‘Raw Dog’, ‘The Celebrants’ and more

Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs

by Jamie Loftus

c.2023, Forge $26.99 320 pages

Your buns gotta be firm.

There’s no substitute: round, firm, and just-right squeezable; wide, but not excessive; and cleaved neatly and equally in half. Among life’s little pleasures, nice buns are important. As in the new book “Raw Dog” by Jamie Loftus, where else would you put your freshly-grilled hot dog?

Wieners, sausages, frankfurters, you probably grew up on that staple of summer picnics, loaded with relish and mustard. You’ve eaten countless hot dogs in your lifetime, at home, stadium, gas station, camp, fair, or street-side. But where will you find the best hot dog in America?

In 2021, in the middle of a pandemic, Jamie Loftus set off from New Mexico with a dog, a cat, a boyfriend, and a tiny budget to find out.

We like to think of hot dogs as a quintessential American food, she says, but the “hot dog is not American at all.” A tube of “meaty scraps in meaty casing” is actually an ancient thing from several cultures. We’ve just made it our own, in many ways across the country and through the decades.

The first hot dogs on Loftus’s journey were a “Sonoran hot dog” topped with bacon and beans, and a dog with vegetables and pasta rings in Albuquerque. Then we learn how hot dogs are made, and maybe you really don’t want to know.

A Coney dog in Tulsa was served on a wet bun. In Georgia, Loftus ate a boiled dog with beans and a dog “with strings.” She had a red hot in Florida, a “secondbest... dog” in Virginia, she got to see her ailing father, she fought with her boyfriend, and she had a papaya dog in New York. She was at a hot dog-eating contest on Coney Island, ate a “garbage plate” in Rochester, a Chicago dog in the Windy City, had dairy with her dog in Wisconsin, and scarfed down hot dogs in three different stadiums. And the very best, tastiest hot dog is...?

Says Loftus, “Everybody knows that.”

So what’ll you have? Little of this, a lot of that, mustard and pickles, some profanity, couple of laughs, some learning, and a road trip inside “Raw Dog,” that’s what. Let’s go back to the profanity: author and comedian Jamie Loftus is quick to ladle plenty of that in her book, just so you know. But also know that it matches a series of bad hotel rooms and intestinal issues that arise, a dying relationship and worry about her father, about all of which Loftus is appealingly, honestly forthcoming. If you’ve ever taken a road trip on a dime, you’ll understand everything, including the desperation of wondering if this was really such a good idea after all.

Add in great descriptions of authentic hot dog counters, sprinkle on the history of hot dogs and America, spoon on second-thoughts, drag it through the garden, and “Raw Dog” is a funny story about a trip you’ll be glad someone else took. If you like your hot dogs loaded, it’s a book you’ll relish.

The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Women

edited by Kami Ahrens c.2023, The University of North Carolina Press $25.00 288 pages

You can’t imagine life without your devices. Your cell phone, your computer: how else would you stay in touch, take photos, end arguments, keep documents? You need those links to civilization, you panic when you don’t have them. So what would you do, absent all modern conveniences? In “The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Women,” edited by Kami Ahrens, you’ll find out.

Nearly sixty years ago, a “group of rowdy high school students” in a small town in Georgia “decided to create a literary magazine” filled with stories, poetry, and instruction from their elders in rural Appalachia. Every year since 1966, a new batch of students has gone back to collect more stories of life as it used to be.

This book, says editor Kami Ahrens, springs from “the Foxfire archives... going back to the roots of the organization.” Here, Ahrens lets women tell their stories alone.

Land – both ownership and stewardship – rings loud in these narratives, with frequent remarks about loss of property through hard times, and nothing to pass on to future generations. Issues of transportation arise, too: many of these women remembered walking everywhere. Margaret Burrell Norton said she was a teenager when she saw her first car.

Though an occasional tale of homemade toys or silly pranks surfaces, most women spoke about working hard, with very little playtime. Hard work had history, too: Beulah Perry’s grandfather was a slave before she was born; Carrie McDonnell Stewart’s father often repeated the story of his sale on a slave block.

After her father abandoned her when she was just 11 years old, Carolyn Jones Stradley was completely on her own. Maude Conley Shope said that until “we was great big young’uns,” she and her siblings believed in Santa Claus. Modern medicine was all but nonexistent. Marriages happened early, lasted long, and family sizes were generally in the double-digits. Poverty was a common theme in these stories, and times were tough but in a crisis, people never forgot their neighbors...

The internet is down, you have one bar on your phone, and there’s nothing on TV. Which is the perfect time to have “The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Women” in your lap.

The first thing you’ll notice about the stories in this book is that, while there are a handful of modern profiles here, many of the interviewees are gone today – most having lived long lives before dying decades ago. Their presence in this book underscores a reason for what’s here: that the ways people lived in the early half of the last century – the social customs, poverty, make-do attitudes, religious beliefs, resourcefulness, matriarchal strengths, and family life – will be forever lost unless they’re captured now.

Readers, in fact, will be glad these were.

Unique to this book in the Foxfire series is that this is all about women, making it appealing to adult historians, homesteaders, back-to-the-land-ers, and feminists, as well as to high schoolers of the same age as the original story-gatherers. For you, skipping “The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Women” should be unimaginable.

The Celebrants

by Steven Rowley

c.2023, Putnam

$28.00 308 pages

Everybody will say nice things about you when you’re lying in a box in front of them.

They’ll say you were everyone’s friend, you were funny and wise, even when you weren’t. You were the greatest person ever, just the best – and don’t you wish they’d say those things now, while you’re alive to hear them? As in the new book

“The Celebrants” by Steven Rowley, those sentiments might completely surprise you.

Jordan Vargas felt like a time-traveler.

It had been almost three decades since he, Naomi, Alec, Marielle, Craig, and Jordy were thrown together by a student-transfer algorithm, which turned out to be a lucky accident. More than twenty-five years since they’d lived together in the same dorm. Over half a lifetime ago since Marielle found Alec on the dorm’s common-room floor, dead of an overdose that marked the lives of his best friends.

Time flies. So much had happened since then.

Just before graduation, Jordy and Jordan had realized their attraction to one another. After trying a long-distance relationship, they came out to their friends, moved in together, got married, and “The Jordans” were now business partners.

All her life, Naomi had struggled with her straight-laced, unaffectionate parents and their expectations. As the only heir to their business and a high-level national record executive, she never wanted for money. Love, well, that was another thing.

Never one to buck the rules or ignore instructions, nerdy Craig’s upright adherence to detail got him the nickname “Nana,” a lot of teasing, and a months-long stint in prison for fraud. And sweet Marielle was a caretaker-type who gave and gave of herself until there was nothing left and she needed her friends.

Sooner or later, they all did: years ago, stunned by Alec’s death, the Jordans, Marielle, Naomi, and Craig made a pact that each could ask for a “funeral” for themselves, just once, to reaffirm their lives. Naomi had hers. Marielle had hers. Craig had his.

And now it was Jordan’s turn, before it was too late...

It seems unfair, in a way, that your life isn’t celebrated until it’s over. What would people say about you when you’re gone – and why don’t we say those things now? “The Celebrants” tips that question on its side and leaves an answer hanging.

Though it sometimes lags a bit and though the plot can occasionally dip into silliness, this book is good: a little The Big Chill, a little St. Elmo’s Fire, the kind of buddy-book you want for the summer. The timeline is perfectly crafted, and author Steven Rowley packs a lot of characters inside it while still leaving the tale uncomplicated, which makes it one of those easy stopping-and-starting books you know you often need on a busy vacation. Still, bookmarks are optional; reading it all at once on a happy staycation isn’t inadvisable.

Try to predict the ending of this book and you’ll be somewhat wrong. Instead, just relax, let yourself imagine what-if-when, and enjoy “The Celebrants.” You’ll say nice things about it.

The Overlooked Americans: The Resilience of Our Rural Towns and What It Means for Our Country

by Elizabeth Currid-Halkett c.2023, Basic Books $32.00 432 pages

The news last night made you kind of worried. Worried that your guy won’t get into office, and worried that he will. You’re concerned about America and its future, about another insurrection and more divide. Most of all, you fret about towns larger and smaller than yours and what those citizens will do in 2024. So read “The Overlooked Americans” by Elizabeth Currid-Halkett, and take a deep breath...

A bunch of one-tooth wonders. Uneducated rubes. Flyover country. Coastal elites. Big snobs. You’ve heard those things said about your fellow Americans and, man, those insults have to be wrong, don’t they? Are we missing something, and assuming the wrong things?

Elizabeth Currid-Halkett thinks we are.

While much of the derision aimed at small-town America came from the last two elections, the way we talked about rural America – that it’s “a cultural backwater” – has been around for a long time. Same thing about big-city citizens, that they’re rich and uppity. Currid-Halkett found plenty to contradict all these beliefs.

Rural people, she found, can experience deep poverty, low employment, and intolerance... but so do people in cities. Country folks aren’t “necessarily more religious than urban Americans...” Instead, they’re mostly “focused on things other than politics: their families, upcoming holidays, paying their bills...” She discovered that in “flyover” areas, people are “less prejudiced, more diverse, and more apolitical than is commonly thought.”

So is there a massive divide between rural citizens and city dwellers? University of Chicago General Social Survey (GSS) data indicates that Americans all over the country, East coast, West coast, city and rural, are more alike than we think we are. There are small nuances – rural folks are more relaxed about education, and opioids in a small community can change things quite a bit – but we all largely want equality, tolerance, and to be left alone to live our lives without interference from the government. We all want good housing and good jobs. We want our kids to grow up safe.

And we don’t like being pulled into cultural battles that we don’t fully buy into.

One gigantic surprise. That’s what you’ll hold in your hands when you find “The Overlooked Americans.” But also – there are things that won’t surprise you in the least.

Gently following a handful of people from various areas around America – including one polar-opposite woman she grew close to – author Elizabeth Currid-Halkett looks at the way we look at one another from a common-sense, down-to-Earth viewpoint that doesn’t overtalk. Readers should know that there’s a large amount of science in this, and enough data to make a statistician happy, but it’s the interviews that stand tall and stand up for another way of thinking.

Look at that which divides us. You may see that it’s not very much.

“The Overlooked Americans” educates, and it begs for tolerance, compassion, and patience. It’s for grown folks who can see that anger and heel-digging isn’t anything to brag about anymore. It’s a book for anyone who seeks understanding, and the chance to stop worrying.

“Thinking with Your Hands: The Surprising Science Behind How Gestures Shape Our Thoughts

by Susan Goldin-Meadow c.2023, Basic Books $30.00

It’s about thiiiiiiiiiis big.

272 pages

Admit it: you can barely read those four words without wanting to use your hands. Pointing, wringing, raising and lowering, you probably even use your hands to give directions over the phone. Most of the time, your gestures emphasize your words and most of the time, people understand you but what are you not saying aloud? In the new book “Thinking with Your Hands” by Susan GoldinMeadow, you’ll see.

Ask anyone to describe opening a jar of pickles and if you couldn’t hear them, you could still understand the gist of their actions. But that person described the process by speaking out loud– so why did they also gesture?

Overall, and not surprisingly, we use gestures for many things: to understand one another, to help us remember and maintain our train of thought, and to keep a listener’s attention. If you’re savvy, says Goldin-Meadow, you can also tell when someone’s misleading or lying, even if they aren’t consciously doing it. “Reading” someone’s hands can help to read their mind.

This, she says, is important information for parents.

As a researcher, Goldin-Meadow learned that deaf children who are either too young to learn ASL or are not taught it for other reasons use gestures to communicate. She discovered that using “homesigns” are intuitive, and that gestures are used around the world to communicate with others. Even blind people use gestures when they talk.

Kids should be encouraged to use gestures to figure out problems, tell stories, and communicate when they don’t have the words. If used properly, gestures can expand your child’s vocabulary and they can influence the meaning of words. Gestures can alert an attentive parent to language delays or other cognitive problems, and they can let parents know when children are struggling with a particular idea or subject. In these ways, Goldin-Meadow warns parents of one thing: be sure your gestures adhere closely to your thoughts. Your kids are watching...

The very first thing you’ll notice when you browse through “Thinking with Your Hands” is that it’s very science-y. Clinical, almost. This is a serious book.

The second thing you’ll notice is how quickly you’ll be drawn into it.

Author Susan Goldin-Meadow uses laboratory evidence to back up her research and drawings to make things easier to grasp. This helps to lessen the clinical aspects of her book, making it more accessible, which is a good thing: for supervisors, parents, and those who work with small children especially, there’s a lot of book to scale before getting to the immediately-usable parts and any help you can get will keep you from setting this book aside.

If you can refrain from that, you’ll find that this book can enhance the communication you share with other adults – strangers, acquaintances, friends or family – and it will boost what you talk about with your child, even if he or she is fully articulate. Just remember, “Thinking with Your Hands” is quite disciplined but if you need to say something important, this book is big.