I'm writing from Naxos with a brief review of "Jell-O Girls," and, like many of my odd little reviews, this one will contain "spoilers," so beware!
-Should you read it? Yes. It's a triumph. I have some quibbles. The opening section is the weakest; it's where Rowbottom tries to inhabit the inner life of her (long-dead) grandmother. These passages feel false and overly generic, and it's unclear to me what is gained by trying to write about a real person in this hammy faux-novelistic way. There just isn't the right level of detail. I would have liked--better--a candid, short essay from Rowbottom: "I didn't know my grandmother, and I have bits and pieces via hearsay, and here is what I have tentatively inferred."
Also, a note on socioeconomic stuff. Rowbottom is correct to report on a big complaint about Betty Friedan; with "The Feminine Mystique," Friedan was writing for a very small (white, wealthy) section of the female population, and so it was hard to know what to do with her pity-for-the-rich if you were a single mother/prostitute making five dollars per day. Well stated. But the same problem attaches itself to Rowbottom's story. Yes, the women in her memoir are oppressed; they're also fabulously, absurdly wealthy, with more options available to them than to just about anyone else in all of recorded history. A bit more stated awareness of this fact would have been welcome.
-Straight white men: Yikes! As a gay person, I have often been on the receiving end of a long, unsolicited mansplain-y monologue, and the obtuse person delivering it has, inevitably, been a straight white man. (I'm not naming names!) Some gay male readers tend to be drawn to female writers because (a) female writers just tend to be better and (b) there's an implied, shared worldview, something that grows out of having to hand-hold, and show compassion for, obtuse straight white men, over and over, throughout life. Which is not make a generalization about an entire subset of the human population. I just have noticed that some rather limited people in the world have come from the "straight white male" category.
Rowbottom is so articulate in her rage. I especially enjoyed her takedown of her uncle, Tom, whose friends have a sort of casual sex-abuse relationship with a little girl early in the memoir. Tom has little patience for his sister, a victim of rape, or something close to rape, and a child who is more or less constantly neglected by her rich, crazy parents. When that sister encounters adversity in her twenties, Tom becomes frustrated. So whiny, this girl! Why can't she be docile? Tom refers to her sister's "problems," rather than her sister's "logical response to trauma." Reader, are you a woman? Are you a gay man? You will know precisely what Rowbottom is talking about; you will recognize Tom right away.
-Tell your story. Rowbottom learns some things from her mother. One thing she learns is that, if you're born into the US and you are *not* a straight white man, you will be told, again and again, that gentle, tolerant, quiet, accepting behavior is the ideal, and it's expected from you. You're told this by Disney movies, by the body types of the people you see elected for the Presidency, by advertisements and the language that ad execs use. You're told this--even--by Jell-O: Rowbottom brilliantly dissects the subtext in varying Jell-O campaigns over several decades. "In youth, I loved two things: Tommy and dessert. Tommy left me, but thanks to new low-fat Jell-O, I've never had to say goodbye to my sweet-tooth cravings...." Rowbottom notes, of course, that serial rapist Bill Cosby was the spokesman for Jell-O for twenty-seven years. His role was to apply "gentle" pressure to bully women back into the kitchen: Make a mold, choose the sugar-free option, please your man. (Clearly, the smart reading of multiple "Jell-O" texts is the stand-out bizarre move in this memoir, and it's by far my favorite part of the story.)
There is a proper way to respond to the fucked-up world we live in, says Rowbottom--if we are women. The response: Tell your story. Live loudly and unapologetically. That's what the writer does via this memoir. It's genuinely inspiring.
-Not that other memoir. In these pages, recently, I wrote about my exasperation with "From the Corner of the Oval." I found that book tiresome because its author had little of interest to say about Obama, her employer, and because, at times, she seemed not to have given thought to why she was telling the stories she was telling. ("They fascinate me, so obviously they must fascinate you, as well, dear reader!")
"Jell-O Girls" does the opposite. Rowbottom was born to write a memoir. She seems to have ingested Mary Karr's wise advice: "A memoir starts with a wound, your wound. You look at it, and try to figure out why you are divided. That's where the story comes from." Or Raymond Carver: "Write what you know, and what in the world do you know as well as you know your own secrets?"
Rowbottom is so candid in discussing her own struggles. And she writes with a sense of advocacy: She is hoping that the reader, and specifically the female reader, will feel inspired to look at American history with the same skeptical intensity, and to tell stories with the same confidence and fuck-it-all brazenness. That message comes through clearly. I missed this when I was wading through the literary waters of Beck Dorey-Stein.
OK. That's all. Get ready for brainy theories about inherited trauma, psychogenic disorders, eating disorders, and American consumer culture. Your head will spin. And perhaps you'll feel impelled to pick up your own pen and write. (When the writer's mother is dying, she says to her daughter: "I love you. Go! Go!" Those two short commands aren't actually literal: They're the expression of a wish that Rowbottom will cover artistic and professional terrain that no one else has mapped, or even approached. Use your mind. Explore. Go. Go. Such a fitting, moving statement. Something you won't forget.)
-Should you read it? Yes. It's a triumph. I have some quibbles. The opening section is the weakest; it's where Rowbottom tries to inhabit the inner life of her (long-dead) grandmother. These passages feel false and overly generic, and it's unclear to me what is gained by trying to write about a real person in this hammy faux-novelistic way. There just isn't the right level of detail. I would have liked--better--a candid, short essay from Rowbottom: "I didn't know my grandmother, and I have bits and pieces via hearsay, and here is what I have tentatively inferred."
Also, a note on socioeconomic stuff. Rowbottom is correct to report on a big complaint about Betty Friedan; with "The Feminine Mystique," Friedan was writing for a very small (white, wealthy) section of the female population, and so it was hard to know what to do with her pity-for-the-rich if you were a single mother/prostitute making five dollars per day. Well stated. But the same problem attaches itself to Rowbottom's story. Yes, the women in her memoir are oppressed; they're also fabulously, absurdly wealthy, with more options available to them than to just about anyone else in all of recorded history. A bit more stated awareness of this fact would have been welcome.
-Straight white men: Yikes! As a gay person, I have often been on the receiving end of a long, unsolicited mansplain-y monologue, and the obtuse person delivering it has, inevitably, been a straight white man. (I'm not naming names!) Some gay male readers tend to be drawn to female writers because (a) female writers just tend to be better and (b) there's an implied, shared worldview, something that grows out of having to hand-hold, and show compassion for, obtuse straight white men, over and over, throughout life. Which is not make a generalization about an entire subset of the human population. I just have noticed that some rather limited people in the world have come from the "straight white male" category.
Rowbottom is so articulate in her rage. I especially enjoyed her takedown of her uncle, Tom, whose friends have a sort of casual sex-abuse relationship with a little girl early in the memoir. Tom has little patience for his sister, a victim of rape, or something close to rape, and a child who is more or less constantly neglected by her rich, crazy parents. When that sister encounters adversity in her twenties, Tom becomes frustrated. So whiny, this girl! Why can't she be docile? Tom refers to her sister's "problems," rather than her sister's "logical response to trauma." Reader, are you a woman? Are you a gay man? You will know precisely what Rowbottom is talking about; you will recognize Tom right away.
-Tell your story. Rowbottom learns some things from her mother. One thing she learns is that, if you're born into the US and you are *not* a straight white man, you will be told, again and again, that gentle, tolerant, quiet, accepting behavior is the ideal, and it's expected from you. You're told this by Disney movies, by the body types of the people you see elected for the Presidency, by advertisements and the language that ad execs use. You're told this--even--by Jell-O: Rowbottom brilliantly dissects the subtext in varying Jell-O campaigns over several decades. "In youth, I loved two things: Tommy and dessert. Tommy left me, but thanks to new low-fat Jell-O, I've never had to say goodbye to my sweet-tooth cravings...." Rowbottom notes, of course, that serial rapist Bill Cosby was the spokesman for Jell-O for twenty-seven years. His role was to apply "gentle" pressure to bully women back into the kitchen: Make a mold, choose the sugar-free option, please your man. (Clearly, the smart reading of multiple "Jell-O" texts is the stand-out bizarre move in this memoir, and it's by far my favorite part of the story.)
There is a proper way to respond to the fucked-up world we live in, says Rowbottom--if we are women. The response: Tell your story. Live loudly and unapologetically. That's what the writer does via this memoir. It's genuinely inspiring.
-Not that other memoir. In these pages, recently, I wrote about my exasperation with "From the Corner of the Oval." I found that book tiresome because its author had little of interest to say about Obama, her employer, and because, at times, she seemed not to have given thought to why she was telling the stories she was telling. ("They fascinate me, so obviously they must fascinate you, as well, dear reader!")
"Jell-O Girls" does the opposite. Rowbottom was born to write a memoir. She seems to have ingested Mary Karr's wise advice: "A memoir starts with a wound, your wound. You look at it, and try to figure out why you are divided. That's where the story comes from." Or Raymond Carver: "Write what you know, and what in the world do you know as well as you know your own secrets?"
Rowbottom is so candid in discussing her own struggles. And she writes with a sense of advocacy: She is hoping that the reader, and specifically the female reader, will feel inspired to look at American history with the same skeptical intensity, and to tell stories with the same confidence and fuck-it-all brazenness. That message comes through clearly. I missed this when I was wading through the literary waters of Beck Dorey-Stein.
OK. That's all. Get ready for brainy theories about inherited trauma, psychogenic disorders, eating disorders, and American consumer culture. Your head will spin. And perhaps you'll feel impelled to pick up your own pen and write. (When the writer's mother is dying, she says to her daughter: "I love you. Go! Go!" Those two short commands aren't actually literal: They're the expression of a wish that Rowbottom will cover artistic and professional terrain that no one else has mapped, or even approached. Use your mind. Explore. Go. Go. Such a fitting, moving statement. Something you won't forget.)
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