Allison, Dorothy. Two or Three Things I know for Sure. New York: Plume, 1996.

Allison’s memoir employs many new strategies for me. She incorporates photographs into her work, whether they are successful or not, I don’t know, while I enjoyed them, they were at time distracting as they had no identifiers. Allison also admits this text was originally meant as a performance piece, this aspect definitely gave the piece a different feel. I read several sections out loud. This offers a new dimension to the text. One can hear the story told.

While it is Allison’s story, about Allison’s family one gets the impression that it could be any southern family. The women are composites—successful composites. They resemble smoking, cussing women all over the southern United States. Allison presents her picture of these women, filtered through her experiences; some of which may be difficult for others to grasp. But her characters could be next door, or up the street. Everyone from small-town America knows the girl who was desperate to find a perfect life in the big city, only to return broken and defeated.

Throughout the text Allison hangs on to what is important to her in small-town America without letting her reader forget that she has moved on and made dramatic changes in her personal reality. Changes, that in many ways permanently remove her from that small town setting.

Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird. New York: Anchor Books, 1994. Nonfiction.

Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird is a lighthearted book filled with humor and wisdom. Lamott’s ironic view of the realities of writing creates a well crafted, accessible text. Her wry commentary about God, writing and the nature of twentieth/twenty-first century living is engaging. Although, as with many of her books, Lamott is grammatically lax, her presentation of a writer’s life is accurate. Her courage in showing her insecurities is awe-inspiring. Lamott makes no attempt to engage all writers, she targets her audience and hits hard.

The text offers concrete advise for writers of all levels in a non-textbook way. Lamott offers personal anecdotes and professional observations from the point of view of a writer, teacher, and human being. Her flaws-and-all approach invites readers to accept their own weaknesses and insecurities.

Moore, Lorrie. Birds of America. New York: Picador, 1998.

I had read essays out of Lorrie Moore’s Birds of America before. And I liked each one individually. As a collected whole each individual essay losses so much. Moore’s voice is a constant – and it begins to drone a bit. Her “characters” are all the same (perhaps all her?). When reading fiction I expect a variety of voices and this text lacks that.

I found myself wondering, would I like this if I were reading just this? Does it stand well alone? In most cases I believe the answer would be yes. Each piece is well crafted and interesting on its own, when added to the collection it reads like more of the same. There is a lesson there for writers of nonfiction as well—even though the expectations are very different in the reader: variety of voice. It’s a good lesson for me. Moore has a strong voice, a strong character, singular. I found myself wondering if these stories were not nonfiction simply fictionalized. I know that the last story “Terrific Mother,” which was my favorite, was thought to have been autobiographical. I wonder how many of the others are based in fact.

Thomas, Abigail. Safekeeping. New York: Random House, 2000.

Abigail Thomas’ book, Safekeeping, took me by surprise. I was several chapters in before fully understanding her technique. “Several” chapters was the span of a mere seven, or maybe eight pages. And I’m not sure how I feel about it. The story does not come together as a whole, not really, until the end. It reads like a diary – a well crafted diary. Some chapters are less than a page, really just notes. Notes to a dead ex-husband.

It was interesting to me how Thomas wove her relationships into the text; particularly her relationships with her second two husbands. Their relationship with each other was more intriguing – but, sadly, was left mostly unexplored. She reflects on her life with these men and her life with her children as she considers her own mortality.

The text focused on the issue of grief – like Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking. Unlike Didion, Thomas gives her reader her feelings of fragmentation; short pages, annotations, subtext that is perhaps not clear for several pages more. While Didion relates to her reader that she felt this way: disconnected and disjointed, what she gives her reader in the end is a polished, well organized book written in solid chapters. Didion’s book was easier to wrap my mind around – but I think that Thomas’ book ultimately gives me a clearer picture of the process of grief.

Waiting for Snow in Havana

Eire, Carlos. Waiting for the snow in Havana. New York: The Free Press, 2003.

So what? All of my training in creative writing has taught me to ask this question, so what? Carlos Eire does not adequately answer this question in his text Waiting for Snow in Havana.

Sure, he overcomes a great deal in his life. We all do in different ways. And his anger is still ripe—over ripe. He has not conquered that in any way. So where is the “changed character” in this text that makes it successful? I don’t see one. There are hints, here and there, that perhaps there is change—he evolves from a homeless Cuban boy in Miami to a graduate student. But how? He doesn’t offer any explanation for this metamorphosis. It is in fact mentioned in passing.

Eire spends considerable time in the text wallowing in his anger and self-pity. He has been robbed of his country, his father, and his inheritance. Fidel Castro is guilty in the first instance and his adopted brother Ernesto in the second two.

The story does offer an example of how one could weave important history into a personal narrative, at least on a surface level. Eire does not return to fill in his childhood gaps – why does Castro overthrow Batista? What are his ideals? What are the rebels who face the firing squad standing up for? What ideal do they defend, other than opposing Castro? Without a solid grasp of history, these details are lost to the reader. These details that clearly shaped the author’s sense of reality, at least in this text. It left me asking, so what?

And Ernesto. Eire’s resentment for his adopted brother still resides in the heart of a ten year old. It is bitter and adds nothing to the overall story line of the author’s survival and yet Eire returns again and again to the demonic Ernesto. By the time it is revealed that Ernesto was trying (it is implied unsuccessfully) to molest Eire, I am already beyond caring; so what? There is no resolution at the end of the text Eire has not resolved this issue.

Intellectually I am aware there is change and growth in the protagonist – as the book exists at all. But my knowing is off the page. Eire does not give his evolution, just his anger. How does one go from homeless in Miami to a dishwasher in Chicago to a professor at UVA? The book was likely cathartic for the author, but left me festering and asking so what.

The Last Thing He Wanted

Didion, Joan. The Last Thing He Wanted. New York: Vintage Books, 1997.

I am a fan of Joan Didion’s nonfiction work and was excited to find her fiction. But I was somewhat disappointed. I’m not a fan of genre work. I recently proofed a murder mystery for a friend, and The Last thing He Wanted reminded me of that process.

As always, craft-wise Didion is a consummate writer. Each component of the text was meticulously constructed. Each character was full and round, including the narrator. Each place vivid and real. But each was a unit that for me didn’t quite fit together as a whole. Not quite.

Perhaps it was the implied vagueness of the narrator, or the round-about approach to information that created this gap for me. More likely, I think, it was the “genre” it read like a super-market murder mystery. And I was disappointed. I did recommend the book to my friend the murder mystery writer. Didion builds to the climax well. Each moment, scene, event in the text building on the last to create the next; a neat package.

As a fan of Didion’s nonfiction I remain aware that she knows, life doesn’t fit together like that and we often have to stretch to figure out why a is connected to f. The beauty of Didion’s work is in finding that connection. In The Last Thing He Wanted this element was sadly missing and from Didion it is the only thing I expected, or wanted.