I haven’t been doing much writing lately. Or, I guess I should say successful writing: I continue my practices and my routines, but I am at a mental low point in this election/general news cycle and am struggling to focus on anything generative, anything that requires me to be inside my own head. (The doomscrolling is bad enough; the fact that it continues in my head even with my phone shut off is an exhausting nightmare.) Long walks without podcasts1, quiet music, falling asleep without the TV on— all off the table. When I do write I’ve been focusing on beginner, tangible prompts, 101 assignments: describing the tree outside my window, or describing recipes my mom made when I was a kid, and lots and lots of lists. Just enough to keep the pen moving and faith that this season will eventually pass.
What I have been able to do, at least, is read. While I usually write about a particular book or set of books, I thought I’d do more of a brief overview of the books I’ve read so far this autumn:
Recently Read
The Hypocrite, by Jo Hamya
A novel about a young playwright debuting a play about her philandering/kind of shitty father. Hamya alternates the point of view between Sophia, who has written this play about a particular trip to Italy with her father, and the father’s POV, who is horrified/ashamed/indignant to attend a performance and discover how his daughter has seen him, how she has distorted what he thinks of as such as nice memory. It’s a funny and sad novel, and Hamya examines the way memory will differ wildly and painfully between parent and child as well as within ourselves, the temptation to rewrite a memory to serve our sense of self better. Some of the setups were a little excruciating (some scenes with Sophia’s drunk mother at lunch, some of the father’s twitter cancellation rants), but overall this was really compelling.
The Safekeep, by Yael van der Wouden
I picked this up right before it was nominated for the Booker, interested in a blurb I had seen (that I can’t find now, sorry!) that called it an psychologically dark, atmospheric, sapphic spiral of a book, set in the Dutch countryside in the 1960’s. Isabel lives an alone in her late mother’s home, frozen in arrested development and compulsively isolated. Through some hijinks her older brother deposits Eva, his hippieish girlfriend, at the house for the summer, and she begins to thaw Isabel even as things in the house begin to go wrong. Unfortunately, I found the sex scenes— a significant chunk of the book— really repetitive and unerotic, making the latter half a challenge to get through and dissolving the little goodwill I had built up for the characters. (I also saw someone describe this book as having a “twist,” which I don’t think is accurate, but a bleak history is eventually confronted.) Maybe my expectations were off; maybe I wanted it to be a queer(er) Rebecca, which is probably an unfair thing to ask of any book, but I was disappointed.
Where the Light Falls, by Nancy Hale
Over the summer I read some of Elizabeth Hardwick’s criticism, and (I think2) the mention of Nancy’s Hales short fiction caught my eye. The copy of When the Light Falls at my library was edited by Lauren Groff, which is always a good sign for me, and I wasn’t disappointed: Hale’s stories are focused, character-driven, and observant. Favorites include “Book Review,” about some boorish dinner party guests & fascism, “To the North,” about locals and summer people on the MA coast, and “The Bubble,” which reminded me of Ursula Parrot’s Ex-Wife.
Speedboat, by Renata Adler
This has been on my TBR a long while, and Nathan was nice enough to get me a copy for my birthday. Speedboat is dazzling, to the point where there were days where my attention span couldn’t keep up with it, and I set it aside temporarily in favor of more traditional narratives. When I could approach it, however, I was transfixed by Adler’s style, by the stylishness of the story (70’s NYC and jet-setting and journalism and more) and by the flash-y prose. More than anything (any maybe this is an uncool observation) I was reminded of a social media feed, of the feeling of scrolling deep on the instagram profile of someone much cooler than you, seeing their life in a long feed of snapshots. I’m glad I finally read it.
Dancing After Hours, by Andre Dubus
My first and last time reading Dubus. I liked the opening story “The Intruder,” and was totally let down by the collection as a whole. I appreciate Dubus’s prose style well enough, but the stories and characters are an absolute caricature of white straight male Iowa MFA midcentury dudeism™, one of those collections where you find yourself googling the author’s biography afterward because his fixations and patterns of behavior (anti-abortion male panic, professors fucking students, etc) are so clear on the page it feels clear that there must have been some instigating incident somewhere along the way. I’m willing to believe that his earlier stories are better— I think this is his last collection— but not willing enough to actually give it a shot.
The Great Fire, by Shirley Hazzard
Not my favorite Hazzard; in fairness, I love The Transit of Venus so much that it would be difficult for anything in comparison. Her prose is never anything less than compelling and I liked the framing and settings here, but the character of Helen (or rather the “romance” between her and more-than-twice-her-age Leith) felt like the worst of two ages, Victorian fetishizing of young-wife-as-adoring-pupil mixed with modern age-gap handwringing.
The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead
A reread, in preparation for the movie adaptation coming this winter, dir. RaMell Ross. Between the hype and the accolades this has (deservedly) gotten you probably don’t need me to say that this is a good book. I hear that the adaptation does some unusual things with POV that, considering the trajectory of the book, I’m very curious to see.
The Most, by Jessica Anthony
A fun, brief story: On a warm November morning in Newark Delaware, Kathleen Beckett goes for a dip in her apartment complex’s pool, and decides to stay there. Set over the course of eight hours, she and her husband Virgil alternate reflecting on their marriage, kids, upbringings, and families. I like when we get “both sides” to a relationship, a little miniature Fates and Furies without the chorus. The frame story takes place on the day Sputnik 2 launches with Laika the dog aboard, something that I well up just thinking about and am an easy mark for. While there were some plot points I found a little hackey or boring, overall it was an interesting & quick read.
The Princess of 72nd Street, by Elaine Kraf
I was intrigued by Maris Kreizman’s short review of the new reissue of The Princess of 72nd Street, a novel from 1979 narrated by Ellen (or the princess Esmerelda), an artist living on the Upper West Side. Ellen becomes the princess in periods she calls radiances, manic episodes that she cherishes, even as she acknowledges the harm done to her in “treating” them, or the ways they make her vulnerable to the world (aka, men). The setting is different, artsy NY, but I was reminded of Little Edie in her fashions and opinionated edicts. A small, bizarre (complimentary) read.
Coming up on my reading list: my holds for Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors and Greek Lessons by Han Kang (my first of hers) just arrived, with A Reason to See You Again by Jami Attenberg and Madwoman by Chelsea Bieker hopefully coming through soon. It’s also the perfect time of year to reread Shirley Jackson (as is the rest of the year, of course) so I’ll likely reread at least The Haunting of Hill House
Let me know what you’ve been reading lately (or what’s on your library hold list!), or if your attention span is as scrambled as mine.
With love,
Court
What (else) I’ve been reading/consuming lately:
“Christian Nationalists Dream of Taking Over America. This Movement Is Actually Doing It” by Kiera Butler in Mother Jones, an article about Christian Nationalists that talks about Lancaster County Christians specifically. This wasn’t new information for me— I lived it— but I think it’s really, really important reporting, particularly ahead of this election. I know there’s lot of reasons not to vote on the presidential ticket but if you’re in a swing state I urge you to consider that the folks in this article are all voting in Pennsylvania, and registering voters, and bussing Amish to polling places to vote for Donald Trump and JD Vance.
Related: Sarah Zhang in The Atlantic on the state of abortion care.
Lillian Fishman in The Point on sex and desire as performance and theater.
This is embarrassing stan behavior but as we got home from seeing Megalopolis I said to Nathan “I can’t wait to see what Kate Wagner says about that movie.” In this case, in The Nation’s podcast.
Dan Sinykin on bookstores and books about bookstores in The Baffler.
“The History of Sound” has been popping up in a few headlines lately as Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor have wrapped on the film adaptation, due sometime next year. I hope the movie is good3 but mainly I think it’s a good reminder to reread the short story, by Ben Shattuck, originally in The Common.
Really love this small interview with Harrison Ford in GQ, if only because the interviewer (Gabrielle Paiella) asked his iconic (to me!) sweater-and-shorts Cannes outfit. It hurts to see other people living my dream but at least I get to read it !
Watched Miyazaki’s Porco Rosso. I’d rather be a pig than a fascist.
October is the best month for long walks, too! This fucking sucks!
My note to myself from July just says “short stories— midcentury— Boston— Nancy Hale” which was effective in that it got the job done (I checked out the book from the library) but does not at all help me remember where I got it. I need to take better notes!!
Paul Mescal is playing a Kentucky Appalachian boy (unless they change things for the movie), which is interesting.