There is some strange magic afoot in How to Be Normal, the second collection from cultural critic Phil Christman (Midwest Futures). Each essay poses a "how to," such as "How to be Religious (II): Fundamentalism." Christman explains that, as a teenager, he wrote his fundamentalist father a letter, arguing that he should be allowed to listen to a prohibited rock band. From there, Christman tackles Milton's Areopagitica, the history of fundamentalism and the practice of eisegesis, a term perhaps new to readers that Christman defines as a "reading-in, placing a message into the text that simply isn't there." Nine pages pass before he returns to rock music, around the essay's midpoint, but the wandering isn't a failing; it's the point.
With a consistent dose of snark (often in humorous parenthetical asides), Christman is often earnest and always curious. With topics as varied as whiteness, masculinity and bad movies, this collection is excellent for those willing to exchange certainty for a wide-ranging discussion of essentially unknowable things. And it's a collection that inherently implicates reviewers in their own "how to" conundrum: how to recommend a book that resists definition? Is it an academic perspective on pop culture? Is it an unpredictable collection that provokes good questions? Is it equally comfortable in leftist politics and church fellowship? The answer is yes to all. Christman pushes readers to make connections between unexpected or even disparate ideas, often closing with a quiet confidence, an insistence on some greater good that will leave readers thinking--and maybe even feeling hopeful. --Sara Beth West, freelance reviewer and librarian