1

When I was in fifth grade Mr. Luti had a metal box where you placed  your book reports. These were for pseudo credit. Kind of like when he asked everybody to tell him how much time they watched PBS. I didn’t watch it at all, but I said something like three and a half hours a week, everybody lied. Actually, today Felice watches a ton of PBS, and donates in support thereof, but in the sixties, it was all about sitcoms and “Bonanza” and except for this heroin documentary I watched over my mother’s shoulder, I don’t remember ever watching PBS. Oh, now I remember, the show everybody said they watched was “Japanese Brush Painting.” Don’t forget, this was in the era of black and white, I can’t draw a straight line, one of my elementary teachers was hip to me, saying somehow I always managed to wiggle my way out of art class. And, back to the heroin doc, there was a lithe blonde-haired woman who seemed normal and I’ll tell you, the more I watched that documentary, the more I wanted to try heroin. Just to have the experience. I felt out of the loop.

So the books we reported on came from the Arrow Book Club. They were paperbacks and they cost about a quarter. A big package would come every month and Mr. Luti would break it down and we’d get our books and we’d feel special. Nothing like a little retail therapy to boost one’s mood, even at age nine.

And that was the problem. I was nine and everybody else was ten. I used to think this caused all my problems, skipping a grade, but after years of therapy I realized I would have turned out the same no matter what, it was the house I grew up in, my parents and sisters. They made me who I am. In some ways positive, in some ways nonfunctional.

So having skipped a grade they thought I was behind, that they needed to ease me into fifth grade, and therefore they put me in the slow reading group. Doesn’t that screw up people for life? Knowing that they don’t measure up? Meanwhile, in the slow reading group…some people had problems reading. Oh, there was a truly slow reading group, of just a handful of people, but this was back before they held people back, talk about traumatizing, you didn’t want to be so old you wouldn’t fit behind the desk. Then again, in the melting pot suburbs of the sixties the middle class ruled, and everything was equitable. If you were rich you drove a Cadillac. Illustrating that no one was really that rich. And sure, there were no Black people in school, but Black people were all around, right next door in Bridgeport, and by time I got to high school there were a number of Black kids, but I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you their parents were doctors. This was back in the era when the thought of having a Black family move into the neighborhood was anathema. Something everybody would talk about. Then again, we didn’t live in such an upscale neighborhood. Then again, almost no one ever moved.

So, pissed they’d left me behind in reading, I decided the only way to get ahead was to file book reports, hoping that Mr. Luti would notice. I remember I was up to twentysomething reports when no one else had five and finally, two-thirds of the way through the school year, I was moved up to the smart reading group, where I had no adjustment period whatsoever. You either love to read or you don’t. Books are a treasure, if you don’t have the key try to borrow one, you might find out you love books too. It’s just that books are not cool, smoking and drugs are. Books are a solitary experience, the opposite of today’s social society. But I love to read.

And almost all of the books I reported on back in fifth grade were unmemorable. There was one about a kid who batted a thousand. He had one hit and then he fouled everything off. And the other one about a kid who mailed himself across the country, I think to his grandparents. Then again, if you mailed yourself today you’d truly starve in the interim, it might take you months to get there.

And that’s all to tell you that the books I’m going to report on today are not A plusses. They’re very good. But don’t buy them or borrow then and then get mad at me when you find them tedious and don’t like them. If you’re looking for one book to get you started, I’m going to send you somewhere else. But what I read this week were “Deacon King Kong” and “Nomadland.”

2

“Deacon King Kong” is on everybody’s Top Ten list. I read about it and wasn’t interested in it. But the e-mail was so heavy, I reserved it at the library, via Libby, and then I was able to jump the line, it became available for seven days. And then it becomes a race to finish. So, you’ve got to start as soon as you get it and…

I liked it at first. But then it became too difficult.

You see James McBride, the author, has a certain style. He injects seven descriptors when one will do. And you keep waiting for the story. Turns out about forty percent of the book was setup, and then it got really good, when the story truly kicked in. But by that time I was reading two books.

After watching the movie, I’d reserved “Nomadland,” and finally that became available. I jumped from “Deacon King Kong” to “Nomadland” and back, chapter by chapter, and I never read two books at one time, but if I didn’t, there’d be no way to finish “Deacon King Kong,” I needed a palate cleanser, like the sherbet they serve you in little cones in highfalutin’ restaurants.

But when I hit the aforementioned forty percent point, I powered through the rest of “Deacon King Kong,” I wanted to read it, I dug it. You see it’s the story of the inner city fifty years ago, New York in sixty-nine in fact. Yes, the Mets are winning and the city is on the way to becoming what it was in the seventies, i.e. bankrupt and crime-ridden. So what you’ve got here is people going nowhere who are thrilled to be out of the south. Yes, these are Blacks and they come to New York City and there’s less racism, but your gig is as a domestic, or a maintenance man, or a drug dealer. Upward mobility was nonexistent. To a great degree it’s still nonexistent. But now since the white people don’t have money, they don’t want to help out anybody else. Even the “Wall Street Journal” ran an opinion piece saying it was all about income inequality, and the Republicans must stop okaying deficit and debt increases when they’re in power and abhor them when they are not. Don’t shoot the messenger, I’d link you but it’s behind a paywall.

So to get by you hang on to God, the church is the center of activity, and activity there is. It’s all about relationships and gossip, fun. You remember fun, don’t you? You can still have it, even if you’re living from paycheck to paycheck.

And there’s a Mafia strain and ultimately all the personages merge into a story that’s kind of interesting. More interesting is who they are and how they act. Oftentimes it’s the broke people who are good and the rich people who are bad. And there’s a bit of romance. Just a hint, not sex scenes. You know when you find someone and you click, you know it from the first note? That’s in here. That’s life. We’re always looking to connect. And one day you’re buds and one day you’re enemies and one day you’re friends again, funny how this world works.

So would I recommend “Deacon King Kong”?

No. Not unless you’re a voracious reader. The plot is too often obscured by description. But those who do complete it rave about it, because they feel good about trumpeting the work of a Black man.

I can’t just leave it at that. You’ll judge me too harshly. But let me just say that those waving the flag of equality the most noisily are the same ones who’d freak if a person of color moved into their neighborhood, never mind having a homeless person camp out on their sidewalk. Out of sight, out of mind is the American mantra. And the people in “Nomadland” are truly out of sight.

3

There were about three times reading “Nomadland” I wanted to jump up to the keyboard and testify. We live in a screwed-up nation where it is easy to fall between the cracks and once there, nobody cares about you.

The movie is excellent.

But the book is more fully fleshed-out, and ultimately way more depressing.

Frances McDormand’s character was made up. But the ultimate facts of the movie remain true. That company town in Nevada did close up shop. There is the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous. And the houseless do work temporarily at Amazon.

That’s what they say, they’re not homeless, they’re HOUSEless. It’s a difference, of mind-set, of class. You don’t want to see yourself as homeless, that’s rock bottom, it’s hard to maintain your optimism, and that’s one thing all the vandwellers possess, optimism, blind optimism, because otherwise life would just be too hard, with its endless setbacks.

You ain’t got any money, otherwise you wouldn’t be living on the road. But your automobile is your house, and one thing we know for sure is autos need maintenance. And the vehicles the nomads buy are never new. And the older a vehicle, the more prone it is to breakdowns. Major breakdowns. Even if you have a AAA card, the club won’t service vehicles on dirt roads, that’s their policy. So you can be in the middle of the desert, with a broken vehicle and no money to fix it and…

Maybe you get an advance on your Social Security, which is minimal to begin with, since you worked all those low-paying jobs. And you have to pay the cash back at an exorbitant interest rate, so you’re always behind.

And you can’t live with your family because you’re either too proud or they don’t want you or they don’t have room. Reach a certain age and there’s no place in society for you.

And that’s the age of most of the people here. Sixties and seventies. And they’re working, HARD! Putting in unpaid overtime supervising campsites. Running the rides at an amusement park. All of the gigs temporary, there’s no health insurance, no benefits, you just show up when they need you, and then you’re back on the road.

But the worst is Amazon.

Maybe they give you four months, you know, the run-up to Christmas. But what you’re doing is working twelve hours a day, literally, those are the shifts, for almost nothing. In this case, $10.25 an hour only a few years ago. And you get three breaks, a half hour for lunch and then two fifteen minute bathroom breaks. I’d never make it, I can’t hold it that long. And you have to be able to lift fifty pounds. That’s surprisingly heavy. And some of these people are EIGHTY!

They give away free over-the-counter painkillers. And the truth is you can’t make it without Advil, Aleve, the anti-inflammatory of your choice. And even if you buck up to this boring work, yes, you’ve got to play games in your head just to get through the day, there’s a strong chance you’ll get injured on the job. Taken off the playing field or going on injured reserve for overuse injuries. Yes, one person can’t go back to Amazon the next year because of wrist issues caused by holding the scanner. Her wrist took three years to heal. And you’re walking on concrete and you’ve got ancient muscles and bones, you’re brittle and broken to begin with, this is the final insult, judgment day, where you learn you’ve got to work in Hades just to survive.

Yes, survive. That’s what it comes down to. For all these complaints about welfare queens, the truth is oftentimes you cannot get money or if you do it’s insufficient. Then again, those on the road look out for each other. To a degree anyway, almost all of them are introverted, loners.

4

Now the truth is ultimately it was harder to finish “Nomadland,” which is easier to read. Because “Nomadland” is non-fiction, fiction is almost always superior, there’s a story, it’s not just about facts, information.

But I believe everybody should read “Nomadland.” Everybody in America, a national book club. Because you cannot read it without having your viewpoint changed. Things are much worse in America than we think. The truth is, the underclass is just given lip service, most people have no idea what is going on at the bottom, there’s not enough news and either they’re too self-centered or worried about falling down themselves.

And I finished “Nomadland” this afternoon. But I just couldn’t get into the new books on my Kindle. Sometimes this is definitive, sometimes this is not, sometimes it’s just your mood. But the truth is there’s very little worth reading. Most of what is reviewed you can ignore. As for what is not… Writing is a skill, which most people don’t possess, but you can have the skill and still turn out a turkey. As for recommendations…it’s just like music, people tell you what they like, not what you’d like, so I always turn to the web, trying to find what might interest me, and it’s not an easy journey.

Not that I write about everything I read, or watch. I bought Kristin Hannah’s “The Four Winds” the night it came out, literally, just after midnight Monday on my Kindle, before it went to number one, I liked “The Great Alone” just that much. Not “The Nightingale,” but “The Great Alone.” But “The Four Winds” was a disappointment. It does a great job of portraying the Dust Bowl era, especially before the characters journey to California. It’s just that the description ultimately overwhelms the story. To a degree it’s a polemic.

I’m slicing hairs here. People hate when I do this. I should like everything, especially what they’ve produced, they’ve put in so much time and effort! But that’s not the way it works. My time is limited, everybody’s time is limited, we’re all looking for the very best we can find, and like I said, there’s little that great out there.

So tonight we’re going back to our streaming series. It’s Israeli, and it’s good, but I’m not telling you the name, because even though I’ll do my best not to reveal the plot someone always e-mails me the ending of the show, without fail.

So I’m just informing you of the landscape, that’s the goal in life today, to assess the world and figure out where you fit in it. And whether you’re on the right path or need to make radical change. And change is hard for most people, it’s easier to put on the blinders and stay where you are. But to make change first you need inspiration, and that’s what you get in books. I guess that’s my main point.