brood by Jackie polzin Doubleday 2021

The package came in the mail a few days ago — totally unexpected and totally intriguing.  My high school journalism friend Betty Cooper (who married Bob LeFevre, the most handsome “older man” — well he had graduated by the time Betty and I had a class together — that I’d ever met.)   After she graduated (she was a year or maybe two ahead of me) I didn’t see her again until she and Bob celebrated their 50th — maybe 20 years ago or so!  Wow!  Since then we keep up mostly via the internet.

And here came a package from her!  A book!  brood is the title with a lower case ‘b’ and I could tell it was about chickens even before I read the note: Hi Sydney: This book was given to me.  I’ve read and enjoyed it and decided to pass it along to you because it is about, well, chickens!  Well, sort of…  She went on to say that I should pass it on or keep it I don’t need to have it returned.

It was a quick read and one of the strangest books I’ve read in a long time.  I can’t quite put my finger on it.  The author seems to know a lot about chickens — and not much at all.  I think she has a good sense of humor — or maybe none whatsoever.  She speaks of her husband as a total stranger — but then I guess we all do, sometimes.  (But, hopefully, not in writing.)  And I can’t decide if I liked the book, want to read another by her, or maybe I should write Betty and ask her what in the world she was thinking.

jackie polzin

I thought it was interesting that all the blurbs on the back of the dust jacket were by women and not at all surprising that they were all positive.  (After all, that’s why there were chosen to go there, eh?)  The one closest to descriptive, at least for me, was by Lynn Steger Strong, author of Want: “A book about caretaking, about trauma and loss, about keeping others and one’s self alive, with sentences so confident and exact they continually took my breath away…”  Well, I don’t know about that last part.

The author’s picture does make me think that there is a serious generation gap between us and being caught in the chasm might account for my lack of empathy.  But, she looks perky and fun — probably accounting for my thought that she might be writing humorously and I’m missing it.  She also uses no capital letters in her name.  Probably another age disparity thing.

I don’t actually recommend this book.  But if you do read it, tell me what you think.  I might even read it again to get a better handle on what I think.