Best Year of My Life?

Sooo... I hope I am wrong and it is not near October yet but is seems like this might be the best year yet.  I would like to think there is better ahead but...

We are about to celebrate the first birthday of Julia.  Julia has been a nightmare of fun.  I know I have repeated this to my friends throughout the year but I am kind of a negative person.  I tend to lower expectations for what is coming up and I often am pleasantly surprised.  I think this first grandchild is the only thing in my life that I expected to be great, and it is so much better.  Everyone told me that it was the greatest having a grandchild.  You can love them and then send them home.  You can spoil them with impunity.  They are not your responsibility, you just have to love them.  While there is truth to all that it is so much better.  The only way I can explain it is that whenever I see her, or see pictures of her, or talk about her, it just releases all these good brain chemicals.  I don't know it is dopamine or what, I really do not know how the brain works but it has really changed my brain chemistry I think.  I don't know if it is lasting but it something....

My stomach went south about 10 years ago.  Stress, bad diet, lots of alcohol and stress, did I mention stress.  Some things happened professionally that got on top of me.  I lost like 40 pounds over 6 months and people kept saying, "are you ok"?  I would go to see doctors (3 GI docs) and was diagnosed with:
Ulcerative Colitis
IBS
Celiac (total misdiagnosis)
I was gluten free for two years (no beer) before my last doc finally opened up that they have no idea what is wrong with me but I have a screwed up gut and he advised that I watch hat I eat and watch how I feel and adjust diet and lifestyle accordingly.  I held my own for the last several years but could not gain weight (I was not absorbing)... for years.  Made my wife crazy because I would eat whatever I wanted and never gain weight, and I did.  The course of events did allow me to get a lot of processed foods out of diet (still not perfect) but as I said, I was holding my own.  Recently, along with feeling better work/life/stress balance I was sold on a new set of supplements by Megan Kukla and and my wife called "Plexus".  I cannot credit my wight gain or vernal health solely to them but, I have put on between 20 and 30 pounds.  I am now having to consider what I am eating.  It will create other problems but... it is a welcome change.

I have been exercising semi regularly for a year.  Planet fitness.  No judgment.  I show up when i want.  Sit ups, lunges, treadmill, rowing, some weights...whatever.  Nothing big but something and it releases good brain chemicals too.  I am hoping to do more.

Morning devotional.  This little blurb is really prompted by the one year anniversary of me reading a morning devotional each morning (most mornings) for the last year.  I evidently did it for 222 days of the last year.  I know that because along with the devotional I read one verse of the Bible every morning.  The devotional is a great one called "Seize the Day" written by Charles Ringma and based on the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  I cannot recommend it enough.  It takes maybe 3-4 minutes and then with a verse of the bible another 5-10 (tops).  I am only impressed because i don't think I have ever done anything for a year other than wake up.  222 verses of the Bible takes you solidly into Judges and like I said, i was feeling real proud until I realized the Bible has over 30,000 verses so at this pace I will finish when I am 156 or so.  I will see if I can step it up but I do think setting aside anytime during the day to be thoughtful, especially about God's roll in your life, can be a positive thing and I think it has been for me.

I have been failing to become a judge for the last 3 years (a little longer actually).  It is a process and it is political and I have never failed at something so totally.  That having been said a former Chief Judge gave me some counsel and a new direction and I have thrown myself back into the process and oddly, it feels pretty good.  I still don't know if I can make it but I have realized that I have made a lot of new friends from this process and new relationships that will continue to make my life better.

My law practice ambles along.  I am trying to morph it away from what I have been doing the last 8-9 years.  I recently completed mediation training and am also a receiver on a formerly large mortgage company.  I think I need to focus my practice on mediation and management and liquidation of assets in family disputes caused by poor estate planning and divorce.  Exciting shit, huh?  Anyway, it is a change and it is the stuff I am good at that does not take the mental toll of shepherding individuals through their financial nightmares.  We will see.  There is another financial downturn coming in the next 18-24 months.  You can only "stimulate" so long before a recovery loses steam and although slow... we are looking at a 10 year recovery and history has a heavy voice in predicting the future.  I could not be less excited even though I am counter cyclical.

My kids are all doing well, at least to my eyes.  This is likely the greatest piece of luck a 56 year old father of three can have.  And believe me, it is luck and it could all go south in a minute so I am trying to drink it in...gulp it in, while it is good and hope I am strong enough for what the future holds. How will I deal with their loss and their disappointment?  Poorly would be my guess but who knows.

Sandy and I are as always working on our marriage.  It is good.  We are lucky.  It is a lot of paying attention but between, hiking, music, gran parenting and of course eating and church, there seems to be more common ground than ever.

Church.... we are still at The Gathering and it continues to feed us and give us a place to serve.  The Church continues to grow and the new Mc Causland site is about to open and that is pretty cool.  We have stopped doing Junior High (Student) ministry on Sunday mornings so we have more time to worship on different places and that is nice.  It is still intriguing to see where it goes. We do miss liturgical worship and I am hoping we can perhaps spend one Sunday a month at Trinity Soulard.  A cool church with a cool ministry and a new pastor.  Could be a good mix.

Watching my mom age is hard.  We celebrated 90 years.  She is ready to go but we are not ready to let her.  She still gets around and takes care of herself and even drives but she is tired and it hurts and it is hard to watch her hurt.  I will be a wreck when God takes her home but I know she is ready for a time without pain.  So that part sucks.  No one ever prepares you to watch your parents age.  I guess they can't. Anyway...

So, it is a year.  I turn 57 in October.  I gotta keep myself from gaining too much weight because that makes aging even harder.  Maybe I drink less.  Who knows?

All of the above remains possible because all the nice people in my life who listen to me, tolerate me, humor me, correct me, shame me with their good intentions and actions and keep me moving forward... always forward.

Incompetents, Zealots and Criminals (Lawyers, Guns and Money)

Before I begin my rant I want to put forth two things:

1.    President Trump was legitimately elected by our electoral process.

2.    President Trump in no way has been shown to have colluded with the Russians.
      (To influence the 2016 Presidential Election)

That being said, were you to send a gunman with an AR-15 through an unguarded White House you would have difficult time doing more damage than has already been done to the President's, staff, Cabinet, trusted advisors and campaign staff.  25 bodies that have been fired, resigned or indicted.  Think of what FOX News and Breitbart and MSNBC and CNN would have done to the Obama administration with similar carnage.  Evidence that an inexperienced “Community Organizer” could not possibly manage a White House much less a country.  So many average appointees and yet however bad, I thought they were, they have been worse and a lot of them have been fired or resigned under Twitter fire from the man who empowered them.

But with the Big Orange Man… we are numb.

So my question, for all of you, is…

WHEN DO YOU BEGIN TO HOLD A MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR THE KIND AND CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE HE HAS SURROUNDED HIMSELF WITH AND RELIES ON AND TRUSTS?

WHEN?

WHEN DOES THE BUCK STOP THERE?

As a boss I have always been responsible for the people I hired.  My clients held me responsible. My partners held me responsible.  My bank account held me responsible.  For years I have lectured High School kids that if you show me your friends I can tell what kind of person they are.  That gets truer as you get older, or it should.

But as long as our president is angry.  As long as he “says what is on his mind”, he is bullet proof to criticism of the literal madness that has affected his White House.  This same ⅓ of the country that will not leave his side would have impeached our immediate Ex President as a matter of national security if he had hired and fired such an array of incompetents, zealots and criminals.  HW would not have faired a great deal better… and Bill Clinton (or God forbid HILLARY!...) forget about it.

For your consideration:

April 10, 2018 Tom Bossert, President's Chief Adviser on Homeland Security:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-homeland-security-adviser-resigns-amid-continued-turnover-in-trump-administration/2018/04/10/15db518a-3ccb-11e8-a7d1-e4efec6389f0_story.html?utm_term=.1efc408f546e
March 27, 2018:  David Shulkin.  VA Director he inherited from Obama. Replaced with Trumps personal Doctor.  What could go wrong? See below from when I originally wrote this.  Took a month and a half.

March 22, 2018:  HR Mc Master National Security Officer.  Replaced by the rabid John Bolton.

March 16, 2018:  Andrew Mc Cabe.  Set to retire in 48 hours.  Hardly counts.

March 13 2018: President Donald Trump's longtime personal aide John McEntee was fired because he is currently under investigation by the Department of Homeland Security for serious financial crimes, a source familiar with his firing told CNN.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/13/politics/john-mcentee-white-house-security-clearance/index.html?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email

March 13 2018: Rex Tillerson.... I have no words.  The last grown up officially left the building.  I believe he was Secretary of State.  No big deal.I am sure the President would tell he was "not very involved".

March 7 2018:  Gary Cohn.  Cohn, a classic Democrat gone bad was a former Goldman Sachs banker who was all on board for the making the rich, richer tax cut which proved to be the only legislative success of the Trump first term.  Still, he was a free trade guy and he lost the battle when the President announced tariffs and then refused to back down.  Another one bites the dust as he announced his resignation yesterday and markets opened today down 150 points.  Not earth shaking.  It will be interesting to see if the Republican old school, free tradists will do anything to stop the Tariffs and also interesting to see if they are right about their disastrous effects.

NPR Weighed in with this summary of Trumps departure schedule:  https://www.npr.org/2018/03/07/591372397/white-house-staff-turnover-was-already-record-setting-then-more-advisers-left


2-28-18  Hope Hicks!?  This one is surprising and has to be difficult for the President who clearly relied on her and trusted her.  She appears to be a very talented person but has all the problems that any 28 year old person sitting in the most powerful circles in the world might get.  It is my hope that when her parents found out she was dating alleged wife abuser Rob Porter that they said, "YOU COME HOME RIGHT NOW YOUNG LADY!"  Good for her to get out but she was almost the enabler in chief.

2-28-18  Josh Raffel.  https://www.axios.com/scoop-josh-raffel-leaving-white-house-1519758344-420c51f4-093a-4457-afce-595c50236061.html
He was Communications director for The Office of American Innovation in the White House and ended up being a Jared and Ivanka confidant and champion.  Interestingly he was formerly a Democrat but everyone seemed to like him.  This does not seem to have to do with anything related to our President although EVERYTHING relates to our President.  Jared just lost his security clearance today and now he has lost an ally in the Royal Court.

2-22-18   UPDATE! I don't know what choice I am going to have other than to
update. Robert Weaver, Mr. Trump’s former nominee to lead the Indian Health Service, alleges that he was forced by an official in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services “to decide to withdraw or to face the public humiliation of having the White House withdraw my nomination.” I would suspect there will be 10 more bodies this year!

2-15-18    George David Banks, “Senior White House Official:  Resigned because marijuana use didn't allow him to get a security clearance.  

2-10-18            David Shulkin, VA Director (Has not yet resigned or been fired)  takes his wife to

England (the VA does a lot of business there) and There are memos which clarify that his staff invented an “honor” so that agency Would pay for his wife.  According to the Wall Street Journal, “Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin improperly accepted a gift of Wimbledon tennis tickets, misspent taxpayer money and misused department resources in an official trip to Europe last year, according to an inspector general’s report released Wednesday.”  

2-10-18    David Sorenson, White House Speech Writer:   Resigns after allegations of
                 spousal abuse allegations.

2-7-18        Rob Porter Resigns. Staff Secretary (or was fired, the story changes every day)
                 over spousal abuse allegations.

1-20-18            Omarosa Manigault Newman,White House Office Of Public Liaison:  Who knows

why she was fired/resigned. Manigault Newman reportedly drew scrutiny from White House chief of staff John Kelly. She also came under fire for bringing her 39-person bridal party to the White House for a photoshoot in 2017. She is now back on reality TV discussing her time in the White House and How she was “ganged up on” and discussing how God talks to the Vice President.

9-29-17    Tom Price, Health and Human Services Secretary: The movie came after Price 
                 received major criticism following reports of his use of private planes.

8-25-17           Sebastian Gorka, Deputy Assistant to Trump.  According to Fox News, “White

House officials told Fox News that Gorka did not resign but confirmed that he “no longer works” with the administration. However, Gorka insisted to the Washington Examiner that he did actually resign.

8-18-17           Steve Bannon, White House “Chief Strategist”:  I am not going to talk about him

but his fall from grace was spectacular.  In every way a classic Trump appointment and departure.

7-31-17           Anthony Scaramucci, White House Communications Director:  Once again, a

Classic Trump appointee on July 21st was murdered by his own troops 10 days later after an inexcusably arrogant interview he gave “off the record he thought”.

7-28-17           Reince Priebus, White House Chief of Staff:  Thought he could ride the whirlwind.

Not a bad guy it seemed and it had to be a relief to leave. He made his own bed

by dealing with the devil.

7-25-17           Michael Short, Assistant Press Secretary:  Quit when the Mooch was hired and

made clear he intended to fire him.  I don't know anything about him.

7-21-17           Sean Spicer, White House Press Secretary.  Has a nice man ever been so

overwhelmed by a job, ever in his life.  I cant even make fun of him.  He assumed that the old rules regarding how a President should act, still met something and he was embarrassed every day.  He had to go.  Now we have Sarah Huckabee Sanders who is awesome at resolutely justifying every contradictory statement of our commander in chief.

7-6-17              Walter Schaub, Director of Ethics:  Surprisingly resigned.  Surprisingly clashed

with the President over...everything?

5-17-17           Michael Dubke, White House Director of Communications:  Personal reasons.

3-30-17           Katie Walsh, Deputy Chief of Staff:  Quit when healthcare repeal failed.

2-13-17            Michael Flynn, National Security Adviser:  He could not tell the truth regarding his

business dealings and his meetings with foreign officials.  He has now pled guilty to a felony.

It might be unfair to put Schaub on this least.  He was really just a holdover from previous administration who he consistently fought with also.  I didn't name the following holdovers who are no longer serving but it is impressive:

James Comey, FBI Director:  Fired

Sally Yates, Assistant Attorney general, Fired

Preet Bharara:  Manhattan Federal Prosecutor, Fired

Richard Cordray: Consumer Finance, Quit to run for Governor

Andrew Mccabe: Number 2 at Justice, TERMINAL LEAVE

The list does not include his campaign team members:

Paul Manafort:       Indicted

Rick Gates:            Indicted and as of 2/19/18 apparently will be copping a plea to
                           Testify against Manafort.

George Papadopoulos:    Indicted

Carter Page:                     Mentally Ill?

We have a lot to answer for with what we are tolerating from this man.  Seriously, please, consider this.  Other than the Obama holdovers he has surrounded himself with 18 people in his campaign, his cabinet 18 people who he has either fired, or resigned or have just abused their office and embarrassed themselves and our country.  This does not take into account Jeff Sessions who he is always about to replace and Rex Tillerson who has been undercut so many times that he is totally ineffective and incredible as a representative of the US, calling the President “a moron”.  All of his cabinet appointees have been specifically appointed to dismantle and decapitate their particular branches.  I will not rail against this, he ran on being a disruptor and these people will certainly make their branches smaller, less effective and generally non existent in our lives and it will take a lot to revive them but that is not the point.

The point is this.  We have elected a President (legitimately and without collusion) who does not hold himself accountable for anything.  Everything is someone else's fault.  He cannot help “the mess” of a country he was left with (or the 8 year economic recovery he inherited). But we are all accountable or the people we hire, for the people we surround ourselves with.  We have never had a President who exhibited such dramatically poor judgment in who he relied on, ever.  Look at this list.  Internalize it.  There will be more.  Think about it.  Pray about it.  We are in trouble with this lack of leadership and we are careening dramatically off course.  I don't have an answer, I am NOT calling for his impeachment but I am calling for all of us, to hold this man accountable for his actions.

Book Review: Vacation

Soooo… we went on a cruise.  There was a lot of music but also a lot of time between flying there… waiting to board…hanging out in the room and reading before bed.  Lots of time to read.  I finished a 2016/2017 book “The Underground Railroad” which deserves its own review but I had also picked up for the trip a book appropriately called “Vacation” by a woman named Deb Olin Unferth.  The book had been recommended by a podcaster I follow who does the “Welcome To Nightvale” and “I Only Listen To The Mountain Goats” podcasts and he said he picked up  this book a couple of years ago after he moved to New York and he thought he could write.  Then he read the book and realized, “Oh… I can't write at all and I have a lot of work to do.”  I thought, that as very high praise and ordered it immediately and I was not disappointed.

The book takes place at various points in NYC, Syracuse NY, Coney Island NY, Panama and various sad, SAD places in Nicaragua.  It involves two (at least) shitty marriages and more than a handful of deeply and profoundly damaged, mundane, confused, vaguely interesting characters.  It also has a guy who untrains dolphins.  Untrains is not a word.  Good for Deb.

The concept of the book is unremarkable.  Two somewhat damaged people find each other and get married.  He thinks he has hit jackpot and she is just looking for something and hoping it is him.  It turns out not to be him.  She discovers (or thinks she discovers) something about his past (relating to his cartoonish head) and sees it as betrayal and goes off the rails with her own abhorrent behavior.  He doesn’t know what happened but discovers it, and ultimately leaves her to find an old college chum (who his wife might have been following around for 4 plus months). The chum is supposed to be in Syracuse (but is not) and then he follows him to Nicaragua (where he isn’t) and loses his job trying to get to the beautiful… Corn Island.

There is another character… the daughter of the untrainer.  Searching for her father...

The story is beautifully, cleverly written.  Occasionally it verges into the dreaded “look mom no hands” cleverness with language that only comes from people who have spent too much time in writers workshops but there are some brilliant lines, brilliant dialogue and some pretty deep introspection on life, relationships and the treadmill we are all secretly just barely able to teeter forward on each day and know falling, and not breaking our neck or a list a wrist… until we do.  It was a GREAT vacation book and I will now go see what else she has written and try and consume that as well.  I think, there is a possibility she might be a great writer.  It is also an easy read at around 200 pages and that is hard to beat when on Vacation.

Spoiler Alert! It does not necesarily end with sunshine and roses.

Soooo… it has been a long time since I have written anything.  There are a number of reasons…

1. Travelling a lot:

A. Solano Beach California

B. Whitefish Montana

C. Minneapolis MN

D. Mountain View Arkansas

E. Arcadia Michigan

F. North Padre Island/Corpus Christi

2. Working a lot.  A good economy is bad for those of us in the countercyclical world and this damn 9 year recovery that Donald Trump brought us (yes, he was working on it long before elected) has made making a living a little more challenging.

3. Still hoping to perhaps be a judge and writing about politics is career limiting in that regard.

4. I have been reading a lot, “Turtles All The Way Down” by Jonathan Green, “Mrs. Fletcher” bt Tom Perotta and several others I am not recalling on this Saturday afternoon.

That means that I have a lot bottled up inside me that I would like to vomit out regarding national politics, sexual harassment/abuse, national politics, international politics, the NFL, race in America and lot of other things and the good news is that you don't have to hear about it.  Instead this little bit of emptying myself out will be devoted to becoming a grandpa at 56.

This is seriously just such a nice thing.  My son and his lovely wife Lydia presented the world with a little girl named Julia this fall...during the eclipse.  I immediately bragged tomy friends that even the sun had to hide because Julia was so beautiful.  It was an awesome day and other than a little scare sending her to the hospital with a fever, it has been better and better everyday.  We are really lucky because she is living here and Sandy now gets to watch her 3 days a week since Lydia is back to work and it is just so awesome it is embarrassing.  

This is the first thing in my life that I was expecting to be awesome and it is so much better than I expected it to be.  I mean I am the perpetual glass is ½ empty guy.  I expect things to be bad and than I am pleasantly surprised, over and over again when they are better than expected.  I know I am lucky but I prepare for the worst and expect it and then sometimes it does not disappoint.

But this… I was really thinking that this was going to be great.  I have always thought that being a grandparent would be the low hanging fruit of happiness.  I really loved being an uncle because that seemed like a good job but being a grandparent, I expected so much because this was going to be MY grandchild.  Now it is embarrassing because I do not remember being so excited about my own kids.  That was too stressful. They were my responsibility and it seemed like there were so many ways to screw them up.  SO MUCH RESPONSIBILITY!  Who needed that?  It was hard enough just to pay attention and jump through the hoops, much less actually enjoy them.  But this…

This is coming at such a nice time in life.  I feel so lucky that we started having children so relatively young that I can just kind of soak this up.  There are problems...one of them is that I (and to a lesser extent Sandy) are basically acting like this is our achievement, our accomplishment… and of course, we have nothing to do with it… and that is a fact.  The second one might be that we are forcing ourselves on Jon and Lyd a lot because we love to see her.  I think sometimes it might be too much and...I would prefer not to miss this up if possible.

In any case it slams home the blessings of family.  I am so lucky, we are so lucky so when I am looking at this year, right now it seems pretty certain to be the best one of my life.  All because of this little girl who is just learning to roll over and likely does not even recognize me. And the nice thing about it is even though I know she will have ups and downs and all the problems that the world has to offer that it is still likely to get better and better.  And who knows, maybe there are even better things to come. Not a bad attitude for a glass half full guy and a great way to look forward to 2018.  For all my friends I wish you the same experience

Richard Russo: Trajectory

Soooo… I am not the hugest fan of collections of short stories.  There was a time I enjoyed them.  I used to read those Best Short Stories compilations.  Somehow I got over it.  I like the longer narrative.  I read the occasional short story in the New Yorker but it seems like every other one is written by some hot new Asian writer.  I don't know.  There are some good ones but I just kind of got out of the habit. I am not sure it is so different even when a writer I like comes out with a collection but… Richard Russo… definitely one of my faves… when he writes… I read.

He has a new collection.  “Trajectory”.  It is… great.  Four pieces and maybe I like them because they are a little longer than your usual short story.  All the stories involve people at “difficult” times in their lives.  Three of them are about men who are perhaps past their prime but...still alive.  Still coping.

Desperate people.  Funny people.  Broken people.  My people.

“Horsemen” tells the story of a female english professor dealing with her past, her impaired son, her caretaker husband and memories of an old laureate genius who told her her writing was perfect but, didn't have it when she was a grad student.  She experiences all in the context of discovering an entitled student plagiarizing his final paper.  So much texture here in 38 pages.

The next story, “Voice” follows a man on a group trip to Venice for Biennale.  I had never heard of Biennale before but I was reading this in europe while it was going on.

http://www.labiennale.org/en/Home.html

It is clearly too sophisticated for my understanding but serves as a nice backdrop for a tour with his brother with whom he is estranged, running from (or at least hiding from) a humiliation at his university where he is one of the leading scholars on… wait for it...Jane Austen.  Just a lost, lonely man with a problem in his family in Venice.

“Intervention” tells the story of a New England realtor trying to sell houses in a declining market and stuck with his sister's house, which is full of her life accumulations.  He has a brother too and memories of a father who was a saver and a brother who is a deal guy. Closure comes hard.

The book finishes with a beautiful little story of “Milton and Marcus”.  It is the story of an author and screenwriter who travels to Colorado to “take a meeting” on a little treatment he did years before for good friend.  The actor who wants it is all Hollywood and he is whoring himself out for health insurance for his ailing wife back home… and running out of time.  Beautiful.

The thing about Russo is he just is...evocative.  He is not the guy who wrote “Mohawk”.  His is not the kid who wrote “Ransum”.  He is a man who understands ageing and understands the pain and beauty of life and writes what he knows.  I strongly recommend this one.

Universal Harvest: John Darnielle

Soooo….John Darnielle… lead guitarist, songwriter, singer, leader of “The Mountain Goats” who also aspires as an author.  His first novel “The Wolf In The White Van” was nominated for the National Book Award and was in a lot of ways a great little book.  That is one of the nicest things I can say about an author, that they write “little” books.  There is tendency especially after the first novel to, for lack of a better term bloviate, following their success, believing (apparently) that they have so much more to share.  Kudos to Darnielle for not getting to impressed with himself.

That being said it is a difficult book.  Set primarily in Iowa.  It explores families and according to Darnielle in particular mothers. It is fitting to be banking out a review of it on Mother’s Day but it is part of Darnielle’s somewhat dark take on the world that it is difficult to view this as a “homage”.  We have mothers who have disappeared and mothers who have apparently died. Families seem to come unmoored, at best, when bereft of even a mentally ill mother.

It all kind of starts around a spooky premise of a guy working at a video store who starts to get reports that “there is something weird” on this tape.  The story is set in the 80’s primarily and it is heartening to the baby boomer in me to have such detailed discussions of VCR’s and small video rental stores which used to be a hallmark of the suburbs and small towns and he name checks a lot of movies as he sets the stage.  The “something” tends to be someone recording over a portion of the video for some vaguely described yet very disturbing “vignettes”.  Implied violence...perhaps even torture but certainly troubling images that disturb people's days, nights, sleep and for some, their lives, which is the case of the video store owner who recognizes in these tapes something familiar and goes to investigate.

For me, perhaps due to disjointed reading I found the book somewhat confusing even though well written.  He really does a good job dealing with basic family, basic dysfunction, basic dysfunctional families. Some of the relationships just seem very personal but very real.  There is not a lot of action in the book but there is a lot of, relationship...dialogue and angst...especially in the context of Iowa.  One of the big things I took from it all was that there is a lot of trouble in even the calmest, most boring and apparently sedate households.  Almost Biblical… there is always more than enough trouble to go around and that old canard that happy families are always happy in the same way and unhappy families… there are a million ways and Darnielle explores a couple.

I cant tell you to buy this and read it but it is well written and it is interesting and if I had read it sober each night it might have fit together better for me.