City of Literature
Hide, by Matthew Griffin
Griffin, a Writers’ Workshop alumnus, will present a reading from Hide at Prairie Lights, 15 S. Dubuque St., at 7 p.m. Friday. The story really begins just after World War II, when the two main characters meet and fall in love. Both gay men, their relationship is hushed, secluded, staying private for 50-ish years. Growing old together leads to complications, as one has a stroke, and the other isn’t able to care for him alone.
It’s a touching tale of marriage from a man who knows a bit about the subject: Griffin and his husband were featured on the front page of the New York Times after marrying the day same-sex marriage was legalized nationwide.
New Releases
When Breath Becomes Air, by Paul Kalanithi
There’s always a touch of irony when a doctor is dying of an incurable disease. Kalanithi, a neurosurgeon who graduated cum laude from Yale in 2007, had never smoked a day in his life, yet found out he had Stage-4 lung cancer in 2013. Writing seemed to be a way to cope, even as he kept working, helping other patients. The most powerful moments of the book are Kalanithi’s thoughts on being both doctor and patient, facing his own mortality before age 40, and what made his life worthwhile.
He died in March 2015, before When Breath Becomes Air was published, survived by his wife and their young daughter.
Rediscovered
The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls
I read this shortly after it came out in 2005 on a friend’s recommendation. Nothing else has ever made me as truly grateful for my family.
Walls, her two sisters, and brother had to fend for themselves. Their father was sweet, imaginative, and very smart, spinning tall tales for his children and teaching them about the world. When he wasn’t drunkenly scheming, at least.
He was matched by their mother, a free-spirited woman who didn’t seem to really want to be weighed down by a family. The bond between siblings is inspiring and uplifting, complemented by Walls’s tragic devotion to her parents, aware of their flaws but unable to separate herself from them.
— by Justus Flair