Just as I thought Book

Perhaps not the best introduction to Grace Paley? I think I should have started with her short stories. These little essays and memoir-like bits inspired me to learn more about Paley as a person (she seems to have been so wild, delightfully civilly disobedient; her insistence that feminism and anti-war movements ought to be cojoined), but I was nonplussed by the quality of the prose. In places, it sings; in many places, it is flat and almost (dare I say it) elementary. I couldn’t tell if that was her style (extremely plain and flat) or if it was just a haphazardly edited collection. I liked her piece on Isaac Babel and her notes on teaching writing. Still. I am looking forward to reading her fiction.

“Some of this will probably seem naïve to some people. It’s a naïveté it’s taken me a lot of time and thinking to get to.”