blogsfromtheedge

The Kindle Effect

July 2014

Nancy Deming-May

Recently I found myself ordering a book on my Kindle, not because of a friend’s recommendation, or a bestseller list, or yet another wonderful interview on NPR.  No, this was because of a political controversy.  This book had somehow become notorious thanks to it being placed on the required freshman reading list by my college alma mater as well as the subsequent firestorm due to some aspiring politician who didn’t like its contents.  I think I stumbled on the controversy thanks to the notorious “People who ordered this book also ordered …,” a marketing prompting that frankly, I quite enjoy. 

This prompting led me to click on the reviews of the book where one reviewer mentioned the controversy which occurred about eight years ago.  It was in another state and happened at the state level, so I had missed the headlines.  The friction was familiar – a middle aged, white male running for office and complaining about too much sex, and drugs, and maybe even a lesbian relationship.  HOW could we EVER require our entering college freshmen to read such filth?!?!   There’s nothing like some prudish politician trying to censor stuff to arouse my fierce defense of the first amendment and dislike of prudish judgmental people.   The politician had lost, but the controversy did pique my interest enough to skim through some more favorable reviews and decide to do the one-click download to my e-reader.  

I LOVE the compactness of my e-reader – especially when taking a long trip.  You don’t have to worry about lugging a heavy, thick book onto an airplane – especially if you know you will finish it along the way and have to have another for backup.  You just take your slim little reader out and touch whichever book you please.  It’s also very handy for toting other books that you aren’t sure WHEN you’ll feel like reading or returning to them – those impulsive downloads that are sometimes just the right prose for your mood.  Or even the occasional “spicy” novel you don’t feel like letting those strangers (or family members) around you know you are even reading!

This book was well written, a compelling story, and an easy read.  It was about two female friends who met in college and were aspiring writers.  It was written in the first person – mostly about the other friend (of course) who had a life-long struggle with facial reconstruction after losing part of her jaw to childhood cancer.  I found myself wondering during the repeated bouts of the jaw-cancer friend’s surgeries, where was this woman’s family?  It was like a Gray’s Anatomy episode where even though the most momentous events are happening to these people, it’s only their friends in the hospital who share the journey with them.  No parents, siblings, cousins, or past friends coming to support and wage bedside duty.  The first-person author was bedside after almost every surgery, holding vigil as well as sick bags; changing sheets, filling prescriptions, and even carrying the waif-like jaw-cancer character up to her apartment in New York City after yet another surgery.  It was becoming surreal.

As these surgeries and the neediness of this poor friend were starting to drone on in the last third of the novel, I was beginning to form the impression that the author had submitted the first draft and the editor had said, “Add another 20,000 words and we’ll publish,” and the author had dutifully added a surgery here and there and dragged out some of the recovery and intermittent self destruction scenes ad nauseum.   Though determined to read to the end to see what would become of her friend, I finally couldn’t stand it anymore and had to know if others felt the same way, so I looked for some other reviews to see if any others shared my sentiment.

I was stunned to discover that this “novel” was a actually work of non-fiction – a memoir about a real person, Lucy Grealy, who actually wrote a successful book (documented in the book I was reading), Autobiography of a Face.  I was further amazed to see photos of Lucy – missing/deformed jaw and all.  The title of the book, Truth and Beauty, came from one of Lucy’s own chapters, which was derived from both of their love of Yeats – Beauty is truth and truth is beauty. 

Wow.  How could I be so clueless as to what I was reading?  I felt like I had been reading page by page in a dark cave – enjoying the book – but knowing very little about it.  After devouring the internet articles and interviews of the author, Ann Patchett, and getting her version of the speaker series experience at Clemson, the row with the politician, as well as the UK Guardian article by Lucy’s distraught sister – citing family issues, mental illness, geographic separation, despair over the “unfair” perspective by Ann, I had a chance to reflect on how I came to read a novel with so little knowledge of it. 

Before my e-reader, I would have had a paperback, with the reviews on the back, the short author biography on the last page, the other reviews up front – that would have mentioned the fact is was a memoir, and probably a few photos of Lucy.  All things I would have reviewed periodically when I closed the book after a cherished reading session.   I would have realized some of the “meta-data” about the book.  I would have known this lovable but extremely needy and tragic best friend did, in fact, exist.  That Ann wasn’t dragging it out to make another 20,000 words, but was actually telling her truth, about her friend – with all her gifts and tragedies.  Also, I would perhaps have been a little more empathetic (like I am now), instead of rolling my eyes at the drama I thought Ann had created.  Life is indeed stranger than fiction.

So next time, maybe I will research a little more ahead of time about the book I’m reading on my Kindle, so I won’t have not-a-clue whether it’s true or not.  (Though I did enjoy Memoirs of Geisha a lot more thinking it was non-fiction – I still can’t believe a man wrote that book!)  Or maybe I won’t.  Maybe I’ll just continue to read in my little Kindle cave and think what I like.  And maybe I’ll, or maybe I won’t, eventually do more research to find out the real truth behind the writing.  Or maybe I’ll just enjoy the simple beauty of it and leave it at that.