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Afraid of My Own Country


Rob reads and proofs my posts in advance of publishing. After reading my post for last Saturday, he asked,

“Why are you so afraid to visit your own country?”

And then he showed me this clip from The Seminal of interviews with a typical crowd at one of the townhall meetings on health care.

“How can you watch that and even ask?” I said.

I taught for a long time in the public school system. The parents and kids I encountered were the people who are booing, hissing, spewing Glenn Beckism’s and confusing the real horror of Naziism with the Obama administration. They are likely quite decent to their own, but like most Americans they have no concept of what it means to work/sacrifice for the good of the many or for their country. My fellow countrymen are spoiled, fat and rather mean-spirited when it comes to the good of anyone but themselves.

And they are easily distracted from real issues. The Obama administration has not made good on any of its promises regarding the war, Gitmo, the paranoid border and travel security measures implemented under Bush. How many of the civil liberities we lost after 9/11 have been restored to us? Naked manipulation of Wall Street continues unabated and now fueled by tax dollars. The government uses smoke and mirrors to lie about the economic recovery and the worsening unemployment. But the sprinkles blinding the average American is a universal health care plan that no one in a country that actually has universal health care would recognize as such. 

Perhaps when the bottom becames too heavy to prop – sometime between now and early spring according to saner sources – America will wake up to the real problems they have and realize they are being played off each other for the benefit of the few. The few are who really matter down there in the land of the “free”*.

Holly’s Inbox by Holly Denham (aka Bill Surie)


I am not a book blogger, or a mommy blogger, but I am solicited on occasion by authors and people hoping I will help them promote this or that. I wasn’t at all sure I would have time to do another book review this summer, and when the author of Holly’s Inbox contacted me, I wasn’t sure at all why he chose me. But he assured me that he did indeed wish me to read and review his work, so I agreed.

When the book arrived, I was sorry I had agreed because it was 660 pages long. The last book I tackled that was even close to that length I eventually abandoned out of frustration with a story that I felt could have been told in with a whole lot fewer words.

But, Holly’s Inbox has garnered good reviews from other book bloggers I have followed and who have always seemed to be genuine in their reviews, and it has been a bestseller in the U.K., so I gave it a go.

To quickly summarize via the publisher’s blurb:

Meet Holly Denham. It’s her first day as a receptionist at a London investment bank and inexperienced Holly is struggling. Take a peek at her email and you’ll see why: Holly’s inbox is a daily source of drama. An affair with a sexy VP heats things up at the office, but when Holly’s first flame (who, she thinks, left her in the lurch) gets a job at the same company, complications abound.

How’s a working girl supposed to have a love life with a demanding job, crazy friends, a dysfunctional family, and gossipy colleagues? Not to mention that Holly’s been keeping a secret from everyone – and the past is about to catch up with her.

Written entirely in emails, this compulsively readable UK smash hit will keep you laughing and turning the pages all the way to its surprising and deeply satisfying ending.

Repeatedly compared to Bridget Jones’ Diary, hollysinbox.com became a website phenomenon, with thousands of daily visitors from all over the world. This novel tells Holly’s story in full, and also includes exclusive extra material not available on the site.

The narrative is told via emails between the main character, Holly, her family, friends, and co-workers. And like most emails of strangers, they are hard to follow at first because there is a learning curve as one tries to figure out who is who and to impose some sense of organization on the events unfolding sans third person narrative.

The format I found intriguing really because I like the idea of telling stories using the various means by which people share their lives these days. Young adult authors have been using the idea of telling stories via social media style for some time, so it makes sense that adult authors would eventually head in that direction too. I wish the novel had relied on more than email, but I understand the limitation in terms of the storyline.

The story is the stuff of rom-com, and it’s definitely geared toward the chick-lit crowd, and I pretty quickly lost interest. Not because it wasn’t funny and clever or the story wasn’t credible, but it was just eating up a tremendous amount of my writing time. I dumped Pride, Prejudice and Zombies for more writing time too – frankly I forgo a lot of things for an extra minute or 60 for writing time, so I hope the author doesn’t feel slighted.

I did think it was more interesting than the last book I reviewed – which was chick lit written by a man too coincidentally – so one can take that for what it is worth. Since I am currently trying to write a memoir based on emails, IM’s and blog posts, I can understand how difficult it must have been for the author to transpose the original Holly from her website to a novel and still be true to her essence.

The novel is billed as a Bridget Jones successor and that rings true. It does remind me of the first novel – which I did read – but it allows the reader into the thoughts of all the characters really without the imposition of authorial judgments. Everyone is, more or less, unfiltered.

I would have had a more positive reaction had it not been such a long book. I don’t mean to harp on that fact because it doesn’t seem to have bothered anyone else whose read it, but on the other hand War and Peace is still twice as long so maybe I am just whinging.

Things Come Up


Pardon me while I ramble today.

Recently I came back into contact with old acquaintances and friends from my Des Moines days via Facebook.  People I haven’t seen since Will’s funeral or longer ago.  This, coupled with an impending trip to central Iowa for a wedding in a few weeks, has stirred up memories. And not good ones, but it forced me to acknowledge a few things:

1) I still harbor resentment. I know that my perceptions of the time when Will was getting sick, but only I thought so, the years he was ill and everyone was forced to acknowledge it, and his death and the aftermath are different from those who were not privy to my thought processes.

People still believe they were helpful, empathetic and generally “there” for us, but from where I stood – and I still am standing there – they weren’t. They just weren’t. Sure, people have lives and responsibilities, but mostly people, where Will and I were concerned, and later Dee and I, just phoned it in and assumed that it was enough.  It wasn’t.  And it still pisses me off because I am not allowed to tell people how I feel.  Why?  That perception thing. And because I know now that some people (most people) suck when push comes to shove. They do the best they can and often it isn’t enough or at all.

2) I wish my niece was not getting married in Pella. Her fiancé’s family is from there. Will’s family is there. The bulk that includes auntie’s, uncles and cousins. The hotel and reception venue are just across the street from his grandmother’s old store and the apartment where she lived. Last I knew, his mother’s brother was living there. It’s not a place we visited often because Will hated it. Pella is small town which means that if you weren’t born there – you will never belong. Stiflingly conservative, hypocritically religious and very, very Dutch. Seriously Dutch. So Dutch, that if you aren’t, you don’t matter much at all. He resented being subject to social and cultural standards when those imposing them considered him an outsider anyway. The irony was that he actually was Dutch via his paternal Grannie, whom he loved, but he acknowledged that she shared the propensity of most of the pure and nearly pure Dutch he knew for being harshly judgemental, quick to dismiss and slow to admit mistakes they made because of it.

3) I don’t enjoy visiting the States. Border crossings have an unnerving police state feel to them. We are always running from one place, group or thing to another. There is no time to sit, see people other than family, or just wander around. And it seems too bright, loud and frenetic.

4) I am ready to write off Will’s family in their entirety. I don’t like them. Dee will not be worse off for not knowing them. And being the bigger person (sending pictures and cards) isn’t doing it for me. 

5) Seeing my parent’s – my mom’s now – home is going to be hard. Mom has completely remodeled it. Just about all traces of Dad are gone. The last time I saw the house was the week he died. When I see it again, it will be almost as if he was never there. Despite having supported and encouraged her to do what she wanted and needed, I really wish Mom hadn’t been so thorough.

6) I need to prune my Facebook friends list.

And that is all.