THESE DAYS ARE OURS: FIRST THOUGHTS

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This is Michelle Haimoff's first novel. Michelle is a freelance writer, a co-author of this blog, and a founding member of Women's Lit Book Club.

I am grateful to be one of the first people to read and write about this book. Michelle says in the Reader's Guide that it took her ten years to write. I believe people will be talking about this book for much longer than that.

The book follows Hailey, a 22-year old woman living in Manhattan just after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. She and her friends are born members of the upper middle class. Hailey is the product of exclusive private schools and expensive universities. But her family's money does not protect her from trauma. Her parents are divorced. She and her friends are aimless, drifting from one party to another, seemingly unable to commit to a job or relationship. And then there are the attacks- reminders to all Americans that they are never safe, that the next tragedy could be just around the corner.

The mood, when the book opens, is of a group of people biding their time, caught between their school years and adult responsibility. They spend much of their lives trying to hide their fear of another attack. Just as palpable is their fear of growing up. Hailey seems to have it all together, but on the inside she is insecure. She tortures herself over a boy who might or might not commit to her. Hailey's internal monologue ties all the characters, settings, and conflicts together. She is not an unreliable narrator; we can rely on her to be indecisive.

Hailey is self-obsessed, filled with angst, and usually insincere in how she presents herself. In other words, she is just like any 22-year old from her cultural background. The magic is how Michelle makes Hailey appealing. The reader wants to know more about her, to find out if she ever grew up, to see if there was any closure with the boy. Handled just a little differently, Hailey would have been a caricature of a rich girl. Instead, she is our guide through a world that, after the World Trade Center fell, was in danger of ceasing to exist.

This book is helpful to me because it teaches that privileged people suffer too. Perhaps the nature of their suffering is different from a poor person's suffering. Perhaps, like Hailey, they appear to be happy and well-adjusted. Perhaps their access to money insulates them from certain problems like not having enough to eat, losing their homes, or being victims of endemic violence. But the truth is that nobody gets a free pass through life. Trauma can reach out and strike us all. With this knowledge, and with the understanding that this book's major conflict is appearance vs. reality, I am able to empathize with Hailey instead of judging her.

LIFE LESSONS FROM A SHOPAHOLIC

Warning: Contains Spoilers

So Becky does wind up with Luke Brandon. I accept it; it's called drinking the chick lit Kool-Aid. I accept whatever happens in the works of Sophie Kinsella or any other author of the genre, because to not do so would keep me from taking pleasure in these stories.

I even accept that Becky appears on television once, becomes a local celebrity, and is able to fix her financial woes in a matter of days. And I am glad to see her recovery is not perfect. At the end of the last chapter, she is already ordering expensive, unnecessary designer sunglasses from TV. That kind of behavior is closer to real life. It also sets up the next book. Becky's story wouldn't be any fun if she didn't have an internal conflict.

There are a lot of scenes and passages that stand out in the book, but my favorite is this one, Becky's internal monologue from page 292. She has just come home after moving in with her parents and appearing on Morning Coffee. She greets her roommate, Suze, then finds a pile of collection letters:

"I pick up my letters and bills and begin slowly to leaf through them. Once upon a time, this lot would have sent me into a blind panic. In fact, they would have gone straight into the bin, unread. But you know what? Today I don't feel a flicker of fear. Honestly, how could I have been so silly about my financial affairs?... I'm going to sit down with my checkbook and my latest bank statements, and sort methodically through the whole mess."

After reading that, I realized that I, too, was making silly decisions. I called a certain person in a certain office who I'd been avoiding for at least two weeks. She seemed genuinely pleased to hear from me, but not as pleased as I am to know I am cleaning up an old mess.

So that's the lesson I took away from Confessions of a Shopaholic: Act like an adult, you'll feel better. Have you ever decided to do something because of a book you read? Has fiction helped you grow up? I'd love to hear your story.

VIEW FROM THE (ALMOST) LAST PAGE

Confessions of a Shopaholic.

Sophie Kinsella, 2001.


WARNING: SPOILERS

1. If Becky winds up with Luke Brandon, I will be very disappointed. I will still read Sophie's books, because I am loyal like that, but I won't be happy.

2. Becky's behavior- overspending, telling lies, blowing off work- would keep me from liking her if she weren't so likable. Also, who among us has not done those things at one time or another?

3. Becky's compulsive shopping is an addiction. She uses things to change the way she feels. She describes the shops as magical places, where she can forget about her problems. Her bad habits hurt her and the people she loves. She hits bottom and is ready to give up when she can no longer safely shop, the same way an alcoholic does when the drink stops working. What Becky does is not meant to represent addiction; it is a serious addiction in its own right. Why, then, did the first book attempting to deal with this problem have to be a comedy?

4. It made me happy to see Becky blow her stack at Luke after the luggage incident. Even a shopaholic has limits.

5. When all Becky's charge cards are denied, I feel sad for her even though she is completely at fault in this situation. Of course, I know, this being a chick lit novel, that things will likely work out in the end. Nothing too terrible can happen in a book like this. The heroine can undergo trauma and a painful life change, but she can't die, go to prison, or become insane. It might be one of the genre's limitations, but it is also part of the reason we keep reading these books.

MORE THAN ONE STORY

Never again will a single story be told as though it's the only one.
-John Berger, quoted by Arundhati Roy in The God of Small Things



It is possible for a critic or student to be so enamored with a text, so overwhelmed with its beauty and anger and ways of speaking, that she almost cannot write a meaningful response to it. She feels that nothing she says will do the work justice, that the author's voice has made hers unnecessary.

She accepts her own inadequacy. Yet she wants to share this book with other people, so it can overwhelm them too.

My natural response to learning something new is to teach it. For that reason, I will try to write a meaningful response. But if you have never read The God of Small Things, you have to. I have made it part of my personal canon. Its overall effect may be small, but I will always view the world differently than I did before I read this book. That is why we have literature,and it is the best praise I can give any writer.

The book taught me that it is not enough to say "there are two sides to every story." As the Berger quote and the Adichie video suggest, there is never just one story; we can never sum up all the sides. I can apply this knowledge right now, as an emerging middle school teacher.

Why do some kids flourish in school while others fail? Is it honest to say that all public schools do a good job of preparing kids for college? Should we choose the books our students read, or should they have some say? How much say? Should we even expect all our students to go to college? What are the other options?

These questions frame current teaching methodology. But there are endless questions to ask in any industry, for any vocation. No matter who you are, you can read The God of Small Things and take its lessons into your life. Never accept a single story.

First Twitter Book Club Meeting is January 31

@womensbooksonly and I - @michellehaimoff - are going to discuss Arundhati Roy's "The God of Small Things" on Twitter on January 31st. This will be the first meeting of our monthly book club, which will feature books by women authors only.

Like my Facebook page and write in the comment section if you want to participate in our February book club featuring my book, "These Days Are Ours." The first 20 readers to contact me will get an advanced copy. The book is also available on Amazon. We will discuss the book on February 28, 2012, which is the day that it launches!

If you live in Los Angeles or New York City, I would love to see you at a book event! The list of events can be found on the above mentioned Facebook page.

Can't wait to chat on January 31st!

TWO BOOKS, TWO LOST GIRLS

Snow Apples. By Mary Razzell. Groundwood Books/House of Anansi press, 2006. Young Adult. 209 pages.

True Confessions of a Heartless Girl. By Martha Brooks. Groundwood Books, House of Anansi Press, 2002. Young Adult. 210 pages.

The main characters in both these novels are teenage girls who become pregnant. In Snow Apples, Sheila Brary lives on a remote island, coming of age in the days after World War II. Razzell uses Sheila's voice to tell her story. Sheila doubts herself, resenting her embittered mother while wishing for her wayward father's return home.

Sheila's greatest desire is to escape the domestic life her mother plans for her. Does Sheila's mother resent her own homebound fate, wishing to ensnare her daughter as a form of revenge? Or does she truly believe that marriage, babies, and an end to education are the best things for a young girl? Mrs. Brary's motivations are never quite clear. Life in a small town, with no opportunity to meet new people and hear new ideas, makes her unstable and insular. Mr. Brary's drinking and adultery do not help either.

It is against this straitjacketing of her life that Sheila seems to be rebelling. She challenges her mother's values by pushing for a spot in nursing school. She is stymied when her beloved older brother sides against her after a sexual assault by an older man. She befriends Helga, the town's outcast, who spends her days searching for the drowned bodies of her long-dead family. Sheila also babysits her drunken boyfriend before he impregnates and abandons her.

These experiences make Sheila feel powerless and resentful. They also ultimately help her build her own identity and become independent- as independent as any young woman could be in Canada during the late 1940's.

Noreen Stall, the 17-year-old heroine of Heartless Girl, has far less structure from which to escape. Her religious fanatic mother is little more than a shadow. Her stepfather's physical abuse gives her motivation to run away from home. So does her sister Gladys's marriage; Noreen sees it as a betrayal. Noreen runs first to Wesley, a sweet, gentle construction worker who loves her passionately. They are happy until he catches her in a lie. In an attempt to make things right, she decorates his apartment, stealing money from him to do so.

When Wesley confronts Noreen, she steals his truck and flees to Pembina Lake, a rural community that takes her in. Lynda, the owner of the town's cafe, lets her stay in a spare room. Dolores, the town's matriarch, nearly persuades Noreen to open up about her problems. By the time Noreen needs medical attention for her pregnancy, she has a support system in place.

But Noreen is reluctant to accept help. She has a history of harming others with her behavior. One of her first acts in Pembina Lake is to feed chicken bones to Lynda's 5-year old son's dog. The dog, Tessie, becomes seriously ill when the bones lodge in her intestines. Her life hangs in the balance, Noreen's actions come to light, and for a few chapters the reader wonders- did Noreen make a mistake, or was she trying to kill the dog?

The answer to that question turns out to be a huge theme in Heartless Girl. We are meant to learn some things about redemption, the definition of family, and the nature of choices.

Both Snow Apples and True Confessions of a Heartless Girl chronicle young women's attempts to define themselves, become independent, and establish rewarding relationships. Both authors treat teen pregnancy with empathy and compassion. On the one hand, they resist the easy trap of condemning adolescent sexuality. On the other hand, nothing they have written makes young motherhood seem alluring. In an era where shows like Teen Mom predominate and anxious fathers take their daughters to purity balls, teachers and parents should welcome books like these.

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

for The God Of Small Things

1. Do members of a marginalized culture build their identities differently from members of a dominant culture?

2. Who is the other in this book?

3. Who is the protagonist of this book?

4. When privileged people are exposed to trauma, is it less authentic than it is for the underprivileged?

5. What would it mean if people from all cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds agreed on a single definition of poverty?

6. Can a novel be a feminist text even if the characters have never heard of feminism?