I have read some peculiar things in books. It’s nothing I ever seek out. I am not a fan of horror or the macabre, where one might expect excesses. Instead everyday books – fiction, memoir, even theology – occasionally offer up some moments for pause.
Here are five that have stuck with me:
1.
Amy Dacyczyn is a skinflint so extreme that she only eats 1200 calories a day to save money. It works for her: she and her military husband raised six kids while socking away pots of green stuff. Just how far does she take it? One day while out on a walk, Amy spotted a half-eaten apple that someone had dropped on the ground. She picked it up, cut around the bite marks, and made a single serving Apple Crisp for her son (who loved it).
2.
Speaking of weird food moments, there is a scene early on in Heavy in which the author, as a teenager, is visiting a friend’s house. He had designs on a girl who is present, but before anything happens he goes to the refrigerator. There isn’t much food, so he takes a swig of bleu cheese dressing from the bottle. Do people do this? I thought it was vile.
3.
Considering that this novel is about exotic plants and midlife romance, you might expect some magic realism. It went farther than I was expecting, though, when the protagonist visits the jungles of Quintana Roo. Not only is she turned on by a man with a gun, but at one point she gets on all fours and is crawling around the jungle floor like a jaguar. I guess this is all symbolic of something, but it was also pretty out there.
4.
The author was briefly famous for playing an oft-married vixen on a soap opera. After her career waned, she went through a divorce and much spiritual quest work. There is a Shirley MacClaine vibe to most of her explorations, albeit with a sudsy twist. (Example: At a spiritual retreat, she becomes obsessed with a man she just met and is convinced they knew each other in another life. They then get it on within hours of meeting.) One chapter is devoted to the author’s youngest child, Joanna. The author had done enough past life work that she is convinced that her daughter, who is autistic, is a reincarnated dolphin. I’ve read quite a bit in the New Age genre, but that revelation stopped me cold.
5.
Catholics are big on natural law, an idea honed by Thomas Aquinas that states that humans should look to the natural world to understand God’s law. Since the natural purpose of sexual relations is procreation, for example, humans should abstain from artificial birth control. Sex should only ever be about God’s purpose.
This book offers some of the most jaw-dropping bad advice about abstinence that I have ever read. At one point, one of the contributors is giving advice to married couples. How should they resist temptation to avoid an unplanned pregnancy? The priest suggests that when they are feeling amorous, they should think about their children. While in the throes of passion, put a visual in your mind of your darling little ones to kill the impulse.
And that, my friends, is the strangest thing I have ever read in a book.
Books Smitten 