Kelly Fordon's Open Salon Blog

Favorite Books: Summer 2011

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 12:08:26 -0400

Point of disclosure: I know and happen to really like Laura Kasischke, but I would never recommend a book I didn’t enjoy. This one reminded me of “The Secret History” by Donna Tartt, an all-time favorite. It’s a quick, intriguing, suspenseful novel about murder on a college campus, but, like Tartt’s novel, it’s so much more. I read it (all 496 pages) in two days.

I’m betting on a National Book Award for this poetry collection. Check out this Harvard prof, talking about Kasischke’s poems on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFnKiIMUkEw

This book of lyrical essays is by a poet and you can tell--so unusual and beautifully rendered.

Deborah Eisenberg, a New Yorker writer, has been feted for years, but she was news to me when a friend recommended her this summer. I’m glad I hadn’t read any of her work before, because I thoroughly enjoyed every single one in this 992-page tome. Personally, I like the early stories best. She reminds me a little of Alice Munro but also—in the early stories—of the hilarious short story writer, Julie Hecht.

Have you heard of Julie Hecht? She’s another New Yorker writer but if you google her, you can’t find out anything about her at all. What is she up to these days? I have no idea but once you read these neurotic little ditties you might find yourself hoping (like I do) that she hasn’t suffered any deleterious effects from all that electrolysis.

His First Communion Also His Last

Mon, 6 Jun 2011 09:06:13 -0400

His First Communion/Also His Last

By Kelly Fordon

5/5/11

My son Peter is celebrating his First Communion this month. It’s a monumental day for Roman Catholics because it is the first day we are allowed to receive the body of Christ during communion. And when Catholics say “body of Christ” we mean it. We believe that the bread and wine transform into the body and blood of Christ during the Mass, a miracle that we call transubstantiation.

Except that Peter, who will go through the ceremony, won’t actually be able to receive the body of Christ, because the body of Christ is made out of wheat. Peter has celiac disease and cannot consume wheat or gluten. Canon Law 924 stipulates that there must be some wheat in the wafer because there was wheat in the bread Jesus consumed at the Last Supper. Because of the growing prevalence of celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder that, ironically, is quite prevalent in Irish people, the church has allowed a group of Benedictine nuns to produce a “low gluten” wafer. The wafer has a safe amount of gluten in it—less than 0.01%--so theoretically, Peter could eat it and he might not get sick. Our parish priest asked him if he wanted to taste it and see if he could tolerate the low-gluten wafer, and Peter, who has learned to be cautious after years of violent spates of vomiting, said, “Why in the world would I do that?”

My feeling exactly. I know many celiacs who have left the church over this issue. Almost every other Christian denomination offers a rice wafer substitute. The whole notion that Jesus would care strikes me as ludicrous. If Jesus were around, I know he wouldn’t want my son risking his health. It is interesting to conjecture about how this would play out if the wafer was made of peanuts. How many people would risk anaphylactic shock to partake in a low-peanut wafer? Though the priest is going to give Peter a sip of the wine or blood of Christ on his First Communion, there’s no way I’m going to send my kid up to the altar every week for a swig of wine.

For that reason, his First Communion may also be his last.

I come from a long line of staunch Irish Catholics. Over the years, for whatever reason, I have been able to justify the fact that I pick through the tenets of the Catholic Church like a jewelry maker selecting beads. I guess I figured I was far from the only person here in America who is doing that. Also, I believed that one day the church would come around.

The microscopic amount of gluten in the wafer isn’t my problem. My problem is the Church’s inane reasoning. Suddenly the faulty logic on this issue is leading me to question everything about the Institution. Who is making up these crazy rules? Surely it isn’t Jesus, the guy who said “suffer the little children to come unto me.” I know one child who won’t be able to do that and I can just picture Jesus up in heaven shaking his head.

What Price Ambition?

Fri, 17 Dec 2010 09:12:15 -0500

I fled Washington, D.C. years ago. Growing up the child of a politician, I always found the glad-handing, backslapping rubber chicken circuit a real drag. Apparently, I was in the minority, because despite increasingly vicious pummeling by the press and opponents, there seems to be no end of eager bright-eyed contenders scrambling up over the ropes and into the ring. I was lucky enough to respect my father. I never doubted that he was motivated by a desire to serve his country. But, what happens to a child when it becomes obvious that the parent is propelled, not by altruism, but by unbridled ambition or egomania? What happens when a child’s blind faith in his or her parent is upended by allegations of corruption or sexual impropriety?

Let’s start with the relatively benign sin of unbridled ambition and take the recent case of Sarah Palin. It’s hardly worth noting that politics attracts egomaniacs, but even if you’re lucky enough to have a semi-normal, engaged political parent, spending your life stumping is not any child’s idea of a good time. As a liberal Democrat, I should state at the outset that I am not a fan of Sarah Palin. However, I did read her memoir Going Rogue. Despite disagreeing with her on just about every issue, I think she’s a likeable gal. She’s what we call “folks” here in the Midwest. The section of the book that struck a chord with me involves her daughter Bristol. Early on in the presidential campaign, Palin receives a call from Bristol, who is back in Alaska, and is distraught over the coverage of her pregnancy. Palin is quick to lambast the media for attacking Bristol, but fails even once to acknowledge that, by knowingly setting out on the trail during this traumatic period in her daughter’s life, she is the one who set Bristol up. Anybody can have a teenage daughter who gets pregnant, but how many in that situation would have made the decision to pursue high office, and thereby throw their daughter to the wolves? Either Palin was naïve or she was too self-absorbed to think about how the press would react. She now has her own television show Sarah Palin’s Alaska where she is often seen sharing her parenting conundrums with the camera. There I heard her claim, without a hint of irony, that traveling around the state (accompanied by the camera crew) has been great for her daughter Bristol who needed to get away from it all.

Politicians who attain high office often succumb to temptation. It’s become so de rigueur, it’s hard to be properly incensed anymore. That would change if we thought long and hard about what each transgression costs a child. A politician’s family is working almost as hard as the candidate on the campaign trail. By election night, the kids have smiled and waved in countless parades. Then six months later, their thankless parent has sex with an intern. Nobody’s perfect but a case could made that politicians ought to try even harder than the average person to be virtuous. Their jobs are hard-won and their kids pay a high price. Don’t they deserve a parent they can respect?

Nevertheless, politicians routinely shame their families and when they do, they apologize and expect forgiveness. Within a month or two, you may catch sight of one serving soup to the homeless in Anacostia in the first of many lame attempts to reingratiate themselves with the people. While this has proven possible on many occasions in the public arena, it is a much harder row to hoe at home. Try getting over the fact that your father frequents brothels or co-opts sexual favors from staffers who are young enough to be your sister. In Europe Americans are frequently derided as prudish, but, if nothing else, I believe we have the right to be irritated on behalf of the children. It is worse in my mind to dishonor your children than tarnish the office you hold. The world, as a whole, is a slavish mistress willing to endure almost any abuse from its elected officials. Case in point: Eliot Spitzer, who appears nightly on CNN, looking just as sleazy and self-righteous as he ever did. Former President Clinton commands hundreds of thousands of dollars every time he opens his mouth. By the time Ted Kennedy died, he was a scion of the political world, not a drunken negligent father whose own son admitted he was happy he had asthma, because when he we was sick, his dad made a point of tucking him in at night.

Elizabeth Edwards passed away last week after a six-year battle with cancer. The past six years played out like this: She announced that she was battling cancer in 2004 and later, that it had recurred. Her husband never stopped campaigning. Whether she persuaded him to keep going or argued against it is moot. After all, what else could she say? The fact remains that he justified it in his own mind. He showed his stripes. Later I was not the least bit surprised to learn he was having an affair. A very messy, very public marital squabble ensued. The mistress posed in her underwear. DNA testing confirmed the baby was his. Mr. Edwards moved out. Mrs. Edwards succumbed to cancer. Where were the children when all of this was going down? Right there in the thick of it. Where are they now? Still there. Moreover, what will happen three months, six months, a year from now? Edwards may well contemplate a comeback. But, whether he rises from the ashes or not, there will never be any redemption for his children. Their damaged psyches are his lasting legacy. Political life is short-lived, terms expire, parties move in and out of favor, but your children have to live with the consequences of your behavior forever. Isn’t that a scary thought?

It ought to be.

Great Books 2009

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:03:46 -0500

It's hard to remember what I read yesterday!! So here's my attempt to keep track.

Life-Changing:

Tinkers by Paul Harding--beautiful prose. Highly recommended by Marilynne Robinson when she came to Grosse Pointe to read last month. In fact, this was the only book that she recommended and she was so right. It is breath-taking.

Highly Recommended:

The Help by Kathryn Stockett--as if you haven't heard this is great already!

Purple Hisbiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Little Bee by Chris Cleve--excellent audio CD.

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

Invisible by Paul Auster--excellent audio CD read by author. Slow start but worth sticking with it.

Be Mine by Laura Kasischke--middle-aged professor suddenly starts receiving anonymous love letters. What's going on? Deals with so many issues re mid-life. Excellent read.

Recommended:

Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore--She writes so well it's worth reading for the beautiful, lift-you-out-of-your-seat sentences. The story is less compelling.

A Short History of Women by Kate Walbert--nice idea but I would have liked to go deeper into the lives of each of these women rather than gloss over them.

Happens Every Day by Isabel Gillies

Recommended with Reservations:

The Year of the Flood: Margaret Atwood--Long and convoluted though entertaining and thought-provoking.

In A Perfect World

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:10:03 -0400

What happens when the modern world faces a pandemic? Despite hundreds of years of technological and medical advances the outcome may be eerily similar to what transpired during the Black Death, which devastated Europe in the 14th Century. At least that’s what esteemed novelist Laura Kasischke (The Life Before Her Eyes) posits. Isolated in a log cabin in the Midwest, former flight attendant Jiselle Dorn is caring for her three stepchildren. Her husband Mark, a pilot, is away more than he’s home. Her two oldest stepchildren, Sara and Camilla, hate her. Her only close neighbors, the Schmidt’s, are doomsayers. The town of St. Sophia is small and ten miles away. Jiselle isn’t living the life she imagined. Just as her mother warned, her handsome husband seems to be leaving the lion’s share of the child-rearing to her. Could it be that he really wanted a nanny, not a wife?

Jiselle’s life isn’t easy when we meet her, but it’s not nearly as bad as it’s going to get. The first famous person to die of the flu is Britney Spears. The outbreak’s epi-center is a nursing home in Phoenix. Soon Americans are being shunned around the world. Mark’s plane is quarantined in Germany. Jiselle becomes the children’s sole caretaker. The United States runs riot amid increased panic. Periodic power outages increase in frequency and longevity causing food shortages. St. Sophia is overtaken by looters and vigilantes. Jiselle’s youngest stepson Sam begins to suffer from malnutrition. Her husband stops sending money.

Unexpectedly amid the chaos and uncertainty Jiselle forges a bond with her step children. She could easily have abandoned them when her husband cleaned out the bank account but she doesn't and they're grateful. She's come to love the children despite her husband's negligence. Kasischke has said that she was interested in exploring “the romance of motherhood” in this book and the relationship between Jiselle and the girls flowers over time offering a fulfillment too often only associated with amorous love.

As the world unravels, a makeshift community forms in the log cabin. Jiselle befriends her stepdaughter’s boyfriend Bobby and his father Paul. She takes in a neighbor suffering from dementia and drives to Chicago to rescue her own crotchety mother. Without electricity the children are forced to read and, surprisingly, they enjoy it. They play charades and traipse through the woods. Raised on a farm, Jiselle’s mother teaches the family much needed survival skills. A goose wanders into the back yard and becomes a beloved pet.

It’s a testament to Kasischke’s genius that she is able to so clearly imagine the consequences of a global disaster. What do you have when you lose everything--when you are cast out of the “perfect world?” According to Kasischke, we still have a lot.