On the reading table (or tablet)

Memoir week here and memoirs can be pretty long sometimes (or maybe they just seem that way).

• The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie, Wendy McClure. McClure's interest in the life of the author of Little House on the Prairie is more than a hobby, but no more obsessive than that of the many people she meets on the trail of Wilder's biography. I had no idea of the museums and pageantry that keep alive the myth of the Little House and truly no concept of the extent to which Wilder's life has been scrutinized.
  
  
• No Biking in the House Without a Helmet, Melissa Fay Greene. I have conflicted feelings about this book. On one hand, there is no doubt but that the writer and her family rescued five children from what would have been horrible lives. On the other hand, I think maybe the author underplays the extent to which privilege plays a role in the story she writes. Without an income many times what constitutes middle class in America today, I doubt that it is possible to pursue Greene's path. It's a virtuous path, to be sure, but also a path of where Greene holds a number of trump cards unavailable to most people pursuing international adoption.
  
  
• Reading My Father: A Memoir, Alexander Styron. If Darkness Visible outed the reality of major depression for the sufferer, Reading My Father documents some of the ways families can be damaged when one member has poorly controlled illness. Reading this book, I have to say it occurred to me that more than unipolar depression was at work here. The mood swings, the rages... I dunno.

I realize I sound kind of cranky this week. Probably I could do with a little light entertainment after all the drama of the week. But what's a memoir without drama? It's my grandma's diary about the weather, the garden, and church-going, that's what. There was plenty of drama in her life, but none of it made it onto the page. These writers have weather and maybe gardens; none of that makes it onto the page because it doesn't make for interesting reading. (Sorry, Grandma!)