American higher education and instead
reassures floundering young adults and
hand-wringing parents that college is and
is not the most crucial years of a person’s
life, and that the true measure of success—
“great careers and lives that matter”—is
not bought with a diploma but built with
“a robust and lasting energy for hard work.”
While Bruni’s heartfelt argument ignores
somewhat blissfully the deeper problems
facing higher education, his insistence on
an ideal liberal, humanistic college as a
playground for the mind is a nostalgic and
valuable contribution to the larger conversation. (Mar.)
The Wild Oats Project:
One Woman’s Midlife Quest
for Passion at Any Cost
Robin Rinaldi. FSG/Sarah Crichton, $26
(286p) ISBN 978-0-374-29021-4
In this frank, salacious work delineating
her desperate attempt at emotional and
sexual liberation, the Scranton, Penn.,
author and frustrated wife ultimately rec-
ognizes that she lost a great deal and gained
little. As an editor at San Francisco’s life-
style magazine 7 x 7, married for 10 years
to Scott, a successful, though emotionally
opaque entrepreneur (“His erection was
solid and dependable, just like him”),
dealing with her childhood of parental
alcoholism and brutality, and facing child-
lessness by her mid-40s, Rinaldi resolved
to contemplate an open marriage when her
husband took the decisive step to get a
vasectomy rather than have children. Rather
surprisingly, he agrees to the arrangement,
and while the couple spends the weekdays
together at their shared home near the
Castro, Rinaldi gets a studio and begins a
dizzying round of Nerve.com dates that
fulfill her need for sexual exploration,
though she sets firm perimeters in terms
of emotional attachment. Luckily, in San
Francisco, she notes wryly that “polyamory
wasn’t all that rare,” and she gravitates
toward the “urban commune” called
One Taste, which conducts hands-on
orgasm meditation (OM) seminars for men
and women, and where Rinaldi ultimately
finds her most satisfying lovers—also
women. To her credit, Rinaldi does not hide
the dark side to this odyssey—her own
jealousy at Scott’s lover, her absolute self-
absorption and mendacity—but her ability
to grasp its soul-driving necessity without
insisting on winning over her readers ren-
ders this a notable work of self-knowledge.
(Mar)
The Year My Mother Came Back
Alice Eve Cohen. Algonquin, $23.95 (288p)
ISBN 978-1-61620-319-1
In this finely wrought memoir, Cohen
(What I Thought I Knew) handles nearly
overwhelming events. Her adopted-at-birth daughter, now 18, finally reconnects with her birth mother. Cohen’s biological daughter, whose conception was a
surprise because of Cohen’s diagnosis of
early-stage breast cancer and the consequent hormone treatments, has to
undergo a difficult leg-lengthening surgery at age eight to correct a birth defect
that Cohen feels responsible for causing.
Through this prism, Cohen remembers
her own mother, Louise, who passed away
30 years prior. Cohen takes readers on a
journey through her immediate travails, as
well as through her troubled childhood
dealing with a mother whose own battle
with cancer transformed her emotionally
and physically. Cohen’s mother was a trailblazing champion of civil rights, an early
feminist who bemoaned the trappings of
a stay-at-home motherhood and fought
for her intellectual life. Cohen ultimately
gets closure with her mother, who gives
her advice beyond the grave about how to
be a better mother, how to face cancer,
and how, ultimately, to be a daughter
who finally finds peace with the complex
woman who had more of an impact on her
life than she ever realized. (Mar.)
Confessions of an Ebook Virgin:
What Everyone Should Know
Before They Publish on the
Internet
Laura Shabott. Long Point Press, $9.99 trade
paper (112p) ISBN 978-0-9888979-7-7
Writer and self-publishing evangelist
Shabott puts pen to paper for a likable
but insubstantial stab at helping fellow
authors make their books available
through Kindle, Nook, and other digital
platforms. Her “manifesto” is designed to
appeal to writers who haven’t had much
luck publishing through traditional pub-
lishers: “Within this amazing new para-
digm, no writer has to follow the tradi-
tional, often fruitless, path of finding an
agent, who then hunts for a publisher—a
journey that can take years—and might
never happen.” A slim manual clocking
in at a little more than 100 pages, the
book covers the practicalities of self-pub-
lishing: hiring an editor, “design[ing] the
right package,” getting reviewed prior to
publication, creating e-books, and adver-
tising yourself and your book. All these
items are summed up in a concluding
checklist, which represents Shabott’s’s
most valuable offering. The chapters, on
the other hand, are chatty and encour-
aging, but lack the substance to back up
their suggestions. Without more concrete
information, advice such as “Everyone is
different, so discover what works for you
and stick with it,” seems unlikely to pro-
vide aspiring authors with the key to suc-
cess. (BookLife)
Cousin Bella: The Whore of Minsk
Sherman Yellen. Moreclacke, $8.95 trade paper (118p) ISBN 978-1-4952-9043-5
Playwright and screenwriter Yellen
shares the story of his elderly relative, the
titular Cousin Bella, who grew up in
czarist Russia. Once Bella’s father died,
her stepmother sold her to a brothel, from
which she was rescued by the author’s
grandmother. The family moved to
America, and Bella met up with a former
client, who married her. They are happy
together at first, except for their inability
to have children. When a lodger in Bella’s
apartment leaves her daughter behind,
Bella falls in love with the child and takes
her as her own, eventually lying to the
mother and feigning the baby’s death in
order to keep her. However, that act has
tragic consequences, as the lodger’s son
comes to ask questions about his mother,
and then falls in love with his sister,
finally marrying her. Bella is forced to
reveal her deception and in the process
loses her relationship with her adoptive
daughter. Yellen’s family story is incredible, and the reader is drawn in almost at
once. Bella’s story is told in a matter-of-fact manner, enhancing the believability
but making readers wish for a richer storytelling experience to dramatize all the
facts. That said, readers who want to learn
more about the New York City of the
early 20th century will find this to be a
compelling and intriguing read.
(BookLife)
