Slow Apocalypse

"If you like reading maps, you'll *love* Slow Apocalypse!"

"Slow Apocalypse...emphasis on the sl-o-o-o-ow!"

"Like a 12 hour Michael Bay movie...in book form!"

All of those tag-lines went through my head while slogging through this interminable apocalypse. It's a neat concept for an apocalypse (an agent is introduced to the world's oil and renders it useless - wait is that even a neat concept? Oh god I don't even know what's good or not anymore damn you Varley!) rendered in a mind-numbing way. It's set in Los Angeles and no one can fault Varley for not doing his research - the map tag-line refers to passages like this:

"They went south through the pass on West Cahuenga Boulevard. At the beginning of Mulholland Drive they crossed over the freeway because Dave wanted to see the state of Lake Hollywood, which, along with Castaic Lake...*zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz*

Sorry,  I fell asleep before finishing that excerpt. Here is another excerpt, less boring only because of its baffling improbability:

"He had a wide smile and a face weathered prematurely, was of average height, but looked very strong. He introduced himself as an associate professor of governmental studies at Cal State, Long Beach."

MAYBE that is a dull but innocuous way to introduce a character. But - bear with me here - after this oil crisis has gripped the world, after Los Angeles was hit with a devastating earthquake and subsequent fires, after law & order has disintegrated to the point where armed gangs and packs of ferocious dogs are roaming your neighborhood, maybe, just MAYBE you would realize someone (coming down from standing an armed watch, mind you!) introducing themselves "as an associate professor of governmental studies" is not something a goddamned human being would EVER do.

Sorry, I am clearly upset. I have 450+ pages of L.A. nouns running on a constant loop through my head ("LACMA...I-10...Olympic...Naomi Street....Laurel Canyon...Canoga Park! HELP ME!"). And, at one point the protagonist's bratty teenage daughter refers to Frederick's of Hollywood as 'Whores R' Us' and I find that needlessly judgmental and also watch your mouth young lady.

If the apocalypse has any redeeming qualities, excitement should be one of them. Do not read this book.

1 conversation at a party with someone telling you their 'great idea for a novel!' that you can't. Get. Out. Of. Out of 5.

P.S. I finished writing this review and turned to the front of the book and saw the dedication: "This Los Angeles book is dedicated to our Los Angeles friends." And that's why you always read the dedication.

Brain on Fire

Susannah Cahalan woke up one day, felt a little weird. AND THEN EVERYTHING WENT TO SHIT. Seizures, aphasia, catatonia, aggression, paranoia. This book chronicles her “month of madness,” as teams of doctors tried to diagnose & treat her while her frantic family watched her become a stranger. Even knowing that she eventually recovered enough to write this book, it’s a really gripping story. It highlights the fuzzy boundaries between chronic mental illnesses and curable physical conditions, especially since most of the people with her condition do not get properly diagnosed and end up in psych wards. Or worse. It’s thought that some cases of “demon possession” are attributable to the illness, which usually affects young women. I know, strange symptoms being caused by a legitimate medical illness instead of an evil immortal ancient supernatural being (that for some reason thinks it can raise more hell in your puny human body) – it all seems so outlandish…but there it is.

And on that note, I had this Onion article sent to me while I was in the midst of this book, and it all felt a bit too close-to-home. Women + Noise Coming Out of Their Mouths = CRAZY has been a common theme throughout history I would love to see go away. Hysteria was originally defined as a condition that ONLY women suffered from: the word has its origins in the Greek word “hysterikos,” which means “of the womb, suffering in the womb.” Originally defined as a neurotic condition peculiar to women and thought to be caused by a dysfunction of the uterus.* Yeah – my womb is suffering all right – because I can’t complain or act nutty or get angry or have an opinion without some BRO-DAWG making a “time of the month” joke.  Susannah Cahalan had something physically wrong with her, but one of the first doctors she saw said she was just drinking too much (even though she told him otherwise) and was too stressed out. Women BE moody, am I right?!

In sum: brain inflammation is something we should all be afraid of.

4 out of 5 misogynistic Ancient Greeks.

*Bright side: this led to the invention of the vibrator as a way to “de-hysterize” us lady folk. TRUE FACTS.

The Dog Stars

I am a very, very fidgety & restless person. I burn NikeFuel like you wouldn't believe - a fact that, sadly, hasn't helped me keep a trim figure (sometimes I am fidgeting while eating ice cream), but does make it very annoying to try and sit quietly on the couch with me for any length of time.

So it was a nice change when I read this book and found it had a calming effect on me.

"But, Jane, isn't this a book set in a world devastated by a super-flu where the only people left must defend themselves against bandits, blood disease, and crushing loneliness?"

Yes. Yes it is. But there is also a lot of nature! And an old dog. And hiking, and fly fishing. The sun dapples things and there are descriptions of creeks' burbling. The main character has ended up at an airport with a working plane and some not yet expired fuel, so there are passages where he's flying about the country and looking down on the quiet little patchwork landscape (it's hard to see flu-wrought devastation from 10,000 feet in the air). It's a book you sit down with and spend some quality, non-fidgety time with.

I don't mean to say this is a happy novel; it certainly isn't. But it's not bombastic, or frenetic. The overall tone & pace of the novel actually make the "action sequences" much more unsettling and powerful, and I appreciated not having to wade through a ton of noise as I got to know the protagonist. Also, have I mentioned there is a sweet old dog? Good boy.

4 precious, precious post-apocalypse cans of Coca-Cola out of 5.

As I Am

I had never heard of Patricia Neal before I picked up her autobiography after reading about it on The Hairpin, but now that I've read her life story I can say that, definitively, Patricia Neal was the Jennifer Lawrence of her time.

Any by that I mean that reading this book made me want to travel back to the 1930s, invent the internet, start Buzzfeed, and churn out posts like "The 25 Best Patricia Neal quotes of 1958", "The 16 Most Epic Faces Patricia Neal made on Oscar Night", "Examples of Patricia Neal being Funny and Cute," and, most importantly "Patricia Neal tells Ryan Seacrest She's 'Starving' on the Red Carpet" (Because he is really an immortal vampire and the world needs to KNOW).

Ahem.

Basically, what I am trying to say is that after reading her life story you will imagine that you and Patricia Neal could have been BFFS. You would have laughed over dinner about the time she booked her first play and bought a new bra with cut-out nipples to celebrate (?!), and then had to promptly strip down to her underwear for a costume fitting. You would have brought over a bottle of wine to help her drink away the pain of her forbidden love affair with Gary Cooper. You would have contemplated an intervention behind her back with her other good friends when she decided to marry Roald Dahl (who was actually a *huge* asshole - this book may ruin Charlie & the Chocolate Factory/The BFG/Matilda for you...but it's worth it).

In between the Hollywood gossip and ill-fated romances there are some crazy sad personal tragedies, some moving redemptions and victories, and enough unflinching honesty to make you almost feel intrusive for eating it all up with a spoon and asking for seconds.

P.Neal, I am now your #1 fan, and I mean it: when I googled you and found out you died 3 years ago, I was bummed. RIP.

5 surprisingly saucy 1950s brassieres out of 5!