The Blue Fox by Sjón is that beautiful, unique, and compelling work of literary prose that we all seek to read. My only critique is that perhaps it could have been just a bit longer, which is saying something coming from me.
A few weeks ago, as we approached the end of 2024, I began looking back through old photos, and I was surprised to see just how much I did this year: a winter break in Idaho, a springtime trip to Louisiana, some good summer fun in Idaho; a epic trip to the Oregon coast; and then up to Guemes Island in the San Juans for a beautiful wedding, and then back through the state of Washington; and finally a trip to Palm Springs, before buckling up for the marathon of end-of-year holiday festivities.
In 2023, I started exercising a bit, but in 2024 I actually got strong. I ran two 5ks and one 10k, and even ran a PR (post high school) in one of the 5ks at 26.29 minutes, which is not fast, for the record, but felt good and fast in my body, and I was 5th in my category!
I loved my little farm, I sheared my little sheep, and I watched the northern night sky light up with aurora borealis. I put together a two-story playhouse, made what is becoming an annual pilgrimage to Yellowstone (especially Lake Isa), watched rodeos, and entered my homegrown raspberries in the county fair. I got two new chicks, hatched from my hen’s own fertilized eggs, so now I have three: the original hen and her two black and white-laced daughters. Hopefully I’ll get my first eggs from them in 2025.
Through it all I also worked on several major work-related writing projects and one major creative project, which I hope will soon see the light of day, so that I can share them with everyone! I also read many lovely books.
As this year comes to an end, I also find myself at the end of a nine year in numerology. I can see some obvious themes and projects wrapping up in my life, but if the upcoming one year is anything like my last one year, it will be full of big, transformative life changes that I can’t yet fully see now. There’s a lot to like about life right now, but I’m trying to work on embracing the inevitable changes and growth that come my way.
I’m not sure there’s anything left for me to say that hasn’t already been said about Miranda July’s new book, All Fours, but I read it and so I’ll try to say something here. First, I always really appreciate July’s work and read it when I get the chance. She offers some great insights on the human condition and pairs it with lots of absurd, disgusting, and confusing action. Furthermore, for a bestseller, I can guarantee the writing will not be bad, and that’s more than I can say for a lot of bestsellers.
What I think it so important about the book, and what has given it all of this #allfoursgroupchat energy is that the the book tackles aging; emotional labor, especially in heterosexual relationships; and some of the physical changes and hormonal shifts women experience in their 40s and 50s. There are so many unique and terrible aspects of this reality that July captured accurately for me. I really appreciated that she gave it voice.
There are also many details seemingly based on some real events from her own life. This makes the book all the more engaging and compelling. The conclusion of the book does even more to mirror real life as the main character goes on book tour, except you know July hasn’t gone on tour yet before she’s done writing. It’s just a very unique way to end a book.
Overall, I know some readers won’t be able to handle this book because it is a lot. July’s work usually is. But, some of us will, and I hope that those of us who do like this book will be able to find that group chat.
I just finished the beautiful, haunting, absurd, and magitragic novel, The Seas, by Samantha Hunt. This is a book with a rich sense of place, compelling characters, and layers upon layers of themes and possible meanings, which shoot out in every direction.
At times, while reading, I had some judgement about the contemporary’s literary community’s dealings of mental illness. So often, it seems, authors borrow symptoms in ways that do not always feel ethical to me, but instead are used to shock and awe. However, by the end of this novel, Hunt had really earned it, in my opinion, and was able to demonstrate a deeper meaning and a broader purpose in her depiction of this strange and mesmerizing mermaid main character.
We’re nearing the end of the reading year now, and I’ll count this one among my favorites.
The beginning of this book was not what I expected. The middle part, however, was. I expected Prairie, Dresses, Art, Other by Danielle Dutton to be much more theoretical (and it was!), but the first few chapters threw me. In a good way. The first few chapters were even scary!
This book reminds me of some of Maggie Nelson’s recent stuff, but this book of Dutton’s has more imagery, perhaps even more narrative, throughout than Nelson’s most recent, On Freedom, for example. Both are from Coffee House Press, which continues to publish all of the best stuff that the mainstream publishers are afraid of.
I’m grateful for Dorothy, A Publishing Project for breathing life back into this 1954 gem by Barbara Comyns, entitled Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead. The title alone got my attention, and the rest of the book did not disappoint either. It is a great narrative, that paints a bizarre, almost mystical crisis within a small town. Comyns portrays all of human ugliness with great humor and insight. The imagery is also beautifully done.
Interestingly, I started the year with an Agatha Christie murder mystery, and there is something I really appreciate about this era of writing. It is very straightforward, but that close and careful approach also highlights the intentional writing and brings the descriptions into greater focus.
I don’t read a lot of poetry, but recently picked up The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded by Molly McCully Brown, and I’m so glad I did. I first read Molly McCully Brown when someone shared a link to an article she had written. I was blown away by the quality of the writing then. I follow her socials, and see that we know some people in common. So, I follow her work. In fact, I thought for sure that I had already read The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded, but once I picked it up, I realized I had not. I would have remembered!
This is an excellent book of poetry. The whole project really needs to be poetry, and I like that about it, and I think nonpoetry readers (beyond popular poetry, anyway) will find this book to be a bit more accessible, and still completely artful. It reads up quickly. It does not need to be belabored. It just exists, and it is good. Go read it.
After reading Joan Didion’s Blue Nights, I picked up Cory Leadbeater’s The Uptown Local at the library because it is about his life working as Didion’s assistant, and my interest in Didion had been renewed. This is a memoir, and Leadbeater has quite a lot to share about his own life and creative process, as well as what it meant to him to work so closely with Didion.
This book is honest and insightful, and very self aware. Readers will get some Didion fixes, but more than that, it offers insight into what it might’ve been like to be her assistant in her final years. And, I’m sure many readers and writers probably have fantasized about just such a job. I have.
Leadbeater portrays their dynamic as a kind of mother son relationship. In fact, Didion refers to herself a “mommy” in her book inscription to him. Leadbeater seems to wear his troubles on his sleeve, and Didion seems to not shy away from them. She seems to fully embrace and welcome him, even despite (or because?) of his challenges. Even when her more aristocratic friends disregard him, Didion is stalwart. I wonder if she saw her own daughter in Leadbeater. Some of their troubles seemed the same, from what I can gather, which is very little.
In the end, both Didion and Leadbeater both offer insights on relationships, art appreciation, poetry, and how to live a meaningful life–something we could all probably use.
Each year I budget time for about one show, and this year that show was the tv miniseries Fleishman is in Trouble. After reading the book, and hearing all the hype about the show, I wanted to see what it was all about. And, let me tell you, the show was what they said it would be. I think the show is better than the book, and I don’t need to feel bad about saying that since the author, Taffy Brodesser-Akner, also wrote the tv adaption.
[Continue reading only after you’ve seen the show.]
Basically, I just want to write out some of the things that I thought were really interesting about this piece. I thought the role reversal of the Toby character was interesting. I appreciated how he was in the traditional “woman’s” role in the show as emotional laborer and primary caretaker of the children in the family. His work is meaningful, but it (and he) is chronically undervalued.
I also appreciated how complicated Rachel’s role was. Like all of the characters in the book (really), she behaves terribly, and is good, but her backstory and raison d’être is fully and humanely formed. As a career-driven woman, she cannot win with her husband, and yet she is sexualized by a friend’s husband exactly because she is career driven, opposed to his own stay-at-home wife.
Lastly, and I think this is where the tv series really shines in the last few episodes, I really appreciated Libby’s complexity too. As the narrator, I wanted to trust her to make sense of these people, but it becomes clear that she is also emotionally stuck and is actually behaving in really sexist ways, even though she identifies and pontificates as an outspoken feminist. Her husband also takes on a typically female role in the relationship, managing the family and holding it all together as Libby gallivants around.
A take away for me lately is that relationships are hard and divorce is hard. We are too caught up in our own stories to see anything clearly. And yet, there is hope. And also cynicism. Everything. The entire show just pulls it together beautifully.
I just finished Joan Didion’s Blue Nights with actual tears running down my face. That’s probably not the best way to describe this book because while it is known to be about loss and aging, it is also not a tear jerker in my opinion. It is a beautifully written book that I read with great care, even taking the time to look up some of images and stories from the designers and famous characters she mentions. Even still, this slow burn packs a powerful punch as readers round the bend toward the ending.
Didion is one of the most famous writers of our time and is critically untouchable in my opinion. Some reviewers said this book was not as tight as her earlier work, but if that is true, and I do not think that it is, it is still a great book that offers a good deal of artistry around some of the most challenging of human experiences.
I read female writers of this generation with a good deal of interest (and I seem to read a lot of them lately). The tone in their writing has this formal, northeastern accent type of thing going on, and they have this deep femininity that I don’t think even exists anymore due to cultural constraints. I just…marvel at these people.
Didion is completely modern and completely relevant, and she made her daughter’s school lunches, and she wore red leather sandals with four-inch heals every day. What an icon.
SHEREWIN 