The Two-Family House by Lynda Cohen Loigman

For someone whose stomach bunches into knots when someone asks me to keep a secret and who can't tell a lie, books that have secrets and lies as their primary plot focus always draw me in. It must be the opposites attract theory. 

The two families in the house are the curmudgeonly Mort, his increasingly distant wife, Rose, and their three daughters who live on the ground floor. Mort's older brother, easygoing Abe, and his loving wife, Helen, and their four boys all live on the top floor of the house. Mort and Abe, though opposite in personality, work together at a cardboard box-manufacturing company that they inherited from their father. Rose and Helen are housewives and best friends, so supportive of each other and their lives are so entwined, their living arrangement at first seems ideal. They're constantly in and out of each other's apartments and they share a very special bond. They even find themselves pregnant at the same time and while we, the readers, are privy to all of the secrets that hang in the air, there's enough drama as the story unfolds to keep it fresh and interesting. Rather than waiting to discover the secrets ourselves, we're waiting for the characters to find them out. 

The book is easily readable and well-paced, as each chapter is only two or three pages long. The chapters are mainly told from the alternating perspectives of Mort, Rose, Abe and Helen, but there are also some sprinkled in from Judith (Mort and Rose's eldest daughter) and Natalie (the youngest girl) that provide different contexts and engaging insights that add further dimension to both the characters and storyline. 

The characters are richly developed and watching them grow and evolve over the course of the twenty-three years this novel covers was intriguing. The author has a superb grip on character development and both the bigger and more subtle ways they transform are paced perfectly, making near-unbelievable circumstances seem entirely believable. The thought processes, reactions, responses and unique personality traits of each family member remained true to character at all times which only increased my empathy for them.

This novel covers the enormous range of drama all families have to deal with: everyday chaos and quiet moments, love and loss, complex family dynamics, secrets and lies and, perhaps most importantly of all, forgiveness. While I still can't fathom keeping such major life-altering secrets myself, it definitely made for a really compelling read. Highly recommend.

Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh

For those of us who have never lived in them, we all have our own idea of what inner-city projects are like. We also hold personal theories as to why their residents landed there in the first place and why they can't - or don't - choose to leave. There are so many factors piled on top of one another that create such a result: economic class, race, luck, mental health, personal circumstances, physical health, gang relations, and family ties are just a few of them.

Gang Leader for a Day focuses on the Robert Taylor Projects at the very tail end of the 1980s and throughout the 1990s. Located on the South Side of Chicago, Robert Taylor was an absolutely massive housing complex. It was initially built for about 11,000 residents; however, with multiple members living in each apartment, as well as squatters, stairwell-dwellers, and all manner of illegal and unofficial tenants, the number of people who actually resided there was enormous and pushed these high-rises beyond their capacity for reliable, safe accommodation. The tenants and visitors within these buildings were as diverse as their circumstances. They were rival gang members, drug addicts, prostitutes, young children, volunteers, tenant patrols, cops (both good and crooked), and sweet grandmas.

One person who stood out among all of the rest was Sudhir Venkatesh. Although he didn't live at Robert Taylor, he spent time there on a near-daily basis for almost a decade. A sociology student at the University of Chicago, he noted that as a new student, at every orientation he attended the students were told not to go alone beyond certain perimeters of the university that weren't patrolled by the university police as they were deemed unsafe. Sudhir's curiosity only increased as he familiarized himself with the city, and he soon felt compelled to explore these "unsafe" areas to see what he could find out firsthand. He was particularly interested in studying the poor black areas around the university, so he took this on as the basis of his academic research. Rather than asking survey questions and then breaking down the data using quantitative and statistical techniques safely behind a desk, he immersed himself in this alternate life instead using another method called "ethnography", or the studying of life by direct observation.

After a bit of an uncertain and shaky start, one of the first people he met and quickly ended up befriending was J.T., the leader of one of the most prominent gangs in Chicago at the time. This unlikely friendship and the book that resulted from it provides us with a real insider's viewpoint of life in the projects that's utterly fascinating. Okay, let's back it up for a second, though, and preface the need for any personal stances to be taken with a grain of salt. To clarify, I would say that the wide angle view (the general observation) of life in the projects was a reality check for me, as life within these dark, imposing building comprised much more depth than the stereotypes that initially came to mind, though the close-ups (the viewpoints and stories told by the residents and visitors) were often self-serving and not necessarily 100% believable, depending on the context and the storyteller. Remember here that Sudhir was the one on the receiving end of these stories, and oftentimes the narrators were involved in illegal activities or sometimes his interest was simply pumping up their egos, so the truth would often lie somewhere a few notches below the bravado. The juxtaposition between Sudhir, a middle-class privileged university student of Southeast Asian descent, and J.T., a lifer of the projects who was working his way higher through the ranks within his already powerful gang was captivating. J.T. was street-smart, caring, tough, egotistical, helpful, and community-minded. Sudhir was naive (stupendously so at times), mild-mannered, personable, and adaptable.

For me personally, one of the most surprising and revealing aspects was the comportment of the gang members, the tenant patrols and the police and the independent hierarchical structure that formed out of sheer need. The gang members weren't just focused on drug sales and weapons and drive-bys. While the source of their cash wasn't generally above board, there were some extremely altruistic members that really did give a lot back to their community - especially to the children - perhaps not via the usual routes; however, when you realize just how marginalized they've been by the government, the wider community and the housing authorities, no one is looking out for them but themselves. They become bargainers, mediators, and leaders within their home base. What else can you do when services such as ambulances simply don't show up when you call them from a certain part of town? What other choices do you have when housing authorities don't have the means to help everyone who needs it? These dire circumstances force all sorts strategies that the gang members, tenant patrols and cops utilized to cobble together their own solutions to the unique challenges of life in the projects. On the flip side was one of the tenant patrols, Ms. Bailey, whose job was generally focused on making sure the elderly tenants were doing okay. She also liaised with the Chicago Housing Authority, but she ended up taking bribes and giving preference to certain tenants over others to both feed her ego and play off both sides of her go-between position. The police were another story altogether. Sudhir couldn't figure out why the residents wouldn't just call the cops when crimes such as brutal assaults took place. There was one reliable, kind cop who was a former resident of the Robert Taylor projects who was often called to mediate, as he had a unique understanding of life there and therefore held respect, but others who viewed the residents with disdain and hatred and were so obviously racist and corrupt, it was soon obvious why they were never called to come in and sort out emergency situations.

The longer Sudhir spent integrating himself into everyday life at Robert Taylor, his focus and loyalties began to morph and spread and his naiveté started to get him tangled up. This came in a few forms: from the beginning, J.T. was under the somewhat misleading impression that Sudhir was there to write a biography about him. Furthermore, although his professors were aware of his research undertaking, Sudhir didn't disclose to them just how far he'd incorporated himself into the gang members' everyday life. Through sheer innocent ignorance, at one point he was seen as being both on the gang's side from the cops' perspective and the cops' side from the gang's perspective. This prompted some of the tenants that had always been open with him to begin to feel distrustful. He learned it was impossible to play both sides and keep everyone on an even keel. But because he'd immersed himself so deeply within the complex and its residents, he found it hard to step away and keep everyone happy and ensure his safety.

After many years, eventually his research came to a close, as did this book. If there's one thing you probably wouldn't expect from a book about life in one of the poorest, most ignored projects in Chicago, it's a fairy tale ending, though you never know...I won't ruin anything here by letting you find that out for yourself. Regardless, the level of commitment Sudhir took on with his research and the openness of these particular projects residents leaves us with an absolutely unique, intimate view of a way of life many of us, thankfully, don't have to contend with. We can be nothing but richer in understanding and more compassionate of one another as human beings if we take our blinders off, throw our preconceptions aside and truly find out how others live.

Nasty Galaxy by Sophia Amoruso

This is a gorgeous coffee table book for lovers of vintage, the Nasty Gal brand, and the woman who founded it, girlboss Sophia Amoruso, or as she calls it "a deep dive into my brain and my home." And holygoodnessofgreathomes, what an amazing home it is. The fact that her bedroom was inspired by a pair of vintage suede shorts...ah! What I would give to see her closet that was once an entire bedroom in person...

Nasty Galaxy has got a tongue-in-cheek, flirty fun edginess. Each section is inspired by a particular album and contains profiles of women with unique personal style in the fields of art, music, fashion and movies. These are the kind of cool girls who other girls want to be. That is, until I came upon an awesome quote by Exene Cervenka proclaiming: "I would not want anyone to try to look like me. My whole point is that I look like myself and you should look like yourself. That's my whole goal in life: to be a freethinker and to help people learn that skill, which we all have innately inside of us. You can only be you. You can't really be someone else." Yes! As someone who's constantly trying to feel comfortable in my own skin, this is perfection. 

Profiles of various girlbosses offer insight and advice to entrepreneurs from innovative females in their fields, wacky how-to's (often involving TMI and quirky diagrams) and an author who's equally skilled at showcasing her brand, championing fellow feminists, and showcasing her insecurities and inner thoughts all combine to make this a fun book to stare at for a few hours. 

It's a little disheartening to have to point out that the same year this book was brought to life by such a famous trailblazer, Sophia Amoruso's company, Nasty Gal, filed for bankruptcy. This can't help but bring into question some of the narrative and the happy-go-lucky veneer, but if you take the book itself at face value, it's still filled to the brim with great advice, lush editorial pictures and drool-worthy vintage style inspiration.

You'll just need to find a coffee table with as much aesthetic appeal as the book on which to display it and you'll be right up there killing it.

The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner

This book has all of the elements that make up an engaging read for me: prison life, innocence versus guilt, people living on the edge of darkness all while trying to make sense of a life and circumstances that seem bigger than they are.

The Mars Room focuses primarily on Romy, a former stripper, now a prisoner serving back-to-back life sentences. A single mother-turned-inmate, her main concern is for her young son, Jackson, and his fate now that hers is sealed. It's tearing her up that she can't ensure his safety now that her rights to him have been involuntarily surrendered.

There is a great cast of characters within these pages, but somehow it all feels a bit too familiar - I just couldn't help mentally substituting the cast of Orange is the New Black the entire time for the characters of The Mars Room. They're all there - the corrupt and skeezy guards, the inmates - some just quietly biding their time, others hardened and staking their claim to anything and anyone they can, the transgender inmate who needs to be kept safe, the older eccentric, the hateful skinheads, the tough butch lesbians, the mentally ill delusional, the newbie prison teacher who's trying not to be swayed by the cunning females who have nothing to lose. The unique self-declared hierarchy of incarceration, the prison hooch, smuggling and commissary product innovation, the cliques, the racism - it all runs throughout the novel. Stanville Women’s Correctional Facility could easily be replaced with Litchfield Penitentiary and if you've watched the series, you might, like me, evoke the images of many of the televised inmates for the ones in this book.

Much of the novel is centered around the day-to-day disruption and frustration of life behind bars and those who make up the system. Life on the outside is generally portrayed via memories and flashbacks. It's a very character-based story and while I found the first half a little slow going, almost to the point of lagging, as the characters' back stories are gradually revealed, they gain added dimension and sympathy (or apathy), depending on their circumstances. The very end is where it all starts to gain speed, so I would recommend sticking with it, as the pace doubles up and soars you into the final remaining pages.

And Now We Have Everything: On Motherhood Before I Was Ready by Meaghan O'Connell

There are certain periods in life I would not want to travel back to and one of them is early motherhood. It's amazing the difference between the perceived version (the loving mother tenderly gazing at her newborn child, the child cooing back) and the everyday, well, monotony - desperation for time alone, hating breastfeeding, feeling like a lump and no longer recognizing your own body, the crying (the baby, yourself), the constant attachment. Is it obvious by this point that I too suffered from severe post-partum depression? This is why I praise Meaghan O'Connell's brutally honest look at the everyday side of new motherhood and all of its complexities - the side so many people hide, whether intentionally or not. There is enough of the fluffy romanticized side out there; it needs to be balanced with a dose of reality. No wonder so many of us are thrown into a tailspin when our actuality doesn't match the versions we've imagined. This book nails down the fact that everyone has a unique experience - some mothers love parts that others despise, some women love pregnancy while others can't wait to get the baby out, and even though there are billions of people on earth, every birth story somehow manages to be one-of-a-kind. There is a literal tug-of-war battle that rages within a lot of new mothers - that of feeling more in love than ever yet, with equal strength on certain days, wanting to escape. I have to admit that because I personally found the first year so difficult, it was almost hard to relive some of that time via this memoir, but I appreciate the honest account. Anyone considering parenthood should read this book first - not to change your mind or to be scared off or to lose the fantasy altogether, but to get a glimpse of the real parts that can't be ignored because they don't fit the unrealistic idealized versions that we're often presented with. Parenthood is everything all at once: love and sadness and worry and pain and hard times and best times and fear and happiness and every conceivable emotion rolled up into lives that affect one another in ways you just can't anticipate until you're actually living within your own unique version of it. Meghan O'Connell conveyed this whirlwind of chaos perfectly within her memoir without guilt or apology.

Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein

While I've listened to some Sleater-Kinney and enjoyed it, it's not a band I'm terribly familiar with, but generally musician autobiographies are a good read. They can generally be relied on to be filled with a questionable amount of drinking and/or drugs, questionable groupies, and general debauchery. Oftentimes a case of life being crazier than fiction and at the conclusion, wondering how these stars lived through it all to tell their tales. 

I consider this the antithesis of the typical rock memoir. Carrie Brownstein's retelling of life on the road is a cerebral one. It's introspective and self-reflective. It's not always pretty, but it certainly is punk. It begins with a tumultous childhood - both of her parents had their own very major personal struggles and therefore weren't really there for Carrie. Her youth was one of an outsider looking in, whether it was in her aesthetic, her personality or her insecurities. As she found her place in music, it was always on the periphery - but this was a conscious choice. It was a middle finger to the mainstream with raw sound and lyrics and noise reflecting her inner turmoil. It was never meant to be pretty. The beauty was found in the ripped edges, the scars of life and the jagged relationships.

Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl proved to me that a music memoir doesn't need to have all of the excess and indulgence typically associated with life on the road to make a captivating read. Once in a while, a regular person rises to the top and becomes a headliner, not because of a life fueled by gluttony but because they're propelled by simple pure hunger.

The Night of the Gun by David Carr

Ask me what my favourite type of memoir is and, without hesitation, I would say addiction memoirs. Food, drugs, alcohol, sex...I find addicts' lives so compelling to read about...aching alongside the author as their inner turmoil competes with their day-to-day living, witnessing the cobbling together of a ghost of a life while chasing their high. I feel the need to point out that it's not simple voyeurism. These types of stories bring my empathy to the forefront as they underline the fragility of life which isn't an easy navigation for all of us. Equally riveting is trying to figure it all out - why some addicts relentlessly pursue their obsession while continuing to be failed by it while others manage to triumph over their singular fixation and go on to create a full life worth living after making it through to the other side.

This particular book of memories kicks off with a question of fact between the author, David Carr, and his friend, Donald. Twenty years prior, David had lost his job and was contemplating life while getting drunk and high. The two friends got into a minor argument after being kicked out of a bar and decided to part ways for the evening. Not long afterwards, David went over to Donald's house to talk things out and was warned not to - Donald said he would be waiting for him with a gun. David, high and defiant, was not deterred. When he arrived at his friend's house, Donald was kind enough to warn David that he should leave, telling him the cops were on their way over. Fast forward twenty years. The incident was tucked away well into the past. The two friends were reminiscing and laughing about the crazy old days, including the night of the gun. Donald claimed everything happened as David was retelling it. Everything except the gun. 

And that's exactly what sets apart this memoir of cocaine/crack/alcohol abuse from the mountain of others in this genre. David simply couldn't believe that he was in possession of - let alone threatening his friend while holding - a gun. It was removed from anything he could fathom from his vantage point in the future. Yet, it was the turning point for questioning every major moment of importance in his life that happened while he was under the influence. He realized he couldn't trust his addicted/blacked out/unreliable memory to tell his own life's story. I believe his career in journalism was the impetus for making sure he presented the correct facts about his life - whether he could believe them or not. While attempting to piece together years of his life to tell his story, he conducted sixty interviews over three years. He compiled audio and video interviews, medical and legal documents and reports in order to reconstruct his story. The current always runs underneath the surface, reminding us just how precarious our own memories (drug-addled or completely sober) can be. What do we really remember and what have we cobbled together into stories we believe are true but may only have thin threads of truth binding them to what objectively took place?

Many of these interviews were humbling. The strength and bravery it would have taken the author to track down and interview previous bosses, old friends and foes, an embittered ex-wife, and his now grownup daughters is a substantial exercise in personal humility. Even when he was fairly certain that a situation had gone one way only to discover that it couldn't have been the case - that he'd screwed people over/that he'd been an idiot/an abuser/a bumbling fool/that he put himself and his all-encompassing addictions before and above everything else - he refused to twist a story to make himself look better. He faced it, he admitted it and he laid out the truth on the page. In instances when it wasn't clear from either his own memory or his primary resource where the truth lay, he hired an investigator to do further digging to try to obtain documentation and proof. He would not compromise his storytelling by blurring the facts.

Another part of David's story that made this a unique addiction memoir was that this crack-addicted father ended up with sole custody of his young twin girls. (It has to be noted here that their mother was also addicted to crack.) David certainly had the playing hard part down pat, but he also managed to work hard and raise his two girls with some degree of normalcy and lots of love. They were the unexpected joy of his life and I truly believe their presence in his life in part helped save him. Despite facing seemingly insurmountable circumstances, I couldn't help but want a happy ending for this man and those around him. To see him chase after the truth in the present day as hard as he chased after his highs in his past was an epic demonstration of his inner character. To me, he was a survivor and a success. By having such an open mind and a desire to tell his real story, he was truly granted the serenity to accept the things he couldn't change, the courage to change the things he could and the wisdom to know the difference.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie

This semi-autobiographic work of fiction tells the story of Junior, an awkward teenager, who lives on a reservation. He was born with water on the brain, he has a lisp, a stutter, and his head is too big for his body. His father's an alcoholic. His temperamental best friend wants to beat him up. In a move he envisions will improve his chances in life, he transfers schools from the rez school in his community to an all-white high school twenty-two miles away from home. Sometimes the car runs out of gas on his way there, sometimes he hitchhikes. On really bad days, he walks. This boy is determined.

It's a snapshot of a year in the life that's full of change for Junior, his friends and his family. He tries to maintain a balance between his home life on the rez and his seemingly more privileged school life. Like almost every teenager, he just wants a smooth ride and to fit in.

This is not a book that dodges and weaves around serious issues; in fact, it confronts them head-on while in its own unique way manages to make them light and relatable and funny. How can a book about alcoholism, class, race, sex (and other topics that would ruin the plot if I were to reveal them) make the reader laugh? That's exactly what makes this book stand out. Humorous illustrations sprinkled throughout by artist Ellen Forney enhance the narrative by adding a visual perspective to the tale.

Ultimately, this is a book that breaks down barriers and reveals new perspectives about stereotypes on both sides of the tracks. It's about the risk of making assumptions. And it also proves that sometimes life is so full of seriousness, the best way to deal with it all is to have a good laugh.