The Girls of Atomic City by Denise Kiernan

Posted on March 8, 2013 by pagesofjulia

An evocative view of the Manhattan Project through the eyes of the women who worked and lived in the secret city of Oak Ridge, Tenn.

atomic

Oak Ridge, Tennessee was born in the fall of 1942, but would remain unknown until August 6, 1945, when the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Oak Ridge, or “Site X,” housed factories for the enrichment of uranium. The workers at those factories at their peak numbered some 75,000, living in a secret city and working on they knew not what.

Diverse young women traveled from around the country fill the jobs needed to help win a war. Denise Kiernan’s The Girls of Atomic City is a unique glimpse into their strange experience of working on a project whose nature was kept from them. Most expected to leave Oak Ridge as soon as the war was won, but many stayed on for decades. Due to the fine supply of handsome young men in uniform, a number of Kiernan’s subjects would make families and homes there.

Based on interviews with their now-elderly subjects, the stories of Jane the statistician, Virginia the chemist, Kattie the janitor and many more are vivid and human in Kiernan’s telling. The focus of the book briefly zooms out for the dropping of the bomb, visiting Truman’s White House during the decision-making process, but then plunges back into Oak Ridge, where women who tested for leaks in pipes and kept tanks clean were rocked by the revelation of what they’d contributed to. Kiernan melds hard science and history with the moving stories of women caught in events bigger than themselves, whose experiences and whose work changed the world irrevocably. The result is a compelling and unusual new perspective on the Manhattan Project and World War II.

This review originally ran in the March 5, 2013 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

While I am always constrained by the limited space available for reviews in Shelf Awareness (you know I can get wordy!), this book was especially difficult to boil down, touching as it does on women’s issues, history, science, working conditions, civil rights, war and ethics… It could be compared to Soundings or The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks in its intersection of hard science with the creative, feeling portrayal of women’s lives. Additionally, Kiernan’s use of primary sources – interviews with survivors of the era – made me pause to think of my grandfather, a WWII veteran who’s over 90 years old now, whose memories will someday be lost to us. This is a fine book on an interesting subject and I just had to say a few more words to that effect.

Rating: 8 acronyms.

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In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin by Erik Larson (audio)

Posted on March 7, 2013 by pagesofjulia

gardenAs the title indicates, this is a creepy work of nonfiction. Erik Larson, popular author of (among other things) The Devil in the White City, here tackles the subject of one American family living in Berlin in the years leading up to World War II. William E. Dodd was an unassuming professor of history in Chicago in the early 1930’s, wishing for a little more free time to finish his life’s work, a 4-volume history of “the Old South.” He lobbied Roosevelt, through his modest political connections, for a quiet diplomat’s post to somewhere like Belgium or the Netherlands. There he hoped to settle down to finish his books and not have to do too much real diplomatic work, to which he readily confessed he was not well suited. Instead, owing to a strange combination of forces – mostly, no one else being willing to take the post – he was appointed to be the United States’ diplomat to Berlin in 1933. He traveled to Hitler’s Germany with his wife and grown son, Bill Jr., both of whom play almost no role in the story, and with his grown daughter, Martha, who stars next to the elder Dodd himself.

William E. Dodd is a conscientious man, rather to the point of annoyance. His sense of humor is wry and not well appreciated in diplomatic circles. He comes from a modest background and lives on a professor’s salary, and now a diplomat’s, which is quite moderate; in Berlin he plans to live within the bounds of that salary, which is the first time he offends protocol, but not the last. As Larson explains, diplomats are traditionally wealthy men of great style – valets, fancy chauffeured cars, fine wines, grand balls and the like – and make up what Larson quotes one diplomat as calling a “pretty good club.” Dodd will fail to fit into this club, and will, to the aggravation of all, criticize it throughout his tenure.

Martha is a sultry young woman very comfortable with her charms and her ability to wield her sexuality as a weapon against the men in her world; she enjoys men, and sex, and is in the process of ending a secret marriage even when she sets sail for Germany. When she gets there, she is charmed by the Nazis, handsome and blonde and polite and uniformed, and is not unhappy to be characterized as a “little Nazi” herself. Among the lovers we assume she took in Germany (Larson points out what we don’t know for sure, but makes a strong case) are a Gestapo leader, a French diplomat, a close assistant to Hitler, and eventually a Russian diplomatic assistant who turns out to be a Soviet spy. She is even at one point asked to be “Hitler’s woman,” and introduced to him, but nothing comes of it (not for lack of her attraction to the man of power, however). By the end of the Dodds’ years in Berlin, however, she has noted the evils of the Third Reich and flirts with becoming a spy for Stalin, herself.

Larson’s fine work here is in bringing a time and a place to life, and it raises goosebumps. Hitler’s Berlin is chilling, in large part because we, the modern readers, have the benefit of hindsight, and it is deeply disturbing to watch humanly flawed men and women walk around that time and place without realizing just how bad things are going to get. There is willful ignorance, naturally, as well as antisemitism in varying degrees: the Dodds share this prejudice with many of their contemporaries, and it helps them to excuse Hitler’s regime longer than they should… but again, this is all with the 20/20 vision we possess today. It’s difficult to imagine the tolerance shown by the United States, and Dodd, and the world, for Hitler; but this is history.

The decision to showcase Martha alongside Dodd was a fine one. They are two very different characters, both tending to minimize Germany’s faults at the start of the story but both (very differently) eventually coming to understand and fear the changes to come. When the Dodds left Berlin in 1937, the United States were yet years from a war with Germany, but Dodd had begun to prophecy some of the terrors to come.

Larson’s In the Garden of Beasts (poetically named for the literal translation of Tiergarten, a garden & neighborhood in Berlin where the Dodds lived) is to my tastes a great way to read history. The story electrifies, brings the past to life, and promises to faithfully follow the sources available. An enjoyable and worthwhile, if unnerving, read (or listen).

Rating: 7 breaches of protocol.

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Vera Gran: The Accused by Agata Tuszyńska, trans. by Charles Ruas

Posted on March 4, 2013 by pagesofjulia

The unanswered questions surrounding the life of a lounge singer in the ghettos of Warsaw, as seen through the gauze of memory.

veragran

Vera Gran was a wildly popular Jewish lounge singer in the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. In 2007, she died in an apartment in Paris–filthy, claustrophobic, paranoid and hateful. For decades, despite being found innocent by several tribunals, she had faced accusations of collaboration with the Gestapo.

Agata Tuszyńska was 19 when her mother, also a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto, first told her she was Jewish. In her approach to a profoundly sad and traumatized old woman, Tuszyńska seeks the truth but realizes it cannot be pinned down. Vera Gran: The Accused is not a biography, but a shifting portrait of Gran, the Ghetto and survivors’ guilt; it is a contemplation of what we will do (and should do) to survive. Readers unfamiliar with Vera Gran may be more familiar with Wladyslaw Szpilman, the subject of Roman Polanski’s award-winning film The Pianist: Szpilman was Gran’s piano accompanist, but he cut her out of his memoir–later becoming one of her most vocal accusers. The nature of memory and memoir, the power of the stories we tell when those stories outlast memory of the events themselves, becomes a central theme in Tuszyńska’s book.

Charles Ruas’s translation from the French is subtly poetic and adds to the quiet tones of Tuszyńska’s musing as well as Gran’s anger. It is this atmosphere, along with the unknowable questions surrounding Gran, that makes Vera Gran: The Accused a remarkable and memorable contemplation.

This review originally ran in the March 1, 2013 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 6 changed stories.

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Inés of My Soul by Isabel Allende (audio)

Posted on February 28, 2013 by pagesofjulia

inesIsabel Allende is mostly a well-respected name to me; I had only read her Daughter of Fortune before this one, and found it interesting and enjoyable, but it doesn’t seem to stand out in my memory. (It’s been years.) I picked up Inés of My Soul as I pick up at least half my audiobooks: opportunistically. Because audio is not as plentiful as hardcopy, I take what I can find, in the library or from friends & family. This one came from my mother, and I’m glad I happened upon it, because I found it fascinating and entertaining.

Inés of My Soul is the story of the founding of Chile, told first-person by Inés de Suárez, a real historical figure; or perhaps more accurately it is the life story of Inés, inextricably tied with the founding of Chile, which she (at least in the novel) considers her life’s work. This is a work of historical fiction; Inés really lived but we don’t know everything about her, so Allende necessarily fills in the gaps.

Inés was born in Extremadura, in Spain, in 1507. She married Juan de Mélaga for love (or for lust), but their marriage was troubled; their fiery sexual passion also led to fierce fights, and they failed to conceive the child Inés wanted, and Juan eventually sailed for the New World in search of gold and fortune. She follows, not out of love for her husband – that was mostly dead – but because, as a “widow of the New World,” her horizons in Extremadura were extremely limited, and she sought adventure just as Juan did. Inés travels around Peru, making her living as she did in Spain: sewing clothes and cooking her famous empanadas, which she is careful to provide to the hungry as well as her paying customers. After learning that Juan is dead, she is plagued by men who desire her, and who intend to have her by any means, with or without her consent; and she picks up a housekeeper who will become a lifelong friend & helpmate, Catalina, an Indian woman skilled in healing and with the power to see the future. Catalina foretells an important man to come into Inés’s life and recognizes him when he does: Pedro de Valdivia, a fellow native of Extremadura and a soldier from a long line of soldiers. Their relationship is full of fire and chemistry, as was her initial time with Juan de Mélaga, but will mature into a deeply loving and cooperative partnership. They will never marry, because Pedro has a wife, Marina, back in Spain, and all three are Catholic.

Pedro and Inés travel together to Chile, an area still unconquered by Europeans and especially intimidating because of an earlier failed attempt. They have a small but mostly loyal cadre of soldiers with them and intend to be the founders of a new country there. As partners they fight the Indians and establish the city of Santiago and several more small towns; they live through good times and bad. There is a fascinating subplot involving a young Indian boy who joins their settlement, which I will leave mostly untouched for the sake of spoilers. After ten years of loving cohabitation, during which Inés contributes substantially to the successful founding of Santiago, even in combat against the Indians, Pedro throws her aside. He has grown from the strong & cooperative man she loved into an aging, arrogant, cruel, unhealthy ruler, but his rejection still hurts. Inés then takes a second husband: Rodrigo de Quiroga, a captain in Pedro’s army and a good man with whom she finds another beautifully healthy and loving relationship, also raising his daughter Isabel, to whom this story is narrated.

Inés of My Soul is the diary of an elderly Inés who wants to record her fascinating and important life for the sake of posterity. She is sad that she never conceived a child, but loves her stepdaughter very much and chides her lovingly throughout this narration. She writes more than half of it herself, but by the end is dictating to Isabel, as her age catches up with her; she says she sees death coming very soon, and is not sad, as she looks forward to joining Rodrigo, her final love of 30 years, recently dead.

Again, this is a story of the conquest and founding of Chile, complete with scenes of battle, heroism, victory, glory, and gold. There is plenty of statement on the evils of colonialism: Inés praises the natives of Chile, respects their choice to fight to the death rather than be enslaved, and notes their strengths. She also laments the unnecessary cruelties of the conquerors, including her Pedro. But it is also very much a love story. Inés has three loves in her life, and I think she is lucky (and considers herself so) to have shared passions with three very different men. While not terribly explicit, there is sex, told in an appropriately heated, sensual tone, with some acknowledgment of Isabel’s presumed discomfort where her father is concerned. (Inés also offers to give Isabel advice, in case the latter’s husband proves overly eager or otherwise fails to give pleasure.)

There are obvious links to Like Water for Chocolate, in the fiery, sensual telling of lust, passion, and fine food in the voice of a strong Latina woman, and in Inés’s implicit feminism when she declares her own place in history and her substantial contributions to the new country of Chile. This is an engrossing tale of a woman’s life, and a country’s birth, intertwined. I loved both Inés – a passionate and strong woman – and the history of Chile. Having grown up in mid-south Texas, I have long had an appreciation of Spanish-speaking cultures; I am most familiar with Mexico but have always been interested in traveling further south too. Chile was on my list – it’s so far away and therefore feels exotic and remote – but now it’s an even higher priority. And reading this fictionalized history of the founding of conquered Chile makes me more interested in its history, too. I did do a little Wikipedia reading on Inés de Suárez, the historical figure, enough to know that she was indeed lover to Pedro de Valdivia and involved in the conquest.

Finally, I cannot stress enough the pleasurable experience of listening to this narrator, Blair Brown, tell this story in a musical, lyrical, emotive, accented voice; there is no other way to enjoy it. Allende renders nuanced, very real characters in a lovely tone (aside from the lovely reading Brown gives); she makes a bloody history of conquest appropriately ambiguous; and the remarkable achievement of blending love and passion with war and subjugation is riveting. I highly recommend this story, and I highly recommend Brown’s reading of it.

Rating: 9 empanadas.

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Speaking Truth to Power by Anita Hill, second half review

Posted on February 22, 2013 by pagesofjulia

anitahillI am pleased to report that I had a different experience with the second half of this book, in all the right ways. You will recall (or, I will direct you to) my first half review of same: I thought it was a wonderful book but such a painful story that I had to put it down for a little while. Well, in a nutshell, the second half is: still painful, tragic, and true, but also uplifting, far more hopeful than I expected; and equally well-written and impressive. I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Anita Hill continues to be thoughtful and thorough – I definitely see the mind of a lawyer at work, as she discusses the what-if’s, the precedents, the niceties of the law. She is quite cerebral in her theories on society and stereotyping; far from being a simple revelation of her experiences, this is a treatise on gender & race. She examines the relationship between issues of gender and of race, and the indivisibility of feminism from the fight for racial equality, and the relationships between race and sexism. Hill is clearly an extremely intelligent women! She is also warm and loving about her family, and always seeking privacy, not eager to be a symbol or a leader. In other words, she comes firmly across as a “just regular” person, and someone I’d like to know.

Her story is also entirely convincing. It is beautifully put together and well-written: not lyrical, but methodical, structured, can I say thorough and lawyerly again? And she preaches more hope than I felt in my first-half review. However, the battle is still not over, and I still feel upset & angry that Hill’s experience reads so familiarly more than 20 years later. On that note, I’ll refer you to Jessica Valenti’s lovely speech to my local Planned Parenthood group, here. Well said, Jessica. You give me hope, too.

Rating: 9 strong women, please.

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The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

Posted on February 21, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Sorry for the short review today; I’m a little bushed. But don’t think any less of the book in question, because The Talented Mr. Ripley is a riot of a creepy-crawly good time.

ripleyMy second Patricia Highsmith, and one of her best known, was the perfect airplane book for my very long trip home from Australia recently. Highsmith is a master of engaging, disturbing stories, and I want more.

Tom Ripley is a con man and, I think I can say, a sociopath. He believe that society owes him something, and he’d rather not have to work too hard for it; and he lives in a time when class is very important. He knows what class he wants to belong to but can’t quite figure out how to get there. He’s struggling in New York City when he’s approached by a wealthy man who asks him to sail to Italy and collect his son, the heir to the family business and a vague acquaintance of Ripley’s. This being a paying gig and a chance to see the world and start anew – and escape the possible consequences of his latest scam – Ripley is happy to play a role, something he does exceptionally well. In the small seaside town of Mongibello, he gets along well with Dickie (the desired son) and initially with Dickie’s local American friend Marge, who may or may not be a love interest as well. But Ripley’s imbalances quickly begin to take over. He is jealous of Marge, and admires Dickie to a disturbing degree. He wants Dickie’s life. And soon, he thinks he has found a way to have it.

The storyline is loosely based on Henry James’s novel The Ambassadors, which makes several appearances in this book. Highsmith knows her way around a literary device.

The key to the appeal and memorability of this story is Highsmith’s ability to portray the completely amoral murderer, the obsessed and insane. This is just the author for those who like to be disturbed! It’s Ripley’s distorted sense of right and wrong that is most upsetting in this book. He is entirely, fully, deeply frightening. More so than any murder or wrongdoing, it’s the depravity within him that causes the goosebumps on the reader’s neck.

Now I really want to see the movie.

Rating: 7 suitcases.

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The Lady and Her Monsters by Roseanne Montillo

Posted on February 20, 2013 by pagesofjulia

A spirited investigation of the bizarre times that inspired Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

monsters

On its surface, Roseanne Montillo’s The Lady and Her Monsters is an exploration of the genesis of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. But Montillo clearly rejoices in meandering through the volatile times that gave life to Shelley’s gothic classic, and her multifaceted literary study expands to include discussions of anatomy and alchemy, suicides, ghoulish dissections of men not quite dead and the dramatic death of Percy Shelley at sea.

In the early 19th century, Europe grew increasingly fascinated with life, death and man’s ability to control nature. Grave robbers known as “resurrectionists” provided subjects for human dissections that were conducted both in medical schools and for the general public’s entertainment. Scientists and imposters experimented with the capacity of electricity to restore life. Into this environment, Mary Shelley was born to Mary Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the Rights of Woman) and William Godwin, a famous reformer of the day. Percy Bysshe Shelley was her lover and eventual husband; her sister was lover to Lord Byron. The foursome were traveling in Italy, telling the ghost stories with which Percy Shelley was obsessed, when–as Mary Shelley and legend have it–a human monster appeared to Mary in a waking dream. It was also in Italy that she may have first heard the surname Frankenstein, tied to the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula, as well as to Sir George (he who killed the dragon). In Montillo’s enthusiastic prose, such diverse and macabre subjects make for a lively survey, not only of Shelley’s masterpiece, but of an odd and colorful time in European history.

This review originally ran as a *starred review* in the February 8, 2013 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 5 volts.

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The Rage by Gene Kerrigan

Posted on February 18, 2013 by pagesofjulia

A noir crime novel featuring the collision of a motley group of characters in modern Ireland.

rage

The Rage by Gene Kerrigan (The Midnight Choir) is a multifaceted, character-driven story of crime and remorse. Vincent Naylor, freshly out of prison, is back to planning a robbery with his old accomplices, most notably his beloved big brother, Noel. Bob Tidey is an experienced and jaded police detective, still devoted to doing good but with the growing feeling that his employers limit his best efforts. Maura Coady is a retired nun living with her guilt and regrets. When Maura witnesses something out the front window of her apartment that doesn’t look quite right, she calls Tidey to report it, setting in motion a string of events that run counter to the Naylor brothers’ movements toward the next big score. The reader watches each player’s trajectory on this collision course, but still won’t guess the big finish until it crashes into place.

The Rage will please readers of crime thrillers and literary fiction alike. The atmosphere effectively evokes contemporary Ireland, with all its discontent and economic frustration, and in this way brings to mind Tana French’s lyrical Dublin Murder Squad mystery series. Bob Tidey’s cynicism and gruff efforts at romance recall Michael Connelly’s hero Detective Harry Bosch. The intersecting story lines and crescendo of action create a cinematic effect. Kerrigan’s compelling characters carry this thriller breathlessly through to its climax, but it is the engaging dialogue, thoughtful and absorbing prose and social conscience that make The Rage memorable.

This review originally ran in the February 8, 2013 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 6 regrets.

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Still Alice by Lisa Genova (audio)

Posted on February 15, 2013 by pagesofjulia

stillaliceI have a favorite book of the year so far, you guys. Still Alice is one of the most remarkable books I’ve read in some time. I enjoyed Lisa Genova’s second novel, Left Neglected, very much. (I listened to that one as an audiobook, too.) But Still Alice gripped me from the first lines, and never let me go – I was riveted. Let me tell you more.

The two books have more than a few threads in common. Both feature married women, with three children, in male-dominated fields with all the requisite toughness and work ethic but also with plenty of feminine soft spots, struggling to reconcile the two; both live in Boston. One could easily surmise that these are attributes shared by the author, a Harvard-educated neuroscientist-turned-novelist. Where Sarah of Left Neglected had young children, though, Alice Howland has grown children: one lawyer trying to get pregnant, one doctor just finishing his medical training, and one relatively wayward daughter who has scorned college in favor of acting. Alice is a Harvard professor of psychology, and her husband John is also a Harvard doc, working with human cells & a possible cure for cancer. She is nearing her 50th birthday when the book opens, and shortly after it, she is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. The story is concerned with the progression of her disease, the changes it wreaks on her life and the lives of her husband and three children, and their struggles (independently and as a family unit) to handle these changes. It is also centrally about Alice herself, as a person, what Alzheimer’s does to her and her reactions & dealings with that disease. Again, the author is a neuroscientist, so while I (thankfully) don’t have any experience with Alzheimer’s disease by which to judge this portrayal, I trust Genova’s ability to tell it truly.

I became deeply engrossed in this story from the very beginning. Although told in the third person, we are very much inside Alice’s head (call it third person limited, for which I like this explanation because of the example chosen!). Alice felt very much like a real, flawed-but-likeable person. I was occasionally exasperated with her choices: to fight with Lydia over her acting career, to fail to appreciate her, and to put off telling her husband about her diagnosis. But I always sympathized, and liked her throughout. I would like to spend a day or a week with this woman. In fact, in telling Husband about this story as I listened to it, I referred to her as my friend. This is not something I normally do with fictional characters.

I was deeply emotionally involved. If I was angry with Alice for not telling John she had Alzheimer’s right away, I was even angrier with John for his reaction, and his repeated failures to be supportive. I wanted to cry when they began considering their future. And I did cry, often, as the disease progressed and Alice’s family was – still flawed and imperfect, but earnest and effortful and loving in their handling of these events. I hope it’s not too much of a spoiler to say that I was charmed by the silver-lining aspect, where Alice’s relationship with Lydia grew stronger in this time of sickness. I pondered whether it was a bit too fictional-happy, to insert such a silver lining, and decided it wasn’t.

This is a sad story, certainly, and I cried more than a few times. (I finished this book in the gym, and it took great effort not to weep on the elliptical machine. What would people have thought?) But there is love, and hope, and strength; Alice keeps a certain dignity that made me love her more as she got sicker. I can see how this would be a painful read for someone whose own life has been affected by Alzheimer’s, but I’m inclined to think it might be worth the pain for the beauty it expresses.

If you’ve read the book or don’t care to, highlight the white text to read my spoiler-y discussion below; but if you intend to read this book, don’t.

I was saddened by Alice’s decision to plan her suicide, but I respected it. When she got so sick that she couldn’t execute her own plans, I found that sadder still. I wondered a little at Genova’s decision to end the story the way she did, with Alice fading into gray; I would have liked to know her final fate, when and how she died, whether John moved her to a place she never wanted to be (a “home,” or New York), but I think this way was for the best. That fade-to-gray is probably most like the end of Alice’s own understanding of things – most like Alzheimer’s disease.

Unlike Left Neglected, this book is read by the author, and when I heard that I was thrilled, because my author-narrated audiobook experiences have so far been 100% wonderful. Still Alice is no exception. Genova’s goodreads page tells us she’s an actress as well as a neuroscientist and novelist, so perhaps it’s no surprise that she delivers her characters feelingly (or that she wrote a lovely, passionate actress character into this book). For the record, I really enjoyed the audio reading of Left Neglected, too, but I would never pass up an author-read version, and highly, highly recommend this audio version of Still Alice.

This is without a doubt going to make my list of best books read in 2013. I am so relieved to see that Genova has a third novel out already, Love Anthony, and is working on a fourth – whew! I can’t say enough good things about this book. I love Alice.

Rating: 9 thingies.

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Speaking Truth to Power by Anita Hill, first half review

Posted on February 12, 2013 by pagesofjulia

anitahillFor reasons I’ll discuss below, I have had to put this book down at about the halfway point, through no fault of Anita Hill’s absorbing story or lovely, clear, honest writing. This first review will be more about my emotional reactions and reason for pausing in my reading; soon I will publish my second-half-review which will be more about the book itself. Briefly, for the record, it’s a great book.

Anita Hill was a young black female lawyer from the south in the early 1980’s, when she found herself employed as an assistant to Clarence Thomas, then an aspiring government official looking for an appointment under President Bush (Senior). She was largely successful in leaving behind her unpleasant experiences in his employment as she moved onto other lines of work, teaching law back in her home state of Oklahoma, where she could be closer to her family and further from the nasty environment Thomas created for her in Washington, D.C. When Thomas was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1991, however, she reconsidered her silence on his sexual harassment, and ended up traveling to D.C. to testify at his confirmation hearing as to his behavior nearly 10 years earlier. She was excoriated for her decision and her actions; every piece of her life, her morals, her “virtue” were picked apart. This book is her attempt to set the record straight.

Most Americans know the name Anita Hill, in my (limited) survey. When I mentioned this book, a coworker spoke of having horrible, vivid dreams, set in the Senate, as the hearings went on; she sympathized with Hill’s unfortunate position. I am young enough that I don’t remember these events (I was 9 in 1991 and not paying much attention to sexual harassment and Supreme Court nominations, for which I suppose I’m glad); it’s history to me. However, the name Anita Hill did mean something to me, and it means much more now.

I am reading this book because my father raved about it and felt it was important reading for me, which I easily believed. And it’s a lovely book. But it so happens that I picked it up during a time when my personal life was in upheaval in a few ways. I don’t want to share too many personal details here (I’d rather get personal when the news is good!) but it involved my loved ones being spread around the globe dealing with various trauma, and I was distracted, worried, and depressed. And unfortunately, one of the central truths of Hill’s book, based on events in 1982 and 1991 and published in 1997, holds true today: that most women will be sexually harassed; that most will choose not to accuse their harassers; and that few harassers are sanctioned. Again, without revealing too much of my personal story, I know this firsthand. And reading about Hill’s experiences, both being harassed by Thomas, and then being harassed by her national media and political representatives, was entirely too painful to me. I felt physically sick to my stomach reading it, and I had to put it down.

I still agree with my father’s statements that this is a very good book, and that it’s an important book for me to read. I look forward to picking it back up – as I write this, personal-life issues are mostly resolved, and (thank goodness!) Husband is home here with me. Hill writes like a lawyer: she makes statements of what she knows to be true, and is careful to note where she speculates, while providing evidence to support her speculations. She speaks strongly where she is sure that she is right; and (as one would expect) she has a very sure and confident grasp of legal issues in their minutia, and is capable of making those legal details understandable to her reader. I also really enjoy her gentle, loving treatment of her family history; that background adds to her story immeasurably.

I wanted to give you this first-half-review of this book where I’ve paused in my reading of it, to note the painful emotional impact it’s had on me. Make no mistake, it’s a fine book and I will finish it and tell you more very soon. But for now, know that this story is rather excruciating.

Rating: 8 brave public statements.

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