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Weird freak historical fiction
14w
Books
Glorious Exploits (Ferdia Lennon)
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A delicate balance of funny and heart wrenching, in that distinctly Irish way. Lennon’s debut novel unfolds in Syracuse during the Peloponnesian War, centering around two unemployed potters who cope with their joblessness by putting on a production of Medea using a bunch of Athenian prisoners. He uses a modern Irish vernacular throughout, which I thought made the story incredibly readable. Walks the line between thoughtful literary fiction and an easy summer read.
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2
1
20w
Books
Sudden Death (Álvaro Enrigue)
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The latest in my pursuit of Weird Freak Historical fiction. I also recommend You Dreamed of Empires, but if I had to choose between any of his three (English) books it would be this one. This was the bizarre, kaleidoscopic, meta-fiction that Enrigue writes so masterfully. Partly taking place during a single fictional tennis match between Caravaggio and Quevedo, partly unfolding in Mexico and Spain after Hernán Cortés’s invasion and all the while slowly unraveling and reforming the history of 16th century Europe to suit the author’s narrative, it’s hard to exactly put this book into words for those who haven’t read it. It requires some starting and stopping to fill yourself in on some of the historical figures, and sifting through what is and isn’t real, but that’s part of the fun. There is also a scene where Fillide Melandroni is lowkey fujoshing out on the tennis court. Tenez!
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2
21w
Books
The Address Book (Deirdre Mask)
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Pop-soc but it doesn’t feel like you’re reading an Idiot’s Guide to _______. Really makes you think about how you can know so little about something so ubiquitous, and how hard people worked to make that ubiquity happen.
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21w
Books
Get in Trouble (Kelly Link)
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A collection of fantastical, genre bending short stories. Really strange and kind of experimental, but in an approachable way. I think these are really easy to break into because you can pick and choose which ones you want to read—some are more magical realism, some sci-fi, some more straight up literary fiction. I’ve read some of Kelly Link’s other short story collections, but this one is far and away my fave.
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19
21w
Books
Annie John (Jamaica Kincaid)
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A short, semi-autobiographical novel of a young girl growing up in Antigua. Follows the protagonist from childhood to aged 17, especially on Annie’s evolving relationship with her mother. Reallllly speaks to what it’s like to feel like you’re becoming a whole person. Big for anybody who has ever been a 14 year old girl before.
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2
21w
Books
If Beale Street Could Talk (James Baldwin)
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I read this in high school and then reread it a little while ago and I was blown away. Honestly I recommend anything by Baldwin, but especially the fiction writing if you want to read something that makes you appreciate the art of prose. Just absolutely beautiful sentence construction.
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1
21w
Arts & Culture
Hopie Hill
The Book of Symbols
$40
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This + Ariadne’s Clue + Katy Kelleher’s essays on color triple threat @Nina
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8
1
21w
Books
Skull Wars (David Hurst Thomas)
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Though technically built around the discovery of and controversy surrounding the Kennewick Man in the 1990s, I found this to be a thorough, balanced book about Indigenous people in North America in the past and present. Hurst Thomas also explores the fraught relationship between archaeology and people still recovering from the brutal, genocidal campaign waged by the United States (and includes noted voices like that of Vine Deloria Jr). Yes it was published in 2000, and yet I keep coming back to it because it is continually fascinating how we have treated the study of Native people as the study of dead cultures for so long. If you read any other books about settler colonialism on this continent, Skull Wars remains relevant.
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3
1
21w
Books
Kt
Long Division by Kiese Laymon
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Picked this up because Kiese Laymon wrote one of my favorite essays in A Measure of Belonging. Another book that will have you thinking about it for weeks and months after you finish it. Always recommending and never being taken up on it, but that has not stopped me before and will not now.
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2
21w
Books
Orlando: A Biography (Virginia Woolf)
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Arguably the catalyst for my Weird Freak Historical Fiction journey, though it may not immediately seem to fit into this sub genre. Definitely a little racist (or at least racial?) at times, because this is Virginia Woolf we’re talking about. Still worth reading, especially if the 1992 film starring TILDA SWINTON!!!! is on your watchlist—it would not have been watchable for me if I had not read the book.
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1
21w
Books
The Seventh Function of Language (Laurent Binet)
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Weird and fun and infinitely re-readable. May be a rip-off of The Name of the Rose, but that is not something I care about right now.
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