Girly Talk About Race Plus the Bookshelf Comes Alive

Spent the afternoon w/Phyllis doing girly things, which was fun fun fun. She took me to see her little dollhouse, which was adorable, and then we prowled the thrift stores where I found this very cool asymmetrically striped slouch jersey and one of those herringbone jackets that I've been coveting for ages. Also found an Armani jacket, which almost fit, but not quite.

We talked mostly about race.

How something as simple as going to a grocery store in a certain part of town turned into this dance of appeasement on her part: Hello, store clerks! I am your friend! I am not here to shoplift your Twinkies and artichoke hearts.

The conversation was an eye-opener.

I mean, I look suspicious myself most of the time because I'm vaguely ethnic looking and I dress like a bag lady. But I can clean up.

It's a simple equation, really: People do not like other people who do not remind them of themselves. People do not like the Other.

I'm not sure why of all the Others wandering in our American midst, black people have been demonized as the most menacing Other as compared to, say, members of the M-13 gang.

Is it the history of slavery?

Phyllis began talking about reparations – they did it for the Japanese interred in camps in WW II, why won't they do it for us? And I said, "Oh, no, Phyllis. That's not a reasonable solution. Slavery ended too long ago. Plus most of the people who live in this country don't have ancestors who were here during slavery. There's no reasonable way that you could argue they benefited from slavery since the economic benefits of slavery were totally wiped out in the Civil War. The South was destroyed."

I suppose it's a testimony to the strength of our friendship that I can express myself honestly.

Liza's African American. That means my unborn grandchildren are likely to be African American, which gives me more than just an academic interest in these types of discussions.

When I got home I discovered I had email from Christa Paravani, the author of a memoir I had totally trashed on Goodreads. The memoir was entitled Her; it was the story of the death of the author's twin sister. Twin sister was brutally raped, developed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, eventually ran out of MDs who would prescribe pills and turned to heroin. Eventually ODed. Book is about the surviving twin's survivor's guilt.

How much did I loathe this memoir?

A lot.

It's very seldom that I have such a strong negative reaction to a book, in fact.

I could figure out how the book had been published – obvious grab at some sort of female target demographic. What I couldn't figure out was why it was being marketed as high literature when, in fact, it kind of read like another memoir I read recently ('cause, you know, I read a lot of trash) entitled A Psychic in Suburbia. Anyway, in my review, I speculated that her husband – who did write an excellent memoir several years back and received considerable (and justified) attention for it – was responsible for her book contract.

She wrote me testily to correct this misinformation: She had the contract before she met her husband. Which means she had the contract before she wrote the book since hubby is mentioned in swoonish Reader, I married him fashion in the penultimate chapter. (Ultimate chapter is Reader, I gave birth to his child. Dead twin sister, of course, is the midwife.)

I'm sorry you disliked my book so much, she ended her brief note. Which I chose to see as plaintive, but which could just as easily have been a codified response to me that meant: And fuck you asshole.

Her email threw me for a loop.

I mean, I want to be fr-r-r-reeee to trash the books I fucking hate without the interposition of the author, which just makes me feel terrible – Did I hurt her feelings? Can I justify hating her book? Well, I could justify hating her book if someone was paying me to write 1,500 words about it. Since nobody is, I will eschew careful analysis for snark.

Here's the deal: It's an honest hatred. Many people loved the book. Also, obviously, someone has accused her before of shaving her legs with her husband's razor and it's a sore point.

But I don't want authors rising off bookshelves to confront me on social media.

Maybe in the future I will confine my reading to books by dead writers.

Infinite Jest, anyone?