I was initially sick and disgusted to hear that author Sherman Alexie has been charged with sexually harassing Native American women for years. I've read several of his books, and he always seemed to be a smart and creative man who was an ally of feminists, not another scumbag abuser/harasser. But then my friend Litsa Dremousis broke the silence and came out publicly with the accusations, and suddenly, it all became clear, that not even someone as smart and savvy as Alexie could keep from using his power as a lauded author to try and force women to have sex with him, or to keep his harassment and abuse of them under the rug. SHAME on him, and thank heaven for Litsa for being these women's advocate and coming forward, so that he won't continue to get away with it.
Sherman Alexie's
Response to Harassment Accusations
After a month of
online charges that he has been abusive to many women,
particularly
Native American women, author Sherman Alexie issued a
statement
yesterday. It's a
mix of admission and denial and, as with so much of
the matter, it's
somewhat vague.
"Over the
years, I have done things that have harmed other people,
including those I
love most deeply," Alexie wrote. "To those whom I have
hurt, I genuinely
apologize. I am so sorry.... There are women telling
the truth about my
behavior and I have no recollection of physically or
verbally
threatening anybody or their careers. That would be completely
out of character.
I have made poor decisions and I am working hard to
become a healthier
man who makes healthier decisions. Again, I apologize
to the people I
have hurt. I am genuinely sorry."
But at the same
time, Alexie rejected "the accusations, insinuations,
and outright
falsehoods" made by Litsa Dremousis, author of Altitude
Sickness, the most
open and active of the women who have accused Alexie
of misbehavior.
Alexie admitted to being "consenting sexual partners"
with Dremousis, a
relationship that ended in 2015, adding that last
October, she sent
an e-mail to his wife about the previous relationship
and "posted
something on my wife's Facebook page." After that, "Ms.
Dremousis has
continually tweeted and spoken in public about my
behavior, making
accusations based on rumors and hearsay and quoting
anonymous
sources."
For her part, on
Facebook, Dremousis responded by saying that some of
Alexie's statement
is "accurate. Some is not. Part of his statement
about me [is] 100%
false. I've never written on his wife's Facebook
page. I don't even
know if she has a Facebook page."
While she
apparently hasn't accused Alexie of harassing her, she has
said he had
harassed perhaps as many as 80 women, who have been in touch
with her, and in
October, just as the #metoo movement began to spread
across the country
and internationally, she "confronted him about his
sexual harassment
of women."
She stressed that
she was open about their affair. "I knew he'd use a
consensual affair
which ended w/ us staying good friends as a way to
discredit dozens
of women *who consented to nothing*."
She ended: "A
man I confronted four months ago about his sexual
harassment of
women finally issued a statement wherein he doesn't deny
it. That's all
I'll say I'll for now."
The accusations
involve sexual harassment and charges that Alexie
threatened the
careers of any women who might talk publicly about his
behavior. Some of
the charges were made on the comments thread of a
School Library
Journal article
about sexual
harassment in children's publishing, where last month
several people
said Alexie had harassed them or they had witnessed
behavior that
might have been or led to harassment.
None of the
charges by the women are on record yet, (Editors note, as of 3/5/2018, they are now on record with NPR) making them difficult to
evaluate. But many in the book world have reacted negatively to
Alexie, who, of course, had been beloved by many
booksellers, for
his work, for his portrayals of Native American life
and for providing
the inspiration to create Indies First Day, the event
on the Saturday
after Thanksgiving that seeks to unite writers and indie
booksellers. His
YA novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time
Indian won the
National Book Award for Young People's Literature, and he
has won many other
awards, including the John Dos Passos Prize for
Literature. And
just last month, as the accusations were coming to
light, Alexie won
the 2018 Carnegie Medal for literary excellence in
nonfiction for You
Don't Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir.
As the Seattle
Times noted yesterday in a story about the Alexie
statement
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz36191703,
the Institute of
American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, N.Mex., has renamed
its Sherman Alexie
Scholarship the MFA Alumni Scholarship. And as
reported by
Seattle Met, Debbie Reese, editor of the American Indians in
Children's
Literature, has removed Alexie's photo
from the AICL's
gallery of Native writers and illustrators.
There has been a number of reckonings in Hollywood and in the publishing industry now that men in power are being "outed" as abusers. Laurie Halse Anderson, author of Speak, had this to say about her anger at men just now being vilified for their abuses:
"I’m so fucking angry,” Anderson, the author of the 1999 novel Speak
told BuzzFeed News. “On the one hand, you’re supposed to be joyful
because we’re having these conversations. But from my perspective, why
are we still stuck in this toxic patriarchy bullshit?"Now, as the great Reckoning continues to fell men in power who have previously benefited from the silence of their alleged abuse victims, Anderson's book is being published as a reinterpreted graphic novel of the same name.
Speak, a National Book Award finalist that went on to win many other awards, was also adapted into a movie starring Kristen Stewart in 2004. “I’ve never met a woman who hasn’t, at some level, been harassed or touched or groped,” Anderson said. “It’s this giant scale of behavior, but I’ve never met a single woman who hasn’t been through that. What Speak has done for the past couple decades is open up a conversation for some people in a quiet way.”
“Thank goodness we have gotten to this point, and I think social media plays a big role in victims of sexual violence feeling strengthened and supported enough to start speaking out,” Anderson said. “But it’s about 800 years overdue, and I think, too, the power of right now is everyone seeing the positive consequence of speaking out.”
Even as sexual harassment was a huge part of the Oscars last night, I feel, like Anderson, that its overdue, and that we are just getting started. Things are going to have to change in society if women are to have a fair shake at their careers and at life.
Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear is a Steampunk science fiction adventure romance, full of dastardly villains, fascinating inventions and saucy prostitutes in 19th century Seattle. It is written in first person, which was an odd choice, I felt, but since the story is being told as if the protagonist is writing it down for a book, it comes off as charming, most of the time. Here's the blurb:
"You ain't gonna like what I have to tell you, but I'm gonna tell you
anyway. See, my name is Karen Memery, like memory only spelt with an e,
and I'm one of the girls what works in the Hôtel Mon Cherie on Amity
Street. Hôtel has a little hat over the o like that. It's French, so
Beatrice tells me."Set in the late 19th century—when the city we now call Seattle Underground was the whole town (and still on the surface), when airships plied the trade routes, would-be gold miners were heading to the gold fields of Alaska, and steam-powered mechanicals stalked the waterfront, Karen is a young woman on her own, is making the best of her orphaned state by working in Madame Damnable's high-quality bordello. Through Karen's eyes we get to know the other girls in the house—a resourceful group—and the poor and the powerful of the town. Trouble erupts one night when a badly injured girl arrives at their door, begging sanctuary, followed by the man who holds her indenture, and who has a machine that can take over anyone's mind and control their actions. And as if that wasn't bad enough, the next night brings a body dumped in their rubbish heap—a streetwalker who has been brutally murdered.
Bear brings alive this Jack-the-Ripper yarn of the old west with a light touch in Karen's own memorable voice, and a mesmerizing evocation of classic steam-powered science. Publisher's Weekly: Bear’s rollicking, suspenseful, and sentimental steampunk novel introduces Karen Memery a teenage “seamstress”—that is, a prostitute—at Madame Damnable’s Hôtel Mon Cherie in Rapid City. This Pacific Northwest city of an alternate 1878 is home to airships, surgical machines, and other mechanical wonders that can also be put to horrific use. As Karen meets and begins to fall for Priya, another sex worker who escaped from evil pimp Peter Bantle, they learn that Bantle has more dark plans than brothel competition. U.S. Deputy Marshal Bass Reeves and his Comanche partner, Tomoatooah, also tie Bantle to the gruesome murders of some of Rapid City’s most vulnerable women. Her story is a timeless one: a woman doing what is needed to get by while dreaming and fighting for great things to come.
I really enjoyed the resourceful Karen and the other "ladies" of the bordello, but I felt that Karen and her beloved Priya took too many risks that didn't pay off, and ended with her being caught more than once by the bad guys, when it seemed that they could have avoided much of this with better planning. Still, it was, indeed, a rollicking tale with a plot that never slowed down. The prose was a bit cliche'd, like the prose you'd expect from reading an old pulp Western novel (my grandfather used to read those), but eventually I was able to overlook it and get into the story. I'd give this fun book a B+, and recommend it to anyone who likes strong female protagonists and Steampunk.
The Queen's Rising by Rebecca Ross is a YA fantasy novel that felt very Shakespearean and was beautifully rendered with succulent characters and beautiful worldbuilding. While I was expecting the usual love triangle and whiny protagonists, I was delighted to discover that there was none of that to be had here, only a young woman named Brienna who longs to find her "passion" and place in this world, and who loves her fellow students and supports them when they find patrons and she doesn't. Here's the blurb:
Grave Mercy meets Red Queen in this epic
debut fantasy, inspired by Renaissance France, about an outcast who
finds herself bound to a disgraced lord and entangled in his plot to
overthrow the current king.Brienna desires only two things: to master her passion and to be chosen by a patron. Growing up in Valenia at the renowned Magnalia House should have prepared her. While some are born with a talent for one of the five passions—art, music, dramatics, wit, and knowledge—Brienna struggled to find hers until she chose knowledge. However, Brienna’s greatest fear comes true—she is left without a patron.
Months later, her life takes an unexpected turn when a disgraced lord offers her patronage. Suspicious of his intent, she reluctantly accepts. But there is much more to his story, for there is a dangerous plot to overthrow the king of Maevana—the rival kingdom of Valenia—and restore the rightful queen, and her magic, to the throne. And others are involved—some closer to Brienna than she realizes.
And now, with war brewing, Brienna must choose which side she will remain loyal to: passion or blood.
I was not only surprised by the lack of the usual YA tropes, I was thrilled that Ross's prose was sterling, moving along the elegantly designed plot without a hitch. It was so well written, in fact, that I could not put it down, and read the entire book in one sitting. The historical "plot to overthrow a bad usurper king" was mesmerizing as it was intricately woven through Brienna's journey as a "knowledge" major (or passion, as they call areas of study) and her search for her own origins as an adopted child. I'd give this book a well deserved A, and recommend it to anyone who finds historical fantasy and romance interesting.
The Art of Baking Blind by Sarah Vaughan was a book I found at Dollar Tree that seemed to be right up my alley. I love British mysteries and science fiction/romance, and I had assumed that this "chick lit" novel set in England would be just the thing to brighten up my February reading list. Unfortunately, every single woman in this novel loathes herself, and that curdles what would otherwise be a cracking good read. There is so much misogyny and body dismorphism and anorexia/bulimia throughout the novel that I felt sick for the characters and the people around them who have to deal with the fallout of their terrible behavior (which mirrors their own internal turmoil). Here's the blurb:
There are many reasons to bake: to feed; to create; to impress; to
nourish; to define ourselves; and, sometimes, it has to be said, to
perfect. But often we bake to fill a hunger that would be better filled
by a simple gesture from a dear one. We bake to love and be loved. In 1966, Kathleen Eaden, cookbook writer and wife of a supermarket magnate, published The Art of Baking, her guide to nurturing a family by creating the most exquisite pastries, biscuits and cakes. Now, five amateur bakers are competing to become the New Mrs. Eaden. There's Jenny, facing an empty nest now that her family has flown; Claire, who has sacrificed her dreams for her daughter; Mike, trying to parent his two kids after his wife's death; Vicki, who has dropped everything to be at home with her baby boy; and Karen, perfect Karen, who knows what it's like to have nothing and is determined her facade shouldn't slip.
As unlikely alliances are forged and secrets rise to the surface, making the choicest pastry seems the least of the contestants' problems. For they will learn--as Mrs. Eaden did before them--that while perfection is possible in the kitchen, it's very much harder in life, in Sarah Vaughan's The Art of Baking Blind.
Though the women all get to know one another during the baking competition, and we get to know more about them with each chapter, I felt that their negative feelings about themselves and their lives were just overpowering their stories and making it hard to root for them. the only character that I liked was Jenny, who is close to my age, and has grown daughters. Her husband becomes a fitness fanatic and a real dbag, who constantly rips her down because of her weight, which, of course, she loses due to stress of the competition and of seeing her husband develop a relationship with another woman. Though the book is ostensibly about food, all of these women seem obsessed with depriving themselves of it, of nourishment and kindness and love. Starving yourself and vomiting are somehow seen as normal and the one character who finally gets called on her bulimia is truly a horrible person, but because she's thin, she's seen as "perfect." Being a woman in England apparently means that you can't be proud of your accomplishments, you can't be seen as overweight and you can't age or be successful without having a tragic back story, as does the woman for whom the baking contest is named, Kathleen Eaden, who has a premature child with cerebral palsy that no one knows about and eventually has a "normal" child whom everyone lauds. Why you would hide your child and quit your career because of a disability is really beyond me. Are the English people really that shallow and judgmental? The prose is decent, but the plot is uneven and the characters sour and unappealing. I'd give this book a C, and only recommend it to people who enjoy reading about women who constantly beat up on themselves, are selfish and awful and mean and sick. If you're looking for something uplifting, this isn't your novel, even though it does have a weak HEA ending.
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