December 15, 2021
2021: Books of the Year
- Ghosts, by Dolly Alderton
- Phosphorescence, by Julia Baird
- The Most Precious Substance on Earth, by Shashi Bhat
- Constant Nobody, by Michelle Butler Hallett
- The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym, by Paula Byrne
- The Prairie Chicken Dance Tour, by Dawn Dumont
- Tainna, by Norma Dunning
- Half Life, by Krista Foss
- A Womb in the Shape of a Heart, by Joanne Gallant
- Instamom, by Chantel Guertin
- Early Morning Riser, by Katherine Heiny
- Accidentally Engaged, by Farah Heron
- How the One Armed Sister Sweeps Her House, by Cherie Jones
- Time Squared, by Lesley Krueger
- The Girl From Dream City, by Linda Leith
- The Souvenir Museum, by Elizabeth McCracken
- Summerwater, by Sarah Moss
- Big Reader, by Susan Olding
- Our Darkest Night, by Jennifer Robson
- Beautiful World, Where Are You, by Sally Rooney
- Wayward, by Dana Spiotta
- Lucky, by Marissa Stapley
- Fight Night, by Miriam Toews
- A Lethal Lesson, by Iona Whishaw
- The Fourth Child, by Jessica Winter
- Crying in H Mart, by Michelle Zauner
December 8, 2021
The Books of the Years
I’ve written different versions of this post a million times over the years, about the books that are launched into the world and how hard it is to tell as an author, for most of us, if our books ever really land, because while there are several metrics for taking stock of these things—awards nominations, rave reviews, billboards, celebrity endorsements, bestseller lists, appearing on the New York Times Notable list, etc—there are so many books and so few opportunities that most of us won’t end up making any of these. Which can be crazy-making, which I know from experience, and also every time I post anything like this, someone responds with an angry comment how about how I still haven’t reviewed their book yet*—one woman once did this ELEVEN YEARS after she’d sent me her book, which I’d say is a long time to hold a grudge, but then I’m an author too, so I get it.
But also, you’ve got to let that shit go.
It is very hard to release a book in Canada in 2021, and while I would have told you the same thing when I published my first book back in 2014, since then it’s only gotten harder. But one thing that’s the very same is the author’s lack of control over most of it, even if you hire a super fancy publicist.
Which is really hard, of course—that you can’t make magic happen. But also: the magic is going to happen without you, which is the very point of magic.
I’ve written this too before: the life of a book is long, and your book is out there in the world being picked up and put down, and picked up again, read, and reread, borrowed and lost, and found, and shelved, and picked up again. Even if you don’t know about it, it’s happening.
Yesterday I published 49thShelf’s Books of the Year list, a job I so enjoy being tasked with because I know how much it will mean for each and every author to have their book recognized by our humble little list. And I have another list of my very own coming up soon, with a few overlaps, another chance to shine light on the titles that I’ve loved best, but also to take stock and make sense of my own reading year. It’s really personal, mostly, and as arbitrary as any of these lists really are, in that they mean everything, and nothing at all.
Also yesterday, Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club announced their December pick, which is a big deal, this decade’s version of Oprah’s, and it just so happens to be my good pal Marissa’s latest novel Lucky, which came out in Canada in the spring, a truly life-changing opportunity for an author, and this is the kind of magic I’m talking about, a game of fortune and chance, and it’s the one thing that just can’t be plotted. I think we ought to just be grateful that they happen to anyone, and be glad we live in a world where books are still hot commodities, even if it might not be our specific books enough of the time….
To just keep going, and writing, and reading, and dreaming, and to be a part of the literary fabric of the world at all, as readers and writers alike—what a privilege that is. Most of the time, though it doesn’t pay the rent, it’s even enough.
December 8, 2021
Gleanings
- Art is such low stakes. Nothing depends on me getting a painting just right, not even my happiness! No one’s life depends on what I make. Nothing bad is going to happen if I don’t make art. And yet…
- For a writer, what’s important aren’t the tools but the words–except that I’m also a human animal who likes her creature comforts.
- In fact, it looks to me like there’s a resurgence of blogging as people seek out alternatives to being at the mercy of the social media bully boys. And why wouldn’t they? Social media is super convenient and lots of fun, but it’s also governed by a gang of democracy-crushing, money-hoarding, self-obsessed narcissists. It makes sense to seek out an alternative.
- I will miss you, little brother– maker of the best wooden toys, travel companion, shoulder to cry on, world’s best uncle, teaser extraordinaire, reasonable sounding board, and last of the male Pinniger line.
- They talk about traditions as being anchors, when we’re feeling unmoored, providing a place for us to hang our hats and connect the dots to our real here and now life … traditions as ways to mark us as who we are and attempt to draw us back to the places where we feel like we belong and come from.
- …sharing the food that I love to make, that I drool over and lick my lips in anticipation of, feels like an act of joy, pleasure and love towards the beautiful fat body that is my home.
- Meander too is Greek in origin, though now located in Turkey, near the ancient Greek city of Miletus, a river that gave its name to a concept.
- You still have to have a feeling of people here,” Cayley recalls Wells saying. “Not just your zombies and your billionaires and your underground bunker. That will not carry you.”
- So really, it’s thanks to sandwiches that I’m feeling more myself.
- Struggle is pivotal to books and movies, drawing us in, keeping us reading or watching. And yet, when struggle or conflict happens in real life, we want it gone.
- The town of Frank is the home of the famous Frank Slide where, in 1903, an entire side of Turtle mountain came tumbling down in an avalanche of rocks, some the size of crates others the size of boxcars.
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December 2, 2021
The People Who Can’t Understand, But They Do
The people I’m grateful for are the people who can’t understand, but they do.
“We share the similarities of our stories, lamenting the invisible pain of women, and I discover the physical side of abortions is the same whether they are unwanted or chosen.” —Joanne Gallant, A WOMB IN THE SHAPE OF A HEART
The people who could never imagine having an abortion themselves, who think they wouldn’t be able to live with themselves if they did. The people whose beloved babies were born at 26 weeks and had to fight for their lives. The people raised in religions where abortion is presented as anathema. People who can’t shake the ableism baked into arguments for reproductive rights. The people who gave birth to their first child at age 17, and it was the best thing that ever happened to them. The people who longed for babies they were never able to have. The people who’ve spent years pummelled by grief at babies lost before six weeks. The people who were themselves adopted and raised in happy families, and who are so glad they’re here.
And I’m not just talking about those people who might have experienced any one or more of these things, and had abortions also, because there are so many of these people. Each of us, of course, contains multitudes.
But no, the I mean the kind of person who would never celebrate abortion, for whom, perhaps, abortion makes their heart hurt.
And yet.
They know that every woman’s circumstance is different. They know they have no idea what it might be to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. They know that abortion, to so many of us, has nothing but life, our lives, the greatest liberation, to choose our own destinies. (As opposed to those destinies being decided by arbitrary laws, by strangers, or imperfect ideologues who’ve stacked a “supreme” court.)
They know that abortion happens, has always happened, and will continue to happen, even if it has to go on under the cover of darkness. And they know that if this is the case, people will die.
They know that abortions happen least often in places where abortion is most accessible, because in places where abortion is accessible, there also tends to be sexual education, contraception, and women are empowered to make healthy choices.
They know that in spite of our differences, there is still so much common ground, and it is on this common where these people come to support reproductive justice, however quietly.
So that other people can make a different choice.
And that is no small thing.
December 1, 2021
4 Great Memoirs I Rushed To FINALLY Read Before Year’s End
A Womb in the Shape of a Heart, by Joanne Gallant
Joanne Gallant’s A Womb in the Shape of a Heart is a story of motherhood and loss, a motherhood story that didn’t always promise a happy ending either, though Gallant had no inkling of this when she and her husband set out to have a baby. A pediatric nurse, a person who’d always seem in control of her own destiny, the grief and powerlessness of miscarriage and infertility would rock Gallant to her core.
A Womb in the Shape of a Heart is a beautifully woven story of loss and love, Gallant eventually giving birth to her son, but the pregnancy was fraught with anxiety, and the early days of his life were spent in the newborn the intensive care unit.
And it’s just a story so gorgeously crafted, honest and brave in so many ways, a story that encapsulates the experience of so many families but is still considered taboo or shameful. Joanne Gallant shattering that stigma with beautiful prose and such compelling storytelling that will assure so many people that they aren’t alone.
Persephone’s Children, by Rowan McCandless
All right, this book is excellent. Which is remarkable because a collection of “fragments,” you’d think, would be inherently raw and unpolished. Especially when the fragments themselves are so curious in form: the essay as crossword puzzle, as drama script, as quiz, as diagnosis.
Pretty cool, right? A fun gimmick. But challenging to execute…
In her debut collection, however, Rowan McCandless gets it right, each of these pieces so meticulously crafted to tell a story of a difficult childhood, of growing up Black and biracial, of surviving and escaping an abusive marriage. She writes about motherhood, mental health, and living with trauma.
This is a book that’s going to surprise and delight you.
Any Luck At All, by Mary Fairhurst Breen
Any Kind of Luck at All, by Mary Fairhurst Breen, is from one of my favourite literary genres: memoirs by women who’ve seen some shit. She writes about her suburban childhood, her father’s unspeakable mental illness, her burgeoning activist experiences, marrying young and perhaps unwisely, about parenting as her husband’s addictions overtook him, of becoming a single mother, a lesbian, of a career in nonprofits subject to the whims of government funding, of the struggles of finding work as a woman who’s over 50, and of supporting her daughter through her own mental illness and losing her to fentanyl poisoning in March 2020. Breen originally started writing down her stories for her daughters to read, and as a result they are told with such warmth, and are candid, breezy, funny, and wise.
Fuse, by Hollay Ghadery
I enjoyed Hollay Ghadery’s uncomfortable-making, complicated, richly textured collection of essays, a memoir of daughterhood and motherhood, mental illness, eating disorders and biracial identity SO MUCH. Most things are not just one thing or another, but instead both, and neither, and everything at once. In Fuse, Ghadery unapologetically demands the right to have it both ways, to be a messy, conflicted, raging, loving, hungry and full to bursting human
