If you’ve read my book diaries over the years here on Daily Kos, you may have gleaned a couple of facts about me. First, I love travel, and second, I’m not particularly interested in books about family dynamics and parenting. So here comes Walking with Sam: A Father, a Son, and Five Hundred Miles Across Spain, a book by the actor Andrew McCarthy, who first rose to fame in the Brat Pack movies of the 1980s, and who has also had a parallel career as a travel writer. In fact, his 2012 travel book, The Longest Way Home: One Man's Quest for the Courage to Settle Down, is one of my favorites in the travel narrative genre. But I don’t know...this new book sounded kinda, well, family-ish.
I picked it up anyway, and I loved it.
Over 25 years ago, Andrew McCarthy walked the Camino de Santiago, the 500 mile pilgrimage path across northern Spain from the Basque village of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port to the shrine of the Saint James in Santiago de Compostela. It was a meaningful, significant experience for him.
When I was a young man and became very successful in the movies very quickly, I harbored a notion that I had not earned my accomplishments, that I hadn’t done the requisite work, that it was all merely a fluke, that I didn’t deserve it….Whether any of this contained truth is debatable, but that it burrowed under my skin and became my adopted perception of myself there is little doubt.
Walking across the Camino de Santiago a quarter century ago challenged all that. It hadn’t been my conscious intent to reclaim the narrative of my own life, yet that’s what happened.
McCarthy’s family life has had its disheartening times. His first marriage ended in divorce. They had been youthful sweethearts, involved on and off for twenty years before finally getting married. But as he wrote in that earlier book, The Longest Way Home,
I knew she was frustrated. I felt like I had to leave 20 percent of myself outside just to walk in the door of our marriage….It seemed that instead of our marriage being the beginning of our life together, it had been the culmination. The subsequent birth of our son was its finest moment. We loved each other, but together, we were under a rock.
That son was Sam, who was born sickly and not expected to survive. The Longest Way Home is made up of various chapters describing adventures from Patagonia to Kenya to Vienna to the Amazon (all places I’ve been), but thematically, as suggested by the subtitle ‘One Man’s Quest for the Courage to Settle Down’, it is about his struggle to balance his restless, loner spirit with love, marriage and family. That book begins with him meeting his second wife and their journey from friendship to marriage. Threaded throughout is his ambivalence, his draw towards the escape of travel, against his deepening love of his new wife and growing family (they had two children together.)
For his entire life, Sam has bounced between the two households of his mother and of McCarthy and his wife. McCarthy had a good relationship with him, but as Sam grew into manhood, 18 and then 19, and as McCarthy found his thoughts returning to that earlier trek, he developed a desire to make the trip once again, but this time with his son. He broaches the idea.
Dangerous business. Dangerous to try and re-experience a pivotal time in your earlier life, and dangerous to believe that your son can have an equally significant experience. But Sam, after going through a serious break-up, agrees to the trip.
The book is a delight. It is a good travel narrative: McCarthy is an astute observer of landscapes, of architecture and of people. There are some wonderful characters met along the pilgrimage trail. The back and forth between father and teenage son is a high-wire act, sometimes thrilling and accomplished, sometimes seeming on the brink of disaster. The book is comprised of short chapters, titled and built around some phrase spoken by one or the other: “I am about to get so sick of you”; “It’s significantly better”; “When did you know”; “More harm than good”; “I hope this lasts.”
You won’t find celebrity gossip. The only time its mentioned that someone recognized Andrew McCarthy is when a couple wants to take a photo with him staged like the poster of the movie Weekend At Bernie’s. And the fact that Sam has pursued an acting career himself is only mentioned in passing. (Sam McCarthy was the character Charlie Harding in the Netflix series Dead to Me, and played a son to another former Brat Packer, Molly Ringwold, in the 2018 movie All These Small Moments.
Yes, you will find a lot of family dynamics, thoughts about parenting, and teenage angst, all the things I don’t usually go for. But McCarthy is such an engaging and honest writer, the setting in which the interactions between father and son play out is so interesting, that I was completely drawn in.
There were so many times as I read the book that I returned to gaze at the front cover image, seen on the left in the picture that heads this diary. The picture seemed to perfectly capture much of the tone of the book: the slight look of resignation and hard-earned wisdom in the face of Andrew McCarthy, the edgy look of impatience and boredom seeping into the expression of his son, the distance between them. Other times, I would turn to the second photograph, on the inside back flap of the book jacket: father with his arm around his son, both of them smiling broadly, and for much of the book I found that photo annoyed me: it just didn’t seem to reflect the dynamics of what was transpiring in their journey together.
But it is a tribute to McCarthy’s writing, the arc of his narrative, his insight and openness and honesty, and to the engaging personality of Sam, that by the end of the book my mind had completely flipped, and that second, smiling photo seemed an equally perfect capture of the journey.
THIS WEEK’S NEW NONFICTION
- Wifedom: Mrs. Orwell's Invisible Life, by Anna Funder. The writer Eileen O’Shaughnessy married George Orwell in 1936. This is the story of the marriage behind some of the most famous literary works of the 20th century —and a probing consideration of what it means to be a wife and a writer in the modern world.
"An extraordinary blend of forensic historical detective work and evocative fiction, as well as snatches of memoir. It not only writes O’Shaughnessy back into the story but also questions how far we’ve really come in terms of gender equality. To read about O’Shaughnessy is to fall in love with her." —Radio Times (UK)
- The Dawn of a Mindful Universe: A Manifesto for Humanity's Future, by Marcelo Gleiser. An award-winning astronomer and physicist’s spellbinding and urgent call for a new Enlightenment and the recognition of the preciousness of life using reason and curiosity—the foundations of science—to study, nurture, and ultimately preserve humanity as we face the existential crisis of climate change.
"We are at a novel and fraught moment in our history as a species, and as this book posits, getting through it will require rethinking who we are and why we are here. Gleiser’s argument will send you off on interesting and fruitful tangents of your own!" — Bill McKibben
- Daughter of the Dragon: Anna May Wong's Rendezvous with American History, by Yunte Huang. Born into the steam and starch of a Chinese laundry, Anna May Wong (1905–1961) emerged from turn-of-the-century Los Angeles to become Old Hollywood’s most famous Chinese American actress, a screen siren who captivated global audiences and signed her publicity photos—with a touch of defiance—“Orientally yours.” Now, more than a century after her birth, Yunte Huang narrates Wong’s tragic life story. Challenging the racist perceptions of Wong as a “Dragon Lady,” “Madame Butterfly,” or “China Doll,” Huang’s biography becomes a truly resonant work of history that reflects the raging anti-Chinese xenophobia, unabashed sexism, and ageism toward women that defined both Hollywood and America in Wong’s all-too-brief fifty-six years on earth.
- Cosmic Scholar: The Life and Times of Harry Smith, by John Szwed. In Cosmic Scholar, the Grammy Award-winning music scholar and celebrated biographer John Szwed patches together, for the first time, the life of one of the twentieth century’s most overlooked cultural figures. From his time recording the customs of Native American tribes in the Pacific Northwest and Florida to his life in Greenwich Village in its heyday, Smith was consumed by an unceasing desire to create a unified theory of culture. He was an insatiable creator and collector, responsible for the influential Anthology of American Folk Music and several pioneering experimental films, but was also an insufferable and destructive eccentric who was unable to survive in regular society, or keep himself healthy or sober. He was always broke, generally intoxicated, compulsively irascible, and unimpeachably authentic. Harry Smith was, in the words of Robert Frank, “the only person I met in my life that transcended everything.”
- The Age of Prediction: Algorithms, AI, and the Shifting Shadows of Risk, by Igor Tulchinsky and Christopher E. Mason. Beginning with dramatic advances in quantitative investing and precision medicine, this book explores how predictive technology is quietly reshaping our world in fundamental ways, from crime fighting and warfare to monitoring individual health and elections. As prediction grows more robust, it also alters the nature of the accompanying risk, setting up unintended and unexpected consequences. The Age of Prediction details how predictive certainties can bring about complacency or even an increase in risks—genomic analysis might lead to unhealthier lifestyles or a GPS might encourage less attentive driving. With greater predictability also comes a degree of mystery, and the authors ask how narrower risks might affect markets, insurance, or risk tolerance generally. Can we ever reduce risk to zero? Should we even try?
- Book of Queens: The True Story of the Middle Eastern Horsewomen Who Fought the War on Terror, by Pardis Mahdavi. Book of Queens reaches back centuries to the Persian Empire and a woman disguised as a man, facing an invading army, protected only by light armor and the stallion she sat astride. Mahdavi draws a thread from past to present: from her fearless Iranian grandmother, who guided survivors of domestic violence to independent mountain colonies in Afghanistan where the women, led by a general named Mina, became their country’s first line of defense from marauding warlords. To the female warriors who helped train and breed the horses used by US Green Berets when they touched down in October 2001, with a mission but insufficient intelligence on the ground—women whose contributions were then forgotten. Book of Queens is an epic tale of hidden women whose communal knowledge was instrumental in saving an animal as ancient as civilization, and who were the genesis of their own liberation.
- The Death of Public School: How Conservatives Won the War Over Education in America, by Cara Fitzpatrick. A Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist shows how conservatives have pushed for a revolution in public education—one that threatens the existence of the traditional public school. She shows how school choice evolved from a segregationist tool in the South in the 1950s, to a policy embraced by advocates for educational equity in the North, to a conservative strategy for securing government funds for private schools in the twenty-first century. As a result, education is poised to become a private commodity rather than a universal good.
- Dream Town: Shaker Heights and the Quest for Racial Equity, by Laura Meckler. In the late 1950s, Shaker Heights began groundbreaking work that would make it a national model for housing integration. And beginning in the seventies, it was known as a crown jewel in the national move to racially integrate schools. The school district built a reputation for academic excellence and diversity, serving as a model for how white and Black Americans can thrive together. Meckler—herself a product of Shaker Heights—takes a deeper look into the place that shaped her, investigating its complicated history and its ongoing challenges in order to untangle myth from truth. She confronts an enduring, and troubling, question—if Shaker Heights has worked so hard at racial equity, why does a racial academic achievement gap persist?
- Live to See the Day: Coming of Age in American Poverty, by Nikhil Goyal. The Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia is distinguished only by its poverty. It is home to Ryan, Giancarlos, and Emmanuel, three Puerto Rican children who live among the most marginalized families in the United States. This is the story of their coming-of-age, which is beset by violence—the violence of homelessness, hunger, incarceration, stray bullets, sexual and physical assault, the hypermasculine logic of the streets, and the drug trade. In Kensington, eighteenth birthdays are not rites of passage but statistical miracles. Live to See the Day confronts a new age of American poverty, after the end of “welfare as we know it,” after “zero tolerance” in schools criminalized a generation of students, after the odds of making it out are ever slighter.
- Necessary Trouble: Growing Up at Midcentury, by Drew Gilpin Faust. To grow up in the 1950s was to enter a world of polarized national alliances, nuclear threat, and destabilized social hierarchies.
A privileged white girl in conservative, segregated Virginia was expected to adopt a willful blindness to the inequities of race and the constraints of gender. For Drew Gilpin, the acceptance of both female subordination and racial hierarchy proved intolerable and galvanizing. Urged to become “well adjusted” and to fill the role of a poised young lady that her upbringing imposed, she found resistance was necessary for her survival. During the 1960s, through her love of learning and her active engagement in the civil rights, student, and antiwar movements, Drew forged a path of her own—one that would eventually lead her to become a historian of the very conflicts that were instrumental in shaping the world she grew up in. “This intricate narrative encapsulates the not-so-pleasant conflicts many struggled to overcome during the turbulent post-World War II period. Few overcame as successfully as Dr. Faust, and this publication should inspire those of us confronting similar challenges in today’s America." —Congressman James E. Clyburn
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On Disinformation: How to Fight for Truth and Protect Democracy, by Lee McIntyre. A powerful, pocket-sized citizen’s guide on how to fight back against the disinformation campaigns that are imperiling American democracy. McIntyre shows how the war on facts began, and how ordinary citizens can fight back against the scourge of disinformation that is now threatening the very fabric of our society. Drawing on his twenty years of experience as a scholar of science denial, McIntyre explains how autocrats wield disinformation to manipulate a populace and deny obvious realities, why the best way to combat disinformation is to disrupt its spread, and most importantly, how we can win the war on truth.
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Writing for Their Lives: America’s Pioneering Female Science Journalists, by Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette. Writing for Their Lives tells the stories of women who pioneered the nascent profession of science journalism from the 1920s through the 1950s. Like the “hidden figures” of science, such as Dorothy Vaughan and Katherine Johnson, these women journalists, Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette writes, were also overlooked in traditional histories of science and journalism. But, at a time when science, medicine, and the mass media were expanding dramatically, Emma Reh, Jane Stafford, Marjorie Van de Water, and many others were explaining theories, discoveries, and medical advances to millions of readers via syndicated news stories, weekly columns, weekend features, and books—and they deserve the recognition they have long been denied.
- The Loom of Time: Between Empire and Anarchy, from the Mediterranean to China, by Robert D. Kaplan. The Greater Middle East, which Robert D. Kaplan defines as the vast region between the Mediterranean and China, encompassing much of the Arab world, parts of northern Africa, and Asia, existed for millennia as the crossroads of empire: Macedonian, Roman, Persian, Mongol, Ottoman, British, Soviet, American. But with the dissolution of empires in the twentieth century, postcolonial states have endeavored to maintain stability in the face of power struggles between factions, leadership vacuums, and the arbitrary borders drawn by exiting imperial rulers with little regard for geography or political groups on the ground. In The Loom of Time, Kaplan explores this broad, fraught space through reporting and travel writing to reveal deeper truths about the impacts of history on the present and how the requirements of stability over anarchy are often in conflict with the ideals of democratic governance.
- Empire of the Sum: The Rise and Reign of the Pocket Calculator, by Keith Houston. Starting with hands, abacus, and slide rule, humans have always reached for tools to simplify math. Pocket-sized calculators ushered in modern mathematics, helped build the atomic bomb, took us to the bottom of the ocean, and accompanied us to the moon. The pocket calculator changed our world, until it was supplanted by more modern devices that, in a cruel twist of irony, it helped to create. The calculator is dead; long live the calculator.
In this witty mathematic and social history, Keith Houston transports readers from the nascent economies of the ancient world to World War II, where a Jewish engineer calculated for his life at Buchenwald, and into the technological arms race that led to the first affordable electronic pocket calculators
All book links in this diary are to my online bookstore The Literate Lizard. If you already have a favorite indie bookstore, please keep supporting them, but If you’re able to throw a little business my way, that would be truly appreciated. I would love to be considered ‘The Official Bookstore of Daily Kos.’ Use the coupon code DAILYKOS for 15% off your order, in gratitude for your support (an ever-changing smattering of new releases are already discounted 20% each week). I’m busily adding new content every day, and will have lots more dedicated subject pages and curated booklists as it grows. I want it to be full of book-lined rabbit holes to lose yourself in (and maybe throw some of those books into a shopping cart as well.)
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