The Audacious Book Club: Lessons for Survival by Emily Raboteau
The April 2024 selection
In “Mother of All Good Things,” one of the essays in Lessons for Survival: Mothering Against “the Apocalypse, Emily Raboteau writes about visiting the Palestinian shantytown of Khirbet Susiya in the West Bank in June 2016. Raboteau and her guide Ahmad are greeted by a resident, a middle-aged woman who, like the other Palestinian residents of Susiya, is constantly under threat: the residents, considered trespassers by the Israeli government, are denied the right to rebuild when their homes are torn down and denied consistent access to water. The residents, says Raboteau, “live both hand to mouth and at the brink of ruin.” Yet when Raboteau asks what the woman will do when the Israelis come to destroy her home, the woman says she will stay and rebuild. The term the woman uses to characterize her determination is “sumud” which Raboteau notes means steadfastness and refers to a political ideology of resilience that Palestinians have developed and live by. The icon for “sumud” is often represented by the figure of a mother, which resonates with Raboteau: “I liked the idea of the mother as a similar source of strength.”
The essays in Lessons for Survival, written between 2015 and 2023, all revolve around this concept of a strong, resilient mother, but less as a stylized figure and more as a philosophy for operating in the world. Raboteau’s meditations on nurturing and care are as diverse in concept and location as they are in time, spanning from Palestine to ponds and playgrounds in America. But key to her examinations of how we care for one another is how we do so under stress, particularly in a world where our communities are being eroded by pandemics and climate change and where our resilience is being tested by politicians and the persistent mechanisms of white supremacy.
Raboteau’s collection is a sobering read, but there are distinct moments of beauty and joy in these essays: the photographs she uses to immerse readers more deeply in a moment, the meticulous observations of birds, mammals, and plants that she illustrates are just as much a part of her community as the people, the stories she tells about and to her children that afford readers a window into their lives.
Lessons for Survival is a moving, meaningful read about how, in the midst of our most difficult crises, we maintain the strength to show up for ourselves and for one another, and I’m looking forward to discussing it with all of you throughout the month of April.
We will be in conversation with Emily on April 30th at 8 pm EST/5 pm PST. I hope, as always, that you can join us! Register, now.
Just requested from the library! Very excited to read in community with you all
Looking forward to the author conversation because this book was a unique, unsettling experience for me!