Nothing: Something to Believe In, by Nica Lalli
Sometimes when I review a book, what I want to do -- whether I love it or hate it -- is to shout out my opinion to the world. At other times, I'm more concerned about something a reviewer should always be thinking about: How will other people like the book? Which readers will enjoy it, and who will want to be steered away from it?
Nothing is the second kind of book, because it's a very personal story. So, while I was thinking about what to say about it, I decided to find out a little bit about what other people were saying. I was startled by one press release that said, "Reflective Memoir Puts Female Face on Nonbelief ... The public face of atheism has recently been that of bestselling authors Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Victor Stenger, and Daniel Dennett, academic males and vocal critics of religion...." I thought, "What about Lori Lipman Brown, the lobbyist for the Secular Coalition for America? She's been getting a lot of press! What about 'celebrity' atheists like Julia Sweeney?" The list could go on, but you get the idea.
The point is, what matters about this book is not that it's written by a woman, but that it's written by an ordinary person -- a member of her local community board and the PTA, someone who could be your next-door neighbor. So many atheists and humanists are silent about their viewpoint that any time someone goes public, it's a revelation.
What will you find in this book? Don't look for a heroic tale of a woman enduring threatening phone calls, and bricks thrown through the living room window, because she had the "nerve" to challenge prayer in her child's school. Neither will you find a story about a journey from faith to Freethought, or a call to activism. Lalli, who was brought up by nonreligious parents, tells a quiet story, offering intimate descriptions of (among other things) how it feels to be different from churchgoing classmates, and what it's like having in-laws who are smugly certain of their moral superiority. Most of her anecdotes reflect the everyday reality of millions of Americans -- usually not very dramatic, but just as important as the stories that make headlines.
The best feature of Nothing is that Lalli does such a good job of describing her emotions at any given time: When she tells the story of something that happened to her at, say, age 5, she includes the kind of details a five-year-old would notice. In that way, she offers some good food for thought to freethinking parents. Her experiences show why it's a good idea for parents to help their children figure out how to deal with peers from religious families, and to tell them more about their own worldviews than Lalli's parents did.
At the close of her introduction, Nica Lalli writes, "I do not pretend to be the voice for all the 'others' [she means other nonreligious Americans], I can only speak for myself. And yet I do hope that my story can add to a productive dialogue ...." She makes a good point here. I don't know how typical her story is of people who have been brought up in nonreligious families, but I do know it's quite different from my own. Some readers will have the pleasure of recognizing experiences very similar to their own, like the reader-reviewer who commented, "So many of Nica's experiences seemed like my own, and I even cried at parts." Others may enjoy reading about a life that's very different from their own. In a manner that reminds me of the old feminist slogan, "The personal is political," Nica Lalli has added a voice to a conversation that needs to include many more.
Nothing is the second kind of book, because it's a very personal story. So, while I was thinking about what to say about it, I decided to find out a little bit about what other people were saying. I was startled by one press release that said, "Reflective Memoir Puts Female Face on Nonbelief ... The public face of atheism has recently been that of bestselling authors Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Victor Stenger, and Daniel Dennett, academic males and vocal critics of religion...." I thought, "What about Lori Lipman Brown, the lobbyist for the Secular Coalition for America? She's been getting a lot of press! What about 'celebrity' atheists like Julia Sweeney?" The list could go on, but you get the idea.
The point is, what matters about this book is not that it's written by a woman, but that it's written by an ordinary person -- a member of her local community board and the PTA, someone who could be your next-door neighbor. So many atheists and humanists are silent about their viewpoint that any time someone goes public, it's a revelation.
What will you find in this book? Don't look for a heroic tale of a woman enduring threatening phone calls, and bricks thrown through the living room window, because she had the "nerve" to challenge prayer in her child's school. Neither will you find a story about a journey from faith to Freethought, or a call to activism. Lalli, who was brought up by nonreligious parents, tells a quiet story, offering intimate descriptions of (among other things) how it feels to be different from churchgoing classmates, and what it's like having in-laws who are smugly certain of their moral superiority. Most of her anecdotes reflect the everyday reality of millions of Americans -- usually not very dramatic, but just as important as the stories that make headlines.
The best feature of Nothing is that Lalli does such a good job of describing her emotions at any given time: When she tells the story of something that happened to her at, say, age 5, she includes the kind of details a five-year-old would notice. In that way, she offers some good food for thought to freethinking parents. Her experiences show why it's a good idea for parents to help their children figure out how to deal with peers from religious families, and to tell them more about their own worldviews than Lalli's parents did.
At the close of her introduction, Nica Lalli writes, "I do not pretend to be the voice for all the 'others' [she means other nonreligious Americans], I can only speak for myself. And yet I do hope that my story can add to a productive dialogue ...." She makes a good point here. I don't know how typical her story is of people who have been brought up in nonreligious families, but I do know it's quite different from my own. Some readers will have the pleasure of recognizing experiences very similar to their own, like the reader-reviewer who commented, "So many of Nica's experiences seemed like my own, and I even cried at parts." Others may enjoy reading about a life that's very different from their own. In a manner that reminds me of the old feminist slogan, "The personal is political," Nica Lalli has added a voice to a conversation that needs to include many more.
posted by Sweet Reason at 10:01 PM
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