Staff Blog – Page 19 – Lemuria Books

Tag: Staff Blog (Page 19 of 20)

“The search is what everyone would undertake if they were not stuck in the everydayness of their own lives.”
– Walker Percy, The Moviegoer

“I went to a cobbler to fix a hole in my shoe/ He took one look at my face and said, ‘I can fix that hole in you.’”
-Jenny Lewis, “Acid Tongue”

We live in a physical time and space so full of material good that no material good amounts to anything meaningful.

That’s why we shop at Lemuria: not simply to purchase a book, but for the historic writerly voodoo spread like trails of fairy dust along our floor-to-ceiling shelves. The legacies of the writers who have made Lemuria have fermented into a sense of destiny presented by the pure chance on which you place your trust, your “blind date” with a book.

We had someone call the other day and ask if we still did the blind-date-with-a-book thing that was a Valentine’s Day promotion.

“Every single day,” Abbie told them.

(Or, I hope she did.)

We had another woman call and ask if we had anything nearly as good as Ed Tarkington’s new novel Only Love Can Break Your Heart. I put her on hold and collected a fat stack of novels that ran the gamut of mine and the other booksellers’ favorites.

“Send them all via UPS,” she said. “ASAP.”

***

Booksellers do not deal with the emergencies of emergency room nurses, doctors, and EMTs. Booksellers do not provide the therapy of speech pathologists or psychologists, and we definitely do not give massages. Booksellers do not go home with the existential exhaustion of school teachers, police officers, lawyers, and policy makers.

Instead, we are here seven days a week for all of your happy emergencies of inspiration. When you are not arguing legislation, testing water samples, planning units, and climbing scaffolding, we will ride with you through your exhilaration about discovering Greg Iles for the first time. We will guide you towards private forays in the foreign fiction section with writers like Roberto Bolaño and Elena Ferrante.

I am only here for two months, but I encourage everyone, when told, “Let us know if we can help you find anything,” to respond: “Yes. My name is [your name here.] I am [insert description of daily life]. I’d love something to temper the everydayness.”

A former Lemuria bookseller, Whitney is back with us temporarily before she heads off to Tallahassee to start her MFA in Creative Writing at Florida State University.

Revisiting Travis McGee in ‘The Deep Blue Good-By’

By Former Lemurians

On April 28, 2016

In Classics, Mystery

by Andrew Hedglin

“Travis McGee’s still in Cedar Key—
That’s what ol’ John MacDonald said.
My rendezvous’s so long overdue
With all of the things I’ve sung and I’ve read.”

–Jimmy Buffett, “Incommunicado”

I read my first Travis McGee book in 2006, after my freshman year of college. I think I stole the paperback from my brother, but it was my father with whom I shared the rest of the 21 book series over a period of four years. He started reading them as the later ones first came out, but he’s a little young to have caught 1962’s The Deep Blue Good-by, the series debut by noted pulp crime writer John D. MacDonald.

I say “noted” because it’s not just my family who respects MacDonald. He has influenced mystery writers from Carl Hiaasen to Lee Child, both of whom have written introductions for his books and received praise from other writers such as Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Robert B. Parker, and Ed McBain.

Personally, I’ve always had a soft spot for continuing characters in crime fiction series, starting with Lawrence Block’s burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr and Rick Riordan’s tequila-drinking, tai chi-fighting English professor P.I. Tres Nevarre and continuing currently to Greg Iles’ Natchez crusader Penn Cage. Each of those series has such a specific sense of character and place. The protagonists are really law enforcement professionals, which sometimes takes the human element out of most crime fiction for my taste.

Travis McGee is a self-styled “salvage consultant” who retrieves precious commodities for people with few legal resources and splits the profits 50-50 after expenses. This debut novel in the series, with almost no origin story to weigh it down, moves quickly as McGee matches wits with oversexed psychopath Junior Allen. He’s trying to recover gemstones smuggled home from World War II by the father of Cathy Kerr, a local showgirl and single mother.

Jacket 2 The Travis McGee novels (which can all be identified by the colors in their title, all the way to 1985’s elegiac Lonely Silver Rain) have tightly-constructed and entertaining plots, but it’s the little things that stick with you after you read them: McGee’s philosophical ruminations, proto-environmentalism, and general unease with adapting to modern life (even 50 years ago). The richly detailed settings of 1960s Fort Lauderdale, especially Bahia Mar, where McGee’s houseboat, The Busted Flush, is parked right next to the Alabama Tiger’s Perpetual Floating House Party. And, even though he is strangely missing from The Deep Blue Good-by, the person who outlasts any of McGee’s various lovers is Meyer, the bearded economist living about his yacht the John Maynard Keynes, who frequently plays Watson to McGee’s Sherlock.

Although firmly rooted in their eras, the novels hold-up as timeless summer beach reads (or books to read when dreaming of beaches). Travis McGee is part-James Bond (as 60s action-hero and serial monogamist), part-Jimmy Buffett type (as beach bum and underrated philosopher-poet) who always manages to feel unique to himself. This summer, I recommend revisiting his old adventures, starting with one of his toughest opponents in The Deep Blue Good-by.

Celebrate St. George’s Day With a Book: ‘Ella Minnow Pea’ by Mark Dunn

By Former Lemurians

On April 7, 2016

In Fiction

by Abbie Walker

st george 1
This month at Lemuria, we are celebrating La Diada de Sant Jordi, or the great National Feast Day in Catalonia. Also known as St. George’s Day, April 23 is dedicated to the love of books and is celebrated by giving a beloved book and a rose to someone special.

In honor of St. George’s day, we here at Lemuria are unearthing books that are near and dear to our hearts and sharing them with you in the hopes that you will discover a new favorite.

st. george day 2016
My literary gem that I want to share with you this month is Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn. Termed “a novel in letters,” it’s a perfect book for sharing some literary love. This witty, insightful tale takes place on the fictional island of Nollop off the coast of South Carolina. The island is named after Nevin Nollop, who is credited with crafting the shortest sentence to use all letters of the alphabet: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Once the letters of this pangram start to fall off the memorial statue of Nollop, the island’s Council takes it as a bad omen and bans their use. Therefore, as the letters fall from the statue, so they disappear from the novel. Ella Minnow Pea and her friends on Nollop now have to figure out how to save their sacred words in a totalitarian society where language reigns.

This book is short and sweet and is a linguistic delight that will leave you with a greater appreciation for words and the importance of language. Dunn chooses to use correspondences between the citizens of Nollop, the perfect epistolary format to showcase what’s happening in the story. In today’s age, where technology has often dumbed communication down, I love the beautiful, formal style of the letters between the Nollopians. Not only does it make for an interesting telling of the plot, but you get to see the personalities of the different characters and how they are affected throughout the story.

Signed First Edition

I thoroughly enjoy watching how the characters deal with the letters’ disappearing. You wonder how they will be able to communicate as each letter falls, but their determination, cleverness, and amazing vocabulary (there are some great SAT words in here) make it such a hilarious and entertaining read.

This book is a fun, linguistic puzzle, but at its core it’s a story that deals with censorship, resilience, self expression, and the beauty of language. I recommend it for your inner word-geek or if you’re in need of a light, literary treat.

If you’re in Lemuria, feel free to ask me more about this book! I’d love to tell you more about why I find it so amazing and then we can gush about language together.

Come Check Out My Spring Display (Pt 1)

By Former Lemurians

On March 24, 2016

In Art/Photography, Decorating, Gardening, Gift Books, Nature

Despite all the rain of the past few days, spring means a number of very sunny and happy things to me. So in honor of this most wonderful time in Mississippi, during the two-week period when we don’t all feel like we will surely die from wretched, wet cold or suffocate from the stifling heat, we can all walk outside our homes and just say “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

I have built a display. This display is what spring means to me and essentially all of the things it makes me want to do. I feel certain I’m not the only one who gets the planting bug in the spring. I have a particular fondness for succulents and terrariums. Why you might ask? Well that is because they are low maintenance, they are clean and fresh looking, and depending on your arrangement, they can look rather elaborate. I like to appear like I know what I’m doing, people. And I truly, to goodness do not. I was not blessed with the green thumb of father and mother. It is not necessarily a black thumb; I fondly call it my gray thumb. So in this situation everyone wins…including the plants. If anyone feels so inclined, I’ve placed a book on this display for each of these loves. One is called Terrarium Craft, the other Hardy Succulents. Another favorite is Tiny Terrarium. If you are interested ask me and I’ll show it to you! Essentially you create scenes inside your terrarium with people and any manner of thing. I know Joan Hawkins Interiors had the makings for these things.

Anyhow moving on…spring also makes me want to spruce my house up. Justina Blakeney’s new book The New Bohemians makes me want to completely rethink my entire decorating scheme – just completely start all over again. I love the clean lines of a mid-century furniture, but lord knows I can cram a lot of stuff in a space and hang a lot of art on the walls. So does this make me a modern bohemian, as a section in her book suggests? I have many questions left on this matter, but honestly this book is a feast for your eyes. Blakeney has gotten quite a lot of acclaim for design aesthetic over the past few years, and this book only further proves why. Now if I really want to build on what I’ve got (which my mother would say is my best option), I should really invest in the new Apartment Therapy Complete + Happy Home. This book pulls from a little bit of everywhere just like their incredible blog of the same name (Apartment Therapy…in case you missed that part). I mean this book talks about it all, down to the frames you use for your art, without being overwhelming and nitpicking. Oh I almost forgot to mention that The New Bohemians has great DIY projects in it which segues into my next desire of spring…CRAFTING.

I pretty m 9781617691751 uch always love to make something, but I think the whole new life thing that comes along with spring really does something to me. A book I’ve been drooling over for quite some time now is The Modern Natural Dyer. Not only is it a gorgeous book, but it also tells you how to dye fibers with flowers, vegetables, and spices. Basically head on over to the grocery store and make a mess because I love to make a mess. It’s the cleaning up that presents a problem for me. This book has twenty projects for your home and your wardrobe, including knitting and sewing. Pretty amazing if you think about it. “Oh, why yes, I did make this! I dyed it as well. Eat your freaking heart out!!!” Next up on the docket we have Materially Crafted: A DIY Primer for the Design-Obsessed (that’s me). So this book’s projects are broken down into sections of spray paint, plaster, concrete, paper, thread, wax, wood, and the list goes on. I could definitely get into a modern looking concrete cake stand or some precious wax bud vases. There is more to come about this display, but I feel like I am close to losing all of you so I will leave you here

‘All Things Cease to Appear’ by Elizabeth Brundage

By Hillary

On March 22, 2016

In Fiction, Mystery

I’m a pretty big fan of psychological thrillers, and I thought that was exactly what I was getting myself into when I picked up Brundage’s new novel, All Things Cease to Appear. Don’t get me wrong, this book is definitely psychological, but a little less of a thriller and more literary than I expected.

The book revolves around two families, the Hales (three brothers) and the Clares (George and Catherine), both with their own tragedies. In the opening chapter of the book, we meet a man who has come home to find his wife murdered and his young daughter at home with the body. This man is George Clare, and he is frantic at this point. Brundage then takes us into the Hales’ devastating loss of their family home, dairy farm, and parents. This home, of course, will later become the Clares’ home and the murder scene.

AllThingsCeaseToAppear Brundage takes you to when the Clares first met, and you soon realize that their marriage is not what it appears to be; it’s mostly thrown together because of Catherine’s pregnancy. They begin to move into the auctioned off farm house and meet their neighbors and George’s colleagues. The Hale brothers, the former residents of the home, start to come around and help with upkeep, and the youngest will sometimes babysit Franny, the Clares’ three-year-old daughter. The story is told from multiple points of view, switching from Catherine to one of the Hale brothers and then back to George. Brundage gives quite a few of the Clares new acquaintances chapters throughout the book and shows their perspectives of George and his wife. Most of them see the couple as happy and put together, but some see straight through the lies. As you move through these multiple viewpoints, pieces begin to fall into place, and many people are not at all what you expected.

This is much more than an engrossing crime story; it’s the story of marriage, love, loss, and family. It’s the story of a woman who is trying to make the best of her unfortunate marriage. It’s the story of three young brothers trying to cope with the loss of everything they knew and loved. It’s the story of a man with a dark past and haunting soul, and it’s all written so beautifully that it makes this one a hard one to put down.

“For the ones who dream of stranger worlds”

By Former Lemurians

On March 21, 2016

In Fantasy

by Abbie Walker

In V. E. Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic, there is more than one London. In fact, there are four: magic-less and ordinary Grey London; vibrant and thriving Red London; cold and cruel White London; and mysterious and powerful Black London, each with its own society and level of magic. The various worlds have been sealed off from each other for centuries, and only Antari, blood magicians, have the ability to travel between them.

Kell, a privileged traveler from Red London, is one of only two known blood magicians. He’s been moving between worlds for years, delivering the messages of monarchy and secretly harboring trinkets from each London. But when Kell ends up accidently smuggling an object that brings more danger than luck, he finds himself trying to evade the hands of the other traveler, a White London Antari who will stop at nothing to steal power away from Kell.

While on the run, Kell meets Lila Bard, a poor thief from Grey London who longs for freedom and adventure. After saving each other’s lives, the two team up, traveling between Londons to battle the dark magic that’s threatening all of their worlds.

First off, Victoria Schwab has such a talent for creating captivating settings that make you feel, rather than just see, where things are taking place. I love the various Londons with their distinct cultures, languages, and magic. You can tell that Schwab put a lot of effort into building the worlds, and I like the way they play off of one another. Schwab’s writing is also engaging and sucks the reader in from the start. The fast-pace plot and unique setting had me desperately turning pages to find out what was going to happen next.

The magic system in this story is also really fascinating. Most people with magic can control a particular element or maybe even a few. However, magicians like Kell have additional abilities, such as opening doors to other worlds. While I really enjoyed reading about the magic in this book, I wished it had been showcased more. There were also times when it felt like magic could have been used to solve problems more quickly. However, I liked the diversity of how magic is used in the worlds and the importance of balance between man and magic. I feel that this book was mostly about introducing the basics of how magic works, and I’m looking forward to learning more about the magic system in the next books of this trilogy.

While I enjoyed the magic and the setting, the characters were probably the best part about the story. Kell’s powers and cryptic past kept me wanting to know more about him; and feisty Lila, with her knack for pickpocketing and her well-timed sassiness, was a character that I couldn’t help but root for. I found myself appreciating her and Kell’s relationship and how they progressed throughout the story. I was also very intrigued by the mysterious White traveler Holland. I’m excited to learn more about him as the story continues.

Overall, A Darker Shade of Magic had me staying up late into the night in an effort to finish it. If you enjoy alternate universes, magical men in fabulous coats, and cross-dressing thieves, then pick up this excellent fantasy read. The sequel, A Gathering of Shadows, was just released last month, and I can’t wait to tear into it and continue the adventure.

Ron Rash and his powerful ‘Poems’

By Jamie

On March 21, 2016

In Poetry, Southern Fiction

I’ve stopped fighting Ron Rash.

This is how it usually happens: I see a book on the shelves at the store, hear other booksellers talking about it, and think to myself Sounds good, but I really need to wait till my next paycheck to buy another book. Then, said author shows up and does a phenomenal reading. Predictably, my aforementioned responsibility dissolves, and I become Veruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, clutching a copy of the book and mumbling to myself, “I want it NOW!!!”

Source: The Wall Street Journal

However, I’ve learned to stop this futility with Ron Rash. When he read from Something Rich and Strange, I knew I would love the book, and I snagged a copy before he left the store; when he read from Above the Waterfall, the entire audience was transfixed to the point of collective held breath, and I knew I needed that power on my own bookshelf. So, when I saw his Poems: New and Selected, I didn’t even wait till he came to the store. I went home with a copy that afternoon and haven’t regretted it.

Rash is one of the rare writers who can shift between prose and poetry seamlessly. Fans of Rash’s fiction often cite the depth of his characters, rich description, and gorgeous language. These things are present in his poems as well. Yet a poem can explore an idea in a different, more direct way than fiction can. While fiction examines the condition of humanity and relationships, a poem can focus on things beyond humanity, like the natural world. Take his short poem “Deep Water” for instance:

The night smooths out its black tarp,

tacks it to the sky with stars.

Lake waves slap the bank, define

a shoreline as one man casts

his seine into the unseen,

lifts the net’s pale bloom, and spills

of threadfin fill the live well.

Soon that squared pool of water

flickers as if a mirror,

surfaces memory of when

this deep water was a sky.

Jacket (4) First off, the description of the night being a “black tarp” that’s held in place by stars is simply genius. Trust me: this will affect the way you look at the night’s sky from now on. And the way the poem shifts its (and our) focus from the sky to the lake in which this unnamed man is flinging his fishing net feels natural. This sky/lake relationship is maintained at the poem’s close when, as the threadfin fish slip out of the seine net, the lake is compared to a mirror that reminds us of “when/ this deep water was a sky.”

How, exactly, was the water once a sky? That depends on who you ask. For the fish, the water is their atmosphere, and its top is to them as the sky is to us. For us, when we look skyward and see clouds, there is also a quiet understanding that those clouds will fall as rain and eventually become an earthbound body of water. Rash cleverly puns on the verb “surface,” the word serving both as the action of rising to the top (literally, the memory is being brought up) and as a reminder of the barrier between air and water.

Whether dealing with the complexities of humans or of nature, he always delivers with inventive description and clever language. If you find yourself mildly afraid of or curious about poetry, come pick up a copy of Rash’s Poems: New and Selected. Or, if you need a little more convincing, come hear Mr. Rash read from the book this Thursday. You’ll get firsthand evidence of why I’ve quit resisting his books when you listen to the current of his words, and any hesitancy to buy the book gets swept away.

‘We Love You, Charlie Freeman’ by Kaitlyn Greenidge

By Former Lemurians

On March 17, 2016

In African-American, Fiction

by Andrew Hedglin

We Love You, Charlie Freeman by Kaitlyn Greenidge starts with an atmosphere of foreboding. I was already worried when I read the set-up on the back cover of the book: a black family, the Freemans, is hired by the Toneybee-Leroy Institute for Great Ape Research to teach sign language to a chimpanzee named Charlie and raise him as their own.

I don’t think you have to know very much about the history of American race relations to be concerned about that problematic request, but Laurel, the mother of the Freemans and an outrageous optimist, views it as a challenge. Laurel, as the only child of the only black family in the Maine wilderness, learns sign language when words fail to encapsulate the isolation that she experiences.

The story is told from multiple points of view, but two perspectives dominate and are granted a first-person voice: Charlotte, the older daughter of the Freemans, and Nymphadora, a spinster schoolteacher and member of a black secret society in the 1920s whose story reveals the nefarious origins of the Institute. There is also one chilling letter from Julia Toneybee-Leroy, the founder of the Institute and progenitor of all this nonsense, saturated with a callous disregard for the humanity of countless (black) people in pursuit of her single-minded goal of getting a chimpanzee to talk.

One of the most infuriating aspects of this story is how stealthily the ingrained racism of society warps the circumstances of both the Freemans and Nymphadora before them. Is the blackness of the Freemans coincidental or essential to the experiment at hand? It’s a lid that Lyle, Laurel’s brother-in-law, tries to remove at Thanksgiving dinner before things go disastrously wrong in slapstick fashion. Mounting historical evidence suggests that its coincidence is impossible within the intentions of the Institute.

Infuriating as this may be, what is discomfiting is how this insidious racism traps Laurel and Nymphadora in their own decisions that lead them…if not into ruin, at least into the worsening of their own situations (and, for Laurel, those of her family). Laurel seemingly puts the needs of Charlie, a non-human, above the needs of her own family to be respected by others and even her daughter Callie’s ability to integrate into human society at all. She might see Charlie as vulnerable and her family as strong, but neither part is exactly true or worth the gamble she places on its certainty. Nymphadora, already isolated from the black community of neighboring Spring City through the actions of her parents, allows herself a seduction, of sorts, by the Dr. Gardener, who sees her as a “specimen.”

Concerning this book and Julia Toneybee and even Laurel’s perspective on Charlie and chimp-kind, I’ve thought a lot about something I saw Chuck Klosterman write about Project Nim, a documentary about another chimp-raised-as-human experiment. These experiments, he says, “illustrate that same backward, irrational obsession Americans have with lower primates: We always want to immediately imagine these nonhumans are pretty much like us…. We start from that position and become [disenchanted] when it proves false. And that’s completely unlike the way we think about exotic strangers, even though exotic strangers are pretty much like us.

I was also concerned about recommending this book, which for all its readability, deep characterization, and fascinating ideas to reflect on, can be kind of a bummer. I mean, “fun” is not the be-all, end-all goal of reading a book, but it does make the initial sales pitch a lot easier. But in Greenidge’s excellent introductory essay, “Harmony and Discord,” for Charlie Freeman in the Spring 2016 Algonquin Reader (which is a sampler from the publisher of this book), she explains why a story like this, about the challenge of being black in America that lies somewhere on the continuum between “uplifting” and “atrocity,” is so necessary. The nature of that experience is valid, ubiquitous even, and underreported. Failed by the limits of language like her character Laurel, Greenidge keeps pushing language past its limitations until the story is told.

Good Girl, Plummie!

By Hillary

On February 24, 2016

In Fiction, Graphic Novels, Pets

Okay. If you like illustrations and you like dogs….man, oh man, have I got a book for you!

As some of you may know, before I started working at Lemuria I was an adoption coordinator for a humane society. With that being said, I’m pretty into animals. Cats, dogs, rabbits, ferrets, whatever…I like them all.

Jacket While I was working at the humane society, I was around about 150 animals every day. I currently have one dog, two cats, and one foster dog. So, right now I’m only around four a day. When I’m with my dog or cats, I’ll find myself wondering what they’re thinking about or trying to tell me (if that sounds weird….oh, well). BUT, don’t you fret; with Clark’s new book, Plumdog, I have the best look into a dog’s mind I could ever ask for.

Emma Chichester Clark is an illustrator and author located in London, England and has written and illustrated several children’s books. Clark has also created a blog (which has now been published in book form) that is all about her dog, Plum, who is a Whoosell (whippet, Jack Russell and poodle). Clark writes about Plum’s daily doings and illustrates them with her beautiful paintings. Basically, it is the most adorable, funny, and sweetest dog diary I’ve ever seen (or maybe even ever heard of).

Emma and Plum

If you’re wondering why your dog is rolling around in fox poop, Plum lets you know that it’s probably because it’s the best smelling perfume out there. Maybe you’re trying to figure out why your dog doesn’t give you back the ball you just threw for them. Again, Plum lets you know that once the ball is hers, it’s hers….no matter how 7744ecdc-6ab3-486a-85d4-75d04a7a5d11 nicely you may ask for it back. That’s just how it is. Also, Plum would like for any and every dog owner to quit blaming their dogs for any rude noise or smell that occurs. It’s just simply not the dog….most of the time.

This book is perfectly illustrated and I laughed so many times while reading it. If you’re a lover of a good looking book and dogs, this book belongs to you. Come find me in Lemuria and we’ll just sneek into a nook in the store, sit on the floor and flip through this little gem.

Speaking of dogs, this is my foster pup “Audrey”. She is available for adoption with Jackson Friends of the Animal Shelter. She is spayed, up to date on shots, crate trained, and good with other dogs and cats. Please let me know if you are interested in adopting!

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The Cog in the Machine: “NFL Confidential” by Johnny Anonymous

By Former Lemurians

On February 4, 2016

In Sports

by Andrew Hedglin

Jacket (9) Johnny Anonymous, a white offensive lineman in the NFL who wishes to remain, well…anonymous, opens his book NFL Confidential with a pretty audacious challenge: “…I changed a bunch of…names, timeline, details, the usual. All so you can’t figure out who I really am. Go ahead, try. I dare you. Catch me if you can.”

That’s a short order in the internet age, especially for somebody who plays in the NFL and is so awash in publicly available information, regardless of how unimportant he thinks he is. I won’t link to the page that floats a very convincing theory as to the author’s real identity, but you can find it with a cursory Google search. As I read the book with this person’s identity in mind, it became clear: all the puzzle pieces fit.

But why all the cloak-and-dagger in the first place? What secrets about the NFL is he going to blow open for the reader? Is it any worse than what we already know–concussions, performance-enhancing drugs , franchises extorting money from cities for new stadiums, and domestic violence?

I mean, not really. If there is one thing he focuses on that will probably leave the reader feeling most uneasy, it’s the excruciating toll being a pro football player takes on the bodies and minds of the people who play the sport, both in the short-term of maintaining weight (things get fairly scatalogical) and the dark spectre of long-term damage.

The other thing he seems to hate about the NFL is the insecurity. Certainly, this is ultimately exemplified in job insecurity, especially for players on the margins like him, who are always in danger of getting cut. Even though “scrubs” make hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, that doesn’t always go as far you’d think. Because he only has one year left on his contract, he can’t even get a mortgage for a modest home he tries to buy in a mid-size Midwestern city..

Ultimately, what his frustration with the NFL seems to add up to is the process of dehumanization that it entails. As an NFL player, you are expected to lose your individuality. It’s the flip side of one of the nicer things you could say about sports, specifically football, and especially the offensive line: it gives you a chance to be part of something larger than yourself. But you can say that about many things, and that’s what makes his dilemma so compelling, I think. It’s a ramped-up version of a very human problem.

Often, it seems like the cons outweigh the pros to staying in football for Anonymous. He feels like he should quit, and his hometown girlfriend certainly encourages him to do so. But, ultimately, he’s not Chris Borland, the pomising San Francisco 49ers linebacker who quit the NFL after just one year. Anonymous struggles to rationalize what keeps him playing, settling for a vague mixture of a love of playing and also a vague terror of deciding what he would do otherwise.

This all sounds pretty personal, but it doesn’t really answer what’s with the anonymity. That’s much easier to explain: he writes with the kind of honesty that makes the people around him look human. And, by “human,” I mean it makes the characters who populate this book–the general manager and owner, his coaches, his teammates, and even himself–look like flawed, silly, self-interested, narcissistic jackasses. He also captures their vulnerabilities and fears and jokes intended for private audiences. I mean, it’s kind of what happens when you write a memoir from any walk of life that isn’t overly sanitized for public consumption.

Anonymous is not overly self-serious, so it would feel off-putting to expect him to treat the rest of his world this way. You do get invested in his journey–from his status as ex-mama’s boy who struggles to move on after her death when was in junior high, to his cyclical relationship with his girlfriend, to his his love/hate relationship with his offensive line coach. It’ll matter to you, too, by the end, if you stick with the book–if you’re okay with all the cursing and lack of political correctness/general sense of propriety.

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And, though I find the probing of human condition in those around us to be a fascinating and forgiving process lined with the potential for empathy, that’s cold comfort when you are routinely held up for public scrutiny as much as NFL players and coaches are. Especially when we fans and they themselves so often expect them to be more than human. And don’t even get me started on how the NFL is not big on the distractions that this book could generate with sufficient notoriety.

If you’re looking for a gritty exposé on the dark underbelly of the NFL, this book is probably going to waste your time. If you’re looking for a conflicted, fascinating memoir from the perspective of a specific (though representative) NFL player, this book is great. If you enjoy reading ESPN the Magazine or Peter King’s MMQB website, you will probably like this book. I know I did.

Tag: Staff Blog (Page 19 of 20)

Whitney Gilchrist on being a therapist of inspiration (A.K.A. a bookseller)

Revisiting Travis McGee in ‘The Deep Blue Good-By’

Celebrate St. George’s Day With a Book: ‘Ella Minnow Pea’ by Mark Dunn

Come Check Out My Spring Display (Pt 1)

‘All Things Cease to Appear’ by Elizabeth Brundage

“For the ones who dream of stranger worlds”

Ron Rash and his powerful ‘Poems’

‘We Love You, Charlie Freeman’ by Kaitlyn Greenidge

Good Girl, Plummie!

The Cog in the Machine: “NFL Confidential” by Johnny Anonymous

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