Three! New! Books!

that I have loved and I think you will too. Plus a totally unrelated Miu Miu thing

Here they are:

1. Stag Dance by Torrey Peters

   Boy did I adore this. You might have read her book Detransition, Baby, which was a break out hit. These new stories (especially the title one) are at a totally different level (and I loved De-Babe) (probaby no one called it that.) This was like where you put the book down for a few seconds just to savor the fact that you’ve never read anything like this before, never seen these things put into words, but they were already inside of you and so there’s a tearful homecoming feeling. Also arousal. Also a feeling like we are all trans, that the thing we are currently calling “trans” is something fundamental to being alive and we are have been mostly robbed of it, all of us. What a craven and dark world those losers are trying to make, but Stag Dance is no small win for our side. It’s the only book I blurbed last year, and I don’t even know Torrey Peters so this was an entirely merit-based blurb. It’s getting the kind of good reviews that are, themselves, very quoteable (like the ending of this one in the NYT.)

   

2. Say Everything by Ione Skye

   Yep, Ione Skye wrote a memoir. I gobbled it up. She’s just really honest and detailed and heartfelt which really only works if you have heart, and she so obviously does. You want to know her, hang out with her, cuddle with her in a way that maybe leads to more, even if the relationship ultimately is more like sisters (this kind thing happens a lot in her life — and with all the people you would love to be brothers and sisters with, following hooking up.) The biggest shocker (for me) was JUST how bisexual she is.

   

   Jenny is Jenny Shimizu

   I feel slightly creepy isolating this because the tenor of the book is so fluid and easy-going, even when she’s obsessed (but I couldn’t help myself! It’s rare that this is described and lord knows I’ve tried.) While I’m gossiping, this is the second memoir I’ve read this year that features Adam Horovitz as the writer’s husband. All his wives love him! I hope all my husbands and wives are half as gaga over me in their memoirs (lol.)

3. PATHEMATA or The Story of My Mouth by Maggie Nelson

   This comes out in April but just preorder it because you’ll need it so badly by then. It’s set in the pandemic and shares a tragicomic coping energy with our days now. I suggested to Maggie that it was her “cross over” book — which is absolutely not something Maggie cares about (or something you really need after winning a MacArthur, etc) but I stand by it as a compliment: it’s an incredibly generous and inviting book, and no less ground breaking for this. I actually laughed and I actually cried, tears down my cheeks, all in a very readable span of 68 pages. Moms and sufferers of chronic mystery pain, married people, people who face both death and the dishwasher every day: you will find company in this mind. But also, because she’s so smart and so interested in the mess of life, you get to be surprised, lifted up, turned around.

An exchange with her child.

Lastly, a bon mot for the end (I always thought a bon mot meant a sweet treat, like a bon bon, but checking now I see it’s more of a clever joke, a “good word.”) (Clearly I took Spanish in school, like a good Californian. Only the really rich kids took French.) Here it is: My dear friend Isabelle Albuquerque walked for Miu Miu in Paris yesterday. She’s never done this sort of thing before (she doesn’t even like her picture taken and only just started using lotion) but through it she discovered a thing that I think we can all use. While walking in front of all these hundreds of people with their cameras she thought: BE BIGGER THAN THE ROOM YOU’RE IN. BIGGER THAN MIU MIU. It’s not about war or ambush (we love Miu Miu) but an energetic thing. We can scale our energy. (Sometimes our energy is actually smaller than our bodies, hiding within — you have to begin by being at least as big as your physical self.) I remember hearing that the energetic size of dolphins was massive, which makes sense. Don’t do it by tensing up. I’m trying it now and it seems to involve breathing into your pussy.

Yes, this is just an excuse to share this screenshot. That face!

All right, it’s 5:50pm. I’m going to make dinner and then the child wants to watch The Shop Around The Corner — first time for them (500th for me it feels like.) It’s not even Christmas! But they are so cute and there’s no school tomorrow for some reason.

x

mj