Cane River(2001) by Lalita Tademy

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Cane River (2001)

by Lalita Tademy

Cane River, Louisiana

Louisiana: 7/30

  Cane River is, geographically speaking, the westernmost title in this entire Chapter of the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America.  Louisiana is culturally distinct from Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi because of greater diversity among the population, notably an enfranchised, property owning and even slave holding elite that co-existed with whites throughout the 18th and 19th century.  "Elite" of course, is a relative term.  At one end of the spectrum there were the cosmopolitans of New Orleans. At the other end there are the families of Cane River, mixed race families with some limited advantages over the local white settlers, but without the protections of big city life.  Tademy lovingly depicts this precarious existence over several generations.

 I checked out this Audiobook because this book actually sounded interesting and it was, but it was still hard to take at times because of the wanton sexual violence that every African American seemingly experience in antebellum America and finds its way into any serious literary account of the time and place.

How the Word is Passed (2022) by Clint Smith

 Audiobook Review

How the Word is Passed (2022)

by Clint Smith

  I highly recommend the Monuments exhibit at MOCA-Geffen in Los Angeles- one of the best museums exhibits I've seen in the past decade.   This exhibit features several "decommissioned" Confederate War memorials (mostly from Baltimore) with companion pieces by contemporary artists.  While we were there, my partner mentioned this book, which I strangely was only barely aware of, despite immersing myself in the literature of the deep south for the past six months.  Smith's method is that of an essayist, each chapter takes him to a different location in the South where he takes a tour, talks to the people who work there and other tourists, and contrasts the opinions of those people with his own and gives it the perspective of his own research as a scholar of the period.

   Every chapter is interesting for different reasons.  Smith is an excellent writer and the entire experience reminded me of a Southern-US focused Teju Cole.  After seeing the exhibit and listening to the book, it's impossible to not see the connection between the two.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if  How the Word is Passed didn't directly inspire Monuments.  The basic thesis of both works is that southern whites have systematically perpetuated ideas that seek obscure and diminish the truths of the experience of slavery.  I love Monuments, and I loved this book, but at the same time it is hard to ignore (as Smith does) the fact that he himself embraces and embodies an academic tradition synonymous with "cultural relativism." 

  Throughout How the Word is Passed Smith performs an interesting double move that saturates the entire book and indeed many of the novels I've read as part of the 1,001 Novels Project which can be best described this way:

1.  Until the Civil Rights movement there was only a limited critique of the Antebellum South AND contemporary conditions in the south.

2.  The Civil Rights movement forced the abandonment/revision of overt, legally sanctioned racisms by the Governments of the South.

3.  The emergence of cultural relativism in American universities allowed scholar to go back and properly diagnose the earlier period and create a comprehensive critique of the Antebellum South and its universe of horrors.

  However, this third point can hardly be said to have penetrated into the hearts and minds of everyday people living in the south, and the idea that Smith can waltz into these places, and act surprised that educated and non-educated Southerners have different ideas is frequently risible.  It's preaching to the converted, is what I'm saying.  But as one of the converted, I found it this book very illuminating.

The Captive (2025) by Kit Burgoyne

 Audiobook Review

The Captive (2025)

by Kit Burgoyne

  Kit Burgoyne is the horror nom de plume for science fiction author Ned Beauman.  I read Beauman's 2022 novel, Venomous Lumpsucker back in 2023 and it inspired a pretty thorough review. Beauman remained in my mind as a solid example of a genre writer with literary fiction reach, so I was interested when I read that he'd launched a horror alter ego for his new novel, The Captive, which  has been described as, "A Rosemay's Baby for the late capitalism period."   In other words, he wrote an A24 movie.  So be it! I'll take an update on Rosemary's Baby any day of the week.  Within the horror genre, I am particularly interested in the detailed depiction of the craft and practice of horror-genre devil worshippers. Devil worship is such an interesting inversion of conventional religious practices, and I like to see how different authors depict the practices of the various versions.  

  Here, Burgoyne/Beauman links the devil to the UK equivalent of the GEO/Wackenhut group- a privately owned corporation that runs quasi-public institutions like prisons, jails and mental hospitals. As someone who visits privately run prisons on the regular, including immigration facilities, I can testify that Beauman's take is a little hysterical.  His merry band of anarchist-terrorists who put the plot into motion seem to have extremely fuzzy ideologies but are firmly committed to putting the plot into motion by concerted criminal action. 

  The Captive was a fun audiobook; I'd recommend it as a good format here.

  I'm thinking Jenny Ortega as the lead.

The Pretender (2025) by Jo Harkin

 Audiobook Review

The Pretender (2025)

by Jo Harkin

   The Pretender is a rare 2025 Audiobook listen, written by English author Jo Harkin, one of the cover quotes describes it as "Glorious Exploits meets Wolf Hall" and I agree. Specifically, I agree with the comparison to Glorious Exploits which brought some contemporary characterization into a historical milieu while still keeping things from getting anachronistic.  There's a pot of gold for any writer of literary or historical fiction who can pull off this trick- see the endless attempts by the film industry to recharacterize and repurpose novels from the early 19th century.  Clever stuff, recommended. 

Luminous (2025) by Silvia Park

 Book Review

Luminous (2025)

by Silvia Park

     2025 was a down year for literary fiction neither the race for the Booker nor the National Book Award interested me- I didn't even recognize the semi-finalsts for the National Book Award.  Luminous, by first time novelist Silvia Park, stood out to me this year as an excellent combination of genre (science fiction) and literary fiction themes.  Luminous moves in a couple different directions and handle all its issues in a way that isn't overly didactic or stereotyped.    Luminous is one of the first really vivid visualizations of what a post-human society might look like- here we have characters who are part robot, part human, humans who have familial relationships with robots and robots that definitely, definitely want to be human.  At times, the literary fiction element made me feel like I was reading a contemporary I, Robot as written by Virginia Woolf, but my take is always that a difficult to read novel is interesting in a way that an easy-to-read novel simply is not.

  I'd highly, highly recommend picking up a copy of Luminous if you can find it in a book shop.

Yonder Stands Your Orphan (2001) by Barry Hannah

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Yonder Stands Your Orphan (2001)

by Barry Hannah

Clinton, Mississippi

Mississippi: 2/18

  Both Mississippi and Alabama scored eighteen titles in the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America project.  That ties them for last place in this specific chapter, behind Florida, Louisiana and Georgia.  18 titles does put them both above the single digit states of the mid-Atlantic.  I've also moved away from the original 13 colonies of the Atlantic seaboard and into the first of the hinterlands that were settled (excepting those that lay within the original 13 colonies).  Here, the dynamic was first, the clearing out/removal of the Native tribes- most of whom were property holding and "civilized" within the usage of that term at the time.  Second, it was the cotton revolution which opened up huge swaths of Alabama and especially Mississippi for enormous, slave driven cotton plantations.   The need for slaves, exhaustion of the soil in the upper south from Tobacco farming and the ban on the importation of slaves from abroad drove a huge, forced population movement, as the slave holders of the Virginias and Carolinas sold their slaves "down the river" to work on the plantations of the newer south.

   Not that Yonder Stands Your Orphan, by moderately well-known southern author Barry Hannah, addresses any of that.   Instead, Orphan is a loosely assembled collection of eccentric and violent characters living around a lake.  It's not a great book- it was the author's last novel- but it, at least, interesting, and neither a work of chick-lit or a YA title.  I will say I've never read a book where so many people were sliced open by knives.

The Saints of Swallow Hill (2022) by Donna Everheart

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

The Saints of Swallow Hill (2022)

by Donna Everheart

Valdosta, Georgia

Georgia: 24/24

  I started the Georgia chapter of the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America back on April 15th of this year, meaning these twenty-four titles took over seven months to knock back.  The Saints of Swallow Hill is last because it's an Audiobook, and my time spent listening to Audiobooks is way, way down this year.  Also, I thought The Saints of Swallow Hill was mostly tedious, a depression-era work of historical fiction set on a Turpentine Farm in South Georgia.   One main character is a rootless jack-of-all-trades with a penchant for banging the wife of his immediate supervisor everywhere he goes.  The other is a childless widow who is forced to flee the Carolinas after a neighbor sees the immediate aftermath of her shotgun abetted mercy killing of her sick husband.   The plot is a conventional will they or won't they romance enlivened by the Southern Georgia swamp-forest setting- not an environment with which I am familiar.

  Looking through the 24 titles representing Georgia, a handful stand out- Flannery O'Connor and Carson McCullers, Tayari Jones and Honore Jeffers- all women.  The classics portion includes Cane and Gone With the Wind, which are both canon level American Lit.   Most of the "discoveries" were in the African American authored books- Appalache Red by Raymond Andrews was particularly memorable.   Bringing up the bottom, as always, the chick lit and YA titles.  Georgia is a solid mid-tier literary state- third in this chapter behind Florida and Louisiana, but if it had been in the prior grouping it probably would be a close second to Virginia, and maybe the number one state from that chapter.

Louisiana Lucky (2020) by Julie Pennell

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Louisiana Lucky (2020)

by Julie Pennell

445 East Main Street, New Iberia, Louisiana

Louisiana: 6/30

  A definite low point in my recent 1,001 Novels: A Library of America, I checked out the E-book from the library on vacation because it seemed like an easy job and indeed, I finished Louisiana Lucky in about an hour, mostly because I didn't read it very closely.  I try not to be a snob about my reading habits- this entire project is testament to my good intentions, but there is no denying that the three lottery winning sisters from this novel are some of the least interesting American's I've come across, and Julie Pennell is writing for an audience of suburban housewives- and not the interesting kind.

 The three sisters win a substantial lottery jackpot, rescuing them from lives among the lower bourgeois of this part of the world.  One sister spends the entire book upgrading her wedding from a ramshackle DIY affair to something worthy of a bridezilla episode.  Another sends her two kids to a snooty private school and suffers from a cold welcome.  The third- a respected local print (lol) journalist, takes advantage of her found fame to move to television journalism, which is a hard transition.   Louisiana Lucky is certain to be a bottom three title in this chapter of the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America project.

Show Review: Chappell Roan & Angie McMahon @ Corona Capital CDMX

 Show Review

 Chappell Roan & Angie McMahon

 @ Corona Capital CDMX

  I knew, after Chappell Roan drew 80,000 people to Pasadena and I didn't read a single complaint, that she was for real.  I'm not a Chappell Roan fan in the way I'm a Charli XCX fan- a topic which has gone unaddressed on this blog, but I, like everyone even tangentially aware of the market for popular music in America/UK/EU, have witnessed her rise in awe.  It's helped that Chappell shares a booking agent with Margo Price, so I've seen the Instagram stories and had conversations about it as it's been happening.  Surely, I would have gone to the Pasadena shows but my partner was travelling.  

  This was my first time in CDMX, and I'll spare readers the details.  Angie McMahon, who my partner manages, was on the bill and it was my partner's birthday week, so I was there.  The festival was top to bottom impressive, just as well run as anything in the United States.  The obvious comparison is with Coachella, if Coachella was the ONLY festival of its kind in the entire country.  The crowd was incredible- something I'd heard many times in the past but was witnessing for the first time.  Specifically, Angie McMahon, playing an early time slot that would have been a classic Coachella death trap, drew a respectably sized, rapturous crowd that left everyone feeling great. 

  After her set I caught some of Mogwai and half of the Alabama Shakes- a rare instance where insight gained from the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America project gave me a real-time boost of appreciation for a different artist.   We watched the Chappell Roan set from her "family" box- I had a view of her very appreciative Dad for most of the set.  I am here to say that the Chappell Roan live show is flat-out incredible, and watching it being well received by a Mexican audience that shares few, if any of the same cultural influences was nothing short of astonishing.   The two major comparison I heard first timers making afterwards were to Queen and Lady Gaga....which seems like solid company.   All my questions were answered by this performance.  All Hail Chappell Roan!

Helm (2025) by Sarah Hall

 Book Review

Helm (2025)

by Sarah Hall

  The New York Times review of Helm by Sarah Hall was enough to get me to check out an E-book copy from the library.  I'm a fan of ANY novel that stretches the format of the novel in any direction and a novel about a specific, named wind in the northeast of England qualifies in that department.  Hall picks out different characters over time:  A prehistoric shaman-ess, a 19th century scientist, a contemporary teenage girl with a mental disorder, and places them in relationships with Helm, who has their own, distinct, narrative voice.  It makes for engaging reading.