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Monday: in which R. Returns, book group “Good Night Irene”
Book group was today and we had a delightful conversation about “Good Night, Irene”, by Luis Alberto Urrea. Overall, I was tremendously impressed by how well the author conveyed what it felt like to be these women, in these places, doing what they were doing, having the experiences they were having. Obviously, fiction, none of this is real, etc. etc. but for all the accounts of the European theater in WW2 I’ve encountered, in writing, on TV, in movies, this one really connected with me, possibly because it was not centered in the middle of the action, but rather just slightly adjacent to it and on occasion directly encountering the horrors of the action. I liked that the author centered women, and relationships between women, and women’s desire to make choices for themselves and how they responded to restrictions placed on them in many different ways. As always, a male-identified author writing women is … not as satisfying to me as other possibilities, but this is among the best in a difficult situation.
I often complain about how in fiction in any medium, we never get answers to really basic questions like, where do people relieve themselves, etc. Props to this author for actually mentioning on occasion that there was digestive illness in the group, and even for mentioning, in the inventory of things the women brought with them, Kotex. There’s even a moment where the women of the ARC Rapid City realize their cycles have synchronized. That’s an _utterly_ believable and almost inevitable result of working in such close contact, and I can’t even remember the last time that was mentioned in any fiction of any topic. (I’m sure it’s been mentioned somewhere — I just don’t remember encountering it.)
While the gap in time between the main body of the story and the ending of the story presents a variety of frustrations, overall, the ending is deeply satisfying. Even the frustration of the had-I-but-known element is mitigated by my recollection of so many ‘90s era late-in-life reunions between people who had been separated by the Iron Curtain and had no idea if each other had survived, whether siblings, or friends, or whatever. That’s not precisely the same as here, but it’s close enough; the situation is very believable and the resolution is emotionally satisfying.
Mild spoiler: I was really happy the baby survived, and also, I couldn’t stop imagining what would happen when some descendant did a DNA test on Ancestry and then had to figure out what the heck had happened.
I had a delightful phone call with A.
I drove to Logan to pick up R. I left a little late, but there was no traffic, and I rolled up basically as he got to the curb. Lucky! That’s my fourth trip to Logan this month (Picking up and dropping off Priestess and then dropping off and picking up R.) It’s weirdly awesome to be able to do this and it not requiring massive juggling of scheduling and child care and then just giving up and telling someone to grab a cab from the airport when arriving, or arranging for car service to get them there because I just can’t figure out another way to make it happen. Never thought I’d make it to a day where I was _happy_ to be able to go to the airport to pick someone else up or drop them off.
I often complain about how in fiction in any medium, we never get answers to really basic questions like, where do people relieve themselves, etc. Props to this author for actually mentioning on occasion that there was digestive illness in the group, and even for mentioning, in the inventory of things the women brought with them, Kotex. There’s even a moment where the women of the ARC Rapid City realize their cycles have synchronized. That’s an _utterly_ believable and almost inevitable result of working in such close contact, and I can’t even remember the last time that was mentioned in any fiction of any topic. (I’m sure it’s been mentioned somewhere — I just don’t remember encountering it.)
While the gap in time between the main body of the story and the ending of the story presents a variety of frustrations, overall, the ending is deeply satisfying. Even the frustration of the had-I-but-known element is mitigated by my recollection of so many ‘90s era late-in-life reunions between people who had been separated by the Iron Curtain and had no idea if each other had survived, whether siblings, or friends, or whatever. That’s not precisely the same as here, but it’s close enough; the situation is very believable and the resolution is emotionally satisfying.
Mild spoiler: I was really happy the baby survived, and also, I couldn’t stop imagining what would happen when some descendant did a DNA test on Ancestry and then had to figure out what the heck had happened.
I had a delightful phone call with A.
I drove to Logan to pick up R. I left a little late, but there was no traffic, and I rolled up basically as he got to the curb. Lucky! That’s my fourth trip to Logan this month (Picking up and dropping off Priestess and then dropping off and picking up R.) It’s weirdly awesome to be able to do this and it not requiring massive juggling of scheduling and child care and then just giving up and telling someone to grab a cab from the airport when arriving, or arranging for car service to get them there because I just can’t figure out another way to make it happen. Never thought I’d make it to a day where I was _happy_ to be able to go to the airport to pick someone else up or drop them off.