My May 4, 2021 book culture column for the San Francisco Chronicle:
Is there any good fiction featuring excellent or even better-than-average parents? OK, once in a while we get an Atticus Finch or Marmee, but, by and large, negligent or even abusive parents are behind many more great stories.
From the April 21, 2021 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle:
As a sheltered and privileged teenager growing up in a predominantly Jewish suburb of New York City, I was drawn to danger in the form of bad boys. Preferably older-than-appropriate, non-Jewish guys who smoked pot and drank beer. Dennis was perfect. He had a perpetual slight sneer on his distinctly Irish face that seemed to indicate contempt for our leafy suburb and everything it represented.
My April 20, 2021 book culture column for the San Francisco Chronicle:
Seven years ago, Cherilyn Parsons announced her intention to start a Bay Area book festival modeled after the Los Angeles Times’ event, the largest of its kind in the country and arguably the most prestigious. ¶ Although she had worked for four years as director of development and strategic initiatives at Berkeley’s highly regarded Center for Investigative Reporting, Parsons was viewed by some in the local literary community as a Southern California interloper
My April 6, 2021 book culture column for the San Francisco Chronicle:
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about Lily Bart, the heroine of Edith Wharton’s “The House of Mirth.” I recommended the novel to a young friend and decided it had been so long since I’d read it, I’d best do a reread if I wanted to be prepared for any meaningful discussion. ¶ Poor Lily. Spoiler alert: so beautiful and so tragically doomed by New York’s high society in the late 19th century, and by the mere fact that she’s a woman. Talk about having no agency.
My March 23, 2021 book culture column for the San Francisco Chronicle:
I have a big-time writer’s crush on Ann Patchett. Unabashed fangirl. Her 2001 novel, “Bel Canto,” is still right up there with my favorites of all time. But my adoration of Patchett is about more than her writing.
My March 9, 2021 book culture column for the San Francisco Chronicle:
On a recent early morning, with the hills so green it made my teeth hurt, I motored out to Point Reyes to take a hike. My phone was running out of juice, so I couldn’t continue listening to my audiobook (“Black Buck” by Mateo Askaripour, which I highly recommend). So, I turned on the radio. ¶ What a stroke of luck. I stumbled onto KWMR “Homegrown Radio,” serving Point Reyes, Bolinas and the San Geronimo Valley.
My February 23, 2021 book culture column for the San Francisco Chronicle:
Isabel Allende was in her 20s, working at a women’s magazine in Chile, when the second wave of feminism hit. Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique” and Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Second Sex” were among the most significant books in that era (roughly from the 1960s to the 1980s) that galvanized women to redefine their role in society and the struggle against gender inequities.
My February 9, 2021 book culture column for the San Francisco Chronicle:
San Francisco is primed for idyllic love stories, with Technicolor visuals (sparkling bay, impossible hills), heady aromas (fresh-ground coffee wafting out of North Beach cafes, cracked crab at the wharf) and iconic sounds of foghorns and cable car bells. ¶ But we all know the city has a darker side, and all the natural beauty and sensation is no guarantee of living happily ever after.
My January 26, 2021 book culture column for the San Francisco Chronicle:
“What’s it about?” ¶ That’s the question I’m most often asked after recommending a book. There seems to be a widespread feeling that an intriguing topic will undoubtedly make a great read. ¶ So often, however, a tantalizing subject gets submerged in a swamp of bad writing. Conversely, a book about something in which I profess myself profoundly disinterested becomes a favorite when the writing elevates it.
My January 12, 2021 book culture column for the San Francisco Chronicle:
I made a decision in January to read more writers of color this year. It was motivated by the big dustup over Jeanine Cummins’ novel American Dirt, a controversy centered on whether a white writer had the right to write a story of Mexican refugees fleeing a violent drug cartel. While I came down on the side of an author to write outside the realm of her own experience—I just appreciate good writing—I also recognized that the publishing industry has a pathetic record when it comes to giving voice to non-white writers.
