Side Quest: Every Book I Read in my 29th Year part 5

More books I read in my 29th year

Pigs in Heaven by Barabara Kingsolver

Where I got it: Westsider 

Pigs in Heaven is the sequel to The Bean Trees, Kingsolver’s debut novel and one of my favorite pieces of fiction ever written. While the ending of The Bean Trees feels perfect with young Cherokee girl Turtle adopted by protagonist Taylor Greer, Kingsolver undoes that pretty package to explore the politics and painful history of adoption of indigenous kids by white families. I loved that this story had no villain— I sympathized deeply with Taylor’s struggle to keep her child and with Cherokee lawyer Annawake Fourkiller’s need to right the wrongs committed against her community and her family. The characters in this book are richly written, idiosyncratic and vibrant. My favorite new addition was avant garde musician Jax, whose zen-like outlook contrasts hilariously with the upheaval around him. The story ranges from hilarious to harrowing but like every Kingsolver story, the threads converge on a perfect ending.

Come Over Come Over by Lynda Barry

Where I got it: the good ol’ NYPL

My love for Lynda Barry continued with Come Over, Come Over, the tale of Maybonne and Marlys Mullen. This collection of black and white strips from the 1990s covers all kinds of terrible things that happen to adolescents, from social isolation to sexual abuse. Throughout it all Barry maintains a humor and compassion that captures the emotional essence of the teenage years. This book contains “Sneaking Out,” a longer Barry story originally published in the legendary Raw magazine, which is even more devastating in context. 

Night Squad by David Goodis

Where I got it: one of those lil free libraries (the Lincoln Center one) 

I grabbed this book looking for a classic hard boiled detective read and this was exactly what I ordered. From the first few pages which describe The Swamp, the rundown slum where rats crawl into cribs and bite babies of mothers too drunk to notice, I knew I was in for a ride. This is the pulpiest of pulp. Disgraced corrupt cop Cory Bradford gets involved with shady gangster Grogan, and throughout the book doesn’t leave a single building without some thug of some faction trying to kill him. He drinks, he shoots, he slugs, he flirts with dangerous beautiful ladies, and ultimately earns his place on the Night Squad, the junkyard dogs of the Philadelphia police squad. Readers beware— betrayal lurks around every corner!

Spock Must Die by James Blish

Where I got it: Topos

Keeping the pulp train rolling, I read Spock Must Die, one of the original batch of Star Trek novelizations from the 1960s. This is the first Trek novel to feature an original story not seen in the series… but this feels exactly like an episode of original Trek. We’ve got a two Spock situation here! Some cosmic stuff happens and we have to find out why we have two Spocks, which of the two Spocks is the evil Spock, and how to unSpock the evil Spock. There’s also some drama with the Klingons, the Organians, and uh, tachyons.

NSFW by Isabel Kaplan

Where I got it: borrowed from Marissa

NSFW is a book of the #metoo era, it’s fictionalized characters borrowing details from real life villains like Les Moonves and Matt Lauer. Our unnamed narrator endures harassing co-workers, a dehumanizing job at corporate XBC, and a toxic relationship with her mother, all while battling her own deep insecurities. This book reminded me a lot of the work of Sally Rooney or Ottessa Mosfegh, but didn’t quite go as far. I felt the author Kaplan being torn between making her main character likable or completely swallowed by her neuroses, landing in unsatisfying middle ground. The plot itself seems to straddle middle ground as well, with an ambiguous ending that cuts off just before the main character either chooses to break the cycle or side with the hypocritical elites who have given her her position of privilege. 

The Sick Bag Song by Nick Cave

Where I got it: Mercer Street Books

I’ve long loved Nick Cave as a musician, but this was my first foray into his poetry. Sick Bag Song is a journey, poems following a somewhat fictionalized version of Cave on a Bad Seeds tour across North America. This book isn’t sex, drugs, and rock and roll— it’s more like myths, memories, and musings. Over the course of this book Cave narrates his encounters in the hotels and highways of America with the same enchanting language he’s known for as a songwriter. He runs into Bryan Ferry, Bob Dylan, and a dying dragon. He calls his wife but she does not pick up. He gets dry cleaning and remembers ghost stories of childhood. Motifs emerge and converge as the story of the Sick Bag Song simmers to a stultifying crescendo.

Kindred the Graphic Novel Adaptation by Octavia Butler, Damian Duffy, and John Jennings 

Where I got it: Allie’s moving to MN book purge

Octavia Butler’s Kindred is back in the zeitgeist, with a new TV show and a renewed fandom thanks to Butler’s inclusion on every 2020 inspired Black authors to check out reading list. This 2018 graphic novel seems like the perfect opportunity to make this newly appointed classic accessible to younger readers… unfortunately, it’s not that great. The art is underwhelming both in terms of character design and visual storytelling. The plot itself remains captivating, but we lose a lot of the psychological nuance of Butler’s original prose. The original Kindred will blow minds for decades to come, but I’d recommend a do-over for this graphic novel version (Ben Passmore, you available??)

A Bad Idea I’m About to Do by Chris Gethard

Where I got it: Marissa’s house

Chris Gethard gets his David Sedaris on in this autobiographical short story collection from 2012. This book is charmingly deranged, filled with wacky characters from Gethard’s family and childhood. Gethard makes a lot of bad decisions, but he learns from them and has a good laugh. This book reminded me how much I loved Gethard’s tv show and Beautiful/Anonymous podcast. I had some big laughs (especially the tale of Geth’s experience getting a colonic). My only unfulfilled wish for this book was for Gethard to get more real into the substance and mental health challenges oft mentioned in his comedy. Gethard touched on his rage and insecurities, but never so deep that it can’t be wrapped up in 15 pages.

Maggie the Mechanic by Jaime Hernandez

Where I got it: the good ol NYPL

Love and Rockets is an iconic indie comic penned by Los Bros Hernandez since the 1980s. I’ve been long intimidated by decades worth of lore, but finally decided to take the dive with Maggie the Mechanic. This book collects the first era of Jaime’s half of Love and Rockets: the “Locas” storyline following Maggie, Hopey, and their community in the down and out punky LA exurb of Huerta, California. Punk rock meets sci-fi adventure in these stories, Maggie’s work as an assistant to pro-mechanic Rand Race bringing her to exotic corners of the earth— think Johnny Quest with more alcohol, sex appeal, and political intrigue. These stories contrast with more grounded shenanigans back in Hoppers, the direction Hernandez would eventually go with the series. Even in these early days, Hernandez’s art is precise and captivating, and his storytelling is emotionally honest and relatable. This is just the beginning of of a journey that’s still running today.

John Lennon in His Own Write by John Lennon

Where I got it: my grandma’s basement 

This book of John Lennon’s poetry from the early days of Beatlemania is basically unreadable gibberish.

The Girl from H.O.P.P.E.R.S. By Jaime Hernandez

Where I got it: Midtown Comics

The second volume of Jaime Hernandez’s “Locas” stories from Love and Rockets is where we begin to see what makes this series so magical. In this volume, Hernandez begins to shed the adventurer stories of Maggie, Rand Race, and legendary wrestler Rena Titanon for the slice of life tales of down and out Latinx punk rock kids and thugs in Hoppers. His already stellar art style tightens up even more into the refined style he’s known for today. This volume contains legendary Love and Rockets tale “The Death of Speedy Ortiz,” which inspired the name of one of my favorite bands from college.

Mirages: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anais Nin 1939-1947

Where I got it: The good ol’ NYPL

On a dreary January Sunday, I went to go see the film Henry and June at Anthology Film Archives, knowing nothing about the movie other than that it was playing at 4:30pm and I wasn’t ready to head back to Brooklyn yet. The movie completely enchanted me with its sexy, broody 90s version of 1930s Paris and the lives of Henry Miller & Anais Nin. I hit the library looking for Nin’s Henry and June book, but they only had Mirages so I dived in. This was my most challenging read of the year, both in terms of length (400 or so tiny fonted pages) and content. Nin moves to New York City to escape the Nazis. She has a lot of dubious sex and has a lot of big feelings. She breaks it off with Henry Miller and starts up with Gore Vidal, 20 years younger and also too gay to consummate their relationship. She hates America and calls everybody robots. I struggled with this book because I found Nin to be a great writer and a terrible person, perfectly crafting sentences to justify her often cruel behavior towards those around her.

In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination by Margaret Atwood

Where I got it: The good ol’ NYPL

I was excited to try out some non-fiction from one of my all time favorites Margaret Atwood. In this book Atwood takes time to reflect on the genre of science fiction (a label she’s had a tumultuous relationship with over the years), doing so with a lot of love and care. I especially loved her early essays dissecting the literary and cultural roots of comic book superheroes as well as classic genre tropes like utopia/dystopia and time travel. Atwood’s prose is as fluid as ever. The second half of the book is collections of previously published essays on various books and authors. I skipped some essays on books unfamiliar to me but really loved her writing on George Orwell and Ursula K. Leguin. The book ends with quick fictional vignettes inspired by the sci-fi tropes dissected early in the book, with humorous and thought provoking results.

I read a few more books than this! See you soon for the FINAL INSTALLMENT!