Volunteer Envy
 | Average Customer Rating: Recommend When I was thirty-four, I went back to the shelter where I'd once lived as a fifteen-year-old runaway. Now that I was a respectable thirtysomething yuppie, I wanted to revisit the part of my past that had always caused me the most pain; I also wanted to help young people in crisis, as I once was. So every week for the past two years, I shlep my jewelry-making supplies uptown to the shelter for some art therapy with the girls of the… Product details and pricing info |
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2 Customer Reviews Posted
- One line pulls from the next...I was yanked through this story...
- I apprecite stories like this because they're emblematic of the sort of society we'd *like* to have, only it's not the type of society which really *exists.* Anyone, like this particular author, who is willing to dig deep into the mucky abyss of inner-city society to find a positive silver lining of hope in its (too) oftentimes stinky morass deserves the authorial Purple Heart as far as this reviewer's concerned.
There was a delightful "insider-outsider" feeling to this work which purely captivates -- here you've got a so-real-it-hurts white woman engrossed in the good works volunteering at an NYC shelter populated mainly by non-Caucasians; she understands the nuances of life in this residence but macabrely isn't a part of its resident population. Insider-outsider, outsider-insider. Do you see what I'm driving at?
Erlbaum's dialogues are real and snippy and it's not hard to see that this author definitely has a deft voice on that delightful page -- something all of us best heed and listen to, methinks. Her style is unassuming and street-legal, and her courage to use the "realest of the real" pronouncements and and expressions are what truly makes this little read so tastefully authentic. I love authors like this who aren't afraid to take it to the wall and back again.
(Bolded) note to self: please pick up someting by Janice the next time I'm in the market for a read (which is "soon come").
I'll second the motion of the previous reviewer in that we're sitting on a gold mine of a discovery here, a corner -- of sorts -- of the proverbial motherlode. This writer has a career and then-some in her. Yes indeedy.
Regards from the Golden City of Prague. - 2006-04-07, 3 of 5 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- A chance to "discover" a new author
- Janice Erlbaum is also the author of the new book "Girlbomb: A Halfway Homeless Memoir," and I feel like me and my friends are "discovering" a new author, just as she's breaking. If you like this sample, her book is 200 times better... her writing style is alive with crackling energy.
- 2006-03-21, 7 of 7 people found this review helpful, Rated:
