Counterweight by Djuna, translated by Anton Hur

1/5 stars

How’d I find it? A face-out at Solid State Books that I couldn’t resist.

Why not 3 or more stars? The all-powerful LK Group colonizes the island of Patusan for the establishment of Earth’s first space elevator. Mac, an investigator in LK’s External Affairs department, discovers a plot that could threaten the LK Group and his own identity. While this sounds like the start of a promising mystery, the most interesting plot turns are given in dialogue between characters, and the space elevator makes only a brief appearance. Alas, my favorite thing about Counterweight is its incredible cover.

They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib

4/5 stars

What's it about? In this collection of essays, Hanif Abdurraqib examines how music and performance influence and are influenced by culture, race, and coming-of-age experiences, an opportunity for reflections on the author’s own upbringing in Columbus, Ohio. Probing, eloquent, and personally generous.

How’d I find it? Ever since I read this poem by Abdurraqib, I’ve been collecting everything he puts out. This copy was purchased at Solid State Books.

Who will enjoy this book? Fans of Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror, Hilton Als’ White Girls, and Roxane Gay’s writing should like They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us.

What stood out? Abdurraqib hinges his social meditations on a variety of artists —Chance the Rapper, Carly Rae Jepsen, and Fall Out Boy, to name a few —that allows him to scan an impressive breadth of subject matter, and he meets the challenge handsomely in beautifully crafted and passionate pieces. Abdurraqib’s mastery as a poet can be both a blessing and a curse in a dense book of short essays like this; his stylistic flourishes get sometimes tired during a longer reading session.

Which line made me feel something? “If you believe that it rained in Ohio on the night Allen Iverson hit Michael Jordan with a mean crossover, you will also believe that I know this by the sound that lingered in the air after my small cheering, the way rain can sometimes sound like an echo of applause if it hits a roof hard enough. You will also believe that I know this by the way an unexpected puddle can slow down a basketball’s dribble on blacktop, especially if the basketball is losing some of its traction, some of the grip that it had in its younger days.”

Biography of X by Catherine Lacey

5/5 stars

What's it about? In response to a flawed biography of her late wife, grief-wracked C. M. Lucca aims to set the record straight by investigating the secrets of her spouse, the enigmatic artist of many faces known to her as X. Do we need to know someone to love them? How does one reconcile their lived experiences with others’ truths? And do they matter? A form-defying novel that elegantly scratches at lofty questions.

How’d I find it? I stopped in at Kramers after pouring rain interrupted a walk and lo!

Who will enjoy this book? Percival Everett readers might like Lacey’s playfulness with form and sampling of media, as Biography of X is a veritable bird’s nest built from scraps of other artists’ work and interviews. Fans of A Handmaid’s Tale will be interested in the Gilead-esque Southern Territory of Lucca’s America. Looking for a read-alike? The closest in my repertoire is Delphine de Vigan’s Nothing Holds Back the Night, far less ambitious but equally beautiful.

What stood out? I respect writers who just go for it, who push their creativity into new and risky territory. Lacey does so much with Biography of X. Yes, it’s a love story, a biography, a widow’s lament, and a satire of the contemporary art scene, which would have been task enough. But Lacey also layers in a historical account of an America fractured into literal pieces by its politics, the perfect landscape for the book’s questions to marinate. The endnotes are a treasure trove, offering a peek into Lacey’s process. They reveal X as an amalgamation of Susan Sontag, Kathy Acker, and David Bowie, among other personalities, and a disparaging review of one of X’s books as an actual review of a novel of Lacey’s (“more depressing than The Bell Jar” — I laughed out loud).

Which line made me feel something? From the chapter “Sante Fe”: “I felt all our years together mounting up in me, full of things, full of words, positively saturated with sentences spoken that were meant to vanish immediately, or sentences spoken that were meant to stand forever, words we gave each other to explain ourselves, words that were misunderstood, words we stole, images we held in private, moments made significant to one and not the other or to the other and not the one, two realities pressed against each other, stupid impossible human points of view, views of nothing, conflicting views, incomplete views, impossible to reconcile, impossible to forget.”

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

2/5 stars

How’d I find it? I listened to this book courtesy of DC Library over long drives between Baltimore and Virginia. It carried the added bonus of being read by Hamid himself.

Why not 3 or more stars? Classmates Saeed and Nadia become more than friends — just in time for their city to be swept into war. Escape presents itself in the form of doors that transport passengers to other corners of the world, taking our protagonists to Mykonos, London, and San Francisco. While Hamid ably conveys the instability and danger of the refugee experience, the magical doors didn’t add much to the story. What’s more, the doors eliminate the reality of exodus, arguably a crucial aspect of understanding displacement and the human consequences of conflict. A fine book that keeps the reader at a distance, on the other side of the door.

The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley

4/5 stars

What's it about? In three essays, Aldous Huxley dissects the visionary experience and its attainment through mind-altering drugs. Of particular enjoyment is “Heaven and Hell,” in which Huxley discusses non-pharmacological means of transcendence, such as art and breath work. Compelling, dense, and effective in its call to seek the “Mind at Large.”

How’d I find it? I came to this book through Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind, a book club selection for Solid State Books.

Who will enjoy this book? In addition to those intrigued by How to Change Your Mind, this book might also appeal to readers of Eckhart Tolle.

What stood out? Huxley advocates relaxing the brain’s survival-focused filter from time to time to expand one’s perception and feel true being. In addition to the mescalin and LSD he champions, Huxley unconvincingly argues that color, light, and physical exertion can free the mind but fail to impress our oversaturated and modern sensibilities. His thoughts about how theatrics and alcohol interact with transcendence and religion seem somewhat unresearched but offer food for thought to expand one’s own ideas.

Which line made me feel something? “Visionary experience is not the same as mystical experience. Mystical experience is beyond the realm of opposites. Visionary experience is still within that realm. Heaven entails hell, and ‘going to heaven’ is no more liberation than is the descent into horror. Heaven is merely a vantage point, from which the divine Ground can be more clearly seen than on the level of ordinary individualized existence.”

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

4/5 stars

What's it about? In a not-so-alternate America, incarcerated people can win their freedom by fighting to the death in gladiatorial matches. The novel centers on lovers and beloved fighters Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker, with diversions to other characters to round out the brutal landscape of bloodsport: fellow participants killing to save themselves, fans Wil and Emily, protestors Kai and Nile, and the suits and ties behind the horrific Criminal Action Penal Entertainment (CAPE) program. A page-turner about humanity, survival, and oppression in America.

How’d I find it? Excitedly awaiting this book’s release after enjoying Friday Black, I picked up a copy at Solid State Books.

Who will enjoy this book? Those who enjoyed the horror and competition of The Hunger Games and Battle Royale will like this debut novel.

What stood out? Adjei-Brenyah’s world-building in Chain-Gang All-Stars generates a society both horrific and believable, bolstered by writing that is crisp and at times gorgeous. He makes his characters lovable; you’ll root for all of the CAPE fighters (except for Simon J. Craft perhaps). The sense of surveillance permeates the book: cameras flit around heads, “hard-action sports” announcers await their cues, viewers at homes binge series on wall-sized screens. My only beef is the heavy-handedness of the novel’s social justice bent; the statistics about the current prison system can feel like finger wagging.

Which line made me feel something? From the chapter titled “Sing-Attica-Sing”: “Does disappearing one person from the earth clean it some? I seen men I knew were a danger to the world and they too deserve better than this. A shame for me to hope for better, but I know it’s better that can be done. Ain’t no magic potions for these bleeding human hearts.”

The Sirens of Mars by Sarah Stewart Johnson

1/5 stars

How’d I find it? I came across this book at Politics & Prose and added it to my growing stack.

Why not 3 or more stars? I hesitate to tag this book as anything but memoir, despite the tantalizing subtitle of Searching for Life on Another World. The focus is Johnson herself, who is a scientist and female. That’s it. That’s the “edge” here. While the book roughly sketches out the history of Martian discovery, I wanted much more astronomy and fewer forced analogies between interplanetary exploration and motherhood.

Girlfriend on Mars by Deborah Willis

4/5 stars

What's it about? Environmentalist and former evangelical and aspiring Olympian Amber Kivinen abandons her boyfriend of fourteen years to compete on a reality show for the chance to join the first manned mission to Mars. A tender, funny, and at times didactic debut about ambition, love, and human greed.

How’d I find it? This book found me. While shelving at Solid State Books, I discovered this fabulous cover and had to have it.

Who will enjoy this book? Lovers of reality TV will adore this book and its satire.

What stood out? You know what? My enjoyment of this book gets 5/5 stars. I read all 300+ pages over the course of three days while working full-time and could not get enough of the hilariously obnoxious cast of characters: restless Amber, her boyfriend Kevin, the MarsNow contestants, slimeball billionaire Geoff Task, and Kevin’s stoner besties. Willis completely sticks the landing (hehe) in a surprising and satisfying way that absolves the novel of some clunky bursts of sentimentality and climate change warnings. It took me awhile to warm to Kevin’s narration every other chapter, as the breaking of the fourth wall and persistence of his gloom distracted from all the fun of the reality show’s taping.

tl;dr — read this one.

Which line made me feel something? “She chose this barren place and now she’s scraped out, empty, mourning everything. The smell of a red pepper when you cut it open. The pattern of rain on a window. The feel of water on her skin. She misses birdsong, even a crow’s cackle. Her dad’s voice. The smell of her mom’s hair.”

Machines in the Head by Anna Kavan

3/5 stars

What's it about? Mental illness, addiction, and ennui haunt this selection of short stories by Anna Kavan. A sinister and strange moan of a book.

How’d I find it? I have heard twitterings among booksellers about Anna Kavan before and was intrigued to find this copy among the offerings at Lost City Books.

Who will enjoy this book? Admirers of Lucia Berlin and The Bell Jar should enjoy, as well as those who seek speculative elements in their literary fiction, such as Kavan’s ever-morphing city that recalls Italo Calvino.

What stood out? The selections from Asylum Piece open the book grimly, salvaged by the strength of later standouts like “A Bright Green Field” and “Face of My People.” The stories benefit from an illuminating forward by editor Victoria Walker about Kavan’s life and influence.

Which line made me feel something? From “Ice Storm:” “The big unbroken trees sprayed like unclear fountains towards the mist. Through the centre of each jet of clouded crystal the black branch was threaded. The trees were lovely and frightening to look at. I tried not to feel afraid of the trees. Dear God, let me not start being afraid of things in the natural world.”

Shrill by Lindy West

5/5 stars

What's it about? Lindy West reflects on the experience of being fat and female in America in a gem of an essay collection. Chock full of humor and darn good writing.

How’d I find it? As a nursing student, I am frequently on long drives between hospitals, campus, and home. Audiobooks get me through the commute. DC Library provided this one, entertaining me during traffic or while wolfing down lunch.

Who will enjoy this book? Fans of Mindy Kaling, Joel Golby, Rax King, and Jia Tolentino will appreciate, but probably most millennials as well? I feel like Lindy gets all my references.

What stood out? The essays "Death Wish" and "Slaying the Troll" deftly knit together wit, anguish, and sharp social commentary. You can also listen to West perform a version of "Slaying the Troll," in which she confronts an internet troll whose cruelty focuses on her late father, on This American Life. I honestly wanted to begin rereading this book the second I finished it.

Which line made me feel something? I have long struggled to pinpoint why certain jokes in comedy make me uncomfortable, and West lays it out expertly in "Death Wish:" "People...desperately want to believe that the engines of injustice run on outsized hate — stranger rapes in dark alleys, burning crossing and white hoods — but the reality is that indifference, bureaucracy, and closed-door snickers are far more plentiful fuels."