s powerful love for her son, and a cautionary tale about how dangerous mob mentality can be. People quickly become willing to blame anyone who looks different for their own troubles. The books also touches upon the dangers of banning books, and the slippery slope where that can quickly lead.

I give Our Missing Hearts my highest recommendation, it has such relevance for what is happening today. It is insightful and moving.

I hadn’t heard of Jennette McCurdy, but her memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died has caused quite a stir, landing at the top of the bestseller list for months. McCurdy starred in the popular TV series “iCarly” as young teen, and her book is just astonishing. 

Her mother Deb wanted Jennette to be an actress, and Jennette wanted nothing more than to please her mother. The only girl (she has three older brothers) in her family, all her mother’s dashed dreams of stardom are poured into Jennette. She is a stage mother run amok.

At the age of six, Deb began taking Jennette on auditions for commercials. She bullied a successful children’s agent into taking Jennette on as a client. Jennette began working fairly steadily, and because Jennette could cry real tears easily, she became the go-to child actress when anyone needed a young child to cry on camera.

Deb’s entire identity was wrapped up in her daughter’s success as an actress. The family had difficult financial times, and soon Jennette became the breadwinner for the entire family. Her earnings kept the creditors at bay. Deb also had health issues, and her battle with cancer left the children, especially Jennette, scarred and scared that her mother could die, which Deb manipulated to her advantage.

Jennette worked her way up, doing small parts on TV shows, like “CSI”, and in low budget feature films. Eventually as a teen she auditioned for and won a co-starring role in “iCarly”, which became a monster hit on the Nickelodeon children’s network. Jennette became a popular teen star.

All this success makes Deb keep a tighter reign on Jennette, but as Jennette grew older, she resented her mother and her mother’s emotional and physical abuse. Jennette wasn’t allowed to date, and she was naive for someone her age. She finally found a taste of freedom when she went to Nashville to record an album and her mother had to stay behind for medical treatments.

Jennette’s life is filled with her mother’s mental illness and possessiveness, and eventually lead Jennette to addiction, bad relationships, and a dangerous eating disorder. Her description of her spiraling downwards into alcoholism is harrowing. 

If you read Matthew Perry’s memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing about his drug and alcohol addition, this is your next read. I couldn’t put it down.

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng- A+

Published by Penguin Press

Hardcover, $29, 335 pages

I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy- A+

Published by Simon & Schuster

Hardcover, $27.99, 304 pages

Friday 5ive- June 10, 2022

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly-ish post featuring five things that caught my attention this week.

1) I went to my niece's baby shower last weekend, and it was so cute. She lives in a rural area surrounded by a lot of animals, so the woodland theme was perfect. The decorations were adorable, and everyone brought a book with a note inside written to the baby; I love that idea! One clever person really leaned into the book idea by bringing three Mo Willems books along with matching stuffed animals. The baby's bookcase is filled with all the classics- lucky baby.

2) My local New York Public Library branch, Webster Library, set up their Summer Reading Program. They have a colorful sign out front and a table set up with free books. It was great fun watching the kiddies' eyes light up as they chose their free book.

3) June is Pride Month, and we noticed that the Silvercup film studio across the East River from us in Queens had their usual red sign lit up in rainbow colors.

4) I finished watching the second season of Hacks on HBO. Jean Smart, who swept the awards season last year for her portrayal of Deborah Vance, a older female standup comic (think Joan Rivers), once again gave a fantastic performance. Deborah lost her job as the headliner at a Vegas casino and now has to figure out what to do next. She decides to tour the country with a revamped act, much different than her old one thanks to her partnership with a young female comedy writer she mentors. 

5) I read two very different books this week. The first one is a memoir, You'll Forget This Ever Happened, by Laura L. Engel. Laura was a senior in high school in 1967 when she became pregnant by her boyfriend. Her religious conservative parents are ashamed of her and send her away to a home for pregnant young women in New Orleans after her boyfriend refuses to marry her. Laura recounts her days at the home, where the young women sign away the rights to their babies, giving them up for adoption. We meet the other young women residing there, and Delli, a Black nurse who works in the nursery caring for the babies when they are born until they are adopted. Delli shows Laura kindness as they work together in the nursery. Laura wants to keep her baby and is devastated when her parents refuse to let her. It consumes her thoughts and life for a very long time. This is a heartbreaking story told with such clarity. You learn about a time not so long ago when young women had little agency over their lives. I highly recommend You'll Ever Forget This Happened. 

The other book is Cate Ray's Good Husbands. Three women each receive a letter from a young woman who says their husbands sexually assaulted her mother years ago and she is the product of that night. The women have to decide if they believe this woman or their own husbands. They work together to get at the truth. It's a thought-provoking psychological story that will have you asking yourself what would you do in their shoes. There is a shocking twist near the end that had me literally gasping. My full review is here.

Have a happy, safe week. I'm off to enjoy some sunshine.

Healing- When A Nurse Becomes A Patient by Theresa Brown, RN

Healing- When A Nurse Becomes A Patient by Theresa Brown, RN

Published by Algonquin Books ISBN 9781643750699

Hardcover, $27.95, 272 pages

Theresa Brown, an RN who worked in oncology and hospice, is at a followup scan to her mammogram when a mass is found in her breast. She takes us through her journey as nurse and patient in her moving memoir Healing-When A Nurse Becomes A Patient.

Brown describes in intimate detail being told by the radiologist that she sees "an ugly mass". She writes of calling her college aged twin daughters to pick her up and telling her family what is happening, and it puts every woman in her place. We all have that fear in the pit of our stomach when we go for that mammogram.

Brown also shares her story working as a nurse, what she learned there, and the nurses (good and bad) with whom she worked. As the mother of baby twins and a toddler, Brown felt she knew that speed was most important in her work as a nurse. Her preceptor taught her that it was more important to take time with the patient to truly discover what was going on.

Brown's journey as a cancer patient through the medical system in this country was eye-opening for her. As a nurse who worked in a hospital setting one would think she would know how to get the best care, but she had to transverse many mazes to get the treatment she needed.

Like everyone else, she turned to Google for answers to her questions, but that led to what she called "rabbit holes".  She learned to trust the "safe sites- American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute and the CDC". She found that some breast cancer blogs and websites sponsored by pharmaceutical companies were untrustworthy.

She shared her experiences choosing a surgeon, having to wait too long for results, and arriving at the outpatient surgical center only to be told brusquely that "she wasn't on the list".  After her surgery, she had to undergo four weeks of radiation threatments, and she takes us along with her.

Theresa Brown has a PhD in English, and her writing is crisp, detailed and informative. She doesn't waste a word in this important and personal memoir. One of Brown's biggest takeaways from this experience is that for-profit health care doesn't work for patients. When the biggest motivator is a profit for health care companies and their shareholders, patient care suffers. 

Her other big takeaway is that "treatment can be imbued with kindness and compassion so that caring for ohers feels like the act of grace that it is." The care that people get should not depend on where they live, their skin color or the amount of money they have. Health care is a basic human right.

Healing is an important book, as most of us will face health care crises either as a patient or as the loved one of a patient. I highly recommend it. Brown is also the author of The Shift, about her work as a nurse.

Thanks to Algonquin Books for putting me on Theresa Brown's book tour.

Penis Politics by Karen Hinton

Penis Politics by Karen Hinton

Published bysartoris Literary Group ISBN 9781736211694

Hardcover, $29.95, 252 pages

Karen Hinton's career in politics began in her small Mississippi town of Soso (population 408) as she recounts in her memoir Penis Politics. She grew up a child of the 70s, with a core group of three best girlfriends (called The Coterie).

 When she was 14 years old, her father, a successful commercial contractor with a 8th grade education died, and that devastated her. When she was 16, one of her best friends was raped by their basketball coach, and swore her friends to secrecy. Those two events shaped her life.

One thing I find interesting is how Title IX, the federal law that banned sex discrimination in sports for schools who received federal funding, was a game-changer for so many young women. If schools offered sports for boys teams, there had to be an equal number of sports teams for girls. Many women who went on to do great things did so because they had sports in their lives, Karen included.

Karen went on to college at Ole Miss, which at that time was filled with mostly rich white kids. Karen came from a small, poor community and had a tough time fitting in. The movie All The President's Men inspired her to join the student newspaper where her tenacity and willingness to question authority led her to a bright future.

At the University of Mississippi, Karen met many literary luminaries. Willie Morris was a professor she bcame close to, and he brought in visiting writers like Winston Groom (Forrest Gump), George Plimpton, and William Styron to speak with students. Hinton has a particularly interesting interaction with a very drunk William Styron.

Following college, Hinton got a job at the Jackson Daily News where she climbed the ladder, looking for any interesting story she could sink her teeth into. I found this section of the book the most fascinating. Hinton's doggedness and search for justice intrigued me. It did not, however, intrigue her editors, one of whom killed an important story about the police chief who shot a Black man in the back at a campus protest years earlier. 

Whenever anyone used the word "can't" with Karen- "you can't write that story, you can't run and gun in the game", it only reinforced her determination to prove them wrong.

Hinton became involved in politics as Press Secretary to Mike Espy, the first Black man since Reconstruction to get elected to Congress from Mississippi. From there, she made connections and got to know people like Ron Brown and Mike McCurry. Eventually she ended up as Press Secretary to Andrew Cuomo when he was Secretary of HUD in the Clinton administration.

Her description of Cuomo's demeanor and actions do not differ much from what we have recently learned about him. He fits her definition of "penis politics"- "a man in a position of authority using gender to control and dominate".  

Hinton goes on to work (briefly) as Press Secretary for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who frequently sparred with then Governor Andrew Cuomo. Hinton was caught in the middle, and often blamed by De Blasio for his own missteps. 

"In politics there's a toxic brew of ego, entitlement, power, testosterone and a "bro culture" that is especially difficult for women to navigate", according to Hinton. Her timely book about her experiences in that arena shines a light on that pervasive culture.

My only real criticism is that I felt she spent too much time in the book on her youth and high school life, and she uses explicit sexual graphic language that some may find offensive. I would recommend the book for anyone who likes a memoir about a woman who defied expectations in a tough business. Her story will inspire other young women.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Karen Hinton's tour.

The Prison Guard's Daughter by Deanne Quinn Miller

Repritned from the Citizen:

September 13th, 2021 marked the 50th anniversary of the Attica Prison riot which left 29 inmates and 10 prison guard hostages dead. It was the worse prison riot in US history. Deanne Quinn Miller was just five years old when her father William Quinn was the only corrections officer who was killed by an inmate during the riot. She recounts the search for the truth of what happened to her father, and her fight for justice for the hostages who lived and the widows of the hostages who were killed, when state troopers and corrections officers violently retook the prison in her riveting book, The Prison Guard's Daughter.

Deanne's young mother had two young daughters and another on the way when her husband was held hostage with dozens of other corrections officers as over 1200 inmates at the Attica maximum security prison overtook the guards on September 9th and held 42 guards hostage in the prison yard. On September 9th, Billy Quinn's badly beaten body was brought to the gate, and he was taken to a hospital where where he perished from his injuries on September 11, 1971.

After four days of negotiating with the inmates over their list of demands, many of which were for just and humane treatment, negotiations ended and the inmates were ordered to surrender. Inmates lined up hostages on a catwalks and held knives to the throats of guards. On September 13th, helicopters dropped tear gas into the yard and state troopers and other law enforcement officers charged the yard with guns shooting. The 39 people killed, including 10 guards, were killed by bullets from those guns, although initial reports erroneously stated inmates killed the guards.

After years traumatized by her father's death which caused her physical and emotional ailments, Miller joined the FVOA- Forgotten Victims of Attica. Miller (reluctantly at first) became more involved in the organization, who aimed to get New York State to provide monetary compensation, similar to the $12 million provided to the inmates who were severely beaten and tortured by law enforcement following the disastrous and violent overtaking of the prison.

Widows of the officers killed were tricked into accepting a small worker’s compensation check, without knowing that cashing it meant they could not sue New York State its role in their husbands’ deaths. Only one widow refused to cash the check, and she successfully sued New York State and received a $1 million settlement.

The FVOA spent more than thirty years working with lawyers, reporters, accountants and state legislators trying to get an equitable settlement for the widows and officers before the now elderly widows and guards died. 

Miller became a spokesperson for FVOA, and in that position she became known to legislators and reporters, including Gary Craig from the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, who cowrote the book with Miller. Through this position, Miller became good friends with Richard X. Clark, the leader of the Muslim inmates, and Frank “Big Black” Smith, a former Attica inmate who worked to get the inmates their settlement. She wanted justice not just for the officers but also for the inmates. She wanted the truth to come out.

In addition to the monetary settlement, Miller wanted to know the truth about how her father died. Two inmates were convicted in his death, but they didn’t spend much time in prison for their roles when their sentences were commuted by the governor. She had to face one of them at a public hearing, in front of a large audience, an awful situation.

The FVOA had a Five Point Plan for Justice, asking for the state to provide restitution, offer counseling to those who wanted it, open any Attica records closed to the public, ensure an annual FVOA memorial ceremony on prison grounds, and apologize.

Fifty years after the riot, they are still waiting for an apology. The victims received a $12 million settlement. The state wanted the victims to pay for counseling out of their settlement. 

The Prison Guard’s Daughter is an important book, not only for its historical context (many people under the age of 50 don’t know about Attica), but for the emotional journey that Deanne Quinn Miller shares with readers. Her strength and perseverance is inspiring.

The Prison Guard’s Daughter by Deanne Quinn Miller- A

Published by Diversion Books

Trade paperback, $17.99, 268 pages

There Will Be Lobster by Sara Arnell

There Will be Lobster by Sara Arnell

Published by Savio Republic ISBN 9781642939262

Hardcover, $27, 164 pages

Sara Arnell's titled her memoir of a midlife crisis There Will Be Lobster after an incident on New Year's Day in 2015 when she awoke on the bathroom floor covered in her own vomit after an evening of drinking way too much.

She had a black eye, cuts on her face, and her cheek burned from passing out on the radiant-heated tiles in the bathroom. She had to pull herself together to cook brunch for her adult children and some of their friends. As she entered the living room, a lobster that was supposed to be sitting in a pot ready to be boiled crawled out from under the couch.

Sara was having a bad day after a bad few years. She shares stories about the 18 pound tumor her daughter had surgically removed, (a tumor that no one knew the young woman had), her paralyzing fear of being an empty nester, and losing her job as the CEO of a once prominent advertising agency when the agency lost nearly all of its clients. She was losing her identity.

When she lost her job, Sara spent her days in bed watching Bravo TV's Housewives reality shows, not showering for days, wearing her son's sweatpants. She drank way too much, including one infamous Thanksgiving at her son's apartment with his friends where she impressed (mortified?) the young men with her ability to play drinking games with them.

Sara felt "old, ugly and useless", like it was the end of the world. She couldn't shake herself out of this funk. She didn't have friends she could call to get a cup of coffee, calling herself "an accidental socializer", incapable of making plans with anyone, only speaking to people she ran into accidentally. 

I discovered that Sara grew up in the small town of Saugerties, where my husband's family is from, and that added an extra layer of interest for me. There Will Be Lobster is a quick read, with most chapters just a few pages and only 164 pages in total, but Sara packs a punch in this slim memoir. The main point to her story is that if she can pull herself out of a really bad time, maybe you can too.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Sara Arnell's tour. The rest of her stops are here:

Review Stops

Tuesday, July 27th: Run Wright

Thursday, July 29th: Instagram: @readinggirlreviews

Friday, July 30th: Instagram: @pnwbookworm

Monday, August 2nd: Instagram: @gracereads82

Tuesday, August 3rd: Instagram: @neverthless_she_reads

Wednesday, August 4th: Instagram: @bluntscissorsbookreviews

Thursday, August 5th: Instagram: @babygotbooks4life

Friday, August 6th: Instagram: @booksaremagictoo

Monday, August 9th: Welcome to Nurse Bookie

Tuesday, August 10th: Instagram: @books_and_broadway_

Wednesday, August 11th: Bibliotica

Thursday, August 12th: Diary of a Stay at Home Mom

Friday, August 13th: A Bookish Way of Life

Monday, August 16th: Jathan & Heather

Tuesday, August 17th: The Bookish Dilettante

Wednesday, August 18th: bookchickdi

Thursday, August 19th: Instagram: @mrsboomreads

Nowhere Girl by Cheryl Diamond

Nowhere Girl by Cheryl Diamond

Published by Algonquin Books ISBN 9781616208202

Hardcover, $27.95, 309 pages

In the memoir, Nowhere Girl, author Cheryl Diamond states "by the age of nine, I will have lived in more than a dozen countries, on five continents, under six assumed identies. I know how a document is forged, how to withstand an interrogation, and the most important, how to disappear." How can you resist that?

When the book opens, four year-old Cheryl (whose given name is Bhajan), her older brother Frank (age 14) and older sister Chiara (age 16) are traveling in an out-of-control car careening through the Himalayas with their parents, George and Anne. The family are Sikh, vegetarian, and constant travelers, on the run from Interpol and their mother's father, a member of the Luxenbourg secret police. 

Cheryl is not exactly sure what her father has done, it has something to do with money, but the family has to obey his three rules- always be loyal to their family, trust no one, and be a noble criminal. It is an "unbreakable outlaw code".

Moving from country to country, the children could not make friends. When they are in British Columbia, Chiara plans on attending college and is devastated when George gets into some trouble with an investor and tells them to pack up, they are on the move.

For people who are always on the run, I found it puzzling that George encouraged Frank to join swim teams wherever they moved, becoming good enough that he would train for the Olympics. Cheryl showed skill in gymastics, and she trained with an eye towards the Olympics as well. Weren't they worried they would be discovered?

George had an explosive temper and could be violent with his family. He verbally and physically abused them, beating young Cheryl with a electrical cord. He didn't speak to Frank for over a year- not a word spoken to him. That abuse left emotional scars on all of them.

As the children get older, they rebel against this lifestyle. Eventually, Cheryl wants a passport in her real name, but the problem is that she doesn't have a legal birth certificate. The birth certificate she has is fraudulent, and getting a passport with that would mean that she would be committing fraud. 

Nowhere Girl is a crazy true story, and if it were a novel, the editor would probably tell the author to tone it down, it's too outrageous. The family lived like kings in fancy hotels at times, and then were living in their car, homeless, at others. They had adventures and traveled the world, but had to constantly look over their shoulder. If you liked the books Educated and The Glass Castle, put Nowhere Girl on your list. I highly recommend it.

Thanks to Algonquin Books for putting me on Cheryl Diamond's tour.

Le Deal by J. Byrne Murphy

Le Deal by J. Byrne Murphy

Published by Lyons Press ISBN 9781493060689

Trade paperback, $19.39, 304 pages

Business books aren't my usual cup of tea, but J. Byrne Murphy's Le Deal story of how his company brought the concept of high-end retail outlet shopping centers to Europe in the 1990s piqued my interest.

Murphy and his partners in McArthur Glen had some success opening retail shopping centers in the US, and saw their next move in taking the concept to Europe. The Savings & Loan financial crisis created havoc for many companies, including theirs, but Murphy and his partners believed this concept was a winner. They just had to find financial backing.

They believed their best move would be to start in England. The British were not keen on fashion outlet stores, afraid that they would hurt the big fashion shops in London. Why would people pay full price for clothes if they could get them cheaper in outlet shops? No, the big fashion houses would never go for that.

McArthur Glen explained that these outlet shops would be selling end of season clothes, directly owned and supplied by the big retail names themselves. Nonsense was the reply, the British do not want to shop at discount stores for fashion.

After convincing them of the concept, Murphy and his team discovered that they had competition in the form of a man they had come across before. Roger Morgan was a smart businessman, and they had had a good relationship- until now. It seemed that Morgan was always one step ahead of them, was he spying on them? Morgan "gazumped" them, a new term for me. In England, a real estate deal is not necessarily complete when the agreement is made. If another company offers more money even up to the moment before the closing, your deal can be "gazumped". That seems unfair.

Murphy moved with his wife to Paris, and he began to set the wheels in motion to open outlet centers in France. The steps that he had to take- from meeting with every politician in every small town they were looking at to site visits to winning approval to appeals to their win to eventually having their case before the French Supreme Court- are recounted in detail here.

The numerous political considerations in France were something Murphy and his team did not have to deal with in the United States. Every politician had an angle, and allegiances changed frequently. The disasterous EuroDisney experience hurt their credibility with the French as well. US businesses were not exactly welcomed with open arms.

I found the section where they were preparing for their grand opening in France most fascinating. As someone who worked in marketing in a mall, I could relate to all the preparations and excitement.  McArthur Glen had to deal with possible protests from downtown merchants blocking the road and construction that was still going in inside the stores right up until the evening before the grand opening.

Le Deal is a business book that reads like a novel. From the differences in business culture in Europe to the criteria for site selection to the machinations of the politicians, it was all so interesting, and at times it feels like a thriller- will they get it done? You have to read it to find out how, and I recommend you do.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on J. Byrne Murphy's tour. The rest of his stops are here:

Monday, April 19th: Diary of a Stay at Home Mom

Tuesday, April 20th: Instagram: @readingmama_reviews

Thursday, April 22nd: Musings of a Literary Wanderer

Monday, April 26th: bookchickdi

Tuesday, April 27th: Run Wright

Wednesday, April 28th: Instagram: @gracereads82

Wednesday, May 5th: Instagram: @megsbookclub

Thursday, May 6th: Jathan & Heather

Tuesday, May 11th: Man of La Book

Wednesday, May 12th: Instagram: @jenguerdy

Thursday, May 13th: Bibliotica

Friday, May 14th: What Is That Book About

Odd Woman Out by Melanie Chartoff

Odd Woman Out by Melanie Chartoff

Published by Books Fluent ISBN 9781735268941

Trade paperback, $14.99, 269 pages

I first remember seeing Melanie Chartoff as a beautiful and very funny cast member on ABC's 1980's late night answer to Saturday Night Live called Fridays. She had such a distinctive voice, she made an impression on me.

Her memoir Odd Woman Out: Exposures in Essays and Stories starts off with Indecent Sexposure, a story about her visit to her gynecologist, who writes her a prescription for a "personal messager" (as they call it in the Sharper Image catalogue), and the address of the new Hustler store on Sunset Strip in Los Angeles.

Melanie puts on big sunglasses and a trench coat, and tries to be as discreet as possible. It just so happens that Entertainment Tonight is there doing a story on Larry Flynt at the grand opening. She manages to avoid being on television, but she is captured in a photo that ends up in Star magazine on the Worst Dressed page, in her trench coat and sunglasses, identified at the grand opening of the Hustler store. What made it worse is that several people mailed her the clipping, along with congratulations, sort of like @-ing someone on Twitter.

From there, Melanie shares her career ups and downs, love affairs, and anecdotes about Ed Asner (oh, Mr. Grant), Julie Newmar (oh, Catwoman!), being hired at age 14 by Phil Spector after he saw her and her friend go-go dancing at a Bar Mitzvah, interviewing Ben Kingsley while he was on Broadway in A Midnight Summer's Dream and she was an arts critic at her college newpaper, answering fan mail for Richard Hatch when they were both on the soap opera All My Children (he was the hot young star, she had a small recurring role).

Her stage experiences are interesting, particularly her Broadway debut in a very experimental show that ended in a disaster that precursed Spiderman's problematic Broadway run. Melanie took the craft of acting seriously, and you get a real sense of the dedication and heartbreak that it takes to have a life in the arts.

She shares her difficult family life, with a father who was a bully to her, her younger sister and mother. Her mother's story is sad, and it colored her complicated relationship with Melanie. Melanie leaving home and creating a successful life away from her family caused a friction that never melted.

The last few essays share Melanie's delight at finding love and marrying for the first time in her 60s, when she had given up on perhaps ever doing that. She thought she was destined to be the odd woman out in social situations. Her decriptions of the physical limitations of aging with her husband will bring a nod of recognition to middle-aged people everywhere.

Odd Woman Out is not just another celebrity memoir, Melanie Chartoff brings the reader into her head and heart and she shares her life with wit and honesty. She is a wonderful writer, it's clear she spent as much time honing her literary craft as she did making us laugh. I recommend it.

Thanks to Books Forward for providing a copy for a honest review.

When Life Gives You Pears by Jeannie Gaffigan

When Life Gives You Pears by Jeannie Gaffigan
Published by Grand Central ISBN 9781538751046
Hardcover, $28, 303 pages

If you're familiar with comedian Jim Gaffigan, you know from his standup routines that he has five children and an amazing wife Jeannie. In addition to parenting their five children Jim and Jeannie write together- his standup comedy specials and books, and they created and produced his sitcom, The Jim Gaffigan Show, based on their family life, that ran for two seasons on TV Land. (You can watch it here- it's fantastic.)

In 2017, while Jeannie had coralled the children to their pediatrician for a visit, the doctor noticed that Jeannie has troubling hearing out of one ear and recommended that she see an ENT doctor. What the doctor found was that Jeannie had a brain tumor the size of a pear.

Jeannie describes what happened next in her memoir When Life Gives You Pears- The Healing Power of Family, Faith, and Funny People. She takes the reader along on her medical journey, through the fears and pain, and yes, because she sees everything though the lens of comedy, the laughter too.

Jeannie Gaffigan is a woman of strong Catholic faith, and she relied on that to help get her through this frightening event. Being the mother of five young children and living in New York City, she is also an extremely organized woman. (Just trying to get the children to their various schools located in all the different corners of Manhattan is a Herculean task.)

And even though the Gaffigans were able to find and afford the best doctors, things can go wrong. After a successful surgery to remove the tumor, Jeannie aspirated and got life-threatening pneumonia in both lungs.

Jeannie's road to recovery would be long and difficult. She and Jim had to rely on neighbors, family, and friends to help care for the children, and for Jeannie when she came home. She takes us through the various nurses, doctors and therapists who helped her get better to get home to her family.

A Shift Schedule was created so that Jeannie wouldn't be alone in the hospital. Her mom flew in to stay with the children. Her many siblings left their own families and jobs to come help out. As the oldest child of nine, Jeannie helped raise some of her siblings and they came to help her in her time of need becasue that's what families do.

I highly recommend When Life Gives You Pears. Jeannie Gaffigan is a terrific writer; her organizational skills, her humor, and her humanity shine through the pages. Most of us will go through some kind of medical episode either ourselves or with someone we love, and we'll be able to relate to Jeannie's journey. I put this one on my annual list of the Most Compelling Books I Read in 2019 (and I read nearly 100), and you should read it in 2020.

Body Leaping Backward by Maureen Stanton

Body Leaping Backward by Maureen Stanton
Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt ISBN 9781328900234
Hardcover, $26, 215 pages

Maureen Stanton's coming-of-age memoir in her working-class prison town in the 1970s, Body Leaping Backward- A Memoir of a Delinquent Girlhood, appealed to me for many reasons.  I too grew up in a working-class prison town in the 1970s, and I came from a Catholic family with many children.

Stanton took me right back to those days- kids playing Flashlight Tag or dodgeball, waiting to hear their mother's voice calling them in for dinner, riding bikes all over town, piling everyone in the car to go to the drive-in movies.

Coming from a large family, (there were seven Stanton children) I could relate to her mom meticulously dividing up a bag of M&Ms so that each child got exactly the same amount. I vividly recall going to confession at church, and, like Maureen, worrying about what sins I would have to confess to (you don't want to keep repeating yourself week after week, but what kind of sins can a young child commit?).

I found Stanton's memories of Walpole prison interesting. The prison occupied a large presence in the town, both physical and emotional, although I don't recall my mother threatening us with ending up in the local prison if we misbehaved, like her mother frequently did.

The Stantons would visit the Hobby Shop, a gift shop located just inside the prison walls, where anyone could buy furniture, jewelry, dollhouses and crafts made by inmates. Most of the children's rooms were furnished from here. The man who ran the shop was a famous Boston mobster, and convicted Boston Strangler Albert DeSalvo made jewelry that was sold in the hobby shop. (The town I grew up in did not have a retail shop so I found this fascinating and very strange.)

Life changed drastically for the Stantons when their parents divorced and their father moved out when Maureen was twelve years old. Money became scarce, and her mother resorted to shoplifting to feed the family. Eventually, her mother went back to school to become a nurse. She went to school all day, came home to do homework, and then fed her family dinner. It was a difficult life.

By the time she was in tenth grade, Maureen was using angel dust (PCP). Angel dust causes you to lose depth perception and balance, causes difficulties in concentration, and apathy. It's a serious drug, and Maureen and her friends were using it frequently. She began skipping school, stealing, became involved in petty crime. (She thought this was typical teenage behavior, but I did not relate to that.)

Stanton weaves in historical context to give the reader a good sense of what life was like at that time. Bomb scares were rampant in the 1970s, and "between 1971 and the end of 1972, the FBI reported 2500 bombings on US soil, an average of five bombings per day". Overall, crime rose in the 1970s, and the town of Walpole was no exception.

In her junior year of high school, Maureen got a job at a gas station, where she earned work-study credits, and learned a lot about life based on the customers that she waited on. She also met a man who helped her reconnect with her love of literature and writing.

She took a writing class in college, and when her mother found Maureen's high school diaries while moving, Maureen used that as the basis for this powerful memoir. Stanton's writing is crisp and poignant, like this sentence she writes describing her parents telling the children about their separation- "A tear slipped down my father's cheek, and then like a chorus we all cried, our last act as an intact family."

If you came of age in the 1970s, Body Leaping Backward will take you back to that time. Fans of Mary Karr's The Liar's Club should put this one on their list.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Maureen Stanton's tour. The rest of the stops are here:

Instagram Features

Sunday, November 3rd: Instagram: @mrsboomreads

Monday, November 4th: Instagram: @ohthebooksshewillread

Tuesday, November 5th: Instagram: @gatticus_finch

Wednesday, November 6th: Instagram: @libraryinprogress

Thursday, November 7th: Instagram: @inquisitivebookworm

Friday, November 8th: Instagram: @orangecountyreads

Saturday, November 9th: Instagram: @crystals_library

Review Stops

Monday, November 4th: Tabi Thoughts

Wednesday, November 6th: seasaltdaydreams

Thursday, November 7th: bookchickdi

Friday, November 8th: Iwriteinbooks’s blog

Monday, November 11th: The Sketchy Reader

Tuesday, November 12th: PhDiva

Thursday, November 14th: Instagram: @books_and_broadway_

Saturday, November 16th: Instagram: @shelovesthepages

Monday, November 18th: Helen’s Book Blog

Wednesday, November 20th: Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Friday, November 22nd: Blunt Scissors Book Reviews

Monday, December 2nd: Instagram: @quietmountainreader

Tuesday, December 3rd: Comfy Reading

Wednesday, December 4th: Booksie’s Blog

Thursday, December 5th: Thoughts On This ‘n That

Friday, December 6th: Lit and Life

Friday, December 13th: Openly Bookish