My November in reading

Holy cow I read a lot in November. Let’s get right to it.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle

This is actually one I missed in October; I listened to it on the Phoebe Reads a Mystery podcast, but I’ve read it many times before. I first stumbled across the Holmes mysteries when I was in about 7th grade, and they’ve been some of my favorites ever since. In fact, I’ve decided that I’m going to survive what will almost inevitably be a bleak quarantine winter by sinking even deeper into my well-established Holmes obsession, so get ready for that. Suffice it to say—if you haven’t read the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, I highly recommend that you do.

Love Song to the Demon-Possessed Pigs of Gadara by William Fargason

A bit biased here, because William is my friend and fellow Split Lip Magazine crew member, but I really enjoyed this poetry collection. I’d almost describe it as mental health pastoral? But just because it’s full of nature doesn’t mean there aren’t also poems about My Chemical Romance. I think my favorite of his poems are the breathless ones, line after line of unending imagery and repetition, like “There Is No Power in Blame” and “Song.”

The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King

Remember when I said I was going to be reading a lot of Sherlock Holmes a few paragraphs ago? Yeah. This is the first in a Sherlock Holmes spinoff series I loved as a young teenager; King’s ability to write the character in a believable way is remarkable. But the series isn’t just about Holmes—it’s about Mary Russell, the 15-year-old girl who stumbles across the old detective during his retirement on the Sussex Downs. When he realizes that her powers of perception rival his own, he takes her on as an apprentice, as the title suggests. Adventures ensue. I loved it just as much as I did when I was young—it even managed to distract me during election week. I was enthralled.

The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld

I picked this book up because I spent several months staying with my cousins in Amsterdam a few years back, so I maintain an interest in Dutch culture—though my experience with Dutch literature is largely limited to this novel and The Penguin Book of Dutch Short Stories. And based on this small sample size, all I can say is that the Dutch are DERANGED and collectively need to go to therapy. This derangement makes for great literature, though. Translated from the Dutch by Michele Hutchison, The Discomfort of Evening is narrated by Jas, who lives on a farm with her extremely religious family; when her brother dies, grief breaks the family down in increasingly disturbing ways. Just one example: Jas refuses to remove her red winter coat, which becomes more and more disgusting throughout the year. The story is extremely graphic at times, but despite or perhaps because of that, it’s one of the best books I’ve read in 2020.

Proxies and Open Waters by Laura Citino

Again, a bit biased here, because Laura’s a friend—but that doesn’t mean she’s not an immensely talented friend. Recently she launched The Topophiliac Project, which is a celebration of the Midwestern environment/self-publishing venture. “Proxies” and “Open Waters” are the first stories in the project—Laura wrote, designed, and bound the chapbooks herself. Both stories are decidedly strange and delve into ideas of love and human impact on our surroundings. I think “Open Waters” was my favorite—I’ll never be able to get the image of a boat made of ex-boyfriends out of my head.

Inseparable: The Original Siamese Twins and Their Rendezvous with American History by Yunte Huang

I can’t remember who recommended this book to me; it might have been my friend Katie Flynn, whose novel The Companions is excellent, by the way. Whoever recommended it, they were right—it’s a fascinating romp through American history. Huang brings necessary nuance and empathy to Chang and Eng Bunker’s story—yes, they were taken from their home in Siam (now Thailand) and deprived of money as white men paraded them around the U.S. and Europe as an oddity. But once they regained control of their own finances and futures, they settled down in North Carolina—and became slave owners. Not to mention the scandal they caused at the time by getting married and fathering 21 children between them. And on top of that, their peaceful North Carolina town went on to become the setting of The Andy Griffith Show, of all things. Lots of twists and turns in this biography—couldn’t put it down.

A Monstrous Regiment of Women by Laurie R. King

And then I continued re-reading the aforementioned Sherlock Holmes spinoff series that I had not read since my early teenage years. In this installment, Mary Russell turns 21, comes into her inheritance, and stumbles across a feminist religious group led by a charismatic mystic named Margery Childe—a group that is connected to no small number of mysterious deaths. (Part of me would have liked to read a separate novel entirely about the suffragettes at the New Temple of God, to be honest.) In many ways this book is more of a coming-of-age story than it is a mystery, as Russell has to determine what she wants to pursue in her own life as an adult. Also, as you may have guessed, she and the old detective fall in love. In real life the age gap would be 100% gross and my advice to Russell would be to RUN—but I am willing to suspend my disgust for the sake of an engaging fictional world.

Pew by Catherine Lacey

I’ve loved all of Lacey’s other novels—especially Nobody is Ever Missing—but Pew is very different. It’s written almost like a fable. Our nameless, genderless, raceless, memoryless, homeless narrator wakes up in a Southern church, surrounded by worshippers, who take the poor soul in out of the kindness of their hearts—or is that why? They call the narrator Pew for lack of another name—Pew refuses to speak, except in narration. Whether Pew wants it or not, their silence serves as an invitation for the people in the town to monologue their own anxieties, failings, misgivings, and sins—especially as the annual Forgiveness Festival is coming up. The whole story felt ominous to me as I was reading, but then the ending seemed less ominous than I expected. It’s more like a fable where the storyteller leaves you to draw your own conclusions about the moral. I’m not sure I loved this book, but it certainly made my mind do some backflips. Plus, the cover design is A+ work.

History of an Executioner by Clancy McGilligan

Another friend and Split Lip Magazine crew member, so once again, I’m biased. Clancy’s novella tells the story of—you guessed it—an executioner, who serves in a provincial town where he lives with his ill wife. When a botched execution in the Republic’s capital causes all executions to be suspended, the executioner begins to question what or whose purpose his work serves. This story is also like a fable—it asks us to consider what norms we follow and why. Especially important for a society living during the Trump administration, I’d argue. The prose is spare, with little backstory, pointing us unrelentingly to the question of right and wrong, and who decides.

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw

Philyaw’s short story collection was recently nominated for the National Book Award, and I’d heard nothing but good things, so I decided to give it a try. The book deals with the lives of Black women and girls who find ways to carve their own paths in the world—sometimes joyfully, sometimes ferociously, sometimes both. A few of my favorites: “Dear Sister,” an epistolary piece where Nichelle and her sisters collectively write a letter to their long-lost fourth sister after the death of their father; “How to Make Love to a Physicist,” in which the narrator overcomes her insecurities and past disappointments to find real love with a genuinely caring man; and “Jael,” which switches perspectives between Jael, a young girl who has a crush on the preacher’s wife and whose best friend is fooling around with a much older man, and that of her disapproving grandmother, who raised Jael and doesn’t know where she went wrong. “Jael” especially does not go where I expected it to, and I love it for that. I definitely recommend picking this collection up—I think it would make for good holiday reading.

Ballad of the Whiskey Robber: A True Story of Bank Heists, Ice Hockey, Transylvanian Pelt Smuggling, Moonlighting Detectives, and Broken Hearts by Julian Rubinstein

I bought this at a used book sale ages ago, and all these years it’s been sitting on my shelf, with me assuming it was a work of fiction thanks to that absurd title. But it really is a true story! A true story of Attila Ambrus, who escaped Ceaușescu’s Romania only to make his way in Hungary by being a terrible hockey player and pulling off an increasingly improbable series of bank robberies. Do you enjoy stories about loveable antiheroes? Great—this one’s for you. Rubinstein is a good humorist—the book is funny all the way through.