Memoirous

Nomadland: a book review Jessica Bruder W.W. Norton & Co., 2017 In one of the opening scenes of the film, Nomadland, we are given a close-up of Fern, yet are unable to “read” her face. There is a slew of emotions to sort through. Intensity, concentration, fear—then the camera backs up and we realize—oh, she’s having a pee—backs up further—beside a lonesome highway. She quickly finishes up and pulls up her pants and jumps into her white van. Upon reading the book, we gain a much BROADER understanding of that close up. It is a woman’s face, someone who has worked and suffered sudden unemployment, who is grieving not only the end of her life but the life of her husband=everything she has ever known. Gone. And now, she is starting out, without a house, her stuff in storage, on a journey, a new life, called vanlife. Living in her van The raw emotion that is unreadable is unknowable. Where does she start, where is she going, where will she end up? So many questions. She is terrified. Out...