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A review by jennifer
The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion by Meghan Daum
5.0
Despite living in Los Angeles for at least three of the years during which Daum wrote a weekly column in the LA Times, I only came across her last year through a book she edited, Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids. While she wrote the introduction to that book, I didn't really read anything by her until Difference Maker, which (I think) appeared in the New Yorker last year. It's about her experience as an advocate in the foster care system and I cried, undoubtedly because the writing was good but also because my own niece arrived with my sister and her wife through the foster care system. When I bought a copy of The Unspeakable on a whim a couple weekends ago, I didn't realize Difference Maker was one of the essays in the collection until I came across it mid-way and declined to read it again because, you know, feelings. Luckily skipping one of the essays was easy because the other nine are so good, notably the opener, Matricide, which is exactly the way to open a book of essays.
Disclaimer: I'm not going to win any bonus points for widening my point of view by reading Meghan Daum. From what she discloses in the book we appear to be of essentially the same demographic, and the more I read the more I harbored the fantasy that we are essentially the same person, barring little facts like she's a successful writer who was mentored by Nora Ephron. But we were both born in the bay area of California at roughly the same time, both grew up on the east coast, both chose not to have kids, and both live (lived in my case) in Los Angeles as adults. While not wishing to diminish the tremendous skill it takes to make one's writing relatable, all I am saying is that there are touch points that probably make me relate to Meghan Daum's writing more than others might. For instance, I recognized myself in her hilarious essay Honorary Dyke, which made me feel very validated about the fact that I admired and emulated Ellen DeGeneres' style way before she came out on her very first television show in the 1990s.
Let's pause a moment so I can tell you about a riff in Honoray Dyke in which Daum imagines a Title Nine (you know, the women's sports apparel catalog) model rescuing Paris Hilton from Everest, which is the best piece of humor writing I've read all year. The passage ends with the model "flinging a Jeanette Winterson book at her and telling her not come back until she's manned up enough to qualify as a woman." I'm not going to quote the rest so you'll be forced to read the book.
Anyway, after being charmed to find that Daum apparently likes Winterson, too, I began to be slightly disheartened in subsequent essays to find that we are not in fact the same person, a truth that became obvious to me as she professed a love of Joni Mitchell and dogs that surpasses my mere gentle appreciation of the same subjects. Then she dealt the death blow with an essay On Not Being A Foodie and I wasn't sure we could even be friends anymore.
Luckily the writing kept me going long enough to laugh at an LA story about playing charades at Nora Ephron's house. Larry David is trying to act out Days of Thunder only he doesn't know what it is, which is made all the more awkward by Nicole Kidman's presence in the room. I liked this essay even though Daum was being pretty in my face about the fact that we are not the same person since she gets invited to parties at Nora Ephron's house. Daum ends on a high note with an essay called Diary of a Coma in which she describes her experience with a freak illness. Although I've never been in a coma, she resonated with my own experience of being diagnosed with a chronic illness and the reality that such experiences don't always come with epiphanies, redemption and lessons learned. In other words, by the end of the book Meghan Daum and I were still friends.
Disclaimer: I'm not going to win any bonus points for widening my point of view by reading Meghan Daum. From what she discloses in the book we appear to be of essentially the same demographic, and the more I read the more I harbored the fantasy that we are essentially the same person, barring little facts like she's a successful writer who was mentored by Nora Ephron. But we were both born in the bay area of California at roughly the same time, both grew up on the east coast, both chose not to have kids, and both live (lived in my case) in Los Angeles as adults. While not wishing to diminish the tremendous skill it takes to make one's writing relatable, all I am saying is that there are touch points that probably make me relate to Meghan Daum's writing more than others might. For instance, I recognized myself in her hilarious essay Honorary Dyke, which made me feel very validated about the fact that I admired and emulated Ellen DeGeneres' style way before she came out on her very first television show in the 1990s.
Let's pause a moment so I can tell you about a riff in Honoray Dyke in which Daum imagines a Title Nine (you know, the women's sports apparel catalog) model rescuing Paris Hilton from Everest, which is the best piece of humor writing I've read all year. The passage ends with the model "flinging a Jeanette Winterson book at her and telling her not come back until she's manned up enough to qualify as a woman." I'm not going to quote the rest so you'll be forced to read the book.
Anyway, after being charmed to find that Daum apparently likes Winterson, too, I began to be slightly disheartened in subsequent essays to find that we are not in fact the same person, a truth that became obvious to me as she professed a love of Joni Mitchell and dogs that surpasses my mere gentle appreciation of the same subjects. Then she dealt the death blow with an essay On Not Being A Foodie and I wasn't sure we could even be friends anymore.
Luckily the writing kept me going long enough to laugh at an LA story about playing charades at Nora Ephron's house. Larry David is trying to act out Days of Thunder only he doesn't know what it is, which is made all the more awkward by Nicole Kidman's presence in the room. I liked this essay even though Daum was being pretty in my face about the fact that we are not the same person since she gets invited to parties at Nora Ephron's house. Daum ends on a high note with an essay called Diary of a Coma in which she describes her experience with a freak illness. Although I've never been in a coma, she resonated with my own experience of being diagnosed with a chronic illness and the reality that such experiences don't always come with epiphanies, redemption and lessons learned. In other words, by the end of the book Meghan Daum and I were still friends.