Monday, September 10, 2012

Book Report: Some Assembly Required

Required Reading for All Pro-Lifers

Book Title: Some Assembly Required

Author: Anne and Sam Lamott

Publisher: Penguin / Riverhead

Date: 2012

ISBN: 978-1-59448-841-2

Length: 272 pages

Quote: "The best thing--besides how unbelievably perfect Jax is, not to mention alive--is to watch Sam be a father."

Anne Lamott's first nonfiction book was Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year. A little earlier than anyone expected, the son whose infancy was described in that book was able to collaborate with Lamott on Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son's First Son. (On the inside back cover, dreadlocked blonde Anne Lamott tries to look as grandmotherly as possible.)

If you're a hardcore conservative fundamentalist type of Christian, you might say that "this," meaning premature grandmotherhood, is what Anne Lamott's liberal (in both senses--ecumenical theology and left-wing politics) approach to Christianity leads to.

If you're any kind of Christian, however, you'll have to love the way Lamott fights the urge to nag and scold her grandson's parents, forces herself to treat them as adults, and focusses on loving her grandson. And her church. And other religious people with whom she spends time during baby Jax's first year (which includes a tour in India). And Jesus.

What's not to love? As in Operating Instructions, this is an intimate, woman-to-woman book about a baby. It's hard to imagine a whole book about a baby that would not be full of moist and smelly medical details. Both of Anne Lamott's baby books bounce easily up and down, like mountain goats, from the spiritual heights ("explaining the Nicene Creed") to the cerebral ("If you try to protect [children] from hurt, and always rush to their side...they won't learn about life") to the earthy ("Is dung an element?"), and back, often within a sentence: "When I was teaching Sunday school, Jax...emerged...having opened up a little container of baby-junk-food sweet-potato bits...he had so much drool on his hands that they were sticking to him." This is Lamott's trademark, the style of writing that's put her among the bestselling Christian writers in the English-speaking world. There are those who prefer a more abstract, less earthy sort of Christian book.

However, what I've said about Lamott's other memoirs, in general, applies to this one. If you want to do something "pro-life," other than bringing up your own children, Anne Lamott can show you how it's done. No harangues. No guilt trips. Just gratitude that Jesus lives in the hearts of people who, approximately twenty years ago, promised a mixed-up young woman that they'd help her raise a child who had been produced by her sleeping with someone else's husband in exchange for drugs. And they did. And she did. And she became rich and famous by writing about it and now has money to give back to those who slipped their change into her pockets at church when she was young and poor.

I had to post something about this book here. Should have done it sooner, in fact, because Some Assembly Required was one of the first books Saloli put on this site's official Amazon Wish List. Some dear, kind privacy fanatic out there made it possible for me to enjoy this book and tell youall about it. Thanks to you. Thanks to Anne and Sam Lamott, too.

This one will become a Book You Can Buy From Me in a few years. Currently I recommend buying it as a new book; that's a better deal for baby Jax and his family. If you like books about babies, this is a good one. If you don't usually like books about babies, Some Assembly Required is good enough that you might be willing to put up with the references to drooling and diapers.

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