Another Good Book, Another Plug
Since it's the beginning of fall and school's back in session, I feel compelled to report on my summer reading; it's one of those back-to-school rituals that never seem to leave the bloodstream. (If only I could take to the soccer field at 3 PM, five days a week, like I used to....)
One of the most fun and clever reads I enjoyed this summer is a book called Man Camp. The author is Adrienne Brodeur, the founding editor of Zoetrope literary magazine and a friend. (That's why I read it, but not why I'm plugging it.)
Man Camp revolves around this terrifically clever premise: two New York women get so fed up with the ineptness of the men in their lives that they start a camp where said inept men can go to learn manly skills, such as how to change a tire, fix a fence, milk a cow, and so on.
As a guy who enjoys doing all those things (all right, maybe not milking a cow) but never feels wholly confident that they'll come out right, I connected to the underlying theme: an anxiety that we citydwellers have lost the ability to perform rudimentary survival skills. (I have a hunch that the TV show "Survivor" operates on the same anxiety.)
But Adrienne never hits you over the head with her message. Instead, she's written a beach read (for all seasons!) with surprisingly deep and likeable characters, snappy dialogue, great comic situations, and happy endings. She has a particular gift, I think, for conveying human interactions that go wrong when one person hits an off-note, sends the wrong signal, and two people who were in sync fall out of rhythm.
Anyway, take a look at Man Camp. You'll probably see it on the big screen in a couple of years, so now's your chance to get in ahead of the curve.
