In the foreword to Tiny Beautiful Things -- written by Steve Almond of The Rumpus -- he states, "Too often (the Internet is) a cesspool of distraction, a place where we indulge in the modern sport of snark and schadenfreude, building the case for our own bigotries, where we mock and thereby dismiss the suffering of others". The Dear Sugar advice column, he proposes, is the human and merciful antidote to these negative phenomena: As written by Cheryl Strayed, Dear Sugar is a place where the broken can unburden themselves and hope for thoughtful advice from a person who has truly listened. Now, I probably spend too much time on the Internet myself -- as a person with way too much free time on my hands -- but I am no more likely to indulge in snark online than I am to watch TMZ or Jerry Springer on TV, and the sites I visit are fairly predictable: I spend about as much time reading about books as I do reading books (ie. a lot of both) and my absolute favourite part of reading the newspaper online is reading the Comments section after articles. On politically charged topics, I can immediately dismiss the namecallers (whether they say "HarperCons" or "Libtards", both sides have their loony, dismissable extremists), but I am truly fascinated by the people who can make persuasive arguments and take the time to link to external information, and I find my views being molded by this group-sourcing in a way that the newspaper columnists themselves rarely prompt. Through these two pursuits (reading newspapers to better understand the world and reading fiction to better understand myself), I deliberately narrow my online pursuits to, paradoxically, just about everything as I follow the breadcrumbs to new facts and ideas. (Parenthetically, I thought for a while to use StumbleUpon in order to broaden what I'm exposed to, but I found that no logarithm can calculate what will interest me better than my own intuition.)
Tiny Beautiful Things was recommended as a book that might interest me and I could immediately recognise that Cheryl Strayed is an empathetic person with a gift for recognising the core of a person's problems. She is also a very good writer who, with a blend of common sense and personal anecdotes, replies to her correspondents with generally sound advice. This advice can be broadly reduced to: You are loveable; You have a right to set boundaries; You already know what you need to do, you said so in your letter, so go do it. This isn't earth-shattering stuff (an early exposure to Ann Landers and Oprah had already told me these truths) and I've seen some people remark that the Dear Sugar columns are better online because of the Comments section. That makes sense to me based on my own net-surfing experiences, but when I went to check it out online, I didn't find that the Comments enhanced my understanding or enjoyment: there's no real debate, just fans of Sugar's who thank her for her column and others who wish to unburden themselves of related problems. I can certainly see the value of the column (and by extension, this book) to people who are suffering and searching for an empathetic ear, but since I find no joy in reading about others' heartaches, and found no new theories about how I ought to live my own life in the replies, this book felt a bit like reading someone else's mail (but without the queasy thrill of doing so without permission. Not that I read other people's mail.).
Naturally, I wasn't totally unaffected by the letters, but as I was reading the few that brought me to tears, I could never forget the fact that these were the letters that Sugar had selected for maximum effect, and I felt a bit manipulated. The letter that affected me most deeply was from Living Dead Dad (whose son had been killed by a drunk driver four years before); a man so shattered still that he wrote for advice in an itemised list, as a letter wasn't able to contain his thoughts. After feeling so shattered right along with him, I found it very gimmicky that, for the only time in this collection, Sugar replied in list form.
I mentioned Ann Landers above and I'm going to again because she wrote the only two pieces of advice that have ever truly gobsmacked me: No one can take advantage of you without your permission and You can't control other people's actions but you can control how you respond to them. I read those lines probably thirty years ago or more, took them into my heart, and have had many opportunities to repeat them to my own kids. Nothing in Tiny Beautiful Things struck me with the same ring of truth, but that doesn't mean I don't think it's valuable: If the Internet is, indeed, primarily a place where people gleefully gather to mock and dismiss the suffering of others (and we've all seen these trolls no matter where we hang out), then there's surely room for a little light and support. As far as the book goes, I don't see how it improves upon the archived columns that can be accessed for free. And as for me, I'll probably not even delve too deeply into those archives.
When I said above that this book "was recommended to me", that's not exactly true: A couple of weeks ago, someone had liked one of my book reviews on Goodreads and so I looked her up, and when I saw that she's a writer, that inflated my esteem for her -- a real writer? Liked my review? What else does she like? So, I looked at what books she liked, and based on enthusiastic reviews that she wrote about Tiny Beautiful Things and Winter's Tale, I wasted a lot of my reading hours on two books that I didn't really like. Blah -- lesson learned.
Another story that affected me was from a woman who used to be a compulsive thief, who now has her compulsions under control, and wonders if she should come clean and make confessions to the people she's stolen from. Sugar shared a story about a young tough who stole a camera case from her yard sale, and after denying it a few times, eventually admitted that he had done it because he was lonely. That sparked a truth for Sugar who had also been a compulsive thief in her youth and realised that she likely did it because she was lonely. Everyone's thievery was explained by their miserable childhoods, and I know, I know, that my own childhood wasn't as miserable as even the mildest sobstory in this book, but the fact remains that when the boy said, "Because I'm lonely", my eyes welled up. And the fact is: My brothers and I were all petty thieves. Kyler was banned from the 1001 Variety Store for shoplifting a chocolate bar (and I have no clue how many times he wasn't caught). Ken had the misfortune to have been caught stealing a chocolate bar from the A & P, and while my Dad was bellowing at him (this was just at the beginning of Ken's descent into delinquency), demanding to know why he had done it, all Ken could squeak out was, "Because I was hungry". Would his descent have been halted if he had been self-aware enough to say, "Because I'm lonely? Because I'm miserable? Because I need help?"
Now, was I lonely? I wasn't happy, and it's true that I had no friends in the small town we lived in (all my friends were bussed into the school, so a car ride was required for every get-together, so that didn't happen all the time), but I didn't think of myself as lonely exactly until I read this anecdote -- and something jolted me at that line. My life of crime was not extensive, and thank God, I never got caught (and I did wonder later if Ken getting caught was what labelled him from then on as a trouble-maker, unredeemable). I stole makeup mostly from Guardian Drugs, even though I would have had the money to pay for it -- it was truly compulsive, I wouldn't be able to explain to anyone even today why I did it. (Did I maybe want to get caught? Get that father attention?) I also stole a few things from people I was babysitting for: a liquid eyeliner once, a small souvenir bottle of rum, cigarettes and matches. But my coupe de grace was a whole cake from a small Italian bakery. I was with a friend and I honestly can't remember why I did it -- I just picked it up out of the display case and we walked out, went to the library, and gorged ourselves on it in a secluded corner (without forks or even napkins). I have no idea how no one saw me take it, why we went to such a public place to eat it, and how no one stopped us from eating it in a library. And if I had been caught, would I have feebly squeaked out, "But I was hungry"? I look back on that cake and think it was a different person, just totally unbelievable that that could have been me, and when and if my girls ever read this, I'm sure they would agree that it doesn't sound like me. But it's part of me. (And parenthetically, this story about two 12-year-old girls being tried as adults for murder certainly makes me uncomfortable when I think of how unformed I was at that age.)
Another letter that affected me was from a woman who had engaged in some pretty heavy internet flirting, but now that it's over, she wonders if she should confess it to her husband. Sugar replied that since it's never going to happen again, what the husband doesn't know won't hurt him. This only obliquely reminded me of something I want to share: Not long after my father's mother died, my mother told me that Grammie had entrusted her deepest secret to her alone -- when she was 14, she had had a baby and gave her up for adoption to a family she knew. The girl grew up and stayed in the neighbouring community, and although my Grandmother knew who she was and how she was doing, the girl never knew where she came from (I don't know if she even knew she was adopted) and no one but my mother now knew this truth. My mother wondered if, even though she had promised my Grammie that she wouldn't, she should tell my father. I immediately said no way -- I wished she hadn't told me. Why should anyone have their entire universe tilted, the foundations of everything that you believe about who you are and where you came from, knocked out from under you? The facts are that, due to some slimey money issues, my father doesn't talk to the sister he does know about -- even though they live in the same small village. My mother thought he had a right to know about this half-sister, just in case he wanted to pursue a relationship -- but why? Grammie didn't want to take her secret to the grave, but she also didn't want her own kids to know it (or she would have told her own daughter, the slimey money thief, or her other sons, my now-dead uncles). As I said to my Mom, "Being related by blood doesn't make you family. I'd just let this rest." This is a reference to the fact that I don't really know any of my extended family -- aunts, uncles, cousins: they're no one to me. And I have no idea if my Mom ever told my Dad, but here's the silver lining: it does give me a greater insight into this grandmother I didn't know. Did she marry my abusive half-Native grandfather because he was the only one who would accept her, damaged goods as she was? Or did he not know the secret either and she just assumed he was all she could get? Wouldn't this explain why she stayed? As much as I do believe that what my Dad doesn't know can't hurt him, I wonder what insights this info would provide for him? (Although I secretly suspect that it would negatively affect his memories of his mother.)
Back to the book, I also have some complaints about its "lefty" leanings (in the author's words, "I'd rather be sodomized by a plastic lawn flamingo than vote for a Republican"). Repeatedly, Strayed (Sugar) advises people to just keep having sex with whoever makes them feel good, women have lots of time to figure out if they want to start a family, and if for any reason a marriage isn't feeling fulfilling, listen to the voice that says, "Go". If this is the internet's source for compassionate advice, I wish it stressed stability a bit more (not that I think people should be virgins when they marry, start pushing out puppies when they leave their teens, or stay with an abusive partner -- her advice is simply the other extreme). I also would never bring my preschoolers to a Gay Pride Parade where I weep with joy as the "gay samba dancers in thongs and feathers" go by -- and just as I will state that I am 100% behind equality based on every distinction imaginable, I am also not entirely comfortable with a public event that involves those who are sexually graphic (as we all know Pride Parades can be): by all means teach your children to be accepting, let them know that who they love will always be acceptable to you, but why expose them to assless chaps and giant, inflatable dildos in an excited party atmosphere?
Okay, I pushed the language slightly there to show I'm not a prude, but you know what? I am a prude. The language in Tiny Beautiful Things, while it didn't offend me, didn't need to be as coarse as it was to reach me. I understand the advice to the struggling writer who fears being dismissed just because she's a woman (Don't write like a girl. Don't write like a boy. Write like a motherfucker.) That kind of cursing as emphasis is something I might even do, but I see it's kind of Sugar's catchphrase now -- it can be purchased on a poster or a mug from The Rumpus, and I'm enough of a prude to not want to see Write Like a Motherfucker written on a mug somewhere that I (and presumably children) can see it. After swearing in pretty much every response as I remember it, in the Acknowledgements Strayed thanks her husband and children "for so much, but mostly for loving me like the truest motherfuckers". After all the unearthshattering advice, lefty politics, and constant use of "sweet pea" to counter her "straight talk", this final salvo (aimed at children) just left a bad taste in my mouth.
