So Goucher was a track athlete who was semi-successful in college, married a guy who was an elite runner, and then they both joined up with the Nike Oregon Project where she eventually became a more successful runner than her husband. But behind the endorsements and podium finishes, there was a lot of drama, including shady behavior on the part of her coach and teammates that culminated in emotional, physical, and sexual abuse.
This is a tricky review to write. On one hand, Goucher is a victim. I feel terrible for her and what she went through. I can understand why she didn't tell anyone about some of the abuse.
On the other hand, she's hugely entitled? She lands a big endorsement deal that clearly says that if she doesn't race for 120 days, she won't get paid. So she gets pregnant, NEVER CHANGES THE CONTRACT, and gets upset that Nike won't pay when she can't race. Like...why would they? She's making more in one quarter than what I make in three years and she has the gall to complain about the bad health coverage? That she knew about before she got pregnant? Save your pennies like the rest of us plebes.
I'm not saying these aren't terrible systematic issues in these United States. Health coverage tied to employment is barbaric and the maternity and paternity leave in this country is a joke. But literally every family has to deal with it. I don't know why she acted like it was unique to her or that it was so exhausting and trying for her. Try doing it when you're an hourly worker, Kara! Her inability to make any links between her experience and the experience of the average person was seriously pissing me off.
And...is anyone really buying that she was clean? It's obvious to me that her morality is fluid (taking money from Amway, for example) and I don't buy that she wasn't doping. Sure, you threw that pill in the trash, friend. Sure you did. (This is also a 100% me problem, but there were a lot of verrrry boring race and training recaps. If that's your jam, great. It is not mine.)
Anyway. Yes, I believe that terrible things happened to her. Yes, I think having children in the United States is a very hard thing. Yes, I found this infuriating to read. 2/5 stars
Lines of note:
At home, she read us Anne of Green Gables and the Little House on the Prairie books, got us to the bus on time for school, and cooked our dinners...We dogeared the American Girl catalog as soon as it landed in our mailboxes. (timestamp 28:30)
I always like it when some of the classics get namedropped in books. And if you were a woman of a certain age and didn't read the American Girl catalogs like they were magazines, we did not have similar childhoods.
I was fine-tuning my ability to recognize the difference between and injury and good fatigue, the line between something is wrong with my hip and I'm sore getting out of bed. (timestamp 2:26:00)
In light of my husband's recent rhabdo diagnosis, I'm trying to be exceptionally aware of this myself. Is this soreness, something that could turn into an injury, or an injury?
I should have done it myself, told everyone that I wasn't going to practice, that I wasn't going to race that weekend. But I operated as if I had no choice because that's how I felt. (timestamp 5:24:16)
FFS. So many times this lady (or her husband) could have even looked for another job (with health insurance!) and instead she just kept on keeping on. I know I sound unsympathetic, but I swear I'd be a lot less pissy about the whole thing if she'd just attempted some other options (other teams, other coaches, other jobs, etc.).
I have no opinion on this book but you mentioned Nadia Comenci, and there is a book called "The Best Little Communist" or something like that and it's all to do with her rise to fame in the gymnastics world. It's so interesting, having to do with Romania and the Soviet athlete-machine.
ReplyDeleteOh, good rec. Someone else recommended her autobiography and it does sound interesting. Her career was/is fascinating.
DeleteI love reading your rundowns of books, Engie. Now I know I don't have to read this one... but I do know of it and could recommend it should a student or someone else seem interested in the subject! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteYes, I think it would be good reading if you know any college athletes who might go further.
DeleteWell... I will say one thing in her defense- I DO believer Kara is/was clean. I've heard her on many podcasts (including her own) and she seems very passionate on that subject. Of course I don't know for sure, but my feeling is that she's telling the truth.
ReplyDeleteEverything else you say is a legitimate complaint. I actually didn't read this book, because like I said, I heard her on several podcasts and I pretty much got the gist. It is a pet peeve of mine when someone agrees to something, signs a contract, and then complains about it. You signed the contract! If you didn't like the terms, don't take the job. And it does sound grueling to listen to her read this.
I mean, it was fine to listen to, but I do think it would have been better if someone else had read it. I think a lot of times it's good to hear memoirs read by the person who wrote them, but not all the time!
DeleteI think we're going to have to agree to disagree on whether or not she was clean. But I can see how she frequently felt like she had no choice. *shrug* I'm pretty convinced all elite athletes are doping, so I might not be the most open-minded on this.
Agree with Jenny. I've also listened her once in a podcast and got the gist. Not interested to read details of it. i think marathon runners are single minded sometimes and it's a slow process to get to where she was to give up completely. I understand but you are right that she had other options, but it's hard to start from lower point than she was.
DeleteI guess I just don't agree that she had no lower point. She had a stable family, a supportive husband, and far more advantages (including financial) than a lot of other people. *shrug* I think I honestly find the single-minded egoism of athletes very hard to get over and I found her infuriating. To each their own!
DeleteNothing about this memoir interests me. I am not sporty, and I get a little tired of people who do sports/play a game for a living. Of course I am always outraged by sexism or abuse, but in this context, I can't become engaged.
ReplyDeleteI do want to say that I remain astonished by the way some people cannot differentiate between the very common nouns Woman and Women. I don't get it. I noticed it first in some of my student writing back in the 1990s and pounced on it mercilessly. It continued for decades and still persists now in online writing. WHY? There's not a similar confusion surrounding Man and Men, yet some individuals use Woman and Women interchangeably, both in writing and now in speech. It's painful.
I KNOW, NANCE. The number of times I hear my students saying women instead of woman and vice versa is ASTOUNDING. They are different words! They mean different things! I will join you on this soapbox.
DeleteI like Kara, and I liked this book, but also...I agree with you. To be fair, every athlete memoir that I've ever read does have some degree of entitlement, and if I had any athletic talent, I can guarantee that I would be entitled AF.
ReplyDeleteHOWEVER!!! She gets big ups from me for pushing for change. When you're coming up through the ranks you may not have the clout to reject a contract with a pregnancy clause, but just because you sign it doesn't mean that you have to sit back and take your lumps. You can fight back afterwards, and she did. It didn't help her but it will help future female athletes. While I'm sure that there's more to the doping than she shared, she also didn't have to share her story==>she could have just testified and no one outside of the courts would have known. The only reason for her to share her story is to get the system to change.
Fair enough, Birchie, fair enough. I guess my assessment of her entitlement marred my ability to see the good she did/does. I guess I just feel like she was a bit of an idiot (who accepts a verbal agreement with a multibillion company?) and wanted me to feel bad for her for idiocy/bad business sense. And I didn't. But I do get what you're saying. Hopefully she's raising awareness and will help future athletes.
DeleteI didn't read the American Girl catalogue, but maybe that's because I grew up in Canada? It's still a thing, though - my kids love leafing through it. I used to tell them that it was just another magazine so they wouldn't figure out that these were actually things one actually could buy.
ReplyDeleteI find memoirs of very successful people interesting because there is a strange combination of "I worked so hard and overcame adversity" and "well of course this is the way my life turned out." There's rarely any acknowledgement of any kind of privilege or how doors get opened for them.
Yeah, the American Girl catalog was ubiquitous in the States. I read it like it was my job, even though I knew that all of it was beyond the price range of my parents. That's fine. I could still pick a favorite!
DeleteOh wow, we had completely different experiences reading this book! I really loved this book and also liked her voice as a narrator. I don't think I expect athletes to be super expressive but that's just me.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree that she has some entitlement, I also think what she went through was horrific and the way she was treated by Nike was also terrible. To use her in their marketing campaigns as a pregnant runner "icon," and then to treat her the way she did?! I'm never going to side with a company like Nike on that. Sure, she should have done her due diligence with the contract but Nike is shit still.
Sure Nike is shit. I've never said otherwise. But if you're working with a giant company like that, you have to make sure you have all your ducks in a row. And she didn't! And I understand that she felt used and I would have in her shoes, as well. In the end, though, I don't actually think Nike was wrong. (I can't believe I'm taking Nike's side.)
DeleteDid you listen to the audio at regular 1x speed? Maybe it wouldn't have been as noticeable at a faster speed.
Its not just athletes who are entitled and clueless--I find most minor celebrity memoir books extremely dull. Thanks for slogging through this one and saving me the effort, ha. You're probably not interested in reading another running memoir but I'd love to hear your take on Alexi Pappas's book, Bravey. I found it the exception to the rule. I really liked it and did not think she came off as entitled at all.
ReplyDelete