Poison Pen

After reading Poison Pen (070.92 KEL in the Biography section), it's quite obvious that author George Carpozi, Jr. doesn't care for Kitty Kelley.

In case you didn't know, Kitty Kelley has written some rather scandalous books on some prominent people: Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, Nancy Reagan, and Jackie Onassis. She loved to dig up dirt on celebrities.

Kelley's writing career started simple enough writing newspaper and magazine articles. A publisher, Lyle Stuart, was impressed with an article she wrote for a new diet plan. Stuart was known for publishing controversial books that other publishers wouldn't touch. The first book Stuart asked Kelley to write was on Jackie Onassis, someone she didn't know nor even meet. Gossip columnist Liz Smith was kind enough to give her boxes of information on Jackie. That gave Kelley a tremendous jump start on the research. While the book was climbing the best-seller list, her relationship with Liz Smith was sinking.

According to Carpozi, Kitty Kelley has burned a lot of bridges during and after writing the books. Carpozi is one of them. At the time when Kelley was researching the life of Sinatra, Carpozi gave her free access to his book he had written on the singer. So ... at one time, Carpozi must have been on good terms with Kelley ... but that was in the past. Now, Carpozi is getting his revenge.

The title, Poison Pen, could be referring to Carpozi's writing as much as Kelley's.

If you are curious about the books that Kelley has written, her are the ones that we carry:

• Elizabeth Taylor: the Last Star (791.43 TAY in the Biography section)
• The Family: the Real Story of the Bush Family (929.2 BUS)
• His Way: the Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra (781.64 SIN in the Biography)
• Jackie Oh! (973.922 KEN in the Biography section)
• Nancy Reagan: the Unauthorized Biography (973.927092 REA in the Biography section)
• The Royals (941.085KEL)
  
  c Waterloo Public Library 2008

The struggles of U.S. workers

From the Folks who Brought you the Weekend by Priscilla Murolo and A. B. Chitty (331.0973 MUR) gives a really good overview of how working conditions have changed over the years.

The book begins with the first European settlers in America using the Native Americans for forced labor, for example, the Spaniards used Aztec and Inca slaves to do the mining. Spaniards weren't the only group by any means to exploit Native Americans as the book details.

After the depletion of this indigenous population, entrepreneurs turned to indentured servitude. Some Europeans were willing to go into debt for getting transportation to the New World, which they had to work off once they arrived. Convicts, orphans, and kidnapped children were shipped from Europe to America, and forced to work in fields and factories. According to the authors, some of the convicts were forced to work for up to fourteen years. After fulfilling their time, if they survived, everyone except for convicts and debtors received "freedom dues" giving them a little money and a section of land. The statistics from 1607 to 1623 are rather depressing: 20% of these people went on to self-employment; about 50% died before they worked off their debt/punishment; the other 30% worked for others or returned to there native country.

Then came the extremely devastating black slave trade from Africa to fill the jobs. I won't go into any detail on this part of American history - the library has a lot of good books just on this specific topic.

Before the Industrial Revolution, much of the economy was agricultural, which required long hours of hard manual labor. (And to think that I used to complain about how hard it was to be a farmer's son. Of course, I had it easy; we had machinery, electricity, etc. to make farming much easier. My father, who worked as a farm-hand after leaving my grandparents' farm received free room and board and 50 cents a week.) After the Industrial Revolution, manufacturing companies were established requiring long hours in a dirty, noisy, dangerous environment. There was none of this 40 hour-a-week business that many have now. There were no federal regulations for safety, no maximum number of hours to work each week, nor minimum age for workers.

At the beginning, when workers started joining together to demand better working environments and other improvements, companies balked. Some really nasty fights, riots, broke out. This part of the book is really interesting, with all of the underhanded tactics that both sides (the workers and the companies) used for intimidation. There was a lot of bloodshed. Police were called in. This was the beginning of the formation of unions.

Throughout U.S. history companies have enticed (or forced) immigrants to come into this country to do the dirty work. Just to name another group of immigrants, Chinese immigrants started coming in larger numbers during the 1800s.

This book is a great way to get a better understanding of labor in the U.S. - and it might just give you another perspective on all of the controversy over Mexican immigrants and labor that the country is facing now. Of course, I do realize that the immigration debate is also concerned with legal and illegal immigration, but I do feel that readers will still learn something From the Folks who Brought you the Weekend.

c Waterloo Public Library 2008

Whether you call it " squirrel likker" or "creepin' wiskey," it's still moonshine

Because I grew up in Iowa, I never encountered any moonshiners. The only ones I ever saw were on TV: Grannie who made her "rheumatism medicine" on The Beverly Hillbillies and the moonshiners who kept Otis sauced on The Andy Griffith Show.

Mountain Spirits by Joseph Earl Dabney (364.133 DAB) gives a fascinating history of making and selling this corn alcohol. The author interviewed quite a few old timers who used to make and/or drink moonshine and lament the fact that good moonshine is so hard to come by nowadays. Their stories are just a riot. Here are some of the quotes:

"A mountain man likes his coffee strong enough to float an iron wedge, and likker strong enough to make a rabbit spit in a bulldog's face."

"I had a '34 Ford. It was a cold night. I put a few pints of corn whiskey in the radiator and put some in my own radiator. A Yankee was riding with us, and said he was freezing to death. We gave him a drink. It was over 100 proof. His tongue lit up like fire bugs. He tried to holler. We stopped the car and he broke off ice in the ditch and ate it."

"Yeah, I drunk a lot of corn likker in my time. Now you can't hardly get it. The people don't make corn. They don't make nothin' right no more. Now, good sugar likker's good, though, if it's made right. But all this old bastard beading stuff they make it out of these days, hell, it'd kill a dead snake. Make it on old tin, sheet arn, anything but what they ort to. It'd kill a dead snake."

Not all of the book is humorous, though. There were plenty of problems between moonshiners and the "Revenue." According to the author, in 1972 (when I was in high school), the U.S. Treasury Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms destroyed 2,090 illicit distilleries and poured out almost one and a quarter million gallons of fermented mash. 3,191 people were arrested.

c Waterloo Public Library 2008

These aren't just any kids

When I picked up Just Another Kid by Torey L. Hayden (371.94 HAY), the book jacket piqued my interest. Hayden is an elementary teacher who works with special needs children. There is Leslie, an autistic girl who still wears diapers and is known to have many accidents. Geraldine and Shemona (who refuses to talk) are sisters from Ireland and have witnessed the devistating violence there. Dirkie is a boy who has lived most of his life in institutions because his family is so awful. Mariana is eight and wants to have a best friend. Shamie starts school a little later, and he's the cousin of Geraldine and Shemona.

Anyone who has ever worked with special needs children knows that even a small group like this can be a handful. Mariana has trouble keeping her underwear up in class. Dirkie is constantly making suggestive sexual acts to both people and inanimate objects.

Hayden wants to have an aide since she had trouble controlling group and getting away to change Leslie's diapers. Unfortunately, as with other school systems around the U.S., this school system had no money for another person. The unlikeliest person volunteered to help.

Leslie's mother, Ladbrooke, a depressed alcoholic who had verbal matches with Hayden, offered to help. She's the least likely person to do this type of job. She can't even control Leslie, so how was she expected to control the rest of the kids? Ladbrooke is not a people person - she can't carry on a normal conversation; she comes off as cold and arrogant; she doesn't hug people. Hayden has trouble believing that Ladbrooke can have a master's degree since Ladbrooke is so inarticulate. Hayden has her doubts, but in her desperation, she agrees.

This is Hayden's remarkable story for just one school year - which is more than most people would have in a lifetime.

c Waterloo Public Library 2008

It's in his eyes

Half of Only the Eyes Say Yes (362.19683 VIG) is written by Stephane Vigand and half is written by her husband Philippe. That in itself is not that unusual. What is unique is how the book was initially written. You see, Philippe has no control of his body -except his eyes and sometimes (with great effort) he might be able to move a finger just a little. The doctors explained that one of his two vertebral nerves had erupted, causing the condition called Locked-in syndrome.

Philippe, a publishing executive, was walking to work one day in July, 1990, when he heard a loud noise and collapsed on the ground. For the next few months, he was in a coma. When he woke up, he was completely paralyzed. What the doctors and his family didn't realize was that he could hear everything around him. His mental capabilities were the same as before the incident. It wasn't until a speech therapist noticed that his eyes reacted to conversation. A crude board with the alphabet was designed. With a little patience, his wife Stephane was able to watch where his eyes fell on the sheet while he was spelling out words.

A special computer was designed that could register his eye movements, save the text, and print it. That's how he wrote his section of the book.

This story is very touching, written from two perspectives. The love they have for each other is quite obvious.

c Waterloo Public Library 2008

Don't use this book as an example for writing a term paper. John Edgar Wideman writes in a very creative style in Fatheralong (813.54 WID in the Biography section). Some people might be put off by his free assocation and run-on sentences. He writes openly, honestly what he feels.

At the time he wrote this, he was the same age as I am (52). That's the only similarity I could relate to.

I'm white. He's black.

My parents stayed together until my mother's death a few years ago (over 50 years). He grew up never really knowing his father. Wideman knew who his father was, but he spent little time with him. His parents had been divorced for about twenty years. Even before the divorce, he didn't know his father, since he wasn't around much. He was brought up by strong women - not men.

He has a brother in prison. I'm lucky - all of my siblings haven't seen that side of the bars.

Just because his life is completely different than mine doesn't mean I didn't get something out of this book.

He begins the book by accepting a trip with his father to South Carolina to reconnect with their heritage. Traveling with someone you know, but not well, who purposely stayed away from participating in the milestones in his child's life could be awkward. The trip allows the author to reflect on his life and his family's heritage - and get to know his father.

It's a powerful book; the author displays his anger at how blacks have been (and still are) treated. It's part history, part philosophy, part travelogue (like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance).

I find it ironic that one of the towns they are trying to find is called Promised Land (no kidding).

After I began reading this book, I started researching the author and reading reviews of Fatheralong. It seems as though people either love it (so emotional) or hate it (so rambling, disjointed). I discovered that it's often a reading assignment in school.

Although it's used in schools, I'm sure it's not used for teaching proper grammar!

c Waterloo Public Library 2008