Saturday, September 17, 2022

Serious Face by Jon Mooallem

Serious Face by Jon Mooallem is an excellent book of essays by someone whose writing I enjoy quite a bit. Mooallem wrote Wild Ones and This is Chance and provides in his latest book thirteen different pieces of writing that he's done, some of which I had some before and some new to me.

Mooallem's writing strikes me as interesting and profound, with his stories often providing unexpected twists and a different look at things than expected. In Serious Face, stories he tells include the following...

"We Have Fire Everywhere" about the fire in Paradise, CA and people fleeing it.

"Why These Instead of Others?" about a twenty-something Mooallem being in Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska and his friend needing Coast Guard rescue after a tree fell on him, causing near-fatal injuries.

"A House at the End of the World" about B.J. Miller, who started in San Francisco the Zen Hospice Project for people with terminal illnesses.

"The Outsiders" about two men helping people as they leave prison, picking them up as part of the Ride Home Program of the Anti-Recidivism Coalition and easing their transition from jail. 

Tracy Flick Can't Win by Tom Perrotta

Tracy Flick Can't Win by Tom Perrotta is an enjoyable novel by the writer of Election, published in 1998 and turned into the Reese Witherspoon-starring movie of the same name. In this decades-later follow up, Perrotta brings us back to Tracy Flick's life and her aspirations. The book is written in an interesting style, with chapters jumping between characters and points of view in the writing and comes to an interesting close. It's a fast and fun read, especially for those familiar with the character of Track Flick that Perrotta wrote some thirty years ago.