clairealex's reviews
729 reviews

This book is a fascinating combination of history and close reading of newspaper and fictional texts. For the most part it is limited to sources that used the phrase "female husband"; however, it expands where relevant. Vignettes appear of the lives of individuals gleaned from various sources including birth and marriage certificates as well as current news items.  Then follows discussion of what is revealed by how the person was written about.

In the absence of memoirs or letters that would reveal a person's motivation, Manion focuses on society's reaction--which makes sense since interaction is so much a part of identity. Marion surveys changes from a time when there was no legal constraint to female husbands, only a social custom barrier on to a time when laws were passed and female husbands were treated with less sympathy. She traces the coupling and uncoupling of the concepts of sex and gender.and sexuality.

In an intriguing section, feminist activists are contrasted with female husbands: the activists were judged for failing at society's standards for women, the female husbands for failing to meet standards for men.  It is a nuanced study of a complex issue.

This book is fascinating and well written. It has scientific caution and nuance but is storyline and keeps interest flowing. Chapter headings fit the chapters' information, and each chapter is more amazing than the previous one.s. Concepts like "intelligence" and "consciousness" and "agency" are defined in non anthropomorphic ways., for example intelligence is recognizing one's environment and responding appropriately. Chapters cover hearing, vision, communication, and cooperation with kin. Totally fascinating.

Cassie Chambers had the benefit of an encouraging and successful family. While there was some pull to keep her in KY, she had enough support to venture to NM for an international program, then to Wellesley, then Harvard, and Yale Law School. In her life story we get a different than usual picture of Appalachian life, though there are times that she refers to experiences that we may feel more familiar with, as they exist too. She is interested in capturing the complexity of hill culture.

As she ventures beyond, she experiences the discomfort of moving into social situations where she doesn't "know the rules" or the way to dress. She tells of her fear of losing her hill identity as she gains this other outside identity. She goes to law school and returns to KY to work in family law. And in her return realizes "I know that I will never truly belong in the same way, I have grown, and I have changed, but I will always remember the hills that I came from" (368).

The book ends with an interview. When asked about poetry, Abu Toha says, "When I think of poetry I don't think of Arabic poetry or English poetry or Spanish poetry. No, I just think of poetry as an idea, not as rigid form that I need to follow, The word for poetry in Arabic, sha'ir, doesn't refer to a particular form, it only has to do with feeling" (105-06). He uses words, compact images, and sound to create feelings.  The narrative within a poem is so tight that it is hard to find a sample, but here is one from "Notebooks":
""Raindrops slip into the frying pan
through a hole in a tin roof" (88).

I always enjoy novels that take a different perspective from that of the original story, so the idea of this one appealed to me. And the novel exceeded all my expectations. I loved James' wisdom and enjoyed his lessons on translating speech to "slave talk."

Although I am familiar with a few episodes of the Huck Film novel I have yet to read it; and this will prompt me to do so soon. I recognized several names from familiar episodes. I assume  that  scenes where James is separate from Huck have their parallel in those where Huck is alone in the Twain novel.  I'm wondering if James ever told Huck anything about his time away after they got back together--whether such telling suggested episodes or not. i'll soon know.

The pacing kept my attention throughout; in fact in many places it is a page turner. I found the various resolutions satisfying, maybe a stretch of the imagination in some cases, but satisfying nonetheless.

(I didn't answer the characters loveably? question because not all were. Though James--though he doesn't insist on the more formal name till the end, I want to honor that insistence by using it throughout--Huck, Norman and a few others are quite lovable, many of the rest are not.)

This book provided potential areas to inquire about, but I didn't like the writing choices. It seemed more a printing of notecards than a well honed argument. I especially disliked putting so much information into footnotes (~90 pages of text ~100 pages of notes). The purpose was to provide an overview. To check the footnotes as I read would hamper that; To read without checking was to decrease its power to convince. 

This is a memoir of a professional life with occasional paragraphs of family life added. Occasionally there are anecdotes that make co-workers come to life as well. Because I was interested in the medical stuff that was okay with me.

There were pandemics I had forgotten about, had never known about, and knew but learned more about. For example I learned how much work on HIV/AIDS had been going on before ACTUP made it a more public thing. The complex relationship among activists and Fauci was interesting and again, more than I had been aware of. I remembered zika and ebola, but only vaguely. And of course SARS-2-COVID. The others were new, partly because they occurred at a time I wasn't taking time for news and partly because they were more quickly contained.

I was amused by a comment Rechy made about the writing of the novel: revised 12+ times to make it appear spontaneous. That reworking created a tight structure in what otherwise could be a string of episodes. Each episode has tension building, building, then resolution, as does the whole. The resolution of the whole is appropriate to the narrator, who is also the main character, the hustler. Rechy creates vivid characters, most of whom readers can care about, even readers who might not normally care about hustlers and their scores.

Symbols and themes are introduced early and carried throughout, along with the narrator's changing reflections on various encounters. (That character through line worked better, i.e., more fully, when I could remember the scene where a character had first appeared.) The wind, dust, child gazing out a window at life, cages, and death functioned in a cumulative way toward the narrator's resolution. 

The novel deserves its place as a classic.

This multigenerational novel begins in 1963 and continues until 2014, with an undated epilogue. With war frequently in the background, the setting shifts among Palestine, Yemen, Jordan, Lebanon, and USA. These changes are mostly signaled by chapter headings: each chapter has a character named as its focus  as well as its date. Flashbacks within chapters are mostly signaled clearly. There is a family tree at the beginning in case the reader has to put the book down and forgets relationships, though I didn't need it often. Everyone listed doesn't get a chapter, and  gradually two become the main focus, Alia and Atef. Their development and relationship dominates the work even when they are background characters in another character's vignette. Early in the novel the reader is given two questions: What disaster did Salma read in her daughter Alia's coffee grounds? What is the burden Atef carries? Both are resolved satisfactorily. And I found resolutions of their conflicts (within and between) satisfying. The ending is stunning, innovative, believable, and well executed.

I think to say more would give away too much. I highly recommend the novel.

I'll admit that current politics with the threat of eliminating birthright citizenship prompted me to read this title. However, it is all history, albeit fascinating history. Jones does something  more like a people's history, going beyond the landmark moments of the Dred Scott verdict and 13-15th Amendments to the churning of ideas in the period before the decision and amendments. She does this with a focus on Baltimore, MD, though events and decisions in other states are occasionally referenced. 

She divides the concept of citizenship into its component features (including the right to travel between states, to sue, and to bear witness among others), then does a painstaking survey of court cases showing some parts claimed by/awarded to free Blacks even while others are withheld.  She links rights and citizenship and clarifies that free Blacks could have rights in the states and state courts (in some states) while denied them in the country and federal courts. Each feature gets a chapter. Some get interesting stories, others get lists of examples, according to what records exist. Some of the people are mentioned once, others appear off and on through the book. Near the end we learn the fate of those we have come to recognize. 

It enlarges awareness of the time and wealth of actions that contribute to changes that we tend to mark in single moments.