Tonight at the Hawthorne Powell's, Jane Vandenburgh reads from A Pocket History of Sex in the Twentieth Century. Her memoir is nowhere near as sexy as the title suggests (BOO), but it is unusually original, despite covering the requisite kooky-LA-childhood territory (gay day, crazy mom, misfit adolescence, unhappy relationships). Vandenburgh is a smart, self-aware writer who never romanticizes her own past, coming across a bit like an Anne Lamott who will never let you down by finding Jesus

ce2e/1238096725-30897958.jpg

You can read my review of Pocket History here. The book had the curious effect of making me want me to read journals and memoirs written by women who came west on the Oregon Trail, as Vandenburgh is really good at framing her own experience in the context of the pioneer women who came before her (which made me realize my life is way more awesome than I am sensible enough to be grateful for. Sure, I have to learn to "Twitter"—but no giving birth on a wagon! Ever!).

The bit I'm going to excerpt follows an account of teenaged Vadenburgh getting grounded for going on a date with a boy. She gets punished and the boy does not; when she complains about the unfairness, her aunt tells her that no one "ever said anything about any part of this life being fair," in a statement that includes "not only the dumpy little vacation house where we've all been stashed away for the entire month of August, but also the entire circumstance of what it is to be the woman my aunt is or my mother is, one who's educated and sophisticated yet finds herself perched here on the very edge of the civilized world, far away from everything she once imagined she might care about."


...because this was the West, where women grew up knowing it was never fair, that fairness played no part in it. This was ingrained in Our People, as my mother calls girls and women, and it was never Our People who wanted to come west, as their journals make abundantly clear. They believed this place to be their soul's death, that they were doing this out of self-sacrifice, in which they were trained from their earliest moments; that it was for the sake of their husbands and their children and a more prosperous future that they'd leave everything they cherished—hometown, parents, flower garden, friends. Leave everything, even the only landscape their eyes recognized, the cloud shapes that comforted them, weather they might anticipate. There were colors of green that they'd never see again, birdsongs their ears would never again hear."

Reading's at 7:30; or you could catch Dacher Keltner, author of Born to Be Good, a study of why "people evolved positive emotions, like gratitude, awe, and compassion, that promote ethical action positive," at the downtown store. More book listings here, forever and always.