july reading wrapped
also an announcement, also there's a music wrapped coming up
July! What a concept! It was a twin of June, hot and muggy and swampy and pitted with innumerable lows. I cried a lot in July; for myself, for my parents, for Palestine and Congo, for Sudan and Yemen and Haiti, for the people in Texas without electricity, for the cruelty of white pathology, for Sonya Massey. I’ve cried for the disfigured and dead children, the fathers and mothers, the aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews not much older than my own.I cried for Siraj, a Palestinian man who’s been fundraising desperately on Tumblr to get his family to safety.
I didn’t mean for this to start as a thing about sadness and about stagnation in the midst of the horrors brought on by capitalism, global warming and white supremacist nonsense, but sometimes, as they say in the Baptist church, the Spirit moves you.
This is a reading wrapped, but it’s also me trying to listen to James Baldwin when he says, “I can’t lead a movement. But I can fuck up your mind.” It’s me trying to remember that despite my disabilities, I can be an effective and focused activist. I don’t have to march to make movement, but I do have to speak and get shit off my chest, even if it makes others uncomfortable or angry to be confronted by the reality of this world we live in.
In spite of everything, July was a relatively good month for reading. Every book I read gave me something I needed, or, at least, gave me something to think about. While June was a month full of DNFs and books abandoned, I surprisingly only had three this time around. Honestly, I probably could’ve done a lot more than the seven I managed if my iPad hadn’t stopped charging, sealing me off from my hoard of ebooks. I miss them…They’re crying for me…I think I need to find an eReader…
Um, what else, what else before we start in on the wrapped…Oh! So, Nyx Publishing, the publishing company that was handling my short story collection JUST A LITTLE SNACK has closed down and will no longer be selling my book. This is crushing, of course, but when one door is closed another is opened. I want to do something major for my supporters on Patreon. I’ve been hesitating to post anything over there, nervous that I haven’t given you all enough of a reason to support me, and now, I’m gonna knock your socks off. The plan? A huge self-publishing event; fifteen or so signed physical copies (with the option for a personalized note from yours truly), as well as e-copies of the short story collection. I’m thinking collages for each of the stories, I’m thinking bespoke playlist with liner notes. I might even try something like what I did with Filthiness is Next to Godliness where I share my “director’s commentary”, serving up my inspirations and thoughts behind each of the short stories. Maybe…And I know this is wild…I might go for audio recordings of the stories done by myself and some of my friend, something like when I read God, From Machine with TransFire!
Whew. Okay! Onto the wrapped.
IN JULY, I READ
A TOUCH OF JEN by Beth Morgan, which was an interesting read, medium-paced and comfortably uncomfortable. In my Storygraph review I describe it as being kooky and confusing, as positives, of course. I think the characters’ obsessions with perception and how they present themselves was really cool, and I liked how pathetic and genuinely awful everyone was. I usually don’t like to be annoyed by white people in fiction, but I had fun this time.
EXQUISITE CORPSE by William Joseph Martin (formerly Poppy Z. Brite), which was revolting and unfun and one of the reasons why I hate that white queer culture makes a thing of being into serial killers and violence. My Storygraph review says, “Racist, horrific sexualization of rape that seems oh so common in white queer spaces, the disgusting granddaddy to Brainwyrms”. I really cannot stand books like this. I know everyone’s horny for dark fiction, but there’s something about the way this barely concealed Ted Bundy fanfiction sexualizes and romanticizes the violence thrown upon Tran, the Vietnamese victim of the two serial killers crimes. The decapitated and mutilated bodies of Black men are used as props to rape and defile. We get lurid, lusty pictures painted of white men preying on the most vulnerable, all in this florid language that makes the whole thing nauseating. I just. Man, I hated this.
SULA by Toni Morrison, and it’s kind of crazy that I’ve never read Sula before, like who am I? How can I call myself a Toni Morrison superfan if I haven’t read one of her best and most banging novels? Coming from the grimdarkness of Exquisite Corpse, Sula was revitalizing, tense and delicious, a look into the connections made by Black women to each other, to the community around them. I loved the strength of the friendship between Sula and Nell, the trauma and heartbreak of their friend break-up. It was very timely, absolutely perfect and essential to the writing of On Sundays, She Picked Flowers, and I hope you can see traces of Sula within Judith Rice, my own untamable woman.
THE THICK AND THE LEAN by Chana Porter, which ate so bad and was such a good read that I abused my authorial privilege and directly DMed Chana to tell her how iconic this book. Also, ha! The irony of saying that a book about a society with a Calvinistic approach to eating and food, a book about disordered eating and fatphobia and who gets to be hungry and who decides what’s desirable is so … God, I’m so funny. But really there’s nothing I can write here in this review/wrapped that can truly convince you to read this other than what I told my friends when I was recommending it to them: “society is weird about food, weird about sex in another way”, and honestly, what else do you need? Go forth. Eat it up.
THE SKIN AND ITS GIRL by Sarah Cypher, which was so intensely beautiful and deep and impactful. The blue threads of family ties, generational traumas, lost and assumed identity are intricately woven. The passions and worries and fears that bind Beth Rummani to her aunt, to her mother, to her grandmother, it’s all so lovely, and I really struggle to write a big paragraph of things because I feel like it’s the sort of book you have to read yourself to fully appreciate the impact.
ZAMI: A NEW SPELLING OF MY NAME: A BIOMYTHOGRAPHY by Audre Lorde, which I read a couple of years ago and I’m really amazed at how the span of two years can completely change the shape of a book in your mind. It was longer in my memory and meatier. I should read more of Audre Lorde’s work, but this was a great introduction to her and her story, and I especially liked the bit in the beginning where she almost goes into a nonbinary space. Like, yes! No gender, the only gender is lesbianism!
Sorry to hear about the publishing house and the implications for you book. Excited about the event you've planned. OMG, the idea of director's notes ❤️.