Where have I been all of Ker-bloom!'s life? artnoose has been making this handset letterpress zine every other month since 1996. I finally got around to reading it when I received several copies in a zine donation at Barnard.
Here's a cover scan from issue 55 and Kelly Wooten's review of it in Library Journal:
From early childhood through high school in upper class Palos Verdes California, Baszile was the only (or rare) African-American girl other than her sister on her street or in her school. This coming-of-age memoir focuses on issues particular to her situation, but that also apply to any young woman growing up in America. The anxieties about how she looks, dating, and her rocky family relationships are pretty universal.
Maybe he finally understood that integration had been as hard on me as segregation had been on him. p.307
I wanted to like this book more than I did. It was given to me by a nice editor from the Public Affairs publishing house, and the other book she gave me from there, This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor rocked my world really hard. Since reading it I've often consider giving up the glamour of librarianship for life as a baby killer. (It pays okay, but the people trying to murder you gets wearing after a while, from what I understand.)
I bet you know where I'm going with this. Welcome to Shirley, perhaps because my expectations were high, was just okay...
I loved getting a glimpse into the world of Jehovah's Witnesses, as told by a former member, who broke free around the age of 20. Kyria Abrahams grew up in Pawtucket, RI, a highly intelligent, very funny, obsessive compulsive, no blood card carrying Jehovah's Witness. (Transfusions are evil, or at least spiritually and physically dangerous.) Sometimes the humor is a bit much, like Abrahams is trying too hard, but you forgive her because imbuing her crazy childhood with forced hilarity may be the only way she can face it. Other times the humor is so funny that I try to read it aloud to my spouse and can't without laughing. (The Smurf quote.)
We listened to an impossibly boring sermon, most of which was spent calling the Catholics idiots for thinking the wine actually turned into blood. I mean, please, what we served was clearly plain old wine coming out of a plain old bottle which just needed to be ingested by the 144.000 human bodies that God had personally chosen to sit at his right hand in heaven. Let's not get silly about it. p.27
Across the board, Smurfs were a well-known portal to the demon realm. Parents knew it; elders knew it. It was mentioned from the stage and in public comments during the Watchtower Study, often in the same breath as Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video. It proved the point that Satan was treacherous and vile, like a serpent. He would stop at nothing to turn us away from Jehovah, even targeting unsuspecting children.
Smurfs, it seemed, were decidedly un-Smurfy. Never once did I dare to Smurf a Smurf or Smurf a ride to Smurftown. I made it through the entire '80s without once owning a single item with a Smurf on it. And for my self-sacrifice in this matter, Jehovah found me totally Smurftastic. p.40
At first I thought this book, about a woman's mentor relationship with a homeless teen was a lot like Erlbaum's previous memoir, Girlbomb, which I read last year and mostly liked.
Earlier this week I read a memoir by a 35-year-old, and a friend was like "Can someone in their 30s really write an autobiography?" So next up, I grabbed one by a 34-year-old. Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father was commissioned by Random House after Obama was made the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. As I've said here before, I'm not drinking the Obama Kool-Aid, but I do kind of wish I was. I want to believe. I want things to be different with him as the U.S. president.
The table of contents reveals some favorites from the past: Julia Alvarez, James McBride, Lisa See, and Danzy Senna.