'Hillbilly Elegy' filled with cultural insight

   POINT RICHMOND - The tales recounted in J.D. Vance's memoir, Hillbilly Elegy (published in 2016)  can be as disturbing as they sometimes seem farfetched - the stuff of fiction or some badly written television program.
     But Vance's anecdote-packed book is true - at least to the best of his memory. And his memory is good, frequently backed up with research included in this enlightening portrait of growing up in Kentucky and Ohio.
     The full title of the book is Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a family and Culture in Crisis. It sounds almost like an academic study. But Vance's recounting of his growing up is not the stuff of academic tomes. It's real life, gritty, and at times almost too painful to read.

J.D. Vance

    "Teachers didn't tell us that we were too stupid or poor to make it. Nevertheless, it was all around us, like the air we breathed."
     Vance takes the reader on a cultural odyssey through Kentucky and Ohio while talking about growing up. He grew up in an big, extended family which by most measures would be labelled dysfunctional. Yet it worked, sort of, and Vance eventually did a stint in U.S. Marines, and graduated from Ohio State and Yale Law school.
   
     Vance explains in detail how for the hillbilly-Appalachian communities, everything was family.
     Everything.
     Hillbilly Elegy provided some special insights for me, growing up in the Southern Tier of New York State.
     That region, shown in the map below had - and probably still has - a sprinkling of people who resemble folks with the cultural norms and attitudes Vance talks about at length.
     Hillbilly Elegy is Vance's first book, but likely not his last.
     It's on the new book shelf at the Point Richmond library.

(Review by Michael J. Fitzgerald)

'Wicked Bugs' - all those not-so-nice insects

   POINT RICHMOND, Calif. - The shelves at the Richmond Public Library's Westside branch on Washington Street are filled with plenty of thrilling mysteries penned by familiar authors like Nelson DeMille, Tom Clancy, James Patterson, Janet Evanovich and local mystery writer, Christine Volker.
    But among the books is a non-fiction, science-based tome that will make your skin crawl.
    Or at least itch a bit if what you read makes wonder if some many-legged critter is about to bite.
    Wicked Bugs: The Louse That Conquered Napoleon's Army & Other Diabolical Insects is a well-documented compendium of tales about bugs of every shape and size.
    There are lots of familiar names: Brown Recluse, Cockroach, Deer Tick, Scorpion and Sand Fly.
     But chapters talking about the lesser-known - the Formosan Subterranean Termite, the Death Watch Beetle and the Assassin Bug - could keep you awake at night, too.
    The Formosan Subterranean Termite is one of the culprits behind the massive levee failures in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit.
    The termites love to munch nearly everything. That includes the walls that were supposed to protect the city. The walls are partly made of sugar cane waste, a termite snack. And officials had been warned five years before Katrina that the termites had weakened the flood barriers.
    Another fun fact for New Orleans residents? The Formosan Subterranean Termite can live for up to 25 years.
    Wicked Bugs was written by Amy Stewart, whose other writing includes the book, Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother & Other Botanical Atrocities.
   Wicked Bugs was published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, North Carolina and is on the shelf at the Richmond Public Library's Westside branch.
    Below is the first page of the introduction.

(Review by Michael J. Fitzgerald)

'Wind River' - a dramatic must-see film

   POINT RICHMOND - The film Wind River is so gripping a tale, it's unlikely most in-theater viewers will even glance at their watches at any juncture in this fast-moving, one hour and 47-minute film.

Jeremy Renner

    And this is a must-see-in-the-theater movie.
    The full-screen winter Wyoming scenery is haunting. Plus, the grittiness of life on the Indian reservation is best viewed on the big screen - large enough for it to hit hard.
    It's not pretty.
 
   But that not-prettiness helps highlight the resilience of the residents of the reservation, reeling from the murder of an 18-year-old girl. The Native Americans are the descendants of great warriors. And it shows.
   Jeremy Renner - as a veteran game tracker - does a steady job as the film's hero. Underneath a classically western steely persona, Renner's character is a man tortured by the earlier loss of his own child and a divorce.

Elizabeth Olsen and Graham Green

   After he discovers the body of the murdered girl, he ends up paired with a Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based FBI agent (played by a doe-eyed Elizabeth Olsen) to solve the crime. At first they are as unlikely a pair as Felix Unger and Oscar Madison. But that resolves itself quickly.
 
 One of the best supporting roles in the film is played by Graham Greene as the tribal police chief. His ability to convey complex emotions with just his facial expressions is amazing.

   Wind River is fast-paced and directed nearly to perfection.
   It also offers several moral/ethical questions to ponder in post-movie hours.
  And it's a film of details and nuance - which is why taking yours eyes off the screen for even a moment is a bad idea.
   If you only see one movie this fall, watch Wind River.
   Really.

Running for her life - barefoot