Curious, Healing

Books about healing, business, and fun

survival story

“The Jade Peony” by Wayson Choy

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Recommended to me by: atdelphi

This novel is an intricate work of art, assembled from one precise detail after another, illuminating the lives of a Chinese family of immigrants to Vancouver, B.C. in the 1930s and early 40s.

The story is told in three sections, from the viewpoints of three children. First the girl, then the second-oldest adopted boy, then the youngest boy. Entwined with their intensely pursued hobbies and heartbreaking losses, we learn about the adults around them, especially the women.

Matter-of-factly, Choy focuses his story on those with less privilege instead of those with more. Poor Chinese immigrants rather than established Canadian citizens. Children rather than adults, but not the special First Son. Women of different ages. A disabled, disfigured man.

The characters are vulnerable, grumpy, and real, bearing pain as best they can, sharing what they have to give each other joy. While reading, I felt as if I sat down to dinner with them, hearing about their lives close up.

Read this book!

Available at biblio.com.

“The Necessary Beggar” by Susan Palwick

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Recommended to me by: Loved Susan Palwick’s first book Flying in Place

The Necessary Beggar begins with a flurry of long hyphenated names and fantastical pronouncements. “It’s an allegory,” I told myself, and kept reading. The story soon descends into grimness at a US internment camp, but does not lose its fairy tale tone.

Even at 6 years old, the central character Zamatryna-Harani Erolorit is super-competent and aware. She continues to excel at everything, including emotional self-control, growing up as an American teen.

Alcoholism, Christianity, family ties, lies, despair, and unlikely salvations weave through the book beneath the fairy tale names and gritty details of daily life. I never felt fully drawn in to either the daily details or the magical salvations.

I’m still puzzling over the allegory. They use prayer rugs in the fairy tale land – does that mean they represent Muslims? The evangelical Christians are not shown in 100% positive light, but they do get a lot of air time, and they do dramatically rescue the family.

The fairy tale extended family stays together no matter what. Impetuous “true love” both imperils and saves them. The very elaborateness of the book’s plot contradicts any conclusions about “love conquers all.”

Available at bookshop.org.

“Voices from the Inside” by David A. Karp and Gretchen E. Sisson

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Subtitle: Readings on the experiences of mental illness

I found this book because I was curious about Caroline Knapp’s writing after reading Gail Caldwell’s memoir about their friendship, and I read it because I wanted to learn about mental illness without its stereotype of causing violence. In fact, [v]iolence is not a symptom of psychotic illnesses such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

Unfortunately, this book propagates rather than counters the stereotype. Many of the schizophrenic people’s stories include violent fantasies and actions. The essays also include violent treatment of people with mental illness in mental hospitals and prisons.

The book is intended for classroom use. Each essay is preceded by an introduction telling the reader how to interpret the essay, and followed by discussion questions which are clearly slanted toward preferred answers.

Caroline Knapp’s essay, “Denial and Addiction,” talks about the effortless contortions that make alcoholics’ drinking look acceptable to themselves. “Denial can make your drinking feel as elusive and changeable as Proteus, capable of altering form in the blink of an eye.” Calmly honest, she describes her own and others’ self-destructive behavior while addicted to alcohol.

Other essays describe the experiences of schizophrenic psychosis, depression, mania, taking Prozac for OCD, recovering from anorexia, and the aftermath of a spouse’s suicide.

While I applaud the authors’ venture into personal stories rather than aggregate statistics, I think academia has a long way to go in its attitudes toward people who have mental illnesses.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Torch” by Cheryl Strayed

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Recommended to me by: Willamette Writers Portland

In this novel, a rural Minnesota family reels from the mother’s cancer diagnosis. We see Theresa, only 38, and her partner and children grappling with her illness.

I loved the finely detailed setting. The trees, the bears, the snow, and the routinely-traveled distances all bring rural Minnesota to life. The characters not only see and hear, but also smell their environment, from the slightly rotten odor of the first spring thaw, to the shampoo and conditioner in their partner’s hair.

I was puzzled by the way the characters left their inner lives largely unexamined, and instead fell into casual sex, instant relationships, and sometimes drugs to manage their emotions.

Also, do they really have group and individual therapy in jail, even in rural Minnesota? It seems too practical and enlightened to be true in our punishment-oriented society.

This is a well-written book, but I found it hard to read. There is no physical violence, but the characters seem painfully unaware of the emotional violence they are doing to each other.

Available at bookshop.org.

“When Food is Love” by Geneen Roth

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Recommended to me by: a client.

Geneen Roth has written several books about overcoming compulsive eating by removing external rules around food and listening to one’s own body instead. She also talks about the source of compulsive eating – not an internal lack of control, but a survival strategy to overcome the lack of external control in childhood.

In this book, she talks about her own history with intimacy, and the connections between how we treat food, and how we treat emotional connections in our lives. She reveals the neglect and emotional and physical abuse of her childhood, and shares stories from her “Breaking Free” workshops as well.

If you deeply explore one area of life, you will find the answers to every area. What you learn as you break free from your obsession with food is what you need to learn about intimacy:

Commit yourself.
Tell the truth.
Trust yourself.
Pain ends and so does everything else.
Laugh easily.
Cry easily.
Have patience.
Be willing to be vulnerable.
When you notice that you are clinging to anything and it’s causing trouble, drop it.
Be willing to fail.
Don’t let fear stop you from leaping into the unknown, or from sitting in dark silence.
Remember that everything gets lost, stolen, ruined, worn out, or broken; bodies sag and wrinkle; everyone suffers; and everyone dies.
No act of love is ever wasted.

The book is full of vivid metaphors and urgent truths. It is a call to turn inside, face one’s demons with gentleness and compassion, and find freedom.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Beck House” by Janie Hopwood

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Recommended to me by: a friend in Tifton, GA.

Janie Hopwood creates a colorful panorama of characters and events in this historical novel about her grandmother Rena Beck’s boarding house.

When Rena Beck’s husband died, leaving her a house but nothing else, she decided to take in boarders in order to provide for herself and her three unmarried daughters. With courage, perseverance, help from family members, and a lot of hard work, she built a successful business which operated for many years.

I recommend this book for historical details, depth of characterization, laugh-out-loud dialogue, and a sure touch with stories about hard times.

The book is self-published through Indigo Publishing, and this article is all I found online. You’ll need connections in Tifton to get a copy.

Update: Now Available at bookshop.org.