Book #97: My Family and Other Hazards

Book #97: My Family and Other Hazards: A Memoir by June Melby

July 16, 2014


I had every intention of finishing this book before tomorrow evening. I saw that the author would be giving a reading and book-signing at a local bookstore, and I thought that might be a nice event to attend. I didn't buy a hard copy of the book, but rather an electronic copy. I knew I wouldn't find one to read at the local library, because this book has gotten a lot of attention in this area for the last couple of months or so. Melby is from a nearby community; she went to school there as a kid, and lives there now with her husband. Iowa loves its local writers, and writers who are from Iowa or who write aboutIowa. That makes me think that if I were to ever publish anything (that's a dream that I've always had, to publish a book), I would have some support...even if it happened to be something a little more scandalous. I only say that because this book certainly was notscandalous; it was pretty much a feel-good family story. Which isn't really what I expect when I read a memoir.

I found this book to be a quick read, and it kept my attention. I mean, I guess it would be pretty cool to spend the summer of your formative years living at, and working at, a mini golf course. That's a unique personal experience, something worth sharing, so it's no wonder Melby (who has written poetry as well as this memoir) would want to write about it. But I was bothered by something as I read this book. Her family is mentioned in the title, and yet I didn't really feel like I got to know the Melby family for real in this book. I guess I could understand this lack of connection in the early chapters, which talk more about the earlier years at the mini golf course Tom Thumb, when Melby herself was a pre-teen. Empathy comes with time, but even through the snippets of the Melbys "crazy" family life, I didn't feel like I got to know any of the other family members, outside of young June's perspective of them. Older sister LeeAnne is never anything more than bossy and industrious, and I want to know why Carla, the "fragile" youngest child, grew up to work at a suicide hotline (she herself lives in a nearby community). The father is just the dorky father, a high school teacher, and the mother is cheerful, industrious as her oldest is, and makes frequent references to God (she seems like many older women that I know here in my home state). When Melby goes off on tangents, explaining the history of mini golf and stuff like that, she could have been giving the reader more about her family. She's the one child who moves far away after college, but I don't know...I either feel like Melby just doesn't really know her family, or she, for some reason, was hesitant to give us more than what we got. It irked me mainly due to the fact of the title; the title is awful.

I was also a bit thrown by the structure of the book. Almost every chapter corresponds to one of the "hazards" on the mini golf course, like a chapter on the "wishing well" hole. They went in order, from hole #1 to hole #18. Melby would attach symbolic significance to each chapter, and would structure her narrative (the snippets that she would share of the Melbys and their lives) to kind of go along with that idea. This was kind of a lofty idea, but it didn't really work for me as a reader. All of the snippets made it all seem unfocused. I kept thinking that it had been edited sloppily. Somebody might have told Melby to focus more on the underlying theme of her whole narrative: that as a child, she wasn't really satisfied with the life she was living, and wanted to get out. But when she was older, and her parents were looking to sell Tom Thumb and the Wisconsin lakefront property, she felt regret that she didn't appreciate it all more. Which is something that every adult can relate to, I'm sure; I know I do. Melby seems to shy away, kind of, from focusing on this more. For having parents who seemed so kind and loving, there weren't many scenes in this book that I found heart-warming myself, but I did find Melby's reflections on her childhood, as she was swimming with her mother, to be interesting. Had the book focused more on that, I would have enjoyed it quite a bit more, I think.

I'll be interested to see what reactions other people have to the book when I attend the reading tomorrow. I'll see what kind of crowd it draws; as I said, this book has gotten a lot of attention around here, and she's something of a local celebrity. I'm kind of eager to see Melby in person, because to be perfectly honest, something about this book just did not ring true to me. Perhaps I'll be able to see how genuine she is (or isn't) and get a better appreciation for the book...or not.