Little Book Review: Just Mercy

Author: Bryan Stevenson.

Publication Date: 2014.

Genre: Nonfiction (memoir).

Premise: Stevenson, an attorney and activist since the mid-1980s, shares his experiences representing incarcerated clients, mainly doing post-conviction work. The main through-line is his work with Walter McMillian, an Alabaman man convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in a gross miscarriage of justice. Stevenson also takes several detours into other serious issues with the American criminal justice system–the incarceration of youth, the prevalence of solitary confinement, and the criminalization of miscarriages, among others–as well as his own experience as a black, first-generation law student and then attorney.

Thoughts: I’d been meaning to read Just Mercy for a while–it’s relevant to my work, and both book and author were extremely well-regarded at my law school–but I’d put it off, mostly because I saw the movie in 2020 and felt like I’d gotten the general idea. I had not gotten the general idea. The movie is a solid courtroom drama with some good performances; the book is an absolutely stellar work of nonfiction, on par with the ecological horror story And the Waters Turned to Blood.

I understand why the book was streamlined for a film adaptation, but you really lose a lot when you take out all the tangents and most of Stevenson’s background. These aspects both enrich the book as a whole (because you’re seeing the problems with the system from several different angles, illustrated by one or two individuals’ stories) and add tension to the main story. Because Stevenson is a lawyer, most of his conflicts involve filing motions and diplomatically negotiating bullshit from other lawyers. This may not sound like it’d have you on the edge of your seat, but I was there.

Hot Goodreads Take: One reviewer accuses Stevenson of having “complicit bias.” Don’t we all! My hot take is that I’m glad I finally figured out that it was Just (as in fair) Mercy, not Just (as in only) Mercy.

Little Book Review: Dietland

Author: Sarai Walker.

Publication Date: 2015.

Genre: General fiction.

Premise: Plum Kettle, ghostwriter for a teen magazine in NYC, is just waiting to have weight-loss surgery so her “real life” can begin. In the meantime, she’s meek and practically reclusive. Then a strange young woman points her to a group of unconventional women who encourage her to live her life a different way. At the same time, a shadowy organization, identified only as “Jennifer,” starts violently striking back at sexism in society.

Thoughts: When this novel is focused on Plum’s struggles as an unusually large woman in a fatphobic society and her journey to self-acceptance, it’s on pretty solid ground. Plum does little for her current self; her days consist of working a job she dislikes, eating tasteless food, secluding herself in her apartment, and ordering clothes for her future “thin self.” It’s exciting to follow her as she comes to accept that she deserves nice clothes, good food, recognition from others, and dreams now, no matter what size she is. Unfortunately, the novel has grander ambitions that it can’t fulfill. Its attempts to address sexism as a whole often come across as juvenile at best, and horribly offensive at worst.

Take, for example, Plum’s shifting attitude towards the advice column she ghostwrites for. At the beginning of the story, she’s offering empathetic, practical advice to a teen girl with an abusive home life. Towards the end, she answers another letter, from an eighteen-year-old woman who has graduated from college and is trying to decide between using her savings to go to Italy to study art or using them to pay for breast implants. Plum answers with a Sliding Doors-style reverie about what would happen in each scenario. If this young woman decides to study art in Italy, she’ll have many interesting experiences and grow as a person. If she gets breast implants, she’ll become a vapid party girl who eventually settles for a brief dental hygienist career, followed by an unfulfilling marriage to an old, unattractive, and eventually unfaithful dentist. I mean…I agree that it’s sad and infuriating that so many women feel pressured to change their appearances to the point of seeking painful, even potentially fatal surgery! I’m just not sure that “getting breast implants will automatically turn you into a bimbo and drain all meaning from your life” is actually a feminist message. I’ve read eerily similar passages from the POVs of fictional “nice guys” who are upset that their high school crush went to the prom with the quarterback instead of them. Whatever, someday Bryan will be a super-rich computer scientist with several model girlfriends and Ashley will be a dumpy mom driving her four kids around in a minivan while Jake (balding) works at his dad’s car dealership. Wait…is “Sk8r Boi” feminist?

And it gets worse! The organization known as “Jennifer” targets various men–rapists, porn moguls, etc.–but it also straight-up murders women. The most prominent victims are a porn actress (grotesquely portrayed as a CSA survivor who’s had so much on-camera sex that she had to get her vagina replaced) and the girlfriend of a Joe Francis type who publicly refuses to comply with Jennifer’s demands that she not sleep with him. You know how, during and shortly after wartime, people will sometimes publicly strip, beat, shave, and otherwise humiliate women who have slept with the enemy? You’ll be glad to know that this is actually feminist…as is Jack the Ripper. Muslims are broadly singled out as backwards misogynists who speak a “nonsense language” (for views that fundamentalist Christians also hold, but you don’t hear about them). I don’t know if Walker is a TERF; there’s a passage where Plum muses about her uterus, but a woman can have feelings about her uterus without it being a statement on all women or all uteri. However, the book is obviously SWERF-y, racist, and absolutely brutal to any woman who doesn’t toe the party line, so I don’t like those odds.

Hot Goodreads Take: “Hip-hop is singled out as the most misogynist genre,” points out one reader. I knew I forgot something!

Little Book Review: The Mirror and the Light

Author: Hilary Mantel.

Publication Date: 2020.

Genre: Historical fiction.

Premise: Thomas Cromwell, chief minister to Henry VIII, has once again given the king what he wants. Anne Boleyn is dead, Jane Seymour is queen, and the way is clear for Henry to father a legitimate male heir. Cromwell is more powerful than ever…and more imperiled. And also just kind of bummed out.

Thoughts: One of my favorite things about the first two books in Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy is the interactions between Cromwell, Henry VIII, and Anne Boleyn. Henry is, at that point, a golden boy. He’s Robert Redford in The Way We Were; he’s a jock and a poet. And he never, ever wants to be the bad guy. Neither Cromwell (a commoner) nor Boleyn (a woman) can afford to care about that kind of thing. He’ll do the king’s dirty work to further his own ambitions and get revenge for past wrongs, and she’ll fight and connive to be a politically involved queen, rather than an invisible mistress. They don’t like or trust each other, but they can relate.

I miss her, in all her acerbic glory. Mantel’s Cromwell must, too; at least, he must miss the lively challenges and possibilities that she created. In the face of the several difficulties of The Mirror and the Light–rebellion in the north, Lady Mary’s estrangement from her father, the ever-shifting status of Protestantism in England, Jane Seymour’s death and the search for a new bride, Reginald Pole’s treason, the sudden appearance of Cromwell’s out-of-wedlock daughter–Cromwell seems weary, even as he enjoys his growing power and becomes overconfident. He thinks more of his distant past, ruminating over the Lollard execution he witnessed as a child and other distressing events. He learns that Cardinal Wolsey (his late master, whom he made considerable efforts to avenge) might have felt betrayed by him. Even his easy-going son Gregory reveals some long-suppressed resentment; Cromwell has been an affectionate and proud father, but that sometimes translates to being overbearing. His dampened mood and diffuse concerns make for a slower, less energetic novel–it took me more than two months to read–but it’s still very rewarding, especially when you get the payoff of his sudden fall and execution.

Hot Goodreads Take: “Did not finish. These people were too conniving for me,” states one reader, not unreasonably. They’re pretty conniving!