I had the pleasure two weeks ago of hearing Monica Murphy Lemoine read from her book Knocked Up, Knocked Down: Postcards from the Brink of Parenthood while she was in town for a conference on perinatal and infant death. Let me tell you, Monica is no less engaging in person. Her book was already funny – “darkly humorous,” as she says – but hearing her read aloud was highly entertaining, if you can say such a thing about a book about miscarriage and stillbirth. Inflections, pauses, hand gestures, oh my!

Monica addressed a group made up of a lot of social workers and other practitioners who deal with grieving parents. She focused on chapters that dealt in part with the process of dealing with loss, including one chapter about the world’s worst support group, where she was the only mom in attendance, and neither of the two moderators had had miscarriages. After that, Monica never attended another support group, even after her stillbirth and an additional miscarriage. “I felt alienated,” she said.

Monica opened the evening describing the process of writings as cathartic, and, when asked later, said yes it was “very, very, very therapeutic.” (I swear, I have it written down three times in my notes!) Monica started the book a year after her still birth, noting that it takes while to process an experience like that. And yet, she also said that her first miscarriage was harder to deal with because it was the first bad thing that had happened to her; it was her first realization that there are things beyond her control.

Monica concluded the reading with the final chapter of her book, where a salsa dancing lesson in Quito, Ecuador in some ways restores her sense of her body as something other than a producer of babies who don’t live. Similarly, she explained that doing book readings allows her to re-feel what she went to, to re-experience it and learn something new. “It’s your therapy,” offered the practitioners in the audience, welcoming her to her first real support group.

As my friend and I talked on the way home, it was clear that Monica was not alone in having benefited from the evening. The reading spurred both of us down some path in how we think about things: about grief, loss, and in my case, self-perception. It’s only lately becoming clear to me how guarded and distant I was from my friends who were trying to conceive before I even got my period back and who were having second babies at home while I still licked my wounds over my c-section. And yet, despite having to delay conception both times for various health reasons, with both children, I conceived on the first try. Kind of flies in the face of my story about my body not working, doesn’t it?

When I first greeted Monica before the reading began and asked how things were going, she shared how bizarre it was to be away from her seven-month-old son, Sean, at a conference with so much talk of death and suppliers of baby coffins. She pulled up his picture to show me, and then opened her reading introducing the crowd to her “living son,” who was back home in Seattle. Hours earlier, she had changed her return flight to leave the following day not at 4 p.m. as scheduled, but early in the morning, something like 7:30, which means she’d need to leave her Alexandria hotel in the 5:00 hour to get to Dulles.

I can only imagine what that reunion must have felt like.

—–

What is therapy for you?

I just got back from a great meeting with my writing group — women who consistently challenge me and teach me, as a writer and as a mother.

One of our members had to stay home with a sick child tonight, but it was great to see that she recently won the Silver prize at Best Travel Writing for an essay we read for the first time two years ago. It’s great to see how the piece has grown and shifted as she has grown and shifted as a mom. And it’s inspiring to see that sometimes the work that sits around for a while really is waiting for just the right time to ripen. It’s not always an issue just of time or motivation; sometimes it just takes more lived experience for the arc of a story to take shape.

Congratulations, Stephanie, on your essay, “A Mother’s Chase.”

The Washington Post is going to stop printing its Sunday Book World insert. I know a lot of extra expense items are going by the wayside these days. I also understand that there are a lot of other publications out there that fit this bill, and I should be reading those. But this was my local paper, the place with my local literary calendar. I’ve never been good at keeping up with the textflow that comes into my home(especially for someone who wants to write), but bite-sized Book World I would at least read some of every week. And I was really enjoying Mary Karr’s very accessible take on Poet’s Choice!

Some portions will go to Style and some to Outlook, but most of Book World as we used to know it will go online. Find it at http://www.washingtonpost.com/bookworld

A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to attend Hooray for Books‘ book release party for The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had, a novel for middle grade readers by first-time novelist Kristin Levine. I did, however have with me my son (just a month younger than the author’s daughter), and keeping him from pulling books off the shelves of the cute Old Town Alexandria bookstore kept me from hearing all of Kristin’s backstory about the creation of this wonderful historical novel. I do know that events are based on experiences of her grandfather, and I know Kristin put in a good bit of research to pull off this great story.

The narrator, Dit, is an eleven-year-old white boy in 1917 Alabama. Although he has nine siblings, he’s looking forward to the arrival of the new postmaster — who traditionally rents a home from his family — because the postmaster is supposed to have a son Dit’s age. Dit hopes to show this boy his baseball glove and play with him over the summer. Much to Dit’s chagrin, the new postmaster from Massachusetts has a bookish daughter, not a son. And to everyone’s surprise, the family is black.

The novel does a great job of conveying in many different and non-cliched ways the theme of not judging a book by its cover. The message, infused throughout with humor, can be appreciated by the target audience and adult readers alike. Dit tells his story in dialect, an approach that roots the narrative in time and place — and in the voice of a child just learning about the world — but does not alienate twenty-first century readers of any age.

This fresh window into early twentieth-century history tells serious and scary truths in an accessible and surprising way that will have even the most jaded readers feeling hopeful. The book, which came out out just days after Barack Obama’s inauguration, seemed to fit right into the emotional wave we were riding here in the DC Metro area where the National Mall was packed with people pinching themselves that we’d made it to this point in history.

Having taken a writing workshop at the Writer’s Center with Kristin, I was not surprised to find her novel such an enjoyable read. I am thrilled for her that she’s getting such great reviews (check out her web site at www.kristinlevine.com) and inspired to have seen a fellow mama (not to mention a pregnant mama, and a La Leche League leader, and the wife of a former teaching colleague of mine) have such great success!

Nursing a sick kid sure does give you time to read. Come to think of it, having a kid who calms down more (and sometimes even falls asleep) when you read while he’s nursing than while you do anything else has also helped. I’d forgotten how enjoyable it is to get lost in a full novel or in essay upon essay. I hope to write about some of my literary adventures soon, but that’s harder to do from the couch.

As a writer who often has to tap on the keys for hours and pages before I can find the most important thread of an essay, I have great admiration for authors like Phillip Done who can present a smart, witty and fulfilling treatment of a topic in just a few paragraphs and at the same time weave all the little pieces into a coherent broader narrative with a natural arc.

In his tight, fast-reading book, 32 Third Graders and One Class Bunny: Life Lessons from Teaching, Done shares the insights of 20 years of teaching experience using the vehicle of a walk through one particular school year. Each chapter is focused on one issue that comes up for teachers – like the reluctance to give your child the same name of someone you’ve had as a student, the importance of a day out of the classroom for mental health, and the never-ending search for (inexpensive) toys and materials for the classroom.

But this book is by no means just for teachers. It’s for anyone who has been a kid, had a kid or given any thought to how we develop from kids into something else. The stories address such universal issues as how different people inhabit (decorate, clutter, organize) their physical space and how the effort to put yourself in someone else’s shoes is really the best way to relate to a person (and to teach them).

As a mom of just one toddler but an aunt of 11 older children, I found myself reflecting on my own childhood, gaining insight into the lives of my nieces and nephews and fast-forwarding five years (is it only five or six years?!) to get a glimpse of life with a third-grader. The book reminded me of rituals I’d forgotten and of joys and frustrations I hadn’t considered in years.

As a former high school teacher, I greatly appreciated Done sharing his weaknesses and challenges with humility and humor. After seeing Done’s awards on the cover, I was a little worried that his book was going to make me feel inadequate about the six years I taught in public school, as though I could never have achieved the author’s greatness and it’s a good thing I “retired” when my son was born.

But insecure teachers (and parents), have no fear! Done is all about sharing the slip-ups and awkward moments in a way that teaches us something or makes us laugh – usually both. There’s no doubt that he’s a great teacher, but it’s refreshing to have such a light-hearted look into some of the things that make the job really challenging to return to year after year, especially when the reader is a parent who has no choice but to address challenges day after day.

Pick up the book for the favorite teacher on your list (makes a great New Years gift!), for your friend who could use a bunch of laughs broken up into bite-sized pieces or for yourself to sympathize with your children and the people who care for them in their classrooms.

The book’s 288 pages are small in size, and they go fast. There are five sections, each with between 15 and 18 short essays. My brother-in-law read several of them out loud while we were preparing Thanksgiving dinner, prompting much laughter and discussion among the group that included his elementary-school-teacher wife and their two middle-schooler kids. Everyone could relate on some level, and sharing the different perspectives was as fun as any board game. I’ve ordered copies for other people in my life. This hardcover book retails for around $15 on Amazon.com and yes, it qualifies for Free Super Saver shipping. So order a copy to read and share today!

This review is cross-posted on my other blog, Crunchy-Chewy Mama.