It’s one of our three favorite times of year: Seasonal book preview time! With very great difficulty, we intrepid Jennies have sallied forth into the world of publisher catalogs and selected the five-or-six best books coming out between January and April 2019. It’s a good season for books, my friends. Then we chat about the first play we’ve ever read for podcast, Jackie Sibblies Drury’s We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884–1915. 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.
1:36 – What we’re reading
3:38 – The best of what we listened to in 2018
5:53 – Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Book 5, Chapters 5-10
21:47 – Update on Fall 2018 Book Preview
23:07 – Spring 2019 Book Preview
33:22 – We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884–1915, by Jackie Sibblies Drury
45:11 – What we’re reading next time
What we talked about:
The Vela, Yoon Ha Lee, Becky Chambers, Rivers Solomon, SL Huang https://www.serialbox.com/serials/vela
The Book of M, Peng Shepherd
Live from Here with Chris Thile
“My Oh My”
Jesus Christ Superstar Live
Return of the King
Gin Jenny’s Fall 18 Books:
Washington Black, Esi Edugyan
Transcription, Kate Atkinson
Zero Sum Game, SL Huang
Hearts Unbroken, Cynthia Leitich Smith
Exit Strategy, Martha Wells
Eternity Girl, Magdalene Visaggio
Whiskey Jenny’s Fall 18 Books:
The Royal Runaway, Lindsay Emory
The Best Bad Things, Katrina Colasco
Waiting for Eden, Elliot Ackerman
Retablos, Octavio Solas
Gin Jenny’s Spring 19 Books:
The Kingdom of Copper, by SA Chakraborty
The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present, by David Treuer
A People’s Future of the United States, edited by Victor Lavalle and John Joseph Adams
The True Queen, Zen Cho
Gingerbread, Helen Oyeyemi
Return of the Thief, Megan Whalen Turner
Whiskey Jenny’s Spring 19 Books:
Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James
The City in the Middle of the Night, Charlie Jane Anders
The Night Tiger, Yangsze Choo
American Spy, Lauren Wilkinson
Walking on the Ceiling, Aysegül Savas
We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884–1915, by Jackie Sibblies Drury
Interview with Jackie Sibblies Drury
Insurrecto, Gina Apostol
Get at me on Twitter, email the podcast, and friend me (Gin Jenny) and Whiskey Jenny on Goodreads. If you like what we do, support us on Patreon. 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
Transcripts by: Sharon of Library Hungry
Transcript is available under 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.
WHISKEY JENNY: Hello, and welcome back to the Reading the End Bookcast with the demographically similar Jennys. I’m Whiskey Jenny.
GIN JENNY: And I’m Gin Jenny.
WHISKEY JENNY: And we’re back to talk about books and literary happenings. On today’s podcast, we will, as always, mention what we’re reading. We will do our what we’re something else-ing as voted on by our lovely Patreon supporters. We’ll finish up book 5 of The Lord of the Rings saga. We will check in on what we were excited to read about in the fall and give our 2019 winter book preview.
GIN JENNY: I guess it’s spring book preview, huh?
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, it’s like two and two. [LAUGHTER] I don’t know.
For this podcast we read a play by Jackie Sibblies Drury called We Are Proud to Present a Presentation about the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, from the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884–1915.
GIN JENNY: That was so good!
WHISKEY JENNY: Thank you so much. I’m nervous about that title every time I have to say it. [LAUGHTER] And lastly, Gin Jenny will tell us what we’re reading next time. So first up, though, what are you reading now?
GIN JENNY: I am reading an advance review copy of a forthcoming story on Serial Box that I’m really excited about. It’s called The Vela, and it’s by Yoon Ha Lee, who wrote Nicefox Gambit; Becky Chambers, who wrote The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet; Rives Solomon, who wrote An Unkindness of Ghosts; and S.L. Huang, who wrote Zero Sum Game. So that is a very exciting, to me, lineup of authors.
WHISKEY JENNY: That’s a real murderer’s row. Seriously.
GIN JENNY: Right? Yeah. So The Vela is a science fiction thriller about a mercenary who’s been assigned to find this missing refugee ship. And she teams up with Niko, who is a hacker and the child of a wealthy planet’s president. And the mercenary is also looking for her big sister, because she herself is a refugee, so she hasn’t seen her sister in many years. So it’s got a team-up, political machinations, sister stuff, and four really, really great science fiction authors. And I’m really super into it so far.
WHISKEY JENNY: That sounds awesome.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. I’m really excited about it.
WHISKEY JENNY: What’s it called again?
GIN JENNY: It’s called The Vela. And it’s coming out from Serial Box sometime soon. I’m not sure exactly when.
WHISKEY JENNY: Cool. I am currently reading The Book of M, by Peng Shepherd.
GIN JENNY: Oh, how are you finding it? I started it and I got distracted so I didn’t get far.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: I’m enjoying it so far. I’m about 15% of the way through. I have a couple quibbles, but I really like the concept of it. It’s sort of a dystopian novel where everyone starts to lose—many people start to lose their shadows, which also means that they start to lose their memories, and the world sort of ends.
The really cool thing that I’m enjoying is, for the people who lose their memories, their forgetfulness shapes the world around them. So if they forget that a thing is blue and think it’s red instead, it becomes red. And I’m really enjoying that aspect and excited to see how it plays out. I am still on just beginning, but I’m having a little bit of trouble connecting with people emotionally. So we will see if that improves or not. But yeah, overall excited to keep going on it.
GIN JENNY: Awesome. For something else-ing on this podcast, our Patreon supporters voted for us to talk about what we’re listening to. So we’re going to talk about the best of what we listened to in 2018. So what was it for you, Whiskey Jenny?
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, mine is a single song. I went to a recording of Live from Here with Chris Thile, which is the NPR show after Prairie Home Companion. He is a mandolinist, and I really enjoy him and his music, and his house band. And one of the guests on the show was Jon Batiste, who’s the amazing pianist and bandleader currently on the Stephen Colbert late night show. I forget what it’s called, because they all have very similar names.
GIN JENNY: Yes, they do.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: I couldn’t remember. But it’s the one with Stephen Colbert. And after the show ended, Jon Batiste played with Chris Thile and some of the other members of the band who were also in Punch Brothers. One of my favorite songs by them, which is “My Oh My,” and Jon Batiste had just been an astounding guest, also. And I hadn’t really listened to him before, either. And then he came on and played that song with them, and it was just amazing. So that one specific version of that one song, I’m saying, is the best thing. Because it was also just such a lovely experience, too, to be there in the theater and hear it live. And it was around December and I was having warm holiday fuzzies. So what’s the best thing you listened to?
GIN JENNY: OK, so I’m going to say the soundtrack to Jesus Christ Superstar Live. I have been in on live musicals since the very beginning, and Jesus Christ Superstar Live did something that a lot of the live TV musicals have not done, which is that they cast experienced singers in all the main parts. So, great innovation.
WHISKEY JENNY: [GASP] What!?
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: And in particular, Brandon Victor Dixon was incredible as Judas. I’ve probably said on this podcast before that my first love was Carl Anderson playing Judas in the movie of Jesus Christ Superstar. And he’s so good, and I have a lot of 12-year-old emotions tied up in him. So the other Judases that I’ve heard have mostly been a letdown. But Brandon Victor Dixon was incredible. And this musical overall was so good, and I have just listened to the soundtrack over and over. And I’m excited that other people got really into it. And I’m hoping that this will set a standard for how good a live TV musical needs to be, because it was just tremendous and I liked it so much.
WHISKEY JENNY: Cool. Yeah.
GIN JENNY: All right, do you want to get into Return of the King? Because this is a really pivotal section.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oof. Yes, let’s get into it. I was not expecting it to be this pivotal this soon.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. So this was book 5, chapters 5 through 10, and so much stuff happened. So we start with Merry. He’s riding with the Rohirrim. And they’re getting advice from basically druids, it seems like—they’re called the Wild Men—on how to get safely to Gondor.
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m still questioning it, from a racism perspective.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Yup
WHISKEY JENNY: But there was one moment where they’re working out this deal, and Eomer is asking the leader of the Wild Men questions, and the Wild Man gets offended at one point because his intelligence is not being respected. And he’s like, we’re wild, we’re not children. And I just thought it was a very unexpected moment for me, because I was narrowing my eyes at this interaction. And then it was definitely a slap on the wrist for Eomer. So I did like that a little bit, although maybe—I don’t know. Be better about everything.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Yes. I strongly agree.
WHISKEY JENNY: And then they get to—
GIN JENNY: They get to Pelennor Fields, and the boss Ringwraith shows up on his dragon steed thing. And everyone essentially runs away, but Theoden’s horse freaks out so badly that Theoden gets trapped under his horse. And only one soldier, Dernhelm, stands by him. And what happens? It’s the best.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s the best. And it happens so soon, and I was like, oh, we’re doing this right now? But as we all know, Dernhelm is actually Eowyn, and she is able to resist the mental terror that the Nazgul brings on everyone and it starts having a conversation with him—[LAUGHTER] with the king of the Ringwraiths. And the king of the Ringwraiths is like, no man shall defeat me. And Eowyn—like a god damned boss—throws off her helmet and is like, gotcha! I’m not a man, I’m a woman! [LAUGHTER] It is so amazing.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: It’s really good. So she attacks him. She kills his steed. And Merry also creeps up and stabs the Nazgul in the back, and then Eowyn finishes him off.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, it’s so great. I was unclear on who actually kills the king of the dudes.
GIN JENNY: I think Eowyn does the final blow.
WHISKEY JENNY: Eowyn does the final blow?
GIN JENNY: I think so. Merry weakens him with his special sword, and then Eowyn—yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, cool. But yeah, he dies in a very mysterious way, because his clothes are empty, and we just hear anguished screams going up into the sky. It’s very spooky. It’s such an amazing, heroic moment for both of them. It’s the best.
GIN JENNY: It is the best. And then they’re both very badly wounded, so they and Theoden are taken into Gondor.
WHISKEY JENNY: So Eomer comes up and sees the body of his uncle and the body of his sister and thinks that they are both dead. But then he becomes enraged and is like, death! Death to everyone! And goes on a rampage. And they are doing OK in battle, but then they are not doing OK in battle. But then what happens?
GIN JENNY: So then, Aragorn shows up. They think—a bunch of ships show up, and they think the ships are the bad guys, the Corsairs.
WHISKEY JENNY: Right.
GIN JENNY: But instead, it’s Aragorn! Coming to save the day with the men that he’s collected along the way.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s a very fun twist, because everyone’s like, oh no, the Corsairs are here, we’re surely done for. And then they see the beautiful banner that Arwen made sparkling with the symbol of Aragorn, or something something.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Who cares? Aragorn.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: It’s a nice image.
GIN JENNY: It’s really cool. So then the morale tide has turned.
WHISKEY JENNY: Hooray!
GIN JENNY: Yay!
WHISKEY JENNY: So basically, then they win the battle.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: And then there’s a moment where I was cracking up when they’re listing all the people who died in the battle, though, and I hadn’t heard of a single one of them. [LAUGHTER] And then we have to listen to a song about them. [LAUGHTER] Who are these people?
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Yeah, why do they deserve a song? I didn’t get a song when Gandalf died.
WHISKEY JENNY: You know, I’m sure they deserve a song. They fought bravely and died valiantly, but.
GIN JENNY: I love how you’re support-our-troops-ing me about these strangers in Lord of the Rings.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: You gotta respect the uniform.
GIN JENNY: OK, so meanwhile back in Gondor, Pippin and Gandalf and Beregond, who’s the Gondor soldier that Pippin has become friends with, are all trying to stop Denethor from burning Faramir to death. And there’s a shocking twist that I did not remember, which is that Denethor has a palantir of his own, and he’s been using it to try and spy on Sauron.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s not been going great.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Gandalf makes a distinction that I’m not super sure about. He says that Denethor hasn’t been corrupted to evil, but he hasn’t been getting good intel. However, I do think Denethor’s behavior admits of the possibility of corruption. But Gandalf says no. He just says essentially Sauron’s been feeding him a lot of information that’s true, but a downer.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. I also don’t think I agree with that distinction. Because he’s essentially trying to get his people to not fight. He’s like, just give up now. It doesn’t even matter. We’ll just run. Which is precisely what someone would want.
GIN JENNY: And also, if hearing bad news makes you into a set your son on fire person, then Gandalf would have no friends with children left.
WHISKEY JENNY: Everyone always talks about how he never brings good news.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Yeah. They call him Gandalf Stormcrow, and it’s super true.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: This guy again. Now what, buddy?
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: But they do manage to save Faramir, but Denethor burns himself and the palantir.
WHISKEY JENNY: I have a couple of things about this.
GIN JENNY: [LAUGHTER] Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: A of all, I think it is really interesting that Gandalf talks about the choice that he has to make, do I go and help on the battle, or do I go and save Faramir? No matter what, somebody is going to die. And I think it’s a really interesting callback to on the field of the battle, when Theoden dies and Merry is like, god, I wish Gandalf had been here.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: And I think there’s a definite link between—the consequence of that choice by Gandalf is that Theoden dies, which is, I just thought, really interesting. And that sometimes no matter what you do—
GIN JENNY: All bad outcomes. Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: I also—so Beregond has been disregarding the orders of Denethor to burn things and to let people in to burn things, because he doesn’t want either of them to die. Which I think is the right call, obviously. [LAUGHTER] And then afterwards, when Gandalf is also working towards this outcome and everyone basically agrees that that was the right thing to do, he is vindicated. But then Gandalf is like, OK, you have to go check in with your captain. He is going to have to punish you for being treasonous, but then ask to go be Faramir’s personal bodyguard or something. And I was like, wait, wait, wait. Why does he still have to get punished for alleged treason? Because he made the right call! I was really upset for Beregond.
GIN JENNY: Me too. He’s just trying his best. And he saved Faramir, so I think thanks are in order, Gandalf.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah! And I mean, maybe those are the really strict rules of Gondor. I’m not even mad at Gandalf, but I don’t understand what’s happening. [LAUGHTER] I think history has shown that he was correct. Ten minutes after he made that call, we can now say [LAUGHTER] it was a good one. So justice for Beregond.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: So there’s a thing that happens after this Denethor sequence where they’re grieving Theoden. And they give Theoden’s horse a special burial honor that they don’t give to the other horses. And I get that they are Rohirrim and they have emotions about their horses. I really do. But it feels like Theoden’s horse, in the most crucial moment, really messed up. And if that horse hadn’t freaked out and crushed Theoden, Theoden might still be alive, you know?
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh my god. So—wow.
GIN JENNY: So I think the horse should get nothing.
WHISKEY JENNY: Nothing.
GIN JENNY: I get that the horse is a horse, and it was scared. So that’s fine. But I think whatever they do for the typical horse that dies in battle is what they should do for Theoden’s horse. I don’t think the horse should get anything special. The horse messed up.
WHISKEY JENNY: So did every other human and horse on the battlefield, except for two.
GIN JENNY: Yes, and the two get special honors, and the other ones do not. And I think rightly.
WHISKEY JENNY: I don’t know. I don’t think I’m with you on this. We don’t have any background of why this horse is the specialest special that ever specialed. I guess it’s because it’s the king’s horse. But I don’t think I blame the horse for shying from the scary dragon.
GIN JENNY: The horse messed up the most of all the horses, right? Because the other horses ran away, but this horse didn’t run away. It fell on its rider, incapacitating him.
WHISKEY JENNY: It wasn’t on purpose! I don’t blame the horse!
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: I understand, it was a mistake. But I don’t think that making a stupid mistake that ends up killing someone should net you special burial honor. I just don’t.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s a horse!
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: OK, but then—yeah, but if you’re saying the horse is so brave it deserves a special burial honor—
WHISKEY JENNY: No, no, no. I’m not saying that. I’m saying that if they’re going to give the king’s horse a special burial honor—like, I don’t know if it’s because the horse is so brave or it’s because it’s the king’s horse. But he shouldn’t get whatever he was going to get taken away because of the rearing.
GIN JENNY: Whiskey Jenny, no one is talking about taking anything away from the horse.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yes you are! You’re saying he shouldn’t get it.
GIN JENNY: Because it’s a special thing. A bonus is given to him. I’m saying don’t give him the bonus! Give him the normal thing.
WHISKEY JENNY: And I’m saying don’t take away the bonus just because he made a mistake.
GIN JENNY: That’s what you do take away bonuses for! Bonuses are rewards for doing something good. If you don’t do something good, you don’t get the bonus. That’s not taking it away. The bonus is additive.
WHISKEY JENNY: I don’t think that the special burial is a reward for how he did in battle. I think it’s a lifetime achievement award.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: All right, fair enough. I’ll accept that. [LAUGHTER] OK, then there’s a very funny passage where Aragorn shows up in the Houses of Healing. Let’s talk about that, because I found it so funny.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: It’s great.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: It’s so good. So the idea is that the king’s touch can heal a grievous wound. So Aragorn comes to where people are recovering, and they’re like, oh, we need you to really save Faramir, and also Eowyn and Merry because they’re messed up from stabbing the Ringwraith. And Aragorn’s like, OK, who here has athelas? And then there’s like sixteen different people who are like, that stuff? It’s stupid. Here are twelve other names for it. Also it’s stupid.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: We don’t have any, but I think we might have some in the tea chest. I don’t know.
GIN JENNY: And they keep saying how useless it is, and Aragorn is like, I seriously really need it to save these three people who are close to death.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: That’s all well and good, but could you just bring me some?
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Oh, it’s really good. And they do eventually find some, and Aragorn is able to save everyone.
WHISKEY JENNY: I have a question about this.
GIN JENNY: Yes. Yeah, tell me.
WHISKEY JENNY: Is it in fact that Aragorn also has healing properties, or is he just the one who knew about the herb?
GIN JENNY: I think it’s both.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, cool. Great. So then he goes into—can we read the joke out loud?
GIN JENNY: Yes, because it’s really funny.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s really funny. So then he goes into Merry’s room and is doing the same thing with the herbs and the hands. And Merry wakes up and they have just the sweetest conversation ever. So in the midst of their little conversation—it’s so cute. Merry is sad and says he doesn’t know if he can smoke anymore, because he was supposed to talk about smoking with Theoden and it might make him too sad. And Aragorn is like, well, that would be a nice way to honor him. I think you should do it. And Merry says, well, there was some in my backpack, but I don’t know where it was.
And so then Aragorn is teasing him and says, “Master Meriadoc, if you think that I passed through the mountains and the realm of Gondor with fire and sword to bring herbs to a careless soldier who throws away his gear, you are mistaken.” [LAUGHTER] And then he gets to the joke. “If your pack has not been found, then you must send for the herb master of this house. And he will tell you that he did not know that the herb you desire had any virtues, but that it is called westmansweed by the vulgar, and galenas by the noble, and other names in other tongues more learned. And after adding a few half-forgotten rhymes that he does not understand, he will regretfully inform you that there is none in the house, and he will leave you to reflect the history of tongues.” [LAUGHTER] Aragorn is so pissed. He is gonna hold that grudge forever.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: It’s so funny, because Aragorn is always so polite. [LAUGHTER] And how salty he is about the herbs and spices situation in Gondor [LAUGHTER] is the best!
WHISKEY JENNY: I agree. It’s especially great because Aragorn is usually the peacekeeper noble king of all men.
GIN JENNY: We also get the backstory, what happened with the Corsairs, which is cool. You find out that Aragorn and all the Armies of the Dead showed up and defeated the Corsairs, and then Aragorn was like, OK, your debt is paid. Which was very nice of Aragorn. I, too, might have been like, you know what? Stick around for a little longer.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: We could still use you. Yeah but it is a very dramatic moment, too, where the ghost guy breaks his spear over his knee and then disappears or something.
GIN JENNY: Dissipates, yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s like, oof. Nice. It’s a real drama moment.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: And then there’s a council of war between Aragorn and Gandalf and the third in command for Denethor’s people, who’s this guy named Prince Imrahil.
WHISKEY JENNY: So wait I—no, I have a—wait. That’s third in command for Gondor? I thought that was like—
GIN JENNY: I guess the Gondor alliance.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, yeah. OK, cool. That’s the head of another group.
GIN JENNY: Yes. Yeah, yeah. Gandalf says that realistically we can’t win against Sauron’s armies. They’re too numerous. And Prince Imrahil is like, oh, we should just wait here to die? And Gandalf says, “Have you not done this and little more in all the days of Denethor?” I was like, damn!
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Ooh, burn! [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: Oh, man, it’s really good.
WHISKEY JENNY: Things are getting spicy in this council of war.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: It’s very brave, though, because Gandalf says, the only hope we have is for Frodo and Sam to succeed. And so the best thing to do is to distract Sauron, get everyone to come out of Mordor as much as possible. And even knowing that probably most of them are going to die because they’re so outnumbered, it’s still the best shot for Middle Earth.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s amazing. They’re basically—
GIN JENNY: I’m getting chills.
WHISKEY JENNY: They all go there knowing full and well what their goal is, and their goal is to be bait who gets eaten. And it’s really amazing. And then when they march and march and march and get to the—I kind of skipped the marching parts. [LAUGHTER] Sorry. It just seemed like they were marching for a long time.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, there was some marching. Who cares.
WHISKEY JENNY: There was some marching. And they get outside of the gates of Mordor. And—
GIN JENNY: Oh, it was awful. It’s awful. A bad guy shows up, and he’s carrying Sam’s sword and Frodo’s mithral coat.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yes.
GIN JENNY: And he’s like, see this? We have your people.
WHISKEY JENNY: He’s a real asshole.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, he really is. Really is. He says, we have your people. If you surrender we will not horribly torture them. But it’s up to you. Everyone is really shattered, as anyone would be. It’s so sad. It’s so awful. But Gandalf says no, of course.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. I mean, you have to, but it’s a real rough moment, yeah. So they all think that they’re condemning—or could be condemning them to torture. But he does. I like the way that he phrased it. He said, well, we will take these. They’re like, these are the terms. The asshole ambassador guy says, these are the terms, take them or leave them. And Gandalf says, “These we will take,” gathering up the sword and a coat of arms and all in a little pile on the floor. And he says, “But we do not take the terms.” And it’s just a very nice turn of phrase.
GIN JENNY: It is. It’s very good. And Pippin—it’s from Pippin’s point of view. And Pippin fights really bravely after that.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, he wounds a troll? Orc? Troll?
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: Orc/troll? I don’t know. He fights really bravely and then injures someone and then passes out.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. And that’s the end of book five.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. So there they’re sort of in the middle of that battle. And things are dark.
GIN JENNY: Things are dark. They really are.
WHISKEY JENNY: We had a real high from the Battle of Pelennor Fields.
GIN JENNY: Pelennor Fields, yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: And then that was quickly lost to the low low.
GIN JENNY: Yup. So we’ll see what happens next time. We’ll be reading book six, chapters 1 through 4 next time.
WHISKEY JENNY: We’re almost done. I can’t believe it.
GIN JENNY: I know. I know, it’s crazy. We’re trying to decide what we’re going to do next readalong-wise. So we’ll keep you posted, listeners.
WHISKEY JENNY: So shall we talk about fall book preview?
GIN JENNY: Yeah. I did pretty good. How did you do on fall book preview?
WHISKEY JENNY: Not great.
GIN JENNY: That’s OK. Who cares? [LAUGHTER] The stakes are nil.
WHISKEY JENNY: Do you want to go first?
GIN JENNY: Sure. So I had six books for fall book preview. They were Washington Black, which we read for podcast and I loved. I had Exit Strategy, by Martha Wells, which is the last Murderbot book, and Zero Sum Game, by S.L. Huang. I loved both of those. Transcription, by Kate Atkinson, was an enjoyable read, but I don’t think it’s going to stick in my head much. And then I haven’t gotten a chance yet to read Eternity Girl, by Magdalene Visaggio, or Hearts Unbroken, by Cynthia Leitich Smith. But I do have Hearts Unbroken checked out right now, so I’m hoping to read it soon. How about you?
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, I also had Washington Black on my list, so I did that one for podcast as well. I read The Royal Runaway, by Lindsay Emory, and, I think we’ve talked about before, did not ultimately love it. So that one was a bit of a letdown. And then the three I haven’t read are The Best Bad Things, by Katrina Carrasco, Waiting for Eden, in by Elliott Ackerman, and Retablos, by Octavio Solis. I have Retablos checked out from the library, so that will be next. But then I still need to obtain the other two. But I’m still looking forward to reading them. Nothing has changed in my excitement for them.
GIN JENNY: Cool. So this is for me was a very exciting looking winter slash spring book season.
WHISKEY JENNY: I agree. A lot of culling had to be done.
GIN JENNY: Same. I winnowed it down to six, which was—I keep looking at my list being like, you should winnow it down to five, and I just can’t. So you’ll have to bear with me.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: I’m noticing also that all of mine—four of mine come out in February and one comes out in April. And the range that we assigned ourselves for this preview is January through April. So February is a really packed month.
GIN JENNY: I think I have one in February and I have three in March.
WHISKEY JENNY: Well there you go. Well, do you want to go both first and last then?
GIN JENNY: Sure. I’m sorry for having too many.
WHISKEY JENNY: No.
GIN JENNY: So my first one is a sequel. It’s The Kingdom of Copper, by S.A. Chakraborty, and it’s out now, I believe, from Harper Voyager. The first book in the series was City of Brass and I loved it. It’s a fantasy novel about a girl who lives in a fantasy country that was inspired by the Middle East. And she teams up with a djinn to do adventures. It was just a lot of fun. I really, really, really enjoyed it, so I’m very excited for the second one. So that’s Kingdom of Copper, by S.A. Chakraborty.
WHISKEY JENNY: Cool.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, so my first one coming out in February from Random Penguin is Black Leopard, Red Wolf, by Marlon James, which he has described as an African Game of Thrones. He wrote A Brief History of Seven Killings, which I think won the Booker Prize.
GIN JENNY: Yes, that sounds right.
WHISKEY JENNY: I have that on my shelf, but I have not read it yet because I’ve been very intimidated by it.
GIN JENNY: Same.
WHISKEY JENNY: But I am very excited about this next book even though I remain intimidated. It’s the start of a series, and there’s someone very good at hunting and tracking, who is given a task to track down an important child for reasons. And it just sounds really, really fascinating. There’s magic I think, and African mythology, and I’m really looking forward to it.
GIN JENNY: I’m looking forward to that, too. That was one of the ones that almost made my list, but not quite. OK, so I have one nonfiction book on my list. And I know that I shouldn’t do this, because I have made very stringent rules about nonfiction that I get from the library. But I’m excited enough about this one that I wanted to include it.
It’s The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present, by David Treuer. And this is coming out from Riverhead in January. I have been trying to read more books by indigenous authors, which I think I talked about in our year in review podcast, and I really like to read nonfiction about American Indian History by citizens of American Indian nations. So David Treuer is a member of the Ojibwe Nation, and this is a really big history of what happened after the Wounded Knee massacre, which is often framed as the end of Native resistance to US government. It’s a subject I don’t know a lot about, and it looks like a really interesting book, and I’m hoping to learn a lot from it.
WHISKEY JENNY: Cool. I unsurprisingly have no nonfiction on mine.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Well I shouldn’t have this one, because I’m setting myself up for failure, but I really want to read it.
WHISKEY JENNY: No, it sounds great. My next one is The City in the Middle of the Night, by Charlie Jane Anders.
GIN JENNY: Such a good title.
WHISKEY JENNY: Right? It comes out in February from Tor. I think we read her previous for podcast. All the Birds in the Sky, yeah. I think we both enjoyed it but had a couple of notes. If I’m remembering right, that was her debut, so I’m excited to see if some of our little quibbles are no longer present in this next book.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: I think it’s another speculative fiction. I don’t really know much about the plot, but then I did see that the words “ragtag family” were used, and so that’s why I did not need to look at anything else about the plot. [LAUGHTER] I was like, great. I’m in.
GIN JENNY: That sounds great. So my next one also has a really good title. It’s A People’s Future of the United States, edited by Victor LaValle and John Joseph Adams, and is coming out in February from One World. I read short fiction now, as you may have heard.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh!
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: And this is a bunch of SF&F stories that try to counter oppression and imagine more just and equitable futures for America. It has a really great lineup of contributors, including N.K. Jemisin and some other authors that I’ve grown to like this past year from reading short fiction. So I’m excited to see where it goes, and I really love that title. So that’s A People’s Future of the United States.
WHISKEY JENNY: That sounds cool. And we read The Changeling by Victor LaValle for podcast, as well.
GIN JENNY: We did, and we really liked it.
WHISKEY JENNY: We did. My next one is The Night Tiger, by Yangsze Choo. I think that is how you pronounce her first name. I had a very hard time looking up that pronunciation and another one coming up. So NPR really needs to interview them both so that I can figure out how to pronounce their names. So I apologize if that’s not correct; the one audio file I could find was very garbled.
But it is a historical fiction book set in the 1930s in Malaysia. And it just sounds like so many things are happening. There’s folktales, and a quest, and people teaming up, and they’re trying to track down a finger, and—
GIN JENNY: Like a human finger?
WHISKEY JENNY: Yes.
GIN JENNY: OK. OK.
WHISKEY JENNY: So it just sounds really interesting.
GIN JENNY: Cool. My next one is actually a Malaysian author, as well. Synergy.
WHISKEY JENNY: Ooh.
GIN JENNY: It’s The True Queen, by Zen Cho, coming out in March from Ace. We both really enjoyed her first book, Sorcerer to the Crown. And The True Queen is a companion novel set in the same world, but I don’t think it’ll be all the same characters. And it’s about sisters, and I believe it is partly set at a royal academy that exists to train women in magic. So sisters in boarding school, basically designed for me. [LAUGHTER] Oh gosh, every time I think about I’m just suffused with happiness.
WHISKEY JENNY: That is exciting. I had not realized it was boarding school.
GIN JENNY: I could be wrong. I know that there’s a royal academy. I don’t know if it’s an actual boarding school-boarding school, but hope springs eternal.
WHISKEY JENNY: Sure, sure. It can feel like it, even if it’s not.
GIN JENNY: Right. Exactly.
WHISKEY JENNY: My next one is American Spy, by Lauren Wilkinson, which, I’ll just read the Publisher’s Weekly quote about it, because I think it is an interesting comparison. “This unflinching, incendiary debut combines the espionage novels of John le Carre with the racial complexity of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.”
GIN JENNY: Ooh.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. So it’s set in 1986. Our main character is a young black woman working for the CIA, and she’s struggling with the prejudices she’s facing at work and is given an assignment that I think changes her views. So it’s a spy thriller as well. I’m very excited about it. I also might get ulcers over it. It sounds like she may have to get close to someone and then actually like them but then betray them, so that could go very horribly for my stomach. [LAUGHTER] So we’ll see how it goes. But I think the concept I’m really excited about.
GIN JENNY: Cool. So Helen Oyeyemi has a new book out this year, and she is an author that I really, really like. So the new one is called Gingerbread. It’s coming out from Riverhead in March. My favorite thing about Gingerbread is the descriptions of it that I’ve seen make it really obvious that no one has any idea how to describe what this book is about, which is very typical of Helen Oyeyemi. It’s about a mother and daughter who make gingerbread, and that’s kind of all I understand.
I do want to say, Helen Oyeyemi’s last novel, Boy, Snow, Bird, I thought was excellent all the way through, but then it was shockingly transphobic at the end. So I really hope she doesn’t do that anymore, and I hope she learns a lesson. I think her writing is really great, and I would like to be able to enjoy her books, so I would like her to write non-hurtful books.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, no, I totally agree. I also really enjoy her writing but specifically did not include it because I wanted to wait and see if this one also has a bad twist at the end like that.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: So I’m excited to hear how it was, and hopefully it’s not prejudiced against anyone.
GIN JENNY: I’ll keep you posted. I think she does the fairy tale thing really well. But yeah, with a huge asterisk.
WHISKEY JENNY: My last one is called Walking on the Ceiling. And this name I also had a really hard time looking up. But I looked up a different pronunciation of the same first name, so I will go with that one. So this one is by Ayesül Savas. Comes out in April by Riverhead. It’s sort of a storytelling conceit. There’s a woman from Istanbul living in Paris, and she meets an older British writer and starts telling her family stories. So I enjoyed the structure around that, but then she also has to start making decisions about is she revealing too much, is she giving up her story, and things like that. So I am excited to read that.
GIN JENNY: Cool. That sounds like I would not care for it.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Maybe, but it sounds also like that the stories that she’s telling are bananas.
GIN JENNY: Oh, OK.
WHISKEY JENNY: So that sounds cool. But we’ll see.
GIN JENNY: OK, my final one, I’m so, so excited, but also so sad. It’s the last book in the Queen’s Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner. So it’s called Return of the Thief. It’s coming out from Greenwillow in March. I don’t even know how to cope with my sadness that this series is coming to an end. It has been going on since 1996, and this will be the sixth book in the series. I love it so, so, so much. The most recent book, Thick as Thieves, was kind of a road trip story, and I was just in love with it. And it left so many plot threads open ended at the end. I just have no idea how she’s going to finish that all up.
WHISKEY JENNY: When did the last one come out?
GIN JENNY: The last one came out quite recently. The last one came out maybe two years ago? I don’t know. It was shockingly quickly that this one has come out. Because her typical thing is like five years in between books, at least.
WHISKEY JENNY: Man. Back to back here.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, I know. So it’s Return of the Thief. I don’t know what to expect, but I’m sure my heart will be broken.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. Do you anticipate—
GIN JENNY: I hope no one dies. I can’t bear it if someone dies. [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: Do you think they will?
GIN JENNY: I don’t know.
WHISKEY JENNY: Is she a kill your characters sort of an author?
GIN JENNY: No, she really is not. But this is the last book, so I don’t know.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, they might.
GIN JENNY: I’m like thinking of each major character, and I’m trying to figure out who I could spare, and there’s no one. There’s no one.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh no!
GIN JENNY: There’s I guess six main characters that I would consider primary characters. And I can’t bear for any of them to die. I just can’t.
WHISKEY JENNY: Aw. I hope no one dies.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, me too. OK, so we read a play.
WHISKEY JENNY: We did! We read a play.
GIN JENNY: Do you need to say the name again, or do you want to just say We Are Proud to Present, et cetera? Because that’s fine, if that’s what you want to do.
WHISKEY JENNY: No. I’m going to say it one last time all the way through. So we read—
GIN JENNY: [SINGING] One last time.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: We read, by Jackie Sibblies Drury, [DEEP BREATH] We Are Proud to Present a Presentation about the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, from the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884–1915.
GIN JENNY: Awesome.
WHISKEY JENNY: Phew.
GIN JENNY: You did a great job.
WHISKEY JENNY: Thank you so much.
GIN JENNY: This play was a lot.
WHISKEY JENNY: It was indeed, yes.
GIN JENNY: I will say I really liked it.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK.
GIN JENNY: I will start with that. So Drury is an experimental playwright, which can go very wrong. Experimental theater can be [SINGING] the worst. But I really enjoy the ways she plays around with the artificiality of theater, the way improv works, the expectations of the audience. That’s all really interesting to me. And I wish so much that I had known this play existed and had cared about Namibia when it ran at Soho Rep in 2012. Because then I could have seen it, and that would have been amazing. So what did you think of it overall?
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, I also overall thought it was really good. I think it is a particularly difficult play to read. I think it’s one that—
GIN JENNY: [LAUGHTER] Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: —really benefits from seeing it performed. You know, other plays I wouldn’t say that about. I think it varies, the rate of return on actually reading it. But this one, I think, you lose a lot from missing a performance of it.
GIN JENNY: I definitely agree. The two things that really tripped me up is that it goes back and forth between the rehearsal of the thing—so they’re trying things out and doing improv—and the actual performance of the thing. Which is cool; I think that’s cool. But it was very hard for me to envision how that would work.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.
GIN JENNY: And then the other thing—and this, again, I think would be so much more straightforward if it were a performance—the actors are not given names. So they’re basically just in there as Actor 1, Actor 2, Actor 3. And I had a very hard time keeping in my mind which one was which.
WHISKEY JENNY: I did as well, yeah.
GIN JENNY: Because the premise is that there’s these six actors—so it’s three white actors, three black actors, two women, four men—and they’re trying to create a play about this genocide in Namibia. They’re all arguing about how they want to do it, and it was just really, really hard for me to pin in my mind a specific attitude or characterization to a specific actor, because none of them had names.
WHISKEY JENNY: No, and I never could in the end. I never feel like I was able to do that for anyone. And I think if you were seeing the same actor in front of you say these lines or hold these positions, that it would be easier to remember, like, oh yeah, it’s the guy in the red shirt, or whatever.
GIN JENNY: Right, exactly. I told you when we decided to read this, I told you was about a genocide. And it really is not. It’s much more about trying to tell other people’s stories, but coming from a place of—maybe ignorance is too harsh, but naivete, at least, and privilege. And I read an interview with Jackie Sibblies Drury where she said something so incisive about this play. She said what it’s about is, quote, “Seeing one history or one image of something that happened and projecting another image, a closer association, over it.” And I thought that was a really good summation of what the play turns out to be.
WHISKEY JENNY: Hm. That is great. Yeah, because all of these actors are—some of the most hilarious moments are the self-important actors trying to determine their character’s motivation and stuff. But also, yeah, they’re always trying to bring it back to something that they relate to personally.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. And one thing that really slammed into me as I was reading it—and I’m sure if I saw it performed it would be even more impactful—is there’s a scene where the German soldier character is interacting with the Herero character. And at some point in the scene, a bit of a Southern accent starts to creep into their speech. And that felt really central to the themes of the play, because obviously it does not speak to the realities of the genocide in Namibia. And it doesn’t speak in a very deep way about the realities of racism in America. But it goes to what racism and racial violence look like in the minds of these young adults.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, absolutely. And how they’re—because they’re all American, and sort of unconsciously sliding into that, I thought was a really interesting way, and a way of doing something that you can’t really do so much in fiction. But you can just, it’s such a subtle, you can hear them side into it as you’re seeing it and have that bring up all of those issues that you just said, when all they’ve done is slightly change the way that they’re talking. So it was just a really cool playwright thing to do, as well, I thought.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. The play was very, very clever. It was very clever.
WHISKEY JENNY: It is very clever. It’s so carefully constructed. I am so impressed. She did things so specifically that I don’t even know why. Like sometimes she specifies a rhythm that should be like, 1-2, 1-2, 1-2-3, and then sometimes it should be 1-2-3, 1-2, 1-2. And it’s very specific on when this thing happens and when it doesn’t, and when they’re interrupting each other. And there are many decisions that she made that I don’t even know why, but I’m sure that there was a reason for them. [LAUGHTER] And I am very impressed. And then the other thing that you notice that you’re like, ah, I do know why you did that. Yeah, very clever is a good word for it.
GIN JENNY: There is this line late in the play—god, this is so good. There’s this line late in the play where Actor 1, who’s a white guy, describes the Namibian genocide as a rehearsal Holocaust. And Actor 4, who’s a black guy, says “It was real people in a real place. It’s not a rehearsal if you’re actually doing it.” Which is both a various astute comment on the way that people talk about the Namibian genocide, which Germany did use as a blueprint for some of the strategies in the Holocaust, but also a really clever self-aware remark about the way the play distinguishes between rehearsal and performance. It was just really good.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, and that moment, too, I can imagine. I gave a gasp when they—there’s sort of one line—because they’re arguing about do they stay true, or do they stay literal to the historical record that they have. And I forget which one, but one of the white characters is trying to argue that it’s not like the Holocaust, in that they don’t have all of these detailed records about the victims of the genocide. And that one line, it’s not like the Holocaust, just it was like a bomb just went off. [LAUGHTER] Like, oh my god, that is not—nope nope nope. Nope nope nope.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: And another way that I think it’s really well done is that I don’t think the play lets any of these characters off the hook, but I also don’t think it wholeheartedly condemns them, if that makes sense. It’s just really obvious that they’re very immature. And that’s not just in their ability to assess whether they should make this play and how to do it, but also they’re very immature in their relationships to each other. They’re very theater-kiddie. They’re kind of snotty with each other.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, they’re very passive aggressive.
GIN JENNY: It’s like, oh, well, I’m the best friend character. Obviously you’ve decided So-and-So is the leading man. And that’s fine. I’m fine with that. And the other person is like, you’re so good at character roles.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, it is so snarky.
GIN JENNY: Oh, it’s amazing.
WHISKEY JENNY: I don’t know, I think it might indict the characters a little bit strongly than you just said.
GIN JENNY: I think it does indict the characters, but I think that the playwright is aware of their strengths and weaknesses. I’ll say that.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, sure. Can we talk about the ending now a little bit? Should we?
GIN JENNY: Yeah, how did you—I should describe it?
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, I think so.
GIN JENNY: OK. So at the end they’re doing an improv, and it devolves into almost a—well, not almost. It devolves into a re-enactment of Jim Crow times. So one of the white actors is hitting one of the black actors. The white actors are all screaming racial epithets and racist jokes. And it culminates with a white actor putting a noose around one of the black actors’ neck. And at that point the black actor calls a halt to the whole thing and runs out. Yeah, so how did you feel about the ending?
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, well, I have a lot to say about the ending. So I think, first of all, again, I think would be incredibly powerful to see it. And reading it, I was able to cheat a little bit and not read very closely all the jokes, or things like that. Which is certainly I would call that cheating. But I think being forced to see it would be even more powerful.
I also think that there’s a there’s sort of inevitability of it from the very beginning, where you know that, oh, this is not going to go well, and I think she does a great job of building that tension. I did, though, feel a little bit let down. It felt a little bit like the conclusion was kind of Stanford Prison Experimenty, in that the evil is within normal people, and if you get them in a group and tell them to play this role, they will. So again, I think a lot of that is due to the fact that I was reading it and not watching it. But it was a little bit like, oh, yeah, I’ve heard of this before.
GIN JENNY: I think that—again, obviously seeing it performed I might feel differently—but I think that it could have been a little less exaggerated and still get the same point across.
WHISKEY JENNY: I agree. Because I think what I found more compelling were the earlier, more subtle prejudices coming through in things that people were saying. And I found that stuff more powerful and more originally portrayed. So I agree, if it had been not quite as extreme.
GIN JENNY: I did, though, really, really, really, really love what happens after the actor who’s had the noose around his neck makes everyone stop. So he leaves. The black woman who has been kind of coordinating the whole thing goes after him. And so that leaves the three white actors and one remaining black actor on the stage. And the white actors are really uncomfortable. Everyone’s really uncomfortable. But eventually, the white actors kind of laugh to break tension and shake the moment off. And the black actor is not able to join in with them, and he’s picking up the detritus that the production has left behind.
And when he’s finished doing that, he looks out at the audience. And here’s the stage direction. I love this so much. “He might produce the air of a word beginning with the letter W, like ‘we’ or ‘why’ or ‘what.’ He tries to speak, but he fails.”
WHISKEY JENNY: End of play. Yeah. That moment was very—
GIN JENNY: And that was—even reading it, that felt like such an effective ending for this play. And so I can just imagine what seeing it would be like.
WHISKEY JENNY: It must be incredibly powerful.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: I think also the questions it raises earlier about—I was very much into the question of do we have to recreate this thing literally, or can we make something true that is not nonfiction, I guess. I find that question to be interesting, and obviously the play is fiction, so is this play saying something true? I think it is. It doesn’t have to be literally real, something that happened. That kind of question that it raises also I found interesting, and I think that I would have liked to see a maybe a little bit more of that, just because it was an interesting process thing to go through.
GIN JENNY: Well so, yeah, I really liked it. I would definitely read—well of course I would prefer to see more plays by this playwright, but lacking the opportunity to do that, I would certainly read more of her plays. This was kind of dumping you in the deep end, Whiskey Jenny, of reading plays.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: I mean, I have read plays before. It was not quite the same as sci-fi or something. But it is very advanced play reading, for sure.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, there’s a lot of visual elements.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, but no, I also thought it was overall just incredibly wonderful and powerful, and I’m looking forward to reading or seeing more by her.
GIN JENNY: Yay. I’m so glad. I was worried. You agreed to this very happily, but I was worried still that I had pushed it on you.
WHISKEY JENNY: No, that’s OK. I think ultimately I’m very glad I read it.
GIN JENNY: Me too, for sure.
WHISKEY JENNY: It got described as a comedy, and I don’t think I would call it a comedy.
GIN JENNY: That’s funny, because I definitely put in my notes, I did not see it described as a comedy, but I found it surprisingly comedic. There were a lot of laugh lines.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, maybe it was just an expectations gap, then. There you go. Because there are some laugh lines, yeah.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, it’s very dark, for sure. But there’s an unexpected number of theater kid jokes that I found extremely funny.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. And the one guy who would not stop talking about going to Germany. [LAUGHTER] And you could tell everyone was just like, oh, here we go again. [LAUGHTER] This guy’s been to Germany.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: OK, so I tell you what I’ve picked out for us to read next time?
WHISKEY JENNY: Yes, please.
GIN JENNY: I am so excited about this. I read a review of this book in The New York Times and I just went crazy for it. And I do not often read reviews of fiction books in The New York Times that I’m like, oh, I gotta write out and get this. But that is how I felt about this book. It’s called Insurrecto, it’s by Gina Apostol. And it’s about two women involved in making a film about the Philippines, and they have very different visions of what kind of film they want to make. It is also an experimental novel, which means this will be Experimental January for us.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: I like it.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. I guess this podcast will air in February, but even so. Starting the year out experimentally. So I know it’s going to have parts where you’re not sure what’s happening, but because I am so excited for this book, Whiskey Jenny has kindly agreed to roll with the punches on that.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: You may get some panicked G-chats from me also, being like, wait, wait, what happened here?
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: And I’ll just be like, I dunno! It’s funny!
WHISKEY JENNY: Who knows? Experimental!
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: The quotes of The New York Times were just so delightful, I just had to read it.
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m looking forward. Also when I first read the review that you sent to me, it describes it as—I think it says it’s a comic novel. And for some reason I took that to mean—just seeing the word comic, I was like, oh, it’s a graphic novel. This sounds great. And you were like, no, no.
GIN JENNY: Humorous.
WHISKEY JENNY: Comic is in ha ha, not comic as in drawn. But yeah, don’t get confused. It’s not a graphic novel.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, and also it is about a massacre, so I wouldn’t raise your expectations too high for—
WHISKEY JENNY: For comedy?
GIN JENNY: For comedy, yeah. I don’t want another We Are Proud to Present a Presentation situation.
[LAUGHTER]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 are both on Goodreads as Whiskey Jenny and Gin Jenny. And you can email us, please do, at readingtheend@gmail.com. If you like what we do, become a podcast patron at Patreon.com/readingtheend. And if you’re listening to us on iTunes, please leave us a review.
Until next time, a quote from Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik. “The world I wanted wasn’t the world I lived in. And if I would do nothing until I could repair every terrible thing at once, I would do nothing forever.”
[GLASSES 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.