Take This Bread by Sara Miles
One Sunday, out lesbian, social activist, and life long atheist Sara Miles went for a walk in her neighborhood and ended up in a nearby Episcopal church taking communion for the first time in her life. Take This Bread is the story of Sara’s conversion to Christianity and how her faith inspired her to open several food pantries for the hungry in the San Francisco area.
Food and community are the two central themes Miles uses to frame the narrative. She 
begins by writing about her experience as a cook in the early eighties, and how the act of serving meals to others is so intimate; one that connects the chef to the customer by way of a shared reverence for the meal. She goes on to describe her years as a journalist in war ridden Central America, constantly hiding from vigilantes and running from gun fire. She recalls the strangers who housed and fed her all through those years, people whose generosity in the face of danger taught Sara about the power of community. When Sara finds herself taking communion she sees how food and community often intersect through the common denominator of hunger. Miles manages to sustain this frame throughout the book, marking each step of her journey to faith with incidents involving food and community. This is no small task. Not every author is capable of setting a frame and keeping it up throughout the story. Miles’ clarity of intention keeps the entire story firmly rooted.
Even though the book does not explicitly explore what it means to be both Christian and gay (for the most part Miles only mentions her sexuality in passing,) it is an underlying thread that runs through the narrative. Having come out early on in the story, the reader is very conscious of Miles’ sexuality as she becomes more involved in church activities. But the congregation and pantry volunteers often prove to be the very embodiment of Christian love and acceptance. When, persuaded by her teenage daughter, Miles and her long time partner decide to go to the court house and get married shortly after San Francisco starts offering civil marriages to gay couples, the following Sunday at church the entire congregation gathers to bless and affirm their partnership. Even after all the gay marriages performed in California are annuled a month later, thanks to the support of her church Miles knows that her union, regardless of legality, is blessed by God.
Though there were a couple things that bothered me about this book (Miles’ obsessive and often distacting overuse of colons and semicolons for one,) overall I found Take This Bread a highly satisfying read. It’s message of unity, compassion, and love is one all of us could benefit from absorbing.
The Unbinding by Walter Kirn
In January 2006 acclaimed author Walter Kirn began writing a serial web novel for Slate.com. Almost a year later the complete work has finally been printed, bound in an eye catching orange cover with the title The Unbinding splashed across the front, and made available in hard copy.
When I ran across this slim volume in Borders several weeks ago I was rather surprised. Kirn is easily one of my top ten favorite authors in existence. How could I not have known he’d been writing a serial web novel? I had to give myself a slap on the wrist for being a bad fan girl. Even though I wasn’t particularly fond of Kirn’s last two novels he had yet to satisfy all the criteria necessary to make me stop purchasing his work all together. My criteria is entirely subjective; if an author I admire writes two novels in a row that fail to bring me pleasure I quit buying their books. Since Kirn has only written 1 1/2 novels that fit the bill when I plucked The Unbinding down in front of the cash register I did so with the knowledge that this book would either make of break my relationship with Kirn. To my great relief Kirn managed to whip up a story of suspense and intrigue that renewed my faith in him.
It is told by three different characters: Kent Selkirk, the reclusive paintball enthusiast who works for Aidsat, a company described on the back cover as “an omnipresent subscriber service ready to answer, solve, and assist with the client’s every problem.” Kent tells his side of the story through personal blog entries. Sabrina Grant is the sweet and emotionally unstable young woman Kent has his eye on, whose story is heard through letters and telephone conversations. And Rob Robinson is the mysterious man who just shows up one day and begins acting all chummy with Kent and Sabrina. Soon after he starts sending reports on them back to his employers. His side of the story comes through a series of office memos. This format gives the reader the sense that he or she is spying on this trio of neighbors, perhaps even flipping through a top secret file of their questionably acquired communications.
The novel sets a lofty goal for itself by attempting to look at the ways national security, celebrity, consumerism, and information technology intersect. Kirn finds a perfect tool for such examination in the act of gazing. On page 4, Kent declares that “everyone is interesting enough to be watched.” This statement proves true as we observe the many ways Kent, Sabrina, and Rob watch one another.
As Kent and Sabrina prepare for their first date they each spend an enormous amount of time and energy gathering information about the other. Since Sabrina is an Aidsat subscriber Kent is able to access tons of personal information on her; everything from her work history, educational background, and previous addresses to her vital signs which are constantly being monitored by Aidsat. Though not as well connected as Kent, Sabrina is able to cull a load of information about Kent by calling in a favor from a friend, as well as tracking his electronic paper trail on the Internet. By the time they finally go out they both already know everything there is to know each other. So, when Sabrina tries to make herself sound more worldly by telling Kent she is divorced, Kent knows she was actually granted an annulment on the grounds of non-consummation. And when Kent tells Sabrina he went to college at Berkeley, she knows the school has no records that he ever attended.
With such extensive personal information available to anyone with a computer and a healthy amount of curiosity there is no reason for Sabrina and Kent to trust each other, not when they can run home and double check the accuracy of each assertion the other makes. And with no trust there is no reason to be honest since they both know the other will tease out the truth without them ever having to say it. As their relationship progresses the reader is forced to reflect on the necessity of trust in forming attachments, without which there can be no intimacy or depth.
The relationship between Kent and Sabrina illustrates a desire to both gaze and be gazed at. They both actively watch and monitor each others lives through their research, and they each continue to lie about their pasts knowing the falsehoods will ensure that the other continues to gaze at them. In this way they participate in each others lives without actually participating in each others lives.
On page 29, Kent muses about how great it is “to gaze ungazed upon.” He goes on to say “It sounds depressing, but when you think about it, it’s the same deal the creator gave himself, and the creator had all the deals to choose from.” It would sound good if the assumption weren’t so incorrect. As Kent himself observes, everyone is interesting enough to be watched, and God is perhaps the most scrutinized of all celebrities. Not even the creator can remove himself from the gaze of those he created.
The very act of gazing isn’t even as passive as it first seems. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the word “Gaze” as to fix the eyes in a steady intent look often with eagerness or studious attention. To gaze is to study with intent, and study requires undivided attention and focus. Such focus denotes intense involvement with the subject. On page 74 Rob Robinson states in one of his memos that “to observe is to disturb,” hinting at the way gazing can create change in the subject. We see this change everyday as the hot young starlet of the moment poses, dresses, and postures herself for the barrage of media observing her every move. People who are not subjected to such scrutiny aren’t as self-conscious. Furthermore, the act of gazing effects those who gaze. Rob also observes on page 20 that “[t]he more of yourself you show off to the wrong people, the more they eventually demand to see.” The more involved the gazer becomes in their subject, the more they want to know about them; the more they feel they have the right to know. And in this way the gazer and the subject of the gaze feed off of one another, both knowingly and unknowingly shaping the life of the person they hold in thrall.
As the story unfolds the reader learns that none of the characters can escape being gazed at. Not only is gazing a predictable result of having eyes, it is an inescapable part of life. No one can avoid the gaze of family, friends, and with the explosion of user created Internet content, even total strangers. As they scrutinize our looks and behavior so do we manipulate the image we project in order to present ourselves in the best possible light. All three characters come to this realization in their own way.
The novel is fast paced and, thanks to Kirn’s engaging style of writing, a fast and easy read. I breezed through it in four days and spent the next several weeks analyzing it. It is thought provoking, and while I’ve only focused on a single aspect in this review/make shift essay there are enough threads running through this novel to spawn dozens of essays.
In the introduction, Kirn mentions that because the story was written for the web it originally contained pictures and interactive content. Sprinkled throughout the text are words and phrases printed in bold lettering. In the original online text these words were links to other web pages that Kirn used to enhance the text. Not wanting to completely throw out all the content that made this novel a web novel, readers can go to Walter Kirn’s website and find a chapter by chapter index of all the bold words leading to their original links. Kirn recommends “performing the labor” of looking at the links, and I must admit, doing so greatly enhances the text. There are alternate themes running through the articles, videos, and pictures Kirn links to that are not even hinted at in the text itself. I’m not saying you have to remain tied to your computer in order to enjoy this book, I certainly didn’t. I tend to do the bulk of my reading on the subway going to and from work. Unable to access the web content while I was actually reading, at the end of the day I would go to Kirn’s site and click all the links up to where I’d read. It was well worth the effort and I don’t think I would have entirely understood the final chapters of The Unbinding without the help of those links.
An ambitious work, The Unbinding shows off Kirn at his punchy, ruminative, quit-witted best as he engages the reader to actively unravel this intricately laced work.
Unspeakable Love by Brian Whittaker
With Unspeakable Love: Gay and Lesbian Love in the Middle East Brian Whittaker has given us a highly readable and informative book devoted to an aspect of queer and middle eastern studies that is often ignored.
Whittaker explores the many ways nationality effects the formation of gay and lesbian identity and culture. One of the first things he points out is how similar the Arab-Islamist view of homosexuality is to that of Britain or America. In Arab nations, homosexuality is thought to be associated, and at times confused with, pedophilia, transvestitism, transsexualism, moral corruption, prostitution, devil worship, and treason. It is often described as a western illness that is passed from person to person like a virus, and can be cured through psychiatric care and treatments like electro-shock. At the same time it is also considered a choice, one brought to the Arab world through western imperialism. Along these lines, many believe same sex attraction does not occur naturally in Muslim nations, and is nothing but a corruption imported by the west.
All these assumptions add up to a life of fear, hiding, and isolation for queer people in the Middle East. Each chapter of Unspeakable Love tackles one aspect of queer life in the region. For example, chapter one explores how strong familial and social ties keep many men and women “in the closet” for fear of dishonoring their entire family. Chapter two looks at how gay people create community in a land where homosexual acts are illegal, through the throwing of private parties (often raided as gay clubs were once raided in the USA,) internet outreach, and by adorning specific clothing that serve to signal particular desires to those who know how to recognize them. Gays in the media and literature, in history, and in religion are also discussed at length.
One thing I was surprised to learn about was the quiet acceptance of same gender sexual relations between young women in some Arab nations. With so much of Arab social interaction segregated by gender it is not unusual for women, allowed no other outlet, to develop close sexual relationships with one other. Since the segregation is a way of policing heterosexuality, as long as a young woman’s sexual feelings are not aimed at an inappropriate man, I.E . a man other than her husband, Arab society does not find the behavior threatening. Given the obligatory nature of marriage in the Arab world, lesbian activities are viewed as a temporary substitute for hetero-sex, assuming her sexual desires will be transferred to her husband upon marrying. By no means is this universal across the Arab world. Lesbians often face as much persecution as gay males. But if you are gay and male you have a far better chance of being tortured, blackmailed, or executed for the transgression.
For all the information Whittaker manages to pack into Unspeakable Love’s 224 pages, the book rarely drags. For each fact that is explored, Whittaker provides a person and a story to illustrate it. It keeps this research piece alive and popping.
Probably hardest of all, Whittaker manages to be optimistic in writing his conclusion, theorizing that in a global economy which requires extended exposure to new countries and cultures in order to maintain a buoyant national economy, Arab nations will be unable to prevent citizens from absorbing foreign attitudes, ways of life, and ideas of justice. His hope is that international campaigns for human rights will take up gay and lesbian rights as a cause, and fight for the liberation of all homosexuals who live in countries that persecute them.
I walked away from this work feeling as though my brain had physically expanded, and in my opinion, that’s the single best feeling you can have at the end of a book.
Charity Girl by Michael Lowenthal
You know a book is well written when you lose track of time whenever you sit down to read it. I raced through this book in under a week because every time I picked it up I never wanted to put it down. “Charity Girl” is the story of Freida Mintz, a young girl who is incarcerated by the military after testing positive for 
venereal disease. Shockingly, the story is based on an actual government program instituted during World War I to protect American soldiers from VD. Thousands of girls were rounded up and detained for months at a time for the sole crime of having an STD.
As you might imagine, sexism is one of the primary themes of this novel. Freida and the girls she is locked up with often wonder why the authorities aren’t out rounding up the men who gave them VD. They bristle at the doctors and social agents who seem to think the genesis of this disease is housed in their female bodies, and unbridled female sexuality the sole culprit behind its rapid spread.
The examination of sexism leads into an examination of the utility of passion, the nature of morality, and the creation of self. Freida considers her own passions and desires the things that truly make her unique. But with the house mother continually telling the girls their passions are wrong, are exactly what got them into all this trouble to begin with, Freida questions her deepest assumptions about who she is and what makes her Freida Mintz. She tries to forge her own identity while her jailers force their own definitions upon her. She wonders who is ultimately in control of deciding who she is. Do the opinions of others matter more than her own? Do the labels they insist on thrusting upon her, “dirty,” “whore,” “rebellious,” dictate reality?
The pace of the story is spectacular. It moves slowly but only because Lowenthal breathes such life into each individual scene. He paints a picture so detailed, so tactile, the reader feels as though s/he is in the moment with the characters. This wealth of detail extends to the characters themselves who Lowenthal has taken the time to thoroughly develop. The motivations of each are always clear and their actions always in synch with their characterization. This makes it very easy to empathize with each and every one of them, even the villains.
This rumination on the limits of freedom and the freedom found in limitation is engrossing and thought provoking. I would be idiot of the highest literary order if I did not recommend that you go out and read it immediately.
