“When We Were On Fire” - Talking Evangelical with Addie Zierman

I recently caught up with my old friend Addie Zierman to talk about her new memoir “When We Were on Fire: A Memoir of Consuming Faith, Tangled Love, and Starting Over.” Addie frequently discusses her faith, family and writing on her blog, “How to Talk Evangelical.” If you’re a Christian, it’s a must-read. If you’re one of the lost, Addie’s work is still very interesting and worthy of your contemplation.

Addie Zierman. Credit: Shane Long.

Addie and I agreed to swap books. I’d read hers and she’d read my new novel Broken Bones. Then we’d chat about the experience. On the surface, it seems our books couldn’t be more dissimilar. Hers is a memoir of struggling through the American evangelical subculture, and mine is a novel based on the month I spent stuck in a psychiatric ward for people with eating disorders. But they’re both about personal struggles, alienation, self-discovery, all that good stuff. I figured this exchange could be fun and educational. Mission accomplished.

Addie and I go way back. We crossed paths in our early teens when we both attended an Evangelical Free Church in Deerfield, Illinois. She was a local girl, immersed in all the church activities, and I was the new kid. A Jersey boy, I was frustrated and depressed that my parents had chosen to abandon our beach bum haven for this bland slice of the Midwest. My father had just begun attending Trinity Evangelical Divinity School nearby. They were missionaries, “called” by Christ to spread the gospel. I felt like luggage.

Christianity wasn’t new to me when I met Addie. I was baptized as a baby at St. James Episcopal Church, a small chapel on the Jersey Shore. I have only positive memories of that church and the time I spent there. I remember the intricate stained glass portraits of the saints, the dried sponge feel of the communion wafers, the bitter red wine, Father Ken’s flowing purple robe, the gentle strength of his hand as he placed it on my head and blessed me. 

Perhaps I was too young to develop moral and philosophical qualms with the Episcopal Church, but as my parents transitioned into evangelicalism, and I entered my teens, things began to change. I became uneasy at the church Addie and I attended. I’d be listening to a pastor’s sermon and my stomach would knot up. I’d feel an intense pressure in my chest. I had to get out of there.

The sweeping proclamations about God and Jesus and how we should live inspired not awe or reverence but anxiety. The doctrines and statements of faith sounded random and unreasonable. The more I actually read the Bible, the more it struck me as a mess of bad advice and shady characters. I listened to the pastors speak and I couldn’t help but think: How could they possibly know what they are claiming to know? Many a sermon drove me to the brink of a screaming fit, but for the most part I just bit my tongue, doodled on my church program and longed for the day when I was old enough to leave and never come back. As the firstborn son of new missionaries, however, I didn’t have much of a choice. So I played the part. I stepped warily around the edges of this evangelical pool, waiting. 

Addie, however, was the most enthusiastic young fan of Jesus I’d ever met. And while our feelings for the church didn’t line up, I couldn’t help but feel attracted to her passion and energy. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced. She was as stoked about Jesus as I was about surfing. But, as detailed in her memoir, faith wasn’t easy for Addie either. 

Addie and I parted ways before my junior year of high school, when my parents moved to Ukraine and I attended a missionary boarding school in Germany. After high school, Addie sought out Christian colleges and churches and community groups. I wanted nothing to do with Christian institutions. Addie needed connection with other evangelicals who shared her values. I needed to connect with people who wanted nothing to do with the church. 

Today, I think it’s safe to say that Addie and I would disagree on almost all propositions about the Christian God and church doctrine. But we also have a lot in common. We both enjoy devouring good books. We both admire Jesus’ message of peace and reconciliation. And we both love honest conversation.

Friends, Bottles & Broken Bones

One of the things I love most about wine is its ability to bring people together. Writing, on the other hand, is a solitary pursuit.

But last week I got the chance to share wine and writing with some friends to celebrate the launch of my first novel, Broken Bones. We got together at Weygandt Wines, one of my favorite wine shops anywhere, to sip some wine and catch up.

I plan on hosting a bigger launch party soon, as well as readings and perhaps another tasting. To keep up with future events, follow Broken Bones on Facebook or me (@IsaacJamesBaker) on Twitter.

Here are some notes and pictures from an awesome night...
 

N.V. Nicolas Maillart Champagne 1er Cru Brut Platine - France, Champagne
As always, a solid Champers. I got lemon cake, sea breeze, toast and yellow apples on the nose. Crisp and creamy on the palate, with crushed rocks and seashells to accent the toasty almond and yellow apple fruit. Definitely a fan-friendly Champagne, but also showing some serious complexity. (89 points)

N.V. Ulysse Collin Champagne Extra Brut Blanc de Blancs - France, Champagne
An almost orange color in the glass. Aromas of lemon zest, dried pineapple and flowers, sea salt. Tangy and mineral-driven on the palate, but this also has a lot of depth and power, like dried pineapple and mango, along with some apple peel and apricot. I also get some saline and sea brine notes. A lot going on here, and I dig it. Seems like this has aged well, although I'm not sure of the date when it was disgorged. (88 points)

2002 Meulenhof Erdener Treppchen Riesling Kabinett - Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer
Cork and wine were in perfect condition. Lots of apricot, lychee and slate on the note, with some spice and crushed sweet tarts. Ripping acid on the palate, very dry, with flavors of green apple peel, lime and apricot. I also get sweet tart candies, sea salt and crushed rock notes. Dry, nervy, complex, holding up well. (90 points)

2010 Dönnhoff Oberhäuser Leistenberg Riesling Kabinett - Germany, Nahe
Every time I drink a 2010 German Riesling, especially a Donnhoff, I have competing thoughts. #1) This wine is so amazing and ripping I just want to drink it all the time. #2) Bury this wine for 10-30 years and don't you dare touch it! Isn't that the hallmark of an amazing vintage? I love 2010s, and Donnhoff's are just epic. I picked up sweet tarts, lime, margarita salt, crushed rocks and slate notes on this one. The palate shows ripping acid, alongside clean lemon-lime and white peach notes. Honey mixes in with the minerals and sea shell notes. Long, complex, deserving of cellar time and, at the same time, immediate praise. (92 points)

2010 Fritz Haag Brauneberger Juffer Riesling Spätlese - Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer
Very rich, one of the richer 2010 Mosel Spatleses I've tasted. Aromas of apricot and papaya drizzled in lime juice and crushed rocks. Chunky pineapple, apricot and honey on the palate. The acid is relentless, though, giving the wine verve. I get nougat, honey and gingerbread cookies on the finish, but also some citrus peel and minerals. This wine could use 10 to 15 years in the cellar, easily, because this density and richness will take a long time to complex, but the racy acid will hold this wine for a long time. (91 points)

2012 Michel Gahier Arbois Ploussard - France, Jura, Arbois
Another solid wine from Gahier. I love the tart red fruit, floral, rhubarb and pickle notes on the nose. Zesty acid, very fine tannins, lots of tart raspberry and strawberry fruit. I get a ton of pickles, tobacco, bay leaf, radish, all sorts of earthy, tangy, vegetal notes, and I love it. This paired really well with a red pepper and garlic pizza. (90 points)

2005 Domaine Matrot Volnay 1er Cru Santenots - France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Volnay 1er Cru
Tight and dull at first, but really opened up after about two or three hours, and was singing the next day. Floral, spice, tobacco and cherries on the nose. Firm tannic structure, medium+ acid, with tart red fruit. Notes of roses, rhubarb and mineral on a long, crisp finish. It was delicious but I wish I would've let it sleep for another five years. (91 points)

2009 Novy Family Wines Syrah Rosella's Vineyard - USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Lucia Highlands
Two years since my last bottle and this has aged wonderfully. Opened the day before and tasted, but left the rest for Day 2, when it really began to sing. A kind of roasted plum color. Aromas of black currants, plums, black olive, soil and herbs. I like the tart red and black fruit and the freshness from the acid. Not overbearing or too rich at all, actually quite silky. More braised meat, smoke and charcoal aspects than I remember from before, some olive bring and coffee as well. Long and pure, pretty much everyone enjoyed this. Such a good buy for $28 from the winery; too bad I don't have any more. (91 points)

2004 Cayuse Syrah En Cerise Vineyard - USA, Washington, Columbia Valley, Walla Walla Valley
Beautiful stuff, holding up amazingly well. Smells like every kind of olive, bloody mary, radish, seaweed, roses, wet earth and white pepper, and underneath some currants and plum sauce. Really velvety on the palate, with polished tannins and tangy acid in perfect balance. Juicy and fleshy with raspberry and black cherries, but this is all about the non-fruit flavors: olive tapenade, seaweed, roasted meat, smoke, pickled beets. Also some sweet floral and caramel notes. So long and pure and complex. I love the state this wine is in right now. Not sure how much longer I'd cellar this if I had some. (95 points)

  

N.V. Duval-Leroy Champagne Brut - France, Champagne
Aromas of seashell, white flowers, minerals, toasted biscuits. I like the combination of tart green apple, lime and sea shell notes with the richer tones of honey, almond and biscuits. Tart but toasty. Digging this. (88 points)

N.V. Chambers Rosewood Muscat - Australia, Victoria, North East, Rutherglen
Rich caramel, toasted nuts, raisins and orange marmalade on the nose. Rich and honeyed on the palate, packed with figs and dates, caramelized sugar and candy-coated almonds. Rich and bold, lacking enough acid to get me really thrilled about it, but overall this is a lot of fun. (88 points)

Broken Bones Now Available in Print

My first novel, Broken Bones, is finally available in print. You can order your copy here.

You can also get the e-book for Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook.

Broken Bones is an important accomplishment for me. It’s the product of an extreme set of circumstances, a perfect storm of pain that brought me to the edge of death. I mean it when I say: writing this novel kept me alive. I’m 5’10 and weigh about 170 pounds. But in November of 2008, when I woke up in an emergency room, I tipped the scales at 98 pounds. My organs were failing, I couldn’t move much at all and my mind was shot. I was in such bad shape that the E.R. doctors said they couldn’t care for me. I had to be committed to a psychiatric ward for people with eating disorders, where I was stuck for a month.

That was almost six years ago, and now I finally get to share the novel based on that experience. It’s an honor have you as readers, and I welcome you to share their thoughts. A review on Amazon, a shout-out on Twitter or Facebook, I'd be grateful for anything you can do to help spread the word.

I’ll have more information in the coming days and weeks about launch parties and reading events.

If you haven’t read it yet, an awesome writer and friend of mine, Shelby Settles Harper, posted this interview, in which we discuss Broken Bones.

Broken Bones, a Novel, Now Available as E-Book

My first novel, Broken Bones, is now available in e-book for Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook. In the coming days it will be available for iPads and in paperback.

The road to this point has been long and filled with pitfalls. This novel was slated for publication in 2011, but the contracted publisher kept pushing back the launch date. After so many delays, I discovered that my agent had been convicted of fraud and various financial shenanigans and sentenced to jail. The publisher went bankrupt. My novel was dead.

Here I am now, in 2014, trying to ressurect it.

Broken Bones is an important accomplishment for me. It’s the product of an extreme set of circumstances, a perfect storm of pain that brought me to the edge of death. I mean it when I say: writing this novel kept me alive. I’m 5’10 and weigh about 170 pounds. But in November of 2008, when I woke up in an emergency room, I tipped the scales at 98 pounds. My organs were failing, I couldn’t move much at all and my mind was shot. I was in such bad shape that the E.R. doctors said they couldn’t care for me. I had to be committed to a psychiatric ward for people with eating disorders, where I was stuck for a month.

How did I end up in such a pathetic state? As my first marriage broke apart, untreated depression and anxiety spilled over into weeks of anorexic insomnia. I ate only when my subconscious compelled me to and slept only when I collapsed from exhaustion. As I wandered into starvation, I lost all control of my body and mind. Extensive rehabilitation was my only shot at survival.

I’ve always been a writer, so writing about my experience in the hospital was inevitable. What started out as journal entries from the psychiatric ward has culminated into my first novel. It’s a story of body, mind, self-destruction, medication, renewal, food — all that good stuff.

That was almost six years ago, and I finally get to share the book with all of you. It’s an honor have you as readers, and I welcome you to share their thoughts. A review on Amazon or Nook, a shout-out on Twitter or Facebook, I’d be grateful for anything you do to help spread the word.

I’ll have more information in the coming days and weeks about print copies of the book and reading events. I’ll post more information here, on my website, and Twitter and Facebook. I apologize now for the social media blitz, but I’ve been waiting years for this moment and I’m pretty damn excited. If you’re interested, an awesome writer and friend of mine, Shelby Settles Harper, just posted this interview, in which we discuss Broken Bones.

Cheers!

Dispatches From Anorexic Hell

"Maybe maybe maybe," Marya Hornbacher writes, exhausting a list of things that could have gone differently in her life. Maybe if her parents weren’t so distant. Maybe if she had gotten professional help earlier. Maybe then she wouldn't have struggled so terribly with anorexia and bulimia. "But all this is moot. Sometimes things just go awry." That statement is as close to an epiphany that Marya ever gets in her memoir Wasted. There is no easy explanation for why she spent years of her life in anorexic and bulimic hell. Instead of offering answers, Hornbacher tells stories and asks questions. And even though there’s no real resolution at the end of this strikingly tragic and beautiful memoir, Marya’s words have a powerful and haunting effect.

Eating disorders, Marya points out, citing a wide array of medical and psychiatric data and studies, are frequently symptomatic of other mental illnesses. But sometimes perfectly healthy people develop debilitating eating disorders. Of course, the nature of eating disorders is such that they lead to other mental health complications: depression, anxiety, mania, paranoia, insomnia. It’s a cycle of disorder. Marya is not arrogant enough to claim she can pinpoint the exact cause of her eating disorder. She tries to point to plausible explanations, but refrains from black and white answers, which gives this memoir a kind of novel-like feel to it.

Still, there are some obvious factors that contributed to her chaotic disease. Family is a huge one. She doesn't hate her parents or blame them for screwing her up, which is refreshing. Instead, she's brutally candid about her upbringing. Her parents "were perhaps less than ideal candidates for parenthood." I think it's safe to say that's a fitting description to all parents. It’s obvious to the reader here that fear of food and an unhealthy obsession with food in her parents contributed to her eating disorder. Her mother, who herself was bulimic and has always had disordered eating behavior, tells Marya: "You didn't pick up anything. You just came this way." Basically, her messed up family tells her it's all nature, no nurture. And it's clear from evidence that much about anorexic and bulimic behavior is in fact learned, not innate. Still, Marya rightfully places the weight of her own decisions on her own shoulders: "Let it be noted here that it is decidedly not their 'fault.' If someone tells you to jump off a bridge, you don't have to jump."

This book isn’t just about food or the lack thereof. It’s also a tour through the dark corners of insanity. Marya totally loses her mind for a good part of her life. She doesn’t sleep, goes days without eating, ends up binging and purging until she passes out. She gets pregnant and solves the problem by purposefully falling down some stairs. "Flush the red matter away. No tears." That’s just one of many examples of her life gone awry. Large portions of this book are clearly hard to read. It’s not easy reading of someone killing themselves slowly over the course of many years.

Of course, she ends up in more than one hospital. When she finds herself in a treatment center, she writes: "I was light years away from understanding my Issues." And she proves this to be true in the years after she gets out of treatment. She systematically starves herself again, knowing full well what it is doing to her body. It is only after her stint in the hospital that the severity of her masochism is fully realized. This woman hates herself so intensely that it’s incredible she’s alive. It seems Marya's truly in love with her eating disorder, in love with destroying her body any way she can. She squelches real love from her family and her friends, and turns all her love and attention to brutalizing herself. It's absolutely terrifying, but it's also oddly resonant. It’s like Marya is reminding us that somewhere deep inside all of us is the ability to inflict terrible harm upon ourselves. Sometimes, our desire for death can equal or surpass our desire for life.

Marya spends much of the book speaking about the learned aspect of eating disorders. Disordered behavior can be learned, through parents, through media images, cultural mores. Many people with eating disorders have larger mental health issues, it just so happens that they translated into an eating disorder. At least that's Hornbacher's take. And, I've got to say, I tend to believe her, not totally, but enough. There’s also some interesting discussion about how eating disorders tend to fall on the middle and upper classes with far higher frequency. Mayra herself enjoys significant class privilege. She quotes a psychologist’s study that found thinness has become, “an ideal symbolizing self-discipline, control, sexual liberation, assertiveness, competitiveness, and affiliation with a higher socio-economic class.”

This is part of a larger discussion of how society views eating disorders. And it’s amazing and atrocious to read about, for example, a school boy telling his anorexic girlfriend she needed to lose weight while she's literally starving to death. That our society produces males like this is disturbing.

She points to eating disorders as social diseases, problems that are encouraged by mass media and modern American culture. "We lived in a larger world where there is also a sense of hunger and a sense of lack. We can call it loss of religion, loss of the nuclear family, loss of community, but whatever it is, it has created a deep and insatiable hunger in our collective unconscious." I understand the hunger she's trying to convey. I don't necessarily equate the innate sense of hunger in the human consciousness to the lack of anything in particular. I view that insatiable hunger as a natural byproduct of human consciousness. We're always trying to find perfection, and when it never comes, there's a sense of loss. This hunger is based on a loss of something that was never possible to attain in the first place. In Marya’s case this “perfection” was a sixty-pound, shriveled, skeletal woman.

It was impossible to read this book without having flashbacks to my own disordered history. In 2008 I nearly died from malnutrition and ended up in a psychiatric ward for people with eating disorders, which I chronicle in my novel Broken Bones. I was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa and a slew of other problems. Going into this book, I knew it would be a tough read. Still, I couldn’t have prepared myself for how deeply this book shook me.

It was like reliving a nightmare. It was as if some of these words had been written about my experience. I could relate so much to her story. For example, when you feel your body is worthless, it doesn't take long for you to believe that life itself is worthless. Suicide becomes a more and more attractive option the further you go. Marya grows lanugo, or, as she calls it, “fur.” And that's not too much of a stretch. It really does look like baby kitten fur, or a peach with overgrown fuzz. This is the body’s way of keeping warm when it reaches the brink of death from malnutrition. The way malnutrition spawns manic episodes is described in terrifying detail. I remember having manic episodes, and it was always shocking how bad things got so quickly.

After nearly killing myself through anorexic behavior, spending a month in a treatment center, reading many books on the subject and writing one myself, I still came across things in this book that I’d never heard before. For example, people with anorexia commonly die of broken hips. It makes sense. Brittle bones break easily, and an anorexic's body simply does not have the materials needed to heal itself. A trip or fall can put their weakened body into a quick death spiral.

On pain, she writes: "In truth, you like the pain. You like it because you believe you deserve it, and the fact that you're putting yourself through pain means you are doing what you, by all rights, ought to do." What begins as disordered behavior quickly — if not immediately — turns into masochism. Pain is the body reminding the mind that it exists. She also liked the attention that being sick brought. "You are so sick. When people say this they turn their heads, you've won your little game. You have proven your thesis that no-body-love-me-every-body-hates me, guess-I'll just eat worms. You get to sink back into your hospital bed, shrieking with righteous indignation. See? you get to say. I knew you'd give up on me. I knew you'd leave." She makes it clear that her eating disorder wasn’t as much an experiment with the limits of the body as it was a suicide pact with her own mind. “I was trying to die, in a curious, casual sort of way.” It was her only way of coping. "My only means of self-regulation was self-destruction."

Like so many women I met in the psychiatric ward for people with eating disorders, Marya grew to love the protective environment of a hospital facility. She loved being sick and cared for, and in the unit she could be sick and cared for. Her compulsive, disordered behavior was minimized in the unit, not because Marya tried to kick her habits, but because she simply couldn't harm herself as effectively when she was in the hospital. She tried, as did all the girls I met in the ward. They tried to puke when no one was looking. They tried to cut themselves. But someone always found out. Marya's health improved in the unit, but her mind was still set on self-destruction, proof that treatment can only do so much. Once an anorexic or bulimic person steps out the doors, it’s up to them to survive or die.

Marya does a terrifyingly good job at recounting the horrors of life in an eating disorder treatment center. This is where the book rings most true to me. I was in such a facility: locked doors, plexiglass windows, no mirrors, no sharp objects. It's pretty scary to wake up and know you're stuck, and Marya is definitely stuck. And she's blunt about her decision to "get well." It only came about because she was forced to get well.

What haunts me is the big hole at the end of this book: the complete lack of resolution. There is no come-to-Jesus moment. There is no epiphany. In the end, Marya marches on with her life, balancing precariously between “normalcy” and relapse. Fortunately, she has stayed on the healthy side of the cliff in recent years, enough to write an incredible and moving book.