Monday Miscellany: Instant chills every time

Notes from December 9 - 15

Dec 16, 2024

Last week I mentioned getting a Christmas tree, and folks, I am happy to report that we did indeed decorate that thing up right. The mantel too! Please see photographic evidence farther down in this newsletter!

This week I also finished one of my favorite books of the year. Let me tell you about it:

Currently reading

Recently I made a list of 2024 releases that I desperately wanted to read before the year ended, and James by Percival Everett was at the top. This book has been everywhere: longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize, shortlisted for the Booker, winner of the National Book Award for fiction, and a favorite of the year for many of the Book People I follow on the internet. Jordan and I were lucky enough to see Percival Everett on his book tour in March and I’ve been meaning to pick up James ever since.

I’m so glad I finally did! Excessive hype can make me wary, but in this case I think it’s absolutely deserved. James is, most simply, a retelling of Mark Twain’s classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, written from the perspective of Jim. It’s also a commentary on some ideas that are still quite relevant, from race as performance, to human beings’ relationship with nature,¹ to reading and writing as resistance,² to the moral question of meeting violence with violence.³ Everett is incredibly intelligent, and it shows. The biggest strength of the book, though, is the tone of his writing—it’s light and approachable and at times flat-out funny,⁴ balancing the heavy content perfectly.

TL;DR: don’t be scared off by the fact that this is a retelling of a classic, with a historical setting, that academics could probably write papers about. It’s smart, but it’s also a quick and enjoyable read, with an inviting warmth and a completely badass ending. And no, you don’t need to know anything about Huck Finn before you start. I loved every minute of this one. Highly, highly recommend.

¹ On humans’ relationship with nature: “Ain’t people a part of nature?” … “If’n dey is, den dey ain’t no good part. Da rest o’ nature don’ hardly talk to no human peoples anymo. Maybe it try from time to time, but peoples don’ listen. Anyway, gone be a big rain.” (43)

² On reading and writing as resistance: At that moment the power of reading made itself clear and real to me. If I could see the words, then no one could control them or what I got from them. They couldn’t even know if I was merely seeing them or reading them, sounding them out or comprehending them. It was a completely private affair and completely free and, therefore, completely subversive. (73)

³ On meeting violence with violence: Had I done a brave thing? Had I done an evil thing? Was it evil to kill evil? (284)

⁴ This description made me laugh: She had yellow buckteeth and big blue eyes and never was I more frightened by a creature, human or otherwise. And I was a slave. (173)

James is for sure a hard act to follow, but I usually write about the books I read in the order that I read them, so… I also picked up McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern #60 this week! This issue has a special photography focus, and features the work of Holly Andres on the cover and at the beginning of every story. It’s the size of a large magazine, so the photos are really big and impressive—it was fun to examine each one in detail before launching into the corresponding piece of writing.

There aren’t any total misses in this collection, but I would say that the first four stories were my favorites:

“Variety African Healing Market” by Afabwaje Kurian
“High Jinks” by Leigh Newman
“The Future-Ghost of Charles Bronson at Home Depot” by Neal Hammons
“The Tum-Boon Brigade” by Mai Nardone

The whole thing is housed in a heavyweight flexible plastic sleeve, and over the past four years that this issue has lived on my to-read bookshelf behind our couch, the cats have really loved rubbing their chins on its sharp corners. It will be reshelved now that I’ve finally read it, so please send up thoughts and prayers for Phoebe and Louise in this time of great loss.

A legally-required heads-up: if you purchase a book through the bookshop.org affiliate links in this post, I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. ♥︎

Currently listening

Y’all, it’s just the Wicked soundtrack. Both versions. I saw the film this past Thursday and it exploded my heart and made me cry a bunch, and now I can’t get these songs out of my head. I was first introduced to them in high school, when the musical was new and my chorus teacher chose a few of them for our end-of-year concert. At some point I saw the touring show with my mom in Durham or Raleigh, and more recently Jordan and I won the cheap ticket lottery to see it in Richmond for our anniversary. Elphaba being hoisted into the air onstage right before the act break, huge black cape billowing around her, is one of the most powerful theatrical visuals I’ve ever seen. Instant chills every time.

I couldn’t decide between these two clips as examples, so you’re getting both. Caroline Bowman as Elphaba on Broadway:

And Alice Fearn’s last performance of the role in London’s West End:

I thought everything about the film adaptation was excellent: the casting, the vocals (leads, yes, but also chorus), the costumes, the sets, the colors, the choreography. Truly chef’s kiss. If you’re not into musicals, maybe this isn’t for you, but if you’re a theater girlie and/or a fan of the original Broadway show, and somehow you haven’t seen the new movie yet… stop reading this newsletter and GO NOW.

Hello from Louise the Christmas tree goblin

And another thing

Here are the New Yorker’s best books of 2024, some of which I also loved and wrote about this year—James, All Fours, Intermezzo, and The Mighty Red! A few of their other picks are on my to-read list—The Anthropologists, The Empusium, and Forest of Noise.
Belgian brownie cakelets, are you kidding me, Smitten Kitchen? I want to try this recipe immediately.
If, like me, you were lowkey devastated to miss Kelly Bishop aka Emily Gilmore on book tour this fall, you can at least watch a recording of her conversation with Lauren Graham at the 92nd Street Y. Thank you to
Rosamond
for bringing this video to my attention!