To Tell the Truth Freely was published in 2009, a biography of a journalist and activist who died in 1931, and its applicability to modern-day politics is so acute that I tore through it at warp speed. Her political milieu is described as “a time when the Democrats were increasingly billing themselves as the party of white supremacy and the Republicans had largely abandoned any commitment to racial justice in favor of an alliance with big business.” I defy you not to shudder when you read that. Though Wells’s biographer repeatedly emphasizes her subject’s temper (and intemperance), it’s clear that…
Leave a CommentAuthor: Jenny Hamilton
Remember that series on The Toast, Children’s Stories Made Horrifying? Where you would be like, hmm, but that story is already kind of horrifying, and then you’d read the piece and be like, “Ah.” Bob Proehl’s sophomore novel, The Nobody People, is X-Men Made Horrifying. Journalist Avi Hirsch is our way in to this story: An adrenaline junkie who’s done his best to settle down for his wife and kid, Avi is pursuing two seemingly unrelated stories, a bombing at a mall and another at a local black church. He learns that the man responsible has special powers, that there…
Leave a CommentIt’s Friday! Or, described to align more closely with my experience of this week, Monday Part Five. (That is a joke I cribbed from my brother-in-law, so please enjoy it and praise me as if I had coined it myself.) Litrally nothing has happened this entire week. Only time has passed, at an agonizingly slow rate. What is time? What is truth and goodness? Is there a future? I don’t know, and neither do you! To distract us from the existential dread we all feel, here are some links! Advice on how to dress professionally hits marginalized women so, so…
Leave a CommentHoo boy am I having a lot of thoughts lately about how maybe we should take a break from telling women to do less, and spend that time and energy telling men to do more. This is just one of my many ideas for making the world a better place; please vote for me for president. In the meantime, here are some links! Frankly, I think a great parenting move would be for parents of kids of all genders to focus on being attentive to the needs of others. But oh my God, yes, men do not clean up spills…
1 CommentLet the bells ring out the news that Whiskey Jenny read a book where the protagonist tells a whole bunch of lies to everyone else in the book all the time and she didn’t hate it. Gin Jenny is very excited because it feels like this opens up new worlds of book reading. This episode, we’re chatting about book slumps and how terrible they are but also how to end them; and then we review Magic for Liars, by Sarah Gailey, a book that both of us liked even though one of us usually doesn’t like books about lying liars.…
Leave a CommentAdele Joubert is a good girl. Her white father pays her school fees at Keziah Christian Academy, and Adele is permitted in the ranks of the wealthiest girls at the school — until one year she isn’t. Suddenly she has lost her place among the popular clique, and she has to share a room with ferocious Lottie Diamond, who is unequivocally at the bottom of the school’s pecking order. But in living with Lottie, Adele slowly begins to realize the ways that power and injustice function in her world — and the ways she can fight it. I want to…
Leave a CommentUnexpectedly, the Jennys are not a fan of the Lord of the Rings appendices. I feel like I remembered them being more interesting (and less racist) than it turns out they are?? Anyway, we’re chatting about the appendices, and despite all the boredom there are several truly shocking revelations. Bonus Episode 9 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…
Leave a CommentI figured out nonrepresentational art in the spring of 2009 at the Tate Modern. I was there with my mother and a close friend, and the friend asked my mother– (Bear with me; I will get to Time War in a minute.) –what a particular piece of art meant. My mother said, “You don’t have to worry about that. You just have to look at what the artist made, and see if it resonates anything in you. And if not, maybe you weren’t the audience for it.” This advice was not directed at me, a person too proud to admit…
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