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<div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class="elementToProof">
All, Please find my review of Samantha Tucker and Amy Spears, <i class="elementToProof">
Collective Chaos.</i></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class="elementToProof">
<span class="elementToProof">Thanks, Duncan</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class="elementToProof">
<span class="elementToProof">
<p class="MsoNormal ContentPasted0" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif">
Tucker, Samantha with Amy Spears.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span><i class="ContentPasted0">Collective Chaos: A Roller Derby Team Memoir</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>Athens, OH:<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0"> </span>
Swallow Press, an imprint of Ohio University Press, 2023.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>$15.96 paper.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0"> </span>
978-0-8040-1242-3.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0"> </span>
VIII + 169.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0"> </span>Illus.<span style="mso-tab-count:1" class="ContentPasted0">
</span><o:p class="ContentPasted0"> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal ContentPasted0" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:200%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif">
Reviewed by Duncan Jamieson<o:p class="ContentPasted0"> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal ContentPasted0" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:200%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif;text-indent:.5in">
While I thoroughly enjoy my position as SLA’s book review editor, it does have its challenges, the biggest of which is finding reviewers (HINT, HINT, you can help me out here!).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>Publishers send books they think we might review, which is fine but my attempts to find reviewers sometimes fall flat.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>In those instances, I’ll sometimes have success strongarming someone, or if that fails yet the book seems worthwhile, I’ll attempt a review myself.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>Generally, I’ll find the book expands my knowledge of the sport under consideration, which is always a plus, at least for me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>Hopefully the readers will find the review interesting and help them decide if the book is something that might be worth their time.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span><o:p class="ContentPasted0"> </o:p></p>
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SLA received a query from Swallow Press, an imprint of Ohio University Press, if we might be interested in
<i class="ContentPasted0">Collective Chaos: A Roller Derby Team Memoir</i>, by Samantha Tucker with Amy Spears.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>Looking at the blurb it seemed worthwhile.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>Both are published authors; Tucker has a MA in English as well as a MFA, the latter from Ohio State.
<o:p class="ContentPasted0"> </o:p></p>
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I’m sure everyone reading this knows what Roller Derby is, though the extent and depth of knowledge is likely vastly different.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>Decades ago, I spent a year as an intern in Providence, Rhode Island, working with the poor and disadvantaged.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>In that capacity I visited a family who watched Roller Derby on television.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>This is my only connection to the sport, snippets of the game playing in the background while the family and I discussed the challenges of living in public housing.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>Since no one expressed any interest in the book, I thought I’d give it a try, hoping to learn more about this sport and its place in American culture.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>I don’t know much more about the former but my knowledge base for the latter has been exponentially expanded.<o:p class="ContentPasted0"> </o:p></p>
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<span style="mso-tab-count:1" class="ContentPasted0"> </span>While I learned a few of the basics about roller derby, most of the content is a gritty, personal memoir by the author, other players, and their culture, which is engrossing, perhaps
because it is so far removed from the normative American scene in which I live. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>Tucker does supply a bit of history (a Chicago promoter created the sport in 1935); though the basics remain the same the rules have been standardized and updated.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>While this full body contact sport is played by both men and women Tucker focuses on the women’s game.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>The Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA) is the international governing association with over 400 member leagues on six continents.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>It is played on an eighty-eight-foot oval track by five women on each team, one jammer who scores points during a jam by passing players on the opposing team, one pivot who can trade places with the jammer, and three blockers whose role is to impede
the jammer’s forward progress.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>The game is divided into two thirty-minute halves.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>Jams last for two minutes or less if ended by the jammer earlier.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>After thirty seconds for the players to rest and regroup, a new jam begins and again points can be scored.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>The sport is “strategic” and “powerful.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>“It’s played all over the planet.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>And the vast majority of roller derby, unlike most contact sports, is played by cis women, trans women, trans men, and nonbinary people” (p 7).
<o:p class="ContentPasted0"> </o:p></p>
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<span style="mso-tab-count:1" class="ContentPasted0"> </span>Unlike America’s major and minor sports, roller derby receives only the scantiest attention.
<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0"> </span>The only support comes from the women players themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>Yes, it is organized, yes there are leagues, rules and regulations, yes there are tournaments and championships and yes there are spectators, as rowdy and boisterous as the players themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>At the same time, there are few, if any, permanent tracks.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>The players set up and tear down the track.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>The elect the governing board.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>They establish teams and leagues.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>They recruit and train new players.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>They hire referees, score keepers and announcers.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>They rent facilities.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>They sell tickets.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0"> </span>
They manage fundraisers.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0"> </span>
They advertise the schedule and the games.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>They pay for their own equipment, uniforms, skates, travel, lodging and food.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>They are not paid to play or to serve on committees.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>It is all voluntary, and all for the love of the sport.<o:p class="ContentPasted0"> </o:p></p>
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<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0"> </span>I’m not at all sure how to categorize this book.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>Based on the back cover roller derby is an amateur <o:p class="ContentPasted0">
</o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal ContentPasted0" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:200%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif;margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.5in">
women’s sport, though it seems to be far more organized and professional.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span><i class="ContentPasted0">Collective Chaos</i> is “part <o:p class="ContentPasted0">
</o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal ContentPasted0" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:200%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif;margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.5in">
sports autobiography” and “part cultural critique,” but to me it Is also Samantha Tucker’s catharsis.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>She <o:p class="ContentPasted0"> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal ContentPasted0" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:200%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif;margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.5in">
grew up in Colorado with a Korean mother and an addicted father. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>While she dabbled in sports, she did <o:p class="ContentPasted0"> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal ContentPasted0" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:200%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif;margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.5in">
not see herself as terribly athletic, though she did enjoy roller skating on quads (two wheels front and
<o:p class="ContentPasted0"> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal ContentPasted0" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:200%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif;margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.5in">
back), and she did off and on play roller derby.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>She earned a degree in theatre, moved to New York but <o:p class="ContentPasted0">
</o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal ContentPasted0" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:200%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif;margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.5in">
was unable to make a go of it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>Back in Colorado she married about the time of the Great Recession and <o:p class="ContentPasted0">
</o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal ContentPasted0" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:200%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif;margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.5in">
with her husband moved to Korea where they taught English for a couple of years, still dabbling in roller
<o:p class="ContentPasted0"> </o:p></p>
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derby.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0"> </span>Back in the United States they moved to Ohio where she earned her MFA and became deeply
<o:p class="ContentPasted0"> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal ContentPasted0" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:200%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif;margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.5in">
immersed in roller derby, playing, traveling, organizing, serving on committees and fulfilling leadership
<o:p class="ContentPasted0"> </o:p></p>
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roles, because for her roller derby fit her counter culture vibe where she was accepted as she was.
<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0"> </span>Like <o:p class="ContentPasted0">
</o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal ContentPasted0" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:200%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif;margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.5in">
most other players she had no health insurance and only later learned that while playing before moving
<o:p class="ContentPasted0"> </o:p></p>
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to Ohio she had broken her back.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>Uninsured, she could not afford x-rays so it went undiagnosed and <o:p class="ContentPasted0">
</o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal ContentPasted0" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:200%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif;margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.5in">
untreated. <o:p class="ContentPasted0"> </o:p></p>
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Tucker has given much credit to Amy Spears who has added significant insights to roller derby’s
<o:p class="ContentPasted0"> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal ContentPasted0" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:200%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif">
history and culture and how it stands in opposition to mainstream American society.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>Primarily, however, <o:p class="ContentPasted0"> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal ContentPasted0" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:200%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif">
this is Tucker’s voice for “those who’ve struggled within the mainstream.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>She, and the women whose <o:p class="ContentPasted0"> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal ContentPasted0" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:200%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif">
mini-biographies are included, have all found a home and a safe place in this increasingly white male
<o:p class="ContentPasted0"> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal ContentPasted0" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:200%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif">
supremacist society bent on further marginalization and control of those who just want to live their non-<o:p class="ContentPasted0"> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal ContentPasted0" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:200%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif">
conventional lives in peace and safety.<o:p class="ContentPasted0"> </o:p></p>
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<span style="mso-tab-count:1" class="ContentPasted0"> </span>Tucker is not at all shy about calling out the abuse that American society heaps on those who do not conform to the narrow definitions of the far right.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>She has no use for Donald Trump and MAGA.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>On the other hand, in an interesting disconnect, she is perhaps the epitome of the diehard Ohioan.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>Though a transplant, she fell head over heels in love with the state, its people, its sports and its culture.
<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0"> </span>It is said that if Woody Hayes, the paragon of Ohio boosterism, were driving back from “the game” and ran out of gas in Michigan, he would push the car across the state line before refueling.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>I am convinced that Samantha would help push.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>At the same time, she seems blind to the reality that is a politically conservative state, not all that interested in allowing people to live and let live.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span>She seems to be unaware of the state’s historic ties to the Ku Klux Klan and its continuing racism
<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0"> </span>While I have no evidence I would not be surprised if
<i class="ContentPasted0">Collective Chaos</i> were banned from Ohio’s public schools and curriculum.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes" class="ContentPasted0">
</span><o:p class="ContentPasted0"> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal ContentPasted0" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:200%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif">
<span style="mso-tab-count:1" class="ContentPasted0"> </span>This is a fascinating read; I recommend it highly to any who want to expand their horizons.<o:p class="ContentPasted0"> </o:p></p>
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