Tag: book-review

Both Sides Now

Queer people have been very effectively erased from history–and in the cases where it wasn’t entirely possible to erase completely the evidence, it was camouflaged (Hephaestion and Alexander loved each other like brothers!1)or queer kings had “favorites” rather than “lovers” (Edward II, Henri III, Louis XIV’s brother Philippe); so it’s there if you know what to look for. I’ve always loved history, and have always wanted to write historical queer fiction (the fun I could have with Henri III’s mignons!), but have always worried about doing the research, as it’s not easy to uncover information hidden or deliberately removed from the record. Queers–as the afore-mentioned historical figures’ existence proves–have alway been around, sometimes hidden in very plain sight. I don’t have the patience to do in-depth research, partly because I don’t really know how, or even where to start. I know, for example, there were gay bars in New Orleans long before Stonewall; our existence had to be known for it to be made against the law, didn’t it? I’ve done some queer historical short stories, always terrified I was getting things wrong (“The Weight of a Feather” and “The Affair of the Purloined Rent Boy”); and since writing and publishing those stories I’ve since found out things that would have been pertinent to the story. (This is also a big fear of mine about Chlorine, too, if I am being completely honest.)

I’ve read some gay historicals, some of which seemed a bit on the far-fetched side to me, but some authors–like John Copenhaver–do such a great job of it that it seems seamless and fresh and brand new. I love historicals, and always have; so there not being a vast plethora of them out there is kind of disappointing.

And then there’s Lev AC Rosen’s Lavender House.

I thought I’d have the place all to myself, this early. Like church on a Tuesday–no one but you and God–or in my case, the bartender. But there’s a guy and girl, high school kids or maybe just twenty, sitting at one of the booths in the back. They’re trying to keep their voices low, but he’s failing, getting angry. Something about weiner dogs. It’s weird the things people fight over.

He pounds the table and she whimpers a little. I sigh, feel my body shifting to get up. I don’t have to do this anymore. Hell, no one even wants me to. That’s why I was fired. But some habits you can’t break. So I put down what’s left of my martini, motion the bartender to pour another, and stand up and go to the back of the wrist, tight. Her arm is stretching like a shoelace as she tries to stand up. but he won’t let go. On her other wrist, she’s wearing a charm bracelet. Just a few charms: An eagles, that’s a mascot for one of the local schools, with “1950” under it, so she graduated two years ago. A book, so she’s a reader. And an apple. Teacher’s favorite, or she just really likes apples, maybe. Not enough life lived for many charms. Not enough to cover the bruise, either.

And this is the opening to Lev AC Rosen’s first Evander “Andy” Mills novel, Lavender House. The book dropped onto my radar when it was released; someone asked me if I had read it or not, which made me aware of it. I was also a little confused, because I already had a copy of Jack of Hearts, a well-reviewed (and often challenged) young adult novel…but the author names were just very similar (L. C. Rosen is on the spine of the latter, and yes, they are the same author, doing something like I do, switching up the real name slightly for a pseudonym. It was nominated for a lot of awards, and so I got a copy but never got around to it in the massive book dunes of my TBR pile. I got the follow-ups as they came out, always intending to get around to them at some point. I also have also had some really lovely email exchanges with him, and he seems like a lovely person on top of being a remarkably gifted writer.

Maybe it’s the 1952 setting, but this book made me think of Hammett and Chandler; kind of noir, kind of hard-boiled, but stronger influences (to me, at any rate) thn the Macdonalds and that first generation of writers influenced by the masters. The language and voice and tone are absolutely perfect for Andy.

This opening scene has Andy in a bar in the middle of the afternoon. He was just fired from his job with the SFPD when he was busted in a gay bar raid. His life is ruined, and he feels he has no future–and is also convinced as a “pervert” in 1952 (in San Francisco!) that he doesn’t deserve one. This opening chapter, when we see how much Andy hates himself, threw himself into his job, and kept living his secretive double life, it’s a horrible reminder of what happened to men outed by the cops in the horrible before times; Andy is planning on getting drunk and throwing himself into the bay to drown. Shortly after playing knight-errant for the young woman in the bar, another woman comes in–specifically looking for him. She has a job for him; investigate a strange death at Lavender House, a private compound for her family outside of the city. With nothing to lose and nothing else to do, Andy says “sure” and goes with her.

Lavender House is where a makeshift “found” family of queers live, covering for each other and having a place where they can be themselves, safe from prying eyes and blackmailers. This isn’t easy, because they are a family that owns a prominent soap company, Lamontaine Soaps. The dead woman, Irene, was the matriarch and the head of the company. She died in a fall from a small balcony in her working office, but her widow, Pearl, isn’t convinced it was a tragic accident. As Andy settles into Lavender House, the book switched into a hard-boiled more classic styled mystery, like Knives Out or Ellery Queen; a harder queerer Agatha Christie, if you will. There are lots of suspects, someone is tailing the family whenever they leave the grounds; everyone, it seems, has a reason to want Irene dead, despite their gratitude for her “rescue” of them from the horrifically homophobic outside world. This is a great mystery novel, with lots of clues and twists and turns, so you’re never entirely sure which direction it’s going, and the writing is so exquisite you want to reread the sentences, savoring the poetic music of the words and the rhythm of the language. Just marvelous.

But it’s also more than that–it’s also a window in our not-so-distant past, as a reminder of what gains we’ve made since then, and how dangerous it was to be queer not that long ago. It’s also about Andy letting go of his painful past, embracing who he is at last and being freed from the bonds of the puritanical society he lives in; better to be freely yourself than to hide from everyone. It’s always so much better and easier once you accept yourself and stop trying to fit in as something you aren’t. This is just the start for Andy, and over the course of the case as he becomes more and more comfortable in his own gay skin, the world becomes full of color for him.

I’m really looking forward to follow his journey. High recommended.

  1. Brothers who liked to fuck each other, that is. ↩︎

Hell is for Children

Being Southern hasn’t been as difficult for me as it is for most Southern people, when it comes to forgetting the past and not taking pride in a heritage that includes racism and bigotry and enslavement. Some of the earliest lessons I learned about life in these United States was that I was one of the few people who started recognizing something that I wouldn’t know the name for until I was much older: cognitive dissonance. What I was being told at home was different from what I was being taught in school, and even that, while better balanced, was “patriotism good rah rah rah U!S!A! U!S!A!” all the time, nonstop. I began wondering about how much of an American “hero” Christopher Columbus really was, as all he brought to the New World was genocide, slavery, disease, centuries of oppression and looting the resources of the Americas. I started dealing with more cognitive dissonance as I got older and began seeing the flaws in white American supremacy, the contradictions and conflicts, and I had to think and reconcile all of these differing opinions. As I got older, resolving those cognitive dissonances required abandoning the education I got as a child about our country and its history because it was drenched in white supremacy and American exceptionalism and, well, lies to make white people feel better about themselves1. Reading and studying history made me look at modern Christianity askance–your religion has always been bloody, intolerant and cruel; but I’m supposed to believe the faith that slaughtered non-believers gleefully has changed and learned the errors of its ways?

Likewise, the Civil Rights Movement was in full swing when I was a child, and saw I watched the marches and the horror of the violence on the news. I didn’t understand nor believe the so-called religious justification for bigotry–my view of Christianity was markedly different from what I was learning in Sunday school for sure–but as someone blessed with white privilege I was also oblivious to a lot of what the Black community has dealt with throughout our bloody and horrific national history. My beliefs and values have never stagnated or been chiseled into stone; I appreciate gaining new perspective and examining my own internal biases and prejudices, and changing my mind predicated on the new perspective.

There are some things, however, I will never change my mind about: bigotry and prejudice are evil and have no basis in anything except vile ignorance and emotion.

The “we need diverse books” movement on-line was absolutely wonderful, because it gave me an easy opportunity to find books by diverse authors that either didn’t exist before or did and weren’t given much of a push. I loved the expansion of the crime and horror genres to include these characters and themes and stories; I love their fresh perspectives on society and culture and yes, the genres themselves. Books by S. A. Cosby, Kellye Garrett, Rachel Howzell Hall, Tracy Clark, Cheryl Head, and other racialized authors have not only been revelatory, but so strongly written and brilliant that it’s pushing other authors to better their own work to keep up. I’ve also been reading a lot of non-fiction about the civil rights movement and the history of prejudice and racism in this country, informing not only myself but with my own work, as well.

And in a class almost by itself is Tananarive Due’s The Reformatory.

Robert Stephens held his breath and counted to three, hoping to see Mama.

Some mornings his nose tickled with a trace of talcum powder or Madam C. J. Walker’s Glossine hair grease, and he felt…something hovering over him, watching him sleep. His groggy brain would think…Mama? If he gasped or sat up too quickly, or even wiped the sleep from his eyes, it was gone like a dream. But sometimes, when the June daylight charged early through the thin curtain and broke the darkness, movement glided across the red glow of his closed eyelids like someone walking past his bed. He felt no gentle kisses or fingertips brushing his forehead. No whispers of assurances and motherly love. Nothing like what people said ghosts were supposed to be, much less your dead mama. That morning he was patient, counting the way he’d practiced–one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand–and slitted his eyes open.

A woman’s shadow passed outside of the window above him, features appearing in the gaps between the sheets of tinfoil taped across the glass. In a white dress, maybe. Maybe. Moving fast, in a hurry.

“Mama?”

This book is a revelation. It is without question one of the most powerful books I’ve read in I don’t know how long.

I knew it was going to be a hard read, because I knew what the book was based on. I also don’t remember when I first became aware of the horrors of the notorious Dozier School for Boys in Florida, but it was a horror to be sure. I’ve read some novels based on that story (I loved Lori Roy’s The Disappearing) already, and so was familiar. Reading about enslavement and the Jim Crow South2 is inevitably a hard slog for me, and not just because of the white guilt it deservedly triggers; it just staggers me that in a country that supposedly is about equality and freedom such things could happen, be taken as normal, and changing the system is so violently opposed…a lot of racist Southerners see nothing wrong with that history and would like it to return, so these kinds of stories of American atrocities against its own citizens are incredibly important. The pen is indeed mightier than the sword, which is why repressive governments always go after journalists and writers; a well-told story that illustrates the injustice for the reader and humanizes it can change minds.

The Reformatory is about the Gracetown School for Boys and a young twelve year old Black boy who is sent there for absolutely nothing; an older white boy was sexualizing his older sister Gloria, and when young Robert stands up for her he gets a brutal shove, and he retaliates with a kick. Alas, the white boy’s father is wealthy and therefore powerful, and he wants this “uppity” behavior punished. In a joke trial that’s not even a trial, the corrupt racist judge sends Robert to the hell of the reformatory. Robert’s story doesn’t become about a search for his own justice, but the hell of surviving a place where boys die regularly but never of natural causes. Young Robbie has a gift, too–he can see ghosts–and there are a lot of ghosts there for him to navigate. Gloria’s story becomes about her desperate drive to get her brother out of there and correct the injustice. Their father was also a union organizer, and was falsely accused of raping and beating a white woman, so he fled north to Chicago. So, the boy in custody is also a pawn for the white power structure who really wants to get their hands on Robert Senior.

The warden, Haddock, is a sadistic predator who enjoys torturing and raping and murdering his charges. He also has a special need for young Robbie’s ghost seeing abilities, wanting to rid the campus of the ghosts of his victims. Due manages to make the horrors of that place absolutely real, with some of the most vivid and powerful images I’ve come across in a novel in years.

But the true horror of the book isn’t the ghosts at the school. The true horror is its horrific and realistic depiction of the Jim Crow south, and the lack of hope for change in the Black characters. It was about halfway through the book that I realized, as much as I was loving this book, that there was no happily ever after for Black people under Jim Crow, before civil rights. They might be able to escape a predicament, but there was no escape ever from the system.

Which is absolutely terrifying.

Definitely check this book out, and I am going to look for my next read from Due.

  1. Manifest destiny? I could write an entire book about that bullshit. ↩︎
  2. Someday I will dismantle To Kill a Mockingbird for the racist lie it is. ↩︎

Shake

Well, yesterday was a good day for one Gregalicious. I didn’t get as much done around the house as I would have preferred, but c’est la vie. I did have football games on all day, mostly as a break from monotonous silence, but I did get to see the Florida upset of Mississippi, and surprisingly enough, LSU beat Vanderbilt last night to stop their three game losing streak…but have to play Oklahoma next, who managed to not only upset Alabama last night but beat them pretty soundly. After the LSU game I caught the end of Auburn-Texas A&M, which Auburn finally won in quadruple overtime. What a crazy year this has been in the SEC, has it not? Now the winner of Texas-Texas A&M will play Georgia for the SEC title. #madness.

But one thing I remembered finally is that I usually read during games I don’t necessarily care about, and so I finished The Reformatory by Tananarive Due at last yesterday, and what a read it was. I’d say it’s one of the best books I’ve read in a very long time, and I read a lot of really good books, so that is really saying something. I’ve added Due to my list of “must-read” writers, and she has a substantial backlist I am looking forward to exploring. It took me a very long time to get through this book, because it was so powerful and the horror in it was so completely real, but more on that later. I am going to go out on a limb and call it a masterpiece for now, and encourage you to read it if you have not. Today I am going to start reading Lavender House by Lev AC Rosen, whom I’ve met and found delightful, and whose career I’ve been following avidly. I’ve yet to read one of his books, but I am very excited to read one of the most acclaimed queer mysteries of the last few years. I’m also kind of thrilled to be reading fiction again. Today I am also going to read a couple of short stories a friend sent me to read, and probably will do some writing, either short story, essay, or the book, today as well. I went to get the mail and made a grocery run yesterday, so I don’t have to do anything errand-like today, but I should probably make it to the gym later this morning. The weather has been wonderful, and one thing I am determined to do this year is drive around the city taking pictures of Christmas decorations. I definitely want to write a nice essay about Christmas this year, and the essay I worked on briefly yesterday, “Recovering Christian,” is one I started working on about twenty years ago. The lovely thing about Substack is I now have a place to post those essays, and share them with the world. I do have to make more of an effort to post content there at least once a week.

I do wonder if all the readers I picked up there during my ranting about homophobia post are expecting that kind of content all the time? I don’t know, but in some ways I am thinking that the Substack (also a place to publish short stories, too, if I so choose) is kind of a good place to write about my life, and explore issues of being a queer American writer, and my thoughts and opinions about systemic bigotry, and all the things I was miseducated about as a child. (American Mythology, hello?) That way it will live up to the name it shares with this blog, “Queer and Loathing in America.” I also want to write essays about my gay life, and the lessons I learned the hard way, as well as writing. I’ve been unpacking my past ever since Mom died–the first time I’ve ever allowed myself to look back–and while I am not sorry I never did this before, I am also learning a lot more about myself and why I do things and why I react the way I do and how much of my life was controlled/driven by anxiety. I was fine at the party the other night, but too many people in spaces still makes me uncomfortable and uneasy, but that’s okay. The claustrophobia might be anxiety related, or it may be entirely it’s own thing, but the primary difference was that there was no adrenaline spike or spiraling. I was able to relax, and kind of enjoy myself more.

And that is what I meant when I said I was pulling back from the crime community and centering myself. I want to focus on myself, on Paul, and our needs and what we need to do and handle and take care of, and I don’t want to do emotional labor for anyone else anymore. I’ve been watching a lot of Youtube and TikTok videos about cutting MAGA voters out of your life, or at the very least setting boundaries, and I saw one that really made a lot of sense to me: we don’t feel safe around them, but we don’t have to cut them out entirely, we just have to stop giving them emotional labor. Go get sympathy from another MAGA voter, since you’re all so empathetic and sympathetic to the concerns, fears and rights of other people. It’s why BlueSky has been flooded by Twitter trolls, now that the genius has killed that platform (but hey, let’s put him in charge of government!). They don’t enjoy talking to each other, so they have to “pwn the libs.” But they just get blocked, so they’re the ones who wind up in a echo chamber. Hell, I block people who annoy me. It’s my space, my experience, and if I don’t want the aggravation of annoying people or giving them time or energy, well…no one can make me engage with people who steal my peace.

I also don’t think people understand how casual homophobia, so easy for straight people to slip into with their excessive privilege, makes us feel when we hear it or hear about it or (in some cases) read about it in screen shots. Not only do we no longer feel safe around you, we can’t count on you to stand up for us when the chips are literally down. There’s been some slightly viral conversation about some Jewish lesbian who voted for Trump and has been cut off from her friends and kicked off a team. “I wouldn’t do this to someone who voted for Harris,” she cries her crocodile tears, as she sits down with right-wing podcasters and plays victim and martyr. She voted for Trump because of pro-Palestine lefties…or so she claims. So she aligned herself with someone who actually had dinner with a Nazi, and has been embraced by American Nazis. Who ally themselves with the Proud Boys and other ant-Semites (who precisely are the voters who chant “Jew will not replace us” again?), and now wants everyone to feel sorry for her and pretends ignorance. Sorry not sorry, bitch–your new buddies and the Karens posting on your instagram talking about how horrible it is that queers actually can see this quisling bitch for who she is? Those bitches will be the first ones to turn you into the SS, moron. It’s especially egregious because my education in feminism and social justice was at the hands of lesbians; I’ve always thought lesbians, of all people, would know better than this bullshit. And this bitch is talking about “how we all need to have these tough conversations”–no, we don’t, honey. The time for tough conversations was before the election, and trust me, there’s not a single tough conversation I could possibly have where I’d be willing to come to an agreement or compromise with people who cheered the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 80s and 90s. You don’t compromise with the Klan. You don’t compromise with Nazis. You don’t compromise with people who’s starting position is “you don’t deserve any rights, and you really shouldn’t exist.”

Feel free to pound your head into that wall until it’s pulp, Benedictine Arnold. Enjoy the lonely life of celibacy you’ve set up for yourself.

The funniest thing about her is she is a butch lesbian–short hair, masculine clothes, the whole ball of wax–and you know she is going to get challenged going into the ladies’ bathroom or changing room.

Good. Enjoy what you voted for. I have no patience with queer remoras attaching themselves to the sharks circling the rest of us. I certainly have no forgiveness in my heart for the future informers and camp guards. She showed us who she is, and we believe her.

And on that note, I am going to head over to my chair to read for a bit before I get to work around here. I slept really well again last night, and feel pretty good this morning. I also want to work on my review of The Reformatory, and get some other things done. Have a great Sunday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later on.

Blowin’ in the Wind

Wednesday morning and the middle of the week! We’ve made it this far, Constant Reader, even though this week hasn’t quite gone the way I would have liked.

The decision to limit social media consumption isn’t going as well this week as I would have liked; I hadn’t anticipated the pull of my phone while I am at work. And getting home from work every night this week, after I finish whatever I need to do (errands and so forth) I’ve repaired to my easy chair and watched some “MAGA voter regrets” videos on Youtube before my eyes started to glaze over and I kind of zoned out for the rest of the night. I don’t like the part of me that enjoys their pain; it is not my instinct to default for sympathy for people who want to harm everyone else. You can never go wrong not having any faith in the decency of the majority of Americans, because they have no decency or shame.1

But, I am not going to be hard on myself. I am trying, at long last, to break all the programming/grooming that I don’t deserve anything or even a writing career. I am going to keep writing–make no mistake about that–and i have to figure out ways to market them and get the word out there. Going to mystery conferences was clearly a mistake; why bother pitching readers on books that are not in the booksellers’ room2? I finally got resigned to them never having my books–or only one copy–and hoped people would possibly enjoy listening to me on panels and maybe take a chance; and now I am wondering if my presence also gaslit queer writers into feeling safe at conferences? I guess that will be on my conscience till the day I die. (Ironically, the substack posts about homophobia get way more than ten times the views that my other essays get, which means one of two things, or both. I was either wrong about scaring people off by being honest about how much it sucks to be queer in this modern time, or people enjoy reading about queer pain. I don’t think I want to know which one is right, to be honest, or even consider that the two are linked.)

But what I need to do is get back to writing my books and stories; I need to put all this shit aside and focus on my work. I was able to get through the first forty-two years of my life with my sexuality and my love life against the law in every one of the fifty states (and the territories! Can’t forget those bigots either!). I lived through the Reagan administration and the George W. Bush years, both of which callously didn’t care whether we lived or died (in fairness, Reagan and his people thought AIDS was an excellent way to get rid of us). My country was willing to let us all die. Remind me again why I should be a patriot, or a conservative? All our equality movement did was make people realize if they were openly homophobic, some people they cared about would think they were bad people.

And I’ll keep writing about the bad shit, of course. It won’t change any hearts or minds, of course, but I need to get that poison (and anger) out of my system before it festers and makes me as bad a person as everyone else is. I don’t want to be a bad person. I don’t want to give into the darkness; I don’t want to feel bitter about the crime fiction community. I know I have friends, actual friends, in this community, and I do cherish them because they love and support me. But I need to stop thinking well of people who I’ve met and have been nice to me because I always forget the vast majority of people default to polite when confronted with someone/something they are revolted by. I don’t think most straight people realize what it’s like to be viewed with revulsion, like you’re some disgusting thing, some abomination. But it’s also much easier to go through life assuming people aren’t bigots until proven otherwise. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be someone we’ve racialized as a society. I kind of get it, but am still white privileged so will never understand completely; even my imagination is too limited.

The good news is a federal judge struck down Louisiana’s Ten Commandments in Every Classroom law as unconstitutional, but an immune from prosecution or consequence executive order from the White House will overrule that. And this Supreme Court already is on its back with their legs up in the air and their ass lubed, ready for some serious Constitution fucking. The Federalist Society is about to get their wishlist for the country for Christmas, isn’t that great? I, for one, look forward to not paying income taxes to educate other people’s children anymore. Wonder how my MAGA nieces and nephews are going to educate their kids, but hey–they voted for it.

I’m so tired of being ignored like Cassandra on the walls of Troy.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great day. Constant Reader, and we will soon be returning to our regular content. I’ll go back to ignoring the slings and arrows of “allies” and enemies, like a good little gay, back in his corner–and no worries, folks. I wouldn’t go to a conference even if they asked me to be a special guest–and that is never going to happen anyway. Not as long as a straight white man has written a first novel, anyway.

  1. And even as this administration destroys their lives, the government-controlled media will help convince them it’s someone else’s fault, because it always is. Is anyone ever surprised about how horrible people after all the genocides? The gleeful bigotry and the embrace of hatred? ↩︎
  2. This is something I left out of my Substack essay yesterday about homophobic booksellers: they are also never to be criticized, no matter how bigoted and horrible they are. “They work so hard on conferences,” is always the response, “you can’t even question their bigotry.” If you want to read it, this link should take you there. ↩︎

Cool Water

It was lovely getting back into reading last week, and it’s amazing to me how I will just wave off doing things I enjoy; it’s more apparent now than ever that one of the things I need to do is schedule reading time for every week. I am very behind on my reading (always have been) and have been relatively successful at limiting my book purchases this year until I’ve made some more significant progress is working down the TBR pile. I didn’t read as much horror in October as I would have liked, so I was determined to read some more this past week, at least the ones I had planned.

And I am really glad I took The Chill with me to read on the trip.

Molly packed a black silk bag that could be worn as a hood, because she did not want her eyes to open again until she was back in Galesburg.

The bag was soft and lovely but it was also thick and dark, a stronger shield than the burlap sack or simple white pillowcase that she’d considered. And a kinder shield than the black garbage bag.

She put the silk bag inside her purse beside the pools of heavy saltwater fishing line and the long stainless steel hooks. The iron chains and padlock were already hidden on the bluff above the lake.

I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of towns being flooded when dams are built to create reservoirs; Lake Lanier in Georgia is one of those places, and it seems like several times of year that lake claims victims, in vengeance for a black town that was destroyed because hey, who cares what Black people own when white people want the land, right? I’ve always had an amorphous idea about writing such a book, but was never really sure how to go about structuring such a novel. I digress.

Anyway, I was pretty excited when I realized that was what this book was about. I am big fan of his writing under both Carson and his actual name; I’ve loved everything he’s written that I’ve read and think he’s probably one of the greatest crime/horror writers that we have today. He is such a literate writer, and I love that he doesn’t mind writing about supernatural events in crime thrillers, really. God, he is so good.

Galesburg was such a town in upstate New York, flooded and abandoned when the Chilewaukee dam was built to create Lake Chilewaukee; known as The Chill to local residents. But the reservoir, intended to be part of the water system delivering water to new York City, was never connected to the rest of the system. The story was that the kind of rock in the mountain they’d have to tunnel through to make the connection wasn’t the right kind of rock for tunneling through and therefore that plan was abandoned (one of the things I really loved about this book was all the research Carson did on New York’s water system, and the engineering marvels created to do so).

The book centers on a few main characters; a reservoir police officer, the local sheriff, and the local sheriff’s ne’er-do-well son, whom he loves but is losing patience with. The book opens with him heading to the jail to bail out his son, arrested for his latest drug and alcohol binge. The son feels like a loser that his father doesn’t love or understand; he spent his entire life dreaming of being a Coast Guard rescue swimmer, but was dishonorably discharged and his been adrift ever since returning home. He doesn’t have a job, doesn’t cre about anyone or anything, and is on a downward spiral that easily could end with his own death–being older now, I can see the father’s side of it, even as a child who always felt he was never believed about anything and was always at fault; but I can also see that, as a man of his generation, he has no idea how to talk to his son and get him to open up about what young Aaron feels is the waste of his life; but worry and concern often interferes with getting your point across with love and compassion when you’re feeling frustrated.

The other two characters are a father and daughter; the daughter being the afore-mentioned reservoir cop. The father, Deshawn, actually works for the city of New York on digging a third water tunnel for New York, so that the others can be taken out of service and repaired for the first time in over a hundred years. His daughter, Gillian, was born out of a summer relationship he had up there in Torrance; he got spooked eventually, and while he supported her, he never visited or had her come visit. After her mother’s death, her grandmother raised her until she sacrifices herself in the opening chapter; why, we don’t know. Deshawn brought Gillian to New York and raised her; they love each other and are very close. Gillian took the job up there because of her own confusion about her past and this strange pull she has toward the lake that submerged Galesburg…which is where her mother’s family originally were from.

I also appreciated all the information about the water system and the engineering marvels that made it all possible; my dad was an engineer, and the work they do is amazing and often unsung; we take their achievements for granted and never think about them.

The book is also paced like a runaway train. I stayed up till two in the morning to finish it, and it was marvelous. Check it out; you won’t be sorry. And check out his other work as well.

Winds of Change

It was weird reading Gabino Iglesias’ latest, House of Bone and Rain, for any number of reasons that had nothing to do with the quality of the book. I was reading it when that “comedian” called Puerto Rico “a floating pile of garbage” (not that it mattered); while writing my own book, also set during a hurricane; and was thinking about writing another supernatural thriller about teenagers. This book is set in Puerto Rico before, during, and after a hurricane, and the main characters are teenagers. Serendipity? Synchronicity? An interesting series of events? I’m not sure if it’s anything other than a lovely coincidence, but there it is. I also really loved Gabino’s previous novel, the award-winning and critically acclaimed The Devil Takes You Home, which was exceptional, and had my appetite whetted for a follow up.

It says a lot about an author so good they make me overlook things I generally don’t like to read about–machismo, violence–because they are able to turn those things into art.

The last day of classes, our last day as high school students, marked a new era for us. We wanted it. we feared it. We had plans for it. Then Bimbo’s mom hit the sidewalk with two bullet holes in her face, and the blood drowned out all those plans.

Bimbo called to tell us the day after it happened. His real name was Andrés, but we mostly called him Bimbo because he was brown and chubby and looked like the mascot bear of a brand of cookies. It’s normal for people to report the death of a parent. Old age. Cancer. A heart attack. Whatever. Old people die and we expect it, accept it even. It’s normal. Murder is different. Murder is a monster that chews up whatever expectations you had regarding death and spits them in your face. Murder is an attack on someone’s life, yes, but also an attack on those left behind.

When Bimbo called to tell me about the death of his mother, María, I felt attacked. “They shot my mom, man.” Five words about the recent past that were heavy enough to crush out future.

It says a lot about an author so good they make me overlook things I generally don’t like to read about–machismo, violence–because they are able to turn those things into art. I generally don’t like to read about extreme violence, with bones crunching, blood spurting, and teeth flying. Because I do actually abhor the use of violence1, it’s very hard for me to relate to characters who turn to violence for whatever reason; it’s not easy to ever make me think yes, this is the right path. Violence and rage are very dark places to go, and while I completely understand embracing your rage, I will vent it a bit so it calms down before I go there. But Iglesias is the kind of writer who can pull a squeamish reader along the path of male rage and violence, which is emotion-driven rather than logical.

The book centers a group of five young friends who have just graduated from high school, and the brotherhood they develop by uniting as a group and fighting off everyone else; it’s very Three Musketeers-like; “anyone fucks with one of us, they fuck with all of us.” Iglesias also provides enough back story to make each character an individual–not easy to do with so many characters–as well as the group dynamic and why, despite any internal squabbling, they always try to present a united front on this dark odyssey of revenge and violence. Gabe, our narrator, is kind of at loose ends at the opening of the book and not knowing what he wants to do with his life. He has a girlfriend he genuinely cares about and wants to build a life with, who wants to move to the mainland and go to nursing school–and wants him to come with…but his own ties to Puerto Rico, including his mother, make it hard for him to make the choice. What if he does and it doesn’t work out? What will he do then? He is transitioning from callow youth into manhood at far too young an age, but…that’s what life is like for people living under colonization.2

Gabe is also the conscience of the story–if there can actually be one. He goes along with his brothers to get revenge for Bimbo’s mother’s murder, which puts them afoul of a drug cartel (seriously, who sets out to kill the head of a murderous criminal cartel?), but there’s also something else going on…there’s some supernatural elements involved with the cartel as well that either could just be gossipy stories to scare people into obedience, or might just be real.

The book barrels along at an excellent pace–the length of time it took for me to get through it had nothing to do with the quality; I was trying to savor it because I was enjoying the voice and the writing so much. It’s also very vivid and real; Iglesias writes in such a way that puts you right there in the room with the characters–and always, there’s this foreboding sense that time is running out for the boys, and not all of them may make it to the end.

An excellent mash-up of horror, crime, and noir stylings, I have to say this is terrific, so check it out.

  1. Ain’t going to lie, there’s a part of my brain that does think that those who commit violence should get it back, repeatedly and far worse, than they dealt. ↩︎
  2. After the Puerto Rico garbage insult, people thought Puerto Rico should become a state; which I found amusing. No, they should be granted their independence from their final colonizers and paid reparations. Who says statehood in a racist country is desirable for them? ↩︎

I’m Henry the Eighth, I Am

Yeah, I’ve been big on the Tudors for most of my life–first the Virgin Queen, and then her father, Henry VIII and his many wives1, and eventually the entire family (Henry VIII’s sister Margaret was a pistol–and it is her descendants who sit on the throne today, not Henry’s). As I got older, I became more interested in the century as a whole, and eventually I moved on from the Tudors to the Stuarts, who I find much more interesting. I still love the Tudors, and will watch documentaries and films, but won’t read any more books about them, especially because I’ve not really scratched more than the surface with the Stuarts, and I want to read more about the Tudors’ French contemporaries, the House of Valois. (Yes, I loved The Tudors, because it was more of a Renaissance version of Dynasty; I don’t watch historical films and expect accuracy2, and if you are, wake the fuck up. Book adaptations are never the same as the book, either. It’s entertainment, not a fucking documentary.)

Speaking of entertainment, I finally gave up on Jon Stewart with his defense of the indefensible. His joining in on the media’s decision to badger and hound Joe Biden–one of the most successful presidents of all fucking time–out of the race? None of that, not one bit of that, was actual concern; they all were giving (and continued, until recently) Shady Marmalade a pass on his obvious mental decline…and Jon’s decision to defend the indefensible “because comedian”? Fuck off and die, you arrogant rich white cisgender piece of shit. I’ll never watch him again, so congrats on that year contract extension, Comedy Central. You thought calling Puerto Rico a floating pile of garbage was funny? You thought comparing Travis Kelce to OJ, implying he’ll murder Taylor Swift, was funny? And on and on and on. Straight white male comedians will always circle the wagons for another comedian with a penis, but when a woman comedian (see: Kathy Griffin) is being attacked, not a fucking word? So he’s a misogynist, too. I’m not telling you what to do, Constant Reader, but Jon Stewart is dead to me, now and forever. And don’t even get me started on the 49ers and Nick the Traitor Bosa. Talk about pussy. Someone got slapped down by management when he hit the locker room and before he talked to the press, and like a good little beta soyboy, he caved and sulked like the pathetic emotionally-and-intellectually stunted bitch he is. He’s not being punished because when asked he shut his fucking mouth, which is the other primary difference between him and a true hero, Colin Kaepernick (besides the obvious “white man gets away with shit a Black man never could” racism).

And really, 49ers managers and coaching staff? Your team represents San Francisco, the most tolerant city in the country. Trade him to Dallas, where he belongs.

Thank God I am on anxiety medications. If not, I probably wouldn’t have slept at all since June. But the medications and my personal ban on legacy media companies who are garbage and untrustworthy has helped a lot with my election anxiety, and refusing to engage with the trash on-line (block, block, block) I’ve managed to take good care of my own mental health this time around. I refuse to worry about what will happen if he wins, or if he loses and they try another violent coup; I do, every once in a while, think you always wondered what it was like to be a Berliner in 1933…and I didn’t really need to get an answer to that question, you know?

I feel good this morning yet again; I’ve been sleeping well every night this week and it’s been really nice. I did my errands last night, got home and got started on the dishes and did some other clean-up around here. Paul didn’t get home until late, so I mostly went down Youtube idle curiosity research holes. I also managed to get the Scotty Bible’s first draft finished; it’s just raw information for now that I have to reorganize and pull together. I am also realizing, as I mentioned yesterday, that I should do a concordance of everything I’ve written by place; Kansas, California, New Orleans, Louisiana, Florida, and Alabama. That’s the problem of having characters cross over from stand-alones to the series and back again, you know? I was realizing that the lawyer the boys hire in Royal Street Reveillon doesn’t have as much information in the Scotty series about him as I would have thought…only to remember that Loren McKeithen has a much larger role in the Chanse series than the Scotty. Oops!

I also realized last night, as I watched news clips and documentaries about the Civil War, that with my anxiety gone I no longer feel the need to belittle and dismiss things I’ve accomplished in this wild and crazy career of mine. I’ve written a shit ton of books, short stories, and blog posts–and when I think about all the queer papers and magazines that I’ve written for over the years, yes, my output has been a bit prodigious. It wasn’t false humility (though I am often horrified at how easy it is to slip into egomania, and always over-correct once I catch myself); I honestly still thought I wasn’t very good at what I do. I always compare myself to other writers and come up wanting; but it’s really not a competition of any kind; I appreciate great writers who produce great work, and my work is different from theirs. I always strive to be better, to get better, and not stagnate–the problem that creates is it extrapolates to I could have done that better and dismissing it. Those are the kind of brain landmines I need to watch for, and avoid whenever possible. I’m proud of all my work, for the record. Sure, going through the old Scotty books was always difficult (I always edit it another time as I’m reading it) but doing it for the Bible, where I’m just looking for information, was different. Sure, there were some clunky things I could have said better, but overall, I was actually a little surprised to see how good–and clever–the books actually are. It also reminded me of how I used to write the first ones, what I have always tried to do in my work–whether anyone notices or not. (Someone once emailed me after reading one of my books and said, “Did you deliberately do this?” and delighted, I wrote back “Absolutely!” That was a big thrill for me.)

And I am proud of my work. I overcame so many obstacles to build this career, and I am pleased with myself, too. My books are pretty good–yes, there will always be a few where I think, God I wish I could give that one more pass, but even those are pretty good. There are some I am more pleased with than others; yes, I have favorite children. But that doesn’t mean that I am not pleased with all of them. How many people told me along the way that this would never happen for me, that I didn’t have what it takes, or that I have no ability at all? Maybe, maybe not–but if that’s what you think, how many books have you published? How many awards have you been nominated for, or won?

I really wish I’d known it was anxiety much sooner.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again, perhaps later!

  1. I love that historians count all of the women he married as his wives; although technically the first two were actually annulled, so the marriages were never, at least legally, valid. ↩︎
  2. I totally understand why films and television shows based on history have to make changes; the actual stories don’t play out perfectly for different media and thus must be adapted. I do ↩︎

I Know a Place

Saturday morning in the Lost Apartment and all is well. I slept incredibly last night. I woke up at seven and stayed in bed relaxing in a half-sleep for another hour or so, and finally got up when Sparky woke up and decided he was hungry. He was delayed this morning–and was very calm and cuddly and sleepy yesterday–because of the vaccines he got yesterday, as well as the shock to his system of leaving the apartment. He likes his carrier–he’ll go in there on his own, and Paul often tells him to go get in the crate when he’s having Big Kitten Energy, which he does–but he finally started meowing yesterday when we took him outside in the crate. He’s never meowed before, only chirped, which worried me a bit…but now he’s done it so I guess he only meows when he’s unhappy. His nails were trimmed (which he also didn’t like this time), but we brought him home to be a sleepy, cuddly sweet kitty for the rest of the night. We also went to Costco yesterday, which was nice and a little tiring. We watched Skate America last night (ladies and pairs short programs) and of course, today is a football all day kind of day. LSU plays at Arkansas tonight, and of course Alabama-Tennessee is this afternoon’s game. I am going to take books to the library sale this morning and go to the grocery store today before I come home to watch games for the rest of the day. There’s also some cleaning I can do around here this morning, too. Yippee!

I’m also going to read some more of Gabino’s book this morning; I read some while Sparky and Paul were with the vet yesterday and I just love the way he writes, in this interesting combination of Jim Thompson crossed with some John D. MacDonald but heavily flavored and filtered through his own remarkable talent in a unique voice that is entirely his own. It’s very rare to come across a writer with a voice and style so strikingly original, and the pacing is ethereal but also fast at the same time. I loved his last book, and I am absolutely loving this own. Next weekend I’ll be heading up to Kentucky to see Dad for about a week, so I can listen to another horror novel in the car (maybe Shadowland by Peter Straub, which I’ve not read before. I can take the paperback with me if the audio book is too long for a twelve hour drive; I actually just went to Audible and got Nick Cutter’s The Troop, and saw that I had a Riley Sager already downloaded, so that’s the trip up and back sorted. I also got the Straub), and I can take some horror with me to read. I’ll make shrimp tempura for dinner tonight, and am kind of torn about making chili or not tomorrow, but will probably go ahead and do so; I may even make it over night so tomorrow morning I can just get up and put it in the refrigerator. That’ll sort my lunches for the week, methinks.

I also managed to get the majority of the dishes done yesterday, no small feat I might add. That’ll teach me to be lazy when I get home from work every day, won’t it? It seemed endless, and I was also doing the bed linens at the same time as well as unpacking Costco and putting everything away; the living room is, even now, filled with empty boxes that need to go out this morning. I need to revise that short story and start working on another one for the Bouchercon anthology open call; I picked out the story just have to finish it now, which is also no easy chore. But today is an official day off from everything other than relaxation, reading and some cleaning around the house. I’ll try to reread the story I’ve selected; I just need to remember to channel my rage at developments in the neighborhood and on my street–this is one of the reasons I love being a writer, petty revenge on people who’ll never even know they inspired me to kill them in fiction–and retrieve that voice from deep inside my head. I think one of the problems I’ve had with some of the stories I’ve been writing lately is I’ve been too lazy to write about people the way they really are, instead of an idealized character who is logical and rational and then simply snaps. It’s that breakdown of going from law-abiding to murderous that I live to explore–it worked really well in “Neighborhood Alert”–but in some of the noirish stories I’ve been trying to write and sell since the pandemic they come across as too cheerful; bitterness and rage is what drives my stories, and the tone and voice need to reflect that.

Tone and voice are key to whether your story works or not.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later. GEAUX TIGERS!

Screenshot

Game of Love

Thursday morning and I forgot to set my alarm last night; oh my! Bad Gregalicious; bad Gregalicious! I did run my errands last night after I got off work, but by the time I got home I was more tired than I expected. I intended to do the dishes at the very least, if nothing else, and sure enough, I sat down in my chair to catch up on the news and let Sparky treat me like prey (my entire body is covered in scabs), but relaxed so deeply that when Paul came downstairs–he was home and I didn’t know it–to watch some television, I was all fuck it and blew everything off. We watched this week’s English Teacher, which isn’t as funny as it initially was? Paul agreed with me, so it’s not just me being hypercritical of a show with a gay male lead–which is always my fear. The representation is great, but I am not sure if I’m missing something, or if it is the show itself. Something for me to think about, I guess, in greater length once the season is over and we can reflect on it as a whole, rather than just as individual episodes. It’s a very fine line–you don’t want to idealize a marginalized character, but at the same time the series lead has to be likable and relatable; which is a problem because you run the risk of castrating him–and this character has a MUCH healthier sex-life than Will Truman ever had in all those many seasons of Will and Grace. we also watched an episode of American Horror Stories, which was creepy and disturbing, but at least it was interesting. The show reminds me of the great old anthology shows, like Tales from the Crypt and Night Gallery1, and yes, some episodes are better than others.

So tonight, obviously, I need to write some and clean up the house before my work-at-home day tomorrow. I know we’re planning on a Costco run, so I am going to need to do some serious work on the apartment to get ready for that. I also need to finish the desk chair, which is sitting, unassembled, in front of the fireplace–and there are any number of things in the living room that need to be gotten rid of. I have to take the boxes of books to the library sale Saturday; and I also need to start boxing up the books in the kitchen cupboards and moving them up to the attic, which also needs to be cleaned out. I need to work on the book this weekend, and maybe do some serious decision-making; I also need to work on polishing that short story and revising/finishing another by the end of the month. I feel a bit out of it this morning–the oversleeping didn’t help matters much by throwing off my daily rhythm, but I was wide awake when I got up finally, and I managed to not forget anything on my way out of the house. This should be a relatively easy and uneventful day at the office, and my supervisor will be back on Monday, thank you Jesus and pass the ammunition.

Wish me luck on all of that, please. I also need to make a to-do list for this weekend. There are some great football games on Saturday; LSU at Arkansas, Alabama at Tennessee, for starters. I’ll definitely need to run my Saturday morning errands early! I also need to read Gabino’s book; I hope I’m not giving the wrong impression–it’s nothing to do with the book, but more along the lines of being too tired to focus to read once I’ve done everything I’ve needed to get done every day. I am feeling better, getting more restful sleep, and I think I’ve adjusted to getting up early, little as I like to do so, but I always have that little rundown in the afternoon when I get overwhelmed with being tired…but it’s usually low blood sugar or something, because a snack will rev me back up again.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great Thursday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later. It’ll be a surprise!

  1. I remember watching Night Gallery as a child and loving it; I wasn’t able to catch reruns of The Twilight Zone until many years later; so to me, I always think Night Gallery when I think about Rod Serling, whose daughter I met and she was absolutely charming. ↩︎

zombie

Paul Tremblay has managed to turn himself into one of my favorite authors currently writing horror; I can’t think of a single novel of his that hasn’t been utterly fantastic, or that I haven’t enjoyed. He manages to make his characters absolutely real–with flaws and hang-ups; so much that sometimes you want to shake some sense into them–and the situations they find themselves in, while certainly horrific, are realistic. That, of course, is what makes the so horrible and terrifying; it’s easy to see yourself in his characters and stories. I also love his writing style; there’s something lyrical and poetic about his sentence construction and word choices, creating rhythms that make the words kind of sing in your head.

I wasn’t sure if I should, in that case, listen to one of his novels as an audiobook–would that musical sense of language carry over?

I needn’t have worried.

This is not a fairy tale. Certainly it is not one that has been sanitized, homogenized, or Disneyfied. bloodless in every possible sense of the word, beasts and human monsters defanged and claws clipped, the children safe and the children saved, the hard truths harvested from hard lives if not lost than obscured, and purposefully so.

Last night there was confusion as to whether turning off the lights was a recommendation or if it was a requirement in accordance with the government mandated curfew. After her husband, Paul, was asleep, Natalie relied on her cell phone’s flashlight in the bathroom as a guide instead of lighting a candle. She has been getting clumsier by the day and didn’t trust herself to casually carry fir through the house.

It’s quarter past 11 a.m. and yes, she is in the bathroom again. Before Paul left three hours ago, she joked she should set up a cot and an office in here. It’s first-floor window overlooks the semi-private backyard and the sun-bleached, needs-a-cost-of-stain picket fence. The grass is dead, having months prior surrendered to the withering heat of yet another record-breaking summer.

The heat will be blamed for the outbreak. There will be scores of other villains, some heroes too. It will be years before the virus’ full phylogenetic tree is mapped, and even then, there will continue to be doubters, naysayers, and the most cynical political opportunists. The truth will go unheeded by some, as it invariably does.

To wit, Natalie can’t stop reading the fourteen-day-old Facebook post on her town’s “Stoughton Enthusiasts” page. There are currently 2,312 comments. Natalie has read them all.

This was a book I didn’t want to read at the time of its release; and I am kind of glad I waited to get into it for a few years; while I was certainly reading a lot of plague fiction in the summer of 2020, when this book was released, the thought of reading something new about a plague whilst in the midst of one seemed–I don’t know, too real for me? The older stuff I revisited, both fiction and non, were things I had already read at some point in my life and therefore couldn’t be applied to the quarantine situation we were experiencing at that time. Of course, four years later, my own time-line is kind of fuzzy and off; it was a disorienting time, and it clearly broke the brains of a lot of people. Reading (listening) to the book four years later–without access of any kind to the pub date of the book, which I couldn’t remember in the car–I thought, wow, he really captured the insanity of the quarantine AND how people would react to it, so you can imagine my surprise to see it actually was written and already moving through the publishing pipeline for release before the pandemic began, which is frightening how eerily prescient Tremblay’s book actually is/was. (Although, imagining the right launching into conspiracy theories and blowing off quarantines and safety precautions and arming themselves–is it that prescient?)

The pandemic/plague in Tremblay’s book is a highly infectious, rapid onset variant of the rabies virus–so animals get it and become dangerous, and the infections can spread to humans. Once bitten or exposed, the human doesn’t have long before the virus takes over and leads, after a mad frenzy of attacking anyone or anything, to a painful death. Natalie and her husband Paul are coping with the quarantines, the breakdown in supply chains, the shortage of necessary supplies; a trip to the grocery store, never more than an hour to and from, including the shopping, can now take up to or more than four hours, as she is finding out that morning as she waits for him to come home. She’s in her ninth month of pregnancy, and that’s what she primarily focuses on, like most normal people do. Unfortunately shortly after Paul comes home, an infected man breaks into their house, kills Paul, and manages to bite her in the arm before she can finally kill him and escape. Natalie calls her best friend and college roommate–a doctor named Ramola–for help.

Ramola comes to pick up her friend, and the rest of the novel is the two women desperately trying to get to a hospital to try to get her treatment as well as a c-section to deliver the baby in case the treatments don’t work. It’s a race against time, and the suspense ratchets up to a unbearable level, as the two women–and everyone they encounter–encounter difficulties and roadblocks, not sure who they can trust and who they can’t, as they try to save both mother and child. Tremblay also takes the opportunity, whenever it arises, to chastise the anti-science movement in this country (which was saw in force that summer of 2020) for it’s radical views and beliefs that endanger everyone because of their own selfishness; again, was that prescience or simply the obvious conclusion to make? Even Ramola and Natalie, in their desperation, sometimes act in an incredibly selfish manner to achieve their own ends that makes me want to shake them both–which is another terrific insight on human behavior; we will always put our own individual needs ahead of the abstract “group” needs.1

It’s a very good book, and like the best fiction, it make me think. A lot, not just about American privilege and selfishness, but about dystopian fiction and disaster-type novels like this–which will inevitably become a Substack essay at some point.

Definitely recommended.

  1. This is something that often irritates me in these types of novels; leaders in these books will inevitably always put their own selfish needs ahead of those of the group (looking at you, Cell). ↩︎