GLR May June

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36 The Gay & Lesbian Review / WORLDWIDE
of receiving the Nobel Prize for literature. Impossible, or clearly
improbable—but indicative of her longing.
During waking hours, she seems exquisitely aware of what
others have been writing and envious of writers such as Eileen
Myles or Robert Hass, whose poetry she admires and whom she
counts as friends. Internet postings of these writers remind her
of lost opportunities, and a picture of Hass after he was beaten
at an Occupy Berkeley demonstration reminds her of how she
has dropped out, not just from the literary world but also from
social activism.
Ambition and achievement might not be perfectly aligned,
but Glancy’s direct, spare sentences and almost offhand reflec-
tions speak credibly to the mix of feelings that someone in sim-
ilar distress might have. Her prose style recalls Myles’ set of
travel essays, The Importance of Being Iceland, as well as Anne
Carson’s book of elegiac essays, Nox. Like Carson’s memoir,
I’m Already Disturbed displays photographic images that
prompt the writer’s musings, in this case Facebook screen shots.
The reproduced pictures nimbly convey the writer’s associa-
tions and thoughts, although a few of the reproduced text im-
ages are too blurry to decipher.
From the evidence here, Facebook would appear to be of
mixed worth for writers. Some screen shots help carry the mem-
oir’s plot; for example, when Glancy can’t locate the photo of
a fly made out of dust bunnies that she had saved, we sense the
tension and can exult with her when it re-emerges. At the same
time, immersion in social media looks like a distraction. “When
I feel good, I tell the story of what happened,” the author states.
“When I can’t do that, I facebook.”
I’m Already Disturbed offers a narrative and sub-tales that
converge in credible resolution, with the writer returning to
health, more broadly understood. Glancy comes to realize that
life in fact is limited (a third writer-pal, David Rakoff, has died),
and that joy comes less from electronic exchanges than from
engaging with work that matters, and from face-to-face en-
counters with family and friends. When the boys finally ask why
she’s been sick, Glancy doesn’t hesitate. “‘Mommo’s had
worms,’ I said. ... They looked at me amazed. I drew a picture
of an oval with little yellow squiggles inside. ‘That’s my stom-
ach. And those are the worms.’” Her straightforward reply af-
firms the calm awareness that marks the conclusion of this
vivid, intriguing book.
THE AMERICAN DREAM is not one
but rather a kaleidoscope of
dreams; this is the rural Southern
version. Charles Blow’s life to
date can be comfortably divided into two
roughly equal parts. The first half, the sub-
ject of this memoir, was passed largely “on
the black side of town,” in Gibsland,
Louisiana—“right in the middle of nowhere”—where, the
youngest of five sons, he was raised by a mother of principle
and practicality who provided and cared for the family while
working for a degree in education and becoming a home eco-
nomics teacher. His good-for-nothing father was mostly absent
after his parents separated when Blow was five. But if mother
and sons lived in poverty, they were well off enough to carry
themselves with dignity.
The second half of Blow’s life is compressed into the final
chapter. Now 44, Blow is an op-ed columnist for The New York
Times, famous for weaving survey data with commentary. This
part of his life began with hard work and a stroke of luck. The
latter occurred at a journalists’ job fair in Atlanta, where he
impressed the Times’ representatives with his diligence and
determination. He was made a graphics intern, the newspa-
per’s first, and at the tender age of 24 he was running the
graphics department.
That’s quite a distance from the small, informally segregated
town of his youth, whose only cemetery had a fence separating
black and white graves. With an eye for detail, he paints a vivid
portrait of rural poverty in America. Unlike
urban poverty, rural poverty is vast and un-
interrupted, stretching as wide as the eye
can see. Almost everyone was poor, only
some were poorer than others. Blow re-
members the family house as minimally
furnished; food was never thrown away;
and the small backyard was used to grow
crops. Some nearby relatives lived in houses without running
water.
With urban poverty, the sense of deprivation is accentuated
by proximity to the city’s riches. In contrast, at least for Blow’s
family, scarcity didn’t translate into material craving but instead
forged a mentality of self-sufficiency. For example, Blow de-
scribes spending “many Saturdays at the city dumps” to find
use in what others threw away, but these memories are surpris-
ingly intertwined with remembrances of family happiness.
“Being a child with nothing, it didn’t take much to satisfy me,”
he writes. If anything, the hardscrabble existence worked indi-
rectly to suppress this child’s want of attention. A “quiet, intro-
spective boy” who spent lonely afternoons drawing, he did long
“to be chosen,” but—keenly aware how much his mother
worked and worried—was ashamed to demand attention.
The title Fire Shut Up in My Bones is taken from the book
of Jeremiah, and the prophet’s next words are: “and I am weary
with holding it in, and I cannot.”
When Blow was seven, he was molested by a male cousin.
The effect was both immediate and long-lasting: he became
gun-shy when around other boys, ever suspicious of people’s
intentions. His schoolwork suffered so much that he was
placed in a slow class, from which he was rescued by his
The Bisexual’s Dilemma
YOAV S IVAN
Fire Shut Up in My Bones
by Charles Blow
Houghton Mifflin. 240 pages, $27.
Yoav Sivan is a New York-based journalist. He maintains a website at