"Say Nothing" by Patrick Radden Keefe

Leafing through the course catalogue in the summer of 1981 (38 years ago now -- yikes!!), trying to choose some courses for my third year of university (I was in a four-year double honours arts program -- English & political studies), my interest was piqued by one called "Radical Political Movements."

I'm not quite sure what I expected or if I knew what I was in for -- there was (& probably still is) no one less radical/more cautious/conventional than I am, lol (childlessness aside, of course...!) -- but I thought it would be interesting.

It was.

It was a small class, with perhaps a dozen students, tops -- three hours, once a week.  I was one of just two or perhaps three women. Many of the guys were rumpled, shaggy, long-haired hippie types. ;)  One of them later became president of the campus NDP (New Democratic Party -- Canada's left-wing/socialist party) club.  The prof addressed the men as "Mr." and the women as "Miss."

For the first term, our main project was to choose a book about a radical political movement, figure or philosophy and present it to the class. In the second term, we'd do a major research paper expanding on some aspect of the radical political movement/figure/philosophy in that book. 

The professor said the book we chose could be fiction or non-fiction. We had to run our choice by him first. I remember some of my classmates' choices included "The Wretched of the Earth" by Frantz Fanon and "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" by Richard Hofstadter (this was in the early 1980s, when Ronald Reagan was president). One of the few other women in the class chose to study Nestor Makhno, a Ukrainian anarchist from around the time of the Russian Revolution. I'd never heard of most of these writers, political figures or titles before.

I already had an idea of what book I wanted to choose, and what movement I wanted to study. That summer, I'd read "Trinity" a novel by Leon Uris (who also wrote "Exodus," among other titles), a romance between a Catholic Republican patriot and a Protestant Loyalist girl, set in Ireland during the 1800s. I proposed to use that for my book report, and study the IRA (Irish Republican Army) and the cause of Irish independence for my second-term paper.

My professor approved, although he was clearly amused by my book choice. I can still see the smirks from my classmates as I earnestly made my presentation. Clearly, I was WAY out of my depth here.  I struggled to make a meaningful contribution to the class discussions. Nevertheless, I wound up with a B+ for both my paper & for the course as a whole, which helped me make the dean's honour list that year.

I don't remember a whole lot about "Trinity," my paper, my thesis or what my conclusions were, but I do remember realizing (as I waded through stacks and stacks of dry books on hundreds of years of Irish history for my research, wondering what I'd gotten myself into...!) that the situation was extremely complex (so many different factions!) and deeply rooted, and that there were no easy solutions.

There were several reasons why I chose the topic I did, beyond enjoying "Trinity."  ;)  My mother's father's family was Irish (from counties that included Armagh in the north, as well as Cavan, Leitrim, Carlow & Wicklow in the south). (All the different branches I've been able to trace so far left Ireland for Scotland &/or North America sometime between the 1820s & 1860s). My great-grandfather was born on St. Patrick's Day, 1871 (in a small town north of Toronto).  It wasn't until I was a teenager (or possibly even older) that I realized we were actually Protestant (Episcopalian/Anglican)/Orange Irish. My great-grandfather was a member of the Orange Lodge;  my mother has his Lodge song book with his name & the year (1868) inscribed on the inside cover. The content, by today's standards, is politically incorrect in the extreme...! 

And of course, my growing-up years (the 1960s & 1970s) coincided with an escalation of "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland. The nightly news was full of stories about protests, riots, bombings, executions and assassinations. In 1976, when I was 15, two Irish women, Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan, won the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to promote peace and non-violence.  In the spring of 1981, a few months before I began my class, 10 members of the Provisional IRA died in prison, one after another, in a staggered hunger strike. The first to die (and best known) was Bobby Sands, age 27. His funeral was attended by 100,000 people;  his death led to riots and a new surge in IRA activity.

I never quite understood what exactly what "the Troubles" were all about -- other than the Protestants seemed to hate the Catholics, and vice versa;  that the (mostly Catholic) south had gained independence from Britain in the 1920s, after a centuries-long struggle, but the (mostly Protestant) north was still part of the United Kingdom, and that remained a source of conflict. This course seemed like a good opportunity to learn more about the situation.

*** *** ***

I wish that I'd had "Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland" by Patrick Radden Keefe to read and use in my research back then.  "Say Nothing" tells the story of the Troubles, spanning some 50 years, from the late 1960s through the 1970s to the present day, through the lives of several intersecting characters (as well as a host of other lesser figures).

There is Jean McConville, a 39-year-old recently widowed mother of 10 (!) children, who was taken by a masked mob from her Belfast apartment in December 1972 to a waiting car, and never seen again. (The story of the McConville family broke my heart.)

There is Gerry Adams, who evolves from IRA strategist/leader (although he has never admitted to being an IRA member) to wily politician.  And there is Brendan Hughes, the ferocious IRA mastermind and Adams' one-time brother in arms, who turns on him in the wake of the 1998 Good Friday Accord which finally brought peace -- albeit an imperfect and uneasy peace -- to Northern Ireland.

Perhaps most interesting for me, there are the charismatic Price sisters, Dolours & Marian, who grew up in a staunchly republican family and became the first women to join the IRA as field soldiers, when they were still barely out of their teens. (The book's cover is a photo of Dolours Price's partially concealed face.)

I don't want to give too much away here -- how all these individuals' stories unfold, how they all connect, and what has happened to them. What I will say is: 

This has already been called one of the best books of the year. I often approach these lauded books with a dose of skepticism. ;)  But this one fully deserves that praise. It brings this complicated period of Irish history vividly to life and makes it understandable (more understandable, at least) and fascinating (and jaw-dropping), in a way that many past books about these issues have not. I could not put it down, and I will be thinking about it for a long, long time.

If you have ever been interested in learning more about "the Troubles," and how they still reverberate in Ireland today, this is an absolute, essential must-read.

Five (5) stars on Goodreads.

This was book #22 that I have read in 2019 to date, bringing me to 92% of my 2019 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 24 books.  I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 11 (!!) books ahead of schedule to meet my goal. :)

40 years

Yes, that's me!  (One of my favourite photos of myself, actually!) 

This photo was taken exactly 40 (FORTY!!) years ago tonight -- June 28, 1979. (Please don't tell me if you weren't even born then, lol.)  The occasion:  my high school graduation! Mine was the last class that "dressed up" in long dresses & suits for grad -- the next year, my sister's class voted to adopt caps & gowns. Long dresses were becoming passe even then, and it took some looking to find the perfect dress. (It HAD to be blue -- my favourite colour!)  Mom & I bought eventually found it at a mall in the city.  It cost $65 and was the most expensive dress I'd had to that point. You can't see all the details in this photo, but it was long, with a pleated skirt, & the bodice is sort of a lace-trimmed peplum. Those are blue ribbons tied at the shoulders, instead of spaghetti straps. I loved it.  Like my wedding dress, I only ever got to wear it that one time. (It is still hanging in a closet at Mom & Dad's house, lol.)

I look at that girl (who probably thought she was fat...!!) and I think about everything that has happened to her in the 40 years since then, things she had no idea were in her future. I  had a pretty good time in high school, but I was excited to start university & the next part of my life. Not sure now why I was in such a hurry, lol. I had my life all planned out:  I was going to university. I was going to be a journalist.  I was going to get married right after university, and have at least two and maybe four children. I would be a stay-at-home mom;  maybe work part-time when they got a bit older. We would live in a nice house in a leafy suburb in Winnipeg (or perhaps Calgary, or Edmonton -- the oil boom was in full swing in Alberta in those days, and many of my classmates were headed there). 

Things went according to plan, for a while -- until they didn't. And some of those unexpected twists & turns (stillbirth, infertility, childlessness, job loss) have been hard to accept. If you had told me back then that, 40 years later, I would be living in a condo (did we even know what condos were, back then??) in TORONTO (well, the Greater Toronto Area, anyway) with no children, I don't think I would have believed you.

I did go to journalism school and worked briefly as a reporter, before going to work for one of the banks my father had worked for -- something I never would have imagined (my sister -- who wound up working for the other bank dad worked for! -- & I LOATHED the bank when we were growing up -- it made us move every 3-6 years and took us away from all our friends). Corporate communications was just becoming a "thing" when I got into it, and in some ways, I am lucky that I got in on the ground floor. I had a well-paying career with a defined benefit pension for 28 years, even if they did usher me out the door unexpectedly. 

And yes, not having the children I wanted & expected to have has been difficult -- probably the hardest thing I've had to deal with. 

But still. Overall, it's been a good 40 years. My classmates just had a reunion. I didn't go, but I imagine most of them would agree that life isn't exactly what they thought it would be 40 years ago either.  Time goes by a lot faster than you think it will when you're 18 and 40 years seems like forever...!

"The Man They Wanted Me to Be" by Jared Yates Sexton

Even before I had finished Jared Yates Sexton's "The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore" (which I reviewed here), I started looking for, found and then bought his latest book, "The Man They Wanted Me to Be: Toxic Masculinity and a Crisis of Our Own Making."  And then picked it up & started reading it as soon as I finished "The People Are Going to Rise."

"The Man They Wanted Me to Be" is part memoir, part cultural/sociological study, and part sequel/companion volume to "The People Are Going to Rise". (Sexton refers to some of the same events & observations he made in that earlier book here.) Sexton believes that the "dark heart" of the rage he witnessed during the 2016 election campaign and beyond is primarily expressed by privileged white males, personified by Donald Trump.

Sexton takes a long, hard look at the issue of toxic masculinity through the lens of his own life story.  He grew up amid poverty and domestic violence in Indiana, raised by a single mother. His father lived nearby but was mostly absent in his life until he was a teenager;  he had a succession of three stepfathers who abused him as well as his mother.  Sexton struggled to live up to his family's and community's expectations of what a boy/man should be:

To my relatives I was "different," a word I'd heard then use in a suspicious voice whenever they thought I was out of earshot. They were uncomfortable around me, thrown off by how I spoke and how often I'd ask questions that required more than a monosyllabic "yes" or "no," or one of their customary grunts or groans women had learned to translate out of necessity. I talked about feelings, read books, and when I played with my toys, even the action figures and robots that all came with missiles and machine guns, they spent more time communicating than battling each other. (pp. 4-5) 

I've read a bit about toxic masculinity in the past, but most often in the context of feminism and how it affects women.  It was intriguing to read a well-written, thoughtful take on the subject by a male author who has lived with it and been profoundly affected by it. I was reminded a bit, as I read, of  "Hillbilly Elegy" by J.D. Vance, which I read two summers ago & reviewed here.  (Vance grew up in a working-class family in Ohio, the son of a teenaged mother who became a drug addict & went through numerous marriages & boyfriends. With the support of his grandparents, aunt & some caring teachers, Vance eventually  joined the Marines and then attended university, including law school at Yale.)

Sexton's story -- the abuse he endured as a child, his self-destructive behaviour as a teenager & young adult, and his near-suicide -- is hard to read at times. His hospital visit with his dying father, who gave him his blessing to take a job in far-off Georgia, had me in tears. I was happy to see that, near the end, he offers some thoughts on how change can be facilitated. He admits to being both annoyed and puzzled by his students ("Already, at thirty-seven, I'm of the age where I can barely stand the popular culture of the day,"  he writes on page 238)(lol) -- but he recognizes that young millennials are far more flexible when it comes to gender issues than previous generations. In them, he sees hope for a better future.

This is an important and impressive book.  It deserves to be read & discussed widely -- by men in particular (although we know, sadly, most of them probably won't pick it up...!).  I gave it five stars on Goodreads.

This was book #21 that I have read in 2019 to date, bringing me to 88% of my 2019 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 24 books.  I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 10 (!!) books ahead of schedule to meet my goal. :) 

#MicroblogMondays: Annoying things

• Yet another overcast day with rain in the forecast (after three consecutive weekend days of clear skies & sunshine). 
• Noticing spots that I've missed on my freshly washed balcony doors/windows. (But it still looks better than it did!!) 
• Ongoing construction & roadwork both behind & in front of our condo building. (Will it ever end??) 
• Hot flashes (with increasing frequency), especially at night... I get so hot & kick off the covers -- then I freeze.... lather, rinse, repeat... 
• Not being able to sleep when I'm very tired and desperately want to. 
• Listening to BIL & SIL argue the merits of a granddaughter versus a grandson (when I will obviously never get to have either). 
• Knowing the debate will be settled this coming weekend -- at the gender reveal party! 
• Very few people posting photos from my high school class's 40th (!!) reunion have included captions that identify who's who!!  I recognize quite a few faces, but not all of them, and I'm sure I'm not alone. (Apparently the nametags were much appreciated by those who attended, lol.) 
• Not being able to come up with a more original post for this edition of #MicroblogMondays. ;) 

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here. 

"The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore" by Jared Yates Sexton

Have you ever chosen a book simply because the title was irresistible?  (Case in point:  "Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons" by Lorna Landvik.  I bought it years ago because, well, how could I not, with that glorious title??  I still haven't read it, though..!)

When I saw "The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore: A Story of American Rage" by Jared Yates Sexton on the bookstore shelf, I had to pull it out for a closer look, simply because of the amazing (if rather ominous-sounding) title.  The cover design pulled me in further (not to mention the subject matter). The author's name sounded vaguely familiar:  he's a creative writing professor at Georgia Southern University and the author of several short story collections, whose journalism has appeared in The New York Times, The New Republic, Politico, The Daily Beast, Salon and The Globe and Mail.

I bought the book. And started reading it, not too long afterwards.

"The People Are Going to Rise" is Sexton's personal account and analysis of the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, which he followed -- on both the Democratic & Republican sides, with the Green Party thrown in for good measure -- for several different publications. (Parts of the book originally appeared in those articles.)

Sexton leans left politically, but grew up in a working-class family in Indiana. He understood where Trump rally attendees were coming from -- even if what he saw and heard there left him shaken. After his live tweets from one Trump rally went viral, he began receiving death threats. He used alcohol to cope.  (One Goodreads reviewer quipped, "I really worry about Jared Yates Sexton's liver.") The rage he witnessed and writes about here was also evident on the left (Democrat/Green) side of the equation.  (The title of the book comes from a chalk-drawn sidewalk sign he saw at the Democratic National Convention.)

I would recommend this book for anyone wanting a thoughtful, well-written and readable account of what happened in 2016 and why, with a bit of a personal flavour.

I gave "The People Are Going to Rise" 4 stars on Goodreads. My rating might have been a bit higher, but there were several glaring errors in spelling/usage that marred my complete enjoyment (? -- if that's the right word...!) of an otherwise fine and important book (and yes, I'm that picky, lol). It could have used a good proofreading.

Sexton recently published a new book -- "The Man They Wanted Me to Be: Toxic Masculinity and a Crisis of Our Own Making" -- which is billed as part memoir and part cultural analysis. I've already bought it and started reading it. :)

This was book #20 that I have read in 2019 to date, bringing me to 83% of my 2019 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 24 books.  I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 9 (!!) books ahead of schedule to meet my goal. :) 

Friday/First day of summer odds & ends

• I can't believe it's (supposedly?) summer, and that we're already through 2/3 of June. It hasn't been much of a spring/summer so far, sadly... temps cooler than average, not a lot of sunshine and a fair bit of rain. :p  (Today is pretty nice, though!)  
• We had planned to spend Father's Day afternoon at the movies last weekend, but BIL invited us over there for lunch and dh said OK.  The nephews & their wives were there, as well as SIL's elderly father & her brother. It was a lovely lunch & we enjoyed the time with the nephews (& the dog, lol) -- even though there was a LOT of baby talk...! 
• No plans for this weekend, although we may try to go see "Late Night" with Emma Thompson & Mindy Kaling. 
• Lots of posts & photos about kids' graduations/"moving up" ceremonies/last days of school in my social media feeds. Sigh. 
• My 40th (!!) high school class reunion is this weekend. (There are already some photos on our class Facebook group.)  I'm not going -- we're heading that way in a couple of weeks to visit my family & celebrate my dad's 80th birthday, and I didn't think I could stretch the visit that far (let alone make two trips in such a short time frame). I'm sure I would have had an OK time if I'd gone, but I don't think my absence will be much noticed. As I said previously:  

I wouldn't MIND going -- I'm certainly curious to see how everyone's turned out ;)  -- but I'm not dying to go either.  Having to explain my childlessness/only daughter's stillbirth (umpteen times, I'm sure...) is certainly a factor in my reluctance.... I'm not sure I would be the ONLY person there without kids -- but I'd definitely be in the minority.  And nevermind the kids -- I know many of my classmates are now (gulp) grandparents!  I only have so much tolerance for admiring other people's kid/grandkid photos & listening to their stories... particularly when they never seem to be very interested in my own.

• Also coming up soon:  our 34th wedding anniversary. Not sure how we're going to celebrate. Dinner out, at least. :)  Likely something more next year for #35. :) 

#MicroblogMondays: Victory is ours! :)

Mel messaged me tonight to ask whether I went to the Toronto Raptors (NBA basketball team) victory parade, & was I OK?  -- because (very sadly) some idiots decided to open fire with guns at the celebration at city hall -- shot two people & set off a stampede near the back of the crowd that injured several more. :( 

It's really too bad, because up until that point, it had been a fabulous day (& they did arrest some suspects & confiscate weapons fairly quickly -- while managing to calm down the crowd quickly & carry on with the show, with the prime minister, premier, mayor & entire team all remaining onstage).

I wasn't there -- although I did watch all 6.5 hours of coverage (!) on television from our condo, about a 45-minute drive/45-minute subway ride (on a normal day!) from the festivities. I had asked dh if he wanted to go -- he's followed the team from Day One, 24 years ago now, and was ecstatic when they won.  He said maybe if he was 20 years younger, lol. We both knew it was going to be nuts downtown (and it was!) and a pain to get there & get home again -- not to mention standing around all day in the middle of a crowd, waiting for the parade to pass in the blink of an eye, getting hungry and wondering where the nearest bathroom was. ;) 

The TV coverage was slotted from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., with the idea that the team would arrive at city hall around 12-12:30ish & they would have everything wrapped by 1:30-2.  There were so many people along the parade route -- an estimated TWO MILLION PEOPLE -- that they didn't even get to city hall until almost 3:30. The shootings happened just before 4 :( and the program wrapped up by 4:30.

I watched several victory parades, live, over the 28 years (1986-2014) that I worked on Bay Street in downtown Toronto's financial district, a few blocks south of city hall. I think the first was in 1987, when sprinter Ben Johnson won a world championship, and paraded up Bay Street to a reception at city hall -- a year before he won the gold medal at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Korea, and then had it taken away when he tested positive for drugs. 

There were a couple of times when the Toronto Argonauts (CFL football team) won the Grey Cup championship, and a parade of Summer Olympic heroes, back in 2012, I think. Those parades passed directly in front of the building on Bay Street next door to where I worked, and the crowds, while a respectable size, were nothing like they were today. I was able to leave my desk about 20 minutes before the parade was scheduled to pass by, get a prime viewing spot, wave, cheer and take photos as the parade passed, and get back to my desk, all in more or less my allotted lunch hour. :) 

A little closer to this experience (and the biggest parades the city has seen before today), I also went to one of the Blue Jays' World Series (baseball) victory parades, some 26-27 years ago now (they won back to back, 1992 & 1993).  I forget which was which, but one parade was held on the weekend, and one was on a weekday (the one I went to).  My boss said she wanted to go, so she & I walked a few blocks over to a spot on the route during our lunch hour to see what we could see -- which was not much, lol.  The crowds were huge, we were obviously arriving late, and I mostly saw the tops of people's heads as the parade cars passed by. The other thing I remember most about that day is that on our way back to the office, I stopped & bought a sausage on a bun from a street vendor for lunch -- and was sick to my stomach a few hours later. That was the last time I bought food from a street vendor, lol. 

I've always told people that the ultimate parade would be if/when the Toronto Maple Leafs (NHL hockey team) win another Stanley Cup (the last time was in 1967 -- 52 years ago!! -- when dh was 10).  But I'll be honest -- I'm not sure anything could top this!  Check out some of the parade coverage online... the images are amazing. Pretty cool to watch (especially once they got downtown & I knew exactly where they were by the buildings and street signs along the way!).

Have you ever been to a big sports victory parade like this? 

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here.