Revenge, Reincarnation, and Ratings

The migraines were acting up this week what with all the weather changes and pressures shifts and, oddly, one thing I can do when that happens (provided they’re not final boss migraines and I have my reading glasses), is read. Thus lots of that happened this week. Hooray for books: keeping us sane when otherwise, we’d be stuck staring at then ceiling and wondering why we exist.

The Ghost Woods by CJ Cooke (Berkeley, 4/29)

This is the second horror novel I’ve read this year (maybe the third) set at a home for young, unmarried, pregnant women, removed from society so as to hide their “shame” until after the birth of the child (the other was Grady Hendrix’s Witchcraft for Wayward Girls). As someone who has had two children and hated being pregnant (girls, trans baes, and theys, it is okay to hate it), and even if one loved the experience, you can’t get through it without acknowledging the body horror inherent in growing a person; there’s a parasite in there, even if it does end up being cute and looking like you. It makes you vomit (there’s music I still can’t listen to because our older one listened to it on repeat when I was pregnant with #2 and 12 years later I still reflex puke), it super-charges your sense of smell, it makes your favorite food unpalatable. It changes your hair and skin. Your feet grow and may never go back to their original size (I still miss my green Frye motorcycle boots). My astigmatism changed eyes. And between a 6 month dental checkup and the one after #1 was born, I had 11 cavities.

Throwing in a witch, and a sentient fungus network (have you read Merlin Sheldrake’s Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures? Sentient fungus networks are absolutely, positively coming for us if they aren’t already playing with our brains) are just bloody, squishy icing on the cake.

All of that sounds pretty scary. And at one time, they would have been. The scariest things about The Ghost Woods now though? The idea that girls and women could be disappeared from their Iives so easily. That they were so easily dismissed, discarded, untethered. That the responsibility for something that takes two people, and sometimes one adult male perpetuating a crime on a child, could be placed on a woman or a girl and that their life, professional and personal, could be destroyed because of not only the patriarchy but because the majority of women, their mothers, their sisters, their aunts, supported the idea that sex was dirty and shameful.

And the fact that we have come around to that place again.

The fact that women and girls and trans folx and non-binary people are losing their right to choose, to be in control of their own bodies and their own health care. That all of these people are being forced to cross state lines to get access to safe abortions. That twelve and thirteen year olds, children, are being forced to carry pregnancies to term after being raped. The fact that we aren’t far from homes like Lichen House opening again, we aren’t far from women and girls disappearing again, from people forgetting them again, and maybe from them never coming back at all.

And it won’t have anything to do with witches or fungus; it will have everything to do with people.

The Ghost Woods: https://bookshop.org/a/56337/9780593550229

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls: https://bookshop.org/a/56337/9780593548981

Entangled Life: https://bookshop.org/a/56337/9780525510321

The God and the Gwisin by Sophie Kim (Del Rey, 4/29)

If you read any of my reviews or best of lists last year, you know that The God and The Gumiho was one of my absolute favorites and that I was eagerly awaiting the second book in the series.

I was not disappointed.

In The God and Gwisin, Seokga, is conned into going on a vacation in the underworld with his brother, the heavenly emperor Hwanin, and his therapist. There, he is finally reunited with the reincarnation of his beloved Hani. Except that she isn’t. At all. She’s Kisa, a once-doctor, now medical staffer aboard Yeomra’s SRC Flatliner, the most luxurious cruise ship to sail the underworld. And she’s pretty sick of it. She also has some words for whichever one of her previous lives racked up the karmic debt that has her stuck on the boat (hint: it was Hani).

Sparks do not fly.

Disaster.

And then, Hwanin is murdered and reincarnated, as murdered gods are, in baby form.

Disaster.

And Hwanung, Hwanin’s son and Seokga’s nephew, who is in a rebellious phase and hates his uncle takes the throne. Temporarily.

Disaster.

Great adventure all around, a sweet romance that has a few spicy moments with model consent checking. I like that, despite Kisa and Soekga being tied together by a red thread of fate (that has its own personality and is maybe my third favorite character in the book), their future isn’t a given because there’s fate and there’s choice and while Seokga could compel Kisa, the idea never crosses his mind. He wants her and he falls hard but at no point, despite his reputation or previous actions, does he entertain the notion of tricking her or leading her, even when things between them are at their bumpiest, even when Kisa is actively, physically pulling away. Seokga is honest with Kisa in a way he never was with Hani, open with her in a way he couldn’t be with Hani, and while I don’t want to give everything a way, there’s a theory in the book about this I really liked.

I really loved this one, just for the sake of itself. I loved being in this world again and interacting with these characters. I know it’s supposed to be a duology but there was a little something at the end that has me hoping there might be more. I really, really hope there’s more.

The God and the Gwisin: https://bookshop.org/a/56337/9780593599686

The God and the Gumiho: https://bookshop.org/a/56337/9780593599662

The Greatest of All Time: The History of an American Obsession by Zev Eleff (Cambridge University Press, 5/1)

I don’t read a ton of non-fiction and when I do, it’s usually hovers around biography or biology, so this is a little bit of a departure. Let’s start with the thesis: Greatness discourse provides a uniquely American language for participants to discuss their ideal aspiration views and make meaning of their personal lives and that language says more about us than it does about the people being discussed. I agree with the second part and I think that the caveat Eleff adds: that the definition of greatness shifts over time along with American values and perspectives, is definitely true. This shows in the examples he discusses at the beginning of the book: In his own time, Einstein was a great man so long as did not acknowledge his Jewishness; he reputation has been elevated in the modern era as this became less of a barrier. Henry Ford, on the other hand, was considered a great populist in his own time, but his reputation has diminished in the modern era because he was unabashedly anti-Semitic (Frida Kahlo gave him shit about that at his own dinner table if her biography is to believed. I choose to believe it). Michael Jordan was considered the greatest of all time until his gambling addiction came to light (Pete Rose also suffered from a decline in status for the same reason). I think many people would now place Kobe Bryant (while not as upstanding of a citizen, he died young) and LeBron James (both an outstanding player and a philanthropist) above Jordan on the “greatest” list if you were to ask now.

The one example I take some issue with is Mohammed Ali: while there was some blowback to his membership in the Nation of Islam and to his contentious objection to the Vietnam War that affected his status as an individual, it didn’t affect his status as a boxer; I was born in 1978 and I grew up knowing he was “the greatest of all time” because of his persistence and unwillingness to bow to segregation and authority. I remember when he lit the Olympic torch in 1996 it was a point of pride for the whole nation, not just a small faction. Yes, public opinion had shifted by then, as had cultural norms and values, but I don’t think any of that would have made a difference. Ali was the greatest, with his daughter following in his footsteps, and nothing was going to change that.

I do take some issue with greatness discourse being uniquely American, however. Though I do think the ebb and flow of greatness in America is native, it’s also a safeguard: while it’s true anyone can rise, it’s also true that anyone can fall. While the catalyst for the fall isn’t always fair or kind or necessarily deserving of the consequences, it does mean those who are great have a certain responsibility. #FAFO is one of our favorite mottos. I mean, look at what’s happened to Katy Perry. In other countries and cultures, people are elevated and they stay there. Once declared great, they remain great, remain role models and while #FAFO can be swift and less than just, so can continuing to use Winston Churchill and Queen Victoria as role models. Coco Chanel was a Nazi sympathizer. Nobuhiro Watsuki is a pedophile.

The Greatest of All Time definitely made me think. And there’s a reason I try hard not to idolize people. Which is that they’re people. And none of us is perfect. So before you call someone great, think about the burden you’re putting on them. And yourself.

The Greatest of All Time: https://bookshop.org/a/56337/9781009572736

Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert by Bob the Drag Queen (Gallery Books)

Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert is many things. It’s a biography, a coming out story, probably a little bit of a memoir. It’s about life and death and music and how that last connects the other two. It’s about impossible things and every day things and Quakers and muffins and coffee. It’s funny and it’s sad and beautiful and ugly. And it’s about things I missed because I’m white and you know what, that’s okay. Because sometimes, you can read a book that isn’t 100% for you and appreciate what you do get and leave the rest for the eyes it’s meant for.

The premise is that some famous people from the past have shown up in the future. I love that Bob didn’t try to explain it because, honestly, the how isn’t important. All we need to know is that they did and that some of them have seen our world as it is and they have something to say about it. Harriet Tubman and the Freemen especially and so they find someone who hasn’t yet freed himself from social and cultural expectations and they ask him for help. And it’s in producing their album and their show that he figures out what’s been holding him back and how to move forward.

I really loved this book. I love Bob the Drag Queen’s singular humor, his sly cuts, and his openness. I love that fact that he chose to share this story with us. I hope there’s more to come.

Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert: https://bookshop.org/a/56337/9781668061978

Current Read: Bitter in the Mouth.

Talk soon!