Playing it as it Lays

8 minute memoir

Messes

One time I was such an emotional mess I stayed in bed and cried for days on end.  I got up to run my kids to school and back and that was it.  That's all I could do.

One time I was such an emotional mess I would drive through Culvers for dinner almost every night and get a tuna fish sandwich because that was all I could think of to eat.

One time I was such an emotional mess I felt the skin on my arms burning from within.  It felt like wearing my nerves on the outside of my skin.  Anything touching me felt painful.

One time I was such an emotional mess I would wake up from dreams where people put guns to my head and pulled the trigger.   I would wake up when I died.

One time I was such an emotional mess that almost any song on the radio could make me cry.

One time I was such an emotional mess and it felt like it would never get any better.

I would drive and drive all over the city and I felt like Maria Wyeth in Play it As It Lays.  I was staring in my own Joan Didion novel.

“I know what "nothing" means, and keep on playing.” 
― Joan Didion, Play It as It Lays

So I just kept on.

There's a lot of wisdom in a Joan Didion novel.  Sometimes you have to just keep going.

Best Book Finds of 2012

I'm calling this best book finds because these are books I read this year, not necessarily books that were published this year.  And these are my top 10.  I had less time to read this year, but enjoyed reading when I had time, possibly even more than usual because it was such a luxury to find the space to squeeze it in.  I highly recommend all of these titles especially, though I did read a few other things I really liked as well:

Jonathan Safran Foer has written a novel which is very ambitious. The novel deals with loss, mourning, healing, relationships, and all the messy complications that come from being human. It is touching and at times, even profound. I greatly enjoyed the character of Oskar. I thought he hit all the right notes and it was a wonderful treatment of loss following 9/11, which is perhaps, a tricky thing to convey. I loved the unusual use of odd text and random photos throughout the book to help lend context and to help us get inside the head of the characters. The characters are rich and wholly formed, it is difficult to think that they don't exist in real life. Excellent.

Joan Didion is quite possibly one of our greatest living writers. There are two things I absolutely loved about this book - the treatment of the subject matter, and her stunningly brilliant writing. First the subject: Few people have tackled the idea of grief, and to some extent marriage itself, with the absolute truth and insight that Didion does here. You not only understand Joan's grief, you feel it in your very bones. The reading of this book probably provides more insight into the process than anything that has been heretofore written on the subject. The second subject, Didion's writing: Brilliant. She's a genius. Who else writes so crisply, so succinctly and yet, manages to convey so much depth? Who else manages to pull the exactly perfect word into a sentence, a word you might not have even thought about for a long time, and yet there it is, the perfect word conjured up to give the precise meaning needed? I cannot give this book enough praise.

This kind of worked it's way into my psyche and truly made a little dent in the way I think, observe the world, process things. Her ruminations are lovely. It's a quick read if you want to read it all at once. But it can also be a slow read if you want to savor it in little bits. Now that I've read it I will probably go back and read it again. There are great insights here. Her thinking is circular and tangential. But that's kind of the point.  It's a meditative book meant to give you new ways of looking at  your world.  

Price knows how to write a good who-dun-it. But Price also knows how to write some lovely prose - "a clear winter's night, the sky still holding on to that last tinge of electric blue. Directly above their heads, sneaker-fruit and snagged plastic bags dangled from bare tree limbs; above that, an enricling ring of fourteen-story buildings; hundreds of aluminum framed eyes twitching TV light silver, and above all, the stars, faintly panting, like dogs at rest." Have you read a better description of inner city beauty? I could quibble with a few of the plot twists in the book, but I won't, because somehow, in the end, it all works.

Though a slim volume of what amounts to 3 long short stories, I really adored these descriptive & contemplative little jewels. Ogawa is able to convey a tension that causes you to hold your breath, even though she may be writing about fruit or rain or flowers. The middle story of this volume is simply amazing in the way it is crafted and it sticks with you. An apropos word to use might be fecund, as the story both defines the term, gives it meaning, and which I would also use to describe much of Ogawa's writing. Fecund. And quite lovely.  

At first I admit I kind of felt that I liked the device of a philosophical thinking dog to be the narrator, but racing? Meh...and Cancer? Ugh. So this book and I were not really feeling each other for a while, even though I knew a lot of people love this book. But eventually Enzo got to me and the story became really compelling and from about half way through on I had a hard time putting it down. Cancer and Racing and a Dog + custody fight, mortality and philosophy don't seem like a winning combination, but Stein has more than handily made it a charming and rewarding ride.

Okay, I read the 1st in this series a long time ago and I liked it, but I didn't love it. So it took me a long time to get around to the 2nd book. I LOVED this one. For anyone who enjoys mystery, detective or crime stories, this is excellent. Larsson builds and incredibly complicated web and the character of Lisbeth is excellent and really comes to life much more in this book. I'm looking forward to the final book with great anticipation.

This was a true page turner! From the stand point of true story crafting it was pure excellence. I also thought it was a very interesting exposure of the mind and motivations of a sociopath. Although purely fun, it is equally dark in the best way.

Running a library inside a prison is an interesting endeavor fraught with all the tensions between the ideas and ideals of these two questions: What is a prison? What is a library? A prison is a place where all freedom is limited to the degree that we feel can humanely (or sometimes not) inflict on our fellow human beings. A library is place where the ultimate freedom of the human mind and soul is available for all to partake of, and at no monetary cost. A prison is where you pay. A library is where you gain. So as you might imagine; being the the person in charge of this library - a yeshiva boy who went to harvard and thought he might grow up to be a rabbi, but who now no longer is sure if he even believes in God - this is an interesting place for such a person to explore life's big questions. To both lose himself, and find himself at the same time. Which is exactly what happens. It's a well written first person account of all the contradictions our society has to offer - crime and punishment, yes, but also inherent human goodness and it's rewards.

An interesting and well written account of one woman's experience growing up in the Sri Chinmoy Centre Church. Tamm does a good job of explaining her experience of leaving what she ultimately came to view as a cult, while still maintaining a level of respect for the guru and his followers. A compelling story, it rings true because in part because of its absence of any scathing or over-the-top accusations of what it was like growing up under the Guru's care. In the end I am left with the impression that she gained much from her experience, both positive and negative. Religions are tricky things. They can both exhault and exhaust. They can be a means of transcendence and of tragic ruin. The tipping point, where one turns into the other isn't always clear. It would be easy to dismiss Sri Chinmoy as a nothing more than a cult leader, and yet, Tamm does present a case within her own narrative of someone who was perhaps sincere in his efforts. Watching her transformation and her efforts to both stay in the religion while allowing herself to explore a life outside the group - wishing she could literally live in both worlds equally, is probably the most fascinating aspect of the whole thing. In the end, this is an impossible task.  

My Favorite Literary Tattoos

This morning I was in a store and a young man was helping me who had a tattoo printed on his forearm.  I was trying to read it as he was moving around and putting my order together.  When I finally was able to make out the print, I realized it was a quote from one of my favorite poems.  And somehow, it was exactly what I needed to see (hear) to make my day better.  It reminded me of important truths.  It was kind of a powerful moment for me.  Which got me to thinking...

First off, I cant really ever see myself getting a tattoo.  For lots of reasons.  And secondly, a lot of the tattoos I encounter on a daily basis seem rather hastily decided.  The artwork is bad, the placement is unfortunate, etc etc.  Plus I think now that tattoos have becomes so ubiquitous, we never even really notice them very much anymore.  It's sort of not unique or special in any way to have one.

So this is not really a post advocating for running out and getting a tattoo.  I don't even like it when my kids draw on themselves!  But, the tattoo this morning reminded me of another time when I ran into a girl at LGO who had a Kurt Vonnegut tattoo.  And that had the same effect on me as the tattoo this morning.  It kinda touched me and got to me.  I was even, I'll admit, jealous of that tattoo for a moment.

So if I were going to get a tattoo (which I'm not)  (do you sense my deeply ingrained paranoia about this idea that you, my blog reader, will assume I might be advocating for tattoos)  (okay good, carry on).

I digress

So IF I were to recommend a tattoo (which I'm not), I would probably recommend one of these.

Which frankly (can I admit?) I find to be pretty awesome.

From the Outsiders

Catcher in the Rye

Catcher in the Rye

Kurt Vonnegut

The Outsiders

Catcher in the Rye

Kurt Vonnegut

Catcher in the Rye

Alice in Wonderland (photo by never going home on flickr)

Vonnegut

And even our darling Mr. Ryan Gosling has opted for a pretty cool tattoo up there on his upper arm - The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein

What I learned from Nora Ephron

Many people are sad about Nora Ephron dying this week.  The culture will have a big gap in it with her gone.  I really do believe that.  I have a lot of friends who absolutely adored Sleepless in Seattle, or You've Got Mail or even When Harry Met Sally.  And those are all good movies.  Nora was an excellent writer and she influenced a particular style of women's writing I believe.  Mindy Kaling (one of the great writers from The Office), Tina Fey and Kristen Wiig have all cited Nora as an influence.  She sort of blazed a trail for good and funny women's perspectives.  And she wrote FOR women, she wrote movies women paid to see, and maybe men too, but they were a women driven market.

But I learned something from Nora Ephron in a different sort of way.  Many years ago I rented a movie called "Heartburn".  That movie is pretty fantastic.  It stars Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson.  And it's about Nora's life.  Not her pretend life or a the life of a character, but her for real, not so perfect, life.

In Heartburn (based on the novel by the same name, which Nora wrote and then later was adapted to the movie) the main character, based on Nora ends up dating and marrying a fairly important journalist who lives in Washington DC.  In real life Nora dated and married Carl Bernstein after a failed first marriage.  As you might recall, Bernstein was one of the journalists who broke the Deep Throat/Watergate Break-in story.  Anyway, the movie and the novel are about how deeply and madly in love Nora falls.  Then how cozy everything is for a while.

There are some scenes from that movie that I still think of quite regularly.  There's a scene where they eat cold pasta in bed together and it's so romantic and great.  You can just watch Jack Nicholsons character fall fast and hard for Streep.  It's really lovely.

And they do the whole american dream thing - they buy a fixer-upper row house in Washington DC, get pregnant, have dinner with friends and settle in to what should be a fantastic life.

Except it isn't.  Her husband ends up falling for someone else.  Someone ridiculous.  He just ends up being - well, there's no other nice way to say it - an ass.

Bernstein threatened libel over the publication of the book and the film.  But her never got around to making good on his threat.  Ephron seemed pretty sure of herself and not too worried about what old Carl thought about it.

But what I loved about her story - about the movie, and I later read the book, was how honest Nora was about all of it.  It was terrifically painful.  It hurt a lot.  She had to go to therapy.  She wasn't sure how she was going to get through it but she knew she had to do it.

Ephron later credited her successful 3rd marriage to painful lessons learned in marriage 1 and 2.  But she never forgot the pain of divorce.  She even recently helped the Huffington Post with it's Divorce Page, offering some sage advice now and then.  Her divorces always informed her view a little.

I find it admirable, that the person credited with writing some of what we consider the most romantic modern comedies - the original "chick flicks" if you will, suffered through some pretty painful romances herself.  She never gave up on life.  She used that pain to rise above.

About once a year for most of my life I've watched Heartburn - when it's on TBS, or rented it, or recently, Netflixed it.  It's a powerful movie.  It was powerful before I ever went through a divorce and it's even more powerful now.  I don't know.  It sticks with you.  Maybe it's the powerhouse combination of Streep and Ephron.  But it's something special.  It's not cheerful by any means.  In some ways, it's darned depressing.  It gives you  a look at the dark side of the dream and it makes you shudder a little.  But I'm of the opinion that sometimes we need that - sometimes we need to look at that dark side if only to acknowledge it's existence.

So we'll miss you Nora.

A big thanks from me for helping me see that women are sometimes stronger than they think.  Romance isn't dead.  But it sure is important to be strong in the midst of adversity.  Don't give up on your dreams, but don't be stupid either.  And most important; take care of yourself.  No one is ever going to do it as well as you can.

The future is now...

Remember back in the day when you had to find out stuff by looking them up in the encyclopedia britannica? I was trying to explain that whole concept to my kids an they just could not understand this idea of buying a book - nay, a VOLUME of expensive books in which you would have to look stuff up for reports or if you wanted information.  My kids said "How would that even work wouldn't it be outdated soon?"  and "Weird."  Because my children cannot imagine a world without the internet and all it's information being at their fingertips.

And honestly, I almost can't imagine that anymore either.  And yet the majority of my youth was spent without any notion of this idea whatsoever.

I like to tell my kids the story of when I was at BYU in 1987 - there was this guy named Dave and he was a computer major (of what sort I can't recall...computer engineering or something) and he was one of the only people I knew who actually had a computer in his dorm room and he explained to us that he was talking with one of his friends on the computer while he was sitting at his desk.  I mean the concept of email was just this weird foreign concept.  I remember we were like kind of laughing at him behind his back.  We were saying "Dave...you've heard of phones right?  Couldn't you just like CALL him?"  We thought we were so hilarious.  He was trying to explain this new thing called the internet and email and we just were comparing him to guys that are into ham or cb radios.  Big nerds and no one else is ever going to care about that except other big nerds.

I kind of look like an idiot now.  It must have been frustrating for him to know all this information that he was trying to share with us and we just didn't get it at all.  I know by about 1992 I had email myself.

We certainly never thought everyone would have cell phones and that we would be able to text each other.

The future is now, is how it kind of feels to me a lot of the time.  The future looked so different and well..."futurey" when I was a kid.  It looked kind of like Star Wars or something.  And it turns out the future looks a lot like the past except with cool gadgets.  We aren't all wearing polyester jump suits like Captain Kirk.

I kinda like the future.  I have no idea what my kids future is going to look like but I doubt it will have polyester jumpsuits in it either.

I'm not all that sentimental about most things really  - I don't lament the demise of the encyclopedia britannica at all.  But at the same time there is something really cool about SOME old school things.

Bookstores:

How gorgeous is this bookstore in Holland?  I LOVE a cool bookstore.  I hope that iPads and nooks and amazon.com don't become so popular that we ever reach a point where we don't want actual books and when we don't have cool bookstores like these

(another cool book store in Paris France)

Who doesn't love the smell of old books?  You can't replace that with an e-reader.

One thing the computer has effectively done away with is the typewriter.  I would LOVE to find one like this.

If I see one like this I have to buy it.  Just for nostalgia's sake.  

Granted, typing on a computer is so much easier.  You can fix a mistake a million times faster and more efficiently!  But still.  There was something great about learning to type like this (which is how I learned, Thanks Miss Singleton and Miss Gray - possibly one of the best and most useful "Skills" I ever learned in my secondary education).  Holden bought one of these old ones in a case the other day at a rummage sale because it was "cool".  I mean, I don't know who uses these, but it seems like we should never totally quit using them.  Just for the sake of coolness.  Actually Woody Allen still types all his stuff on an old black typewriter.  

I also really love these, and will totally buy one if it comes in a cool color.  In fact Jordan and I have bent talking about maybe getting our phone line back.  It just doesn't make that much sense when we all carry cell phones around all the time - I eliminated the home line a couple of years ago and I really haven't missed it that much.  But I'd like to get one back if only to have a working rotary dial in the house again.

Is there stuff you miss from the past?

I read, therefore I am

My friend Suzanne introduced me to Goodreads a while ago - Maybe even a couple of years ago.  I love it because it finally helps me organize my reading life.  Before I would hear about some book that I wanted to read, but I wouldn't write it down and I would totally forget about it - there were even times when I would wander around a bookstore looking for something and not being at all sure about what I should choose.  Goodreads has eliminated that problem from my life forever.  It has a nice way of letting you keep track of your "to-read" which I randomly pick up from a multitude of places.  NPR and National book reviews, the year end lists that many of the newspapers print, word of mouth, reviews of friends, Amazon's recommended reading - I can now keep track of all of these things in one tidy spot.

But this has created a new problem for me.  It makes me think about my impending mortality.

I am not one to worry about aging and not one to worry much about dying either.  It's never really been in my nature to be that person.  And people that obsessively worry about those things bother me, mainly because I feel like they're sucking the joy out of living TODAY rather than worry so much about a day when they won't be living.  Living in the now is good when it means learning to enjoy what is.

But last year I read 55 books.  This seems like a lot to some people.  It probably is.  Part of this is being a single woman I can read in bed, which I could not do when I was married.  And I've taken to carrying a book with me wherever I go.  And I honestly prefer it over television most of the time.  So it's not that hard for me to make room for about 50 books a year.  But here's the problem - my "to read" list is now up to 248 books.

That's about 5 years in books.

And I keep adding them!

And I really don't like to think about that!  For lots of reasons.  It makes me question whether what I'm putting on the 'to read' shelf are really the absolute best choices I could be making.  It makes me a little anxious to think about.  And it makes me realize that no matter what I do - no matter how hard I try - I will never be able to finish every book on my Goodreads list before I die.  No matter what I do I will die with some list of around 200 books that I never got to.

I told Holden this morning that I was obsessing about this a little, and he told me that when I die he will take the book I had at the top of my 'to read' list and he will tuck it into my coffin so I have something to read.

I liked the sentiment of that, even if it does entail me thinking about my eventual demise.

I guess I have to keep adding books to the list though, because now I have a sneaking suspicion that finishing my 'to read' list would result in instant death.

I hope there is room for reading in the after-life.

I can't imagine a happy existence without it.

*all book covers are book's I've YET to read!

Best Books of 2011

These are all the books who got a 5 star rating out of me in 2011:

(in no particular order)

1.  White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

This is a completely unvarnished view of India. Two friends of mine lived in India for 2 years with their children and it reminded me of how she would often sigh and day "Oh India...", how they loved and were so frustrated with it at the same time. The main character is an admitted murderer from the outset of the story, but you spend the majority of the book trying to figure out the motivations and the particulars of the murder itself, which is not revealed until more than 3/4 of the way through the story. So that it places you in this interesting position of not being sure if you should sympathize with the character or not. In the end, I'm not sure if that conflict is really resolved. The book has 2 great things going for it - a very engaging plot, but also a dialogue about India itself that is very worthwhile and mind provoking. Some of the best fiction I read so far this year.  There was something about this that just stuck with me - portions of it which I would think of off and on months later or ways in which complicated aspects of humanity were described which really struck me as being particularly astute - especially where culture is concerned.  

2.  Homicide by David Gregory

This is a very long and detailed book of non-fiction. At first I think I found it slightly daunting, and not as easy to delve into as a work of fiction. Just trying to keep all the various detectives straights seemed like a task. But then around 100 pages in - something happened. This book became better than fiction. Because it isn't fiction. It's real. And it has a sick poetry. A demented beauty that I could not put down. Almost literally, from 100 pages in, I carried this book with me everywhere. I read to the exclusion of other chores and tasks I should have accomplished - and I have devoured it and finished it and then found myself with that disappointed feeling a person has when the thing that they've devoted themselves to for a long time is suddenly over.

This book is a thing of beauty about some of the ugliest humanity has to offer. 

3.  Lit by Mary Karr

I've always liked Karr's writing. I think this may be her best yet. She writes beautifully composed sentences and expresses her thoughts with gorgeous language. It is likely her background as a poet which makes this so easy for her as compared to most memoirists. I loved this story. If her life is a trilogy - with Liar's Club and Cherry being parts I and II, here in part III we get the real pay off. An unfailingly honest portrayal of her life - she neither paints herself as better than she should nor worse - probably something only a person who has been through lots of therapy can do with such clarity. Some memoirs read like a sordid re-telling of events, some read as an accusation of those who surrounded them, hers reads like a personal triumph. 




4.  Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

Once I began this I could hardly put it down. In fact, I had to finish it - practically reading it straight through - so that I could accomplish something else with my life.

The genius of Rebecca is not so much in the prose itself - though at times, it can be quite lovely - the genius of Rebecca is in the plotting, pacing and exquisite ability du Maurier brings us a sense of place and time, as though we ourselves are the protagonist of the novel experiencing the sweet cut grass of Manderley ourselves, discovering the dusty abandoned cottage on the beach, walking with Jasper through the woods, and worrying over the cold glance of Mrs. Danvers.

The plot thickens and thickens much like when you stir a home made pudding on the stove - slowly at first, unsure of when it will finally turn into a pudding, but then gradually sensing how thick it is becoming until suddenly we have a bubbling delicious dessert. Rebecca is something to be enjoyed in all it's macabre and gothic glory.

*spoiler-ish alert*

I do wish for a different sort of ending for Max and his bride. I long for the story having a different twist and sudden happiness thrust upon them. But I believe the author gives us a fair compromise under the circumstances. A murder has been committed. We could not, in good conscience enjoy our "happy ending" under those auspices. No, instead, morality dictates we be content with what is.

*spoiler-ish alert ended*

I only wish I had read this as a younger girl - perhaps around the same time Jane Eyre enthralled me so. As it is, I enjoyed it very very much. But I think a younger version of myself would have been even more enchanted by the story of the Mrs. de Winters, Manderley and the gardens would have been all the more vivid, and Mrs. Danvers all the more sinister.




5.  Bossypants by Tina Fey

Not since David Sedaris, has someone written a memoir style book so thoroughly entertaining and laugh out loud hilarious. I adored every minute of this and will definitely read it again. The chapter on her Dad is so perfect, I've read it aloud to anyone who will listen.

6.  We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver

One of the most provacative and well-written novels I've read in a long time. Shriver's voice is uniquely dark, captivating and sharply brilliant. Her writing makes me envious. Her language is delicious. Her vocablary delectable. And her subject matter is complex and timely. Do we make monsters or are they born? Can we ever know for sure? There are usually two modes of thoughts on this nature vs. nurture debate. Three, if you count the folks who would rather take the ambiguous path of saying "both"..."maybe". The complications in trying to arrive at a conclusion to that question are immense and I don't mind not really having the answer, though the question endlessly fascinates me. I devoured this book in less than a day. Though we often say "I couldn't put it down" a rarely mean it with the ferocity to which I attended to this book. I'm sad it's over, if not relieved at the same time.

7.  The Boy Who Was Raised As a Dog:  And other Stories by Bruce D. Perry

A fascinating read for anyone interested in psychology, particularly where the brain development and nurturing are involved. Perry presents some cases which help us understand better the ways in which humans develop into healthy people and what might happen when something goes awry with that process. More importantly though, he gives us a road map of practical remedies that have the potential to make a big difference when things don't go as planned in lives of children and their nurturing.

8.  The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure

I loved this book. I always really enjoy Wendy's writing, so I knew I would like it, and the fact that I really loved Laura Ingalls Wilder when I was a kid - it was pretty much a given that I would enjoy this. But I was suprised at how touching I found Wendy's explorations of just why exactly, Laura became such a big part of my 70s childhood. Well that sounds weird, Wendy was exploring her own reasons for why Laura was such a big part of her childhood AND trying to figure out why this was still something she was carrying around in her heart. But I felt like Wendy was trying to figure this out for all of us, every one of us who cared about the Little House books, and maybe sort of the Laura and Mary from the tv show too. I discovered the books first, but later, because I did watch the TV show for several years, the whole thing became of a piece in my head. Wendy's writing is funny and deeply contemplative all at the same time. Sometimes I feel like Wendy is some long lost sister or something because she just thinks in ways that I relate to, and she can make me laugh. If you loved Little House or if you love Wendy, you love this book.

9.  Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

Murakami has an incredible ability to pull me into a story and keep me entranced, even when, in the case of this book, the bare bones of the story are pretty spare. He has a way with mood and he has a way of making seemingly mundane things seem enchanting. As a meditation on love and it's various permutations, I thought this was lovely.

10.  The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

I thoroughly enjoyed my time reading this rather long novel. Collins writes what is considered one of the most classic thriller stories of all time. The most enjoyable thing about this is that you're never quite sure what's going to happen next though you sort of see where it's going. I liked the device of having the different sections of the book written from differing perspectives - even sometimes marginal characters who make an interesting contribution to the arc. The characters are very interesting, especially the sinister Count Fosco who is quite complex. I also thought that rather surprisingly, the novel has quite a feminist perspective - though I am unsure how purposeful that was. I think one thing I liked most might be considered a draw back by some, which is the length of the novel - it is QUITE long - but I liked that I could read a few pages every night and feel like someone was telling me a complex and interesting bedtime story. Because on final analysis the story really isn't very realistic or believable, but that's rather besides the point. The fun is in the journey, and feeling like a kid again in rapt attention to a story that lets our imagination roam.

11.  Little Bee by Chris Cleave

A really beautiful, though sad, and moving story. There were so many sentences and paragraphs in this book which I thought were gorgeously constructed. A great discussion book for a book club, there are a lot of great themes explored here. The story of a Nigerian girl who tries to immigrate to England after experiencing some extreme hardships in her own country. But really, the book is about so much more than that. I hesitate to describe it too much because I think the way it unfolds is important to preserve for the reader. Just know you'll be moved.