Parade (Touring 2025)

This musical was on my wife’s list of ones she wanted to see, so when the touring production came to Los Angeles, we decided to go see it. 

 

Also a reason was that Brian Vaughn, a longtime favorite at the Utah Shakespeare Festival, has a role. A highlight from the past is his role-swapping turn in The Odd Couple. 

Parade is a dramatization of a true story, and really highlights the fact that history is often messy and complicated, and sometimes there is really no such thing as justice. 

 

In 1913, a horrific crime was committed. Thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan, a child laborer, was found raped and murdered in the basement of the pencil factory she worked at. 

 

That much is undisputed. What was less clear was who committed the crime. Because the case garnered media attention - some really yellow journalism, with xenophobia and scapegoating - there was a lot of pressure to gain a conviction, preferably one that matched the community’s existing prejudices. 

 

The primary suspects were a pair of African American workers - the night watchman who found the body, and the janitor - and the Jewish Yankee Leo Frank, the superintendent. 

 

In the play version, the decision to go after Frank was made because public anger required more than just “hanging another n------r.” It is less clear if this was the case in real life, but in any case, once the decision to pin the blame on Frank, the usual Southern machinery of bribing witnesses to lie went on overdrive.

 

Frank was convicted, but there was sufficient doubt about his actual guilt that the governor, John Slaton, commuted his sentence to life imprisonment. This ended Slaton’s political career, and led him to flee Georgia for a decade because of the death threats. More about him later. 

 

Soon thereafter, Frank was kidnapped by a lynch mob and hanged when he refused to confess to the murder. Even though the lynchers were well known citizens, they were never prosecuted. 

 

The aftermath of this was definitely interesting. The negative publicity ended up leading to a decrease in lynchings. American Jews formed the Anti-Defamation League to combat the virulent antisemitism in society at large but specifically in the media. 

 

Unfortunately, the backlash also contributed to a revitalized Ku Klux Klan, which was both anti-black and anti-Jewish. 

 

 In 1986, the state issued Frank a pardon based on the failures of the state, both in a corrupt prosecution, and in failing to protect him from lynching. More recently, the state reopened the investigation. That effort is still pending. 

 

There are so many issues in the case, it is difficult to untangle them all, let alone come to a definitive conclusion as to guilt or innocence. 

 

To start with, everyone connected to the crime was in some way a victim of systemic injustice. 

 

Mary Phagan was forced into long hours of labor starting at age 10 because of the untimely death of her father. Faced with brutal impoverishment, many children like her sacrificed their well-being, health, and even lives to feed the capitalist machine. Her rape and murder wasn’t even all that unusual. Factory children died all the time. And men felt free to harass, assault, and rape low income girls. This was even worse for African American girls, of course, but white skin wasn’t that much of a protection from sexual violence. 

 

The two black men who might have been guilty of the crime were likewise largely unprotected from societal violence. Had Frank not been targeted, one or both of the black men would have been, and they too likely would have been faced with trumped up evidence, and perhaps lynched. Whether or not one of them was guilty (historians seem to lean toward the janitor, Conley, as the actual perpetrator - and he was the “star witness” against Frank.) 

 

The one thing that is certain is that the evidence was shaky, circumstantial, and likely manufactured. But could anyone have gotten a fair trial? Probably not. 

 

Leo Frank too was in a precarious social position. Jews were widely hated and slandered at the time, particularly in the South. Even in the 1930s, as European Jews tried to flee Hitler, the United States closed its doors to them, leading to hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths. 

 

Frank was also a Yankee - not a Southerner. He had married a Southern wife, and been offered his job by one of her relatives, but he was still not “one of us” to the Southerners. 

 

Just as the suspects and the victim were largely unprotected by society, making the case more complicated than a simple “who did it?” there are no clear heroes in this case either. 

 

The closest, perhaps, would be defense attorney Luther Rosser (played by Brian Vaughn in this production) and his assistants, who, by any measure, put up a spirited defense. 

 

But there was a problem there as well, not specifically involving the trial, but its aftermath. It turned out that Governor Slaton was in partnership with Rosser, thus creating a potential conflict of interest. It is a tough case, because there really wasn’t anyone else who could commute the sentence, yet Slaton gave an appearance of bias. 

 

And then there is the media, which doesn’t come off too well in this case. While some papers at least made a cursory attempt at objectivity, the overall coverage fanned the flames of antisemitism and made a fair trial all but impossible. 

 

Just an ugly look for an ugly period of our history. 

 

And, naturally, one that the Trump Regime wishes to erase. There are several people in his regime that are still furious that Frank’s sentence was commuted, and want the pardon rescinded. The neo-Nazis have come out to protest Parade, although we didn’t see any at our performance. They are probably scared shitless that Los Angeles residents would beat their yellow asses. 

 

Speaking of which, an interesting experience is watching any play with political content in my home city. LA is not down with the MAGA movement. Most of us Californians love our diversity, we consider immigrants our neighbors, and actually known plenty of undocumented immigrants that we want to see get legal status, not brutalization by ICE. 

 

I remember back during the first Trump term seeing Hamilton, and hearing the line, “Immigrants - we get it done!” and the entire theater erupting in cheers, pretty much blowing the roof off. 

 

There was a corresponding moment in this play. Mary’s mother gets her aria, testifying at trial, but unfortunately channels her legitimate grief into an antisemitic screed. After she finished….dead silence. And I mean, literally nothing. No clapping. No sound. Even though it was just a play, and the actor portraying the mother is probably a thoroughly decent person, there was nothing. The LA audience wasn’t going to dignify racist shit with any acknowledgement. 

 

Damn. 

 

I don’t think most Republicans understand how deeply Trump is hated here. And one in eight Americans are Californians. Does he really think he is going to conquer us like some sort of vassal state? More and more of us, even in redder counties, are realizing that MAGA has declared war on us, the fourth largest economy in the world, and the heart of American innovation for the last century. So stupid. 

 

Another note about the musical is this: while the historical events are the basis for most of the plot, there is a certain emphasis on the relationship between Frank and his wife Lucille. 

 

At the beginning, Leo is dismissive of Lucille, disregarding her advice, keeping information from her, a mere woman. 

 

As time goes on, however, it is her efforts which finally result in the commutation. In a bit of artistic license, Lucille directly meets the governor and accuses him of being a coward and a fool. 

 

I couldn’t find any evidence that this happened. However, the Judge in the case wrote the governor recommending the commutation, as he felt it was a wrongful conviction. (Really, the lawyers are about the only good guys in this story. But not the crooked prosecutors…) 

 

By the end of the story, Leo and Lucille have come to appreciate each other, and part on terms of love. So that’s kind of a feel-good part of an otherwise really dark story. 

 

I won’t say too much about the production itself. As one would expect from a professional production, the acting, singing, dancing, lighting, sound, and so on, were all polished and excellent. 

 

Max Chernin as Leo Frank was particularly memorable, between his smooth baritone voice and his haunted look throughout. 

 

Ramone Nelson brought down the house with his physical and bluesy performance in “Feel the Rain Fall.” 

 

Talia Suskauer was delightful as Lucille Frank.

 

And, of course, because of my history seeing him, I loved Brian Vaughn’s turn as the good guy of the story, Luther Rosser. 

 

The staging was fascinating, with a central raised portion that doubled for everything from the courtroom to the prison, and a lot in between. In the wings were various chairs and benches. Very little moved throughout. 

 

In another interesting touch, Leo Frank is in jail at the end of the first act, and remains there on stage throughout intermission. 

 

My wife commented on the creative use of projected backgrounds. This included a lot of historical photographs, including the locations used during the play, pictures of the various real life characters, copies of the newspapers covering the crime and trial, and pictures taken at the lynching. 

 

Behind the screen was the orchestra, which consisted of keys, percussion, and strings. For a sparse group, the music was surprisingly varied, including jazz and blues. 

 

In fact, I really should talk a bit about the music, which I found fascinating. I sometimes struggled to follow the story and the lyrics because I was paying so much attention to the musical element of storytelling. 

 

Alfred Uhry wrote the book and the lyrics. Best known for Driving Miss Daisy, he originally intended Parade to be a play, but was eventually convinced to make it a musical. He has a personal connection to the story, as his great uncle owned the pencil factory that Frank worked at. 

 

Uhry first asked Stephen Sondhiem to write the music, but Sondhiem turned him down. The director Harold Prince suggested Jason Robert Brown after Prince’s daughter mentioned him as a young friend who had some potential. Brown would go on to win a Tony for the score. 

 

My previous experience of Brown’s music was in a local production of The Last Five Years, which was a bit of a stretch for an amateur company, not least because of the brutally difficult music. 

 

Parade is every bit as hard. And even, in a few cases, likely more challenging. 

 

Where to start? I’ll go with the fact that, like many classical opera composers, Brown does as much to tell the story through the music as through the lyrics. 

 

The music, while only occasionally quoting actual songs of the era, very much is in the style of its setting. From gospel to blues to jazz to pop, it sounds much like the 1910s. 

 

But it is more complicated than that too. Brown uses a technique that originated with Charles Ives: at times, the cast is singing two different songs in very different keys. This is particularly noticeable when there are competing factions. The angry white people sing one song, while the black servants sing another, while the Jewish people sing a third. Likewise for prosecution and defense. 

 

This can get quite dissonant. And in fact, throughout, many songs build to a dissonance and then end unresolved. Which parallels the story. 

 

Another way the story is told in music is that the numbers when Leo and Lucille sing together change dramatically. At first, the music clashes, and ends in dissonance. But by the final duet, the music has become harmonious, consonant, and resolves with peace and love. 

 

As with the other Brown musical I have heard, a lot of the exposition of the plot happens through music as well. Thus, paying attention to the lyrics is crucial. Fortunately, the Ahmanson has great acoustics, and the sound mixing was well done. 

 

I do want to mention two of the songs that I particularly liked. I already mentioned “Feel the Rain Fall,” which is such a blues tour-de-force that it really brought the house down. Here is a bit from the production earlier on the tour. 

 

Also excellent - and razor sharp satire - is “A Rumblin’ and a Rollin’” - sung by the servants of the Franks. I mean, yeah, the Yankees come around once a Jewish guy gets lynched in a way that they didn’t care as black Americans were lynched by the dozens. It also captures the ongoing reverberations from racial politics between the two marginalized groups dating back before the Civil War. 

 

As I keep saying about the whole story: “It’s complicated and totally fucked up.” 

 

This is, of course, the reason that MAGA doesn’t want accurate history taught. Because ultimately, as a perceptive Southerner once said, “The past is never dead. It's not even past.” We are still dealing with the same issues today. 

 

I did enjoy Parade, although “enjoy” might be the wrong word. As a feat of storytelling through word, song, music, and acting, it is outstanding. And the performance was excellent. But yeah, it’s a tough story to tell. 

 

But it is one we need to tell. And a story that can and should influence our own approach to issues of legal justice, social justice, and propaganda. 

Black Feeling Black Talk, and Black Judgment by Nikki Giovanni

Source of book: I own this

 

Both of these collections came out in 1968 - they were Giovanni’s first poetry collections. Because neither was that long, I decided to read both of them. 

 

Nikki Giovanni was one of the luminaries in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s. She was an activist and educator, in addition to writing poetry and prose. 

 

While I have read fairly extensively from the Harlem Renaissance, I hadn’t spent as much time with the next great flourishing of African American artistry until recently. James Baldwin is probably the one I started with. More recently, I have read poetry by Gwendolyn Brooks and Audre Lorde and plays by Adrienne Kennedy. 

 

The Black Arts Movement may be in the same tradition as the Harlem Renaissance, but the forms and aesthetic are quite different. The earlier movement mostly adopted traditional European forms - rhymed poetry, linear novels, persuasive essays - while the later one was far more experimental. And more overtly political. 

 

This is certainly the case for Giovanni. These two collections contain many political poems, and even the ones that seem less so contain pointed references to the political situation. 

 

Giovanni was a lesbian, who was eventually able to marry her long-term partner Virginia Fowler after gay marriage was legalized. She also had a child as a single parent by choice in her 20s. 

 

She taught for many years at Virginia Tech, and had the mass shooter in her class. She demanded he be removed, and threatened to quit, because he was such a nasty hateful person. She succeeded in having him removed from the class, and was totally unsurprised when he shot up the campus two years later. 

 

She taught well into her late 70s, and only retired a couple years before her death. 

 

These poems are by the young Nikki Giovanni, and reflect her activism in the Civil Rights Movement as well as the big emotions and idealism of youth. They feel very fresh and relevant today, and also sound great read aloud. 

 

Here are the ones that I chose to feature. 

 

I’m Not Lonely

 

i’m not lonely

sleeping all alone

 

you think i’m scared

but i’m a big girl

i don’t cry

or anything

 

i have a great big bed

to roll around

in and lots of space

and i don’t dream

bad dreams

like i used

to have that you

were leaving me

anymore 

 

now that you’re gone

i don’t dream

and no matter

what you think

i’m not lonely

sleeping

all alone

 

I love the irony in this one, the way the meaning and the words are so opposed. 

 

The Funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

His headstone said

FREE AT LAST, FREE AT LAST

But death is a slave’s freedom

We seek the freedom of free men

And the construction of a world

Where Martin Luther King could have lived

and preached non-violence. 

 

The freedom of free men indeed. 

 

For Saundra

 

i wanted to write

a poem

that rhymes

but revolution doesn’t lend

itself to be-bopping

 

then my neighbor

who thinks i hate

asked - do you ever write

tree poems - i like trees

so i thought

i’ll write a beautiful green tree poem

peeked from my window

to check the image

noticed the school yard was covered

with asphalt

no green - no trees grow

in manhattan

 

then, well, i thought the sky

i’ll do a big blue sky poem

but all the clouds have winged

low since no-Dick was elected

 

so i thought again

and it occurred to me

maybe i shouldn’t write

at all

but clean my gun 

and check my kerosene supply

 

perhaps these are not poetic

times 

at all

 

I love the dig at Richard “I am not a crook” Nixon. Honestly, the root reason Trump is not in prison where he belongs dates back to the pardon of Nixon. He too should have died in prison. And man, this poem seems of our own time too. 

 

I’ll finish with this personal one. 

 

For Teresa

 

and when I was all alone

facing my adolescence

looking forward

to cleaning house

and reading books

and maybe learning bridge

so that i could fit

into acceptable society

acceptably

you came along

and loved me

for being black and bitchy

hateful and scared

and you came along

and cared that i got

all the things necessary

to adulthood

and even made sure

i wouldn’t hate

my mother

or father

and you even understood

that i should love

peppe

but not too much

and give to gary

but not all of me

and keep on moving

‘til i found me

and now you’re sick

and have been hurt

for some time

and i’ve felt guilty

and impotent

for not being able

to give yourself

to you

as you gave

yourself 

to me

 

There are more, but given the short length of the collection, I didn’t want to just reproduce the whole thing. I would definitely recommend adding these poems to your own collection. 

 

Lent by Jo Walton

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

 

This book was this month’s selection for the book club I am in, The Literary Lush. This isn’t a book that was on my list, which is often the case - the club encourages me to read outside my usual genres.

 

Jo Walton apparently writes mostly in the science fiction and fantasy genres. A quick web search will reveal her wearing a decidedly pointy hat, and she does look the part of a roundish, benign witch character in one of the classic stories. 

 

Currently a resident of Canada, she was born in Wales, and speaks fairly fluid Welsh. 

Lent is essentially two books in one. The first third or so is a pretty straight forward historical fantasy. It tells the story of Girolamo Savonarola, the famous (or infamous if you prefer) Dominican monk of the 15th Century, who attempted to reform the church and local politics, before running afoul of the secular government and the corrupt Catholic church. He was executed as a traitor and a heretic. 

 

One of the quirks of my fundamentalist homeschool curriculum from my childhood is that, while it was a pretty egregious whitewashing (and protestant-washing) of history, it did introduce me to some eras of history that few students even study these days. 

 

One of those eras was the Renaissance, and I learned about a lot more than just Dante and the great artists. 

 

Savonarola was one character I learned about as part of the curriculum. It has been a long time, so I didn’t remember everything - I definitely did a bit of brushing up as read this book - but I do recall that the curriculum (which editorialized about literally everything), had mixed feelings about Savonarola. 

 

On the one hand, he was everything a Fundie could love: opposed to secular culture and sexuality, tried to establish a theocracy of sorts, was big on moral reform. On the other, he was very, very Catholic, which was Bad™. And also, he didn’t just focus on supposed moral contaminants - he fought against church corruption, and advocated for civic care of the poor, which is, as has become ever more apparent, a big bogeyman for American right wing religion. 

 

He also had a bit of a gift for prophecy, which led to his rise. 

 

So, the first part of the book is all about the historical Savonarola, from his own perspective. But, with things like his ability to see and banish demons, and foretell the future very real. Thus, historical fantasy. 

 

But then, things take a different turn. We discover, when Savonarola finds himself in hell, that he is actually a demon, condemned to repeat a human life over and over again, like Groundhog Day.

 

This is, in fact, the central pun of the title. Yes, the season of Lent comes into the story a lot. But it is also about Girolamo being “lent” to the human world, then “returned” to hell, where he belongs. 

 

In that first iteration, he is given a magic stone, which he doesn’t know how to use. But when he returns, things go slightly differently, and he regains his memory of his past lives. 

 

Armed with this knowledge, he decides to change the future in two ways.

 

First, he attempts to avoid the mistakes of his prior lives, which led to his death. In addition to this, he hopes to make his reforms even more permanent. 

 

The second thing, however, is that he, along with fellow monks, theorize that maybe, just maybe, they can undo the damnation of the demons. Maybe they too can be saved, as mortals are. 

 

I won’t give away the rest of the book - a good bit of the fun is finding out all the alternative histories that the author dreams up. And also, whether any of the attempts to break the spell of damnation succeed. 

 

I found it an interesting read for a number of reasons, not least of which is the fact that the author clearly put in the work to get the historical - and theological - details right. This is historical fiction done right, not sloppily like so many modern genre novels do it. (One reason I don’t read that much genre fiction - there is a lot of dreck out there, and finding the gems isn’t always easy.)

 

The book is filled with actual historical figures, events, and controversies. There is a certain amount of artistic license taken in the sense that Walton puts thoughts into the characters’ heads, and invents conversations. But the backbone of the story - at least the first part - is thoroughly plausible. 

 

Also fascinating to me is that the various characters remain the same throughout each iteration. Yes, they do different things, they say different things, and they are worked upon by totally different events. But their essential characters remain true regardless of situation. 

 

So, the good, empathetic, thoughtful sorts remain that way in very different circumstances. The bad, cruel, and vicious ones likewise. Ditto for the greedy, the power-hungry, the immature, and so on. 

 

What changes most, perhaps, are the options open to the characters as each alternate timeline unfolds differently. 

 

The book also functions as a social commentary on history and our own times. Many of the issues still plague us today. The lust for political power. The hypocrisy of religious leaders. The sexual double standard. The questions of “moral” versus economic reform. 

 

And, more than anything, the seduction of pride and its seeming ubiquity even in otherwise good actions. 

 

There are a number of pithy lines that I thought were worth sharing. 

 

First is this early line from Savonarola, after he has banished a demon that had possessed a nun. The other nuns worry she could have been killed. He explains that God doesn’t give demons actual power to do true harm by themselves - they don’t kill or injure humans. But their true power lies elsewhere. 

 

“But their power to harm seems limited, unless they have human help. Then they can be truly dangerous…Strange as it is to think, some will risk eternity for Earthly power.”

 

Hmm, relevant to today, perhaps, with those currently in power? 

 

But Savonarola also notes that with the exception of those who lust for power to use to harm others, humans tend to have complex motives. 

 

William of Ockham wrote that going to church to display yourself and your piety was a sin, while going to church out of love of God was a moral act, but the two are indistinguishable to any Earthly witness. Old Giovanni Rucellai wants to give to God, and to save his usurious soul from Hell, and to make people think well of his family, all at the same time. Only God can judge the complex motives of a human soul. 

 

This is primarily true in the context of doing good, which can be done for any number of motives. The US probably ended Jim Crow primarily because it was losing the Cold War abroad because white supremacy undermined the argument in favor of capitalist democracy. 

 

I think it is less true of true vicious evil. Nobody commits genocide out of “good” motives, because there are none. Nobody rapes out of “good” motives either. You can see the difference. You can know people by their fruit, but good fruit isn’t always as good as it seems. That said, good deeds from impure motives are still good, and should be encouraged regardless.

 

One recurring scene is the death of Lorenzo D’Medici. As often happens, the relatives of the rich hover like vultures. 

 

No matter how big or lavish the room, it reminds Girolamo of many other rooms where families have gathered and squabbled waiting for death. 

 

There is also an interesting commentary on an issue that has plagued the Catholic Church for centuries. Walton addresses it from the perspective of its time, but also cuts to the bigger issue. Angelo, the poet, is attracted to men, and confesses on his deathbed. But his actions have always been with men, not boys, which eases Savonarola’s mind a little. 

 

He hates to see the young boys from poor families sell their bodies down under the Old Bridge. The sodomites seduce them into unchastity, turning their heads with flattery and paying them a little for their favours. If they get caught, it is the boys who suffer, who cannot afford to pay the fines. There are young boys there every day. Girolamo wishes he could rescue them, but what could he do with them? There are so many of them and they are hungry. 

 

Another recurring issue in the various lives is what to do with Isabella. She is a young woman that the Count has taken as his mistress. He now feels called to the church, but wants to do right by Isabella. 

 

He cannot marry her - she is below his social station. She cannot join one of the main orders as he can, because she is a “fallen woman.” The best he can do is either find someone who will marry here despite the stigma, or at least set her up with some money to start a business. 

 

There is also the option of one of the “Magdalen” orders - ones that fallen women could join. Isabella does not wish for this, as she does not accept lifetime humiliation for doing exactly what the Count has done. Except she at least had the excuse of being poor and lacking better options. As she puts it, “I have done nothing the count hasn’t done.”

 

She is one of two strong women in the book. The other is Lorenzo’s daughter, who really should have been his heir. Instead, she is relegated to popping out a never-ending stream of babies while watching the men fuck everything up. 

 

Another line that really struck me is one regarding the Count’s death (by poison in the first part.) I have seen in real life where people who weren’t particularly close to a decedent go around bragging about the relationship. Sometimes this was to try to get money. But often just for prestige. 

 

Now the Count is dead, Benivieni will spend the rest of his life going around telling people how close they were, how he was his best friend. Girolamo sees it so clearly he isn’t sure whether it’s prophecy or just an observation of human nature. 

 

In another passage, Girolamo contemplates the inefficiency of government. 

 

It seems crazy, and it certainly isn’t efficient. But efficiency is not the only merit in government. It is a bulwark against tyranny, and as one Italian city-state after another has succumbed to a powerful tyrant, their odd way seems better and better to the Florentines.

 

Take note of this with calls to make government “efficient.” That’s usually a code word for making government a weapon against its people. 

 

One set of recurring minor characters are Camilla and Ridolfo. They are parties to an arranged marriage, which she is unhappy in. The couple decide to dissolve their marriage, and take vows. However, his heart isn’t in it. As Girolamo tells Camilla, “God wasn’t calling him, it was just you and me.”

 

I suspect this is the case all too often. Let’s just say that I was not called to be a part of Gothard’s cult - God had nothing to do with it. But my parents “called” me - that is, ordered me - to join. 

 

I’ll end with a bit of theology. There is a passage in I Peter which refers to a belief of the early church, that between Christ’s death and his resurrection, he went down to hell and released the captives. This is referred to as the Harrowing of Hell. There are many perspectives on the meaning of this, and have been over time. 

 

The Evangelical one is pretty much the shittiest, of course, because a core Evangelical belief is that God will torture most of the humans he creates forever. 

 

An alternate which dates back to the early church, however, is the universalist one, that Christ saves all. 

 

This book adheres to that idea. Indeed, when Girolamo returns to hell each time and realizes he is a demon, he notes the utter and complete absence of human souls. They are all either in paradise or in purgatory. 

 

Hence, the hope that perhaps hell can be harrowed once again, and the demons given the chance to repent and be saved. 

 

This is the deeper meaning of the book. What does damnation and salvation mean? And how is the way we live our lives connected to that? I won’t give away any spoilers, but the conclusion is at least interesting in its hint about that. 

Sandwich by Catherine Newman

Source of book: Audiobook from the library

 

This was another random selection - I wanted an audiobook, and it happened to come up as available and recommended for me based on other books I have borrowed. 

 

It is probably the second-most “chick-lit” book I have read this year - the title for most goes to the gay farce I Might Be In Trouble. But that is to misrepresent the book a bit. This isn’t breezy chick-lit at all, but rather a thoughtful female-centered story that I think qualifies as literary. 

 

I think the reason my initial reaction was to classify it as chick-lit was that it does check some of the usual boxes, including what initially felt like a gender stereotyping of women as the emotional sex. But as the book unfolds, it becomes clear that there is a lot more going on than the opening pages would suggest. By the end of the book, the characters have all become more complicated and nuanced, and the emotions far from simple or black and white. 

 

The other reason, perhaps, and one I am aware doesn’t reflect well on my cultural conditioning, is that the book is all about emotions, relationships, and [gasp!] menopause - this is a book written specifically for a female audience, and definitely not with the intent of catering to men. 

 

I have thought over and over about how to write this post without spoilers, and I just don’t think I can do it. Thus, after setting the stage, I will give a warning, and the reader can decide whether to proceed. 

 

The title itself is a double entendre. Not a naughty one, but one which gives a clue as to one of the main themes of the book. 

 

On the surface, dang the characters eat a lot of sandwiches. But really, this refers to the fact that the protagonist, Rachel (aka Rocky), is at the “Sandwich Generation” stage of life: still getting a kid through college while also looking after aging parents. 

 

She is also going through menopause. And also still feeling guilt from a 20 year old secret - something she has told literally no one, not even her husband or her therapist. 

 

And her secret isn’t even the only one. Each generation has its own. 

 

The setting is a vacation cottage at Cape Cod - the family has spent a week there every year for decades. For this one, Rocky and her husband Nick are joined by her parents, and also by their adult children, Willa and Jamie. And also Jamie’s girlfriend Maya. 

 

Between the menopause, the secrets, and the difficulties of this time of life - children growing up and going their own ways, parents growing frail and ill - there is a lot of drama during this week. 

 

And yet, to refer to it as drama is perhaps too much. 

 

The thing is, while imperfect and human, the family is shockingly functional. They actually can talk about their emotions, listen to each other, and act kindly. And they all truly love each other. 

 

So when I say “drama,” what I really mean is that there are emotions, there are illnesses, there are some mild arguments, but everything comes from a place of love, respect, and mutual good will. 

 

And, coming from my own family background, WHAT THE FUCK???

 

You mean families can actually work like this? They can actually talk about things, listen, and show love and compassion, without a need to control? That’s crazy!

 

This book also really resonated with the time of life I am in right now. 

 

Our kids are starting to fly the nest, make their own lives, and separate from us as they should. Our parents are aging and experiencing health issues. Although I am not the one who will be going through menopause, a lot of the stuff in the book about that feels familiar. Rocky finds that everything irritates her, for example, whether it should or not, and even though she knows it, her emotions still exist. 

 

The family also is both familiar and aspirational. My wife and I are liberals compared to our parents (and I am the most liberal in my own family.) We too have had a kid come out to us, and chose to handle that in an affirming way, rather than in the condemning way my parents have. We are trying, in general, to raise our children in a less toxic and controlling environment than we grew up in, and to allow our children to become who they are, not political and cultural clones of ourselves. 

 

Definitely, the idea of navigating college, career, and partners with one’s children is where we are at. 

 

I really want to be like Rocky and Nick, mostly. (And, if I am honest, I really am more like Rocky…) 

 

At this point, spoilers, so….

 

As the week unfolds, so do the secrets. 

 

Maya is pregnant, and is unsure if she wants to keep the pregnancy. But worse, she hasn’t told Jamie, but instead tells Rocky (who has already guessed.) Unsurprisingly, this upsets Jamie. This bit of drama, though, results not in a big blowup, but in the characters talking it out, expressing their emotions, and moving forward in a positive way. Part of this is that Rocky acknowledges that Jamie’s feelings are valid, even if it wasn’t Rocky’s fault Maya told her. She also gives full support, regardless of what decision Maya makes. 

 

Likewise, rather than attack his mother, Jamie is able to express his hurt without accusing her of wrongdoing. 

 

So, that is one level of secret. And some decisions that will need to be made. 

 

But the older generation has some secrets too. Rocky’s mom is having heart issues, something she hasn’t told her daughter (and only child.) So this has to be talked through, particularly after a fainting episode at the beach followed by an emergency room visit. 

 

That isn’t the only secret either. Rocky’s dad has never told her that his parents died in the Holocaust - something that comes out when Willa starts asking questions. 

 

So yeah, big time generational trauma. It is amazing that this family is as functional as it is. But that seems in significant part because each generation has chosen to respond with love, even if imperfect, rather than control. 

 

And then, there is the big one for Rocky. 

 

Twenty years prior, in the throes of having two small children, and probably postpartum depression (before that was regularly diagnosed and treated), she found herself pregnant. She got an abortion, but never told anyone. 

 

Despite being (and remaining) pro-choice, she was blindsided by her feelings, which went from ambivalence to a deep desire to get pregnant again. This was followed by miscarriage and then an inability to conceive. So, a big festering ball of guilt, grief, and loneliness, because she never talked about it. 

 

Menopause brings up all these suppressed emotions. The end of Rocky’s fertility, her feeling that her body is betraying her, and her struggle to deal with hormonal emotions. 

 

I hope this doesn’t sound like a downer of a book. It isn’t. At times it is laugh out loud hilarious. Rocky is a superb protagonist and narrator, likeable even when frustrating. And so very human. She is obviously the glue that holds the family together, so her tendency toward anxiety is understandable, even though she knows it isn’t always healthy. 

 

The other characters are believable, individual, and human as well. As are the family dynamics. The petty frustrations, the personality clashes, the predictable and longstanding tensions. But also the way that people who genuinely love, respect, and like each other work through the inevitable clashes. 

 

My own experience has been and is like this in part. My wife and I definitely fit this pattern - we have been together more than a quarter century, and we really do make the effort to fight fair, to work through disagreements, and to find common solutions. Likewise, my brother and I have always been close, so that side of the family relationship fits. 

 

I wish the other relationships in my family could have gone this direction. Unfortunately, mental illness, personality disorders, and toxic authoritarian parenting beliefs ultimately severed those relationships. In the book, there is a nod in this direction - Nick’s mother is a bigoted addict, and thus, really doesn’t have a relationship with Nick’s kids. Thus it goes, and for my parents as well. 

 

Sandwich isn’t the sort of book I would normally seek out, but it was a good read. I should say as well that I approve of the trend toward middle aged female protagonists - we have had so many middle aged guys already, but women have tended to be invisible. That is a shame, because, in my experience, middle aged women are actually pretty awesome to have as friends. 

 

The audiobook was narrated by Nan McNamara, who I am not familiar with, but who did an excellent job. I think she captured Rocky’s voice well. 

 

The Toynbee Convector by Ray Bradbury

Source of book: I own this

 

I have two main qualifications for books I bring with me when backpacking. First, it must be small and light - I’m not carrying a five pound hardback with me. Second, it must be cheap and disposable, so if something happens to it (such as getting wet in a rainstorm), it is no big loss. 

 

What this means is that typically I carry a small trade paperback that I can replace easily. 

 

I took two backpacking trips this month, one with my brother and a bunch of kids; the second with some friends. Over the course of the two trips, I read this book. 

 

The Toynbee Convector is a collection of short stories, published as a collection in 1988. Several of the stories are unique to this book, while others were first published in magazines. The title story, for example, was first published in Playboy. (Proof, I guess, that maybe you should read it for the articles?)

 

There isn’t really any theme tying the stories together. They are in a wide range of genres, from science fiction to horror to realist. If anything, I would say that the passage of time and aging are threads that run through most of the stories. Since this collection dates rather later in life, this would be expected. 

 

Bradbury wrote a LOT of short stories - something over 400 in his lifetime. My own first experience of Bradbury was through a double collection, Twice 22, which combined The Golden Apples of the Sun and A Medicine for Melancholy. (The former includes “A Sound of Thunder,” perhaps the most memorable use of the Butterfly Effect ever.) 

 

This collection contains 23 stories. I won’t go through all of them, but just mention the ones that stood out to me, for better and occasionally worse. 

 

I have mentioned before that Bradbury struggled to write female characters, and his casual sexism can get annoying. The good news about this collection is that he handles female characters better in some of the stories, even letting them be protagonists. That said, there is one story (“A Touch of Petulance”) that is pretty much the “I hate my wife” joke but with time travel. 

 

Because of the nature of short stories, I can’t really mention specifics without some spoilers. So be warned. If you want all the surprises, read the book first, then come back. 

 

The title story is an interesting science fiction thought experiment. The central character, 100 years before the present, claimed to have visited the future. He showed videos and photos of incredible progress. Amazing technology that benefited everyone. Progress against disease and poverty. World peace. 

 

Fast forward the 100 years, and guess what? All that happened. But the reclusive man who saw it grants a last interview in which he admits it was all a hoax. He used miniatures to create his fantasy world. 

 

What he did do, though, is inspire the progress that he hoped would happen. I have been struck by this in our own time. It is easy to imagine hellscapes - and indeed to make them come true. But human progress has always come as the result of imagination. Those who have the ability to foresee a better possible future and inspire others to help make it happen. 

 

I believe these people exist today among us - many of them are women, contrary to Bradbury’s story - and in fact they often have been women in the past. We can imagine a better future, and bring it to life. 

 

“Trapdoor” is a straight up horror story. Bradbury is actually one of my favorite horror writers, and this little gem is delicious. 

 

“On the Orient, North” may be my very favorite of the collection. I ended up reading it to my hiking companions on our first trip. (My brother brings short stories to read in the evenings, which is a favorite tradition for our trips.) 

 

That story is a ghost story. An ancient man travels on the famed railroad, and is recognized by a retired nurse as a ghost. He is trying to relocate to England - some superstitious backwater where he will be appreciated. But traveling through western Europe, with all its atheism and rationality, is literally “killing” him. Yes, he’s already dead, but he would cease to exist without belief. She maintains his life by reading him literature with ghosts: Hamlet, A Christmas Carol, and so on. 

 

It’s a sweet story, and quite imaginative. 

 

There are several realistic stories involving love affairs of various sorts. “The Laurel and Hardy Love Affair” is about a sweet but doomed romance - a disagreement about their mutual future separates them. “Promises, Promises” is an ethical dilemma that arises after a man’s daughter has a near-fatal accident, and in a bargain with God, he promises to give up his mistress. The story is about the final meeting between the two. 

 

There are also several stories about age and memory. In “Layfayette, Farewell,” an old veteran comes to terms with his memories and his guilt about killing. “Bless Me Father, For I Have Sinned” is about an old priest who hears a confession - his own - to a childhood betrayal, and is able to finally forgive himself. “Junior” is a rather dirty story about an old man’s last erection. 

 

There are two others I want to mention, that I thought were particularly interesting. 

 

“Come, and Bring Constance” is truly bizarre and even a bit inexplicable. The husband in the story receives an invitation from his psychologist to an event, with the post-script “Come, and bring Constance.” 

 

The problem? Nobody knows who Constance is. The wife thinks she must be a mistress, and is jealous. But the husband has never known anyone by that name. When he calls his psychologist, things get even weirder. Constance shows up at the house, bold, big, and brassy, and complains that the husband can’t even appreciate her, because he is always talking about his wife. In the end, it isn’t entirely clear who this woman is, and the psychologist denies everything. It’s wonderfully daffy. 

 

Finally, the other contender for my favorite story in the book, “One for his Lordship, and One for the Road.” The old Irish lord has died, and left behind a huge and expensive wine collection, and no close heirs. 

 

Being an asshole, he directs in his will that he take his wine with him to the grave. His attorney starts pouring the wine into the grave, to the horror of the villagers. However, the local tavern keeper has a flash of brilliance, and the constable enforces the law. Since the will does not direct how the wine is to get into the grave, it is fine for the villagers to drink the wine, and, um, return it to the grave at a later time. 

 

I definitely enjoyed this collection, and it worked well for those quiet times on a trip after hiking but before sleep. 

 

***

 

Other posts about Ray Bradbury:

 

 Fahrenheit 451

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Zero Hour (Radio drama)

 

Oceans of Grain: How American Wheat Remade the World by Scott Reynolds Nelson

Source of book: Audiobook from the library

 

This is kind of a random book that looked interesting to me. I needed an audiobook, and it happened to be available. 

 

Historian Scott Reynolds Nelson offers as his thesis in this book that the shift from Ukrainian wheat to American wheat to feed the cities of Europe was a central cause of the breakups of empires and eventually the first world war. 

 

But there sure is a lot more in this book than that. It is a history of the wheat trade from prehistoric times through the beginning of the 20th Century, and spans the entire globe. 

 

From the so-called “black paths” that connected the grainfields of the Steppes to ports such as Oddessa, to the conflict (and sometimes symbiosis) between slave-harvested cotton and free-soil wheat. The Black Death features prominently in this book in several different ways, and Potato Blight finds its chapter as well. 

 

While I think at times Nelson may stretch a bit to make everything about wheat, he is correct that everything is connected, and food is the most central issue when it comes to civilizations, empires, and trade. 

 

Since this was an audiobook, and I listen to those while driving, I didn’t get the chance to write down a bunch of quotes or otherwise take notes. I will be relying in this post on my own memory quite a bit - I hope I get the details correct. I will pretty much just mention things at random as recall them. 

 

To start with, I want to talk about Yersinia Pestis, aka the Black Death. This bacterium has its reservoir in the marmots of the steppes. We have marmots here too - I see them regularly hiking at high altitudes - but they don’t seem to have the same close connection to other rodents - and humans - that the Asian ones do. 

 

From time to time, the infected fleas would jump from the marmots to rats, and spread the disease among humans. Because, of course, rats follow the grain, fleas follow the rats, and humans are tasty. 

 

The fun thing about this is that Yersinia can be detected in the bones of people who died thousands of years ago. And the genome can be sequenced and traced to show where outbreaks occurred and how they spread geographically. 

 

Since most humans traveled only a few miles from their homes during the early days of agriculture, the tracks of Yersinia can show the routes of traders back then, and the far distances the plague spread at various times. 

 

These outbreaks were bad enough, but the ones in the Middle Ages seem to have been the worst. Probably due to growing urbanization combined with lack of knowledge about how it spread, it more than decimated Europe. 

 

One of the results of this was that grain production temporarily became more local, which led to (among other political results) the fall of the Byzantine Empire, which depended on revenue from grain going through Constantinople. 

 

Later, a different disruption - the increasingly low cost of ocean transport combined with cheap American wheat - would lead to the fall of a later empire - the Ottoman - and the Russian Revolution. 

 

Potato blight would likewise disrupt economies. Europe’s rural poor had switched to eating potatoes, with wheat largely going to urban elites. When the potato crop failed, the subsequent political failure led to mass famine. In the long term, this rearranged populations (millions emigrated to the United States), disrupted supply chains, and shifted the food balance further towards wheat. 

 

Central to this book are the writings and ideas of Israel Lazarevich Gelfand, better known by his pen name Parvus. Ever heard of him? 

 

He was the forgotten Marxist - we all know about Lenin and Trotsky, but Parvus was arguably every bit as important. His ideas on economics focused more on grain and less on capital, with the idea of imperialism taking the place of capitalism as the central enemy of the working poor. 

 

There are a few reasons he is less known today. In the Soviet Union, his contributions to the Revolution were erased after Lenin came to power - no sense in having competition. There were other complications, of course. Parvus was aligned with Maxim Gorky, who fell out of favor with Lenin. And Parvus was a German agent - although that is more complicated, since the Communist goal was not merely a Russian revolution, but one that would, they hoped, arise in Germany. But with World War One, this became awkward to say the least. 

 

Oh, and there is also the problem that Parvus was Jewish, which, despite Hitler’s conflation of Communists with Jews, led to Parvus experiencing plenty of antisemitism. Certainly Stalin’s later suppression of Parvus’ writings carried strong antisemitic overtones. 

 

The West, too, ignored Parvus. The usual obvious reasons apply to Nazi Germany: antisemitism and anticommunism. For other Western countries, his theories seemed to have all the objectionability of Marxism generally, but with more esoteric theoretical content. 

 

This is too bad, because I found the stuff mentioned in this book to be pretty fascinating, and indeed, perhaps Parvus was the more thoughtful and reality-based Marxist of his time. 

 

The author is a total nerd about this stuff, so the final chapter traces Parvus’ descendants. His son Yevgeny became a Soviet diplomat, was eventually arrested and sent to the gulags by Stalin, but somehow managed to survive to an old age and write about his experience. 

 

His other son, Lev, defected, changed his name to Leon Moore, and had a fascinating career as an adviser to the CIA. 

 

Yevgeny’s daughter Tatiana became a science fiction author, but apparently little was translated into English. The book refers to a particular work of hers which sounds fascinating - robot overlords are disarmed by feeding them poetry, which they can’t understand, and malfunction. One wonders if this will work with AI. Alas, my attempts to find this book were unsuccessful. It probably is long out of print. 

 

As I mentioned, this book is really detailed yet broad. Want to know how different forms of transport affected the grain market? You are covered. Want to hear about banking and finance? You bet you will. 

 

Did you know that both our current use of negotiable instruments (such as checks) and the use of the futures market to create predictable costs and limit risk first arose in the international grain markets? Those are both covered in this book. 

 

How was World War One strategy centered around grain transport? Or, for that matter, how did the different approaches to provisioning armies determine world history? Yes, that too is discussed. 

 

Overall, despite the detail, the book never really drags or gets bogged down. The writing is clear and effective, if not quite as fun as the very best non-fiction writers such as Simon Winchester. The level of detail makes the book thoroughly worth it. 

 

My one complaint is with the audiobook, which has a fairly flat reading. It’s fine, but not one of the better ones. It felt like the reader was just punching the clock, rather than actually interested in the topic. Fortunately, I found the book quite interesting.