Category Archives: mental health

100 Rules for Living to 100, by Dick Van Dyke****

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Dick Van Dyke was a wonderful part of my childhood, and this lovely audiobook has put a little more bounce in my step. It’s not really about rules, of course, but the format is a perfect scaffold for a combination memoir and self-help book. My thanks go to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for the review copy; this book is for sale now.

Van Dyke entered my consciousness when I was a kindergartener, and the original movie Mary Poppins brought droves of families to theaters. I was not the only family member that was entranced, and all of us sang along to the sound track once the record was on our stereo turntable. The movie, and its lead characters, played by Julie Andrews and Van Dyke, glowed with humor and optimism.  What a wonderful message to share, the idea that the best we can give our children is our time and our attention. In the early 1960s, the suggestion that adults ought to listen to children was ahead of its time and much needed.

Many of the anecdotes the author conveys have to do with experiences shared between him and Arlene, his current wife. Despite the May-December romance, it sounds like a wonderful union. He talks about the recent and horrific events with the Santa Ana fires that took the homes of so many—though his own was spared. My favorite parts, though, are the ones in which he discusses the future roles he’d like to play, because he isn’t really retired from the industry. Way to go, Dick!

Reader Tom Bergeron does a nice job, and as a bonus, he sounds quite a bit like the author.

I recommend this little gem to everyone that could use some positive energy, and to all that love the author.

Words for My Friends: A Political History of Tupac Shakur***-****

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3.75 stars, rounded up.

Tupac Shakur lived for just 25 years, but he left an outsized legacy. Author Dean Van Nguyen has published a “political history,” a biography of sorts focusing on Tupac’s political ideology and the foundation on which it was formed. My thanks go to NetGalley and Doubleday for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

Van Nguyen begins his narrative with an overview of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and ‘60s.  This is an area I’ve studied fairly closely, and so there was no new information in it for me, but I could see its value in a community college Black Studies or general history course. Once we’re past that, we enter into Tupac’s family background, and from there forward, his personal and political upbringings are intertwined. His parents were members of the Black Panthers, a militant, armed group of rebels seeking to force equity for Black people in the U.S. from a government that was long on promises and short on substance. There is a tremendous amount of the book given to the history of the Panthers, and most of what is recounted occurs either before Tupac was born, or while he was an infant.

Here’s my takeaway: I have often been curious about the Panthers, whose struggle I knew in broad strokes, but few specifics, and so this is interesting to me. But the book’s title has led me to believe that this book is primarily about Tupac, and we are at around the 40% before he even comes into the narrative. This is my sole complaint about this work, but it’s a significant one. Had the title been clearer that this is really a history of Tupac and the Black Panthers, I probably would have still read it, but because of the way it’s promoted, I feel frustrated when the 20% mark goes on by, then the 30% mark, and apart from a brief reference or two, Tupac isn’t even in it. In fact, we learn more about his mother than we do about him.

Once we do get to the meat of the matter, this is riveting material. What a gifted man he was, and yet he was still coming of age when he died. He loved reading classical literature, and he attended a fine arts high school where he was better able to develop his interests and talents, playing in Shakespearean productions; but as is often the case for children in low-income households, about the time he put down roots and made connections, his mother had to give up their lodgings, and that meant moving to a new town and a new school.

 This happens again and again. Single motherhood is hard anyway, but once you bring crack into it, the game’s all but over. And (here I suppress a primal scream,) because his father isn’t there and his mother is struggling, Tupac believes he must take care of his mother and long, long before he is old enough to bear such a burden. Teachers everywhere have seen that kid. He might be Black, Caucasian, or any other ethnic and racial background; he might be a she, for that matter. But children that take the responsibility that belongs to the head of the household are under a whole lot of stress, and the fracture lines often don’t show in their teens. They look as if they’re handling the job like an adult, often being praised by those in authority for their organization and focus. But—ask a social worker here—when they hit their twenties, that’s when they start falling apart. Because kids cannot be adults. When they are forced into the role, it will break them, sooner or later. And it seems clear to me that this is part of what led to Tupac’s early demise.

There’s a lot of interesting material packed into the relatively small part of the book that he occupies. We learn about the other famous performers he meets and befriends, first in school, then professionally, and about the political ideas he explores, serving for a while as a member and organizer of the local chapter of the Communist Party’s youth group. His willingness to dive deep into ethical and political ideas is reflected in his music, and to my knowledge, there is no other rapper that has included respect for women, along with an overtly pro-choice message, in their recordings. But just as his star begins to rise in earnest, he is killed.

Those considering reading this book should either be ready to read extensively about peripheral issues and events that don’t directly include Tupac, or should be ready to get the book with the intention of skipping a lot of material. As for me, I’m glad I read it.

My Friends, by Fredrik Backman***-****

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“Being human is to grieve, constantly.”

Well now. Fredrik Backman’s many fans ought to brace themselves for his latest novel. The feel-good stories he’s written, and written brilliantly, in years gone by are nowhere in evidence here; those of us that look to this author to bolster our sense of optimism and to remember that human beings are innately good are not going to find it. This book is far darker than anything he’s written to date, and I have no idea what is behind this sorrow and misery sandwich, but I am sorry it’s come to this.

My thanks go to NetGalley and Atria Books for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

Our premise is that a homeless teen artist, grieving the death of her best friend, befriends an older, dying street artist who turns out to be someone famous and revered in the art world. The artist senses in her a kindred spirit, and so his last act is to have his friend and business agent sell everything that the artist owns in order to purchase back one of his most iconic paintings and give it to her after he dies, because “She’s one of us.”

Okay. It’s a stretch, but it’s fiction, and after all, Backman generally delivers, so I’ll suspend disbelief and roll with it.

Nearly the entire remainder of the book consists of the friend, whose name is Ted, spilling his and the artist’s past to the girl, whose name is Louisa. He’s traveling by train, and so he takes her with him. We hear all about their childhoods together, along with the two other friends that made up their tightly knit friend group. At one point she runs off, and at another, they lose the painting and the artist’s ashes, but these constitute minor breaks in the otherwise unending conversation, which is nearly a monologue.

It didn’t take me long to be heartily sorry I had ever taken the galley; I finally bonded with the narrative at about the 60% mark, and from that point until just past the 80% mark, I was reading because I wanted to know what would happen next, or be said next, rather than from a sense of duty. For most of the final 20%, I was watching the page numbers and wondering if this thing was going to end, ever.

It’s hard to rate a book like this, because so much of my disappointment stems from my earlier admiration of Backman’s works. If this was written by someone with whom I was unfamiliar, would I rate it a little higher? But then, if the author wasn’t known to me, I likely wouldn’t have picked it up in the first place. The stark shift in the author’s world view is shocking, and I am still not entirely over it. I can only recommend this book to you if you need a grief book, because anyone in need of a good ugly-cry will surely find it here.

Shattered, by Hanif Kureishi***

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A while back, I read a novel by Hanif Kureishi titled The Last Word.  It was not his most successful book in terms of sales, but I was gob-smacked by his cleverness, and so when I saw that he had a memoir coming out, I felt compelled to read it, even though it was likely going to be sad, since it is, at least in part, a memoir of what it’s like to be almost completely paralyzed.

My thanks go to Harper Collins and NetGalley for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

Kureishi is a seasoned writer and journalist, and as he writes about this horrifying event alternately with the earlier parts of his life, we see happier times as well. I thought it would be a narrative that I would need to take in small bursts because of its tragic nature, but that I would nevertheless appreciate it for its brilliance. What a surprise; I can read about his accident, hospitalization, and the experiences he has as a disabled person without a lot of difficulty, but I am drawn up short by the numerous passages about his sexuality.

You see, I am of the old school that believes that just because a thing is true, that doesn’t necessarily mean that its many details belong in a memoir. For example, sometime during nearly everyone’s life, we have digestive difficulties brought on by a case of the flu or some other thing. Has it happened? Yes. Do we need a detailed description of the writer’s vomit and bowel movements? Perhaps not. And this is the way I feel about his fondness for porn, for explorations of his own sexuality with various partners and all by himself (ew!) and even his fondness for street drugs and booze. Why would I want to read about any of this?

Sadly, Kureishi says that he no longer enjoys reading or writing fiction, and since that is the part of his work that I admire, I think we’re done here.

To be clear, he is a capable wordsmith, and those that are curious about what a disability might be like can get a taste of that here, which is why there are three stars and not fewer. I cringe when I read about his plane flight, with people shoving past him, even as they glance pityingly down at him. But like many Boomers, I have tasted a less extreme aspect of this myself, and so Kureishi’s version of it feels to this reviewer like a busman’s holiday.

This book is recommended to those of his readers that have appreciated his earlier nonfiction work, and to those with an interest in the lives of paraplegics and quadriplegics. For others, there are numerous online reviews that include large excerpts, and I recommend reading those before you invest in this book.

Between Two Trailers, by J. Dana Trent*****

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And you thought your childhood was difficult.

Dana Trent is the child of two drug addicted schizophrenics who met and fell in love on the psych ward. The fact that she lived to adulthood is astonishing. Her story is captivating; my thanks go to NetGalley and Random House for the invitation to read and review. This memoir will be available to the public April 16, 2024.

“’Kids make the best hustlers,’ King told me the week after I was expelled from preschool. He lifted me onto the counter and coated his arms with palmfuls of petroleum jelly from the biggest Vaseline tubs Walmart sold. Then he greased up mine. ‘No one expects a runt in a Looney Tunes T-shirt to shank you,’ he explained. ‘Budgie!’ he said and pointed to my chest, then sealed my street name with a Vaseline cross to my forehead. ‘Budgie,’ I parroted, finger to my own chest…‘Guns are for idiots,’ he added. ‘Here.’ He handed me my first pocketknife, a foldout two-inch blade with a horse and buggy painted on the handle. Knives teach you to accept the inevitable. ‘You’ll get stabbed,’ he said, ‘but you’ll survive. No big deal.’”

The nickname “Budgie” was chosen because she was his lookout on drug deals. She would ride along with him, his trunk stuffed full of drugs, and when he got out, she was stationed on the highest available vantage point. If she saw someone—an ambush, the cops, anyone—she was supposed to sing like a bird. (Even other drug dealers and manufacturers questioned the wisdom of hauling a three year old on such expeditions, but King, as her father was known, was not easily influenced.)

At such moments, one might wonder where her mother was. Usually her mother was either unconscious in bed, or on the way into or out of that state. Because her father was awake and slightly more predictable, Dana considered him the more reliable parent. Before she was old enough for kindergarten, she understood that it was up to her to take care of The Lady.

My initial response to this scenario was to be bitterly angry at whoever decided to expel this child from preschool. Boom, there went that tiny girl’s one tie to the safer, saner world. How could anyone look at her behavior, her clothing, her hair and not call Children’s Services? I’m still fuming.

Miraculously enough, Trent made it to adulthood, and after years and years of therapy, she is able to lead a normal life. She’s achieved a remarkable amount, with a Ph.D. to her credit along with a solid career in academia.

And she can write! There is never a slow moment in this memoir, a hair raising read that I brought out at lunchtime, but never at bedtime. There is very little by way of dialogue, and that makes the swift, steady pacing even more remarkable.

Between Two Trailers is one of the year’s best reads. Highly recommended.

What the Taliban Told Me, by Ian Fritz****

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Ian Fritz was an Airborne Cryptologic Linguist who served with the U.S. Air Force in Afghanistan for five years. Trained in both Dari and Pashto, he became one of only two people that could understand what was being said by all of the people on the ground before and during battle. Following his service, he became a physician and writer. This is his memoir.

My thanks go to Simon and Schuster Publishing and NetGalley for the invitation to read and review. This book is for sale now.

Fritz was in many ways the perfect recruit; his family didn’t have any money, and he was brilliant, which meant that if he was going to have any opportunities, they would most likely come from the U.S. armed forces. He blew through his public school years, as gifted students that aren’t challenged often do.

This is where I long to stand on a big box and yell through a bullhorn: gifted students are at risk children! We must provide them with challenging, interesting curriculum, or they will stop bothering with school. I’ve been saying so for decades, and I’m saying it again right now. So many times educators and school districts assume these kids will automatically be fine. If the student is bored, they use them as unpaid tutors for their peers, which distorts relationships among the students and does nothing to provide the highly capable student with new, interesting material. These kids need different educations from those in the mainstream. Ian’s story is a powerful example of why this is so.

Ian was sent to an elite language training program, and then he was deployed. Initially, the successful flights in which targets were found, identified, and killed—often partly or solely because of his contribution—were exhilarating, but as time went on, he began to feel conflicted. On the one hand, the Taliban were responsible for the horrific, cowardly attacks on American civilians on 9/11, and were therefore a legitimate target. On the other hand, being able to understand what enemy soldiers were saying to one another made him aware that these were normal people, attempting to live their lives and repel the U.S. invaders. It’s hard to hate someone, or to be indifferent to them, when you overhear them discussing their plans for after the day’s fighting is done, or declaring that it’s just plain “too hot for Jihad today.” Sometimes a threat on the ground would be identified, and the Americans wouldn’t realize that this was an error until after the person they’d targeted was dead. And he knew the names of the dead, sometimes hear the survivors below desperately trying to get their comrade to a medic, but then…oh. Too late.

Then there was this culture among others he served with, those not trained in the language and who were therefore able to demonize the targets, howling with laughter at the way a body on the ground could be made to bounce if you shot it at just the right angle. He realized that “no one else had heard, and no one else ever would hear, the simultaneous screams of the JTAC [U.S. officer on the ground] and the Talibs. Or the sudden quiet when the Talibs died.”

Ultimately, he learned that Afghanistan was actually a lot safer without U.S. forces than with them.

As Fritz began to internalize his despair, he grew suicidal, and he knew he had to get out. It’s at this point that he was charged with malingering and cowardice; he would later learn that it was a trend among the linguists serving in this theater.

Fritz is one hell of a fine writer, and the narrative flows smoothly. I was surprised to find that this was a quick read, despite the intensity of the material. Surely there must be other military memoirs relating to Afghanistan, but as he points out, nobody else is writing about this experience, because almost nobody else has done what he has.

For those with the interest and the courage, this memoir is recommended.

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

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“’Do you worry about becoming a cliché? ‘

“’How do you mean?’

“’Another death-obsessed Iranian man?’”

My thanks go to Doubleday and NetGalley for the invitation to read and review this singular debut novel. This book is for sale now.

Our protagonist is Cyrus, an Iranian immigrant who comes to live in the U.S. as an infant. He is raised by his father, Ali; his mother’s plane was shot down shortly after Cyrus was born, an accident on the part of the U.S. military. His father dies suddenly while he is away at college, leaving him rootless. He spends a lot of time anguishing over death, wondering what is worth dying for. He doesn’t want to waste his “one good death.” Later, he points out that “If I died trying to kill a genocidal dictator tomorrow, the news wouldn’t say a leftist American made a measured and principled sacrifice for the good of his species. The news would say an Iranian terrorist attempted a state assassination. “

And you know that he’s right.

The thing that attracted me to this story is its difference from everything else that I have read. Persians almost never show up in American novels, and when they do, the Persian is the other, the bad or weird person, pretty much like the quote above suggests. So I was all in.

However, I have to say that the amount of angsty inner dialogue makes this a slooow read in places. There is also dialogue between Cyrus and friends, but most of it basically the same thing with a different format. I was primed for humor, since that’s how the book is being promoted, but didn’t find much of it.

The story wakes up a bit when Cyrus leaves Indiana for New York, but the writing remains inconsistent, and the transitions are sometimes a bit ragged.

The revelation about his mother, which occurs toward the end of the story, is startling, and I didn’t see it coming, but it also presents a credibility issue; I won’t go into details here, because it would be a spoiler. Still, apart from this one reservation, the ending is nicely rendered.

Akbar is an interesting writer, and I look forward to seeing what he writes next.

The Women, by Kristin Hannah****

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Kristin Hannah can draw character like nobody else. Her latest novel, The Women, tells the story of Frances “Frankie” McGrath, a young woman from an upper middle class family that follows her brother to Vietnam, serving as an army nurse. Frankie is a character that will stay with me long after I read dozens of other novels, and this experience is made even more memorable by the talented Julia Whelan, the voice actor that narrates the audio version. My thanks go to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Macmillan Audio for the review copies. It will be available to the public February 6, 2024.

Frankie is twenty years old when we meet her, and her family is throwing a party for her big brother and best friend, Finley, who is leaving to serve in the U.S. Navy. Kennedy is in the White House, and most Americans still bear an implicit trust in their government. But Frankie is worried about Fin, and doesn’t like that he is about to put himself in harm’s way. He reassures her, “It isn’t dangerous, Frankie. Trust me. I’m a Naval Academy graduate, an officer with a cushy assignment on a ship. I’ll be back in no time. You’ll hardly have time to miss me.”

Frankie completes her nurse’s training, then signs on to join her brother, but before she is even packed, the telegram arrives. Finley is dead; killed in action.

The plot itself is unremarkable. Yes, war is hell; yes, friends die. And yes, a married man that sees an attractive, vulnerable American woman in a place where they are scarce, will lie like a rug in order to get close to her. But in Hannah’s hands, every joy and every sorrow are real and visceral, because we believe.

Frankie serves as a combat nurse at the front, and works in every possible hard situation. Sometimes the lights go out during surgery because a bomb has fallen; at one point her sleeping quarters is bombed and has to be rebuilt. She works for days on end without sleep when it’s necessary. And the trauma follows her home.

My only quibble with this otherwise outstanding story is the emphasis Hannah places on the abuse of returning troops by the public. She brings in the old saw about them being spat upon and called baby killers, even though an easy search confirms what I remember: this is mostly myth. Just as women weren’t really burning bras, most troops were not greeted with abuse. It’s true that the wildly patriotic parades that greeted the troops that returned from World War Two are not there for these men and women, but then, the Korean War vets didn’t see them, either. Historical fiction should honor history, not rewrite it.

With this caveat, I recommend this book to you. Do read it; it’s a damn fine novel. But do so critically, because you can’t always believe everything you read.

Kinfolk, by Sean Dietrich*****

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“Thanksgiving is not about being happy. The holiday is not about mirth and beauty and the warmth of gaiety. Thanksgiving is about fulfilling family obligations and being miserable the way the good Lord intended.”

When we meet our protagonist, Nub Taylor, it is Thanksgiving night, and he and his cousin and best friend Benny are three sheets to the wind, idling in a rusty old truck across the street from the dignified, stately home of Nub’s daughter, Emily. Nub has been invited to dine there, but knows better than to attend. Emily is a widow; she married up, and every mover and shaker in town has shown up. No, Nub won’t be joining them. Nothing good would come of it.

My thanks go to Net Galley and Harper Muse for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

Our story is set in the 1970s in a tiny town in Alabama. Nub is long divorced from Emily’s mother, who keeps her distance these days. He takes his meals at the Waffle House, and that includes today:

“Waffle House did not close on Thanksgiving because Waffle House never closed. Waffle House was like the Vatican, only with better hash browns. Nobody on staff at the Waffle House had a key to the store, not even the manager. Because there were no keys. The doors were never locked. Waffle House just went on and on. Sort of like a disco.”

It is here that he meets Minnie. Minnie is fifteen years old and well over six feet tall. Why is this girl spending her holiday here, instead of with her kin? The answer is that she has none. Her father is in prison, and her mother has just recently killed herself.  

Of course, Nub doesn’t know these things at first, but something about her calls to him. Perhaps all children of suicide victims wear something similar in their expressions; Nub had lost a parent the very same way, and he has never gotten over it. How does anyone? He knows “the cardinal rule about suicide. You don’t talk about it.”

Now, Minnie is orphaned and she is pregnant, courtesy of a thoughtless, spoiled local boy that told her he loved her, then laughed behind her back. And so it is that Nub realizes, as he learns more about Minnie Bass, that perhaps he may have a chance to redeem himself.

This is a wonderful story, full of warmth and a lot of heart. Dietrich is a master story teller, able to create viscerally real characters that leap from the page and a narrative that billows with home truths. There is no question that Kinfolk is among the finest books to be published this year.

Highly recommended.

The Meth Lunches, by Kim Foster****

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Kim Foster and her husband, David, create a food pantry in front of their house—and later, inside it—during the pandemic. It begins with the employment of one hungry handyman who’s also an addict, and from there, it mushrooms. This is her memoir of that time, and also a philosophical treatise on poverty and hunger in the United States.

My thanks go to Net Galley, RB Media, and St. Martin’s Press for the review copies. This book is for sale now.

When Foster’s family moves from New York to Las Vegas, one of the first thing she notices is the meth. It’s everywhere. Perhaps it is the milder weather; addicts in New York have to find a spot out of the weather during much of the year, but Vegas is in the desert, mild enough for the unhoused to sleep just about anywhere, warm enough that addicts don’t have to hide themselves away to get high.

The pandemic hits Vegas hard. So many people make their living from some aspect of the entertainment business, and for a while, it is a dead industry. And so, after hiring a man with an obvious dependency to do work on their property—work that he never completes—and hearing his story, the Fosters decide to convert the little free library in front of their home to a little free pantry. And from there, it mushrooms.

The pantry begins small, but Foster is a chef, and she can’t stand the notion of just putting out pre-packaged crap when she can cook food with fresh ingredients that will make others feel better. And as the book takes off, I momentarily regret taking this galley, because I generally hate stories that drop recipes into the middle of the plot. If I want cooking information, I’d rather go to a cookbook, or to a recipe website. And it was right there in the title, after all: The Meth Lunches. It’s pretty obvious from the get go that lunch is going to be juxtaposed with social issues.

But as the story continues, I don’t hate it after all. For one thing, this whole book is nonfiction. There’s no plot that is sidelined by a recipe. The whole point is that that Foster considers food, and the act of feeding others, to be a sort of therapy. She makes the point well.

Eventually, the scale of the operation becomes mind boggling. Multiple freezers to hold meat; trucks that deliver food. The pantry begins as an out-of-pocket gift from the Fosters to the down and out of Las Vegas, occasionally supplemented via Venmo from friends, when they are able to help. Inevitably, the pantry finds its way into the local media, and networks form with other food banks and nonprofits.

In between all of this, Foster develops relationships with some of the people that come by. She and her husband are foster parents—ironic, given their name, right? And we hear not only about what the children they house and love have experienced, but also about the children’s biological families. Because although it’s officially discouraged, Kim strongly feels that the children heal best if their biological parents are in their lives in whatever limited way is possible. So before we know it, she is deeply involved with some horribly dysfunctional adults as well. And it is the stories she tells about interacting with them and the children, two of whom she and David eventually adopt, that make this story so riveting.

At the outset, she intends for the pantry to be a resource for local families that have homes and kitchens, but whose finances have taken a huge hit due to the pandemic. The very poor already have resources, she reasons. But of course, the homeless find her, and she doesn’t turn them away.

And here is the rub, the only aspect of this book that I dislike. She tells us that one unhoused person in four is mentally ill, and she believes that this official figure is low, at least in Las Vegas. And then she talks about those with addiction issues.

But what she never gets around to discussing at all—unless she does it so briefly that I miss it—is the unhoused people that are not chemically dependent on anything, whose mental health is stable, but who don’t have a permanent residence because they straight-up ran out of money. To hear her tell it, you’d think they don’t exist, and you know that’s not so. So many American families live from paycheck to paycheck, even when the economy is said to be booming. And I feel that she has left these people without faces or voices. And that, in turn, perpetuates a stereotype, the one that suggests that everyone that is homeless is there because they’re either crazy or junkies or both. I use the offensive terms intentionally, because that’s how the stereotype works. 

And the stereotype in turn begets a lie, the insinuation that nobody has to be unhoused. Don’t use drugs. Get mental health care. Get over yourself. And whereas I can see that Foster doesn’t intend to promote such thinking, and in fact takes a hard line over poverty existing at all in such a wealthy nation, when she doesn’t give space to the many, many individuals and families that are out there because the wage earner was laid off, or because they were just squeaking by but then the rent increased, it does distort her overall picture. I don’t come away from this book thinking that most of the homeless are not using meth or any other dangerous, life-altering street drugs, even though it’s true.

Nevertheless, this is a poignant, stirring tale that won’t be told by anyone else, because it can’t be, and bearing in mind the caveats above, I recommend it to you, both as audio and print.