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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 4, 2003)
Winter Reading 2003-2004 culturally strange and humanly familiar to the reader. In portraying them, Shah brings alive a picture of Afghan culture that few other writers have been able to do. Unfortunately, although fascinating and educational, the book is flawed as a personal memoir. Shah’s detached journal- istic clarity saps her narrative of its emo- tional impact. Reading The Storyteller’s Daughter, one knows that the author can- not have lived through these events with- out being deeply marked by them. Yet in choosing to intellectualize her emotions rather than to personalize them, Shah holds the reader at arm’s length, both from the story and from the intriguing woman who lived it. In this, the power of her amazing story is sadly weakened. — Lark Wadsworth Life Stuff The Stuff of Life: A Daughter’s Memoir by Karen Karbo. Bloomsbury, 2003. Hardcover, $24.95. L ike her father whose death she records in The Stuff of Life, Portland writer Karen Karbo is both tender-hearted and tough. Slug her in the arm and “she don’t even cry,” but break her heart, and she’ll write a funny book about it. Having inherited at least a portion of her sense of humor from her father, a man who amused himself by propping a WWI submachine gun in the bathroom corner to startle his teenage daughter’s boyfriends, Karbo tells us, “Next to the right to bear arms, my father’s most cherished value is bucking up.” Karbo’s story begins with a trip to Boulder City following the death of her stepmother, one part of the inseparable unit known as DadandBev, as in “DadandBev loved Nevada because there is no income tax and it was easy to get a concealed weapon permit.” Karbo inherits from Bev “not one chipped teacup or funky, beloved brooch.” But she does re- inherit her father, the designer of the Lincoln hood ornament. “Suddenly, I am not just in the loop, I am the loop that goes straight from my dad to me and back, something we both find alarming,” she writes. Karbo falls back into a teenager’s awk- ward interactions, but the moment doesn’t last long. After asking his daughter, “Have you joined the NRA yet?” Dad says in almost the same breath, “I seem to have this growth on my chest.” Karbo knows right away it’s lung cancer — her father has been a long-time Marlboro man — and later she will fetch him packs of cigarettes in his final days, even though doing so makes her feel “like a member of Team Kevorkian.” Striking just the right balance between comically absurd and poignant, Karbo shows how to care generously for a dying parent without losing one’s sense of self. Whether you love or hate Karbo’s wiseass humor, you can’t help but see it as a char- acter trait that carries her through this arduous journey. — Alice Evans Defying Diagnosis Raising Blaze: Bringing Up an Extraordinary Son in an Ordinary World by Debra Ginsberg. HarperCollins, 2002. Paperback, $12.95. B y the time Blaze Ginsberg turns 13, he has been evaluated by no fewer than 10 psychologists and psychiatrists and alternately “diagnosed” with autism or charming eccentricity, ADHD or an advanced sense of humor, mental retardation or above-average intel- ligence. For Blaze’s mother, getting a diagnosis is a bi-polar process at best. One morning, she sends her son to his first day of kinder- garten; that afternoon, she sits in her first of many meetings with school psycholo- gists and special education teachers. “I have gone from having a beautiful, bright child to a handicapped kindergartener in the space of a few minutes,” she says. It’s hard to resist Ginsberg’s interpreta- tion of Blaze as a misunderstood and unique, even brilliant boy. At six, he assigns colors to the days of the week, the seasons, and the letters of the alphabet. At 8, he composes songs with titles such as “Deadland” and “Nervous Night.” At 10, he asks to re-enact his birth. The hard fact is, these talents don’t translate into success in the classroom. Blaze’s work is far below grade level, and his behavior is over-the-top. He routinely stomps out of the classroom, talks non- sense and panics during fire drills. How can Ginsberg honor his gifts and prepare him for the world? It’s a dilemma worthy of Solomon. Ginsberg’s attempts to offer assistance on Blaze’s educational odyssey are noth- ing short of heroic. A single parent who waits tables and writes on the side, she volunteers in Blaze’s third grade special We take our work on vacation. UO faculty authors, best of the Northwest, and UO Press titles. UNIVERSITY OF OREGON BOOKSTORE DECEMBER 4, 2003 17
