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A review by chemistreadingonthejob
My Three Dads: Patriarchy on the Great Plains by Jessa Crispin
challenging
emotional
informative
medium-paced
2.5
My Three Dads is a memoir/ cultural criticism of the patriarchy of the Great Plains by Jessa Crispin. She starts off with a comical story of Charlie the ghost haunting her house, and then gets serious when talking about her three "dads". The first dad is Joseph Pianalto, a teacher and someone Jessa looked up to as a child. One day Mr. Pianalto killed his whole family and then himself, and no one knows why. The second father is John Brown, an American abolitionist and historical leader for Kansas. The third father is Martin Luther, a seminal figure in the Protestant Reformation. In the end, she talks about how she escaped the hold that the patriarchy of the Great Plains had on her.
"When you come from Kansas, you rarely pick up a book about Kansas. You don’t see your small-town life reflected back to you, unless it’s turned sentimental."
What Jessa Crispin writes of the Kansas setting is true. I was drawn to this book because I'm from a small town in Kansas. It's true that Kansas is "traditional, conservative, godfearing, and industrious." Unfortunately, that's where the good parts of Kansas stop. I had no idea when I picked this up that the entire book was just going to shit on Kansas. Sometimes I felt connected to this story, and sometimes I felt like I was reading the ramblings of a woman scorned. There was lots of swearing, complaining, and ranting. I felt like she was talking at me, and I didn't mind until I realized there were no solutions other than to leave Kansas. My Three Dads doesnt follow a specific timeline of her life. The passages jump from one topic to the next barely connecting, but with excruciating detail. This book made me realize that I've walked by the John Brown mural in the Topeka, KS statehouse several times and never thought about it's meaning. In school we are taught that John Brown led anti-slavery volunteers through Bleeding Kansas preceding the Civil War (basically a back and forth massacre on the Kansas/Missouri border over slavery). Now, I'll never unsee him as an corrupt murderer. The first and second parts with Mr. Pianalto and John Brown were informative and interesting, but she lost me with Martin Luther. Despite this, I appreciated reading something about my home state even if Kansas got hella roasted.
"When you come from Kansas, you rarely pick up a book about Kansas. You don’t see your small-town life reflected back to you, unless it’s turned sentimental."
What Jessa Crispin writes of the Kansas setting is true. I was drawn to this book because I'm from a small town in Kansas. It's true that Kansas is "traditional, conservative, godfearing, and industrious." Unfortunately, that's where the good parts of Kansas stop. I had no idea when I picked this up that the entire book was just going to shit on Kansas. Sometimes I felt connected to this story, and sometimes I felt like I was reading the ramblings of a woman scorned. There was lots of swearing, complaining, and ranting. I felt like she was talking at me, and I didn't mind until I realized there were no solutions other than to leave Kansas. My Three Dads doesnt follow a specific timeline of her life. The passages jump from one topic to the next barely connecting, but with excruciating detail. This book made me realize that I've walked by the John Brown mural in the Topeka, KS statehouse several times and never thought about it's meaning. In school we are taught that John Brown led anti-slavery volunteers through Bleeding Kansas preceding the Civil War (basically a back and forth massacre on the Kansas/Missouri border over slavery). Now, I'll never unsee him as an corrupt murderer. The first and second parts with Mr. Pianalto and John Brown were informative and interesting, but she lost me with Martin Luther. Despite this, I appreciated reading something about my home state even if Kansas got hella roasted.