San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Unearthing the paradoxes of American identity
In the titular essay of her fiercely intelligent and consistently edifying book “Thin Places,” Jordan Kisner references an old Celtic proverb: “Heaven and Earth are only three feet apart, but in the thin places that distance is even smaller.” She goes on to explain that in these slim boundary areas, the barrier between the physical world and the spiritual world becomes slippery.
“Distinctions between you and notyou, real and unreal, worldly and otherworldly, fall away,” she writes.
This idea of duality or “inbetweenness” is a fascinating and culturally salient concept — and one that ripples through every piece in the book. In these 13 essays, Kisner argues that the real search for identity, sense of belonging and true understanding happens not on common ground, but in the unexpected places where traditional contradictions meet and coexist as one.
In the Pushcart Prizewinning “Jesus Raves,” for example, Kisner introduces us to Paul and Jessi, “aggressively healthy” and “sunkissed” 20somethings bumping and grinding at Ruschmeyers, a posh, boozesoaked nightspot in Montauk, Long Island. Though they may look the part, these two aren’t your usual Wayfarer and stilettowearing club hoppers. Paul is the 26yearold pastor of Liberty Church, an ultrahip ministry in Tribeca where there’s an iPad on the pulpit and most of the congregation Instagrams the sermon. He and Jessi are on the prowl to coax their fellow partygoers toward God. Because: Why can’t boozy Millennials become believers too?
For “Stitching,” Kisner interviewed dozens of women in the Bloggernacle, a group of “Mormon mommy bloggers” and top parenting influencers, who have amassed nearly $6 million in advertising and corporate partnerships. But rather than rest on their now wellendowed laurels, these women formed a powerful activist group of 4,000 strong. For four years, their primary goal has been to fight what they see as President Trump’s racist and sexist policies.
Though many of these essays explore the borderlines between religion and atheism, easy faith and a fallingout with God, not all of them are solely focused on our relationship with the divine. In “Habitus,” one of the most inspired and timely pieces in the book, Kisner uses a Revolutionaryerathemed debutante ball for Latinas in Laredo, Texas, as an inroad to investigating the effects of ICE raids on the border and a way to unpack our inherent biases as Americans when it comes to race, class, assimilation and cultural appropriation.
What makes this collection so compulsively readable is Kisner’s ability to wield her contagious curiosity and nose for objective reporting to investigate everything from a oncebustling, nowmostly abandoned lakeside oasis in Southern California (“Good Karma”) to Ann Hamilton’s magical and enveloping multimedia installation at New York’s Park Avenue Armory in 2012 (“The Big Empty”), to evangelical robocalls (“Phone
Calls From the Apocalypse”).
But she also looks inward. Her efforts to unpack her relationship with her mother, her Mexican American heritage and her queer identity are some of the most earnest and impactful passages in the book:
“I was discovering to my alarm that if I was not religious, I was not notreligious either. Likewise, though I had never been gay, I was not notgay either.”
Kisner’s work has been published in the likes of the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic and the New Yorker, but “Thin Places” is her debut book, and it’s remarkably polished and demonstrably articulate.
Sure, in a few stories she complains about feeling inarticulate or aimless. But at least as far as her writing is concerned, she needn’t worry. Kisner is one of the most perceptive, openminded and capable literary tour guides I’ve encountered in quite some time, and I’m already looking forward to her next (ad) venture.
Alexis Burling’s reviews have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Oregonian. Email: books@sfchronicle.com
“I was discovering to my alarm that if I was not religious, I was not notreligious either.”
Jordan Kisner