Daily writing prompt

What is the last thing you learned?

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Sometimes I feel guilty that I read mostly fiction books. Typically, I read a couple of memoir-type nonfiction books each year (i.e. Michelle Obama, Anne Lamott, Prince Harry – couldn’t resist!), but I don’t prioritize the big, serious nonfiction bestsellers, like The Persuaders, which I know I should read.

Still, I learn a lot from novels by great writers. (I realize this is not an amazing revelation. Readers of fiction know this already.) Great novelists do so much in-depth research that you end up learning a lot of stuff, while engrossed in the lives of fictional characters.

Yesterday, I finished “Unsheltered” by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Barbara Kingsolver. As with all Kingsolver books, I learned new things about the natural world, but I also learned a few things about Cuba in this one. There’s an endearing character named Tig, a GenZ anti-capitalist who has returned to the US after a year in Cuba. She tells her mother about “the yellow guy” (El Amarillo) in Cuba, which is a government-organized hitchhiking facilitation system. (The facilitators wear yellow/beige uniforms.)

Who knew? I mean, it doesn’t put Cuba on my bucket list or anything, but it’s interesting that they’ve found a way to cut down on all the wasted seats—in all the gas-guzzling vehicles—that are heading to the exact same destinations. American soccer moms could use a yellow guy.

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