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A review by amymo73
Rust: A Memoir of Steel and Grit by Eliese Colette Goldbach
4.0
This was a Libby book (so not the hardcover edition indicated above, but I was too lazy to change it, so there). Libby is the e-book loan app from my fabulous Buffalo & Erie County Public Library system. It also means that I have seven days to read a book. So I dive in fast and usually become absorbed.
I knew little, if anything, about this book. It was part of the Chautauqua Science and Literary Circle picks for this year, and I decided to dive into the CSLC this year. So here I am.
I found myself relating a lot to what Eliese was writing. Growing up in the Rust Belt, not Cleveland but a reason facsimile in Buffalo, I understood a lot of her interactions with the lawyers who seemed to look down on Cleveland. I'm a little bit older than she is, a late Gen Xer, but I also grasp what she is saying about this "if you can dream it, you can do it," platitude that we were fed as kids. I don't want to dissuade dreams. And at the same time, there are things that limit your choices and ability to make those dreams a reality that are not in your control. Sometimes it's the socio-economic-political system. Sometimes it's illness. Sometimes it's poverty. Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is not easy, and as much as Eliese had issues with her conservative parents (and those were real issues) she did have them there when she needed them most. She had that support. And that's a big reason why she was able to get out of her hole.
I did like the way she unfolded her story. It kept me interested. Kept me reading. Because she uncovered her story in layers -- and don't we all have layers to our own stories.
I also found her treatment of Trump's election interesting. She showed the nuances of people -- they can be multiple things. And also how Trump and the conservative agenda hijacked the Republican party, how it played on people's fears which are nuanced and complicated as feelings often are. We have to sit with a lot of stuff and it's easier to just say, "that person over there is the problem," then in realizing that sometimes life just isn't fair and circumstances change.
I knew little, if anything, about this book. It was part of the Chautauqua Science and Literary Circle picks for this year, and I decided to dive into the CSLC this year. So here I am.
I found myself relating a lot to what Eliese was writing. Growing up in the Rust Belt, not Cleveland but a reason facsimile in Buffalo, I understood a lot of her interactions with the lawyers who seemed to look down on Cleveland. I'm a little bit older than she is, a late Gen Xer, but I also grasp what she is saying about this "if you can dream it, you can do it," platitude that we were fed as kids. I don't want to dissuade dreams. And at the same time, there are things that limit your choices and ability to make those dreams a reality that are not in your control. Sometimes it's the socio-economic-political system. Sometimes it's illness. Sometimes it's poverty. Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is not easy, and as much as Eliese had issues with her conservative parents (and those were real issues) she did have them there when she needed them most. She had that support. And that's a big reason why she was able to get out of her hole.
I did like the way she unfolded her story. It kept me interested. Kept me reading. Because she uncovered her story in layers -- and don't we all have layers to our own stories.
I also found her treatment of Trump's election interesting. She showed the nuances of people -- they can be multiple things. And also how Trump and the conservative agenda hijacked the Republican party, how it played on people's fears which are nuanced and complicated as feelings often are. We have to sit with a lot of stuff and it's easier to just say, "that person over there is the problem," then in realizing that sometimes life just isn't fair and circumstances change.