Sometimes witty and informative, and sometimes unhinged pontificating

My Three Dads is a memoir/ cultural criticism of the patriarchy of the Great Plains by Jessa Crispin. She starts off with a comical story of Charlie the ghost haunting her house, and then gets serious when talking about her three "dads". The first dad is Joseph Pianalto, a teacher and someone Jessa looked up to as a child. One day Mr. Pianalto killed his whole family and then himself, and no one knows why. The second father is John Brown, an American abolitionist and historical leader for Kansas. The third father is Martin Luther, a seminal figure in the Protestant Reformation. In the end, she talks about how she escaped the hold that the patriarchy of the Great Plains had on her.

"When you come from Kansas, you rarely pick up a book about Kansas. You don’t see your small-town life reflected back to you, unless it’s turned sentimental."

What Jessa Crispin writes of the Kansas setting is true. I was drawn to this book because I'm from a small town in Kansas. It's true that Kansas is "traditional, conservative, godfearing, and industrious." Unfortunately, that's where the good parts of Kansas stop. I had no idea when I picked this up that the entire book was just going to shit on Kansas. Sometimes I felt connected to this story, and sometimes I felt like I was reading the ramblings of a woman scorned. There was lots of swearing, complaining, and ranting. I felt like she was talking at me, and I didn't mind until I realized there were no solutions other than to leave. My Three Dads doesnt follow a specific timeline of her life. The passages jump from one topic to the next barely connecting, but with excruciating detail. This book made me realize that I've walked by the John Brown mural in the Topeka, KS statehouse several times and never thought about it's meaning. In school we are taught that John Brown led anti-slavery volunteers through Bleeding Kansas preceding the Civil War (basically a back and forth massacre on the Kansas/Missouri border over slavery). Now, I'll never unsee him as an corrupt murderer. The first and second parts with Mr. Pianalto and John Brown were informative and interesting, but she lost me with Martin Luther. Despite this, I appreciated reading something about my home state even if Kansas got hella roasted.

This essay compilation was poignant and thoughtful. I especially appreciated the interweaving of humor in the complexity of the essays.

This was an interesting exploration of the patriarchy and American culture, specifically culture that's often portrayed as the "typical" way of American life. I found the prose engaging. Crispin explores different father figures that those living in male-dominated, Christian American culture will find familiar: an actual father, male figures who foray into politics and shape culture, and the Protestant Christian God as practiced and interpreted in the Midwest. It is a very white-focused book that is exploring manifestations of white supremacy as well as patriarchy.

This was not what I expected. I mean that in as positive a way as possible. Let's say that the three dads Crispin deep discusses in the book are not the fathers you might assume from the title. This is not a work centered on biological relationships or familial history; it is, rather, a genealogy of our present moment -- Crispin's response -- to the very existential question: What in the biscuits is going on here? (Here being America or 'Murica. Take your pick, it is somewhat fungible.)

Crispin's answer is: No gravy. All biscuits, no gravy. From this reviewer's position, Crispin hits it on the head of the nail pretty dead on. Told from a woman's perspective, the response cannot but factor in gender and sexuality. A person's lens is inevitably shaped by their experience of living within the patriarchy. And that's Crispin's big point IMO: We all live within a patriarchal world and we always have. It is highly likely we always will. Or, at least, those of us alive today always will.

[Side Note: It is likely Crispin wrote the bulk of this book prior to the recent SCOTUS ruling on abortion. It is interesting reading this in the wake of that decision, on the cusp of things going so very sideways. I would have liked to read Crispin's view on that in these pages. Perhaps, next time, eh?]

Crispin's My Three Dads is a long read essay, flowing from one chapter to another like a river, making turns at arbitrary, but logical loci. The book is split, however, into three major parts, one for each "father". Dad One is a figure from Crispin's past, a father figure or an archetype of a male/masculine figure we've all known or read about, the invasive species of man who erases women violently, silently, assuredly, simply through living their own lives. The act of being a man -- in the midwestern definition -- is a violent act toward women. Crispin mulls marriage and children, the banal locale of domesticity as the insidious, quotidian site of patriarchy; here, she admits to its wiles herself. The disguise is love, security, belonging.

Dad Two is the Citizen, in Crispin's case, John Brown, a Kansan historical figure. But again, John Brown is the manifestation -- one of many -- Crispin write about it. She's interested in the archetype again, but again these are men we recognize as living individuals: The White Men Who Feel Their Lack of Control And Lash Out. Politics becomes the platform for these men: the excuse for their rage and the subsequent tantrum. Reading this section was like watching a montage of the American news from the past thirty or so years. Crispin revives Waco, Timothy McVeigh, Nazis, Bolsheviks, bring the conversation to the present with references to unnamed mass shooters. Crispin's point is made visible by the invisible: there's no need to name any of the recent mass shooters of the past twenty years because these perpetrators (typically a man or a boy) are so commonplace as to collate into an archetype of their own.

Dad Three is God, but since that is too multicultural, too broadly applicable as a term, Crispin narrows it in: the Protestant God and, even more specifically, his human mouthpieces, Martin Luther. But this is really a discussion of the Church and the folk version of Christianity as it is practiced in the American Midwest. Crispin lost me a little here, but that may be because I can't relate, having grown up in Asia where religion flavors life in very different ways. That said, having spent a significant amount of my adult life in the Midwest, Crispin's cultural landscape is familiar.

Crispin critiques the patriarchal world we live in, but her point is its all-encompassing presence. The title says this is focused on the Midwest, but really, the world Crispin paints for us is easily recognizable as anywhere else in the United States. The title and structure of the book even performs Crispin's point: the world revolves around man and men and their needs, desires, rages. My Three Dads is a snapshot of what it means to be American -- but, a caveat on that: The people in Crispin's work are white. She doesn't really say this, but she does through silence and implication. The book focuses on the Midwest, after all, and that is the heartland of whiteness, despite the millions of non-white people who reside there now and have historically shaped Americanness. So, let me rephrase: My Three Dads is a snapshot of White Americanness, the kind typically performed, desired, and domiciled in (but not confined to) the American Midwest. But this doesn't mean this is just about or for white people; People of color have to live in a white world, after all. My Three Dads is a worthy expenditure of time for any reader interested in the question: What in the bisuits is goi

I really liked the first section of the book. The middle was good, but the last part made me feel like I was stupid because I kept asking myself what was going on. This is pretty nitpicky, but Biden didn't fall asleep in a debate, and her equating Trump and Biden irked me. Yeah, neither one was someone to get excited about, but only one of those people tried to overthrow the government. She talks a lot about not liking people who want to burn it all down, but I didn't see a lot of constructive thought about where to go from here. I'd much rather read Jessica Valenti or Rebecca Solnit.

"…When visibility is good, you can see everything the world has waiting for you laid out in the distance, and there is nothing there…"

The following quotations lifted chronologically from her book kept me engaged and I felt a kindred relationship with Jessa Crispin again, and again. She was speaking in a language I understood.

"…had I had it a little rougher, had I been socialized as a boy and encouraged to express pain outward as anger and violence rather than inward as feminine self-harm and depression, I could have ended up as the abuser rather than the abused. Because every suicidal impulse I have had in my life has been a desire to self-murder. Born not so much out of despair as out of a compulsive disgust and hatred turned inward. I want to destroy, violently, what I hate. Had I learned to hate the world to avoid hating myself, or to hurt someone else to avoid hurting myself, I don’t know that I would have had the psychological integrity to resist…"

I have just recently come to know that what she mentions above is true. Our environment, upbringing, family of origin, genes, all are involved in molding us as human beings.

"…As a child these stories are absorbed unthinkingly…"

Yes, countless influences are drilled into us from the time we are born. Some good, some not so good. Some true, some absurdly false. If one so desires, it takes a lifetime to sort these things out.

"…If you tell me I have to go all-in on something having definitely happened, something unprovable for which the only documentation has been overtly and covertly doctored and manipulated and edited over many centuries, and then on top of all that I have to change my behavior and my nature and my desires, and if I don’t I have to feel a lifetime of shame and disgust because I don’t love in the right way, well, really, I’ll think you’re a fucking lunatic. Sure, pile it on, tell me the earth is only six thousand years old and every life on this earth is precious to God, because that is what basing a lifetime of decisions on belief does…"

Crispin is playing my song. At this point in the book I had yet to have a problem with anything she had written. And for good reason she is one of my favorites. But it did not last, my not having a problem with her.

"…When we are all priests, we can understand that not everything someone says is going to be interesting. We can question their authority…"

I think it was my first book, "Zimble Zamble Zumble", when I used a quotation by gifted philosopher Giorgio Agamben as an introduction to my book that stated, “God wants gods.” I would not use those words today nor would I subscribe to his premise in stating them.

"…The body is a nightmare, the world a horror show. The best thing to do is turn away from it all, protect oneself, wait for this world to burn and this body to die and be off to the next thing…"

Whatever that next thing is. And if Jessa Crispin is advancing another idea for eternal life then I call her words hogwash. But then she then follows those words with something radically different but true.

"…We will live our lives. And then they will end. It is all any of us can do…"

I fell in love with the writing of Jessa Crispin a few years ago when I was first fortunate to read her book "The Dead Ladies Project: Exiles, Expats, and Ex-Countries." She also wrote the introduction to another great book titled "I Await the Devil's Coming." I even read her rather silly book on Tarot so of course I wanted to read this book described by her publisher as “Sharp and thought-provoking, this memoir-meets-cultural criticism upends the romanticism of the Great Plains and the patriarchy at the core of its ideals.” And it was thought provoking and especially sharp. Crispin is so fucking smart and clever and bitingly honest in her opinions and commentary. But I did have a problem in her description of the deceased atheist author Christopher Hitchens who would have likely destroyed Crispin in a public debate. It seems she failed to do her homework before attacking Hitchens and his views about all religions and the church. Jessa Crispin would benefit in not only reading Christopher Hitchens but also in listening to podcasts and interviews featuring Hitchens and especially the neuroscientist Sam Harris. Sam Harris deals almost exclusively in scientific facts and has done extensive research and studies on the brain. Crispin even resorted to shoveling her shit so low as to call Hitchens an angry drunk, which is certainly not true. It would behoove her to retract her judgmental statement, though it is common knowledge Hitchens did enjoy rapturously imbibing with his friends in the only spirits he was comfortable with, those being nicotine and booze. Science can pretty much continue the argument from here as I tend to discount the opinions of even the most gifted writers among us who share views about the goodness and importance of believing in something quite impossible to accept as fact such as heaven and hell, God, church, religions and their like. Try as one might. But that, in total, should not prevent or dissuade anyone from reading this book. Crispin makes many valid points regarding patriarchy, oppression, and Midwestern values that many of us still cling to. She also offers quite a few historical facts regarding the Midwest, specifically her home town in Kansas. Whether you agree with her or not, this book is insightful and offers many points to ponder.

But her greatest failure, sad to say, is near the end of the book and her emphasis on both faith and belief, and her vain attempt at making one more important than the other when neither matters at all when discovering the specific science behind all things. Our world and our lives are certainly wonders, but to think we actually matter in the scope of all things is preposterous to say the least. I really want to implore Jessa Crispin, for her sake, to read Sam Harris’s book titled "Free Will" and learn the sad facts about all of us:

“ …You didn’t choose your gender or most of your life experiences. You had no control whatsoever over your genome or the development of your brain. And now your brain is making choices on the basis of preferences and beliefs that have been hammered into it over a lifetime—by your genes, your physical development since the moment you were conceived, and the interactions you have had with other people, events, and ideas…You will do whatever it is you do, and it is meaningless to assert that you could have done otherwise…”__Sam Harris

Unfortunately, in her bibliography of sources referenced in the creation of her book, there was no mention of Sam Harris anywhere.

I'm not sure what I expected from this book. Whatever I thought before beginning it, I was not prepared for what it is.

This book is part mystical memoir (it begins with a ghost story, and starts the author down a dark journey with personal demons). It's part historical and political history (a scathing - but deserved - analysis of the author's ancestors). It's part self-deprecating humor (the author's defense mechanism).

More than anthing, the book is a deeply moving deep dive into my home state (and the author's) that examines where we've come from, how we're living through what we're living through, and where we may be going.

"This house, a rental, was the manifestation of giving up hope. I refused to get the message. I was insisting I belonged there," Crispin begins. "Built into the consciousness of every former farm kid is the idea of reinvention. I am not that, I am this other thing, I don't belong here." And finally, through the pages of this book, the reader discovers as Crispin does, "...what I finally understood, what took me so long to figure out: I could just leave. And so I did."

If you believe the dominating U.S. culture is not always right and not always sane, and that we’re all a victim of some form of patriarchy, then this book is your jam. If you’ve never read another book by Jessa Crispin, this book is also for you; it stands alone, but it may make you want to pick up the rest of her books. I really enjoyed that this book challenged my thinking about the U.S. that I grew up in. I was not sold on the book at first, because I didn’t really understand the point of the ghost scene, but it grew into an interesting commentary on patriarchy, family, community, violence, capitalism, religion, politics, consumerism, and how it goes to navigate it all as a single person, as a related family, and as a family that is made. It seems to be a very feminist book, which may scare off some readers, but in fact it tackles situations many people deal with, like oppression by those with political power or wealth, and how society shapes what roles men, women, and children must play. Though the personal narrative focuses on the Midwest, I think Crispin discusses themes familiar to all of us across the U.S. as she intertwines her personal experiences with those of the nation at large. This book gets you caught up in the narrative, in a good way, by sprinkling in discourse on current events and historical events we can all remember or we’ve all been exposed to through media like the Branch Davidians in Waco. It also so elegantly transitions from Crispin’s personal story to her thoughts on the larger context of society. I felt so much when she discussed how easily we brush off terrible acts of violence between family members and communities and when she deliberated on the role of marriage and family connections. I will give a content warning on discussion of themes such as family homicide, abuse, and domestic terrorism.

My Three Dads was an incisive and engaging read, and one doesn’t need to be from the Midwest for the subject matter to ring true. Definitely more cultural criticism than memoir, Crispin shared personal anecdotes relating to the subject matter without veering into self-obsessed territory. She covered a variety of topics past and present - identity politics, Martin Luther, and beguinages(!) to name a few.

One of the reasons I’m consistently drawn to Crispin’s writing is she knows what she’s talking about. So in this book when discussing things like healthcare, classism, or patriarchy, it’s clear she’s not parroting talking points learned on social media - she has a true understanding. I particularly appreciated the points she made about chosen families not being a stand in for marriage in terms of legal rights and social acceptance, as well as an influx of charities and social media slacktivism not translating to radical changes within our infrastructure. I found myself regularly bookmarking passages I wanted to return to.

My favorite Jessa writing is when she’s at her most searing, and while still remaining incredibly nuanced, this book delivered on that.