The Bad Guys, the Good Guys, and the Trained Mouse: Book Review of The Green Mile by Stephen King

 

The Green Mile by Stephen King
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A special thank you to my kind and thoughtful parents, who asked me what I wanted when my family was in Covid isolation and they complied with my request by buying me Stephen King’s The Green Mile. It was a pleasant and appreciated escape.

Block E belongs to Paul Edgecombe, partly because no one else wants it--it is death row, after all--and partly because he is a compassionate leader of the inmates. He has a good crew who he can trust and who follow the lead he models--except for Percy. Percy is the kind of guy who enjoys making himself feel bigger by making other people feel smaller, and he is happy to inflict himself on the condemned murderers.

Percy might have been of little consequence if other forces had not converged, among them the presence of John Coffey, a man convicted of heinous murders, and William “Wild Bill” Wharton, who considers himself a legendary outlaw. The more that Paul gets to know John, the less he believes that he could have been guilty of such a disgusting crime--and the more he gets to know Billy, the more he fears that even behind bars, he is a menace.

Most of the prisoners are decent human beings on the daily, and Paul treats them with respect both because he wants to keep them from causing trouble and also because he believes that all human beings should be treated respectfully or at least not abusively. Percy thinks differently, which riles Paul, but there is little he can do about it, because Percy is well-connected and not above threatening Paul and the rest with losing their jobs if they mess with him. Set in 1932, the Great Depression looms over the book and adds tension, as no one can afford to lose their jobs. It also explains why the electric chair is still being used, a practice that is now largely considered inhumane. The chair itself is like another malevolent character, lurking in the background: the murderer with the most kills.

When Paul and his crew decide that they must right an egregious wrong that Percy committed and they could not stop, they have to decide how far they are willing to go, what laws they are willing to break, and what they can do to try and get away with it.

The plot of the novel is interrupted by repetitious summaries at the beginning of each book, due to the fact that the book was first published serially, in chapbooks, and so the summaries helped both those who jumped in in the middle and those who went longer periods of time between reading each book. It was a little annoying and reminded me of that chapter in The Baby-Sitters Club books which only existed to explain the history of the club and how the business worked. After the hundredth book or so, it was a bit much.

Still, The Green Mile, named for the green floor that leads up to the electric chair, is an enchanting tale, told retrospectively by an elderly Paul. There is a trained mouse, a great supernatural healing force, and decent folk working against bad guys.

Would I teach this book? One of the elements that an instructor must consider before assigning a text is length. While I could assign any length I like, the longer the book, the less likely that students will read it cover to cover, and this is true from grade school all the way through graduate school. Length also tends to require more class time for discussion and analysis. So, if I am going to teach a longer book, I am going to choose one that is perfect for what I want to teach. I truly enjoyed The Green Mile, but I cannot think of an instance for which it would be perfect to teach. This is not a horror story, though the death penalty is terrifying, and nor is it quite magical realism, though King does his typical shifts with reality. Genre can be important in choosing a text, especially when a book defies the typical pitfalls of a genre. However, that is not The Green Mile. Would I recommend that someone read it? Yes. But would I teach it? I think not.

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Start Making Changes Towards a More Diverse, Equitable, and Inclusive Work Place: Book Review of Inclusion Revolution

 

Inclusion Revolution: The Essential Guide to Dismantling Racial Inequity in the Workplace by Daisy Auger-Dominguez
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Thank you to Basic Books and GoodReads Giveaways for the review copy of Inclusion Revolution: The Essential Guide to Dismantling Racial Inequity in the Workplace by Daisy Auger-Domínguez, which I received in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Inclusion Revolution is meant for businesses, aimed at management-level professionals who wish to make a difference in the long-lasting diversity of their workplace. As Auger-Domínguez argues, hiring a more diverse set of employees is not the final answer, as BIPOC (a currently used acronym which stands for “Black, Indigenous, and People of Color”) often feel alienated at work, do not receive the mentoring and coaching that they need, and are judged more harshly during performance reviews. All of these elements and more contribute to difficulties being promoted and lack of retention. It is not enough to change hiring practices if you are not serving your employees, because they will not have a voice in the company and they will not stay. Inclusion Revolution offers practical advice on how to begin the conversation about race and racial inequity, how to help employees be more open and honest, and how to begin to make changes that will make work a more inclusive place.

While Inclusion Revolution is written for managers and people who have power within a company, I found that the information was helpful for me to know, and that I could apply many of the suggestions to my own classroom. After all, being a teacher is a form of managing people. For example, Auger-Domínguez takes time to establish the importance of being honest and open with employees about criticism. It is not easy to deliver criticism, as we are often afraid of the other person’s response, of coming off as a jerk, or hurting their feelings. However, Auger-Domínguez argues that not telling someone is more harmful than it is kind. If a person is doing something that is damaging to their career, then they ought to know. I find that being straightforward with my students about their flaws can be difficult. A large part of my job is encouraging and motivating my students to do their work. I do not want to tell them when they are doing something that they should know better than to do. The problem is that often people do not know better, students included, or they are not self-aware enough to know that something is a problem. Giving someone this input can help them to make changes. Of course, the way that the criticism is addressed to the person is especially important, and I would approach a fifteen-year-old significantly differently than I would approach a thirty-year-old, but we all need feedback.

Often when I read popular non-fiction that is business related, I find myself thinking, Yes, that is a great idea, I would love to do that--but how? Auger-Domínguez does a lot of work to explain how to go about the process, gives examples of companies who have gone before, and provides researched evidence to back up her recommendations.

Another trap that I see business and self-help books fall into is pointing out the obvious, but helping us to consider it in a new way. In and of itself, this is not a trap. It is important to look at things differently, as this will help us look at the situation and what we can do about it differently. The trap occurs when the majority of the book is rethinking the obvious and not teaching anything new. Again, Auger-Domínguez does not do this, either. Her suggestions for setting up and changing systems are not “no duh” solutions.

Which brings us to, “Would I teach this book?” The answer is: parts of it. As an ELA (English Language Arts) instructor, I am not teaching business. I do teach some non-fiction, especially when I am teaching argumentation and research in composition classes, but I look for non-fiction that is not too far outside of my students’ experiences. Thinking about management is a bit past their imaginations. Even teaching in a traditional role in an actual college with college-aged students, it would be difficult for them to relate, especially since many have not held jobs, and those who have have not been in positions of power.

However, there are instances when it would make sense to teach excerpts from the book. As discussed earlier, there were several parts that could be easily transferred to teaching. If I were teaching an education class, I can see using those for teacher training or if I were presenting professional development to current instructors. In a class that I currently teach, Multicultural Literature, we discuss different life experiences from world and American cultures, and again, excerpts would be helpful in presenting how people can feel in the workplace. I can also envision a class on writing non-fiction in which portions of this book would be helpful to study, in part because of how they instruct and provide solutions.

I found Inclusion Revolution helpful and the prose style enjoyable to read. Auger-Domínguez is good at teaching without preaching and providing data and resources. I strongly recommend reading it, even for those who are not managers.

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Family Mythology: Book Review of Monica Ali's Love Marriage

 

Love Marriage by Monica Ali
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Thank you to Scribner and GoodReads Giveaways for the review copy of Monica Ali’s Love Marriage.

In Love Marriage, Yasmin, a young, British-Muslim doctor whose parents emigrated from India, is in the middle of her residency in a geriatric unit. If that's not enough, Yasmin is also engaged, living at home with her strict parents and her adult, out of work brother. Her fiancé, Joe, another young doctor, also lives with his mother. At the beginning of the book, Yasmine thinks that she understands her family and her fiancé, she even believes that she understands herself.

As Yasmin sees things, her mother spends her time caring for her family and her elderly neighbors, cooking, helping run errands, and accumulating other’s cast-off possessions from rummage sales. Her father is an austere doctor who challenges her with case studies to identify diagnoses. Her brother cannot seem to find a job and stays in his room when he is not staying with his girlfriend or wasting time on his hobby of making documentaries. Her fiancé is close to perfect, and his mother, Harriet, was a pioneering feminist and is still well-regarded. She wants to do right by her patients and everyone else. When the dinner where her parents will meet Harriet arrives, Yasmin is terrified that her parents will embarrass her in front of moneyed and sophisticated Harriet. She thinks that this is her biggest problem. 

She plans her life around her impending marriage as though moving out of the house will solve all her problems. But as Yasmin believes that she has everyone pinned down, one after another, those close to her, especially her family, fail to maintain her narrow understanding of them.

While Yasmin is clearly the center of the story, Harriet and Joe’s therapist also have chapters attached to them. Through Harriet, we see another view of Yasmin and her fiancé and another female experience. To Yasmin, Harriet's openness about her personal life is the antithesis of her own family.

Through her Joe’s therapist, we learn that he has a secret that he is afraid to tell Yasmin but which could have a large impact on their marriage. The therapist sees the fiancé as a textbook case, waiting and leading him to a psychological epiphany.

The book is very clear to point out Yasmin’s youth and naivete, and it seems, at times, to be too obvious. By the end of the novel I did not like her nearly as much as I liked her at the beginning. She is self-absorbed and unable to see how complicated and nuanced everyone else’s life is. Another character tells her that she has a “mean streak” and I cannot help but agree.

Would I teach Love Marriage? I can see teaching this novel as part of a contemporary literature class or perhaps reading it as part of a novel writing class. The plot is rather slow, as is true with many literary novels, but as Yasmin also learns, the characters have great depth. The discussions of family, sexual politics, Islamophobia, class, and work-life balance could spark some interesting discussions. However, I am not sure how much I would enjoy reading the book again. Although the characters are richly drawn, I do not really want to spend more time with them.

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The Great Gatsby Gets a Reboot: Book Review of The Midcoast by Adam White

 

The Midcoast by Adam White
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thank you to Random House Book Club and GoodReads Giveaways for the review copy of Adam White’s The Midcoast in exchange for a fair and honest review.

In The Midcoast, Adam White tells the story of a lobsterman and his wife’s economic and social rise in a small, Maine town. The narrator is a writer who has been stymied and has found his life engulfed by his family and teaching and coaching in a high school. Investigating the lives of Ed and Steph Thatch reignites his curiosity and inquiry.

Andrew and his young family move back to the town where he grew up and discover that the young man whose father owned the Thatch Lobster Pound and with whom he used to clean out bait sheds now is an up and coming local leader. His wife is the unofficial mayor, dedicated to preserving and updating the town. While Andrew grew up as the son of an orthopedic surgeon and attended an elite high school then college, he has slid a few rungs down the economic and social ladder in his current role as a teacher.

The book is framed by the lavish party thrown by the Thatches in honor of their daughter’s lacrosse team, which is interrupted by police presence. The rest of the book is an investigation into why the police were there and how Ed and Steph had risen against all odds.

In many ways The Midcoast is similar to The Great Gatsby. Like Nick Carraway, Andrew is our first-person narrator, though detached from much of the action, and he narrates situations from what others have told him, recreating scenes and events filled out from his own imagination. Like Gatsby, Ed has risen from nothing to a high roller, giving lavish parties and seeking to appease the woman he loves. The opulent wealth of the Thatches and their public displays mimic Gatsby’s. As in The Great Gatsby, The Midcoast questions the American Dream. Even Andrew’s simultaneous admiration and revulsion of Ed is similar to Nick's feelings for Gatsby.

Further, like Nick’s inability to see himself clearly, Andrew’s personal life hovers on the periphery of the novel, though there are suggestions that his wife is not entirely happy in their marriage and he is not so fulfilled in his job or family life. Suggestions, but no acknowledgement. In Ed and Steph, Andrew sees a dedication and romance absent from his own marriage.

Would I teach this book? I can see myself teaching this book either in a class about the American Dream in conjunction with The Great Gatsby or possibly in a first novels class, as this is White’s first novel. It is quite slow to start, and I found myself feeling a bit restless in the early chapters that describe Andrew’s youth and the beginning of Steph and Ed’s origin story. I started to wonder when it was going to get juicy. I also would have appreciated a bit more self-analysis--part of what makes The Great Gatsby a great novel is Nick and Nick’s unreliable moments, made clear by the glimpses we get from his own romantic life, including him declaring himself to be honest at the beginning of the book and by the end of the book loudly claiming that he had never thought himself to be honest. Andrew does not have the same kind of fascination for me as a reader, though the jealousy and fascination Andrew has for the Thatches could have been leveraged better to create another more personal narrative thread.

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Stephen King Gets Sweet: Book Review of Gwendy's Final Task

 

Gwendy's Final Task by Stephen King
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Thank you to Fort Vancouver Regional Library for making Gwendy’s Final Task free to read and convenient to borrow by bringing the bookmobile to my school every Friday.

Stephen King and Richard Chizmar’s book, Gwendy’s Final Task, is a sweet story about a politician trying to save the world. In order for Gwendy to preserve the fate of the entire earth, she must take the button box into space. As it turns out, her entire life has been leading up to the moment in which she must save humanity from the button box.

The book jacket tells me that there were previous books about Gwendy and the button box, but I have not yet read them. What I gather from this book is that the button box is a small, magical box that can release chocolate or coins but that the recipient always pays a price. While Gwendy first encountered the box as a child, it has become a bigger and bigger threat over time. Hence, why the box has been returned to her to be disposed of. And yes, Gwendy is headed for outer space.

A sweet story by Stephen King? For those who have read a few King books, this is not out of this world. Although King’s reputation is as a horror writer, he also tends to show heart in most of his books and a tendency to root for good and condemn evil. In King’s novels, there is a definitive line between good and evil, and evil is the ultimate loser. However, in the battle, good people tend to be victims of evil. In rooting for ultimate good and showing strong, well-intentioned characters like Gwendy, Gwendy’s Final Task is not unlike King’s other books. I am not familiar with Chizmar’s work and so I cannot offer a comparison.

Would I teach Gwendy’s Final Task? The book is entertaining, but the plot is a lot simpler than other of King’s novels. In imagining a context in which I might teach this book, such as a literature class on modern horror or a creative writing class on genre writing, there are other King books that would make better examples of the genre. Gwendy, while a fun character to cheer on, is not the most complex. Overall, it is a story that has good writing and technique but it is not amazing. When I choose texts to teach, I look for epic fails and epic wins, and Gwendy’s Final Task is neither of these.

While I did enjoy reading Gwendy’s Final Task, I do not think I would teach it.

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