If You Read One Book This Month: Why Fish Don’t Exist By Lulu Miller
When I think about the book that most influenced the type of memoir I wanted to write, it’s Lulu Miller’s Why Fish Don’t Exist. It’s a braided narrative – part memoir, part biography of the taxonomist David Starr Jordan, a man who Miller believed was a cautionary tale of everything not to do in one’s life.
Miller’s book opens with a command: “Picture the person you love the most.” She goes on: “Picture them sitting on the couch, eating cereal….”
And then she drops the bomb: “Chaos will get them.”
The rest of the book revolves around the story of how David Starr Jordan persisted in his work - which was to bring order to the unruly world of fish - despite the fact that his obsession seemed futile.
But, you might be asking, who cares about David Starr Jordan and who cares about fish?
And those are great questions. The answer is Miller – and the beauty of this book is that she makes the reader care too.
She writes about how Chaos doesn’t discriminate. It eventually came for her too. And when it did she had to figure out how to keep going with her own life. And what better example was there than David Starr Jordan himself.
My book has nothing to do with fish or David Starr Jordan. But I would argue all books, and all of life, have to do with Chaos.
The braided narrative I weave in my book is between my own personal story and the story of the shadow mothers who haunt all of us: whether it’s the mothers we had as role models in our own lives or the fever dream of the patriarchal mother invented by society.
In the end of my book (and in real life too!) I had to create my own mother code that would allow me to be the person and mom I wanted to be despite the societal voices urging me to mother in a very particular way. And in the end Miller had to figure out how to stand on her own two feet even though Chaos was never far behind.
A class about our relationship to motherhood - for those who have kid(s), for those who don’t, and for those who just aren’t sure about the whole children thing.
For those who missed the Ignite Writers Collective’s 5th birthday party, here’s a snapshot (and, yes, there was cake!)…
Photo by Son Le at Ignite Writers Collective’s 5th birthday party at Margot in Fort Greene.
Loved Lulu’s book! It was such a lesson in curiosity and intellectual flexibility