23. Love and Other Consolation Prizes

Here it is. I'm 23 weeks into my quest to read a book a week in 2017 and I've reached the mountaintop. Not only is this the best book I've read this year, it's easily in my top 10 favorites of all time. I'm not just saying that because I have a family connection to the author and we once exchanged the sign of peace at Christmas mass. This book is simply beautiful. 

And, you can't get it yet.

You see, there's a little watermark on the front left corner of the book. It says "Advance Reader's Edition." I'm fancy, right? Must be because I'm a very important book blogger. Or a super famous local newscaster.

Nah, it's none of those. It's because of this little lady below.

That's my big sister, Gretchen. She went to high school with the author Jamie Ford's wife. She's also insanely competitive. When Jamie posted online that he'd placed an advanced copy in one of our hometown's Little Free Libraries, she knew exactly where it was; she stuffed her kids in the car and dashed out to get it - you can see above, she didn't even take the time to tie her shoes. Is it because she loves to read as much as I do? No. She just likes to win. Subsequently, she did read the book, as did my mom. They both loved it as much as I did.

I've been waiting to read Ford's next book since the moment I finished his last. His previous two novels are beautiful, character-driven books set in Seattle. They both tell stories of Japanese-Americans in Seattle and their complicated pasts. Though he lives in my Montana hometown now, Ford is from Seattle and is also Japanese-American. His understanding of those complicated relationships is evident, as is his clear affinity for Seattle's history. But, that's only a small part of why I love his books so much. His characters are dripping with heart.

The basic premise of this book comes from a hard-to-believe piece of history they don't talk about these days in Seattle. At the World's Fair in 1909, the State of Washington raffled off a baby as a prize. A BABY. And, it's not clear what happened to that child afterwards. Ford's story picks up that premise and turns it into a grown man named Ernest, decades later. 

In Ford's book, a series of tragic events bring a young Chinese boy to America at the turn of the century. He ends up a ward of the state, longing for a family to call his own. To his own surprise, he finds himself on a marble staircase at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Expo, where everyone is waiting to see who wins the coveted prize. Ernest realizes he is the prize - and, that the winning ticket belongs to the madam of Seattle's most notorious brothel.

(Yes, loyal follower of this blog, this is the second consecutive book I've read about a brothel. Don't look too deep into that, okay?)

Ernest quickly learns that being the house boy at a brothel isn't exactly the idyllic childhood he imagined; just as quickly, he realizes the women there are more family than he every could have known. And, he finds himself learning over and over that true happiness in life both comes at a price - and cannot be bought.

Ford's story alternates between young Ernest's life in 1909, when Seattle was buzzing with the excitement of that first world's fair, and his life decades later in 1962, when a new world's fair was about to open. His daughter's work as a journalist cracks open the secrets he's hidden from them for so long. Through that compelling narrative structure and Ford's beautiful prose, you find your heart aching for Ernest and the women of the Tenderloin.

You watch Ernest form deep, intimate relationships with two girls in the brothel. He - and, they - are struggling to understand what matters more: love or freedom. And, you find yourself hoping right up until the very last line that they're all somehow able to find both.

I raced through this book and found myself worrying about the characters. I read the last line, then closed the book and cried. I cried because the emotions were so raw. I cried because it was over. I cried because I wished deeply for the well-being of people who don't actually exist. That's how good this book is - how good Jamie Ford is - and how I wish I could start again and feel it all from the beginning.

Pre-order this book, Do it now so that you won't forget. September you will thank you so much for how smart you are right now.

And, in the meantime, check out Ford's other books, especially Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. Next time I see him in church, I'll tell him to hurry up on the next one.

22. Selling Sex in the Silver Valley

True confessions: I like stories of old-timey hookers. And, I'm obsessed with Wallace, Idaho. That means this book was the jackpot for me. Not only did I read it, I wrote a news story on it. Two birds, one stone. And, a fascinating ride.

I can't begin to describe to you my deep love for this little town, nestled in the mountains of North Idaho. You can't get from my current hometown (Spokane, Washington) to my childhood hometown (Great Falls, Montana) without passing through. I'd probably driven past a dozen times before I really came to understand how cool this place is. It was when I came to cover a really awful news story about an ex-con who took his teenage daughter camping, then raped her and left her for dead in the woods. They caught him because he got hungry and came to buy hot dogs at the Wallace Conoco. We came to cover his court case and realized Wallace is really an old west town, frozen in time.

Since then, I've gone deep into Wallace's past, mostly through books. I read about the fire in 1910 that nearly burned all of Wallace to the ground in The Big Burn (one of the best books I've ever read.) Then, I read about the terrifying fire deep inside the Sunshine Mine that brought the entire Silver Valley to its knees. I've stopped on road trips home to visit the historic cemetery. I've ridden in a bike in the hills nearby. I've zip-lined through its trees. But, what's always fascinated me most is what Wallace is truly famous for: prostitution. Not just in the old west, but all the way into the early 1990's.

I heard someone had written a book about the history of the sex trade in Wallace and I knew I would have to read it. Then, I heard it was selling faster than they could print it - and, I knew I wanted to tell the story on TV. That's what's cool about being a journalist; you find something that interests you, then you can get paid to go learn more about it. I called Dr. Heather Branstetter (seen above, answering all my brilliant questions) and set up a visit to Wallace.

(Here's the part of the blog where I will post a link to our TV story when it's done. You can choose your own adventure here. Either watch the story, then finish the blog - or finish, then come back and click the link. You're a grown-up. It's your call.)

Quick note: I'm going to call the author Heather from now on. Yes, she's a PhD and she's earned the title of Doctor. Yes, AP Style dictates that I refer to her by her last name. But, she's chill as hell and we hung out, so I'm going to call her Heather. I don't think she'll mind.

Heather grew up here, her family goes back generations. As she and so many other Wallace natives have told me, it never seemed strange to them that their little town had a bustling red light district. But, Cedar Street in Wallace was once lined with "cathouses." With names like The Lux, The U&I Rooms and the Oasis, they were better defined by the madams who kept them running. Heather brings these fascinating characters to life and, because very little has changed in the Wallace landscape over the years, you can practically see Madam Dolores driving down Cedar in her trademark blue Cadillac.

Heather's exhaustive research pulls together old insurance maps, city council minutes, sheriff's department records and innuendo, still whispered in the bars of Wallace. From Wallace's earliest beginnings as a mining camp, sex was for sale. One woman told me the male to female ratio back then was 200 to 1. No easier way to make money than by operating a brothel.

Old west brothels were nothing unusual, but very few communities allowed brothels to openly operate beyond the early 1900's, Wallace was an exception; Heather wanted to know why.

Aside from whorehouses being a part of mining towns, Heather has other theories about why they continued to operate her. The most prevailing is the idea perpetuated by the madams and even echoed today (as seen in the Facebook comments on our news promos for the story): it's the idea that men have uncontrollable sexual urges and they need to have a release. Many in town believed - and, still believe - that decriminalizing prostitution kept women safe and kept families together.

Also, even now, the people who live in Wallace aren't the kind of people who want the government telling them what to do.

The madams here treated their working girls well, paid their taxes and gave to charity. Several locals told me they never had school fundraisers. Money for band uniforms and little league fields always just turned up. They didn't know until they were older that it was the madams who paid for them. Prostitution got people elected to public office; prostitution got the streets paved.

"My education was funded through sex work," Heather explained.

The book doesn't glorify sex work, but doesn't make the working girls out to be victims, either. People explained to Heather that the women in Wallace had it easier than prostitutes in other areas because the brothels were women-owned. The women didn't need pimps, though many of them had them. In her research, Heather even met with a woman working in the sex trade now who said she's doing it because she wants to, not because she's been sold into sex trafficking. Have some women? Absolutely. But, not all.

It's not rainbows and kittens, but it's not sordid details of shameful sex, either. Heather's work is matter-of-fact. And, without hearing from the women themselves, that's really the only fair way to tell it.

Lucky for Heather, the madams kept impeccable records. They didn't record the names of customers, but their financials were solid. You can piece so much together by the handwritten books they left behind. And, much to Heather's good fortune - and mine! - you can walk right into one of the brothels today and see exactly how it looked back in 1988.

The Oasis building at 6th and Cedar began operating as a brothel at the turn of the century. It continued to do so until finally closing its doors in 1988. Ginger, the madam, got a tip that the feds were coming, so she and the girls left in a hurry. They never came back. Their rooms now look exactly the way they did that day in January, 1988. Cigarettes are still in the ash trays, Ginger's Atari is still on her TV. There's even a price list on the wall (top seller: straight sex, "no frills. For $15, customers got eight minutes with the woman of their choice.)

I've known about the Oasis for years, but never went in. Again, the perks of being a TV reporter! We spent about an hour there, checking out the rooms, hearing the stories, even going into the old basement where a money bag still hangs from a trap door that was used to hide gambling evidence near the turn of the 20th century.

Guys, I was in heaven.

If you live in this area of the country, you should absolutely check it out. You can easily spend a couple of days in Wallace, whether it's skiing in the winter at either of the two resorts nearby, or biking and zip-lining in the summer. They have some great beer here, too.

Why am I not the mayor of Wallace? I'm going to look into it.

I could write all night about the fascinating aspects of the trade and the compelling stories told in this book. I've been driving my husband and my co-workers crazy since we did the interviews last week! But, I want to leave a little mystery (I do see the irony here, yes.). If you have any interest in the old west, North Idaho history or prostitution, buy Heather's book! Though, you'll have to be patient. It's an extremely hot commodity right now! You can order a copy and check out her website in the meantime. 

I couldn't leave the Oasis without a souvenir. Instead of the panties or the sweatshirt with the price list on the back, I chose the tasteful tumbler. It sits on my desk now next to my mug from another brothel - the still-operating Chicken Ranch in Parhump, Nevada. Paid a visit there for a news story, too. But, that's a story for another blog.... My boss might be reading this... 

When a book becomes a TV story becomes a book review

I'm not quite ready to review the book yet, but I finished my 22nd book of 2017 a little early this week! It was done Monday because I am doing a news story on it Friday! So, I did the interviews last week, read the book over the weekend and will air the story on TV Friday. Here's a preview of both the news story - and, the book review!

21. Modern Lovers

 

I don't remember why, but I had this book on the list I keep on my phone of books I'd like to read this year. If I don't keep that list, I'll forget what I wanted to read by the time I get to the bookstore or library. Casualty of old age, I suppose. Anyway, this was on my list and it just happened to be available at my tiny, largely picked-over local library. It's nothing like what I normally read; it was fantastic.

I've had the above song in my head since picking up this book. Even before I knew what the book was really about, this Matt Nathanson song was rolling around because of the title. It's one of my go-to songs when I'm in the car and I feel like singing so loud I embarrass myself and hurt my own eardrums (which is pretty much every day.) I saw him in concert a few years ago; he said he wrote it when talking to a female friend about the Bachelor. Anyway, it's a good song. And, the similarities between the song and the book were evident as well. I'm listening to it right now, because it's just a fantastic song.

So, nothing really happens in this book. I mean, it does. But, there's no big climax we're building to, no real mystery, no major character shakeups. That's not to say it's boring - it most certainly is not. I found myself moving through it as quickly as I would any book that had those more traditional plot elements. What it is, is real. A real look at the reality of relationships at two very different points in life.

The main characters are college friends, years later. One couple is two women raising a daughter; the other is a man and woman, raising a son. They're connected by a shared past and a neighborhood street. Three of the four were in a college band together in another lifetime; one of them wrote a song that became an iconic hit, made famous by one of their bandmates who left the group. As a movie producer reaches out to buy the rights to the song for a biopic on the late singer who made it a smash hit, the reality of how their lives hits them square in the face. And the decision to hand over the song opens up wounds and secrets they did not expect.

That sounds like the plot, right? It's really not. Really, that's just the thread that moves the story along. What it's really about is how those marriages have changed and evolved and how, in many ways, complacency has turned them into roommates more than passionate partners. 

They ask themselves, are we happy? And, one concludes, "Happy was a word for sorority girls and clowns, and those were two distinctly fucked-up groups of people." The decision they face is what so many long-married couples would echo: is content the same thing as happy? Can you be happy without white-hot passion? Is it worth chasing the passion, if it means risking the contentment? 

While they're looking back longingly at what they believe they've lost, their children are beginning a relationship. So, you're seeing love at its fiery beginning and what may be its flickering end. It's not depressing, it's real. It's common. It's nostalgic. 

I love that line. LOVE THAT LINE. Because we all had that summer, right? When our skin felt like it was sparking with the touch of someone new. When you fell so hard, you were sure you'd never get back up. The entire world laid out before you; it never occurred to you that it might end.

In this book, the parents look back at that summer with sadness, knowing they'll never recapture that magic - never feel that same euphoric high. The teenagers, though, know to embrace it. To remember every line, every curve, every first. To hang on to what they know is fleeting by living it, knowing somehow that someday, they'd need to lean back on these memories to get them through the quiet nights, decades later.

I really liked this book. Every character was perfect and flawed, selfish and unselfish. And, the ending wrapped up in a nice enough bow to feel like everyone's going to be alright. That we're all going to be alright.

20. The Circle

I deserved this book.

After sleepwalking through a lackluster 18th book of the year and struggling through a terrible 19th, I wanted a book that would rip. This was most certainly the one.

Maybe I'm the last person on earth to know it, but Dave Eggers' The Circle is showing already on the big screen with a guy named Tom Hanks in the lead role. Maybe you've heard of him; he was amazing as skeptical neighbor Ray in the 1989 classic movie "The Burbs." Either way. I didn't know it was being made into a movie. Once I heard, I promised myself I wouldn't watch the trailer until I was done. Now, you have to promise not to watch the trailer until you're done reading this post, okay? I'll post it at the end for you. Don't cheat.

The story is a cautionary tale of a world towards which we are currently careening. Its backdrop (and, a character of sorts) is the Utopian California campus of a tech company that's swallowing every other startup in its wake. The Circle, as its called, is a Google-Apple-Facebook combo, started and operated by three guys referred to as The Three Wisemen. A young woman named Mae lucks into a job there and you watch her life transform. She quickly drinks The Circle's kool-aid, believing at once that she never wants to work anywhere else. And, why would she? She's in a brain trust punctuated by parties every night, constant warmth and enlightenment, free food and places to stay - and, free health care for her aging parents. She buys into the mantra "All that happens must be known", believing that privacy is equal to lying. She quickly becomes a cog in the machine of surveillance around the world.

(Can you see why now I tore through 309 pages in the first 24 hours after checking it out from the library?)

The Circle's founders create a way of connecting every account and every device, all linked back to a person's true identity. You can hear Zuckerberg chomping at the bit already. They believe that this brings authenticity to the world and to everyone's online experience. They also foster the notion that engagement, likes and online comments are what all of humanity should strive for. Mae quickly becomes enraptured with the constant connections and constant feedback among "Circlers" that is required of her in her new position. She quickly finds more satisfaction through those online relationships then she does with the real humans standing right in front of her.

While Mae doesn't seem to notice a descent into madness, the reader quickly will. You feel a sense of foreboding as she visits the on-campus health clinic for the first of her required bi-weekly checkups; she drinks a smoothie at the doctor's request and learns that she's swallowed the sensor connected to a health-tracking bracelet on her wrist. You see the problem with that, of course. The Circle will have you believe, however, that the invasion of privacy is worth every bit of privacy violation that comes with it.

As Mae moves higher up in The Circle, she takes on a public role and you watch the "real world" fall away. You see her heading straight for disaster; like the people in her life, you want to stop her. But, the instant online gratification is just too much and she willingly walks over to the other side.

The book is fantastically written, the setting and characters are easy to imagine. What's most compelling, though, is how easy it is to see all of it coming true. You find yourself asking, when does it stop? When have we give up too much? When, like Mae, we are constantly connected to each other, constantly alert, when do we actually have time to breathe?

I'm not going to lie and say I don't see how it all starts. As of this moment, I have tweeted more than 43,000 times. I spend my life with my phone attached to my hand. I track how many people watch my Instagram stories and I get workout ideas from Khloe Kardashian's Snapchat (Bosu ball booty, here I come!) I work in a newsroom where, all day long, a giant monitor tracks the social media accounts of every journalist in the market and ranks us, based on performance and engagement. Which is why I cringed watching Mae fall down the rabbit hole of artificial adulation. How short is the walk from smiling over a Facebook "like" to agreeing to nonstop surveillance so we can feel loved by the world?

I'd venture the walk is further than this book, but not by much.

The book was fast-moving and utterly compelling. I suggest you check out the movie, too, though I'm seeing it's not getting great reviews.

Judge for yourself on that. As promised, here's that guy Bling Ring in The Circle. 

19. The Other Typist

A few years ago, too late in life, I made an important decision: I would no longer finish a book I didn't like. That may not seem like a bold move to you, but after taking so many literature classes in college that I inadvertently ended up with an English degree, it was a hard habit to break.

((STOP: Hard Habit to Break by Chicago is an amazing song. Let's stop and appreciate.))

It should tell you how I feel about this book when I'd rather stop writing about it and talk about an early 90's Chicago ballad.

Anyway.

I made that decision because I was tired of wasting my time on books I didn't like. But, since I've begun this experiment of reading a book every week in 2017, I don't feel I can afford myself that luxury. If I decide I don't like the book on a Wednesday, it's really too late to start something new.

Nevertheless, she persisted.

That first line had so much promise. The idea that women learning to type exposed them to a world for which they were not ready. That the clunk and mechanics of that machine would slowly turn them away from the feminine. The story begins with a typist named Rose, who records confessions in a police precinct in the 1920's. If the author does anything well here, she really paints a picture of prohibition-era New York City and its inhabitants. You feel yourself in that dank, old brick precinct, where the men do the real police work and the women fade into the walls; they're only there for filing, typing and fetching coffee.

Rose describes herself as a plain, simple girl; she grew up in an orphanage and has moved slowly from one stage of life to another. Her black and white world shifts to color, however, when she describes the hiring of a new typist. Exotic Odalie has no use for what is proper. Rose immediately describes following Odalie down a rabbit hole of speakeasys and other questionable moral behavior until she crosses a threshold from which she cannot return.

Sounds promising, right? Yeah. Well.

That quote doesn't apply to most things in life, don't get me wrong. But, it applies to a book. By page 175 (of 354), I was incredulous and frustrated at the lack of any sort of movement in the plot. She had been foreshadowing since the early pages, which is completely acceptable. But, at this point, it was all talk and no action. I was beginning to wonder if the author was being paid by the word. Tiny, word-packed and completely unnecessary paragraphs stretched the exposition beyond all reasonable norms. I found myself skipping over entire paragraphs and still not missing a beat. I'm all for good prose, but not for the sake of additional sentences.

Around the time I started to lose my mind, I also zeroed in on what I thought would be the late plot twist. I was fairly certain at this point what the narrator was hiding. That made everything else that happened a lot more anti-climatic. Something similar happened when I figured out the plot twist of The Sixth Sense in the first half hour of the movie. It made everything else a lot less exciting.

In this book, I was wrong about the plot twist. I think. It comes so late in the book that you basically don't even care anymore. And by being so "creative" about it, the author actually confuses the reader more than rewards them for slogging through the slop to get there. The last line of the book intends to shock; it actually made me mad instead.

There are good things, structurally, here. The setting and characters were believable and vivid. The use of an unreliable narrative was compelling - at first. And, the writer clearly knows her subject matter. But, I think she tried to do too much. In that, she didn't do enough.

I should have known something was up when the blurb on the jacket invoked Gone Girl. Any book written after that thriller with a woman protagonist finds a way to reference it, which I find more of an annoyance than an endorsement. Looking back just now, this one actually says "If you liked Gone Girl, you might enjoy The Other Typist." I might enjoy a blow to the side of the head, too.

After this book (not good) and the last one (meh), I'm desperate for Book 20 of 2017 to redeem the whole experiment. I need it to rip. I hate that I haven't chosen it yet. Either way, it has to be better than this one.

18. Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls

A couple reasons for why I chose this as the 18th book to read in 2017. One, I went to my local library to find a new book to offset the cost of buying two books in the last couple of weeks. And, my library - while I appreciate it's proximity to my house and general cleanliness - doesn't really have very many books. I go in with a list in the notes section of my phone and they don't have a single one. So, it turns into aimless browsing until something catches my eye. In this case, they had just given me the library equivalent of "last call" (read: a very nice library lady telling me they were closing in 10 minutes), so I grabbed the first thing I saw that looked decent on the shelf in front of me. I've read a lot of Sedaris's stuff before, so I knew I'd like it.

The main reason, though, that I went with a book of essays is that I needed a palate cleanser after reading book 17 of the year. The weight of that book camped out on my chest and I needed something weightless. This served that purpose quite well. 

If you haven't heard of David Sedaris before, he's a comedian, but not in a Dane Cook sort of way. He's a comedian in the NPR world. I'd heard him there years ago and went on a bit of a Sedaris binge. Most of his writing isn't LOL funny, it's smart, nodding funny. Though, there are times when you laugh your ass off, too.

This book, though, sort of underwhelmed me. There were funny parts, for sure (most of them are reflections on his clearly stoic father.) But, I was actually glad to be done with it. It also seemed to lose steam as the pages went on. It didn't take me long to read, but I wasn't rushing to pick it up, either. It may have been my mood. It may be that I'm not a good target audience for this particular collection of essays. It didn't diminish my appreciation for Sedaris overall, but if I was recommending anything he's written, this would be it.

Better get it back to the library; one of the 10 shelves is missing its anchor.