This podcast is late because I have been going through STRESSFUL LIFE CHANGES, friends, but luckily Whiskey Jenny has been exceptionally patient with me. Belatedly I present to you our 87th episode! You can listen to the podcast using the embedded player below, or download the file directly to take with you on the go!
Here are the time signatures if you want to skip around!
1:04 – What We’re Reading
1:48 – Space Update
5:36 – A Wrinkle in Time
8:14 – LAST EVER SERIAL BOX BOOK CLUB
13:51 – Okay, it’s not our last ever Serial Box Book Club. Up next: Geek Actually
14:35 – The Witch Who Came in from the Cold fantasy casting
22:47 – Supernatural beasties!
36:47 – The Changeling, Victor Lavalle
46:49 – What We’re Reading for Next Time!
Here’s the NPR and Guardian articles about the teleported photon. Here’s your link to The Witch Who Came in from the Cold, should you wish to subscribe to it or other Serial Box products.
Get at me on Twitter, email the podcast, and friend me (Gin Jenny) and Whiskey Jenny on Goodreads, as well as Ashley. Or if you wish, you can find us on iTunes (and if you enjoy the podcast, give us a good rating! We appreciate it very very much).
Credits
Producer: Captain Hammer
Photo credit: The Illustrious Annalee
Theme song by: Jessie Barbour
Transcript is below the jump!
THEME SONG: You don’t judge a book by its cover. Page one’s not a much better view. And shortly you’re gonna discover the middle won’t mollify you. So whether whiskey’s your go-to or you’re like my gin-drinking friend, no matter what you are imbibing, you’ll be better off in the end reading the end.
GIN JENNY: Welcome back to the Reading the End bookcast with the demographically similar Jennys. I’m Gin Jenny.
WHISKEY JENNY: And I’m Whiskey Jenny.
GIN JENNY: And we are here again today to talk to you about books and literary happenings. On today’s episode, we have a quick but insane space update, and also an update on literary adaptations. We are going to wrap up our Serial Box book club for The Witch Who Came in from the Cold. We’re going to chat about supernatural beasties in fiction and how we feel about them. And we are going to review Victor LaValle’s new book The Changeling. But before we get into all that, Whiskey Jenny, what are you reading?
WHISKEY JENNY: I just started March, by John Lewis.
GIN JENNY: Oh, how is it?
WHISKEY JENNY: Super emotional for me so far, but real good.
GIN JENNY: I am reading an Australian epistolary YA novel called Feeling Sorry for Celia, by Jaclyn Moriarty. And it’s super cute so far. I’m enjoying it a lot. I’m also rereading The Raven Stratagem, by Yoon Ha Lee, which is the sequel to Ninefox Gambit—
WHISKEY JENNY: [GASP] Ninefox!
GIN JENNY: —a very confusing SF book that I read recently and really, really, really, really loved despite its confusingness. Or maybe because of its confusingness. Who can say? And I returned it to the library, and after I did that I really regretted it, because I kind of wanted to reread it. But it was too late for that, so I read the sequel, The Raven Stratagem, and now I am rereading parts of it because I liked it so much also.
WHISKEY JENNY: Cool.
GIN JENNY: Do you want to hear my space update?
WHISKEY JENNY: Yes, I do.
GIN JENNY: OK. I say to you Whiskey Jenny, and I say to you listeners, I really tried to do the reading on this and report back as faithfully as possible what’s going on here. Because the headline I read was, “China Teleports a Photon into Space.”
WHISKEY JENNY: What?
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: What?
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: But.
GIN JENNY: I know. I then read all these articles that were like, it wasn’t a thing, and they didn’t teleport it.
WHISKEY JENNY: What did they do?
GIN JENNY: OK, so this is what it is. I was very much helped by articles in NPR and The Guardian to understand this, so I’m going to link to those in the show notes. OK. Say you have a photon, and I’m going to give them names so that this is less confusing.
WHISKEY JENNY: Wait, sorry. What’s a photon again?
GIN JENNY: It is traveling light.
WHISKEY JENNY: Mmm, all right, if you say so.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: It’s a particle, Whiskey Jenny. It’s a particle.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s a particle of traveling light?
GIN JENNY: It can be light. Apparently it can also be other things. Don’t worry about it. It’s a particle with no mass.
WHISKEY JENNY: [SMALL VOICE] All right, cool?
GIN JENNY: Yeah, I mean, I don’t really understand it. I didn’t really research photons for the purpose of this.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, so it’s not a thing, but it’s a thing.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, exactly.
WHISKEY JENNY: All right, cool. It’s a photon. Great. Carry on.
GIN JENNY: OK, so you have a photon— I’m going to call her Nancy— in China hanging out with scientists, right? And then there’s another photon, who I’m calling Ned, chilling in the space station in space. OK?
WHISKEY JENNY: MMm-hm. Is Ned alone?
GIN JENNY: Well, there’s scientists up there, too.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, there’s scientists up there, too. OK, cool.
GIN JENNY: And these photons are in a state that we call quantum entanglement, which means anything you do to Nancy also affects Ned, even though they’re many miles apart. If you kick Nancy in the shins, Ned will be like, ow, my shin.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, cool.
GIN JENNY: Again, I don’t really understand how photons work. [LAUGHTER] So what they did, these scientists, is they got a third photon, who I’m going to call George, and they smooshed George and Nancy together. Well immediately— this is the crazy part— all the information and characteristics that make up George magically transferred up to space and Ned transformed into George.
WHISKEY JENNY: Did Nancy transform into George?
GIN JENNY: I don’t know and I couldn’t figure it out.
WHISKEY JENNY: Hmm.
GIN JENNY: Apparently the implications of this are as follows. All the companies want to crack quantum computing because that will solve the problem of networks being hackable. Obviously Wakanda already has this technology, of course. For other people, information would then be encoded by photons that were quantum entangled, I guess in a chain.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, right, right, right. OK, so I update my photon and then your photon updates.
GIN JENNY: Right. So if you tried to hack into it, the network would tattle on you.
WHISKEY JENNY: How does it know?
GIN JENNY: Because all the photons in the network are connected.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, yeah. OK, OK, got it.
GIN JENNY: Such is my understanding. I could be wrong. Listeners, if you are scientists and I’m saying this all wrong, please email and we will issue a correction on the subsequent podcast.
WHISKEY JENNY: I mean, that’s a cool use and all, but I feel like there’s more exciting things involved here.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, yeah, I know.
WHISKEY JENNY: Ned became George! That’s really insane!
GIN JENNY: I know! Isn’t that crazy? So teleportation is real and we’re all going to be living in Star Trek one day. And also we’re going to have quantum internet pretty soon, so we shouldn’t worry too much about hacker groups infiltrating nuclear grids and stuff, because it’s going to be fine.
WHISKEY JENNY: Then the hacker groups will figure out how to hack it.
GIN JENNY: No, they can’t.
WHISKEY JENNY: In a different way.
GIN JENNY: No, they can’t.
WHISKEY JENNY: Then the hacker will develop the technology that hacks the unhackable thing.
GIN JENNY: Uh-uh.
WHISKEY JENNY: The Titanic was always sinkable!
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: No. Science says no. It’s impossible.
WHISKEY JENNY: I don’t— well, so, did science think about teleportation?
GIN JENNY: I don’t think science had issued a verdict on teleportation. [LAUGHTER] I think science was teleportation neutral. Anyway, so that’s our space update. Pretty exciting, I think you’ll agree. We should still worry about people hacking nuclear grids. That’s still a real threat. [LAUGHTER] But you know, we’re one step closer to not having to worry about that.
WHISKEY JENNY: I know you check in on this podcast for all of your nuclear grid news.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: And rightly so.
WHISKEY JENNY: And the update is, still be worried.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Well, turning to almost equally thrilling space-adjacent news, Whiskey Jenny, did you watch the trailer for A Wrinkle in Time?
WHISKEY JENNY: You know I did! Oh my god, it was so good.
GIN JENNY: It looks— so good. It looks amazing.
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m so excited.
GIN JENNY: I watched it like 12 times. It looks so good.
WHISKEY JENNY: The movie, I’m very excited, it looks like a good movie. But also, it is very, very visually stunning.
GIN JENNY: Yes. The design is all amazing.
WHISKEY JENNY: And the costumes. And the shots of the wheat fields. [LAUGHTER] This movie is really revolutionizing wheat fields for me.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: They showed the costumes for Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which and Mrs. Whatsit. And they all look so cool.
WHISKEY JENNY: They all look amazing.
GIN JENNY: Also, the little girl who plays Meg is the cutest kid I’ve ever seen.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, she is so cute. And I appreciate that the movie cast her— I feel like it’s pretty age appropriate with the book, too— she’s still a tiny child, basically.
GIN JENNY: Yes, I like that also. And I love it that the even the teaser makes it really clear that she’s the heroine of this story and everything depends on her. That’s awesome to see as well.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. And Chris Pine as the dad?
GIN JENNY: I was actually going to say, my only tiny, tiny gripe with the teaser—
WHISKEY JENNY: What!?
GIN JENNY: No, it’s not that I’m mad at Chris Pine, because I’m not. But my only tiny gripe with the teaser is that it’s like 30 seconds long, and the first 15 seconds of those are all dedicated to Chris Pine. I was like, come on, you know we want to see that adorable child and Gugu Mbatha-Raw, the most beautiful woman on Earth.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. There was very much not enough of her, I would say.
GIN JENNY: Agreed. We only saw one shot of her, and she’s so central to the books. I’m really excited for the full trailer to come out.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, so good!
GIN JENNY: It looks so good. We also didn’t see much of Charles Wallace, so I’m really interested to see how that goes. Because Charles Wallace is, I would imagine would be a very difficult character to cast.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, I would imagine.
GIN JENNY: Because he’s real weird, and he’s a little prodigy. And they had to get a young kid actor to play him.
WHISKEY JENNY: Right, because he’s got to be a tiny child. An even tinier child than Meg and Calvin.
GIN JENNY: And he has to— I mean, I’m not going to issue spoilers, but there’s a couple of different types of ooh. Gosh.
WHISKEY JENNY: He has to have range.
GIN JENNY: He has to have range. That’s a great way of saying it. He has to have range.
WHISKEY JENNY: There was a particularly creepy shot of the Stepford planet or whatever, that I felt was appropriately creepy, because that planet was really, really terrifying to me when I read it. I told Gin Jenny that I think this is the inception of my terror of mind control.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: And I love the look on Meg’s face when she’s watching all the children bouncing balls in perfect unison and everything.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah! She knows it’s not normal.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. So all in all, it looks tremendous. Hopefully we’ll talk about it again. Maybe we can even have it be our book one week.
WHISKEY JENNY: That would be great.
GIN JENNY: Perhaps it can be our primary text.
WHISKEY JENNY: I can’t wait.
GIN JENNY: So we also this week finished up our Serial Box book club. Whiskey Jenny, how do you feel?
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, I feel good. Overall, what a fun season and group of characters to hang out with. I enjoyed breaking it down with you each week. I feel like that really added to my experience.
GIN JENNY: Yes, me too. So we read episode 13, “Company Time,” by Max Gladstone and Lindsay Smith. I found it generally satisfying, and I thought it left plenty of room for the sequel. What did you think of it overall?
WHISKEY JENNY: This episode, in general, I was a little disappointed by. I think I had built it up in my mind as, oh, it’s the season finale so it’s going to be super crazy.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, it was not as crazy as I expected for sure.
WHISKEY JENNY: I wanted a little more craziness from it. That’s probably partly my own expectations. Yeah, I agree that they did a good job of wrapping some things up, but leaving the door open for season two. I just— especially compared with the previous episode, where so much goes down, this one felt almost a little bit more epilogue-y, instead of final chapter, almost.
GIN JENNY: I can see that. So what happens is that Dom escapes with the host on a plane. And all the Ice people have to join up together and do a spell to take the plane down.
WHISKEY JENNY: And that’s pretty cool, that that’s the first time that we see all five of them team up.
GIN JENNY: And then at the end, Dom kills the host and releases the elemental into the world. Which I didn’t expect either.
WHISKEY JENNY: I did not see that coming either. And I don’t know what I think about Dom now.
GIN JENNY: Same!
WHISKEY JENNY: He’s still very much a mystery to me. We got a little bit of back story, but I still have no idea what motivates him. So I hope season two has more of Dom, because I still don’t know anything about him.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, I agree.
WHISKEY JENNY: Which is fun.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. There’s still more to discover. And I thought the magic was cool that they did. The storm that catches up with Dom’s plane is really creepy.
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, no, I thought the storm was really cool and creepy, and they described it as not of this world.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: But what happened with that magic? They, like, re-animated the construct and that made a storm? I was unclear on what magic they were actually doing.
GIN JENNY: Nah, I didn’t worry about that too much.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Well, all right. It could’ve been clearer, I felt.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, sorry. [LAUGHTER] I was just like, yeah, they’re doing magic and the magic makes it storm. That’s fine. That’s sufficient information for me, I think.
WHISKEY JENNY: But they did tell us they have the little pieces and they’re trying to reconstruct the construct that Nadia killed. Either tell me nothing and just be like, they’re doing a spell, or— like, how is the construct involved?
GIN JENNY: Sure, sure. I mean, that’s legitimate, and I don’t know the answer.
WHISKEY JENNY: Especially because previously all of the details about how magic works have been really interesting. So every time you give me one of those, I’m going to be real interested.
GIN JENNY: Sure. I was really relieved that nothing bad happened to poor little Josh.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, Josh. Oh, sweet, sweet Josh. We’re going to do some fantasy casting next.
GIN JENNY: Yes.
WHISKEY JENNY: And I feel really great about my Josh casting. That’s maybe my favorite one. So I especially love his character now. I’m like, Josh, oh Joshy.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Anyway, he reports Gabe to Frank. And Frank is hilariously like, no, I can’t do this right now.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, I know. Frank is still like cranky old man, being like, I’m too old for this shit.
GIN JENNY: Yes. That’s exactly what I wrote down.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: I did like that he’s in the dark about the magic happening, but he’s not dumb. He’s like, it feels like there’s a totally separate game happening here. I appreciated that. It’s not just like everyone who doesn’t know about magic is so dumb.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. He’s not like the blustering station chief character at all.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, I mean, he still blusters, and I like when he blusters.
GIN JENNY: Well, but he blusters in a fun, self-aware way, so it’s different, I feel like.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. Oh, sweet little Josh. [LAUGHTER] I hope Josh gets either out now, or someone finally tells him the whole thing that’s happening.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, me too. Well, and how did you feel about the Serial Box book club experience overall?
WHISKEY JENNY: I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think it’s such a good idea.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, I really enjoyed it. We actually had a listener question on this. Abbot of Unreason on Twitter asked, “I’d love if you discussed your experience with the format. Did the form affect your enjoyment? Would you do serial again? And would you buy the season or by the episode?”
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, I will say I really enjoyed the serial format. It’s especially exciting that you know every time you sit down to read an episode, it’s going to be an episode. It’s not just going to be an excerpt of a novel in the way that like other novel chapters can feel like. It’s very satisfying, because you always know that something is going to happen. Something is going to propel the story forward. You’re going to find out new information.
GIN JENNY: I agree. I really enjoyed reading these week by week. And I think part of it was that I was excited to discuss it with you, but also partly it was just a lot of fun to watch the story unfold slowly, like the chapter by chapter cliffhangers. And not even cliffhangers, but just the chapters ending and leaving you wanting more information was fun.
As for buying it by the season or by the episode, I don’t think it matters. Just I think by it in whatever format you think will get you to read it week by week. I think if I had had the whole thing at once, I’d want to gobble it up because it’s fun. But I think reading it week by week is a real treat, and I haven’t had that experience anywhere else really. On the other hand, I did forget stuff in between weeks, so it’s hard to say. You know yourself best. I enjoyed it week to week.
WHISKEY JENNY: I enjoyed it week to week also, but I haven’t binged on one of these, so I don’t know if that would be more enjoyable. But I enjoyed not binging and spreading it out.
GIN JENNY: Actually, I saw a print edition of The Witch Who Came in from the Cold in my library, and I checked out the print edition of one of the other Serial Box books, Tremontaine, from the library my last trip. And I haven’t read it yet, but it’s in my stack. So soon I’ll be able to say what it’s like binging it, versus consuming week to week.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, cool. Well, let us know. I’m excited to hear. I feel like, in this one particularly, I think I would have gotten even more annoyed with Gabe. [LAUGHTER] I was able— you can take little breaks from—
GIN JENNY: Sure.
WHISKEY JENNY: —people you don’t enjoy as much.
GIN JENNY: As for whether we would do the serial format again, we are in fact planning a second installment of Serial Box book club.
JENNYS: Woo!
GIN JENNY: So starting from our next episode, we’re going to be reading and talking about Geek, Actually, which is about five geeky women and their lives and their friendships. It sounds so delightful. The authors are Cathy Yardley, Melissa Blue, Cecilia Tan, and Rachel Stuhler. And I’m super excited to get started. If you want to read along with us, we’ll be reading episodes 1 and 2 for our next podcast.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, I’m super excited.
GIN JENNY: It’s a totally different genre and type of thing than this one, which I love that Serial Box is doing a range of stuff. Because I feel like up to now, they’ve mostly done science fiction/fantasy type stories. So I think this will be cool.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, I’m interested to see how they work in the serial format.
GIN JENNY: Me too. Well, now do you want to go to the part we all have been waiting for and talk about fantasy casting?
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah!
GIN JENNY: I’m so excited. I have a couple of picks I’m really pleased with.
WHISKEY JENNY: Me too. I have a couple— it was pretty difficult overall, I would say.
GIN JENNY: It was hard! Yeah, it was hard. I didn’t feel like I came up with as many good ones as I wanted.
WHISKEY JENNY: Same. But I feel like with our powers combined, we’ll have a pretty good list. I also forewarned to you earlier, but I’ll forewarn our listeners that I had a really hard time not just casting everyone I love in The Man from UNCLE and Spy. So you’re going to see a lot of overlap with those two seminal works of spy movies. So I don’t know. Deal with it.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: I had to make a rule for myself that I couldn’t cast anyone from The Man from UNCLE because I love that movie so much.
WHISKEY JENNY: I did not follow that rule.
GIN JENNY: I kind of regret it now. I feel like I could’ve made better picks.
WHISKEY JENNY: They’re just so good!
GIN JENNY: Yeah, it’s so good. OK, do you want to start with Gabe? Because he’s a main character and also boring.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, great.
GIN JENNY: OK, who’d you cast for Gabe?
WHISKEY JENNY: Because I got a little annoyed with Gabe, I tried to cast someone who I like, so he could maybe elevate the character.
GIN JENNY: Sure.
WHISKEY JENNY: So I cast Chris Pine.
GIN JENNY: Oh, nice. Hey, speaking of Chris Pine.
WHISKEY JENNY: I know, right?
GIN JENNY: Cool. Well, I think he would elevate the character. I went a different ideological path with this. I was like, who is the most basic actor I can think of to cast for basic, basic Gabe?
WHISKEY JENNY: Nice. Yeah.
GIN JENNY: And I was immediately like, oh, of course it’s that guy from Avatar. So that’s who I’m casting as Gabe, the guy from Avatar. Old what’s his face. I was going to look up his name, but I couldn’t be bothered.
WHISKEY JENNY: Sam Worthington?
GIN JENNY: Sure. [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: No, he’s not basic!
GIN JENNY: Yes he is. The guy from Avatar is basic.
WHISKEY JENNY: No!
GIN JENNY: Oh, Whiskey Jenny. Yes.
WHISKEY JENNY: No! I disagree strongly. I don’t think he’s basic at all.
GIN JENNY: Well then good. You’ll enjoy him as Gabe. [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: Is this the guy in Avatar?
GIN JENNY: I don’t know. I didn’t look it up, I couldn’t be bothered. Too basic.
WHISKEY JENNY: I can’t believe this! No, I disagree so strongly. So strongly.
GIN JENNY: But do you think he’d make a bad Gabe? Because that’s the important question.
WHISKEY JENNY: I don’t think he would make a bad Gabe, no.
GIN JENNY: All right, good.
WHISKEY JENNY: But he’s not basic.
GIN JENNY: All right. He is, but whatever.
WHISKEY JENNY: He is not! He’s in this really charming Australian crime movie that I’m going to send you after this and make you watch.
GIN JENNY: OK, can we agree he’s basic in Avatar?
WHISKEY JENNY: I haven’t seen Avatar, so I don’t know.
GIN JENNY: Oh. Well, Whiskey Jenny, you just trust me. [LAUGHTER] Whiskey Jenny’s like, I can’t trust you, now you’ve proven yourself untrustworthy.
WHISKEY JENNY: I mean, yeah, you’ve already— [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: No, he is. Listeners, weigh in. I know that I’m right. [LAUGHTER] OK, who’d you cast for other main character Tanya?
WHISKEY JENNY: Tanya is Alicia Vikander.
GIN JENNY: Oh, perfect. I knew that was going to be the case, and I think it’s good casting. I love her.
WHISKEY JENNY: I stole one from The Man from UNCLE.
GIN JENNY: Sure. She was so good in The Man from UNCLE. I’m sure she’d be amazing in this.
WHISKEY JENNY: And I feel like Tanya— I would say Tanya and Gabe are our most main characters.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: And Tanya in particular I was really rooting for. And I love Alicia Vikander, so there we go.
GIN JENNY: Well, great choice. I picked Nina Dobrev! Maybe she’s too distractingly pretty.
WHISKEY JENNY: That’s such a good idea. I had her also floating around as some potentials for Nadia or Tanya, but I didn’t love her as Nadia, and I already had Alicia Vikander for Tanya, so I had to cut her. But I like her for Tanya.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: Well what about Nadia, since we’re on Nadia?
GIN JENNY: Yeah, so this is where I obviously had to cast someone from Black Sails, and Nadia is where I chose to spend that token. So I picked Clara Paget from Black Sails. She plays actual pirate Anne Bonny. And she has very strong bones and a nice smile, but also very ruthless eyes, so I think she’d be good as Nadia.
WHISKEY JENNY: Cool, cool. What’s her name again? I want to Google her.
GIN JENNY: Clara Paget. And there are some pictures of her where she’s blonde, but in my mind, and in Black Sails, she is not.
WHISKEY JENNY: Ooh, yeah, she is cool. She’s cool. Yeah. I picked Eva Green for Nadia.
GIN JENNY: Oh nice. Nice, nice. I also found a way to work in Eva Green.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yay! As long as Eva Green it is here somewhere. But I think the key that we both picked up on Nadia is beautiful but terrifying. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: That’s correct. That’s what I was going for. Since we’re talking about Eva Green anyway, I cast her as Zerena. I don’t remember how old she’s supposed to be, so this might be bad casting. But I think she’d be good as the puppet master who’s also charming and a good dancer.
WHISKEY JENNY: Hmm. MMm-hm. I picked Charlize Theron.
GIN JENNY: Oh, nice. That’s a good choice. I like that.
WHISKEY JENNY: Let’s see. You want to finish up with the Russians and do Sasha?
GIN JENNY: Yes, do Sasha. Who’d you cast for Sasha?
WHISKEY JENNY: Hugh Laurie.
GIN JENNY: Oh, I like it!
WHISKEY JENNY: Also you may be seeing The Night Manager influence. [LAUGHTER] I feel like he is sort of quietly menacing in an interesting way in Night Manager, and that’s what is called for in this character.
GIN JENNY: So for Sasha, this might be too predictable, but I picked Alfred Molina.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh. Yeah.
GIN JENNY: It’s kind of a predictable pick. And so was my pick for Frank, so I apologize all around. But I think he’d be good.
WHISKEY JENNY: I think he’d be good also. I have been doing a Spider-man rewatch with roommate Snapple Alex.
GIN JENNY: Nice.
WHISKEY JENNY: Of all the previous Spider-men. And Alfred Molina plays Doc Oc in one of the Tobey Maguire Spider-men, and he’s really he’s really fun as a villain.
GIN JENNY: He is.
WHISKEY JENNY: So yeah, I can totally see this. OK, you mentioned Frank. Let’s start with him on the American side.
GIN JENNY: OK, I chose Tommy Lee Jones. I never tire of Tommy Lee Jones in this type of role.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, you know what, that’s good. That’s good. I was sort of waffling on Frank, so I’ll give you both names. So I first thought of JK Simmons, because he is also in the Spider-men Tobey Maguires as sort of a similar character, but a newspaper editor, and he’s always calling people into his office to chew them out. Then I realized that he plays Commissioner Gordon in the Batmen movies. Or he’s going to, or something, so I was like, that may be too similar.
And then I thought of Keith David from Enlisted, that you and I both really like. And he also is great at calling people into his office and chewing them out.
GIN JENNY: Oh, he is. That’s true. Those are all really good choices.
WHISKEY JENNY: Thank you. Thank you.
GIN JENNY: That’s very good. That’s very strong. OK, well you’re on a high note, Whiskey Jenny. Let’s hear who you cast for Josh.
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m so excited for this one. Are you ready?
GIN JENNY: Yes.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, so I cast the person who I most just, like, I love him and I want to protect him from the world, you know?
GIN JENNY: OK, yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: Zach Woods.
GIN JENNY: Aww! Bless Zach Woods’s heart.
WHISKEY JENNY: I know, right!? [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: I’m just laughing because of all his funny lines in Silicon Valley. That’s amazing. Oh, I like that a lot.
WHISKEY JENNY: Who’s your Josh pick?
GIN JENNY: So I picked Russell Tovey. I feel like he does this sort of sweet, hardworking part really well. So Russell Tovey is my vote.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, right, him.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m not willing to give up Zach Woods. I’m sorry.
GIN JENNY: No, that’s OK. Zach Woods is a dear.
WHISKEY JENNY: He’s such a dear!
GIN JENNY: OK, and then for Alestair, I said a younger Bill Nighy for this. I love Bill Nighy a lot, and I think he’d be hilarious in this role.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, cool, cool, cool. This is my Spy pick, and I cast Peter Serafinowicz, who plays the— I guess Spy spoilers, but he’s like a louchey Russian guy who turns out to be British—
GIN JENNY: Yes.
WHISKEY JENNY: —in Spy. And I just thought he was so funny and perfect in that role that I want him to keep being louche British man, as you have described Alestair before.
GIN JENNY: Great, great, great.
WHISKEY JENNY: Who do we have left? Oh, Dom and Jordan.
GIN JENNY: [GASP] Oh my god, I forgot to cast Dom!
WHISKEY JENNY: You forgot to cast Dom? But that’s no good, because I don’t feel good about my Dom.
GIN JENNY: Oh no, how could I have done this? I think I was just like, oh, it’s obviously Henry Cavill, so why even bother talking about it?
WHISKEY JENNY: Really? See, I think Henry Cavill is too—
GIN JENNY: Good looking?
WHISKEY JENNY: He is too good looking for this world. Like, no one should be that good looking.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, it’s preposterous. I just need him to be in bad shape, so that I can cope.
WHISKEY JENNY: But no, I feel like he is too non-affable. He’s too reserved, his vibe.
GIN JENNY: I can see that. Who’d you cast for Dom?
WHISKEY JENNY: As you remember, I previously put up Bradley Cooper for this role.
GIN JENNY: Yes.
WHISKEY JENNY: I still think that would be an OK choice. But then I was trying to think of who’s the American guy that everyone’s like, oh man, that guy’s the best. And I came up with Will Smith.
GIN JENNY: Oh, nice. I like Will Smith. I’m so sad that I forgot to cast him. I’m really angry at myself.
WHISKEY JENNY: Friend of the Podcast Ashley is convinced that there’s no one for Dom except for Dominic Cooper.
GIN JENNY: I don’t find Dominic Cooper charming. I just said it.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh. You did just say it. See, I find him charming, but not that attractive.
GIN JENNY: All right, that’s fair as well.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, last but—
GIN JENNY: Jordan!
WHISKEY JENNY: —certainly not least, Jordan. Who do you got for Jordan?
GIN JENNY: I cast Robin Wright. I love that we’re casting Robin Wright in ferocious lady parts now.
WHISKEY JENNY: Ooh, that’s good. That’s good, that’s good.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. I think she’d be good at doing the magic stuff, and also super good at being like, I can’t be bothered with your nonsense right now. I have to get back to what I’m doing.
WHISKEY JENNY: I totally agree.
GIN JENNY: What about you?
WHISKEY JENNY: I picked Allison Janney.
GIN JENNY: Oh nice! I love Allison Janney. Oh, that’s great. I love her.
WHISKEY JENNY: I think these are both really, really strong.
GIN JENNY: Well, it figures, because we both really love Jordan, so it figures that we would give her our best.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.
GIN JENNY: Well, this has been, with Whiskey Jenny, an excellent Serial Box book club.
WHISKEY JENNY: It has.
GIN JENNY: It’s really been great. Well, do you want to talk about supernatural beasties?
WHISKEY JENNY: I do, yeah.
GIN JENNY: I picked this topic because we read The Changeling this week, and I was thinking about how much I love creepy fairy-type stories. So I wanted to talk about the whole range of supernatural beasts. Do you tend to find supernatural beasts in books a draw, or like, you’re done with them?
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh no, I would say a draw.
GIN JENNY: Definitely a draw for me, too.
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m never disappointed when a book turns out to be magical. I’ve never been, man, I wish this was just a real world.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: I do think there can be a situation where the same tropes circle around and around again. Like we get into this kind of group think. Like with vampires, there’s always the scene where the human girl cuts her hand while she’s cooking or whatever. And she’s like, oh haha, cooking mishap, and the vampire’s like [LOUD SNUFFLING].
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh my god, this is the end of everything, yeah.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Yeah, so I think if it’s not clear to me that the author is not thinking about the relevant metaphors, it’s harder for me to enjoy. So reading Twilight, I’m like, OK. All right. I got it. The blood is sex. I got you. [LAUGHTER]
But something like Sunshine by Robin McKinley, it’s so clear that she gets that point, and she’s making that connection more explicit and subverting some of those tropes. I just enjoyed that a lot. I’m so for it.
WHISKEY JENNY: No, absolutely. And I would say, in a similar vein of the way that we get stuck on those tropes, we also just get stuck on certain beasties. Like vampires and werewolves— there are other kinds of supernatural beasties. You don’t have to always have a vampire and werewolf story. But you can also do it really interestingly, but you’ve got to do it well at this point.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. People keep promising that we’re going to get the mermaid boom, but then it never seems to arrive.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s so disappointing, because mermaids— and really all sea creatures— are super exciting. I wrote down— I separated my thoughts into ones that I’m just straight up scared of, and then ones that I think are awesome but might also be scared of, but not always.
GIN JENNY: Excellent. OK, are there any that you’re just completely out on?
WHISKEY JENNY: I couldn’t think of anything.
GIN JENNY: Really? OK, so zombies for me.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh. All right.
GIN JENNY: I don’t do zombies. I don’t watch The Walking Dead. Didn’t read Girl with All the Gifts. I liked World War Z, but it was really surprising. I did not expect to like it at all.
WHISKEY JENNY: Huh. No, I can’t think of anything that I’m out on. But through the course of the conversation we’ll see if anything comes up. Is there anything else you’re out on totally?
GIN JENNY: Well, so I didn’t want to say that I was completely out on this, but dwarves, orcs, and elves, all the Tolkien type stuff, I’m not saying I’m out on them. I think there’s a lot of derivative secondary world fantasy inspired by Tolkien that I can’t be bothered with, that’s really kind of color coded, and has a lot of racial weirdness, and you know, Middle Ages rapiness. And it’s not so much about dwarves and orcs and elves, as it is about the way that they’ve been used in stories in the past. So I’d be open to stories that use them differently, I think, but I would say for now I find them kind of a turn off.
WHISKEY JENNY: No, that’s fair. I would put them in the same category for me as vampires, in like, if you’re going to do that, you have to do it interestingly and well.
GIN JENNY: Like have a new take.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, have a new take on it.
GIN JENNY: OK, so what are some of the ones that you— what were your categories?
WHISKEY JENNY: So my two categories are ones that I was just straight up terrified of. And the other category is ones that I thought were awesome, might also have been scared of, but recognized how awesome they were. Most everything falls in the awesome category, though I do have some specific examples. But the ones that I was just straight up scared of and was like, leave the light on when I was reading it, are the ringwraiths in Lord of the Rings.
GIN JENNY: Oh yeah, those are really scary. And they’re really scary in the movies, too.
WHISKEY JENNY: They are really scary. There’s that one scene at the beginning, when I think Merry and Pippin are hiding from them, and the thing’s little becloaked head turns towards them. And it’s so scary!
GIN JENNY: That is really scary.
WHISKEY JENNY: And I’m not even like, but they look cool. I’m like, no, those are just straight up scary.
GIN JENNY: How do you feel about other horse-affiliated creatures? Because I feel like the ringwraiths are always on horses, and they have also quite creepy horses.
WHISKEY JENNY: Don’t they ride dragons sometimes?
GIN JENNY: Oh yeah, they do ride dragons sometimes. Well actually, dragons, I think— so I feel about the same, I think, about dragons as I feel about centaurs and unicorns and stuff. I’m kind of— you know, in preparing for this topic, Whiskey Jenny, I was surprised at how many supernatural beasties I was kind of out on.
WHISKEY JENNY: Wow. OK, interesting.
GIN JENNY: It was weird. So with dragons, I enjoyed the Temeraire books by Naomi Novik well enough, but I didn’t finish the series, and I haven’t really felt the need to, even though I enjoyed the first book a lot. And centaurs and— oh, and I don’t know if you ever, Whiskey Jenny, I don’t know if you ever read Mercedes Lackey when you were younger.
WHISKEY JENNY: No. Is that the one that you read too early and it scarred you?
GIN JENNY: No, I wouldn’t say it scarred me. I grew out of them.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK.
GIN JENNY: But anyway, one of her major series has these magical telepathic horses. I wasn’t one of those kids who went through a horse phase, so even when I was a kid, I wasn’t that into that idea. I was like, this is kind of silly. They’re too mystical and beautiful and perfect.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, I’m not that into horses either, so the horse— like, unicorns I don’t really care about. I think centaurs are cool.
GIN JENNY: Centaurs could be cool. I don’t know that I’ve ever read a book where I was like, oh, these centaurs in particular are amazing.
WHISKEY JENNY: Sure, that’s fair. I can’t think of one either.
GIN JENNY: But you hold out hope.
WHISKEY JENNY: But in general, as a myth, they’re cool, I think.
GIN JENNY: Well, Maggie Stiefvater also has this book called The Scorpio Races. Did you read that? I can’t remember.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yes.
GIN JENNY: OK, and it’s about these two Irish teenagers who are competing in a big race of water horse monsters. People who like Maggie Stiefvater say that this is one of their favorites of her books, and it just did nothing for me.
WHISKEY JENNY: See, I really liked that book.
GIN JENNY: Yeah! I don’t get it.
WHISKEY JENNY: I really liked it.
GIN JENNY: I don’t know. Our tastes are often quite similar.
WHISKEY JENNY: I don’t know.
GIN JENNY: It’s mysterious.
WHISKEY JENNY: What worked for me is, I liked that the horses were monsters and not like beautiful magical unicorns.
GIN JENNY: Yes, I did too.
WHISKEY JENNY: They were scary magical monsters.
GIN JENNY: I would say overall, I enjoy supernatural beasties the most when they’re legitimately really frightening.
WHISKEY JENNY: Mm-hm.
GIN JENNY: So creepy fairies does it for me so much. Every changeling story I’ve ever read I’ve been super into. And genuinely scary vampires stories are a lot of fun, too, for me.
WHISKEY JENNY: This is fascinating.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Why?
WHISKEY JENNY: I just think it’s really interesting that you like the scary ones, and I had one example of the one that terrified me, and then the rest of mine are like, yeah, but they’re also really cool! And they’re like, selkies. Or, you know, animal companions I really like. When they’re best friends with the animal, I really like it. It’s going to come as a shock to you, but whatever they’re best friends, I really like it.
GIN JENNY: Sure, sure.
WHISKEY JENNY: So the two magical animal friends that I immediately thought of as being like, oh, those are so cool, are Lying Cat from the Saga comic books.
GIN JENNY: Oh, right, right.
WHISKEY JENNY: Who is a cat who just knows when everyone’s lying, and he goes, hm, lying.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, it’s really good.
WHISKEY JENNY: There’s also, in those Harry Dresden books by Jim Butcher, there’s a giant dog named Mouse who can basically understand English and is super protective, and is pretty much magical. I don’t know if he’s actually magical, but he basically is, so I count him. And he’s really protective of people. And he’s a giant, giant dog named Mouse, and I love him.
GIN JENNY: Awww. That sounds great.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, it is good. Do you have any other terrifying ones?
GIN JENNY: I find fairies— I can find fairies very creepy. Because I guess the way that fairies can exist right close to your regular life is quite scary to me. And the way that a lot of stories about the fairies are about you losing time. You know, you go down to the fairy kingdom for a day and you come up and a hundred years have passed, and stuff like that is really creepy to me. So I think that’s why I find them so scary. And I really enjoy it a lot when authors can write a genuinely scary fairy-type story.
WHISKEY JENNY: I think they’re also especially creepy for me because of the way that they manipulate the truth, I guess.
GIN JENNY: Oh, yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: Things are very often not what they seem in fairy stories, in a very scary way.
GIN JENNY: And I like that in fairy stories there’s usually a lot of quite specific rules. So I like that you usually can manage to get away safely. You just don’t, because you messed up.
WHISKEY JENNY: Right, right. You have to be clever about it. I feel like there were fairies in Labyrinth Lost. Did you like those fairies?
GIN JENNY: Yeah. Yes, I did. I think this is the source of my feelings about fairies. I had this book when I was a kid called The Fairy Rebel. And it’s about a woman who can’t have children, she really wants children, and she makes a little fairy friend. And the fairy’s super nice and adorable and does magic to help her have a baby.
WHISKEY JENNY: No strings attached, right?
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: No, actually, no strings attached. She loves the baby and she brings her presents every birthday. But it turns out she shouldn’t have done that magic, and her evil totalitarian queen finds out about it and starts wreaking really creepy vengeances.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yikes. All right.
GIN JENNY: And it’s just a really short book, but I found it so scary back when I was a kid. And even now when I reread it, I’m like, oh my god, so creepy. There’s this whole thing with wasps.
WHISKEY JENNY: Wasps?
GIN JENNY: Yeah, she rides wasps. They’re her servants. And the nice fairy says that wasps are really wicked, because a bee will sting you to protect itself, and it sacrifices its own life to do that. But a wasp doesn’t care. Wasps are just malicious. They’ll just come get you for no reason. It’s really stuck with me. And every time I see a wasp, I’m like hmmmmmm.
WHISKEY JENNY: Is that true about wasps and bees?
GIN JENNY: I don’t know.
WHISKEY JENNY: Maybe Big Bee was sponsoring this book.
GIN JENNY: Well, we like bees. I feel like everyone likes bees and has positive feelings about bees, right?
WHISKEY JENNY: I mean, yeah, but what are they based on?
GIN JENNY: I think bees’ roundness and fuzziness, and the fact that if they sting you, they die.
WHISKEY JENNY: I don’t know. Why do wasps get such a bad rep?
GIN JENNY: Because they’re jerks. They’re bitey jerks. And they build gross nests so you can’t open your windows and enjoy the fresh air.
WHISKEY JENNY: I mean, yeah. [LAUGHTER] But they’re also trying to get by, man.
GIN JENNY: Well, so is everything! If that’s the rule, then I can’t dislike any insects. OK, what were you going to say?
WHISKEY JENNY: I see what you’re saying about the creepiness. And I think I also like when the power of these sort of creatures is acknowledged and respected, and it’s not just fun, cute, fuzziness. Although I love that as well. But when they’re like, yeah, this thing is on your side for now, but also it has a lot of power, and anything that has a lot of power, especially way more power than you, there’s going to be some inherit, like, whoa. So I like when that’s acknowledged. Like hippogriffs in Harry Potter.
GIN JENNY: Oh yeah. I love the hippogriffs in Harry Potter.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, they’re great. But don’t offend one.
GIN JENNY: Well, so this to me is where I would say— the hippogriffs made me think of it. Because I enjoy animal companions, and I enjoy humanlike monster beasts. So witches and vampires and werewolves, all pretty good. But I don’t really like it when it’s one of those things where it’s like, this magical beast has a majestic society that has endured for thousands of years. As a rule— I’m not saying always, but as a rule, I’m not really on board for going to the dragon kingdom, learning about all the dragon rules of how to be a dragon and stuff. That is not particularly interesting to me.
Again, I do feel like I discovered a lot of negativity within myself as I was making notes for this podcast that I was not expecting.
WHISKEY JENNY: I think just in general, dragons I think are the ones that just show up all the time. So every time when they show up, I release a tiny little sigh to be like, oh, here we go, dragons again.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: So again, you just gotta do a new exciting thing with dragons. I will say, someone I feel like did do a new exciting thing with dragons was— what are those, pots and pans and dragons stories? You know what I’m talking about?
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Patricia C. Wrede books. Enchanted Forest Chronicles.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yes. Oh my god, those are so great.
GIN JENNY: I like those as well, even though they do kind of have an ancient dragon civilization vibe to them a little bit. But it’s jokey. I don’t know.
WHISKEY JENNY: Exactly. It’s a different take on it. It’s very jokey. It’s full of jokes. Why did I think saucepans were involved? There’s a magical saucepan, right?
GIN JENNY: [SLOWLY] Yeah, there is.
WHISKEY JENNY: Cool.
GIN JENNY: I can’t remember anything else about it.
WHISKEY JENNY: Me neither.
GIN JENNY: But yeah, that does seem familiar.
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, those. Love those.
GIN JENNY: Oh, Whiskey Jenny, here’s a question. What are some magical beasts that you would like to see more of?
WHISKEY JENNY: Selkies.
GIN JENNY: I know the answer is selkies.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Always selkies. I would say in general any ocean creature.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. It’s tough, I think, because they can’t interact with humans. So it’s hard to have an entry point, if you know what I mean. You don’t have an audience surrogate to guide you through the world of the mermaids or selkies or whatever.
WHISKEY JENNY: That’s fair. Or you have to do some sort of, like, he’s got a bubble on his head. He’s fine. Don’t worry about it.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. I think also with selkies, the reason that I tend not to read that many books about selkies, is because I don’t— and this despite being of Irish descent— I don’t really enjoy Irish stuff. It’s just not really my thing. It’s so— everyone’s so depressed, and drunk, and it kind of bums me out.
WHISKEY JENNY: [LAUGHTER] Um. I don’t know, I think—
GIN JENNY: Whiskey Jenny’s like, you’re a monster. People literally starved to death during the potato famine. I know, you’re right.
WHISKEY JENNY: No, I don’t think you’re a monster. But I don’t think that all selkie stories involve the potato famine. You know, like, I think there’s some leaps that you’re making.
GIN JENNY: Listen, I will say, The Secret of Roan Inish is an amazing movie that I love and watch 100,000 times. I don’t know whence this prejudice.
WHISKEY JENNY: I feel like I knew before that this was your feeling. And you particularly didn’t like Welsh mythology, and then The Raven Cycle came out. So I’m really hoping that there’s going to be another amazing book that you love, that you brought into being by saying that you don’t like Irish mythology, too.
GIN JENNY: I don’t want to give false hope. I still don’t like Welsh mythology. I just like The Raven Cycle.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, sure, that’s fine. But I think it would be great if there was a similar book that you liked despite, with selkies.
GIN JENNY: Anyway, yes, I agree the underwater creatures are grossly neglected and it’s a shame. And I think it has to do with how the ocean remains such a mystery. Although you would think writers would be eager to explore that.
WHISKEY JENNY: Right? You can do whatever you want. We don’t know what’s going on down there.
GIN JENNY: That’s true. Yeah, could be anything.
WHISKEY JENNY: Could be literally anything. Anything else that you want more of?
GIN JENNY: No, I don’t think so. I would like to see underwater get more play. I think one thing I would like more of is to see more books get published about supernatural creatures from other cultures. Because there’s a lot of them.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.
GIN JENNY: And we’re not even tapped into that yet.
WHISKEY JENNY: No.
GIN JENNY: So I’m really excited for those to hit the YA and SF markets, because I think that would be really cool. And the couple of times that I’ve read books by authors from different cultures about werewolves and vampires and stuff, it’s always been cool. They’ve had new takes on things, and I’ve enjoyed it a lot. So yeah, that would be great. Publish more people from other cultures in general.
WHISKEY JENNY: Cosign.
GIN JENNY: Doesn’t all have to be American and British.
WHISKEY JENNY: True.
GIN JENNY: Having said that, one of the things I liked about The Changeling was how tapped into New York it was. The main character’s always going questing for the magic corners of New York, and I enjoyed that a lot.
So I guess I’ll start with a quick summary. The Changeling, by Victor LaValle, is about a new father who experiences a personal tragedy. Readers, if you want to go into the book completely unspoiled, I guess skip ahead. But I think that what I’m about to tell you is not a tremendous spoiler based on the title of the book.
WHISKEY JENNY: Sure.
GIN JENNY: The main character, Apollo, his wife chains him up and appears to kill their baby, and then she disappears. And he’s trying to find answers for what happened. And he discovers that supernatural elements may be involved. So it’s about his adventures trying to find some kind of resolution for what happened. OK, Whiskey Jenny, what did you think of this book?
WHISKEY JENNY: Overall I thought it was— I thought it was good. It very much took me by surprise how dark it was.
GIN JENNY: Yes, same. I had to apologize to Whiskey Jenny. I did not really realize how dark it was going to be.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s pretty dark.
GIN JENNY: I will just say, a warning. If you have a hard time reading child harm type stuff, the scene where his wife appears to have killed the baby is really rough to read.
WHISKEY JENNY: That scene particularly came out of the blue for me, because everything before then is normal stuff that I’m familiar with. And then suddenly a chapter starts where he is chained to a radiator. And it not that everything is fine and perfect beforehand. There’s certainly problems. But it makes a giant leap suddenly, where it’s like, now really, really horrors are happening before you.
But I thought it was well done. I’m glad you mentioned that it’s set in New York, because I’m so particularly impressed that it’s that firmly rooted in real places, and the real world, and actual landmarks in New York. And it’s present day. And I’m really impressed that he got me to go on this magical journey, basically in the real world.
GIN JENNY: I think he sets it up so well, even right at the beginning when his wife is giving birth on the subway car. And the “what time is it, showtime” kids are helping out.
WHISKEY JENNY: All the showtime kids! It was so sweet!
GIN JENNY: Yeah, it was so lovely. And just such a nice little New York type of thing.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, it really was.
GIN JENNY: Both in the fact that he incorporated the showtime kids, but also just the way that people in New York tend to be a lot more helpful and kind than their reputation.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, I agree. I’m still blown away that he was able to do that without making it one of those stories where you don’t know if Apollo is crazy or not. I think it never went down that path of like, maybe he’s just hallucinating everything. And I appreciate that, because I think we’ve done that twist a bajillion times, and we don’t need that story again.
GIN JENNY: I have never been fond of stories where they’re crazy.
WHISKEY JENNY: No.
GIN JENNY: To me it’s kind of like, and it was a dream the whole time.
WHISKEY JENNY: Absolutely. Agree. Totally.
GIN JENNY: It’s very unsatisfying.
WHISKEY JENNY: I absolutely agree. And I’m glad that this didn’t even sniff at that path. And I think by having his friend Patrice with him a lot of the time, and just interacting with other people confirming what he’s seeing is very helpful to make sure you know that this is really happening.
GIN JENNY: I love Patrice, by the way. I love that he had such a good friend in his corner.
WHISKEY JENNY: Patrice is the best. I should say, this is probably part of one of my problems with the book, is I super did not like Apollo.
GIN JENNY: Oh, really?
WHISKEY JENNY: No.
GIN JENNY: OK. Say on.
WHISKEY JENNY: I didn’t like his and Emma’s courtship.
GIN JENNY: That’s fair.
WHISKEY JENNY: I think that was most of it. I just couldn’t get past that. That really stuck with me. And I didn’t like the hero, I guess.
GIN JENNY: Well, I think I liked it so much that the book was depicting a really devoted, involved, caring father being really crazy about his kid. And I feel like I don’t see that that often in any genre of literature. I loved that. So I was probably more in for Apollo than I would otherwise have been, because I loved Victor LaValle’s choice to make that his driving motivation.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, I liked that as well. I thought it was strange, though, that there’s kind of an indictment of that sort of devoted father, I felt, coming from Jorgen. It was of a piece with the indictment of modern technology. I thought it was purposeful that he included those two philosophies. Like, you post everything on the internet, what do you expect? And no one knows what they’re doing in parenthood. Because I was so on board with Apollo as a father, I thought that was an odd thing for the book to even bring up as a bad thing.
GIN JENNY: To me it just went to the broader— I don’t want to say indictment, but the broader criticism of the way we interact with technology. So to me, it seemed completely in that stall, rather than saying anything about Apollo’s specific fatherhood.
WHISKEY JENNY: Mm-hm. Yeah.
GIN JENNY: I thought some of the social commentary was maybe a scooch heavy handed.
WHISKEY JENNY: Such as?
GIN JENNY: Such as the thing about posting a million pictures on your Instagram or whatever.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. I guess that’s what I wanted to get at, too. I think he is trying to indict the way we interact with modern technology. And I don’t think that’s inherently evil.
GIN JENNY: Oh, no, I don’t either. I just thought it was a little on the nose. I think that he could have trusted his readers a little more with a couple of things, including that, and let us take away from it what we wanted to without the villain laying it out piece by piece.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, absolutely. The other side of that coin, I think, is that Apollo is black, and he has equal real world obstacles in his way to completing his quest. In addition to the magical stuff that’s happening, there’s also real world stuff conspiring to prevent him from doing that. And I thought that was really powerful and well done.
GIN JENNY: And I thought with that he did such a good job of not being heavy handed at all. There’s a part where he is wandering around a neighborhood that’s not his neighborhood and some cops stop him. And I thought that— and I wouldn’t have criticized it if Victor LaValle had had the cops just be straight up jerks. And they’re not super nice to him. They won’t let him stay and are clearly profiling him based on his race. But they don’t rough him up, and they give him a MetroCard. But like you said, it still presents an obstacle to the quest he’s trying to achieve. And I just thought Victor LaValle did a great job of portraying that without making it seem like he was teaching the reader some big lesson.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. And as soon as that scene started I was like, oh crap, what is going to happen now? Because there’s always that undercurrent of threat. Even though they are, I guess, sort of being polite, there’s still a very present fear and ominous tone to the interaction. And I thought that was well done as well.
GIN JENNY: There’s this line that Patrice said that I liked so much. He says “Heroes like us don’t get to make mistakes,” which I thought was so good, and just an encapsulation of everything I loved about the way Victor LaValle portrays race in this book.
WHISKEY JENNY: Absolutely.
GIN JENNY: The one thing about his portrayal about race that I thought was maybe a little bit, again, spelling out the moral for the reader— I think he could have trusted us a little bit more— is when, I think it’s when he’s talking to Jorgen, and Jorgen says something like, such and such was the birthright of every white man in America, and because of people like you we don’t have the same blah blah blah. I just thought it was spelling out the racial resentment a little too much. And I liked that element of the book a lot, but I think it was so clear from the minute he came on the scene and was talking about his Norwegian roots and everything, the disconnect between his heritage and Apollo’s was so stark that I thought Victor LaValle could have let us come to that on our own and not spelled it out so, so explicitly.
WHISKEY JENNY: Which is particularly interesting because I found the description of fairy tales in this book fascinating. He has this little passage where he’s talking about fairy tales used to be humans just asking unanswerable questions, and they didn’t have a neat and tidy moral. And then the 1800s happened, or whatever the shift happened, and everything got a moral. And I love that structure of looking at them that way. And so then for him to almost fall in that trap of making the moral of this story extremely obvious, I thought, was ironic, I guess. I don’t know.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. I mean, in general— I feel like I’ve said more negative things than how I actually felt about the book, because I really, really liked the book. I probably liked it more than you, because I’ve read something of his before, so I had at least more of a sense of how dark and scary it was going to be.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, it took me by surprise. It was hard to recover. Especially because there’s so much cute stuff in the beginning, where he’s being a cute new father. And I was like, well this is great. This is so sweet! And then it really takes a turn.
GIN JENNY: It does. It does take a turn. One thing that I loved, I loved that the villain of the whole book— and again, this is a pretty big spoiler, I guess— the villain of the book is just some schlubby guy who turns out to be capable of all these horrors. And that to me is very true to life. We think that people who are evil are going to look a certain way and act a certain way. And actually people who seem really normal are capable of really horrible things.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, absolutely.
GIN JENNY: And it’s especially true if you are on the internet ever. So I liked that a lot.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, I did too. And I thought that that was very well done. But then the final battle isn’t with the actual villain. The final battle is with the troll. And I don’t know, I didn’t see the troll as the epitome of evil. The more powerful battle to me, I thought, was the previous one.
GIN JENNY: I agree. But I was OK with it because I thought it did a good job of bringing Emma and Apollo back together in a way that I think would have been challenging otherwise, because there had been so much stuff that went down between them up to then.
WHISKEY JENNY: That’s true. I mean, that poor troll just wanted to raise kids, but could never do it.
GIN JENNY: I mean—
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: No, he shouldn’t have kept stealing them.
GIN JENNY: Oh, good. I’m glad you know.
WHISKEY JENNY: Instead of loved his own children. But I don’t know, it was odd that he wasn’t trying to eat them. He was just trying to raise them.
GIN JENNY: I mean, I loved all the stuff about the changeling. And all that stuff was, to me, so creepy.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh yeah, absolutely.
GIN JENNY: Oh my gosh, when they dig up the grave and they take out the baby, and it’s all hair and thorns.
WHISKEY JENNY: [GROANING]
GIN JENNY: So gross.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s really scary.
GIN JENNY: And when Apollo is at the survivors’ group and there’s another woman at the group, and she’s like, it’s not a baby. I mean, that part was so, so scary.
WHISKEY JENNY: And she says the same words— oh, yeah. It was— ooh, yeah. I also really loved when he digs up that baby. He is way more kind to that baby than I think I could have been at the time. And he’s like, I’m sorry this is happening to you as he closes the coffin on it.
GIN JENNY: I know. It was really nice. I mean, as nice as a grave digging scene can be, I thought it was nice.
WHISKEY JENNY: Overall well done, Victor LaValle.
GIN JENNY: I liked this one probably as much as I liked The Devil in Silver, which was quite a bit. So I like Victor LaValle. I think it’s official now. I officially like Victor LaValle.
WHISKEY JENNY: What is The Devil in Silver about?
GIN JENNY: It takes place in a mental institution, and there’s an actual, legitimate monster in the mental institution. Not a metaphorical one, a real one.
WHISKEY JENNY: But you love Victor LaValle.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. Well, do you want to tell us what we’re reading for next time?
WHISKEY JENNY: Ooh. Sure do. So next up we’re going to read Salt Houses by Hala Alyan.
GIN JENNY: OK.
WHISKEY JENNY: Basically all I know about this is it’s a multigenerational family saga that Gin Jenny made the mistake of tweeting that she would be open to reading, so I immediately was like, let’s read it for podcast! This is the only time I’ll ever get to get to read a multigenerational family saga for podcast with you that’s not a Hatening pick.
GIN JENNY: That’s true. That’s very true.
WHISKEY JENNY: So what about it made you open to it?
GIN JENNY: My friend recommended it to me specifically. She was like, Jenny, you have to read Salt Houses. She was like, I know it’s a multigenerational family saga, but I still think you would like it. And it’s very hard for me to resist when someone specifically says, Jenny, you, in particular, should read this book.
WHISKEY JENNY: Cool. We’ll read this multigenerational family saga together.
GIN JENNY: Sounds fantastic. I’m tentatively looking forward to it.
WHISKEY JENNY: Hooray! All right, well, this has been the Reading the End bookcast with the demographically similar Jennys. You can visit the blog at readingtheend.com. You can follow us on Twitter @readingtheend. We’re both on Goodreads as Whiskey Jenny and Gin Jenny. And you can email us at readingtheend@gmail.com. And if you listen to us on iTunes, please leave us a review. It really helps people find the podcast.
And until next time, a quote from The Changeling, by Victor LaValle. “History isn’t a tale told once. It’s a series of revisions.”
[CLINK]THEME SONG: You don’t judge a book by its cover. Page one’s not a much better view. And shortly you’re gonna discover the middle won’t mollify you. So whether whiskey’s your go-to or you’re like my gin-drinking friend, no matter what you are imbibing, you’ll be better off in the end reading the end.