Scarborough by Catherine Hernandez

It's always interesting reading a book that's set in an area that's familiar. While this isn't exactly the case in that I'm only aware of Scarborough by name and knowing it's located fairly close to where I grew up, it felt fitting that I read the back half of this book while on a train heading to Toronto. Gazing intermittently through the window at the passing landscape, much of which was marked with graffiti, felt appropriately fitting if one were to pair a view with a book. The neighborhood of Scarborough is the setting of this book, more specifically the most rundown, inner city area of Scarborough. We are shown this city mainly through the eyes of three families who live there, as well as some peripheral characters whose presence reinforces the economic, social and diverse climates that are in constant tension. The characters we meet are struggling in every way possible. They're living in low-income housing or shelters, fleeing abusive relationships and/or drug abuse. They're culturally diverse families who are tied together not only in their poverty-level status, but more positively through the Ontario Reads Literacy Program, a community centre located within the children's elementary school. This centre plays a large part in the book, as does its new Program Facilitator, Hina, an eager woman who clearly cares deeply about the families who come to the program. Though for doing so she often receives passive-aggressive disapproval from her supervisor, Hina follows her heart and provides a warm, welcoming place for the kids and their parents to obtain resources, much-needed food and anything else they need - basic help that many of us take for granted. While there wasn't necessarily a grand storyline per se, there were definitely common threads and intertwined characters that formed a cohesive unit. The book felt like more of a snapshot: a year in the life of each of these struggling families, the different depictions provided to us via the personal experiences of the young school kids and their parents. We meet Laura and her former skinhead father, Cory, who has a lot of anger issues and residual opinions from his youth. Sylvie, a Native girl, is the sister of a Johnny who has special needs. She lives in a shelter with her parents who are trying to cope with an accident that left her father paralyzed. Sylvie is also friends with Bing, a flamboyant Vietnamese boy who is happily supported by his hardworking mother Edna. Hunger is a central theme of this book. Not only physical hunger - though literal hunger is certainly persistent throughout the novel - but hunger to be seen as a person and not just a cultural stereotype, hunger for proper healthcare and decent housing. Hunger for a better life. The book demonstrates that no matter our circumstances, we're not all that different from each other if only we show a little empathy. Kids will be kids: they are, for the most part, understanding, forgiving and resilient. And parents, despite their income, their pasts, no matter how the outside world perceives them are, for the most part, trying their best with what they've got to provide the best for their children. Shortly after finishing this book, I pulled into the Toronto train station. Did it make me want to stop in Scarborough to see it for myself? To be honest, no. But did it make me contemplative and grateful for my mostly easygoing childhood and sympathetic to those not as fortunate? Absolutely. And, as a parent, it reinforced that if we were all a little more empathetic, understanding and a lot less quick to judge, we're all really a lot more similar than we might appear at first glance.

My Struggle #4: Dancing in the Dark by Karl Ove Knausgaard

The back of this book asks, "Why would you read a six-volume, 3,600-page Norwegian novel about a man writing a six-volume, 3,600-page Norwegian novel?" and my answer is because I can't NOT read it. Because it feels like Karl Ove Knausgaard is speaking directly to me. Because out of these 3,600 pages, not one of them is sugarcoated, sterilized or bent into a form that makes the author appear anything other than what he is: complicated, self-deprecating, conceited, embarrassed, talented, anxious, fallible. This series is an x-ray of a human life: it's unedited, bare, and unfiltered. It shows us that life is messy. That life is hard. That some days we achieve the highest of highs and we're soaring and some days we faceplant.

This book makes the carefree nostalgia of youth come alive and brought me straight back to similar escapades I was enjoying at the same age. At the same time, it reminds us that life is a series of conundrums, and that the teenage/early adult years are really nothing close to carefree. That at the age of eighteen, every thought we have about love, career prospects, freedom, and how we're perceived by others is thought out, replayed, examined and pored over on an infinitely looping, exhausting mental reel. Karl Ove's eighteenth year is pretty typical in this way. It's steeped in hormones, blackouts, first jobs, friends and parties. And girls. Lots and lots of girls.

Although we are essentially following a placeholder year in the author's life when he's moved away from home for the first time to a small town, Halfjord in Northern Norway, teaching for a year while saving money to travel and become a writer, we spend a considerable time (as in the previous books in the series) detouring down memory lane, immersed in several adventures from his youth before drawing us back via the scenic route to complete the circle.

In Dancing in the Dark, we see a revolving cast of characters come in and out of Karl Ove's life. Once again, we are in the shadow of a dark, distrustful and increasingly distant father who is losing himself in alcohol. We cling to an older brother who is a support system and an everyday hero to his younger brother. We witness a cherished mother who is scraping by in a newly single life, sturdy but weary. We hang out with fellow teachers, we meet nosy neighbours and self-assured students. But the main attraction is the girls. They are the brightest stars of the peep show of Karl Ove's life here. Older women, younger schoolgirls, fellow teachers, lusted-after friends, one-night stands, unrequited love, girls who want him, girls who don't...Karl Ove seems drawn to nearly every single one of them. He is absolutely girl crazy, with a near-obsessive focus on losing his virginity. Once again, through his unique lens, each moment of his self-loathing, his conceit, and his experience is uncomfortably palpable. He brings us along for every starkly awkward conversation and fumbling encounter. Whenever failure presents itself, whenever Karl Ove wakes up with only shards of embarrassing memories to puzzle over, whenever he's rebuked or rejected, we hold hands and leap with him straight down his ever-present shame spiral. His words are mirrors reflecting back the same complicated feelings we've all experienced ourselves at some point. 

The backdrop of much of this book is the misty, dark winter of Northern Norway which, in a book where perfection is nowhere to be seen, actually reflects the author in such a perfect way. The twenty-four-hour winter darkness mirrors Karl Ove's blackouts. The hanging thick mist, his hangovers. The rushing water, his pulsing, racing heart. The dark, rough edges, the boys; the quiet beauty, the girls. The village of Halfjord is so tiny that whenever Karl Ove leaves his house, it's as if the eyes of the entire village are upon him. We, the readers, are drawn in so close to his world that we feel like one of the neighbours. Karl Ove is the magnet and we are the iron filings that are swept up by him as he walks past us on each page drawing us deeper into his stories and his psyche.

Karl Ove's world is all-encompassing. His life's story is compelling, truthful and laid bare for the world to see. It's honest writing at its purest. It's about the extraordinariness of ordinary life and trying to figure out what it all means. His books are about real moments, human elements, fumbling, tears, laughter, life. Karl Ove is unique unto himself, but at the same time, he is all of us. He's just brave and unfiltered enough to lay it all down on the page.

Attempting Normal by Marc Maron

This is a review written specifically for those non-readers out there. You know, the type who say they don't read because "books are boring", because "reading's for nerds" or that "books are dumb. Now pass the joint." Granted, this might not be the type of person who would be likely to read a book review, but there you go.

A young reader who has only encountered chaste, morally grounded fables (often mandated by a staid school curriculum or a humdrum relative) is completely unaware of what's to come once they stumble into the land of the adult section of the bookstore or local library. What this reader doesn't know is that there will come a time in their life when the available book options suddenly open up without warning and become exciting and eye-opening. They have yet to discover that a book can cause a visible blush or an audible gasp. They don't know have a clue what's really over there on the other side of the secret garden wall or down the rabbit hole. They don't know that you can pick up what appears to be a normal looking book, you'll be skimming along as usual and then BAM! Something pornographic or titillating or perverse slams you upside the eyeballs and you realize at that exact moment that you'll never be able to judge a book by its cover ever again. Maybe it's a swear word or a sex scene or a drug-fueled rager or all of the above and you think to yourself, oh boy, things just got really interesting up in here. It's as if you go from fairy tales skipping merrily along towards a syrupy ending to real life adulthood smeared across the page (perhaps also involving syrup), laid bare for everyone to see. If you yourself are a younger curious reader wondering where to find these books, it's simple. All you have to do is grab the most whispered-about book at your school and turn to the most dogeared page. It's the one where the words are smudged into the paper where they've been ground down by countless grubby index fingers. Or place the book on a flat surface and see where the worn, cracked spine naturally opens to. There may even be underlining or highlighting indicating the most salacious passages...and you're off.

Welcome to the place of no return.

If you give up on reading when you're young and still in the chaste, morally grounded fable stage, you have no idea that there might be some really twisted words hiding beneath these innocuous looking book covers. One of these books is Attempting Normal by Marc Maron. A glance at the hardcover version shows a nonplussed uncle type with a cute cat on his shoulder. "Aw," you think, "what a cute cat! I love cats!"

I can just picture some bored teenager being forced to read "something" by "someone" and just heading to the humor section and picking up this book because they think a book written by a comedian might at least give them a couple of laughs. Man, is that kid in for an education. I even learned a few things myself. For instance, pole dancers have to wipe down their own pole and mirrors. Huh. Does this happen at every strip club? I mean, I just assumed someone else would do that. (Though, come to think of it, I've never yet met someone who's answered "pole and mirror custodian" when I've asked what they do for a living). Also: porn. Though some might argue it could offer some teachable moments to the uninitiated, it's apparently not the best inspiration for a seventeen-year-old attempting to lose his virginity. The author uses some very solid reasoning on this one. Perhaps the most random fact I learned is that when walking below bridges, if you look up, you might see the presence of blowup dolls' legs. Now, I've seen a dirty dude reading a pile of porn mags under a bridge before but I never thought to look up. I will now.

Are you intrigued?

The thing is, if you want to know more, you'll actually have to READ THE BOOK! Ha! See what I did there? But I bet I at least piqued a small amount of interest in a non-reader that might compel them to pick up a book of their own free will. They'll be all, "Hold up. Did she just make references to strippers, porn and blowup dolls in a book?" Yes. Yes, I did. There are also road tripping tales about tripping comedians, a couple of not-very-fancy prostitutes and a cat named LaFonda. And you don't have to go into some back room with a fake ID, behind some dark curtain into a place of sleaze and pervs to find this stuff - nope, they're right out in the open on regular ordinary bookshelves in warmly lit, welcoming, family-friendly public spaces.

Think reading is boring now?

And, just for sake of an even debate, this book isn't exclusively a good 200+ pages of salacious smut. The raw scenarios are tempered with keen revelations of insight, honesty and self-reckoning whose presence among all of the shock waves appear just as astonishing. Because this, after all, is what comedians do better than the rest of us. They poke fun at themselves and instead of crying, they fight back with laughter at this crazy, fucked-up, embarrassing thing we call life. I've often wondered if there are any truly happy comedians, a fact that Marc himself touches on in the final chapter when he says to a room full of fellow comics, "I love comedians. I respect anyone who goes all in to do what I consider a noble profession and art form. Despite whatever drives us toward this profession - insecurity, need for attention, megalomania, poor parenting, anger, a mixture of all the above - whatever it is, we comics are out there on the front lines of our sanity."

Well said. If only someone would just write about it all, now that would make a crazy great book... ;)

Cut Me Loose by Leah Vincent

When your basement is flooding and you have to Shop-Vac the rising waters but you just have thirty pages left to read and you realize that finding out how this book ends is far more imperative than saving possessions in boxes, you know you have a five-star book on your hands. 

This memoir embodied exactly what I love most about the genre: discovering someone's culture or way of life that's a million miles away from my own experience, especially with regards to family dynamics. And, like a flood itself, Leah's account was messy, it built, it surged, it raged, retreated, and it cleansed.

Leah Vincent's parents abruptly disowned her when they discovered letters written between her and a friend's brother during a period in her life when she was away living with relatives. To a person not born into an ultra-Orthodox Yeshivish family such as Leah's, the context of these letters can be seen for what they appeared to be: simple curiosity between friends. The fact that such secrecy (letters left under door mats versus platonic friendly conversations) was even imperative in the first place speaks volumes about just how restrictive the rules were. Outside of this confining religion, her teenage crush on this boy can be taken at face value, but to her parents, a strictly observant mother and a Rabbi father, she was guilty of nothing less than ultimate sin. But, no, that's not quite enough: not only was it a sin in their eyes, but an outright disregard for their teachings and one that would bring a cloak of embarrassment, shame and even devaluation of her younger siblings' future potential for good marriage matches, that we learn, along with child-bearing and rearing, are the pinnacle of life for a Yeshivish woman.

Upon being outcast from her family, as she moved through late adolescence into early adulthood, every new and foreign experience forced Leah to question and confront monumental matters: her religious upbringing, her body, her sexuality, her family, her self-assuredness and, not least, her ambition. Forced into independence without a compass nor a safe place to land, as she navigated different schools, cities, various relationships and independent living there were so many anomalies and varying influences in her life, I was left wondering (and hoping) through all of the dramatic ups and downs if she would ultimately find what would truly make her life worth living.

Her young life was already such a heart wrenching series of paradoxes: should she turn towards or away from her religion? Would she remain shy and secretive or find her voice? Would she finally cross paths with the right people who would give her the basic human rights she palpably chased after: feeling valued, respected and loved?

As a reader, her moments of pain pierced my heart, her moments of shame left me wanting to reach through the pages to offer her comfort, and her triumphs and fighting spirit had me cheering her on. I wanted nothing less than a happy outcome for her. If anyone deserved one, Leah Vincent certainly did and if anyone could make it happen, it was no one but her on her terms alone.

Feel Free by Zadie Smith

Nicely bookended with what turned out to be my favourite essays, "Northwest London Blues" and "Joy" (my absolute favourite of the bunch), the majority of the rest of them - though it absolutely pains me to say it - in my opinion, were just very...meh. I know, I know, I'm cringing at myself just for typing that. Again, let me stress that this is just my personal opinion.

Such is the challenge of books of essays - to the reader, some will stick to the ceiling while others will stick to the floor. While I liked how the essays were categorically grouped, I was either not engaged with many of them because I didn't know anything about the subjects that she was writing about, I didn't grasp many of her references, and/or the subject matter simply didn't hold much personal interest for me (such as most of the content of "In the Gallery" and, surprisingly, some of the pop culture pieces, which were the ones I thought I'd most identify with, barring Jay-Z. More Jay-Z, please!).

While no one can dispute the quality of Zadie Smith's writing, it was so highbrow that much of it seemed out of my reach. (Again, cringing that I'm writing this.) To dumb it down, a lot of the writing made me feel, well, dumb. (Common? Uneducated? Not worldly enough?) While I could clearly see there was much to be taken away from the subject matter and Zadie's input and observations, I just wasn't getting many of the references of either the subjects or the contexts that she lay out on the pages. Even so, some of the pieces meandered on for so long, I started to lose interest and felt that if they were half their length, I could have possibly been more invested and a spark of interest may have ignited.

That said, she's still one of the most intriguing writers out there and I love her fiction writing, though I clearly need to do some extensive catch-up on the matters of the world before tackling more of her non-fiction pieces.

Wisdom in Nonsense by Heather O'Neill

As a self-proclaimed Heather O'Neill fangirl, I am excited beyond belief when I find out about this book. Whenever I've heard her speak about her childhood - and her father in particular - I've always wanted to know more. Once you've heard even the tiniest details about her upbringing, it makes complete sense that she became a writer. Her childhood was literally a book waiting to be told. 

With the long-awaited book finally in my hands, I want to jump right in - but first I have to take a quick moment of silence and appreciate the cover. Fantastic yet again. Amen.

Cover art inhaled, admired and traced lovingly with an index finger, I can't wait to tear into the meat. The words. The world of Heather O'Neill. Deep breath. I dive in...

Heather's words explode onto the page, fly through my eye sockets, and course straight to wherever the best drugs release their chemical fireworks in the brain. Each phrase is a reliable heavy dose of dopamine, full of anticipation, pleasure and reward. They travel through my system, releasing endorphins and seratonin along the way and before I know it, I'm grinning like an idiot. The pages practically turn themselves.

"The Wisdom of Nonsense" is comprised of various life lessons relayed to her from her single father. It's not typical fatherly advice though - unless your old man's the type who encourages you to play the tuba to ensure job security, the kind who wants you to think that crime pays, or who tries to convince you that Paul Newman stole his life. He's the kind of spry father found in fairy tales, in fantastical storybooks...he's the stuff of legend. When I think about it, he's exactly the type of father figure you'd find in a Heather O'Neill novel. Yet he was real.

Though his life lessons might sound initially seem ludicrous on the surface, knowing him intimately only as a daughter can, the author distills his crazy absinthe whorls of advice down to their true essence, deciphering them into what turns out to be some pretty rock solid guidance, which apparently wasn't so preposterous after all. It turns out, he was a mixologist of words and Heather was a connoisseur. In the end, whatever he was offering up clearly worked. His seemingly discordant thoughts swilled around, settled in and spat out an independent, confidently rebellious rock star author of a daughter.

Through each of these tales, via Heather's interpretations, we discover a father who was a co-conspirator, a criminally funny criminal and, yes, "an asshole" (her own words). And, for that, I thank both of them, really, for creating another piece of genius.

So, yes, here I am giving another Heather O'Neill book five stars. She really can do no wrong. If anything, I am left wanting more and wish this was more of a full-length book but, then again, isn't that the greatest feat an author can achieve - leaving the reader wanting more?

Mission accomplished. I can't wait to see what she comes up with next.

For a grieving friend

When your heart feels as fragile as a shell

As though at any moment it might crack

Leave it with me for a while

I will hold it carefully in my palms

Taking comfort in the rhythm

As you lay your head on your pillow

And close your eyes and rest

* * *

When your head just can't take any more

Remember to breathe

In with the good

Out with the bad

In through your nose

Out through your mouth

In and out

In and out

In and out

Over and over

Until the calm comes to soothe you

It may take a lot of breath

But you will get there

* * *

When you feel unbearably sad

And in over your head

Share your tears with me

So that you can remember 

You are taken care of

Only one thing is expected from you:

That you feel loved

* * *

When the weight of the world

Is too much for your shoulders to bear

I will take the world from you

And remind you

That no one should have to carry that weight alone

It's okay

I have strong shoulders too

* * *

When you are simply too tired to cook a meal

Or to clean your house

Or to buy food to feed yourself

Or anything else at all, big or small

I will bring you food

I will clean your house

I will buy you groceries

I will do anything you need

Anything at all

* * *

When you feel weak

And have no more left to give

Remember that deep down you are strong

But that doesn't mean that you have to be right now

It's okay to soak your aching bones

To tend to your hurting heart

To cry so much you run out of tears

In time you will feel restored

But for now it's okay to give in

It's not the same as giving up

* * *

Take time to grieve

Take time for yourself

But never forget that whenever you need to talk

Or you need a hug

Or a coffee

Or just reassurance that the world isn't in fact crumbling

Know that I am here for you

My friend

There is distance between us

But there really is no distance at all