The Cool Cleveland Review of 'NOtes'

                       

Notes from the Mothership: The Naked Invisibles

Adrienne Zurub
Chase & Wunderlick, Publishers

Written in sharp, compelling bursts and in less-than-guarded mannerisms, local author Adrienne Zurub's book Notes from the Mothership: The Naked Invisibles is part autobiography, part observational waxing and part poetic philosophy. The work was of particular interest to me for two reasons: 1) it was previously dubbed Faulknerian (after reading it, I've decided it must be for the stream of consciousness prose); and 2) because Zurub, a former Cleveland Clinic cardiac operating room nurse, was fired just under two weeks after its release. Apparently, her recollections of working at the world's most famous heart clinic caused some irregular heartbeats and increased orders for defibrillation equipment.

Zurub, who was quoted in the daily paper, said she was relieved of duty after 26 years when CC administrators read her "prison environment" depictions of the cardiac unit -- she does describe it in rather CBS "Survivor"-like terms, with alliances and strategies to keep one from getting voted off the island. Had she stuck squarely with that depiction of the Clinic and fleshed that out a bit, the book might have become a huge best-seller. But the book tends to wander a lot, in some very self-important ways sometimes, with personal relationship exposition that rivals "Dear Diary" entries. There are at least two books here, maybe three. And none of them thoroughly connect at that nerve-ending level.

When Notes shines -- which, make no mistake, is early and often -- it's darn near unbeatable. But when Zurub veers off course and turns the book into a personal confessional about male-female relationships, it staggers, stalls and doesn't make a strong connection to the other subject matter. I'll freely admit that the book is geared toward women and that might be why I'm not getting it. But as a fairly open-minded male (I eat quiche, read The Liberated Manand pride myself on being an enlightened, stay-at-home dad) I think I lost more than I got. To me, you write your Clinic tell-all, sell it hard to a New York publisher... then lose the day job, get on Oprah's Book Club to tell your story... sell a million copies, write your follow-up biography and retire. 

From Cool Cleveland Managing Editor Peter Chakerian peterATcoolcleveland.com

http://www.coolcleveland.com

Adrienne Zurub's Amazon Blog - http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/A3DXVTX2C4WOPO