For Better Bookclub in September we read Bridget Jones' Diary & Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, inspired by this article in the New York Times. (booooo NYT). Overall we agreed that this article is mostly wrong and the first 2 books are banging. I don't often laugh out loud when reading fiction but the part in Edge of Reason when Bridget interviews Colin Firth is perhaps one of the single greatest pieces of comedy writing I've encountered in a novel. I wondered if I would still find it funny after all these years. I did.
We wondered if the first person narrative of everything these days (read: social media) has eroded our ability to read first person narratives beyond either face value acceptance or cynicism, and the way we all kind of first person narrativise our own lives. We also asked if this book is the original Millennial Interior. I thought about a play called Interior: Millennial but didn't get any further than that.
I read
this terrible $2.99 gay romance novel on Kindle which I won't talk about except to say that one of the characters keeps turning up at this guy's house in the middle of the night for sex, and this man would cook him like a huge curry or spaghetti bolognaise or whatnot and then go off and fuck him and I stop thinking about that. Like ANYWAY HERE'S A JUMBO BURRITO FOR DINNER, NOW I'M GOING TO FUCK YOU IN THE ASS. I thought about myself in that situation, like a nurse coming off shift at midnight, turning up to a guy's house starving but knowing I'm going to have sex and being like 'just water please' 🥺 🥺🥺
One author who does not shy away from the mechanics of gay sex in fiction is Peter Polites, whose GOD FORGETS ABOUT THE POOR I also had the joy of reading (re-reading!) in September. I remember reading a sex scene in his previous book THE PILLARS on the bus and having to cross my legs a bit because it was quite hot, actually!
Maybe the best thing to come out of me publishing a novel is that I do get sent books from time to time (thank you!) so I had the good fortune to read a proof of this book a few months ago. Anyway I re-read the published version and it was really good a second time. It reminded me of a Russian novel, by way of Greece and Australia. The launch at Better Read Than Dead was all good vibes and interesting talking and then PP signed my book
Alex bought me a copy of SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE by Claire Keegan. I never read her before but now I want to read everything she's written. How can you say so much in so little?! Brevity has never been a strong point in my writing but I think I learnt a lot about what not to say by reading this. Thank you Alex who was visiting from the UK for a month, and gifted me a copy.
I've got back into comic books for a bit, and been reading my way through THE UNWRITTEN by Mike Carey. I think his LUCIFER series is the best comic book writing I've ever read, and The Unwritten feels like a good evolution from that. It's about the power of stories (I know, I'm so fucking sick of reading about the transformative power of stories and storytelling) in the sense of how they shape collective unconsciousness and what would happen if you could tap into that in a weird form of magic. I'm about halfway through the series.
I got a subscription to Quarterly Essay and have started making my way through back issues. I read THE WIRES THAT BIND by Saul Griffith and THE VOICE OF REASON by Megan Davis. The referendum is happening in Australia the same day as the general election in New Zealand and I have this feeling I'm going to end up glued to about eight screens at once, yelling at them all. If you hear me, feel free to drop by (bring alcohol).
I've also been clearing out my Pocket archive slowly, and read some really good stuff:
Carrie Fisher interviews Madonna
&
Tavi Gevinson interviews Stevie Nicks
Reading the Oral History of Angels in America prompted a re-watch of the TV mini-series, it's still so good. I thought a lot about my own writing while watching it. (Not because of Angels in America) I want to write a play when I finally finish the dumb book I'm working on right now, I think the stage is so interesting and ephemeral (THAT'S THE NAME OF THE NEWSLETTER) in ways that the novel is not. I like writing speeches for the same reason - and I am actually good at those - you write them and write them and then give them once and then they're gone forever, except for when I'm feeling nostalgic and I go digging in my cloud storage. I give it six months and then I’m going to do a rewatch of the National Theatre version, which I saw at the cinema in Adelaide in 2017 after just moving there. That feels like a long time ago.
I finally read the Patricia Lockwood on David Foster Wallace article for the London Review of Books which you should absolutely read, as well as this article on California Gothic, using Lana Del Rey as a vehicle. I made my partner a Spotify playlist called T4L, the Tori Amos songs in which I thought had had the most influence on Lana's music. Slowly I'm trying to come up with the reverse, L4T, the Lana songs in which you can hear the most Tori influences. This one is coming along much more slowly, and L4T took MONTHS.
Lastly, I read this article in the Atavist about the Mattachine Society is this incredible story from pre-Stonewall queer history, it's long but you should read it too.
Ok see you in October. xx