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A review by mrsthrift
Lessons in Taxidermy: A Compendium of Safety and Danger by Bee Lavender
4.0
This is a memoir, based on a true story. I had to keep reminding myself because the piles of painful and difficult stuff that Bee Lavender survives in these pages is astounding. Bee Lavender is one of the central figures in the Hip Mama canon. This book mentions her kids, and tells stories of her pregnancies, but the central focus is her own stitched together survival.
Starting with a tough family, low class consciousness, and a cancer diagnosis starting at 12, Bee never gives the reader a breather - unlikely teen pregnancy, travel around the world, hopes, dreams, terrible accidents, graduate school, and more invasive medical treatments than anyone should endure. Eventually, Lavender finds some salvation in a radical choir, acupuncture and massage, and starts to give permission to the most repressed parts of herself - permission to sing, permission to ride a bike, permission to take care of herself. I appreciated Lavender's childhood memories from somewhere on a peninsula in WA, visiting mount rainier, talking about puget sound, bridges, forests, and escaping.
Starting with a tough family, low class consciousness, and a cancer diagnosis starting at 12, Bee never gives the reader a breather - unlikely teen pregnancy, travel around the world, hopes, dreams, terrible accidents, graduate school, and more invasive medical treatments than anyone should endure. Eventually, Lavender finds some salvation in a radical choir, acupuncture and massage, and starts to give permission to the most repressed parts of herself - permission to sing, permission to ride a bike, permission to take care of herself. I appreciated Lavender's childhood memories from somewhere on a peninsula in WA, visiting mount rainier, talking about puget sound, bridges, forests, and escaping.