Postpartum Depression Is Real (In Your Face, Tom Cruise)

It is rare that I find a memoir I can't put down. I usually scan and skip over several sections (or even chapters) while reading about someone's life. As a lifelong fiction addict, I just can't make my ADHD mind focus on a story that isn't made up. That sounds kind of crazy, I realize. There are many people out there (my sports- and news-only-reading boyfriend, for one) who ONLY read nonfiction. I am not one of those people, and it's rare that a piece of nonfiction holds my attention for a full book.

Heather B. Armstrong's memoir about pregnancy, delivery, postpartum depression, and finding her way out of the dark and back into the light was an exception. I may have mentioned that I've recently become a huge blog follower. I don't follow a large quantity of blogs, but those that I do follow, I try to catch up on daily. After reading an article on CNN about anonymous bloggers being revealed, I found Armstrong's blog and I've been hooked ever since.

On the surface, it doesn't really make sense. Armstrong is a mommy blogger, a specific category of blog writer whose blogs are centered around her family and children. As someone who doesn't have any kids (save a not-quite-stepson), it seems strange for me to read blogs about breastfeeding and birthing babies. However, Armstrong brings a lot more to the table in both her blog and her memoir It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, A Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita.

For one thing, she has a wry sense of humor that resonates throughout the book. Her approach to mothering is loving, yet real. In one of her monthly letters to Leta, her firstborn daughter about whom the book is based, Armstrong writes:

Dear Leta,

I have fed you twice a night every night for the past eighty-four days, and I have to ask you: aren't you full yet?
This week you turn three months old, and your father and I can't believe we have made it this far. The past few weeks have seemed like some sort of hazy acid trip, not that we would know what an acid trip feels like because . . . . Drugs are bad and you should say no to drugs, but Advil is totally okay, and can I tell you how happy I am that I get to take Advil again? When I was pregnant with you I wasn't allowed to take Advil, and whenever I had a headache or a sore muscle your father would take a handful of Advil and stand close to me in hopes that his nearness would soothe me. Now I just sprinkle a few capsules in my breakfast in the morning. . . .

In order to find that passage, which I think is both witty and still communicates BIG HUGE LOVE to her daughter, all I had to do is flip to the middle of the book. In fact, if you flipped to almost any page in the book, you would find a similarly-clever passage which you could in turn share with other friends!

Armstrong is funny in an understated way (not a big, over-the-top way like Kathy Griffin, whose memoir I have also recently written about), but she also is glaringly honest about a not-so-funny part of having a baby -- postpartum depression. Yes, this is the disease that Brooke Shields also wrote and spoke frankly about, the same disease which (the mentally ill in his own right) Tom Cruise discredited days later on national television. You can read Brook Shields answering article to Cruise's claim if you're interested, or you can read her book Down Came the Rain: My Journey Through Postpartum Depression. I can't speak for it, as I haven't read it (yet), but I can speak for Armstrong's book, and I say READ IT. As a woman who might one day have a baby and experience postpartum depression, you should read it. As a man who might one day be a husband to a wife who has just had a baby and experiences postpartum depression, read it. As someone who might one day know someone who has a baby and experiences postpartum depression, READ IT.

In addition to her bluntly honest account of what being a depressed person feels like, Armstrong's writing strength also lies in her ability to convincingly describe her relationship with her husband and fellow blogger, Jon. In an age when reality television's Jon & Kate renew their vows on a sunset beach and then months later go through a very public divorce, it can seem that "true love" is something only seen on a Hollywood set. Armstrong tells us differently. You can feel the emotion dripping from the page when she writes: "In him I'd found the person whom I knew I would never get tired of, even in the most monotonous of times, even in the routine of being together every single day. I never thought I would find that." She thanks him in her ending acknowledgments as "[her] soul mate, he who did not leave [her] when he had every reason to do so. This book is a love letter to him."

Enough of my singing her praises. Go get the book and READ IT!

Two Weeks 'Til SFB

The Southern Festival of Books kicks off in less than two weeks in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. A week or two ago, Festival workers published their tentative schedule on the Festival website, prompting many long hours put in by me to whittle it down to a "must-do" and "would-like-to-do" list.

There are sevaral big name authors appearing, and all three days (Friday through Sunday, October 9 - 11) are packed full of interesting writers and topics. If you'd like to make the trip and see your favorite authors (FOR FREE!!), check out the newly posted schedule.

Banned Books Week: Sept. 26 - Oct. 3, 2009

“[I]t's not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers.” — Judy Blume

Because of the in-the-know book bloggers I follow, I realized today that we are in the middle of the American Library Association's Banned Books Week. This week is set up by the ALA in order to bring recognition to those books who regularly make the "most challenged" list. It also serves as a way to fight future censorship.



Books are often taken off book shelves, moved to the adult fiction section, or never bought in the first place, all in the name of censorship. This is troubling because many important, life- and society-changing books are challenged on a regular basis. In fact, some of my most beloved coming-of-age books are constantly listed as those that are most controversial.



The ALA lists the top 100 most frequently challenged books from 1990 - 2000 on its website, but here are a few of my favorite banned books from that list:

• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
• Forever by Judy Blume
• Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
• My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
• The Giver by Lois Lowry
• Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
• The Color Purple by Alice Walker
• The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
• Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
• Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
• The Witches by Roald Dahl
• Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
• Blubber by Judy Blume
• Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
• The Pigman by Paul Zindel
• Deenie by Judy Blume
• Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
• James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
• Ordinary People by Judith Guest
• Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
• Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
• Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
• How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell

In case it escaped your notice, Judy Blume is seen more than any other author on that list. Her books taught me so many life lessons. It is appalling that other children might not be able at some point or another to enjoy her insightful books for teens and young adults. She has her own anti-censorship website which discusses censorship in meaning, affect on all of us, and what can be done about it.

Serious Laughs in 'Book Club' Disguise

I must admit something... I am a Kathy Griffin fan. She's crude, I know. Vulgar, yes. Profane even. But she is so funny! I'm not a huge fan of reality television (with the exception of Project Runway and all those Housewives of... shows), but I started watching her My Life on the D-List last season. It's real, it's funny, it's fun. It's everything you want in light, fluffy entertainment.

When she started talking about her new book coming out towards the end of the season, I was excited. Griffin did not disappoint in Official Book Club Selection. She wanted to put Oprah's name in there somewhere, but was afraid lawsuits would follow. Still a funny title, similar to her comedy CD For Your Consideration (which was nominated for a Grammy, by the way, but lost after George Carlin's death -- of course the deceased have to win all awards for which they've been nominated).

After two Emmy awards, a long list of award show hosting gigs, four years on the NBC '90s sitcom Suddenly Susan, many stand-up shows, and a marriage and divorce, Kathy Griffin has come into her own. She even snagged Paris Hilton for an episode of her show this season! (Awesome beyond words, I know.)

Seriously, she kept me laughing and entertained in her memoir, and in a celebrity-style biography, that's difficult to accomplish. Perhaps the best stories are from her early childhood. She spends much of the book telling us what we already know as fans -- awards, shows worked on, etc. But the early childhood parts and the juicy relationship bits are the best morsels from this entertainment industry tell-all. Her brother was an (alleged) child molester. She dated Quentin Tarantino. Enough said?

Horror Turned Political Thriller??

So I stayed up late to finish Dean Koontz's The House of Thunder and I've gotta say -- the first 400 some odd pages were SO much better than the last ten to twenty. In the novel physicist Susan Thornton wakes to find herself in a hospital bed with no memory of how she came to be there. She gradually remembers almost everything about her life prior to the wreck she is told she had. As she grows stronger, she also begins to have hallucinations about a night which has haunted her for thirteen years. These hallucinations seem glaringly real to Susan, but the doctors and nurses at the hospital reassure her after each episode that they are only a figment of her imagination.

Things heat up as the hallucinations intensify, and then... Koontz turns the novel into a political commentary. If this makes no sense to you (who has not read the novel), imagine the surprise I found as a reader of the book. Half supernatural thriller, half mystery... only to be turned into a spy novel. This novel was published in 1982 under a pen name, so I'm going to give Koontz the benefit of the doubt and read another novel. I enjoyed the first part immensely... Perhaps Koontz has graduated from totally unrelated endings to endings which make some sort of sense. While I probably won't purchase any of his books (for fear of random politically-motivated plot endings), I will scour my library shelves for other Koontz novels which sound good... Then let you know how they end up!

Sandy, Salty Pages: Books Read on the Beach

As I'm sure many, many people out there have been waiting with bated breath to find out which books I chose off the "beach read" list, I'll finally end the suspense.

I began the trip with an audio book version of Barbara Delinsky's The Secret Between Us. I have enjoyed past novels of hers, including The Woman Next Door and Lake News. After beginning this novel, however, I felt unable to continue listening. The story seemed contrived -- a woman and her daughter hit a man on a rainy road, the man turns out to be the daughter's teacher, and the woman takes the blame to "save" her daughter. I never really got far enough to judge properly, but it does say something that I fell asleep during the first CD... Maybe I'll give it another try (but not very likely).

When I woke from my nap, I started reading Linwood Barclay's mystery/ suspense novel Too Close to Home. Again, a slightly contrived storyline (I won't give away the ending, but the plot evolution is far-fetched). This time, however, there were several redeeming qualities that kept my attention. The novel opens with an attention-grabbing triple murder. Initially written in third-person from the point of view of a teenage boy, Barclay then switches to first-person perspective in the voice of the boy's father. Jim and Ellen Cutter have had their share of problems -- extramarital affairs, fits of temper, job loss, teenage pranks from their son. Their lives get a lot more complicated -- and dangerous -- when their next-door neighbors are killed. Barclay develops the character of Jim Cutter in a way that makes the reader care about him. He also provides interesting subplots which intertwine with the main plot in a myriad of ways. The surprise ending -- however unbelievable -- is unexpected and creative.

NOT ON THE LIST: I also finished a novel I'd been reading off and on for several weeks, The Girl Who Stopped Swimming by Joshilyn Jackson. While I took issue with the undeveloped supernatural elements in the novel, Jackson's story of sisters with a difficult past and relationship is intricate and beautiful. Hailed as a modern southern gothic writer, Jackson describes Laurel and Thalia's ancestors' small town perfectly. The town of DeLop, Alabama, is realistic in its portrayal of the despair that exists in places with deep-seated poverty. Jackson juxtaposes trailer-ridden DeLop with Laurel's new suburban Florida town, rich with McMansions and gated communities. Laurel's newly found perfect existence is threatened when her preteen daughter's friend Molly drowns in their backyard pool. As Laurel searches for the truth behind what happened that night, the ghost of Molly appears to Laurel and brings all the ghosts of Laurel's past with her. Jackson writes the kind of novel I like best -- southern, female, and with a tortured protagonist thrown into the mix. While I'm not much for ghosts as characters in fiction, this novel shines nonetheless. Jackson also writes her own blog about life in the deep south called Faster Than Kudzu.

My nonfiction pick for the week read like a novel, but told the real-life story of Leslie Morgan Steiner and her first marriage. Steiner's memoir Crazy Love tells the events leading up to her first marriage and the warning signs she should have seen that the person she was walking down the aisle towards would almost kill her one day. Steiner, a successful business executive and mommy-blogger, details being choked, pushed down stairs, and having a gun held to her head. Coming from a wealthy family and being a Harvard graduate, Steiner breaks the stereotype that all battered wives are uneducated and living in trailer parks. She pleads with readers through her story to have hope if they are living in the same hell she experienced, or to understand if they know someone who is. She talks about turning away from people at cocktail parties who discuss domestic violence as if it were the woman's problem. Why, they ask, doesn't the beaten woman just leave? Steiner attempts in her memoir to help outsiders understand the difficulty in breaking the cycle. Steiner was interviewed about her book on NPR's All Things Considered. The interview provides information on everything from her family's reaction to Steiner's opinion on Chris Brown and Rihanna's tumultuous relationship.

I began Dean Koontz's The House of Thunder on the way home and I've hardly been able to put it down. I even packed it in my work bag this morning with the hope that I might have a moment at lunch to peek at what happens next. That didn't happen, but I'll return to it as soon as I finish this post (well, it and DVR-ed episodes of Project Runway). I never knew that Koontz wrote such scary novels, but (in this one, at least) he does. This is my first Koontz read, and while the plot has my attention, he isn't the best writer out there. Plot drives a novel, though, and Koontz definitely has that wrapped around his finger. Full review when I complete it!

Beach (& Not-so-Beachy) Books

We are leaving for the beach on Tuesday morning. Since the library's closed on Sundays and Monday will be a marathon work-day for me, I made a vacation-read book run yesterday afternoon. Not sure which or how many I will actually take with me. Pulling from both my library dash and my own book shelves, here are the books on the consideration list:

• Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
• The Virgin of Small Plains by Nancy Pickard
• The Official Book Club Selection by Kathy Griffin
• The Black Echo by Michael Connelly
• The Black Ice by Michael Connelly
• Real Women Don't Wear Size 2 by Kelley St. John
• The Jester by James Patterson & Andrew Gross
• The House of Thunder by Dean Koontz
• Crazy Love by Leslie Morgan Steiner
• The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold
• Feather Crowns by Bobbie Ann Mason
• Lost & Found by Jacqueline Sheehan
• Too Close to Home by Linwood Barclay
• The Secret Between Us by Barbara Delinsky
• Beach Road by James Patterson & Peter de Jonge
  

So what do you think? Suggestions & discouragements are welcome!

"Pretty" Memoirs

I finished Jennifer Lancaster's Such a Pretty Fat in the wee hours of morning today. Let me just say "aahhhhh". It was so refreshing and so well-written and just darn good! It is the opposite of what I go looking for on a library or bookstore shelf (my go-to musts are southern/ female author/ modern fiction), but I am so glad I have discovered her.

I read her newest book Pretty in Plaid a week or so ago because it was on the "new book" shelf at my local library; well, that and it was so cute with it's pink and green argyle tights on the cover. It was hilarious and fantastically written. I placed a hold on Such a Pretty Fat the day I turned Pretty in Plaid back in.

Such a Pretty Fat was so captivating I found myself sneaking glances at red lights and straight stretches of long roads... Don't call the highway patrol, please. I pay attention to the roadway, and I'm an excellent driver. I just need some entertainment every now and again during those boring parts of driving. Lancaster's escapades definitely offer her readers entertainment. From tales of her personal trainer Barbie (yes, that is her name... and don't think Barbie dolls & ball gowns... think Jillian from The Biggest Loser) to tales of the mole on her Jenny Craig counselor's chin, Lancaster hits the nail on the head each time. I laughed uproariously (even when other people in the room looked at me strangely), but she isn't outrageous. She's the girl-next-door, your best friend from the office, saying all the things you wish you could say.

As she writes in her footnotes (a personal-writing-style plus, in my opinion, because they often deliver the funniest lines in the book), all these books and more "are available now at your local booksellers. Purchase your copy today!" Now having read Pretty in Plaid and Such a Pretty Fat, I'll have to purchase the other two: Bitter is the New Black and Bright Lights, Big Ass.

If you finish all the books and you're left feeling utterly Jen-less, you can always visit her blog Jennsylvania for continuous updates and humorous stories.

Just to brighten your day, here's a look at Jen herself talking about the book (and you get a glimpse of the real-world trainer Barbie!):

Back to the Lowcountry (Yum, Yum!)

I'm finally out of my slump of only liking Michael Connelly books. Don't get me wrong -- I still really like Connelly. Love his books. But I'm finally able to find some other books to enjoy. I had a week or two in which I just couldn't keep reading a book unless it was written by Connelly. I'm happy to say that is over!

I'm about midway through Dorothea Benton Frank's latest novel, Return to Sullivans Island, and it is every bit as good as her previous novels. This one is special because it is somewhat of a sequel. Fifteen years after her debut novel Sullivan's Island, Frank returns to that South Carolina island to continue the story with the main character's daughter Beth. Through Beth the reader gets a new perspective on the family first chronicled in Sullivan's Island. In addition, Beth has a new story of her own to tell and live in the novel's pages.

Frank's characters are always a treat to get to know in her books, but what makes her an especially interesting author to read is her locale. Frank writes tales set almost exclusively in the coastal regions of South Carolina. This is a fascinating place because of its uniqueness. The islands and marshland of South Carolina have been home for hundreds of years to the Gullah people. Frank fills her novels with genuine Gullah influences, both in food and in culture.

In Return to Sullivans Island she adds an element used sparingly in her other novels -- the voodoo/ ancestry worship side of life in the lowcountry. In the novel Beth's deceased ancestors make their presence known and influence the story in subtle ways. Magic and ghosts are not something I necessarily like in a novel. However, in the setting of the island surrounded by objects and a house that has been in Beth's family for generations, it somehow fits.

Frank has a copy of a press release on her website which discusses the novel, including her own childhood growing up on Sullivans Island and her decision to do a sequel, which prior to this book she had never done. I recommend both it and the book as good reading, especially if you are female and from the south. Also on her website are some lowcountry recipes from her foodie novel Shem Creek that I haven't tried yet, but give me time and I will!