Bernadette Fox v. Cheryl Strayed, or Found & Lost vs. Lost & Found

Where'd You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple and Wild by Cheryl Strayed: these books are almost polar opposites. Most of the women I know are in the Strayed camp or the Bernadette camp.

In Wild, Cheryl Strayed recovers from a childhood filled with poverty, her mother's death, a stale marriage and drug use as she hikes the Pacific Coast Trail. Bernadette was a genius architect who loses her mojo when fate kicks her in the shins a few times. She becomes a hermit and hides in her version of the Petit Trianon (aka an Airstream trailer) in her backyard. Strayed was lost and becomes found. Bernadette was found, then became lost and has to find herself again.

"Strayed was too whiny. I couldn't get past the first chapter," said one friend who previously loved her job but is now a full-time parent. She dressed up as Bernadette for Halloween one year, complete with the fishing vest and pockets full of passports.

Or, "I loved Wild, but I haven't gotten around to reading Bernadette yet. I know I am supposed to read it..." said another friend who wandered through her twenties.

While I wasn't a genius architect, I did have my shit together when I was in my twenties. I liked my job, I had a nice boyfriend who then became my husband. I went to graduate school and was finding more and more interesting work to.

Then fate came along and kicked me in the shins a few times. My first child died, and my brother had problems with his major mental illness. Jack's job required overnight and weekend work, and I was traveling three or four days a week to Los Angeles. While the work was interesting, I wanted to have a baby and traveling that much was not compatible with motherhood. So I quit my job and became a full-time parent. Claire Adele came along and was a colicky infant. The Boy was born three years later, and then we moved to Seattle.

Somewhere along the way, my hopes and dreams got packed up in a box and put on a high shelf in the closet. I completely identify with Bernadette, who ends up passed out on a couch in a pharmacy in the middle of downtown Seattle in the of the day. I even have my own version of a Petit Trianon in my backyard (not that I am complaining.) "You will become a menace to society if you don't create," one of Bernadette's friends warns her. I have seen a few middle-aged friends implode from lack of meaningful work, and I fear that might happen to me. I am Bernadette.

I started rereading Wild, and I have much more empathy from Strayed now that I've thought about her journey in terms of lost and found. Lost is lost, no matter when it happens. And that is hard.

What are my Kids Reading? or Young Adult

I was at a dinner and reading with Maria Semple, author of Where'd You Go Bernadette, which is now one of my top ten favorite books.  At this dinner were two people who worked in publishing.  One was a sales rep for a publisher of Young Adult books (YA for short).  The other worked in the YA department of a bookstore.  They were both delighted when I told them I had an eleven year old son and a fourteen year old daughter.

"What are they reading?" they asked.  They probably assumed my kids were voracious readers since their mother was a big enough geek to go to a dinner event focused on a writer.

"Uh..."  I said.  "I don't know."  I was slightly appalled at my own answer.  I should have a vague idea of what my kids are reading.  I don't need to monitor or censor what they read, but I should be a clued in parent who has an interest in what my kids like.  Why don't I know what my kids are reading?

They both have e-readers, the Boy a Kindle and Claire Adele a Nook.  Claire Adele's Nook has a peacock blue cover that is now kind of ratty.  The Boy's Kindle has a basic black cover.  These covers give me no indication of what's inside.  I seriously doubt they are reading Fifty Shades of Gray, but when they left their paper books around the house, I could tell what they were reading.  My kids still have analog books.  I am usually involved in the acquisition of them, too, whether I pay for a book they picked out at a bookstore or I take them to the library.

Fortunately, the two carried the weight of the conversation, and gave me several recommendations, both for me and my kids.*  I could contribute to the conversation of what my kids were reading, but I was aware there was a major gap in my knowledge.  I didn't feel quiet like a fraud, but almost.

The other thing I found slightly distressing is that there is a whole genre of Young Adult.  I am not saying this is a bad thing, just different from when I grew up.  I remember visiting the Schaumburg Library when I was a kid.  It has a large children's section, which I outgrew when I was eleven or twelve.  After that, I went upstairs to the main part of the library to get books to read.  I went straight from children's books to regular books--there was no special section for kids between the ages of 10 and 16.  I felt like a right of passage to get books upstairs instead of in the basement.  It was wonderful to wander in the tall stacks.  The children's section was bright and colorful, with arts and crafts on display.  The main floor was serious.  It was just about books.

I've read some of the YA books my kids have read.  I've loved some (Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell is lovely) and been bored to tears by others (I won't name names.)  The YA books are filled with loud crisis, like poverty and abuse (Eleanor & Park), cancer (The Fault in Our Stars), disfigurement (Wonder), or are dystopian fantasy (The Hunger Games).  They bring kids to the brink of disaster and back.

I still love Bernadette and her quiet crisis.  She was lost, both literally and figuratively.  I won't spoil it, but something my friend said yesterday reminded me of the ending.  She described her current stage of middle age of life after the kids are reasonably able to look after themselves:  I am metamorphosis-izing back to me.

Quiet crises are subtle and perhaps harder for young readers to grasp.  Even in my twenties I didn't understand some of Wallace Stegner's work, including Crossing to Safety about people in late middle age.  I read the whole thing, but missed the point.  I wonder if I try it again if it will speak to me.

Young people missing the point of adult stories isn't always the case.  My daughter read Bernadette, and liked it.  I am trying to get both of my kids to read The Boys in the Boat, but they are reluctant, I am not sure why.  Kids are so wrapped up in YA these days, but they should read books about what it is like to be a grown-up.  What will be their right of passage into regular literature?  Will they wander in the tall stacks, or will they read YA for the rest of their lives?

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* In case you are wondering, here are the reading recommendations from my dinner conversation. Some of them were based on what my kids have liked in the past, so the recommendations might be somewhat specific.  I won't tell which recommendations are for kids or for me.

• The new Ishiguro
• I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
• Counting By 7s by Holly Sloan
• Noggin by John Corey Whaley
• The Wallcreeper by Nell Zink
• The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
• Under the Egg by Laura Marx Fitzgerald
• stuff by Brandon Mull
• Beautiful Boy by David Sheff
• The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
• The Dark is Rising by Ellen Cooper
• Hausfrau: A Novel by Jill Alexander Essbaum
• stuff by Gail Forman
• The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander
• The Silo Saga by Hugh Howey

Sheryl Crow, Books I am Afraid to Read and My Best Fictional Friend, Bernadette

I was at Ravenna Third Place books yesterday picking up some stuff for the kids.  I found my way to the non-fiction table, and picked up a few things, including Bill Bryson's new book on the year 1927. Nearby was a book called The Astronaut's Wives Club: A True Story by Lisa Koppel about the women who were married to men in the space program in the 1960's.  It looked fascinating, but I was afraid to read it.  When I got home, I couldn't remember the other books I bought, but I remembered the one I didn't.  I guess I don't have the gumption right now to read about women back in the day who quietly smiled, wore perfect hair and lipstick and stood by their men.

Or maybe I should.  Not that I want to read a primer on how to be a throwback (egads), but perhaps it shows the underbelly of being the second bananas to the bravest men in the world.  But at the end of the day, we all have to be married to someone, don't we?  While we have a choice, why happens to those who fall in love with someone who is inaccessible?

Speaking of inaccessible, I saw a headline in a Good Housekeeping magazine at a newsstand in Victoria last week.  Rockstar Sheryl Crow was on the cover, and it talked about her going on blind dates.  (Sidebar:  Really?  Sheryl Crow on a blind date?  Would she want to date someone who doesn't know who she is?  I doubt it, because the only people who have never heard of her must be 25 years out of her age range or have been living under and rock and never turned on the radio in the past 20 years.  Anyhow.)  I love Sheryl Crow, and I found a copy of the magazine in the waiting room while the Big E was getting her teeth pulled.  Sheryl said when she dated famous men, she felt smaller.  She was living in their shadows, not a place she wanted to be.

Speaking of Sheryls, I am also afraid to read Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg.  Why am I afraid to read this?  I support women working and in leadership roles.  I used to work, and I have been President of at least six different groups in my life, plus numerous roles on boards.  I guess I am afraid to read it and see that I have failed to lean in and take corporate America by storm like I should have.  Instead, I slunk away and crawled off the track years ago when I had kids.

But not to be depressed!  In comes Bernadette!  I am making Jack read Where'd You Go Bernadette by Seattle author Maria Semple.  This book reflects the plight of many middle-aged American women, women who once held promising future which were derailed by factors outside of their control.  We watch Bernadette's demise, and then grabbing back control.  It is wonderful.  Even two years after I first read it, it lingers in my mind.  When I posted on Facebook that I bought a copy, multiple friends asked to borrow it.  No less than eight people have read it other than me.  It made its way around northeast Seattle in two months, with one person finishing and passing it on to the next.  I wish I had everyone who read it sign it just for the record.  So it touched a chord not just with me, but with many of the people I know.

Maybe I can read those other books, knowing I have Bernadette to safely come back to.