Nonfiction RA Matrix: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong child, her American doctors, and the collision of two cultures by Anne Fadiman

Note: I read this book about 25 years ago. It has stayed with me ever since. 

1. Where is the book on the narrative continuum?

    A mix (combines highly narrative moments with periods of fact-based prose)

2. What is the subject of the book?

    A Hmong immigrant family in California has a daughter with epilepsy. The family believes in an animist, holistic treatment for what they believe to be a spiritual problem; American doctors prescribed western medicines. These disparate approaches, both equally rigid, are a source of exasperation for all parties involved.

3. What type of book is it?

    Ethnographic science writing

4. Articulate appeal

    What is the pacing of the book?  Thoughtful and patient

    How does the story feel?  Earnest, compelling

    What is the intent of the author? To introduce readers to the Hmong culture and history and to encourage cross-cultural understanding in the medical community.

    What is the focus of the story?  The Lee family's predicament in particular, Hmong history for context, Western medicine policies and practice

    Does the language matter?  Yes, the writing both describes and provokes strong emotions as two cultures collide and emphatically disagree about what is happening and what should be done about it.

    Is the setting important and well described?  Very, starting with a description of a Hmong woman's childbirth experience (in total silence) to the American clinical setting to the Lees' apartment where the family sacrifices a pig in an attempt to return Lia's spirit to her body.

    Are there details and, if so, what? So many! Fadiman makes use of lists to convey a sense of overwhelming differentness, writes in detail about the history of the Hmong in Laos and beyond including their involvement with the CIA, Hmong spirituality, ethics, customs, and etiquette; she covers Lia's medical treatments (27 prescription changes in 4 years) and hospital practices and policies.

    Are there sufficient charts and other graphic materials? Are they useful and clear?  There might be maps; I don't recall

    Does the book stress moments of learning, understanding, or experience? Experiences are described in detail, but it's actually the lack of learning or understanding each other (the Lees and the doctors) that makes this story so compelling.

5. Why would a reader enjoy this book (rank appeal)

    1 Authenticity

    2 Ideas

    3 Plot

Literary fiction annotation: Crook Manifesto

Author:   Colson Whitehead

Title:      Crook Manifesto

Genre:   Literary Fiction

Publication Date:  2023

Number of pages:  319

Geographical Setting: Harlem, N.Y., USA

Time Period:  1970’s

Series: yes, second of the Harlem trilogy

Plot Summary:  Former fence Ray Carney returns from Harlem Shuffle, older, out of the crime game and the owner of a furniture store. Until his daughter wants Jackson Five tickets and Carney is drawn into a deadly scheme enacted by a crooked cop. Two years later, Carney’s partner Pepper produces a Blaxploitation film rife with setbacks. Three years after that, Carney and Pepper try to make sense of the frequent fires going up in bicentennial Harlem, including one that killed a neighbor child. Rich descriptions of Harlem, its characters and characteristics tie these three stories together as illustrative of an era and a place that is unique in American history.

Subject Headings:

Harlem–fiction

African Americans–fiction

Blaxploitation–fiction

Crime–fiction

Appeal:

• Setting:  Harlem the neighborhood is as much a character as the individuals that comprise it. Harlem of the time was filled with criminals in and out of law enforcement, small shops and restaurants, run-down apartment buildings, fancy clubs, and a broad cast of characters that embody the neighborhood.

• Language:  Whitehead is an artful writer, waxing poetic as narrator, capturing the cadence and slang of 1970’s Harlem (read aloud beautifully by Dion Graham on the audiobook).

• Time Frame: Set in 1971, 1973, and 1976, each segment of the book deals with politics, crime, Black entertainment, family, housing, and fashion of the era. 

Three terms that best describe the book: Gritty, humorous, descriptive

Three relevant non-fiction works and authors (why are they similar?)

• Harlem is Nowhere: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America, Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts

Rhodes-Pitts explores 100 years of Harlem, highlighting both the famous and the average residents of a storied community rich with its own culture and history. An acclaimed autobiography, the author chronicles her own life and the life of Harlem itself as gentrification threatens its identity. In Whitehead’s novel and Rhodes-Pitts’ autobiography, Harlem is treated almost as its own character with a rich backstory and colorful residents.

• Black Caesars and Foxy Cleopatras: A History of Blaxploitation Cinema, Odie Henderson

Film Critic Henderson fondly reviews Blaxploitation classics like Shaft and SuperFly. These films were critiqued for promoting negative stereotypes of African Americans but were box office hits for Black Americans who wanted to see Black actors playing strong characters. Henderson celebrates the genre while pointing out its misogyny and other flaws. Whitehead’s Nefertiti TNT is typical of Blaxploitation films of the 1970’s

• The Harlem Reader: A Celebration of New York’s Most Famous Neighborhood, From the Renaissance Years to the Twenty-first Century, edited by Herb Boyd

This anthology of essays, poems, fiction, memoir, and more portrays Harlem as celebrated as well as despised. The Reader shares accounts by famous and everyday citizens, capturing the multifaceted neighborhood in all its contradictions and its rich history.

Three relevant fiction works and authors:

• Deacon King Kong, James McBride

Set in 1969 Brooklyn, this novel too treats the character of a whole community as antagonist. Both novels are gritty, funny, dark, and hopeful.

• Carmen and Grace, Melissa Coss Aquino

A crime novel that is also social commentary, Carmen and Grace focuses on how crime infiltrates the Latin areas of the Bronx in the 2000’s, compared to Whitehead’s crime-infested Harlem of the 1970’s.

• Blacktop Wasteland, S.A. Cosby

Both novels feature characters driven to complete one last crime in their violent African American communities.

Week 11 Blog prompt: ebooks and audiobooks

There is something to be said for physical books--the weight, the smell, the bookmark indicating how far along you are in the reading--but maybe those delights pale in comparison to technological advances now or in the future. In "The Surprisingly Big Business of Library E-books," Gross (2021) credited the COVID-19 lockdown for a rapid growth in the use of e-books. Now that we are a couple of years past it (though still recovering from our trauma), I wonder if e-book sales have waned. I doubt it.

A senior patron I know prefers e-books now for the following reasons:

1. Not as heavy to hold and read
2. Not as heavy to carry; you can take lots of books with you on a single device
3. You can make the print as large as you need to
4. Dictionary definitions on demand
5. Easily referring back to the first time a character is introduced "X-Ray" app, she called it
6. Remote access; no need to go to the library

Bonus appeal factor: changing fonts for dyslexics

Audiobooks have reached new audiences--including me, recently, for this class. Reading, once a favorite pastime, has become difficult for me, so I chose to listen to five books over the past couple of months. Instant appeal factors:

1. I have always been a slow reader, hearing the words in my head as I read, so listening takes no longer than reading does. However this may be a strike against audiobooks for fast readers
2. Talented voice actors can do different voices for different characters, making dialogue easier to follow. The House in the Cerulean Sea, read by Daniel Henning, succeeded in doing character voices.
3. Talented voice actors can also convey emotion, alter the pace to match the story, and use accents and slang that are foreign to the reader. Crook Manifesto, read by Dion Graham, does a wonderful job with pacing, emotion, and slang. "Shee-iiiit" needs to be read aloud a certain way.
4. Of course, there are also untalented voice actors. Or talented voice actors reading dumb books (I'm looking at you Will Wheaton, for your reading of Ready Player One).
5. Easier to focus on than a printed book
6. Somehow also easy to be doing something else while listening--I like paint by numbers.

Bonus appeal factor: I had a foreign language speaking patron at my old branch who liked to check out a hard copy and an audiobook and read along to improve his English.

A note on the Cerulean Sea narration--I liked the character voices, but thought the narration was "wrong"--wrong emphasis, wrong cadence, but I was able to "hear" it the way I would have read it in my head as I listened. It was an odd sort of stereo experience.

Here's the paint by numbers I finished while listening to The House in the Cerulean Sea--kind of a good match!

Fantasy--The House in the Cerulean Sea

 Author:  T.J. Klune

Title:   The House in the Cerulean Sea

Genre:   Fantasy

Publication date: March 2020

Number of pages: 396

Geographical Setting: An alternative England

Time Period: Present day or near future

Series: Yes, but no sequel yet

Plot Summary: Linus Baker is a low-level bureaucrat, a case worker in the Department of Magical Youth. He lives a solitary life with his cat until Extremely Upper Management assigns him a very special case: an island orphanage headed by the quirky Arthur Parnassus. Each of the children has their own magical identity: a sprite, a gnome, a wyvern, a mysterious green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the son of Satan. In an imagined England that is wary if not downright suspicious of magical creatures, Linus has the task of ensuring that the children are safe and well cared for. What he discovers is a newfound family.

Subject Headings:

Orphanage–fiction

Bureaucracy–fiction

LGBTQ romance

Mythological creatures–fiction

Appeal:

Genre–The House in the Cerulean Sea is a fantasy book that features magical realism. 

Sexuality–a “clean” gay love story, the couple in question dance together and later move in together. That’s the extent of the sex in this book.

Setting–a juxtaposition between soul-crushing bureaucracy and magical whimsy with a hint of cultural intolerance in an imagined England.

Three terms that best describe this book: Sweet, funny, romantic

3 relevant non-fiction works and authors (why are they similar?)

• Treasury of Fantastic and Mythological Creatures: 1,087 Renderings from Historic Sources, Richard Huber

Klune’s novel describes several fantastic creatures who are likely featured in this treasury.

• Magical Miniature Gardens and Homes: Create Tiny Worlds of Fairy Magic & Delight with Natural, Hand-Made Decor, Donni Webber

Gardening is an important hobby for some of the characters in Cerulean Sea. This book instructs in creating gardens that share Klune’s sense of whimsy.

• The Road Less Traveled: A Memoir of Adoption, Special Needs, Detours, and Love, Heidi Renee

All of the children in Cerulean Sea have special needs and are loved by their adults. 

3 relevant fiction works and authors

• Legends & Lattes, Travis Baldree

Gentle fantasy, found families, and heartwarming romance are featured in both books.

• The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, Sangu Mandanna

Gentle fantasy, found families, and heartwarming romance are featured in this book as well.

• Every Heart a Doorway, Seanan McGuire

Contemporary fantasy featuring magical children.

Book Club experience

I attended my own branch’s well established book club. It meets monthly in the branch’s only meeting room on the fourth Tuesday of the month at 4pm and is comprised of all white retirees. I don’t usually attend (reading is a challenge for me) but I provide the group with 3-4 titles each month from which to choose for the following month’s discussion. Usually but not always there is one nonfiction book included among the choices. The club’s leader is the branch’s assistant manager, who in addition to reading the selection looks for information about the book or author to share with the group.

This month’s selection was Lisa See’s historical novel Lady Tan’s Circle of Women. The assistant manager shared a photo of “the marriage bed” referred to in the novel. The photo is of the marriage bed inherited by the author who, like the characters in her book, is of Chinese descent. After that, the only question she needed to ask was, “well, what did you think?” and the discussion took off.  The only man in the club chose not to finish the book (he prefers nonfiction and occasionally literary fiction). He and I were still welcomed into the discussion.

No one dominated the discussion, and no questions or discussion prompts were needed. The group reflected on the ending, wondered why a character behaved differently than expected, agreed that Asian cultures prefer conforming over standing out compared to Westerners. They remarked on sexism in the book, the difference between doctors’ and midwives’ expectations and exposure to patients, and the use of concubines to assure that male heirs were born. The assistant manager shared that she’d read a review of the book that alluded to the friendship between two women as a “thinly veiled” relationship. No one in the group saw it as anything more than a friendship. Everyone participated, including me. Near the end of the hour, I shared three novels and a nonfiction book with the group to choose from. They elected to read Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake for next month (because it was set in Michigan) and also Ben Raines’ The Last Slave Ship (because it was true) for the following month.

The public library system I work for has been talking a lot about combating loneliness being an important role the library can play in the community.  At the end of the club meeting, one of the more elderly participants shared that she is going through an emotional time preparing to move out of her house of 30 years.  The group offered words of encouragement and asked her questions about what she was looking for in a new home and assured her that book club members were friends, too. The man in the book club has told me more than once that the library is his “sanctuary.”  

My library system is also working to centralize all programming and recently defined clubs as patron-led groups that require no staff time.  Another book club run by the Main branch is also led by staff, who told me they are meeting with the Programming department to make an argument for staff-led book clubs, even if other clubs may be run without staff support (e.g. Euchre clubs). I know that my branch’s club has tried taking turns choosing the book and leading the discussion, but found they much prefer that staff take on those roles, if for no other reason than to avoid hurt feelings if someone doesn’t like that month’s book selection.