It’s podcast time! We wrap up our read of Lord of the Rings, chat about our most anticipated books for summer, and review Walter Mosley’s Devil in a Blue Dress. (Trigger warning for brief, non-graphic discussion of child sex abuse.) You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below, or download it directly to take with you on the go!
Here are the time signatures if you want to skip around.
1:26 – What we’re reading
3:09 – What we’re listening to
5:30 – Lord of the Rings Readalong – Return of the King (conclusion!)
24:32 – Update on spring book preview
26:10 – Summer book preview
35:40 – Devil in a Blue Dress, by Walter Mosley
What we talked about:
Witch Week, Diana Wynne Jones
Protestants, Alex Ryrie
The Best Bad Things, Katrina Carrasco
The Return of the King, JRR Tolkien (Book 6, chapter 5 to the end)
The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas
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
Return of the Thief, Megan Whalen Turner
The Kingdom of Copper, SA Chakraborty
The True Queen, Zen Cho
The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee, David Treuer
Gingerbread, Helen Oyeyemi
A People’s Future of the United States
The MVP Machine, Ben Lindbergh and Travis Sawchik
The Only Rule Is It Has to Work, Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller
There’s Something about Sweetie, Sandhya Menon
The Rest of the Story, Sarah Dessen
Magic for Liars, Sarah Gailey
“Stet,” Sarah Gailey
In West Mills, De’Shawn Charles Winslow
The Turner House, Angela Flournoy
Null Set, SL Huang
Hot Comb, Ebony Flowers
The Right Swipe, Alisha Rai
Evie Drake Starts Over, Linda Holmes
When the Plums Are Ripe, Patrice Nganang
Devil in a Blue Dress, Walter Mosley
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
[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 here to talk about books and literary happenings, as always. On today’s podcast, we are going to, of course, tell you what we’re reading and what we are something else-ing. We are going to be discussing the final installment of The Return of the King, which I just can’t believe.
GIN JENNY: I know.
WHISKEY JENNY: And we have an exciting announcement once we finish that. We will check in on our spring book preview and talk about books we are looking forward to in summer 2019. For this podcast, we read Devil in a Blue Dress, by Walter Mosley. And then we will find out what we are reading next time from Gin Jenny at the very end, as always.
So before we get into it, what are you reading right now, Gin Jenny?
GIN JENNY: Well, I just finished rereading Witch Week, by Diana Wynne Jones, which is one of my favorites of her books. It’s set at a boarding school, which is great.
Also, one of my New Year’s resolutions was to be better about reading my own books, including non-fiction. And I am very, very gradually working my way through one of my very longest non-fiction books. I think I got it for free, and I’m not sure if I need to know all the information it’s teaching me. But we’re here now. I’m a third of the way through. That is Protestants: The Faith That Made the Modern World, by Alec Ryrie. Since it’s about all of Protestantism, it is over 500 pages long, but I’m going to finish it.
WHISKEY JENNY: All of Protestantism? My goodness.
GIN JENNY: Allegedly, yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: That’s a lot. That’s a lot of ground to cover.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: I know. I’m a third of the way through it and we just got to America. So I think it’s going to be kind of frontloaded a little bit.
WHISKEY JENNY: Phew. All right.
GIN JENNY: What about you? What are you reading?
WHISKEY JENNY: I am about to start—I read the first two sentences of it so that I could say that I was reading it, but that feels like cheating.
GIN JENNY: No, that’s not cheating.
WHISKEY JENNY: So I haven’t really started it. But I will start The Best Bad Things, by Katrina Carrasco, which was one of my autumn/winter previews of 2018, I think. So I’m excited to pick that up.
GIN JENNY: Remind me what that one’s about?
WHISKEY JENNY: This one is set in the 1800s, and it’s about a woman who was trained by a Pinkerton agent, and then she has to do a job. And she dresses up as a man to do that investigative job.
GIN JENNY: Cool. I remember this, I think.
WHISKEY JENNY: So I’m excited.
JENNYS: Yeah.
GIN JENNY: Well, for this podcast our patrons voted for—actually, there was a three way tie on what y’all voted for. So we just chose from amongst the three way tie.
WHISKEY JENNY: Like a dictator!
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: So we’re going to talk about what we’re eating. What are you eating?
WHISKEY JENNY: I discovered a place that delivers to me that does dosas and other South Indian food.
GIN JENNY: Oh.
WHISKEY JENNY: South India is where I spent some time for work a few years ago, and Gin Jenny came and visited me. I feel like South Indian food is not—if you go to an Indian restaurant, that’s not the typical food that you get. So I’m really enjoying that we’ve got some dosas, and I got some idli, and I just got all kinds of delicious things.
GIN JENNY: Remember that fast food place?
WHISKEY JENNY: And some yellow dal. Oh man, it was so good. Yes, I do remember that fast food place.
GIN JENNY: God, that place was good. I think about it all the time. It was this fast food place in India, and I guess it’s all over India, but it was really good.
WHISKEY JENNY: It was a chain. Yeah was a chain.
GIN JENNY: You would get I think three idli and three different kinds of—it was two chutneys and sambar. And it was really good. It was delicious and filling, and it was very cheap. It was great.
WHISKEY JENNY: So good. So that’s what I’ve been eating. I discovered this. It is not cheap, but it is delicious. But it’s been funny seeing the fancified Brooklyn version of it. [LAUGHTER] Not fancified, but just more expensive Brooklyn version. [LAUGHTER] What are you eating?
GIN JENNY: So there’s a place, a restaurant that I go to somewhat regularly because they have a nice happy hour. And when I go there, I have a standard order. I always get three small plates. One is a blue mac and cheese, one is roasted asparagus, and one is carrot soufflé.
WHISKEY JENNY: Which is a blue mac and cheese? Is that mac and cheese with blue cheese?
GIN JENNY: Yes.
WHISKEY JENNY: Got it.
GIN JENNY: And it’s great, but it’s slightly too much food, and it’s not quite the perfect balance, because the soufflé and the mac and cheese are both quite rich. It’s just a tiny bit too much food, and I think it’s the carrot soufflé’s fault. But it’s so good that I always eat the whole thing.
WHISKEY JENNY: Is it sweet, this soufflé?
GIN JENNY: Yes, it’s sweet. It’s got powdered sugar on top.
WHISKEY JENNY: I like a sweet potato pie, and carrot soufflé sounds very similar to that.
GIN JENNY: I would guess that yes, it’s similar. But I went there the other day, and my nephew was with me, so they gave us the kids menu, which is how I learned you can buy quite a large chocolate chip cookie there for one American dollar.
WHISKEY JENNY: Whaaaat?
GIN JENNY: Which is the perfect thing! I know. So now the meal is mac and cheese and roasted asparagus, and the dessert is chocolate chip cookie. My order is now perfect. I’m so happy about it.
WHISKEY JENNY: You cut out the soufflé? You just cut it out?
GIN JENNY: I did. Yes, I did.
WHISKEY JENNY: Whoa. After all that talk.
GIN JENNY: I know.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Why did I bother learning what it was? [LAUGHTER] Well, great. You fixed it.
GIN JENNY: I fixed it.
WHISKEY JENNY: Congratulations.
GIN JENNY: Thank you.
All right, Whiskey Jenny. It’s been such a journey.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s been such a journey. I don’t want to end!
GIN JENNY: I don’t either. I really love Lord of the Rings. I was kind of glad when you forgot about it that one time, because then I was like, oh, we’re still doing the readalong for a little longer.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. This end bit that we read covers a whole bunch of ground.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. I was going to start with the Faramir and Eowyn.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yep, that’s where I would like to start as well, and I would like to say—so this is chapter 5 of the last bit of Return of the King, is what we started with, and then just till the end, until before the appendices. And I don’t know, the beginning of that second page, I started weeping just knowing the beautiful love story that was coming for me on the subway.
GIN JENNY: Aw!
WHISKEY JENNY: I really like Faramir and Eowyn so much.
GIN JENNY: Oh gosh. First of all, I do really like Faramir and Eowyn. I however took issue with—this is really not a problem with Faramir or with Eowyn so much as it is a problem with the scarcity of female roles in this book.
WHISKEY JENNY: Is it the gender roles thing? Yeah, yeah.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, because there’s just one of Eowyn, just one lady warrior. So when she decides she’s not going to be a warrior anymore and she says Faramir has tamed her, it was not my favorite.
WHISKEY JENNY: No. That part is not my favorite. I think I just pretend like that didn’t happen, and then it’s great.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, pretty much.
WHISKEY JENNY: Because I really like that of men of Gondor, Faramir is not the most pro-battle one. In their relationship, if you forget the part that—
GIN JENNY: Just forget. [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: —she’s to warrior one and he’s the quieter thinker, and I just really like that dynamic. They’ve been through so much and they find each other in the darkest of dark times. And it’s just really great. I’m really, happy for them.
GIN JENNY: It’s really great. I am happy for them, too. I remembered in the past feeling like when I’ve read this book before I’ve been like, oh, Eowyn gets shuffled off with the backup Aragorn.
WHISKEY JENNY: [HORRIFIED GASP]
GIN JENNY: But that was really unfair.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, that is really.
GIN JENNY: Well again, I don’t think it was really about Faramir so much as it was about just the way that women are treated in this book.
WHISKEY JENNY: That’s fair. But you know, there’s not a whole bunch of love stories in this book.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, and I really like this one. I really like them together.
WHISKEY JENNY: And we also get to see them fall—not as much as I would like. I would read an entire book about those six days of their conversation walking in the gardens together. Wouldn’t that be great?
GIN JENNY: Ooh, yeah. Someone surely has written that fanfic, right?
WHISKEY JENNY: Surely. Let’s find that out.
GIN JENNY: Day one, day two. That must exist.
WHISKEY JENNY: Let’s find that out.
GIN JENNY: Oh, Whiskey Jenny, and it’s six days. So it’s fertile ground for a five plus one.
WHISKEY JENNY: Boom. Nailed it.
GIN JENNY: Thank you.
WHISKEY JENNY: But we actually get to see them fall in love, whereas the other two—which I guess are Strider and Arwen, who cares. I don’t.
GIN JENNY: [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: I know I’m supposed to, and I care about Aragorn. But I just do not care about Arwen at all. I’m glad he’s happy. Whatever. And then Sam and Rosie—he’s just always had a crush on her, so you don’t get to see it from the very beginning like we do with Eowyn and Faramir. And it’s really great.
GIN JENNY: And it’s fortunate that it happens early on in the section, because there’s a lot of just people milling around in this section.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: I’m going to get to it later. Well, I can get to it now.
GIN JENNY: Listen, first of all, just in general, Frodo says, OK, let’s go home. I really want to go home. And then like four months later they actually go home.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: That does give us the time for a funny joke, though. He’s like, I want to go home. And Aragorn is like, I feel like I want to do a thing, but I’m not going to tell you that thing is.
GIN JENNY: Yes! Guess what it is! He’s such a bridezilla. What is it?
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: But wait, so then Frodo asks Gandalf, do you know what the thing is? He’s like, yeah, but I’m not going to tell you. And then Frodo to Pippin was like, I thought you told me he wasn’t as weird and mysterious as he used to be. He must have been tired that day, because he is back to form. [LAUGHTER] And I really enjoyed that joke.
But the big thing is his wedding. He wants to get wedded to Arwen. OK. Good for them. Yeah.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. And it’s a secret. It’s so strange. It’s such a bridezilla move on Aragorn’s part.
WHISKEY JENNY: He was waiting for a sign, and then he and Gandalf take a walk in the woods, and then they find that a mystical tree or whatever. This is the part where I was like, are you kidding me? [LAUGHTER] Because Gandalf starts listing the lineage of the tree. And I was like, even the tree? I have to listen to son of so-and-so, son of so-and-so. Or sire, or whatever you call children of trees. [LAUGHTER] Seriously? The tree has a lineage?
[LAUGHTER]There is another lovely moment before bridezilla Aragorn comes out, when the army is just back from victory and is outside the walls of Gondor. And Faramir has come out to meet him as Steward of Gondor. And then the four hobbits get to walk up with Aragorn to be like, hey, Gondor, your king is here. And I really like that moment for the hobbits.
GIN JENNY: Oh, the other thing that happened that I was really mad about. As attentive listeners may recall, we were pretty miffed that Beregond saves Faramir from certain death, but everyone’s like, well, but you are in trouble because you did disobey the king.
WHISKEY JENNY: You know, letter, maybe, but spirit-wise, we all know what he was doing. Right!
GIN JENNY: But Aragorn goes to him. He’s like, listen. The penalty for disobeying the king is death. But we’re going to commute that sentence. But you’re still fired from your job. But you have to move to a new city. And it’s like, well, you haven’t really given him no punishment, though. You’ve still given him a pretty significant punishment. He gets to go work with Faramir in Ithilien, which I guess is nice, because Faramir is great. But maybe he wants to live in Gondor. He’s got a kid!
WHISKEY JENNY: Like, where all of his friends and family are. Yeah. And then the book is like, and Aragorn is such a beautiful and merciful king, and Beregond was so happy with this judgment. And it was like, well, it could have been better, though. No, I completely agree, though.
GIN JENNY: This is like if you did something that was not permitted by policy at your work and it ended up saving the whole company, and then the company was like, well, listen, that was so helpful. Thank you so much. We’re not going to go punish you at all, but you are fired and you have to work in Hoboken from now on.
WHISKEY JENNY: Not for us. For somebody else. [LAUGHTER] Right? But thank you so much, again.
GIN JENNY: I just really feel like you would experience that as a punishment.
WHISKEY JENNY: No, I absolutely agree. Yeah, it’s dumb to not have flexible rules.
GIN JENNY: It really is. And I just hope that they gave Beregond a relocation budget. That’s all that I hope.
WHISKEY JENNY: I mean, I hope for more, but that’s one of the things, yeah.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Sure.
WHISKEY JENNY: I hope his wife and kid moved with him. I hope they weren’t like, nah, we’re going to stay here.
GIN JENNY: I hope when he gets to Ithilien Faramir’s like, what happened? Aragorn said what to you?
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: I mean, good to see you, man, but jeesh. [LAUGHTER] Aragorn has his wedding. Yay. There’s probably some songs, I don’t know.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. And the hobbits set out and go on a long-ass journey back to the Shire.
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, no, we don’t go to the Shire yet. First we all have to go with Theoden’s body to Rohan. Well, A, I like that Aragorn kept his promise to the forest people, and so the forest is theirs now.
GIN JENNY: Yep. Good, good.
WHISKEY JENNY: And then we had other feasts at Rohan where it was just like—literally it seems to be, like, and then a dude stood up and read off a list of names. [LAUGHTER] Really? And one of the names is Aldor, brother of Baldor the Hapless. And I was like—
GIN JENNY: The Hapless!
WHISKEY JENNY: —you’re just messing with me now, J.R.R. [LAUGHTER] Then I think we start off to the Shire.
Before they do that, Arwen says goodbye to her father Elrond, because she has chosen to be mortal and stay in the world, and the elves are going—elsewhere? I remain unclear on where the elves are all going and why they have to.
GIN JENNY: West.
WHISKEY JENNY: What’s west? What’s happening west?
GIN JENNY: I think it’s just elf heaven.
WHISKEY JENNY: And Arwen is choosing to stay and be mortal and eventually die. And then go to elf heaven?
GIN JENNY: I don’t know. I don’t think so. Because I think elf heaven is a real, concrete place that you can get to by boat. So I think it’s slightly different than human heaven would be.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, got it. I just feel like I’m supposed to be really sad that Arwen’s not going to see her family ever again. I am, but I’m also like, the elves don’t have to go.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. And also the elves are jerks. So she’s probably going to have a much better life with not-jerk not-elves.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. She’s going to hang out with Strider all the time. He’s the best.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, he’s great. They’re on the road again. This drove me nuts. They run into Saruman, and Gandalf is like, well, you should really be imprisoned, but I’m kind of busy, so I guess good luck. And then they just leave him. It’s a weird choice by Gandalf.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. He thinks Treebeard should not have let him go, but he’s not now going to reimprison him, I guess, because he’s like, now we’re going to show you mercy, or something something?
GIN JENNY: Yeah, I didn’t really get it. I feel like he should be imprisoned, or face a war crimes tribunal or something.
WHISKEY JENNY: I think it’s really just for plot reasons, is my take on the matter.
GIN JENNY: It absolutely is. Although it was good, because it meant that he was not scouring the Shire as long as I feared.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yes. Oh, same. Yeah. So basically we do a reverse road trip.
GIN JENNY: Right?
WHISKEY JENNY: And do all the greatest hits that we have just witnessed, and it’s amazing. Beginning with the Ents. Were you not excited to see the Ents again? Because I really was.
GIN JENNY: God, yeah. I love the Ents. And they really contributed a lot to this whole effort.
WHISKEY JENNY: They really did.
GIN JENNY: Just, claps to them.
WHISKEY JENNY: Our dude gets all happy again when he sees Merry and Pippin, and they have one last drink together.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. And then they go to Rivendell next?
WHISKEY JENNY: Yup.
GIN JENNY: Yup. Go to Rivendell next to see Bilbo. And that part was really sad. That made me really sad. Because Bilbo has gotten quite old and forgetful. He can’t remember all this stuff. And towards the end of his visit—oh, gosh, it’s so sad. Towards the end of his visit he’s like, oh, Frodo, whatever happened to that ring of mine that I gave you? I would like to see that ring again. And Frodo tells him he lost it. It’s just really sad.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, and then and then Bilbo was like, oh, right. Oh yeah, that was that whole thing, it was on purpose. That did not make me as sad as it sounds like it made you.
GIN JENNY: I guess I just found it very, very poignant.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s very poignant, yes. Yes. It’s emotional, but it’s not sad tears. Oh, and then Elrond gives some code whisper to Frodo about when the heaven boat is leaving, and it was like, can none of you people talk normally? [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: They could. They’re just choosing not to.
WHISKEY JENNY: Because when he said it, I was like, I know this is important, and you’re talking about the boat to heaven, but even knowing that, I don’t really know what you mean. And then we get to Bree.
GIN JENNY: And they’re like, well, things are hard here. Things are rough here in Bree.
WHISKEY JENNY: Things are not great, even in the Shire. But we have your pony! We have Bill the pony!
GIN JENNY: I could not believe Bill the pony survived! I did not remember this at all. I was so excited Bill the pony was alive.
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m so happy! Bill the pony made it!
GIN JENNY: You know, of all the people to make it through, way to go Bill—I mean, creatures to make it through, way to go Bill the pony.
WHISKEY JENNY: Absolutely. Good for him. May he you have a long, oat-filled life of leisure.
GIN JENNY: He should get some sort of special pony honor. Not like that other horse. You know my views.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: I think looking back, our biggest disagreement was not Tom Bombadil but whether that stupid horse should have had a funeral or not.
GIN JENNY: It shouldn’t and I stand by it. But we don’t need to relitigate it. Now that I’ve gotten the last word.
WHISKEY JENNY: I stand by my position. No, I stand by my position, as well. You can’t have the last word. We both have the last word. [LAUGHTER] For Tom Bombadil we’re both happy to be like, we just have different opinions. On the horse funeral, we’re like, no! I will die on this hill!
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Well, you know what, Whiskey Jenny? If you’d been riding that horse, you would have died on that horse.
WHISKEY JENNY: Ey-oh!
GIN JENNY: Ey-oh!
WHISKEY JENNY: And I’d have had a deserved funeral.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Anyway, they get Bill the Pony back. And then we get to the scouring of the Shire, which really was so much less awful than I remembered it being. Not because it wasn’t sad, because it really was. The hobbits are going through a hard time. Some of them have turned on others. It’s not great in that regard.
And Gandalf should, by the way, feel bad for making the decision to let Saruman go so the hobbits had to face him alone.
WHISKEY JENNY: And purposefully is like, no, you guys have to do this alone. I’m done with helping. I feel like he could have helped.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. He’s just tired and he doesn’t want to. The hobbits also don’t want to, but they’re stuck with it, so what’s up, Gandalf? Gandalf probably wants California to secede from the rest of the country.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, Gandalf. Don’t break my heart, Gandalf.
GIN JENNY: Anyway, Saruman’s only had a few weeks to do all this mischief. Which again, I don’t understand why they took such a slow route home. This is like in football games and coaches don’t watch the clock and you get a delay of game penalty. And it’s like, that was so avoidable! You did not have to do that. But the scouring of the Shire is really only like a five to ten yard penalty in the grand scheme of the war.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. And you’re right, the actual experience of reading it lasts less longer than I was remembering, too. I remember it as going on and on and being like, oh God, this is awful. But I guess if you know it’s coming—the first time I read it, I was like, man, I thought we were done with all the bad stuff! And then it pops you in the nose just one last time.
GIN JENNY: Right. I thought it was more of a grinding hell force than it turned out to be. I was kind of picturing that by then the Shire had been turned into Eisengard south.
WHISKEY JENNY: Same. Yeah, absolutely, same.
GIN JENNY: But it’s really not that bad at all.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s not. It’s fine. They fix it. I do like that they call all of the evil people who were working for Saruman to bring down the Shire ruffians. That’s what they just call them the whole time, just the ruffians.
GIN JENNY: Ruffians. [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: So the ruffians do this thing a lot. They have all these rules—and I don’t understand how this entire thing happened in a week or two weeks.
GIN JENNY: Me neither, by the way.
WHISKEY JENNY: It seems like a lot happened in two weeks and people were pretty fine with this change the rules. I don’t know, maybe it’s longer than two weeks. I don’t know. But one of the rules is that now the ruffians come around and mark down how much grain you’ve raised or whatever, and gather it. And then they’re supposed to redistribute it, but they don’t, obviously. And I was like, is this a communism knock? [LAUGHTER] Is that what we’re doing now?
GIN JENNY: Oh, I don’t know. That’s a good point.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. But then they then, our fearless four hobbits, rally the Shire and bring it back. And I like that Merry is the battle genius.
GIN JENNY: Oh my gosh, me too. I loved seeing how competent they are amongst the average run of hobbits. It was just a great character growth yardstick.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. And they from the very get-go are putting up with none of these ruffians and their shenanigans. They’re just like, no, we’re not doing that. And it’s amazing.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: I also really liked, so Lotho, who’s a relative of the Bagginses, is the one that they sold Bag End to, right? His mother is Lobelia. And Lotho is, for a little bit, head of the bad people. And no one really liked his mom, either.
But his mom was one of the people who got thrown into jail because she refused to follow the rules, and beat them up with her umbrella, and got thrown in jail. And then when they released her, everyone was really excited and happy to see her. And she’d never had that before, because she wasn’t very popular. And I was like, man, I did not expect to be this emotional about Lobelia Baggins. [LAUGHTER] I just really loved this cranky old lady who was like, get away from me with her umbrella to the fascists.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, she’s a real Neville’s grandmother in that regard.
WHISKEY JENNY: Mm-hm. Well, then they’re all bummed because they’re like, we’ll have to rebuild the Shire, bit our children and our children’s children won’t see what it’s for, because he cut down all the trees. His goal was just to mess up the Shire. He was not trying to profit or anything. He was just, I just want to mess with these nice hobbits.
So they just tore down a bunch of trees and burned a bunch of stuff, and so they’re all sad that they’ll have to replant everything, and it will be a while before it all comes back to its former glory. But Sam uses his special elf dirt and it comes back to its former glory immediately, and they have a special tree. And I got really weirdly original, and—the flowers.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: It’s really nice. And they deserve it. They deserve it.
WHISKEY JENNY: They deserve it. Yeah.
GIN JENNY: So then at the very end—and I was irritated with Frodo for a couple of reasons about this. At the very end, Frodo asks Sam to come with him to Rivendell. He’s like, it’ll just be a short little trip. “Not more than a fortnight.” Which, Sam has a new baby. And if my husband were like, oh, babe, I gotta go for this trip with my friend. We’ll just be gone for a fortnight, I’d be like—
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m sorry, what?
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: No, no, no.
WHISKEY JENNY: But wait, the baby’s name is Elanor because it’s that flower.
GIN JENNY: Aw, yeah, I forgot about that. Aw, that’s really sweet. Yeah. So Sam ditches Elanor for two weeks, and they set out ostensibly to Rivendell, but halfway there they run into the elves. And it’s revealed that Frodo on Bilbo are both planned to go with them into the west, “catching the boat” using Elrond’s cunning boat code.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Right. So they’re going to elf heaven?
GIN JENNY: Yes.
WHISKEY JENNY: Are they then going to die? Or do they now live forever in elf heaven?
GIN JENNY: No, I think they live forever in elf heaven. I’m not really sure. It’s a little confusing. Maybe the appendices will clear up this matter.
WHISKEY JENNY: Maybe. And Sam also, if he wants, gets to go to elf heaven when the time comes, right? Because he was also a ring bearer for a while.
GIN JENNY: Correct. But we also learn—Pippin and Merry show up, and it turns out Frodo Irish goodbyed them.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. He absolutely did. And Gandalf was the one who was like, no, no. Merry and Pippin need to come. Sam does not need to ride back alone for a fortnight from you being like, psych! I’m going forever. [LAUGHTER] So way to go Gandalf.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, really retrieving that emotional moment.
WHISKEY JENNY: You know, Frodo never really recovered, though. Frodo got some pretty bad PTSD, and I’m happy that he will now be at peace. I guess? That elf heaven solves PTSD?
GIN JENNY: Yeah. Nuh-huh. Yeah, so Frodo leaves on the boat, and Sam goes home and sits down in his house. And he says, well, I’m back.
WHISKEY JENNY: That’s literally the last line. And I just think it’s so beautiful that this book recognizes—I’m getting all emotional again. But this is not a suburbia is soul sucking book, I’ll just say. [WHIMPER]
GIN JENNY: [LAUGHTER] It’s not. You OK, Whiskey Jenny? [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s just really sweet. He just goes home to his wife and his kids, and the book knows that that’s really beautiful and special. [WEEPING]
GIN JENNY: Yeah. [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m so sorry. [LAUGHING AND CRYING] But Rosie and Elanor are there.
GIN JENNY: It’s a very hobbit-like ending, as well.
WHISKEY JENNY: He gets to go have a nice meal with his family and be by the fire, and be at peace for the rest of his days.
GIN JENNY: And that is the end of Lord of the Rings.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh my God, I can’t believe it.
GIN JENNY: I can’t believe it either! We’re going to have one more sort of Lord of the Rings installment, because we’re going to do a little bonus episode on the appendices. So we’re not quite at the end, but basically we are. And Whiskey Jenny, do you want to tell the people what our next move is?
WHISKEY JENNY: I do. So we are so enjoying doing the readalongs that we’re going to keep doing them. And for the next readalong, we’re going to read The Three Musketeers.
GIN JENNY: Yay! I’m so excited.
WHISKEY JENNY: Hurray! We have not worked out the installments yet, so we’ll keep you posted. But it’s going to be great. I think it’s going to be really fun and plot-heavy and delicious.
GIN JENNY: Goofy. Yes, I agree.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. A lot more goofy than this, I think.
GIN JENNY: So I have read this book before, but a really long time ago. 10 years ago, 15 years ago. So I don’t remember it super well. And you’ve never read it, right?
WHISKEY JENNY: False. I have also read it before.
GIN JENNY: Oh, we’ve both read it before? We’re just doing this because we like it?
WHISKEY JENNY: I love this book. Yeah, we’re just doing this because we like it.
GIN JENNY: Great.
WHISKEY JENNY: This is a book that I brought to India, one of my five, because I love it so much.
GIN JENNY: Oh man, so you’re much more familiar than me then.
WHISKEY JENNY: I don’t think I read it while I was there, but I did bring it. I think it’s also been a couple of years for me, too.
GIN JENNY: OK. Well, it promises to be very exciting. OK, so Three Musketeers, starting either next time or the time after that, because I’m not sure how long it will take me to sort out chapter breakdowns.
So we are going to talk about the books we’re excited for in summer 2019. But first I’m going to have a really fast update on our spring book preview.
WHISKEY JENNY: Hey, me too!
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Do you want to go first, or do you want me to?
WHISKEY JENNY: I’ll go first. I haven’t read any of mine. I will rattle them off. I think one of them we might have an update at the end from Gin Jenny, but I won’t tell you which one.
GIN JENNY: Yes, stand by to find out.
WHISKEY JENNY: My five were Black Leopard, Red Wolf, by Marlon James, which, I guess I’m glad it exists, but I haven’t totally decided if I’m going to actually read it now that full reviews have come out and it sounds really pretty rapey, I guess, and violent.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, pretty violent. Yeah, I don’t think I’m going to read it probably.
WHISKEY JENNY: The City in the Middle of the Night, by Charlie Jane Anders. The Night Tiger, by Yangsze Choo.
GIN JENNY: I read that!
WHISKEY JENNY: Hey! What did you think?
GIN JENNY: I liked it a lot.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, great.
GIN JENNY: And I think you will, too. Just the right amount of bougainvillea.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, great. But not a non-zero amount of bougainvillea?
GIN JENNY: I actually don’t remember. But it just seems like the kind of book that would. But it was totally fine. It was one coherent story. It wasn’t with a saga, you know.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, great. OK. American Spy, by Lauren Wilkinson, and Walking on the Ceiling by Aysegul Savas.
GIN JENNY: So for mine, Return of the Thief got pushed back to 2020, so I couldn’t read that one. Out of my control. I have not read The Kingdom of Copper, by S.A. Chakraborty, or The True Queen, by Zen Cho, or The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee, by David Treuer, despite owning two of them and having ready borrowing access to the third. We read Gingerbread for a podcast, way to go us. And I began reading The People’s Future of the United States, which is a short story collection, but some of the stories were really sad and I had to take a break. Yeah, so that’s what I got.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s been a spring. I think we’re fine.
GIN JENNY: It sure has. Do you want to kick us off?
WHISKEY JENNY: Sure, I will kick us off. I’m going in publication order, but all mine come out in June, so that’s still a pretty tight publication window. [LAUGHTER] The first one is a book by Ben Lindbergh, who we had on previously and is the husband of our theme song composer Jessie. So he has written a book with Travis Sawchik called The MVP Machine, How Baseball’s New Nonconformists Are Using Data to Build Better Players.
And I think I’ve mentioned this on here before. But my understanding is that, whereas Moneyball was about how teams were using sabermetrics to find market inefficiencies and draft players that were better than people thought they were, they are now using sabermetrics to improve the players that they have. So yeah, we read his previous, The Only Rule is It Has to Work for podcast. I really liked it, and I’m really looking forward to this one.
GIN JENNY: Cool. My first one is There’s Something about Sweetie, by Sandhya Menon, which is coming out in May from Simon Pulse. So this author has made a real name for herself in last few years writing teen rom coms about Indian-American kids, and I’ve just been so into it.
This one is about a fat girl called Sweetie who decides she doesn’t need to slim herself down to society’s expectations in order to be worthwhile. And I’m sure it’s another rom com. It’s hard to describe the feeling of well-being and delight that I experienced when I read books by this author, because they’re very sweet and bantering and fun, but they also have real emotional heft to them. And I just love her. I’m glad she exists. I’m so glad she’s writing books. And There’s Something About Sweetie, I’m sure, is going to be amazing.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yay!
GIN JENNY: Yay!
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, my next one is The Rest of The Story, by Sarah Dessen. My beloved Sarah Dessen.
GIN JENNY: Aw, yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: She has a new book out. I’m so excited.
GIN JENNY: That’s exciting. Oh, I’m so happy for you.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. And I’m very excited to have it. It’s coming out in the summer, which for me is the ideal time to, on a beach, read Sarah Dessen. That’s my ideal state of being, I think. [LAUGHTER]
I think it’s a classic young girl story, as is her wont. And in this one her mom died when she was young, and she’s going back to visit her mom’s family. I think her dad is from the rich side of this lake town, or resort town, and her mom’s family is from the working class area. And so she rediscovers the other half of her roots. And it sounds really cool.
And there’s a boy. There’s always a boy.
GIN JENNY: Sounds great. Yes, of course, have to have that.
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m hoping that he is also from the wrong side of the tracks and maybe has some gruffness with a heart of gold. We’ll see.
GIN JENNY: I’m keeping my fingers crossed for you.
WHISKEY JENNY: That is also in June from Balzer and Bray.
GIN JENNY: Great. OK, my next one is Magic for Liars, by Sarah Gailey. Sarah Gailey is one of these authors I’ve really come to love based on my short fiction reading, which is exciting. They wrote a story called “Stet” had a really unusual narrative format that I won’t spoil for you.
But they also wrote two novellas about an alternate version of 1890s Louisiana that’s overrun by feral hippos. And I don’t love American historical fiction, so I did enjoy those books, but they weren’t the books of my heart. But I think Magic for Liars is going to be. It’s about a woman named Ivy who has left the world of magic completely behind, but then she’s called in to—I think she may be a private detective, and she’s called in to investigate a murder that’s happened at the magic academy where her estranged twin sister teaches.
WHISKEY JENNY: What!
GIN JENNY: Yeah. I hope you heard all the elements that are perfect Gin Jenny bait in that description.
WHISKEY JENNY: Wow. Yeah.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, I’m super excited.
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m so happy for you.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. So it’s coming out in June from Tor, and again, that’s Magic for Liars, by Sarah Gailey.
WHISKEY JENNY: So my next one is In West Mills, by De’Shawn Charles Winslow. It’s coming out in June from Bloomsbury. And it’s set in a small town in North Carolina in—what is it, like the ‘60s? The ‘40s to the ‘80s. The main woman is a black woman who just wants to live her own life, and she’s in a small town and it’s hard to do that.
And I really liked—what she wants to do, from the description is, “what she loves best is cheap moonshine, 19th century literature, and the company of men.” And I was like, all right, this is a woman that I want to read about.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: And then she has a neighbor, Otis Lee Loving, that she’s like, hey, help me do my own thing in this town. And he is referred to as a fixer, and so he does. And then I think it’s just a real ensemble story.
GIN JENNY: I almost put that on my list. And I took it off because there’s a lot of elements that aren’t really my thing, including being set in the American past. And being one of those small town books, I wasn’t so sure. But it was compared to The Turner House which I really loved. So I am still excited to read it. It just missed my list by this much.
OK, my next one is Null Set by S.L. Huang. I started out with a really big list for this batch of preview books, and I was trying to narrow it down, and I kept being like, OK, you don’t have to include Null Set. It’s a sequel, and you’ve already talked a LOT about the first book in the series. But I’m just so excited for Null Set. Zero Sum Game is the first book in the series that came out last year, and it’s about a petty criminal lady whose genius for math essentially gives her superpowers. And it’s just a really fun adventure novel with exactly the right amount of darkness.
So Null Set is the sequel. It’s coming out from Tor in July, and it’s about the fallout from the main character destroying the evil corporation in the last book. So yeah, I’m just really, really excited for it. Sometimes sequels are all I want.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, there’s several on here that I was like, I already mentioned this, but this is legitimately what I’m most—these are my top five for the summer.
So OK, my next one is Hot Comb, by Ebony Flowers, which is graphic short stories, and all set around black women and their coming of age, within a structure of their relationship with their hair. And it just sounds really interesting. And I like the idea of that structure. And I think I probably haven’t read it yet, but in one of my previous previews, I think I had a book of graphic short stories. I just think that that is playing with the form in a way that I haven’t experienced very much, so I’m excited to get into that.
And that is coming out also in June. I don’t know why everything I’m excited about is coming out in June. July and August I’m just going to be like, womp womp. [LAUGHTER] But that’s in June from Drawn and Quarterly.
GIN JENNY: OK, my next one is The Right Swipe, by Alisha Rai. She is one of my favorite contemporary romance authors, and her last series concluded recently. The Right Swipe is coming out in July from Avon. It’s a second chance romance, which I love. It’s about a former NFL player and a woman who runs a dating app. Those are two great, great professions for a romance novel. And I really like Alisha Rai because she writes very spiky, defended women characters, which I love. And because a lot of my romance reading has been historical romance in the past, it’s always fun to have a contemporary romance author that I’m really into. So yeah, that’s The Right Swipe, by Alisha Rai.
WHISKEY JENNY: Remind me what a second chance romance is?
GIN JENNY: They had dated before, or I think in this case they had hooked up one time before, a while ago. And then it didn’t work out.
WHISKEY JENNY: A second chance for them. Got it, got it.
GIN JENNY: Second chance for them, yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK. So my last one is Evvie Drake Starts Over, by Linda Holmes.
GIN JENNY: [GASP] Yeah!
WHISKEY JENNY: Yay! Which I think we’ve mentioned before, but it finally comes out in June, so I can officially preview it. It’s Linda Holmes of NPR fame. I believe there’s a baseball player involved. I think it’s a rom com. I think there’s some getting past grief in a small town. And I’m really excited.
GIN JENNY: I think it’s going to be great. I’m really looking forward to reading it. Charlotte was on the podcast a few episodes ago and was saying that she really liked it, so that was great to hear.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah it was a rave review that I was happy about, yeah. What’s your last one?
GIN JENNY: So my last one is When the Plums Are Ripe, by Patrice Nganang, translated by Amy B. Reid. This author, wrote a historical novel set in colonial Cameroon a few years ago, which I was really pleased to get to read. It wasn’t perfect for me, but it was exciting to read a historical fiction novel set in Cameroon by a Cameroonian author.
And this one is another historical fiction book, and it’s about the Cameroonian role in World War II. Because during World War II, Cameroon was a French colony, which left them in a bit of a pickle after France was conquered and occupied by the Germans, because there were essentially two French governments. And I’m just very interested in how colonized nations participated in global conflicts while under European rule, so this just sounds right up my alley. I’m so excited that this guy has another book, and that it’s coming out in English.
WHISKEY JENNY: I’ll be honest, that title does not sound up your alley, but I’m glad that the book sounds up your alley.
GIN JENNY: I know, right? I know. I thought that too. So this is coming from Farrar, Straus, and Giroux in August.
WHISKEY JENNY: Great. So I had a book in mind that I was like—but I can’t remember what it was. But anyway, my prediction was wrong. But there was something—I’m just so surprised. It was an author that you’ve talked about before, really liking her work.
Oh, oh, what is the—Her Body and Other—Carmen Maria Machado.
GIN JENNY: Carmen Maria Machado? Oh, she has a new book coming out?
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.
GIN JENNY: Oh, cool. I would not have still put her on this list, because I think that I respect her work more than I love her work. I think she’s doing awesome stuff.
WHISKEY JENNY: Ah. OK.
GIN JENNY: But I shouldn’t say I don’t like it. But yeah, it’s not right in my heart, you know?
WHISKEY JENNY: I thought you loved Her Body and Other Parties.
GIN JENNY: There was a story—sometimes I love her stories, but I don’t love them so consistently that like—
WHISKEY JENNY: I misremembered. So sorry.
GIN JENNY: No, I probably—I don’t know. Maybe I made it sound like I liked her more than I do. Yeah, so those are our summer books.
WHISKEY JENNY: Woo hoo! I hope to read them on a beach.
GIN JENNY: So many good things.
WHISKEY JENNY: I can’t wait.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, I’m actually going to the beach this year. So yeah, me too.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yay! Are you?
GIN JENNY: I am.
WHISKEY JENNY: I don’t have any set plans, but I hope to go to the beach.
So for this podcast we read Devil in a Blue Dress, by Walter Mosley, which is certainly one of his earlier books. I don’t know if it is his very first, but it might be. It’s his first of Easy Rawlins, and he wrote several other books in that series. And it is and noir mystery set in post-World War II LA. And Easy Rawlins is a black man coming back from the war and dealing with racism all over again. And he’s given the task of finding a white woman. And noir things happen.
GIN JENNY: They sure do.
WHISKEY JENNY: [LAUGHTER] So what did you think overall, Gin Jenny?
GIN JENNY: I think that I in general enjoyed it. I would conceivably read a second book in the series. I would say that my problems with it were mostly the same problems I always have with noir, which we can get into. But no, I mean, overall I think it was a generally positive experience. What about you?
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. I liked it. In reading it, I’m not sure that I did a good job of picking this one as a mystery for you to read. But you know, such is life. Here we are. I could’ve done better. I’ll do better in the future.
GIN JENNY: [LAUGHTER] Well, you know what I was going to say is, I think that—because I found this when I was trying to make myself read more books in translation. I think that the more of them you read, the more your brain gets accustomed to that kind of thing. So I don’t think there’s a bad—I mean, well, there are bad mysteries. But I mean, even a book that’s not the perfect mystery for me is still good at getting my brain acclimatized to the genre.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, there you go. But just the mystery itself of this one is not very mystery-ish. But anyway, we’ll get into it.
GIN JENNY: My main non-noir problem—no, actually this is a noir problem, too. I kept losing track of who everyone was and where their loyalties lay. Because—this is just me being an inattentive reader probably—but very often Easy would think, oh, this guy is in cahoots with this guy. And then it would turn out they were in different cahoots, and I had just had a hard time keeping up with who was in cahoots with whom to do what.
WHISKEY JENNY: That’s true, yeah. Yeah, I guess that is a noir thing, where what you know and allegiances are constantly shifting. My problem with the mystery was that there were no big reveals at the end. It was just like, a bunch of deaths were committed, and sort of all of those people killed themselves. Like this guy killed that guy, and then that guy killed this guy, and then that guy killed that guy. And was no new information at the end. It was just—
GIN JENNY: Yeah, all the bad guys offed each other.
WHISKEY JENNY: And we knew the reasons pretty early on. We knew about this money, and we knew about all the dating relationships really early on that would have caused these things. So there were no big revelations. But for me that wasn’t a huge problem, because as always in noirs, I just really enjoy the atmosphere, and hanging out at the underground bars, and going to all the different places. But this one really does, I think, rely on the noir atmosphere more than the mystery itself.
GIN JENNY: Yes, I agree. And I did in fact like the atmosphere more than I think I did with other noir things I’ve tried to consume in the past. So I think it helped to have it be set in black LA, and because Easy’s a veteran. That stuff just made it interesting to me, because that is interesting historical content.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh good. That’s good, because the atmosphere is one of the reasons I was like, maybe this one for Gin Jenny.
GIN JENNY: Thank you. Yeah, that was successful.
WHISKEY JENNY: I always enjoy seeing the seedy underbelly of things.
GIN JENNY: Me too.
WHISKEY JENNY: As much as I would love to be a part of it, I also don’t want to be a part of it. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: Same.
WHISKEY JENNY: So I’m excited to read about it. I do want to be a part of it, but I don’t. I’m happy that I have health insurance. [LAUGHTER] But also, imagine if I could do heists. Wouldn’t that be great?
GIN JENNY: Yeah. Yeah. No, though. I don’t want you to do heists.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: No. But right? So I feel like these scratch an itch. Like, I’ll never have this, but I can read about it. That’s the magic of books!
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: So what we’ve learned here today—this podcast, still pro-books.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Amazingly. Well I will say, I enjoyed the hat tip to—I assume this is a hat tip to The Maltese Falcon, because when he’s visiting a company, the company’s symbol is a gold falcon. And I enjoyed that little Easter egg.
So this is a book where our detective dude has not previously been a detective, and he’s hired for a job. And then by the end of the book, he’s decided to become a private investigator. And I think later on in the series, obviously, that’s his official job. So what did you think about reading a book about someone learning to be a detective?
GIN JENNY: Oh, I really liked it. I really, really liked it.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s kind of fun, right?
GIN JENNY: Yeah, it’s really fun. We’ve talked about, with Veronica Mars, how much fun it is to see logistics of the private detective biz. Yeah, I loved it. That is actually the main reason that I’m interested in reading the second one, because I want to see what’s it like when he’s an established private detective?
WHISKEY JENNY: Totally. I wish you got more of his thought processes. You see a little bit of like, well, this guy might know something. I’ll go talk to him. And you’re like, yeah, I guess that’s what you would do. [LAUGHTER] So that was interesting. And I think there’s not a lot where—
GIN JENNY: They’re learning. Where the curtain is lifted.
WHISKEY JENNY: They’re learning, yeah. They’re already established. Like Sherlock Holmes is already pretty established, or if it’s their first case, they sort of remain dilettantes. And they just happen to keep doing it for funsies or something.
GIN JENNY: Right, totally.
WHISKEY JENNY: But this guy does the one and is like, oh, no, I’m actually really good at that, and then it becomes his job. So that’s fun.
GIN JENNY: The other thing that made me really identify with Easy very early on is there’s a passage pretty early in the book where he’s so into his house. He’s like, man, I love my house. And that was a sentiment I could get behind. I love my little house. It is so cozy and nice. Everything is how I want it. Nobody can come in unless I let them. And it’s just a really nice feeling to have. And I was like, you’re right, Easy Rawlins. You should protect that with everything. It is the best.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. You should fight for it. It’s a very hobbity feeling, as well, I think. [LAUGHTER] Absolutely. And it’s even more poignant, because he has collected enough money at one point where he’s like, well, I could run. I would be fine. But I’m not going to let these mostly white men run me, a black man, off of my hard-earned land. So there’s an extra level there where you’re like, yeah, stay and fight! That’s your house!
Yeah. I, uh—there was a lot more pedophilia in this book than I was expecting.
GIN JENNY: Yep, there was. There was pedophilia in this book.
WHISKEY JENNY: Just a lot more. I guess everyone who does that gets what’s coming to them. They all die, so that’s good.
GIN JENNY: Sure. I feel like it signaled its turns, so I wasn’t shocked when that stuff came out.
WHISKEY JENNY: Sure. No, totally. But just the amount of it, I was like, God. All right, here we go again.
GIN JENNY: Not to be this person, but child sex abuse is really, really common.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, no. It’s just—especially the portrayal in this book, too, where you actually have to witness someone assaulting a child. You’re like, oh, Jesus, we’re just watching it happen right now in front of us. So it was pretty awful.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, it was grim.
WHISKEY JENNY: And I do like—and I think this is another thing that I really like in noir books—is there’s secretly a pretty rigid moral code, that’s maybe different from the non-underbelly moral code, but the underbelly moral code is for sure there. Like, you can steal booze, but you can’t molest a child. And I think I really enjoy that, that there’s still absolutely a line in these books.
GIN JENNY: Speaking of moral codes, I think this was probably my biggest noir problem. As always, I was frustrated with how the main guy interacts with women.
WHISKEY JENNY: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
GIN JENNY: Especially, one of his friends gets murdered over the course of the book, Coretta. And she gets murdered right after they bang. And I just feel like, if a someone that I had ever banged got murdered—even if it was a long time ago, even if it was quite casual—I’d be pretty upset about it, let alone if I banged them and left the house and then they immediately got murdered. But mostly where he lands on it it’s like, it’s OK that his friend kills Joppy because Joppy killed Coretta. And Easy’s like, yeah, that’s fine, because I’m still upset about Coretta. But he’s not the most upset. He’s just a little put out.
WHISKEY JENNY: Well—yeah. I mean, you’re not wrong.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, he just did not seem upset enough. And I feel like he in general viewed women in a kind of instrumental way. Which again is very common in noir, which is a reason that I find it difficult.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, no, you’re not wrong. I think that his being a veteran, and he talks a lot about his relationship with death is a lot closer with mine, I was able to forgive him for more of that lack of outward feeling towards the murder of Coretta.
GIN JENNY: Sure.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, this book has the same lady problem, I think, I agree, as many noir books. I do think that—I forget the girl’s name who is the titular devil in a blue dress, she didn’t have a lot of agency. And I think they often have a lot of agency in noir books. But you’re right, the main characters still use them as women first and foremost.
When you were like, it’s fine that Junior someone, right? Killed—I don’t even know who killed who. They all killed each other and it sorted itself out. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: I wasn’t even sure. I said that and I was like, ah, but did he? He did something. He was responsible in some kind of way.
WHISKEY JENNY: And then there’s a separate fake story that he tells to the cops and the assistant mayor or something, to make sure that he doesn’t get brought in for the crimes. That fake story also really confused me, so I don’t—not confused me in the reading of it, but afterwards trying to remember who did what, again? I don’t know. They all killed each other. It worked itself out. It’s fine. So do you think you would read more in the series?
GIN JENNY: I think yes, I would read least one more to just see where it goes and see how the private detective business is going for Easy Rawlins.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.
GIN JENNY: And also to see if the lady stuff improves at all. Be nice if it did.
WHISKEY JENNY: Who knows? I’ll try and find a better for ladies noir book next time.
GIN JENNY: OK. [LAUGHTER] Well, I’m rewatching Veronica Mars, which is a noiry show that I just really love. We watched the pilot last night, and it’s just—God, it’s so good. It really holds up. It’s so good.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, I haven’t seen the older seasons of the TV show in forever. So I’m happy to hear that. Yeah.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. I’m so excited to rewatch it. It’s amazing so far.
WHISKEY JENNY: Great. Anything else?
GIN JENNY: No, that’s all I had on this one.
WHISKEY JENNY: I feel like I did like that as soon as he mentions his scary friend Mouse, you’re like, oh, we’re going to meet Mouse for sure. [LAUGHTER] Mouse is definitely going to show up. And then he did. We got to meet Mouse.
GIN JENNY: We did. And I really enjoyed it. Mouse was a very enjoyable—
WHISKEY JENNY: Terrifying but enjoyable.
GIN JENNY: Just really interesting to spend time with.
WHISKEY JENNY: I agree. And there was one point where Mouse and some other guy passed out—I guess they were drinking and they passed out. And Easy is going to go do some stuff for the case. And he takes one of Mouse’s spare guns but leaves a note and says, as the narrator tells the reader, he would have been mad and killed me if I hadn’t left a note, but if I left a note, it’s fine. [LAUGHTER] In case we wanted to know more about Mouse’s moral code about notes and whatnot.
GIN JENNY: Why you always leave a note.
WHISKEY JENNY: Exactly I really like that. Like if you were underhanded towards him and betrayed him, he was mad at you. But if you, as a friend, just borrowed his gun and told him, he’s chill with it. I talked it through. It made sense. [LAUGHTER] I agree with Mouse.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. You just gotta keep people posted on where you’re at, gun-stealing-wise.
WHISKEY JENNY: Just be honest. Don’t lie.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. Yeah, that’s all I have.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s pretty short. I think it’s a pretty quick read, too.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, it was. I went right through it. Well, do you want to hear what we’re reading for next time?
WHISKEY JENNY: I sure do. And I’m sure after the exciting cliffhanger that I left our listeners on earlier, that everyone else will be excited, too. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: OK, so we’re going to read American Spy, by Lauren Wilkinson, which was on your spring 2019 anticipated list? Yes.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yay!
GIN JENNY: OK, so it’s about a young black woman who works for the FBI. She’s an intelligence agent. And she’s getting shunted around into boring jobs, but then she gets tapped to join a task force to undermine the president of Burkina Faso, who is a communist. So of course, America wants to topple him whether he’s democratically elected or not. Full offense intended, America.
So yeah, it’s about a real president of Burkina Faso. It’s a real person, so I’m very curious to see how that gets handled. Because I can’t imagine she won’t interact with him a bunch. I think she maybe seduces him. I think that’s part of the task.
WHISKEY JENNY: I feel like I remember reading that she has to seduce someone, but I didn’t know it was the president.
GIN JENNY: I think so, which is an interesting tack to take. It sounds great. People have been comparing it to John le Carré which I haven’t read anything by him, but that just sounds like a really fun book for summer.
WHISKEY JENNY: Agreed.
GIN JENNY: Fun/dark. Because, yeah, the Cold War.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Yeah. So that’s what it’s going to be.
WHISKEY JENNY: I can’t wait.
GIN JENNY: 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 me, Gin Jenny, on Twitter @readingttheend. We’re both on Goodreads as Whiskey Jenny and Gin Jenny. And you can email us at readingtheend@gmail.com. If you like what we do, you can become a podcast patron at Patreon.com/readingtheend. And if you’re listening to us on iTunes, you can leave a review, which we would so much appreciate.
Until next time, a quote from Before She Sleeps, by Bina Shah. “Men aren’t doors to escape through, or even mirrors to find ourselves in. We’re fooling ourselves if we think they can help us.”
[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.