Rolling the R's

There are some of the favorite reads you immediately connect, and others, you don’t.  This is an “in-between” book for me.  Not that I didn’t like the very unique way in which the other discusses the issues, it was the format of jumping around, less linear, that at times lost me.  Rolling the R’s by R. Zamora Linmark is written in the late 1970s in the midst of the cultural immersion of music and TV.  Zamora’s writing style is in short 1 to 3 page chapters that connect through the story of the young friends who are maturing at a time where everything is connected to “what’s playing” on the radio or on tv.  The cultural icons of the 70s, singers: Donna Summer, Captain and Tennille, and the Bee Gees; and TV fame: Farrah Fawcett (Charlie’s Angels), Scott Baio (Happy Days), set the stage for the world these Hawaiian children grow up.  The book shares the various highlights, through the music/tv and their own development such as, report cards for the four children in 4^th grade, moments of how they started thinking about their connections to others, and then the exploration of their own heritage as immigrants and understanding their sexuality.    It is a forerunner to today’s oft-discussed “intersectionality” of gender, sexuality and ethnic identity.  A complex set of issues for any reader, and certainly harder to concentrate on a 15-hour flight.   I was humming the songs and thinking about the celebs and how old they have gotten throughout the read.  I may need to give this one another chance down the road.  Known as a cutting edge book in sociological circles.