Recollections Of My Nonexistence by Rebecca Solnit

 

This is a memoir covering Rebecca Solnit's life from the time she moved to San Francisco fresh out of college to her middle years.  I've been aware of Solnit but hadn't read anything by her and this book was amazing.  Some of the feminist ideas are things that rang very true such as the fact that most women do not feel safe in their daily life to do such things as go for a walk alone or come home late at night.  Women are often denied their voices and often are lectured by men about the women's field of expertise even when the man doesn't know anything about it, something I often encountered as an IT professional.  One thing that was new but made me think quite a lot was the statement that perhaps our society has set the thin woman as the standard because they actually physically take up less room.  I see my friends eating tiny meals or denying themselves food they want and I wonder why we've all agreed to the thin standard..

Solnit spent many years in her first apartment, a small one in the middle of a black neighborhood.  That neighborhood has slowly become gentrified as another group is marginalized and pushed out.  It covers her early writing years and then her growing fascination with nature, especially the West and its landscapes and native people.  We learn about her early writing career and then how she began to make a living at it and became fascinated by the intersection of it with art.  We learn about various jobs she had before becoming a full time writer and how each job informed her writing.  We learn about various artists that she interviewed and became fascinated by.

Sometimes I'll read a book and think YES! and this was one.  As soon as I finished it, I went to Kindle Unlimited and borrowed two more of her books.  The writing style is crisp and she doesn't hesitate to state the truth as she has found it.  Where many men are wrong about feminists is that they believe we don't like men.  We like men, we love men but we don't see ourselves as needing to submit to them.  We'd rather partner our lives with them.  This book is recommended for nonfiction readers who enjoy memoirs and for everyone interested in the relationship between women and men.