Living Out Loud

Living Out Loud by Anna Quindlen

Nonfiction - Essays

1989 Ivy Books (first published in 1988)

Finished on November 5, 2021

Rating: 2/5 (Fair)

Publisher's Blurb:

The voice is Anna Quindlen’s. But we know the hopes, dreams, fears, and wonder expressed in all her columns, for most of us share them. With her New York Times-based column, “LIFE IN THE 30s,” Anna Quindlen valued to national attention, and this wonderful collection shows why.

I'm quite a fan of Anna Quindlen's works and have read all but one or two of her books. I've had a copy of this collection of syndicated columns for many, many years and the Nonfiction November challenge was just the nudge I needed to finally dip into it. Each essay is about three pages in length and I wound up reading dozens of the columns back-to-back. It might have been better to read one or two a night, but I was impatient to move on to another book, so I zipped through this one. While it's a fairly quick read, I didn't love the book.

Written for The New York Times in the late 80s, much of Quindlen's essays felt dated and not relevant to my current life. My 60th birthday is just around the corner and the author was in her 30s when she wrote her column. However, I'm not sure my 30-something-year-old daughter would find much that would resonate with her, either.

A couple of entries gave me pause and I found myself thinking that the more things change, the more they remain the same:

My husband and I are educated people, and I can't tell you what a whoop we got out of it when we heard the story--untrue, it developed--that Joe Biden would get back in the race, too. Was that silly or what? "Ted Kennedy's next!" we both shouted. "Nixon," I screamed. "Like the T-shirt says, he's tanned, rested, and ready." (Written after Gary Hart dropped out of the 1988 race for the presidential nomination.)

and

The problem is that we would love absolute certainty on all aspects of this issue. We are a nation raised on True or False tests. We want doctors to give us the answers, which shows how short our memories are. After all, it was the doctors who told us that smoking wouldn't kill you and amphetamines during pregnancy didn't do a bit of harm. We want to know precisely how this disease spreads and why some people who are exposed get it and some don't and whether being exposed means inevitably getting sick. First we hear that the biggest argument against transmission through casual contact is that health-care workers don't get it. Then we hear that health-care workers have gotten it. And we don't know what to believe. All we know for sure is that getting sick means dying, at least so far. (Not about COVID-19, but AIDs)

and

I still read constantly: if my kids ever go into analysis, I'm sure they will say they don't really remember my face because it was always hidden by a book. Obviously this is in part because I like books. But another reason is that I like to be alone. I like to go deep inside myself and not be accompanied there by anyone else. 

When I sat down to write this review, my first thought was that I don't care for Anna Quindlen's books of nonfiction. And yet, as I scrolled through my blog, I discovered that I gave three of those books high ratings. Loud & Clear was, coincidentally, one of my selections for the 2007 Nonfiction November challenge and I gave it a 4/5 rating. Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake and Nanaville also received 4/5 ratings and I shared several favorite passages in each of those reviews. The only remaining book of her essays that I have not yet read is Thinking Out Loud, which was published in 1993. I think I'll pass on that one and read Alternate Side (her latest novel) instead.