The guiding principle of Six Ridiculous Questions is that life is filled with ridiculousness. And questions. That only by giving in to these truths may we hope to slip the surly bonds of reality and attain the higher consciousness we all crave. (Eh, not really, but it sounded good there for a minute.) It’s just. Who knows? The ridiculousness and question bits, I guess. Why six? Assonance, baby, assonance.
It’s March and we’re reading. What are we reading, you might ask? If this list is any indication, a good mix of debut novels and new work from longtime favorites. Throw a literary journal with a lot of intriguing names (and some Vol. 1 Brooklyn contributors) into the mix and you have a very promising month. Here are some of the books that have caught our eyes.
The work of Ursula Villarreal-Moura abounds with appealing qualities, from formal innovation to a penchant for reckoning with big ethical questions. Her debut novel Like Happiness tells the story of Tatum, a young woman who forms a connection with a writer she’s long admired — and later comes to question certain things she’d long taken for granted about that relationship. I talked with Villarreal-Moura about the genesis of that novel, writing about feeling at home, and finding the right structure to tell this story.
The title of Paula Whyman’s Bad Naturalist says a lot. It’s a memoir by a person bonded with plants and animals who wants to restore a meadow on recently acquired property in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. What could go wrong? Just about everything. What could go right? Just about everything. The book embraces “failure” with abundant, self-deprecating humor. Along the way, readers get an education in all kinds of natural phenomena, replete with strange facts and curious discoveries. Whyman weaves her personal story in with the history of the region, and the indigenous people whose footprints long preceded white settlers. Through tragedy, mishap, and triumph, Whyman covers the gamut in delightful prose. I caught up with her by email.
Billed by its publisher as a “a radical reinterpretation of the Loki myth,” Kurt Baumeister’s second novel Twilight of the Gods is a comic noir about a 21st century Ragnarok in a world where fascism is politically ascendant. The point of view belongs to the Norse god of mischief, rendered cleverly and affectionately by Baumeister as a devastatingly handsome pansexual Black man who sees his current incarnation as carrying implications for his adversarial relationship with top Norse god Odin, who turns out here to be friendly with Nazis, both historical and contemporary.
The guiding principle of Six Ridiculous Questions is that life is filled with ridiculousness. And questions. That only by giving in to these truths may we hope to slip the surly bonds of reality and attain the higher consciousness we all crave. (Eh, not really, but it sounded good there for a minute.) It’s just. Who knows? The ridiculousness and question bits, I guess. Why six? Assonance, baby, assonance.
I’ve known Kate Axelrod for ages now, and it’s been a pleasure to watch her evolve as a writer — as well as being able to publish her work in these pages. Her latest book, the collection How To Get Along Without Me, follows a group of people as they search for emotional connections and a better understanding of the world. It’s highly recommended, but don’t take my word for it: Axelrod’s collection was recently longlisted for The Story Prize as well. We chatted over email about the evolution of this collection and what it was like to put it all together.
This week, New York City’s Philippe Labaune Gallery opened a new show of art by comic book pioneer Will Eisner. We’re pleased to share images of some of the work of Eisner’s that visitors to the show can see; the show will be on view through March 8, 2025.