#2. Made for You and Me by Caitlin Shetterly
One reason I enjoy making these book lists is because I like to look at overall trends in my reading habits: how my tastes change, what things I like, what things I don’t like. Narcissism. Yes. Moving on. Last year, food books, young adult-ish classics, and non-fiction were the big winners. This year, I’ve noticed some more abstract trends.
I’m liking books about America:
- what it means to be an American (And the Pursuit of Happiness)
- what it’s like to live in specific American subcultures and geographic regions (Where Things Come Back, Hush)
- books with great rural or urban settings (Annie On My Mind, Charlotte’s Web)
- books about road trips across the country (Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour)
Caitlin Shetterly’s Made for You and Me has all of these things. This is a memoir of the first few years of Shetterly’s marriage, beginning with the newlyweds realizing a lifelong dream and moving from Maine to California with the hopes of making a living as creative people. However, the universe quickly seems to conspire against the two. The moving nightmares pile up. There’s an unplanned pregnancy, and Shetterly is rendered so sick she can’t work as much as she’d hoped. But the big Crusher of Dreams here is The Recession. Shetterly and her husband assume that when they arrive in California, there will be some menial day-jobs to be had while they stabilize their creative careers, but The Recession arrives swiftly; reading about how a sick Shetterly and her desperate husband – both educated, skilled, and enthusiastic – was fairly devastating.
Right now, I live a fairly sheltered, risk-averse existence. But even for me, moving across the country to achieve a dream is something I would consider possible. Something I have done myself. I hope and wish that all people in America feel the same way… but Shetterly’s book reminded me that the economy is acting in ways that go beyond my own “magical thinking.” It’s too easy for many of us sheltered, risk-averse folks to see the recession as an inconvenience rather than a brick wall. Maybe it will take me longer to get a job, limit my job choices, make my retirement/future less certain… but I’ll get by. This memoir rocked me because I felt like Shetterly and her husband could be me – two young people who want to start a life together somewhere new, who want to work in a creative, exciting environment, who want nothing more than to be able to work to support their families, who are educated and smart and diligent. And there are still things beyond your control.
Shetterly’s text takes the reader from her marriage, to California, to the birth of her son, and back to her mother’s home in Maine. By the time the story ends, I was fully invested and wanted to know what happened next to this new family. Even though Shetterly’s life is average, her story mundane, this book, I think is just as emotionally gripping as any other more sensational memoir and achieves that paradoxical task of being both deeply personal and completely universal. It’s her story, it’s your story, etc etc. Love love loved it.