34 Pages

Is that enough time to make a call?

I signed up for my new library card last week, at the branch that’s just a mile from my new home. It’s the dinkiest little library I’ve ever seen. One large room, I’d say no more than 20 short aisles of books. A handful of computers. A few study areas along one wall.

I was not deterred by its minuscule size; rather, I was enthralled. I’ve learned that dinky works for my brain. Dinky crowd sizes, dinky menu offerings, dinky itineraries. When the choices and stimuli are limited, I’m not overwhelmed or worried about whether I’m making the right/best/perfect choice. It’s easier to decide. It’s easier to focus. I can breathe and move on.

In this spirit, I like focusing on the New Releases shelf at the library—it narrows my choices even more. I only have to think about a few rows of books. I was surprised to see the new Kamala Harris memoir, 107 Days, on the shelf. Look at you delivering the good stuff, dinky little library!

The front cover had a sticker on it that said, “7-day loan.” Fine by me—I guess I knew what I’d be reading next. I was eager to read the behind-the-scenes stories of Kamala’s whirlwind campaign for president. It felt like renting the political version of Titanic—I knew how it would end, I knew it would break my heart, but I still found myself hoping for a miracle.

I cracked open the book and started reading. Okay, okay, first I skipped to the glossy pages in the middle and looked at the photos (doesn’t everyone do that? Please tell me I’m not the only one). Then I went back to the beginning and started reading.

She opens on the day she gets the phone call from Joe Biden that he’s dropping out of the race. She begins with an anecdote about making breakfast for her nieces. It’s sweet and real.

And then the name-dropping started. Campaign advisers, administrative assistants, other politicians—I found it really distracting. I want to hear about her making pancakes, not a bunch of names that I don’t care about and won’t remember as soon as I turn the page. For an insider, I’m sure it felt like she was properly paying her dues. For an outsider (and don’t most of us fall into that category?) it read like simultaneous sycophancy and pandering.

I came upon a few juicy bits—like the compilation of the various text messages and emails she received from prominent players in D.C. (e.g., Bernie Sanders, Nancy Pelosi). Their reactions were interesting. Bernie encouraging her to make her campaign about the working class, “not just abortion rights.” Oof. Blunt, Bernie. Nancy saying there needed to be some sort of formal nomination process, “not an anointment.” Good idea, Nancy, and I agree with you, though obviously that’s not what happened.

I kept reading. And I very quickly lost interest. I couldn’t get past the name-dropping and the obvious political posturing—the visceral knowledge that she was writing with the awareness that any and all of those words could and would be quoted and used against her in the court of public opinion forever and ever and ever, Amen. Because of course they will.

So I guess I don’t know what I was hoping for, but it wasn’t what I was getting.

I stopped at page 34. I closed the book. I sat there for a moment, book in my lap. Then I made a decision. I dramatically removed the bookmark (yes, it’s required that the bookmark removal be dramatic—it’s a momentous decision to give up on a book) and set the book aside. I was moving on.

I wonder sometimes—is this what we’re coming to as readers? Is it inevitable as our brains try to adapt to the times? Despite my passion for the written word, my love of books, my admiration of authors, am I yet another victim of the attention-span-killing tech age? Is my constant googling, ChatGPTing, Alexa-asking ridding me of my humanity?

There’s character to be built in the waiting, the pondering, the keeping-on, the wandering. The boredom, the delayed gratification. The eight-hour-long car rides to upstate New York with nothing but a book and—thank God—the alphabet game. How much creativity is borne by just gazing out the window?

How many classic novels would grip today’s average reader by page 34?

I really do have a knack for finding things to worry about.

Despite the niggling feeling in my lower-right belly that I’d made a fatal error and succumbed to my ignorant id by putting down Kamala’s book, I moved on to another find from the new library: The Women of Wild Hill by Kirsten Miller. I thoroughly enjoyed The Change and Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books, so I had high hopes for Wild Hill.

(There I go with my high hopes again. When will I learn? Hopefully never.)

I tucked myself into bed and began reading. It started with a simple drawing of the female line of a family tree. I love when books start that way, although not overcompicatedly so (I’m looking at you, Tolkien).

A while later, I was tired and ready for bed, though I didn’t want to stop reading. I was loving it. I wanted more. But since it was a school night (yes, I still call them school nights), I grabbed my bookmark and slid it into the center of the novel.

Before I closed the book, I happened to look at the page number.

34.

And I couldn’t wait to dive back in.

Photo by Jonathan Bottoms on Unsplash

P.S. Unabashed self-promotion moment: If you’re looking for a new bookmark with which to be delightfully dramatic, I have some for sale on my website. And I have lots more sitting in a drawer waiting to be listed, so if you’d like a peek at those, just let me know. :)

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