Retired educator Janie Isaackson is in the “Me, Myself and I” memoir class I lead at the Chicago Cultural Center, and she generously agreed to share this list of favorite books as she and her fellow memoir writers shelter at home. Notice how it reads as part book list, and part memoir:

by Janie IsacksonMy older sister Merle was an avid reader. When she was young my parents would say that if she didn’t have a book handy — those were the days of libraries and before paperback books were accessible or available — then Merle would read the telephone book or a dictionary.

Merle was not only an eager reader, she was an insightful one. Many decades later she was never without her Kindle. When she died (sounds like the beginning of the song “Papa was a Rolling Stone”) family members and friends said, “How will I know what to read? Merle always told me what was good.”

When they told me this, I promised that while no one could replace Merle’s reading wisdom, I would try to be a reliable source. I, too, depend on the kindness of readers, family, and friends offering both reading incentive and invitation. In the past two years I have jotted down some recommendations of novels and nonfiction that pop with enthusiasm:

• One of the suggestions is a trilogy beginning with Old Filth (an acronym for Failed in London Try Hong Kong) by Jane Gardam whose characters are so authentic that, because it is the beginning book in a trilogy, reading friends are also present in her next two books. Fans of Anne Tyler books will know what I mean by growing fond of characters.
• Another trilogy is the Golden Age book series by Jane Smiley, where each chapter beginning in 1920 represents one year up until 1980. A true page turner, this is my favorite kind of novel that prompts me to read as soon as I awaken, read as I fall asleep but cannot put the book down, or even choose my mode of exercise based on being able to read a juicy trilogy like this one while I’m working out.
• Another favorite is We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Jane Fowler. When a friend suggested I read it, she said “I can’t even begin to describe this.” I agree. And the fact that much of the story takes place at my alma mater Indiana University connects me even more to a terrific novel.
• And speaking of Indiana: I so appreciate the novel Escape from Assisted Living by Joyce Hicks. The novel is set in Northwest Indiana, a place I lived for six months while student teaching (and drove a Studebaker!)and the characters in it think the way people really think, the way people truly are, and the way folks honestly act. Plus there’s this: reading it made me feel like I was reading the senior version of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off!
• One of my nonfiction favorites is Life Animated (later made into a documentary nominated for an academy award) by Ron Suskind. When I read Ron Suskind’s earlier book A Hope in the Unseen, I found a favorite new author. He selected a young man from a neglected neighborhood in Washington, D.C. and followed him through his senior year in high school and freshman year in college.
• Love That Boy by Ron Fournier is another non-fiction favorite. Ron Fournier is a journalist whose wife reminded him that his adolescent autistic son needed to spend quality time with his dad. His son learns to navigate through the world by watching Disney movies, then identifying with characters and situations. The boy loves history, specifically Theodore Roosevelt. As a journalist Ron Fournier had access to the White House, took his son to meet Bill Clinton, and because both former President Clinton and Ron Fournier’s son are Teddy Roosevelt enthusiasts, Bill Clinton never stopped talking about T Roosevelt. However, when Ron Fournier took his son to meet George W. Bush, Bush listened intently, and as father and son were leaving (perhaps the Oval Office) while still at the door, George Bush hollered out to Ron Fournier, “Love that boy!” hence the chosen title of the book.
• Another favorite non-fiction book is Never to be Forgotten, a profound narrative by Beatrice Muchman about her own experience as a Jewish-German child hidden by two Catholic sisters in Brussels during WWII and what “the kindness of strangers” can mean during wartime. I was tearful as I read and re-read much of Never to be Forgotten, but the book gives us a sense of hope that people have persisted, and there are people in the world who offer others the original meaning of sustainability.
• To my way of thinking, the novel An American Marriage by Tayari Jones is a marvel. A newly married couple, the husband is falsely incarcerated for rape, and while he is in jail husband and wife write letters to each other. The challenge of an author writing in two distinctly different voices while writing in one voice creates the kind of book that as I read I just shake my head in awe.
• James McBride is an author (a tremendous one) and musician. Four people gave me copies of The Color of Water, his autobiography describing his life with a Black father and a Jewish mother. (I only mention this because, as a reader, folks routinely do not give me books.) When Author McBride asks his mother, “What color is G-d?” She replies, “Water doesn’t have a color. G-d is the color of water.” If that encourages a reader’s interest, then ready, set go with James McBride’s The Good Lord Bird. where the author tells of a slave (dressed as a girl) who joins John Brown’s abolition movement. How McBride makes this era and period of time amusing is a wonder.

In her 80s my mother, a loving, talented, and charming woman, became a bit more eccentric, and these next two books give new meaning to family foibles. They are creepy, the families dysfunctional. Still I could not stop reading either one:

1. The Lonely Doll is based on a series of children’s books, a series that many grew up reading. Author Jean Nathan, an enthusiast of the books, tried to find the author, and when she succeeded, the author allowed her seeker access to her life, the life of family, especially the mother’s invasive control over her daughter…..scary! Still a proverbial page turner.
2. The true circumstances surrounding The Sisters Antipodes by Jane Alison are creepy. Two families in Foreign Service in Australia are quite close…so close that the parents switch partners and eventually remarry the other partner. Since my favorite kind of book is one about a dysfunctional family these two books were made to order.

Any books or authors to recommend while we shelter in place? Please share descriptions and titles here – books can provide a sensational escape when you need one!

It has come to my attention that the post I Published yesterday about teaching memoir-writing classes was somewhat garbled at the end – sorry about that! Those of you who missed the stunning ending can read it in its entirety below, and as a bonus to this version, I am including a piece of writing Wanda came up with while whiling away the hours sheltering in place these past weeks. “It’s just a squib,” she told me over the phone. “But I think you’ll like it.” I sure do, and know you Safe & Sound blog readers will, too.

The Issue is Toilet Tissue

by Wanda Bridgeforth

Why the run on toilet paper? Is it our solution to be clean after using the bathroom facilities? Is it because we feel there is no substitute for this product?

Today’s water saving commodes clog up on all toilet tissue substitutes, even the beloved Kleenex. Bathrooms of today are mostly cubby holes -saving toilets that accept only toilet tissue, I hark back to the days of the pull-chain toilet.

Back in the pre-depression and during the depression days the substitute for toilet tissue was newspaper, All of the bathrooms were large and their floors were covered with newspaper. I remember lingering in the bathroom reading the newspaper that covered the floor! We crumpled the newspaper and wet it under the facebowl faucet, it was as soft as today’s tissue. I wonder now if any ink print was left on the wiped area?

PS: If the tissue issue becomes acute and the newspaper sales increase? Josephine et-al Man the snakes and plungers.

And now for the reblog of yesterday’s post. Enjoy!

Benefits of Memoir Classes: Teaching Online

by Beth Finke

Over the 15-plus years I’ve been leading memoir classes in Chicago many many people have suggested I offer an online course as well. “You’d get people from all over the country,” they say. “You could charge a lot, and you wouldn’t even have to leave home.”Not leave home? Being with my writers is what I love most about teaching memoir. Hearing Wanda’s classmates scramble to find her a seat when she arrives; sensing the drama of passing a bag of Scrabble tiles around to determine who picks “Z” out of the bag (usually “A” goes first, but sometimes I go backwards!); Bindy’s delight to hear an assignment that inspires a limerick; Janie reading an essay out loud for a fellow writer whose low vision prevents them from doing so on their own; the collective gasp when Bruce recites a particularly poignant phrase; hearing updates on our new Grail Café from writers who stopped there before coming to the class I lead in the neighborhood; taking in the ooos and ahs whenever Michael brings a show and tell to passs around as he reads his latest essay.

“Being right there to sense writers reading their stories in their own voices, watching how trust grows in a group of people who share life stories…to me that’s the most important part of what I do,” I tell the online pushers. “Eavesdropping before and after class tells me a lot, too, and you just can’t eavesdrop like that online.” I thank the friends for the online class idea. “But it just won’t work for me.”

Those online pushers are a determined bunch.

They power on, describe a site or program or app or whatever it is you call it where you can see everyone’s face on the screen. “You can see everyone there and watch their reactions right from home,” they reason.

“But I can’t see!” I remind them. That’s usually where The conversation ends.

Writers join the memoir-writing classes I lead for all sorts of reasons. Some want to hone their writing skills, some hope it will improve their memory, others want to collect their essays as a gift to their relatives. Some like the weekly deadline, some hope to get their essays published, others count on sharing time every week with a group who likes to hear –and share — their life stories. This post written by Dr. Jeremy Nobel in the Harvard Health Blog presents scientific data supporting a benefit many writers don’t anticipate when they first sign up: the idea that writing and sharing stories about your life can be “even lifesaving in a world where loneliness — and the ill health it can lead to — has become an epidemic.” From his blog:

Picking up a pen can be a powerful intervention against loneliness. I am a strong believer in writing as a way for people who are feeling lonely and isolated to define, shape, and exchange their personal stories. Expressive writing, especially when shared, helps foster social connections. It can reduce the burden of loneliness among the many groups who are most at risk, including older adults, caregivers, those with major illnesses, those with disabilities, veterans, young adults, minority communities of all sorts, and immigrants and refugees.

Dr. Nobel did not specify in his blog whether the sharing had to be done in person to fight loneliness, or if sharing online would work just as well.

When it was determined that the Thursday afternoon Village Chicago class would not be meeting in person for their fifth and sixth classes of this session, I decided to try an experiment: send an email with their prompt, assure them I’d still edit essays for anyone who wanted to send their assignments my way, then encourage them to “reply to all” and email their completed essays (whether edited by me or not, that didn’t matter) to their fellow writers to read at their leisure. I would email my comments to every writer who sent an essay, and Comments from their classmates would come to them via email, too rather than in person. I made it clear that students were not required to read the essays they received via email, but I encouraged them to do so and respond to help us keep in touch while classes were cancelled. Results?

• During week one, 20% of the writers sent essays to their fellow writers via email, and 6.66% of writers emailed their classmates with a comment.
• During week two, our final class of this six-week session, 6.666% of the writers sent essays to their fellow writers via email, and 0% emailed that classmate with a comment.

I know, I know. This is just a personal non-evidence-based very short experiment, and maybe it’d work if I used one of those apps, but really, I’m too busy washing my hands and spraying the knobs on the radio to learn how to download one right now. So I’m sticking to my guns. If I’m the one teaching, it’s gotta be in person.

Or so I thought.

I’ve mentioned Wanda Bridgeforth, our 98-year-old memoir matriarch, in this post and want you blog readers to know she is doing well. “I am not really affected,” she told me during one of our phone calls these past few weeks. “I stay home most of the time anyway!”

For the past three years, Wanda has been participating in the University of Chicago Medical Center’s Comprehensive Care, Community, and Culture Program and receives a personal phone call every three months to ask about her health and the quality of care she has been receiving. “But this past week it was different,” she told me over the weekend, marveling at how the doctor who called this time managed to be on the phone with all the study participants at once. “He could answer all our questions about the coronavirus and all that, they had 15 of us all on the phone line at once!”

I had questions. Could everyone on the phone actually hear each other? Wasn’t it scratchy? Was everyone polite? Didn’t people interrupt each other? “Oh, no, it was great! All very clear,” she assured me. “So listen, okay with you if I make some phone calls Monday morning, you know, to se how that works and if we can set something like this up for our class?”

Of course I said yes!

Over the 15-plus years I’ve been leading memoir classes in Chicago many many people have suggested I offer an online course as well. “You’d get people from all over the country,” they say. “You could charge a lot, and you wouldn’t even have to leave home.”Not leave home? Being with my writers is what I love most about teaching memoir. Hearing Wanda’s classmates scramble to find her a seat when she arrives; sensing the drama of passing a bag of Scrabble tiles around to determine who picks “Z” out of the bag (usually “A” goes first, but sometimes I go backwards!); Bindy’s delight to hear an assignment that inspires a limerick; Janie reading an essay out loud for a fellow writer whose low vision prevents them from doing so on their own; the collective gasp when Bruce recites a particularly poignant phrase; hearing updates on our new Grail Café from writers who stopped there before coming to the class I lead in the neighborhood; taking in the ooos and ahs whenever Michael brings a show and tell to passs around as he reads his latest essay.

“Being right there to sense writers reading their stories in their own voices, watching how trust grows in a group of people who share life stories…to me that’s the most important part of what I do,” I tell the online pushers. “Eavesdropping before and after class tells me a lot, too, and you just can’t eavesdrop like that online.” I thank the friends for the online class idea. “But it just won’t work for me.”

Those online pushers are a determined bunch.

They power on, describe a site or program or app or whatever it is you call it where you can see everyone’s face on the screen. “You can see everyone there and watch their reactions right from home,” they reason.

“But I can’t see!” I remind them. That’s usually where The conversation ends.

Writers join the memoir-writing classes I lead for all sorts of reasons. Some want to hone their writing skills, some hope it will improve their memory, others want to collect their essays as a gift to their relatives. Some like the weekly deadline, some hope to get their essays published, others count on sharing time every week with a group who likes to hear –and share — their life stories. This post written by Dr. Jeremy Nobel in the Harvard Health Blog presents scientific data supporting a benefit many writers don’t anticipate when they first sign up: the idea that writing and sharing stories about your life can be “even lifesaving in a world where loneliness — and the ill health it can lead to — has become an epidemic.” From his blog:

Picking up a pen can be a powerful intervention against loneliness. I am a strong believer in writing as a way for people who are feeling lonely and isolated to define, shape, and exchange their personal stories. Expressive writing, especially when shared, helps foster social connections. It can reduce the burden of loneliness among the many groups who are most at risk, including older adults, caregivers, those with major illnesses, those with disabilities, veterans, young adults, minority communities of all sorts, and immigrants and refugees.

Dr. Nobel did not specify in his blog whether the sharing had to be done in person to fight loneliness, or if sharing online would work just as well.

When it was determined that the Thursday afternoon Village Chicago class would not be meeting in person for their fifth and sixth classes of this session, I decided to try an experiment: send an email with their prompt, assure them I’d still edit essays for anyone who wanted to send their assignments my way, then encourage them to “reply to all” and email their completed essays (whether edited by me or not, that didn’t matter) to their fellow writers to read at their leisure. I would email my comments to every writer who sent an essay, and Comments from their classmates would come to them via email, too rather than in person. I made it clear that students were not required to read the essays they received via email, but I encouraged them to do so and respond to help us keep in touch while classes were cancelled. Results?

• During week one, 20% of the writers sent essays to their fellow writers via email, and 6.66% of writers emailed their classmates with a comment.
• During week two, our final class of this six-week session, 6.666% of the writers sent essays to their fellow writers via email, and 0% emailed that classmate with a comment.

I know, I know. This is just a personal non-evidence-based very short experiment, and maybe it’d work if I used one of those apps, but really, I’m too busy washing my hands and spraying the knobs on the radio to learn how to download one right now. So I’m sticking to my guns. If I’m the one teaching, it’s gotta be in person.

Or so I thought.

I’ve mentioned Wanda Bridgeforth, our 98-year-old memoir matriarch, in this post and want you blog readers to know she is doing well. “I am not really affected,” she told me during one of our phone calls these past few weeks. “I stay home most of the time anyway!”

For the past three years, Wanda has been participating in the University of Chicago Medical Center’s Comprehensive Care, Community, and Culture Program and receives a personal phone call every three months to ask about her health and the quality of care she has been receiving. “But this past week it was different,” she told me over the weekend, marveling at how the doctor who called this time managed to be on the phone with all the study participants at once. “He could answer all our questions about the coronavirus and all that, they had 15 of us all on the phone line at once!”

I had questions. Could everyone on the phone actually hear each other? Wasn’t it scratchy? Was everyone polite? Didn’t people interrupt each other? “Oh, no, it was great! All very clear,” she assured me. “So listen, okay with you if I make some phone calls Monday morning, you know, to se how that works and if we can set something like this up for our class?”

Of course I said yes!

When I was a teenager, I’m guessing around 15—which would’ve made it 1972—I was watching TV with my dad. He’d just come home from a company picnic/softball game. And he was buzzed. This was a rarity. In fact, it’s the only time I remember seeing him tipsy. I don’t remember if I saw that as an opportunity or what. But somehow, for the first and only time in my life, he talked to me about his time in the army during WWII. I asked questions, and he answered.

That’s young Esther Knezovich, nee Latini.

He was stationed outside Paris. His title, I would learn from the discharge papers I found only a few months ago, was pharmacist assistant. He was a medic of sorts. He also did a lot of driving. He transported wounded soldiers between facilities. And he transported remains. And then… there were no more questions. Clearly, he’d seen some stuff he’d rather not talk about. And, though I can’t know but I’m pretty sure, he had a kind of survivor’s guilt. Whatever he’d sacrificed and endured, it was nothing compared to those who didn’t come back. It was nothing compared to one of his own brother’s experience, who did come home but not as the same man my dad knew growing up.

Somewhere along my youth I happened upon some of my mother’s photographs. And that’s when I first laid eyes on her first husband. He was tall and blond and handsome. He was an Okie. He was my big sister’s biological father.

My mom was teaching Marines’ kids at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina during the war when the beau of a girlfriend of hers introduced my mom, Esther Latini, to his friend, Belden Anderson. From what I can tell, he swept her off her feet, they married, and he spirited Esther to the glamorous location of Bakersfield, California. I have a hazy memory of asking my mom who this guy in one photograph was. I don’t remember how old I was. I just remember it happened. I asked questions. And I learned that when my sister was six months old, Belden, who worked at an oil refinery, was burned badly over 80 percent of his body as the result of an explosion. I also learned that he lived for nearly three weeks, in agony, more than once begging my mom to end it for him.

That’s my dad Mike on the left. Brother George Knezovich center and Dave Knezovich on the right. Steve Knezovich, not pictured, served in the Navy.

My father was born to immigrants from Serbia. They hadn’t been here 10 years before the Great Depression hit. My mother was born to immigrants from Italy. Ditto. My paternal grandmother had four sons, and at one time they were all serving during WWII. My maternal grandfather worked in a coal mine, survived that work and the violence that flowed from the coal miners’ unionizing. And he had black lung.

And then there’s our friend’s father Joe, an African American man who has a voice that, well, makes you stop and listen. His father grew up in an Alabama town where he, too, worked in a coal mine. The same kind of mine that employed “contract workers” from the county. Back then, the county leased out prisoners to mining companies. Slavery did not end with the Emancipation Proclamation. Joe went on to serve in the war, become a chemist, and helped raise three accomplished women.

So you know, they make me feel like we can get through this. Not without pain. Not without casualties. And I will remain forever angry that there could have been less of both if we’d had any decent leadership.

To that point, my real worry is, will we learn anything? Because I know, I know that Joe, my mom, and my dad did. They understood something about the common good. That if you’re better, I’m better.

Somewhere in my lifetime, we lost that. I hope we manage to get it back. We owe it to Joe and Esther and Mike.

UPDATE: The show must go on, coronavirus or not! Brian Balcom, the director, emailed us today to let us know that you can still see the play–virtually. Anyone who wants to see the show can do so within the comfort of their own home. Here’s how:

1. Go to the Theater Wit website and purchase a ticket as normal
2. 10 minutes before showtime on your selected date, you will be emailed a link to view the performance remotely

I am pleased to introduce my friend Janet Lockwood as a guest blogger today — big thanks go out to Janet and so many others who are sitting in for me with guest posts as my right wrist continues to heal.

An Evening at Theater Wit with Beth and Luna

by Janet Lockwood

Go!

And what a delightful evening! I treasure time spent with Beth, whatever the venue. Beth and I went to the same high school, where we got into mild trouble by today’s standards, followed by different colleges, demanding jobs, and various moves.

It is only these past two years that we have reconnected, discovering that we are very much the same people we were in high school, yet, I like to think, much improved.

Last Saturday night, my husband and I accompanied dear Beth to a new play called Teenage Dick, written by Mike Lew and beautifully directed by Brian Balcom at Chicago’s Theater Wit. The play, set in a contemporary high school, is based in part on Richard III, the final play in Shakespeare’s War of the Roses trilogy.

Before the lights went down, I wondered how a high school student setting could capture the epic, neurotic, mercurial, malevolent, Machiavellian Richard III — with laughs, no less.

It turns out that a high school setting works really well with this story, with teenaged characters’ out-sized emotions, overwrought politics, and ruinous competition (to what end?!), with an honorable mention for the adult, a moderately skilled teacher placed in the dual role of the clueless, out of touch, and harried administrator/chaperone. Speaking of dual roles, the high school Beth and I attended required the track and field coach to teach trigonometry. Or maybe it was the other way around. What I remember most is that he yelled during the entire class.

The story is that of a student with cerebral palsy (Dick) who schemes to “dethrone,” at all costs, the current class president, the school dreamboat/football quarterback (Eddie), who has recently broken up with his girlfriend, the young woman everyone wants to date or emulate (Anne). Dick’s best friend is Barbara (Buck), a character who uses a wheelchair.

Let me stop here for two reasons. This is the first time I have seen a play, outside of Richard III, where disability is woven into the plot to be portrayed by actors who have disabilities themselves. Years ago, at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, I saw a contemporary play memorable only for featuring a leading-role actor who uses a wheelchair. That is the only other time I’ve seen disability portrayed on stage and I am more than a casual patron of theater experiences. It’s way past time to recognize the totality of genius and creativity in the arts, especially in theater, among all who are seeking the opportunity to use their talents for those who want to experience all the theater has to offer.

The second reason I am stopping the ever-so-brief plot synapsis is that I do not want to ruin all the surprises. There are many so I’ll gloss over only a few. Mr. Lew peppers the script with language from Richard III and The Prince. Laugh-out-loud moments give way to initial rumblings and conflict building toward the dramatic conclusion. There are scenes for everyone — fights, dances, love, dismay, and pathology.

During our showing, Beth’s sweet Seeing Eye dog Luna reacted much as we humans reacted — with alarm during the fight scenes and with delight during the dance scenes.

I want to give a shout-out to the actors in order of appearance:

• MacGregor Arney, the actor in the title role, is brilliant, forceful, and relentlessly manipulative as Dick, holding my sometime scattered attention from opening line to the end.
• Tamara Rozofsky, plays stalwart Buck, showing grace, integrity, and humor.
• Liz Cloud holds the characters and script together as Elizabeth, the teacher/administrator, with wit and good humor.
• Ty Fanning as Eddie, the dreamboat quarterback, brings both stereotype and dimension in a believable, natural manner.
• Sarah Price plays Clarissa with razor-sharp comedic timing.
• Courtney Rikki Green, who plays Anne, develops her character powerfully with breadth and without pretense, portraying Anne’s story equal to that of Dick’s story in the end.

I loved this play. I give it four stars and two thumbs up. I don’t speak for Luna, but I think I heard her say four paws. Go see this play!

Teenage Dick By Mike Lew runs through April 19,2020 at Chicago’s Theater Wit 1229 W. Belmont. Directed by Brian Balcom, running Time: 1 hour 30 minutes with no intermission. Tickets available from $12 to $42 and you can order your tickets online here or call the box office at 773.975.8150.