Warner (English/Rutgers Univ.) challenges the current stodginess of queer activism—focused as it is on the gay community’s hope to be considered “normal”—through his incisive critique of the banalities and dangers of such normalcy. Criticizing the way some identities are deemed normal while others are not (Ö la Foucault), Warner delineates with lapidary skill the problems of the cultural constructions of the normal, how heterosexual lives are thus validated at the expense of the queer. Using a smoothly textured argumentative style, Warner showcases the functioning of shame within a conservative ideological framework to reward some identities and punish others. His argument stands strongest when he concentrates on how the eradication of shame from sexuality would liberate queer communities from the monolith of marriage and how the rejection of normalcy would accord the gay community a liberated space within the spheres of the sexual culture. Ironically, the trouble with The Trouble with Normal is that it directs its arguments toward the queer community rather than the straight one. Telling gay people that, for various ethical reasons, they shouldn’t even want to marry, when they already can’t, does not change the fact that laws that enfranchise some while disenfranchising others are discriminatory. Warner’s rhetoric persuasively reveals the hierarchical parameters of marriage and the constraints of normalcy, but a more universal approach to his topic would delineate the limitations of marriage for all people—not just queer people. In the end, his polemic leaves standing discriminatory treatment of queers for the sake of a theoretical attack on normalcy. Warner’s ethical vision succeeds as a utopian revelation of sex freed from shame, but a sharper eye for the real-life ramifications of such an outlook might have revealed its limitations.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-684-86529-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1999
A mildly amusing tour de Capitol Hill based on some reporting forays and armchair rumination by a veteran Washington journalist. Los Angeles Times contributing editor Thomas (coauthor of Red Tape: Adventure Capitalism in the New Russia, 1992) has written a lite accompaniment to more somber analyses (like Jonathan Rauch's Demosclerosis, p. 210) of why Washington doesn't work. He has a way with a quip, observing that Senator Robert Byrd ``has moved so many federal offices to poverty-stricken West Virginia, the state could pass for a government in exile.'' But his survey of governmental inefficiency and self-protecting lawmakers doesn't dig too deep. He describes how congressional representatives grandstand to get media coverage, limns the proliferation of interest groups and congressional caucuses, and describes the Senate's unwillingness to investigate colleague Bob Packwood, charged with sexual harassment. The better chapters provide a fresh look at local folkways: Thomas follows the orientation of freshman representatives in 1992, observing how they get sucked into the system they ran against; he also shows how the city's racial polarization led Washingtonians to vote against a local death-penalty bill they felt was foisted on them by Congress. Unfortunately, his chapters on the Supreme Court, fund-raising, and lobbying are mostly old hat, and the best anecdote in his chapter on Congress-as-frat-house—concerning a night on the town with senators Christopher Dodd and Ted Kennedy— is borrowed from GQ magazine. Little in his narrative is as rich as the quotes he extracts from a transcript of the clubby, nasty TV show ``The McLaughlin Group.'' Thomas admits that he offers no plan to solve any of our national problems—``which makes it [the book] a lot like Congress.'' But he does conclude, quite reasonably, that congressional procedures should be reformed so that our representatives spend more time making laws than planning for reelection. This topic deserves either tougher reporting or an over-the- top satirist like Dave Barry. (8 pages of photos, not seen.) (Author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 17, 1994
ISBN: 0-684-19635-2
Page Count: 244
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
Far from compelling.
A disjointed memoir of a descent into mental illness and an eventual return and emergence as a professor of literature.
Hebald (Three Blind Mice, 1989) here maps out her journey through a variety of mental institutions in her quest for a cure to her suicidal tendencies and general misery. Not surprisingly, it stems from her childhood: abusive mother and sister, incestuous father, complete inability to focus her thoughts in school, encounters with licentious male patrons at the movie theater. Isolated by a lack of social skills, the author conceived a passion for drama and through a combination of talent and force of will got herself into the highly coveted acting classes of Uta Hagen and others. She also acquired a number of older lovers and a series of psychiatrists who prescribed a bewildering variety of drugs for her condition, sometimes diagnosed as schizophrenia. She repeatedly attempted to kill herself, was hospitalized, was misunderstood by her therapists, and finally liberated herself from the treatment cycle when she tossed her medications into the sea. It’s easy to understand the author’s frustration with her doctors. Some urged her to get married (“Mating is an instinct,” one told her), while others advised her to stop acting and get a secretarial job. Nonetheless, despite her wretched tale, our protagonist engenders little sympathy in the reader. Her story is disjointed, her dialogue stilted, and her tone querulous. Hebald should obviously be the star of her own autobiography, but in this case she has crowded every other player off the stage. Her mother and sister, key figures in a turbulent childhood, are mere sketches. Lovers, doctors, and other patients flash by. When one psychiatrist infuriates Hebald by telling her “You’re too intense,” many readers will nod in sympathy—with the doctor.
Far from compelling.Pub Date: May 23, 2001
ISBN: 1-55553-482-1
Page Count: 252
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2001
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