Shrill by Lindy West

Quick, name a few role models you had growing up that you could both relate to, and see your self growing into their role. Now think about those role models, are they people you want to emulate? Are they people you can emulate? Are they reasonable? If not, can you (again quickly) think of more people closer to your self that look and have lives similar to yours? If not, welcome to Lindy West's world.

Shrill, Notes From a Loud Woman is a collection of essays that tell the story of journalist Lindy West's upbringing as a "big boned" kid who chose the worlds of fantasy over the real. Who did a presentation about her love for TV, specifically comedy, to the disappointment of a favorite teacher, who stood up for herself by claiming who she was, and who starting speaking up for those who might not be ready to stand up for themselves.

Funny and powerful, reading Shrill will both make you laugh and think. West is a writer and without knowing it you may have read her work for other sites. Recommended for readers who miss The Toast, check out Jezebel on occasion, and just want to read about someone who has stopped apologizing for who she is. 

Check out Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman @ the library!

After Visiting Friends by Michael Hainey

In 1970, Chicago newspaperman Robert Hainey died suddenly in the early hours of the morning. He was thirty-five and left behind a wife and two young sons, one of whom was Michael Hainey, then six years old.  Michael’s mother, Barbara, never discussed the death with her sons and curtly cut off all questions. This only heightened Michael’s need to know. When he was older, he found his father’s obituaries in library archives. He read that his father died on a Chicago street far from both his home and his workplace. The phrase “after visiting friends” was used, although the family had no friends in that area of Chicago. The desire to know the facts remained with Michael into adulthood. He became a journalist and eventually used his training to investigate the circumstances of his father’s death. His father’s co-workers claimed to be unable to tell him anything. But that was an answer he was unwilling to accept. He worked for years, searching out old medical records and finding long-ago acquaintances of his father’s until he arrived at the difficult truth. But he considered truth, as difficult as it was, better than ignorance or misinformation. In After Visiting Friends, the author has written a memoir about the difficulty of growing up fatherless in 1970’s Chicago, a time and place when there were no grievance counselors and stoic silence was considered a virtue.

Check out After Visiting Friends @ the library!