The Bare Necessities—Lenore Zion (MY DEAD PETS ARE INTERESTING)

2011 at 5am     Posted by Rebecca Schinsky

The Bare Necessities is a series in which authors share annotated reading lists of books they love.

Lenore Zion is a therapist, a writer, and the author of My Dead Pets Are Interesting, an irresistible collection of personal essays that range from the profound to the ridiculous, the “that’s so insightful” to the “Ohmigod, I feel so validated by the knowledge that someone else is just as secretly weird as I am.” Zion is about my age, and I’ve overcome my extreme jealousy of her talent (not to mention that the folks behind The Nervous Breakdown, one of my favorite websites, published her book) to bring her here today for this guest post about her the books that make her feel equally validated and understood.

A good book should, in my mind, do two things above all else: it should educate, and it should make you feel personally understood.  By “educate,” I mean you should walk away from the book able to speak effectively on a new avoiding-the-awkward-silence topic with all the people around whom you are socially inept.   By “make you feel personally understood,” I mean that a book should be your best friend, make you feel better about yourself, help temper your insecurities.  Of course, what is true of human best friends is also true of literary best friends – you have to get each other.  Which is why I’m calling attention to some books for misfits and freaks.

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

One of the recurrent themes of misfititude is oppression.  Society is oppressive.  Your parents are oppressive.  Your peers are oppressive.  Misfits are expected to respond to the pressures to either conform, if the misfit appears to be unexceptional, or perform, if the misfit appears to be exceptional.  Ender, the protagonist of Ender’s Game, is expected to do both.  He’s got it worse than your average freak – he represents something so many standard deviations away from the mean that he cannot even remain on Earth.  This six-year-old boy has to go to space and spend his entire childhood and adolescence at battle school, where he must conform to the culture of kiddie violence and war while his commanders, sadistic as they are, design a social structure intended to isolate the poor kid even in the face of the demanded conformity.  This is because he is, apparently, humankind’s only hope in defeating a terrifying race of insect-aliens that intend to totally f**k us up.  Talk about pressure.  This is way worse than getting teased in the lunchroom because your pants have pleats.  Thank goodness they sent the kid to space – if they didn’t, he’d be an easy recruit to the Trench Coat Mafia.

The Breast by Philip Roth

Acne is an embarrassing condition.  People judge you as unclean and unhealthy, even though you totally shower at least once a week and smear creams formulated to dissolve industrial metals on your face three times a day.  The zits serve as the tattoos of the freak tribe, and some days it’s so bad you don’t even want to leave the house.  You know what’s worse?  When you turn into a giant tit.  That’s what happens to David Kepesh, the protagonist of The Breast.  Not only does the process of metamorphosing into a massive breast leave you feeling a little like the weirdo in the room, but once you’ve completed your transformation, you don’t even have the option to leave that room!  Your only respite from your existence as a bona fide freak are your sexual fantasies, which are, frankly, confusing as hell now that you’re a big boob and you’re unfamiliar with what might serve as your erogenous zones.  Admit it, you choose acne.

Psychopathia Sexualis by Dr. Richard von Krafft-Ebbing

Do you remember the one boy who got caught masturbating into a sock and got called “Fruit of the Loom” for the rest of his teenage years?  Those were rough times for that kid.  The 238 case studies detailed in Krafft-Ebbing’s Psychopathia Sexualis, however, reveal what might have been a touch more humiliating.  I’m certain most of you fellas can freely admit to some silly sexually-motivated acts in adolescence, and ladies, you’re not the conventional little flowers you pretend to be, either.  This is not to say that there aren’t some behaviors best kept private – admitting to whatever fringe fantasies you have is wholly unnecessary.  My only point is, most of you haven’t met the requirements needed to earn a spot in this collection of the sexually bizarre.  And if you read Krafft-Ebbing’s case studies, you’ll be glad for that.  You’ll be shouting confessions of your inoffensive abnormalities from the rooftop.

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

Your mom is super embarrassing, isn’t she?  She’s always just inviting herself right on into the television room when you’re playing Call of Duty: Black Ops with your friends and asking if you guys want sandwiches and lemonade.  Well, at least she didn’t purposely manufacture you and your siblings as cash-cow mutants for the traveling freak show she and your dad run.  Come to think of it, just as you’re very happy not to be a gigantic breast, you’re also thankful not to have flippers!  And look, if you have flippers, you’re still sitting pretty compared to the family around which Dunn’s Geek Love is centered.  Because chances are, you’re not also coping with the added element of incest.

Read these books, misfits.  And then get together with your weirdo friends and celebrate your good fortune with a burger and a milkshake.