Deborah Feldman-Unorthodox

I know the sign of a good story when I don't want the book to end.  This is how I felt with Feldman's story, Unorthodox.  I originally read this story on xojane.com, in their blog series, It Happened to Me.  I immediately put the book on my to-read list (which is quite long!) and a few months later, I downloaded it onto my Nook.

Feldman was born to an Orthodox family in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  Her father was from a local family and her mother was from England.  Her mother deserted the Orthodox community when Feldman was very young, for many reasons but also including the fact that Feldman's father was not a stable person.  It is unclear what exactly but he had some mental deficiencies and most likely some mental health issues as well.  Feldman was then raised by her grandparents and various aunts and uncles who did a lot of butting in.  It was fascinating to hear some of the inner-workings of the community, such as Satmar actually comes from the town Santa Maria, where the founding rabbi originated from.  Feldman is only a few years younger than me so to reflect that these were the experiences she was going through while I was living a very different American/Jewish lifestyle took me back a bit.

As tends to be the case in the Orthodox community, Feldman married quite young.  She was very open about her thoughts and feelings about the wedding and initially was very excited.  It might have been that she was very excited about the wedding and just really hadn't thought about the marriage piece of things.  The marriage piece did not get off to a great start, there was some sexual problems that they had to seek help for.  

The marriage also did not last long.   Feldman, very slowly, started tasting more and more non-Orthodox life.  I can only imagine that it was much more painful than was conveyed in the book to completely isolate herself from the family that she had been raised with as well as the father of her child, even if she wasn't herself particularly connected to him.

While I really enjoyed the story, as I said in the beginning, I wish that there was a bit of an epilogue to say where she now and what she's doing.

R.A. Dickey-Wherever I Wind Up

I've always been a peripheral baseball fan.  I grew up in Portland, Oregon where the only professional sports team was basketball.  On the other hand, family lore is that my dad's parents, huge Brooklyn Dodger fans, lasted one season after the Dodgers moved to California before packing up my dad and uncle and heading west.  Whether this is true or not, doesn't matter as it's become such a part of the family legend.

So if I have to say a favorite team, I'm going to have to say the Dodgers.  But since moving to New York, I've developed an appreciation for the Mets and the fact that my uncle is a huge Mets fan, it's rubbed off on me.


About a year ago, I was listening to Fresh Air on NPR and there was an interview with R.A. Dickey.  Being that I am living in New York, I had heard about him but really didn't know much about him.  Well the interview was out because he was in the process of writing a book.  During the summer I started going to some Mets games with my roommate and became hooked.  So, for my birthday, my roommate bought the the Dickey biography.

R.A. Dickey has a fascinating life.  He was raised in a divorced family in Tennessee and was sexually abused twice as a child-once by a man and once by a teenage female babysitter of his.  Although he's had some horrible life experiences, he has also overcome these experiences, whether through his faith or through his passion for baseball.  He actually met his wife as a kid, when he became friends with her brother.  They were a very well off family in the private school that he was lucky enough to attend and it was pretty clear to him that they were meant to be.

His career into baseball was by no means an easy one.  He had been drafted straight from college to play for the Texas Rangers but when he had a physical for them, it became apparent that he was missing a muscle in his wrist (ironically, earlier this year I had wrist surgery and they found an extra muscle so a friend of mine teased that it was R.A. Dickey's missing muscle).  As a result of that, the offer was rescinded.  He ended up playing AAA ball for a long time and even spent time playing in South America.  He was not successful and kept volleying between teams and was not happy nor was his marriage good.  He ended up having a near death experience of his own making and started turning his life around.

It was around this time that he also began learning how to be a knuckleballer.  Prior to this, he had been a traditional pitcher but when it came down to either he was going to need to leave baseball or learn something new to keep him in the game, he started learning.  He currently is the only knuckleballer in the major leagues and hopes to stay there until someone replaces him.

He has also become an advocate for children who have been sexually abused and actually climbed Mount Everest, against the wishes of the Mets in order to raise awareness.  This book was an amazing read and the entire story is an unbelievable story.  R.A. Dickey is a true hero in my mind.

Probably my biggest disappointment now is that I never got to see R.A. Dickey pitch.  Every time I went he had just pitched the night before.  Now he's being traded to the Toronto Blue Jays so unless I see him against a team I'm watching, I won't get the chance.

Kristin Hannah-Winter Garden

Family dynamics plays a huge part in so many books, I think because we all have families that we have to deal with and even if the particular situations differ from family to family, the overwhelming feeling remains the same.  As I've blogged before, Hannah writes about family situations and family situations that are struggling.

This novel also takes place in Washington, as do the majority of her books that I've read.  There is also a cruise to Alaska that takes central stage and being that I just returned from an Alaskan cruise, that was exciting to read about.

The novel jumps from the past to the present and is told in three voices, the two grown daughters, Meredith and Nina, and their mother.  Their father has just passed away and the younger daughter, Nina returns from Africa, where she is a photojournalist.  The older daughter, Meredith has inherited her father's winery and the care of their mother.  Their mother is a strong, cantankerous woman.  We can see that there is a story that we don't understand from her past.  She is Russian and married to an American.

The daughters have never really felt that their mother loved them and always felt that they were playing second fiddle to the past.  The only time they felt that they were truly loved by their mother was when they were being told a fairy tale as children.  As their father is dying, he tells Nina that she needs to get their mother to share the story with them.

This is an incredibly difficult task as Meredith doesn't believe that Nina is actually going to stay and sees that her mother is having some memory issues.  Nina is convinced that she needs to hear the story to truly understand what has kept their mother from loving them completely and freely.

The alternating chapters is the story of what happened to their mother who was living in Russia during World War II and what that meant for herself and her family.  It turns out that Alaska plays a part in the mystery of what happens.

This is a beautifully written novel and, as always, I enjoyed reading Hannah's novels.  In fact I just downloaded three more on my Nook so there will be more reviews to come!