By Terri Schlichenmeyer, April 2020 Issue.

It’s worth a try.

You never know what’s going to happen when

a new endeavor begins. You only know what it’ll cost: time, money, effort, and

a lot of patience for a great unknown. This experiment could end well, or it

could end very badly but either way, as in the new novel Under the

Rainbow by Celia Laskey, it’s worth a try.

It was a scientific fact: Big Burr, Kansas,

was the most homophobic place in the U.S.

That was the determination made by

Acceptance Across America, an LGBTQ nonprofit that needed to know before

launching its grand experiment. For two years, AAA hoped to keep a task force

in Big Burr to live, work, integrate, and to see if it was possible to change

bigots into open-minded, rational people.

Much to her dismay, that’s why Avery was

taken from her very happy California home: one of her moms volunteered to head

the Acceptance Across America experiment. Karen was a lesbian and a feminist.

Avery was straight and she hoped that nobody in her new high school would ever

think otherwise. It was bad enough that Billy Cunningham’s hate-fueled gang

found out who her mother was.

Bible-quoting, mom-blogging Christine

Petersen tried to have Acceptance Across America’s billboard removed from

downtown and when that didn’t happen, she took matters into her own hands.

Pastor Jim preached against homosexuality; the police ignored hate crimes; and

Arturo, having recently moved to Big Burr from New Mexico because of health

issues, struggled to accept his son’s husband.

But things weren’t all bad in Big Burr.

Linda, who recently lost her son in an accident, was delighted to find friends

who didn’t treat her like broken china. Lizzie finally seized the happiness

she’d been putting off. Elsie, who hadn’t seen her children in years, found

Harley, who was a good substitute and a good friend. And Gabe Cunningham

learned that the newcomers to Big Burr would open more than just a few minds.

Here’s a bit of advice: just before you

start reading Under the Rainbow, take a deep breath. It may be the last

one you get until you’re finished.

That’s because author Celia Laskey will

knock the wind out of you with the pearl-clutching folks in the fictitious town

of Big Burr, the authenticity of their thoughts and actions, and the real-life

things they do to deny this (almost implausible) social experiment. Better yet,

the haters are only half the story. Laskey’s tale is also told through a series

of first-person points-of-view of some of the activists who serve as glue to

hold everything together.

This all

amounts to a bunch of concentric circles that are tangled like a cheap necklace

in a small box. Everybody’s tale is tied to half the town through barely-kept

confidences and they all know it — although, like any good novel, secrets

ultimately become not-so-secret.

For lovers of novels with bite, just the

first page is this book will snare you and keep you rapt. Absolutely, Under

the Rainbow is worth a try.

Words can never

hurt you.

Even as a child, that last half of

the retort to playground taunts never made sense to you. Of course, sticks and stones broke bones but even then, you

knew that there’s no sharper weapon than a word said in anger or

misunderstanding. In the new book What’s Your Pronoun? by Dennis

Baron, you’ll see that some of those weapons go way back.

Language is a

funny thing. Words hurt, they sooth, and in today’s world, a “pronoun

without sex is ... sexy.” We ask ourselves, and others,

which ones to use as “an invitation to declare, to honor, or to

reject, not just a pronoun, but a gender identity.”

Generally, though, and until

relatively recently, “he” was the default pronoun used by many to

indicate both masculine and undeclared gender. As far back as

1792, neutral “he” was thought to be confusing, however;

one writer even suggested that “one” might work better than “he” to indicate

gender neutral.

“They” was brought up for

consideration in 1794.

A century

later, and with mostly men controlling law and business, “he” was firmly the

pronoun of choice, and it had become politicized; when women protested

that “he” clearly didn’t include them, lawmakers stated that

“he” also implied “she.” Women countered that if “he” could hold office, then

it was implied that “she” could, too, and, well, you can imagine the

arguments — not to mention the injustice of three masculine

pronouns (he, his, him) but just two for the

feminine (she, her). Oh, the scandal of it all!

Through the decades, other words have

been suggested (zie, hir, thon) to indicate gender neutral or unknown

but none have seemed to stick. Many felt that there simply was

no good way to signify neither male or female, or a

separation of gender-neutral and nonbinary, and some bemoaned the

lack of a “missing word” that was easily understandable. Says

Baron, though, in sifting through the possibilities, we’ve had the

word all along.

Sometimes, as

author Dennis Baron points out in his introduction,

people today offer their preferred pronoun without being asked, so

ubiquitous is the question. Still, we sometimes struggle with the right

word, but in What’s Your Pronoun? he offers a solution of which readers

may be skeptical.

First, though,

it’s true that this etymological history is a good read, especially for

word nerds. It’s not college-lecture level; Baron writes with a lighter hand

and doesn’t preach, and the occasional threads that spring from the stories

here are explored appropriately and in an inviting way that displays no

drudgery. It’s like sitting down at a workshop you’ve eagerly anticipated and

being more delighted than you hoped you’d be.

And

yet, there is such a thing as information overload, and the obvious

solution isn’t so obvious. Proof is at the end of the book, in which

we see more than two centuries of verbal wrangling.

So: em,

thon, zier, they? We haven’t heard the end of it, but maybe we’re close;

certainly, reading What’s Your Pronoun? couldn’t hurt.

Some people collect

glassware.

Others collect books or sweaters or Santa

statues or fancy cars or any one of a million things there are more than two

of. Scientists say that, as a species, we’re hard-wired to do

it, even if you just collect friends. And in Name Drop

by Ross Mathews, some of them might even be famous.

From the time he was a little boy growing up

in a farm community in Washington state, Mathews wanted to have friends

that were celebrities. He imagined what it would be like to hang out with

them and gossip … and then it actually happened.

Now, he says he hates when people “name

drop,” but “honey,” he has stories.

His celebrity circle started when he

was an intern on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, which sent

him to report on the Olympics three times, which led him to start a blog,

and that’s how he became BFFs with Rosie O’Donnell. They’ve been fast

friends ever since, though it was she who “made” him “sleep with a

Republican.”

He worked with

Chelsea Handler on Chelsea Lately and because of where the show was

filmed, he met and became friends with the Kardashians, who were filming their

reality show in the same building. The Chelsea gig also gave Mathews the

opportunity to be on the sidelines when his beloved Seahawks won  the

Super Bowl in 2013.

That was the year he also got to play

celebrity matchmaker.

He had a chance to meet two of the Spice

Girls. He got a quick-click photo op with Celine Dion. He met Omorosa and

scooped every rabid reporter on TV; he met “Liza with an OMG” and spent all

night talking with Christina Aguilera.

But “not every celebrity story is going to

end like a fairy tale where the famous person and I end up bonding,” says

Mathews.

Especially when it’s Barbara Walters, Faye

Dunaway, or Elizabeth Taylor.

No doubt about it, Name Drop sure is

fun.

It’s got the feel of a Friday night at your

bestie’s house, where the snacks on the kitchen counter are

bottomless and so are the skinny ‘ritas, and you scream yourself hoarse in

mock horror and real laughter at the stories you’re told. It’s

got the kind of gossip you want about the stars you love (or love to hate),

spilled with a little snark and a charming amount of awe. It’s got an

absolute (and absolutely relieving) sense

that being famous sometimes doesn’t make a person act famous

— although sometimes, it does. And it’s got

“Rossipes” (Rossipes!) you can make to go along with your reading.

Like a red-carpet walk with a broken heel, though, Name Drop sometimes limps. Author Ross Mathews is funny and punny, but not both simultaneously: alas, the puns are too much, too overwhelming, so feel free to groan and ignore them. The dishy tales you get in this book are way more fun; in fact, if you love boy-meets-girl-celebrity tales, you’ll find that “Name Drop” is a great collection.