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Rollergirl Review

I read Rollergirl: Totally True Tales From the Track forever ago, and I've been procrastinating about writing about it ever since. I wanted to do it justice, and the words just weren't coming to me. I'm not sure they'll come to me now, but I'm writing about it anyway because saying SOMETHING is better than saying nothing if I want anyone to ready this book—and I definitely do. (I've already passed my copy on to a friend, with instructions to pass it on to another friend when she's through.)

I've never met the book's author, Melissa Joulwan, but she's married to my friend Dave, whom I've known since he joined the Dreamweaver advisory council back in 1997 or 1998, when we were working on the way early versions of the product. Dave and Melissa moved to Austin, Texas around the time I was learning to play ice hockey, and Dave and I have been comparing my experiences on the ice with Melissa's on the track off and on ever since. When Dave told me Mel had written a book about those experiences, I went straight to Amazon to order it.

The cover of the book is incredibly sassy, and it's been reviewed in Penthouse, so you might get the idea that it's "all icing an no cake" (as my 12th grade Sociology teacher said of my oral report on Sex in Sweden). While there's definitely plenty of icing, in the form of the sex-kitten-meets-Rosie-the-Riveter personas of the skaters, there's also a fascinating history of the sport and spectacle of roller derby and its latest resurgence as a flat-track phenomenon.

I'd known that Mel was a founding member of the Texas Rollergirls, but I'd had no idea how close roller derby had come to being a flash-in-the-pan spectacle again. The drama! The intrigue! (The cool rockabilly fans that could only have come out of Texas!) If it weren't for the true grit of some tough, organized, inspriring women who issued a rallying cry of "by the skaters, for the skaters!", the sport never would have spread across the country the way it has. (That's right, in case you hadn't heard: Roller derby isn't just in Texas anymore. Philadelphia has a league, so does Baltimore—check out epmd's cool photos of the bouts on Flickr—and, in a weird coincidence, our friend and former nanny Hannah ended up writing about Portland, Maine's fledgling league during her stint at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. There's probably one in your area, too.)

I was so inspired by this book and attracted to the derby fun that I gave serious thought to trying it myself when I finished reading. I finally decided that for me, ice hockey is the perfect sport. In many ways it's similar to roller derby, except that instead of putting on a persona, I put on a lot of pads. The transformative power is the same, though: I feel *different* in my gear. Stronger, tougher, more assertive... and yep, even sexy, despite all the curves being bundled up. Now, if we could just get the kind of beer-drinking, fun-loving, you-go-girl-spouting fans that roller derby enjoys, we'd be all set!