Close to the Knives
Wojnarowicz is asking us to listen to him crying from his deathbed and the reader cannot turn away.
Bandersnatch
Bandersnatch is a scruffy orange tabby with a big, bossy personality. She is loud and demanding and never takes ‘no’ as an answer.
Adopted a year after Jabberwocky, Bandersnatch is the second youngest cat. Despite having been taken from a barn to a very nice shelter, she was a tough little biter. Just what we needed to play with Jabberwocky.
She does get along well with her sisters — especially Wesker.
Bandersnatch is Hargrave’s second little monster. You can usually find her running laps around the house, climbing up the wrong side of the tallest cat tree, balancing on someone’s shoulders, or dead asleep inside a cushy cat bed. She loves attention, and will literally climb you like a tree to get it.
Some other things she likes include margarine, feathers on a string, winning at wrestles, and folding her paws. Because she has such an attitude, Bandersnatch takes a great glamour shot.
Airless Spaces
Sometimes books constructed out of vignettes seem to be built on a faulty foundation and have frames that are not enough to withstand the weight of a message or a book. Firestone here has used the flexibility of very short vignettes to construct just what her title implies — an airless space.
Written on Water
These essays are talks over coffee and catching up after a long week. They are close friends talking about the issues that matter to them and the parts of the past still stuck to the hem of their clothes.
The Basement
This isn’t just a book about a crime nor is it a fictionalization of that crime. Millett spends time with victim and perpetrator and with her own reactions to the case.
Brother, I’m Dying
It’s really a story of two fathers, since it was her uncle that became her father when Danticat was left behind by her parents as they established themselves in America.
The Fire Next Time
The Fire Next Time is the James Baldwin book to read if you decided that you will only read one of his works and no others — though I sincerely hope that no one does this.
War
I was excited to read War — not because I’m a big fan of Céline, but because it’s a small piece of lost history that didn’t actually end up being lost. Now, all they need to find is a copy of Tod Browning’s London After Midnight.
The Cipher
The Cipher is an interesting story that uses extreme violence to help the narrative. It doesn’t become the narrative.
Women Crime Writers
Even the whitest of picket fences can hide a twisting darkness. And that very pressure could itself serve as one of the most complex themes of noir — that of dreams deferred and decisions made with extreme regret.
Crime Novels of the 1930s and 1940s
For July, I’m going to take a deep dive into American crime noir novels from the 1930s to 1960s, give them a bit of context, and maybe mention a film or two along the way.