4A • COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL • DECEMBER 19, 2018
O PINION
From the Editor’s Desk
Letters to the Editor Policy
Grab a book (and a song) for Christmas
By Caitlyn May
cmay@cgsentinel.com
As 2018 comes to an end,
most of your media sources will
begin to bombard you with end-
of-year lists rating everything
from "Best Photos" and "Top
Stories" to "Most Unforgettable
Moments."
Here at your most local
media source, we try to spend
our time covering the meetings,
events, sports and issues that
matter most to our community.
(And yes, a year in review is
forthcoming).
Th at being said, while recently
spending an extended period of
time on hold and in front of my
computer, I now present to you
my top three book choices of the
year — and as an added bonus,
the Christmas song I think each
of those books pair best with.
Enjoy! (and read them)
All You Can Ever Know
My mother’s mother didn’t
want her. So, she gave her away.
At some point in the fall of
1965, a white couple walked
into a room of cribs looking
for a son. Th ere was, as family
legend holds, a cute red-headed
boy who would have fi t in very
nicely in the house on the block
of houses that looked just like it
up north in America.
But the boy was crying —
screaming — and the couple
didn’t care much for screaming
babies. My mother, with her
dark skin and black hair (that
wouldn’t fi t in at all in the house
on the block of houses that
looked just like it), was sleeping
— and the couple liked that.
Th at’s how my mother grew
up a Mexican girl in a family of
blondes in a neighborhood of
white people and experienced
the politics of race in America
in the unique way adopted
children do. In the way that has
them pressing their noses up
to the glass of the culture they
were born into (but not raised
in) while being pushed against
that glass — and out the door
— by the default whiteness of
a country that says “You’re not
one of us.”
It’s a concept that dominates
and develops Nicole Chung’s
“All You Can Ever Know.” It
recalls her childhood in the
Pacifi c Northwest as a child
of Korean descent adopted by
white parents in the 1970s.
She navigates — or tries to —
the complicated intricacies
of looking like she belongs
somewhere else, with someone
else, and how that constant
drumbeat of being pointed out
as diff erent awakens the kernel
of truth that, at one point, she
did belong somewhere else —
and to someone else.
It forces her to reconcile the
fundamental question of where
she came from, what it means
and if it should have all played
out diff erently; if her home
country and culture is really
hers or if she’s been renting this
whole time.
Chung’s story isn’t a long
read, clocking in at 225 pages,
so it’s perfect for a long holiday
weekend. And since I promised
each book recommendation
would come with a bonus song
choice, simply search Spotify,
iTunes, Pandora or grab a CD
(Honestly not sure they make
these anymore, so if you don’t
already have it you’re out of
luck) and fi nd “I’ll Be Home for
Christmas.”
It’s pretty obvious, so I’m not
going to waste column inches
here explaining why this pair
makes so much sense other than
to say, if that classic holiday song
makes you think of home and
long for something that may
not be there anymore, you’ll like
“All You Can Ever Know.”
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark
If comedy is tragedy plus
time, then Patton Oswalt
grew on me over the last year.
I never thought he was par-
ticularly funny in that I never
particularly saw him. He
existed in the peripheral of
my environment like Marvel
movies and Kombucha.
He didn’t come into focus
until a few months ago,
sometime before all the
wildfi res and Bohemia Mining
Days, when his name was
casually mentioned in news
stories describing the capture of
the Golden State Killer.
Th e man who terrorized
California by raping and killing
women was the subject of
obsessive research for Oswalt’s
wife, Michelle McNamara. But
the true crime writer didn’t live
to see his arrest — she passed
The First Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridg-
ing the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of
the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition their
Government for a redress of greivences.
away in her sleep two years
earlier at the age of 46.
'“I’ll Be Gone in the Dark” is
the culmination of McNamara’s
unfi nished work that Oswalt
completed with the help of
additional writers aft er her
death. It chronicles her search
for the man who eluded police
for decades while committing
approximately 50 sexual assaults
and killing 10 women.
McNamara weaves such an
easy story it’s nearly impossible
to believe that it was hard work
pouring over police reports,
interviewing survivors and
embedding herself in online
chatrooms investigating every
detail that would lead to his
arrest and the bittersweet reality
that McNamara died before the
payoff .
Wherever she is, I hope her
heart is light and that all her
troubles are out of sight and
while I never found Oswalt
funny and he’s slipping out of
focus again, I hope he and his
young daughter fi nd some sort
of peace in believing they’ll all
be together if the fates allow.
So, if you’re into true crime or
want to appreciate the fact you
get to see another year come
and go, read “I’ll Be Gone in the
Dark” and listen to the holiday
favorite “Have Yourself a Merry
Little Christmas.”
Th ere, Th ere
“One thing we should keep
in mind moving forward is
that no one ever rolled heads
down temple stairs. Mel Gibson
made that up. But we do have in
our minds, those who saw the
movie, the heads rolling down
temple stairs in a world meant
to resemble the real Indian
world in the 1500s in Mexico.
Mexicans before they were
Mexicans. Before Spain came.”
Ugh, Tommy Orange.
“Th ere, Th ere” is his debut
novel but I’ve already set a
Google alert to notify me the
minute he releases the next
thing he writes. I don’t care if
it’s a grocery list — I’m sure it
will be equally as poetic, heart
breaking and obnoxiously self-
questioning as “Th ere, Th ere.”
Th e novel takes place in
California today but also not
today — some of it reaches as
far back as 40 or 50 years ago
but in a way that separates the
narrative before making you
realize it’s all the same story.
He’s tricky, that Tommy
Orange.
Six characters guide us
through
the
modern-day
depictions of Native Americans
in the U.S. and the institution-
alization of the images as they
make their way to the largest
pow-wow in the state.
Th e text is ripe with the irony
and injustice that is Native
existence today examining what
was, what is and challenging
what we’ve accepted as truth
and history. It’s uncomfortable
and rambles; it fi nds resolution
in the smallest of confl icts and
lets the larger wars rage; it makes
allowances for the division in
Native culture for those who’ve
been told they’re Native but
have become “urbanized” and
vocalizes the fears that come
when an entire people are at
risk of vanishing — left only to
memory and caricature.
Borrowing from Gertrude
Stein, Orange sums it up, …
“(she) found that she was talking
about how the place where
she’d grown up in Oakland had
changed so much, that so much
development had happened
there, that the there of her
childhood, the there there, was
gone, there was no there there
anymore.”
It should be required reading
and it earned my top spot for
2018. Easily.
Read it.
And because every fi rst-place
winner deserves a song so good,
so cherished it is unquestionably
(unquestionably)
the
best
holiday song, I suggest “All I
Want for Christmas is You.”
Yes, Mariah Carey.
Here’s why: Many have come
for her Christmas title and have
fallen short. Kelly Clarkson
(please), Brittney Spears (go
home), a bunch of country
artists I don’t know because to
me they all sound and look the
same, with their cowboy boots
and hats and heartbreak.
And not one of them has
toppled the No. 1 singles queen
from her throne.
“All I Want for Christmas is
You” was released in 1994. Th at
means they’ve all had 24 years to
come up with something better.
Not even HRH Beyoncé has
attempted to touch Mariah’s
mantel. Because she has some
respect and holds her elders
where they belong — on a
pedestal.
Th ere it is, my top three.
And if none of those appeal
to you, try one of the (very
close) runners-up: “Th e Library
Book,” “Th e Great Believers,”
“American
Prison”
and
“Educated.”
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