Tomboyland

 Book 52 of my 2020 Reading Challenge

read from July 7 - August 12

Tomboyland

by Melissa Faliveno

Summary (via Goodreads)

published 2020

Flyover country, the middle of nowhere, the space between the coasts. The American Midwest is a place beyond definition, whose very boundaries are a question. It’s a place of rolling prairies and towering pines, where guns in bars and trucks on blocks are as much a part of the landscape as rivers and lakes and farms. Where girls are girls and boys are boys, where women are mothers and wives, where one is taught to work hard and live between the lines. But what happens when those lines become increasingly unclear? When a girl, like the land that raised her, finds herself neither here nor there?
In this intrepid collection of essays, Melissa Faliveno traverses the liminal spaces of her childhood in working-class Wisconsin and the paths she’s traveled since, compelled by questions of girlhood and womanhood, queerness and class, and how the lands of our upbringing both define and complicate us even long after we’ve left. Part personal narrative, part cultural reportage, Tomboyland navigates midwestern traditions, mythologies, landscapes, and lives to explore the intersections of identity and place. From F5 tornadoes and fast-pitch softball to gun culture, strange glacial terrains, kink party potlucks, and the question of motherhood, Faliveno asks curious, honest, and often darkly funny questions about belonging and the body, isolation and community, and what we mean when we use words like woman, family, and home.

My Opinion

3 stars

I read this book through the Amazon First Reads program for Prime members.  I don't know if that needs a disclosure but since I downloaded it for free I wanted to mention it just in case.

I didn't realize it was non-fiction until I started reading it, with essays both about herself but also about her community.  They were also on the "long" side of "short" stories and it took me more than one sitting to read most of them.  I have a few notes on each individual essay.

The Finger of God: it was good writing but since it was the first one I was still getting over my surprise of a) it being non-fiction and b) the longer lengths.  This one was mostly about other people.

Tomboy: This one was about her but also compared her individual circumstances to historical context and her more global community which I really liked.  Since I'm reading the e-version of this I haven't even looked at the author photo and I'm not familiar with her work so it felt strange to know nothing about her but such incredibly intimate details.  Not strange in a bad way but just something I noted.

Of A Moth: this was the only one I read in one sitting.  It still felt a little long for the topic, moth non-fiction, but it was a good length for an essay.

Switch-Hitter: My favorite one.  This was so descriptive and personal, I felt like I was on the field too.  This felt the most personal and again, had the mix of her stories with historical context that added depth. 

Meat and Potatoes: This one held my interest from start to finish and had the most unexpected directions with the stories.

Gun Country: She was able to mix her viewpoints in with the differing viewpoints of her friends and family without making fun of them.  Really interesting read.

Motherland: I really liked this one.  It was honest but not defensive.

Driftless: Short and sweet with the right amount of nostalgia.