In John Madera’s debut fiction collection, Nervosities, heavy concepts—diaspora, transversalism, the over-saturated and over-stimulated post-industrialized world Herbert Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man could only have dreamed about—are woven by Madera into human stories with such subtle, virtuoso touches, that Nervosities becomes much more than an objet conceptual.
In our morning reading: a playlist from Lindsay Drager, an interview with Helen Garner, and more.
In our afternoon reading: book suggestions from Danez Smith, an interview with Ian Frazier, and more.
Chapter 34
The failed blood sibling episode was one of the first videos we ever took down.
It fell within our criteria of obscene. Although, it is a public discourtesy to obscure any information, so we had to do a shitload of covering our tracks to avoid any public outrage.
Only on special occasions and this was a very special occasion.
I Came Out to the Dirt
by William Swift
“Dear Grandad,” I told the dirt, “I am gay.” I sat in the yard, making up songs to my favorite tree. I didn’t understand death. What I did understand was that my grandparents had all died young. Therefore, I did not have any. Death, for me, was an abstract loss marking something others had and I had never possessed. I was not raised with religion; instead, I believed what I had heard somewhere along the way: when we die our bodies become dirt.
In our morning reading: thoughts on Rosie Schaap’s memoir, an interview with Joshua Chaplinsky, and more.
In our afternoon reading: Gabino Iglesias on Eric LaRocca’s new book, an interview with Sofia Samatar, and more.
Tobias Carroll’s fifth book, In the Sight, is a hip dystopian road novel. Farrier is the main character, and we follow his travels through roadside motels, eateries, gas stations, bars, retail locations, and secret reading rooms and societies across a futuristic American landscape. In the Sight was inspired by Destroyer’s 2002 album, This Night, and we trail after Farrier as he dispenses a mind-altering product which can change the trajectory of your life. A revision of life is what the product delivers. At first, I wondered if I was heading into Huxley’s Brave New World territory, or a new age reboot of Kerouac’s On the Road, but in a more nomadic picaresque journey. Rick Moody’s hilarious Hotels of North America even crossed my mind as well, early on, as I tried to figure out where Farrier was going and what he was aiming for in his journey. None of these truly fit what I found in this novel. We learn that Farrier and his friends Edwin Hollister, Lopez, and Erskine, all share a similar discontent about the lives they’re leading in university. Edwin names what they’re after: “Reincarnation…but without the death part.” The group experiments with DIY brain science alterations, which allow the recipient to begin a new life. Edwin partakes, revises himself, and sets off never to be heard from again, by Chapter 5. You wonder how many times Farrier has done the same.