November's bookshelf
monthly reading roundup
The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
Synopsis in a sentence: what they call a ‘genre-defying memoir’.
This book split me open. I am in fact having a hard time writing about it in general terms — I think this is a widely shared sentiment. It’s not a book you can summarize effectively, or even write about in a way that justifies itself, that accurately portrays the book. I am trying to write an essay that talks about its rejection of organization, specifically of gender and sexuality, because what else is there to do when you read a book that splits you open?
I am not going to pretend I am an extremely well read theorist, so I can’t exactly speak to the theoretical parts of it, other than Nelson’s exploration of them being integral to the book and honest and grounded. It gave me many, many books and authors to look into, and for that I am grateful. It takes a lot to write something that so agonizingly bares you to others, and Nelson does it with grace. It portrays motherhood in a way I haven’t come across before – granted, I don’t read much about motherhood, but Nelson writes about motherhood as this tender and frightening experience — and that one doesn’t negate the other. The ongoing examination of ‘queer’ (quotes here because it tends to mean different things in the book and outside of it, of course) as a political state, as a personal state, as a shared state, and as an ever transforming and undefinable state was, doubtlessly one of my favourite threads weaved through the book.
Every sentence in The Argonauts feels profound and hits you upside the head, whether or not you have directly experienced anything Nelson writes about, and that among many other facets, is what makes this book as renowned as it is. I would highly recommend this one, but go into it without any firm expectations or boundaries – it won’t let you finish with them.
Knock Knock Open Wide by Neil Sharpson
Synopsis in a sentence: decade spanning story about Irish folklore, love against all odds, and things that lurk in the dark.
I’d been in a reading slump when I picked this one up and almost abandoned it at first but it picked up, and I’m glad to have stuck with it. The folklore aspects are well incorporated into the story, and the character’s give it such depth. I was especially, and unsurprisingly, taken with the love story between the main character and her girlfriend. A quote:
“Because you changed the shape of the world and made it fit me for a little while.”
As much as it’s about Irish folklore and an old, evil, hungry thing, it’s about dysfunctional family relationships and being loved and trauma that echoes through generations and widespread political corruption. It’s not singularly a horror story, and I always appreciate that in a book.
It could have been structured better, but I will say the ending scene was built up masterfully and filled with dread. I read a lot of queer horror and the genre being what it is, perhaps it’s a bit naive to ask for happy endings for queer characters, and I like to keep these roundups relatively spoiler free, but the ending to this one was, indeed, a happy one, despite the other ways it could have gone.
First Love: Essays on Friendship by Lilly Dancyger
Synopsis in a sentence: a series of essays about friendship.
I feel terrible saying this about memoir-adjacent books, but this was a bit of a letdown. some good writing that was obscured by tangents and dull concepts. It should have been a biography, I think, with the friendship theme weaved in — there wasn’t enough substance for a whole book. There wasn’t anything particularly exciting or new insights about female friendships, which was what I was hoping for. However, I don’t want to disregard the emotional excavation that I expect went into this book — it’s about trauma as much as it’s about anything else, and this review isn’t in any way attempting to disregard that. I love the love that shines through it; it’s clear that it was written with care and many different kinds of love, and I can absolutely appreciate that, but it just wasn’t what I was expecting.
If anyone has got any recommendations for non-fiction that focuses on female friendships please send them my way!
Antenora by Dori Lumpkin
Synopsis in a sentence: In a deeply religious community, a young girl’s best friend is thought to be possessed.
This one was such a fascinating read, and I’d say one of my favourite books I read this month. I am always taken with how authors can compact such unfolded, uninhibited narratives and vivid, memorable characters in such a short time.
The narration was precisely what it needed to be; it’s written from the perspective of a young girl telling the story of her best friend's erratic changes in behaviour and the church in their small town bearing down on them. It’s tinged with this fierce grappling of faith and the kind of love that doesn’t fit within that kind of faith, that kind of town. It’s a doomed love story, and you know this from the start, and yet you still wish the ending could have been different — and that is no small feat to achieve in such a short time, but the characters are grounded and a little lost and above all, deeply human. Although our narrator tells us from the beginning what’s going to happen, the sheer violence of it gets you, the collective, burning hatred. It’s bleak, but I’d still highly recommend it.
When Silence Echos Back by Aastha Harlalka
Synopsis in a sentence: a collection of poems about a wide range of themes.
I have always been in awe of
’s writing; it cracks you open and fills you up and leaves splinters everywhere, like the best writing does. The poems in When Silence Echoes Back are no exception to this; they explore womanhood, othering, racism, hope, loss of language, misogyny, both upfront and in-between the lines. It’s short but impactful and memorable.To be so grounded and intelligent and aware of the world and not to mention to be so talented so young is, for lack of a better word, insane. When I was Aastha’s age I was writing the absolute worst poetry in the world, but Aastha is so eloquent and effective in her writing, and I cannot recommend this book (and her Substack) enough!
Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Miranda Lo
Synopsis in a sentence: follows two girls growing up in San Francisco in the 50’s who end up falling in love.
A very sweet, heartwarming book. It grapples with identity, displacement, political strife, family turmoil, queer identity and community. I appreciated the wide lens it took, covering different stories that branched out from the main one, such as everyone affected by the wider political circumstances in the U.S and China and Japan at the time, how it trickles through generations. It was long, perhaps longer than it needed to be, but nonetheless it’s a lovely story about first love that explores other themes deftly.
There’s a section at the end where the author goes into detail of the history of lesbian bars and the wider queen community in San Francisco in the 1950’s and it’s a fascinating read. I loved that she said the book was an attempt to ‘un-erase’ the stories of Asian-American lesbians especially in that time — the notion of un-erasing stories, bringing then back into the light is an endlessly hopeful one.
That’s all for this month, but I want to know what you read and loved or hated this month!
I'm excited to get to The Argonauts early next year!
The Argonauts has been sitting on my shelf for too long!! This review is making me want to pick it up ASAP!