Telling the Utterly Confounding Truth
A review by Cheryl Strayed
I'll say it now: Irene Vilar had 15 abortions in 15 years. That's the blunt opening one-liner that fails to tell the whole story of this beautiful and brave book. Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict is a memoir less about 15 abortions than it is the story of a young woman who never got enough love. At age 8, Vilar watched her mother commit suicide by leaping out of a car. At 12, she read The Diary of Anne Frank and felt scarred -- not from the horror of the Holocaust, but because she so deeply understood the plight of a girl who lived in an attic and had to ask permission "to exist in that smallest of holes." At 17, far from her home and broken family in Puerto Rico, she began a sexual relationship with her 51-year-old college professor that lasted 11 years. In Impossible Motherhood Vilar does exactly what the best memoirists do: She tells us the truth about everything, even when the truth utterly confounds. How was it that she could allow herself to conceive...
|
 |
Previously Reviewed by The Oregonian
Sort: by date | by title | by author
The Opposite Field: A Memoir by Jesse Katz
 Our language is peppered with baseball metaphors. We could barely communicate without them, especially at work: "She really struck out on that project, but he hit it out of the park." The game is so romanticized we even use those metaphors to describe amorous grappling: "I got to second base, dude."...
The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis by Lydia Davis
 To savor or to gorge? It's a question that's been weighing heavy on Lydia Davis fans all month. Spanning 20 years and four volumes of short fiction, The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis is here. There are 198 stories, an overwhelming number for any writer.
But Davis is a woman of economy, and...
The Collector: David Douglas and the Natural History of the Northwest by Jack Nisbet
 The man who gave his name to the magnificent Douglas fir was in the second wave of white adventurers in the great Pacific Northwest, and you get the feeling, reading Jack Nisbet's fascinating new biography, The Collector: David Douglas and the Natural History of the Northwest, that he regretted his ...
Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America by Barbara Ehrenreich
 In Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Notion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, Barbara Ehrenreich reprises her role as Dorothy swishing back the curtain on a great and powerful given: "Americans are a 'positive' people." Sunny, self-confident optimism defines us as individuals and as a...
Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son by Michael Chabon
 Michael Chabon hates Captain Underpants.
That may sound like a piffling, self-evident position for a writer of Chabon's stature and talent -- what serious novelist wouldn't hate the whole silly poo-flinging series? -- but in reality he's setting the stage for "Hypocritical Theory," easily...
Massacred for Gold: The Chinese in Hells Canyon by R. Gregory Nokes
 Whenever a writer becomes obsessed with a long-lost or wrongly told story from history he usually ends up spending most of his free time (and money) researching it. At some point in the madness, he knows a book will result come hell, high water or divorce. When he writes the book, he must decide...
Bicycle Diaries by David Byrne
 Wherever David Byrne travels, on tour as a musician or pursuing other creative interests, he brings along his folding bicycle.
Byrne, best known as the leader of the iconic new wave band Talking Heads, is an avid urban cyclist. Bicycling -- meandering, exploring, just getting from place to...
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
 Does this sound familiar?
World-renowned symbologist and all-around cool guy Robert Langdon is summoned to an Imposing Architectural Landmark, where something Really Yucky has been left in a way only he can recognize. You know, as a clue. Langdon snaps into action, and it isn't long before he's...
Desert by Jean-marie Gustave Le Clezio
 When the Swedish Academy awarded French novelist J.M.G. Le Clezio the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2008, the announcement was met in this country by raised eyebrows. The reported reaction: Who is this guy (and why didn't Philip Roth win?). The permanent secretary of the Academy inflamed sentiments ...
Misconception by Ryan Boudinot
 Turning the last page of Misconception, you'll be certain that you love Seattle author Ryan Boudinot's style. Oh, you'll like the story fine. It sends readers bouncing into long swoops and back again, the volcano-boarding of this year's literary fiction. In other words, the fun kind of crazy, and...
Wrestling with Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took on New York's Master Builder and Transformed the American City
by Anthony Flint
Confessions of a Teen Sleuth: A Parody
by Chelsea Cain
Savages and Scoundrels: The Untold Story of America's Road to Empire through Indian Territory
by Paul VanDevelder
Flotsametrics and the Floating World: How One Man's Obsession with Runaway Sneakers and Rubber Ducks Revolutionized Ocean Science
by Curtis Ebbesmeyer and Eric Scigliano
The Signal
by Ron Carlson
The Beats: A Graphic History
by Harvey Pekar
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
by Alan Bradley
The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal
by Ben Mezrich
Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World's Greatest Scientist
by Thomas Levenson
Trouble
by Kate Christensen
The Oregonian is the online source for comprehensive coverage of the Northwest literary scene. Its daily books report includes news, reviews, and poetry, as well as essays and opinions from local authors.
Plus: The paper's award-winning books section, published on Sundays, strips the buzz from national bestsellers and directs readers to little-known regional gems in a concise package.
New subscribers can receive four weeks of home delivery free as part of a trial offer.
| 
Don't Miss
