For Feisty Feminists

Books 20-23 in Cannonball Read 2

Jeff Lindsey’s series of books, the basis of the TV series Dexter, is a story of Dexter Morgan, a forensics analyst with the Miami PD who moonlights as a killer. Dexter’s dad, Harry, recognized Dexter’s inherent psychopathyat a young age, and trained Dexter to become a killer of bad guys - other people like Dexter, who had killed before and would kill again. Thus was born a serial killer who only killed other serial killers.

One of the most interesting aspects of Dexter the TV series is the parallels drawn between Dexter and superheroes (this parallel is dealt with explicitly in the season 2 episode ‘The Dark Defender’). After all, aren’t most superhero stories just about ineffective Dexters? They can’t finish off the kill, it’s against their code, so the villain falls off a cliff, or is felled by their own weaponry, or is killed by a subordinate - but never the hero. The hero never stains their hands like Dexter, never goes in planning on the kill that Dexter plans for, executes with surgical precision (most of the time) and loves.

This aspect of Dexter’s character may not be present in the books, but there is plenty to enjoy, and a lot of complexity for books that read as page turners. Lindsay deserves credit for writing stories that are completely urgent, crying out for a few hours to know what happens, while maintaining careful development of his main character and his inner life. The other characters, sometimes richly observed and portrayed in the series, are reduced to a few  characteristic. This is not necessarily a criticism; the books are more about putting the reader in Dexter’s mindset than the series, so people are not complicated human beings, but large, walking pieces of meat that Dexter struggles to understand but with which he can never empathize.

Two important elements throughout the books that do not find themselves onto the TV show are constant alliteration - the titles are only the beginning - and the conception of Dexter’s ‘dark passenger’ not as a metaphor for his desire to kill, but as an actual metaphysical presence that lives in him, responds to his situation, and even flees the scene when it is scared.  When Dexter looks at another psychopath - which, in the books, includes Doakes, Cody, Astor, and almost every person he kills - his dark passenger sees their dark passenger, and they square off, trying to intimidate each other and knowing that they are attached to kindred spirits.

The first of Lindsay’s series,  Darkly Dreaming Dexter, introduces Dexter and his world, and, with a few changes and many additions, formed the first season of the series. This book is solid writing, introducing Dexter, Dexter’s problems fitting into society, and the Ice Truck Killer in about 200 pages, with a great deal of suspense, but little complications.

Dearly Devoted Dexter is still a lean book, and the suspense is thick, but it complicates some existing characters, and introduces new ones. This book is also considerably more gruesome than anything in any of the rest of the books, or the TV series. The second season of the series almost entirely departs from the books, but it borrows certain small elements - an everglades cabin off the water, the lingering suspicion of Seargeant Doakes - and uses them in entirely different ways. The ending feels like a deus ex machina, but not because the ending makes no sense or comes out of nowhere; it is perfectly reasonable with the plot that has gone before, but it just feels a little too perfect for our good old Dexter.

Dexter in the Dark gets a lot more interesting in terms of plot and villain; Dexter does not know his nemesis for most of the book, and it also introduces the idea of how ‘the dark passenger’ came to be and exactly what it is. The books also get interesting in a way never introduced in the TV series, as Cody and Astor, the kids of Rita, Dexter’s girlfriend, show that they recognize a similarity in Dexter - an urge and enjoyment of causing pain - and want him to teach them. Dexter in the Dark also brings the first time that the dark passenger leaves, introducing the idea of being just a regular guy, with no dark urges.

Dexter by Design introduces a killer that wants to frame Dexter to create a performance art piece. Although the subplots of the book (Ator & Cody’s psychopathy, Dexter’s struggle to appear normal for Rita and the police department) remain interesting, the main plot is not nearly as much of a page-turner as the previous books.

Of the four books, I would rate Darkly Dreaming Dexter slightly above Dexter in the Dark, mostly for its simplicity; then Dearly Devoted close behind, and then Dexter by Design behind with a lag. The series as a whole is worth reading, and I cannot emphasize enough the skill with which Lindsay draws the reader in and makes  you want to read more (i.e. creates a page turner). They beg, almost demand, to be read in a single evening or two, and you will not be able to get your mind off them or fail to wonder where the story is going any time you put the books aside.

Book 19 in Cannonball Read 2

Writing about books I take to heart is much harder than writing about books that I dislike. It’s a lot easier to enumerate flaws than to explain why a book touched me so much, especially when - as with The Book Thief - it seems to contain something so much more profound than the sum of its parts.

Writing about books I love is also harder because it feels that I am putting something personal out there. This is doubly the case when talking about a book - like The Book Thief - that is not only written for young adults, but it is about World War II. Now, I have Holocaust fatigue* just like a lot of other folks, but The Book Thief is the real deal.  It deals with common motifs of WWII - book burning, bomb shelters, rations, the randomness of who dies and who is saved, hiding people in your basement - and uses them to tell a coming of age story that is, at its core, about the importance of books. Not necessarily the importance of books in and of themselves, but books as stories we tell each other to connect to each other, as little tokens we give to each other to show we care, and as works of art filled with meaning, the feeling and experience of reading them slipping away from us even as we are still in the act. 

The Book Thief centers around Liesl Meminger, a young girl who is sent to live with a new family because her parents are communists. Her brother dies en route, and she arrives at the Hubermanns scared and alone. When she is unable to sleep, Hans Hubermann, her new father, teachers her to read using the first book she has stolen, a gravedigger’s handbook. Books inform Liesl’s relationship with Hans, and also with Max Vandenburg, the Jewish man who comes to hide in the Hubermann’s basement; and with Rudy Steiner, Liesl’s friend from school, who graduates with her from stealing apples to stealing books.  The other major character is Death, who narrates the proceedings, and is imbued with a personality and a point of view by Zusak. Death sees Liesl only a few times, but knows the details of her life, and is fascinated by her and her thievery. Death is also a suprisingly empathic narrator, understanding the feelings and motivations of every character, and being moved by their plight.

Although Liesl comes from tragedy, and experiences great losses, The Book Thief is ultimately about the richness of life, the overwhelming beauty and humanity found even in horrible circumstances. The Book Thief wormed its way into my heart early on; when Death tells us that Liesl did not remember when her books turned from meaning ’something’ to meaning ‘everything’, The Book Thief already felt like it, too, meant everything. No book can really change your life or encompass everything, but damn if The Book Thief doesn’t feel like it can and does.

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*Holocaust fatigue: oversaturation with artworks set before and during World War II, characterized by negative feelings towards said works of art (largely, but not solely, movies). These feelings can range from bored indifference to dismissal to outright frustration. Those suffering from Holocaust fatigue do not doubt the historical importance of World War II or the Holocaust, but are simply over exposed to mediocre works that, by being set in a certain time period, tend to be immune from critique and/or gain an unearned reputation of cultural importance and profundity.

Book 18 in Cannonball Read 2

Every time I put on a suit, I feel unnatural. I know I have to put it on to pass for that job interview, or presentation, but it feels wrong, and I think it looks completely wrong too. A friend who wears a suit to work everyday told me you get used to it, it starts to feel more natural. You go from feeling like you’re dressing up in a costume, passing as a suit-wearer, to being actually comfortable and not feeling like you’re playing a role.

We all ‘pass’ at one thing or another. In some cases, the stakes are higher: if you’re transgender and don’t pass, you could get murdered, instead of just looking awkward in a suit.  Nobody Passes is a series of essays that explores the process of fitting in and passing for something else, from the high stakes cases we all know about - like transgender folks, or immigrants having to pass as citizens to stay in the country, to more thought-provoking categories of passing, like the woman who has to hide her interest in BDSM from her partners, the woman who has to pass as mentally ill to get public assistance, or the one who has to pass as middle-class, but then can use her poor Okie roots to get out of a tight spot with some cops who also turn out to be Okies.

Taking into account these varied life experience, Nobody Passes becomes ultimately about more than just ‘passing’ or ‘not passing’, but about our own constructions of our identities, how the way we tell the stories of our lives become part of those stories. One of my favorite essays, ‘Origins’ by Kirk Read, comes towards the end, and deals explicitly with how we construct our identites; in Read’s case, how he has constructed his identity as a sex-worker around his first client.

Some of the essays were challenging; I found myself resisting the idea that some of the writers were actually relating experiences of oppression - usually these were the essays that tackled issues I don’t know as much about, or have to work on, like class issues, or gender identities among lesbians. These negative reactions are the ones I learned the most from, about my own biases and negative perceptions.

The most salient point in Nobody Passes is the damage done by the mere idea and practice of passing. ‘Passing’ denotes an in-group and an out-group, something about your identity that is so fundamentally bad, it must be hidden to make others comfortable. It stops us from acceptance of others with complex identities, and mandates conformity to already privileged identities. Nobody Passes is not a basic analysis of identity politics, it requires previous knowledge or a very open mind, but it’s worth taking the time.