Barry Jenkins worked hard to avoid sensationalizing and exploiting Black trauma in his adaptation of The Underground Railroad, but the material was difficult nonetheless. A therapist was on set at all times to protect and help the cast and crew. (link)

Always read an Alex Brown review! They’re at Tor this week reviewing Barry Jenkins’s new TV adaptation of The Underground Railroad, which handles Black trauma with care and thoughtfulness. (link)

And (last The Underground Railroad thing!) Angelica Jade Bastién reviewed the show with her customary eloquence. (link)

I was completely unaware of the slander websites economy, but the New York Times did a deep dive to find out who runs these sites, and who runs the sites you can pay to clean up your online presence. (link)

“Ideas don’t disappear when they’re banned.” Carmen Maria Machado responds to attempts to ban students from reading her book In the Dream House. (link)

“A woman once stopped my mother in a supermarket and told her that she had abilities to speak to the dead. “It’s a power I can develop if I want to,” my mother bragged. But she didn’t want to.” On Korean history, trauma, and ghosts. (link)

Access to affirming, culturally competent mental health care is a community and social justice issue. (link)

David Treuer makes the (excellent) case for giving national parks back to Native nations. (link)

Without any of us noticing, online shopping has undergone a sea change. We are buffeted by the uncaring waves of social media marketing. (link)

How Netflix frames the stories of people like Joe Exotic and Colton Underwood, at the expense of the people they’ve harmed. (link)

Interracial relationships have begun to appear far more frequently in movies, TV, and commercials. But do these depictions grapple with the realities of interracial dating? (link)

“Just write the parts that are exciting to you, and figure out later how you’re going to connect it.” Brit Bennett on discovering joy in her writing. (link)

What does a guilty pleasure mean? (link)

A deep dive into how Martin Bashir used dishonest tactics to get That Interview. (link)

The authors of two new books I’m very excited for discuss their inspirations: Dawnie Walton on The Final Revival of Opal and Nev (link) and Zakiya Dalila Harris on The Other Black Girl (link).

Here’s a question for the group, before we go: If you could talk to ghosts, would you?

The post An Underground Railroad–Forward Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

I lived in the first century of world wars.
Most mornings I would be more or less insane,
The newspapers would arrive with their careless stories,
The news would pour out of various devices
Interrupted by attempts to sell products to the unseen.
I would call my friends on other devices;
They would be more or less mad for similar reasons.

Like, how dare Muriel Rukeyser? You can read the full poem here (link). “Most mornings I would be more or less insane” is the most accurate description I have ever heard of my current mindset and that of everyone I know.

All of this to say, I hope that our podcast brought you some joy this year, and I hope this podcast in particular brings you joy. We read Brit Bennett’s sophomore novel The Vanishing Half (spoilers, we loved it), and we also produced a list of excellent gifts we think you should buy for all your loved ones this year. And aside from that, be kind to yourself and remember that you are not alone. We all feel more or less insane right now. HANG IN THERE.

You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below, or download it directly to take with you on the go!

Episode 140

Here are the time signatures if you want to skip around.

1:37 – What we’re reading
3:53 – What we’re something elsing
6:14 – Holiday gift guide!
22:27 – The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett
41:48 – What we’re reading for next time

Stuff we talked about:

Hench, Natalie Zina Walschots
Powerless (TV show)
The Camelot Caper, Elizabeth Peters
Ted Lasso (TV show)

Whiskey Jenny’s Gift Guide

Read, Romance, Repeat subscription box from The Ripped Bodice

blank books from Vintage Paper Co (or just lovely papers)

copper cup from Made Trade

yarn from Third Vault Yarns

a donation to the food bank or racial justice organization of your choice, like Emancipate NC!

Gin Jenny’s Gift Guide

a reading Bean from Book Beau

stationery from Pigeon Posted

Real Simple subscription

Atlas of Adventures series (like this!)

Artiphany playing cards

And here’s the link about Delia Owens’s husband maybe killing a man in Zambia! (link)

You can get at me on Twitter, email the podcast, and friend me (Gin Jenny) and Whiskey Jenny on Goodreads. As a brand new feature, you can also follow me (Gin Jenny) and Whiskey Jenny on Storygraph! 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

Transcript

Whiskey Jenny  0:00

Oh, oh. Oh, and can we use the holiday theme song this time?

Gin Jenny  0:03

Oh, yes! Oh my God! Thank you for reminding me. I completely forgot.

Whiskey Jenny  0:05

I just thought of it. YAY!

Gin Jenny  0:06

I totally forgot it existed. Yes.

Whiskey Jenny  0:08

Jingle bells!

Gin Jenny  0:09

Yes. I love the jingle bells one. Yes.

Whiskey Jenny  0:46

Hello, and welcome back to the Reading the End Bookcast with the Demographically Similar Jennys. I’m Whiskey Jenny.

Gin Jenny  0:51

And I’m Gin Jenny!

Whiskey Jenny  0:52

And we’re back to talk about books and literary happenings with a holiday twist this time! First up, we’re going to talk about what we’re reading, and we’re each going to talk about what we’re something else-ing, but it’s gonna be chaos because we’re something else-ing different elses. We’re then gonna do our annual holiday gift guide with some literary and maybe not-so-literary gifts. Who can say? The book that we read this time is The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett. And then we’ll find out from fearless leader Gin Jenny– what? What? And then we’ll find out what we’re reading next time from Gin Jenny.

Gin Jenny  1:32

Hooray!

Whiskey Jenny  1:32

So first up, what are you reading right now?

Gin Jenny  1:35

I am reading this book called Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots, which is about a henchperson named Anna who gets– She’s temping for a supervillain, and a superhero slams into her while foiling her employer’s plan and shatters her femur. While she’s recovering from this injury, she starts cataloging the financial damage that superheroes do in the course of foiling villains. And that brings her to the attention of a very super super villain. So she goes to work for him, puts a team together, and starts figuring out ways to screw up the lives of superheroes, to try and stop them from doing so much property and human damage. It’s definitely scratching at least some of that itch that I perpetually have to read about the like bureaucratic side of superhero stories.

Whiskey Jenny  2:11

I love that it’s a henchperson. That that’s her job. That was my favorite part about– Do you remember that short-lived TV show that Vanessa Hudgens was in?

Gin Jenny  2:20

Yes, I did. I forgot about that! But yes!

Whiskey Jenny  2:22

Yeah, she dated, I think for like an episode, Major Lilywhite. She had a crush on him. But actually, he was a henchperson. So.

Gin Jenny  2:30

Yeah, so it’s, it’s fun. Um, as the story goes on, she’s dealing less with bureaucracy and more with like, bigger plots and stories, you know, which I think makes sense. I get that the plot has to have a plot.

Whiskey Jenny  2:42

Sure.

Gin Jenny  2:42

But I do like it when she’s just with her team being like, and now these spreadsheets.

Whiskey Jenny  2:46

Yeah, like the paperwork behind the villainous or hero plots. I want more of, just more filing.

Gin Jenny  2:55

Yeah, more filing! Totally agree. I just read a very delightful Magnus Archives fic where they have to hire a GDPR compliance officer at the Magnus Archives. And it was great. It was terrific.

Whiskey Jenny  3:05

Sounds great.

Gin Jenny  3:06

What are you reading?

Whiskey Jenny  3:07

I am reading, well, I guess I just finished rereading The Camelot Caper again.

Gin Jenny  3:11

Awwww!

Gin Jenny  3:12

By Elizabeth Peters. I believe I read it first at your place because you left it on a bedside table.

Gin Jenny  3:17

Sounds like me.

Whiskey Jenny  3:18

Yeah, I mean, story checks out. And it’s a delight. It’s such a silly little caper in, I think it’s like 1960s England, and sort of spoofing on gothic horror a little bit, but in the just like the lightest, nicest way possible. There’s a convertible, they’re just always cruising around to different cathedrals and a convertible. It’s great. It’s great.

Gin Jenny  3:41

I love that book.

Whiskey Jenny  3:42

There’s a plot but like, eh! For me, it’s really all about the convertible and the cathedrals. So yeah. What are you something else-ing? Well, what is your something else? And what are you elsing it with?

Gin Jenny  3:55

So I am watching, and I am watching an Apple TV show (I know) called Ted Lasso. I cannot shut up about it. It’s the greatest show. I just I feel so confident every time I recommend it that the person that I’m recommending it to is going to love it. But because it’s on Apple TV, it’s kind of a hard sell. It’s a Jason Sudeikis show. It’s about a college football coach who gets hired to coach an English football, i.e., soccer, league. He doesn’t know anything about football. He doesn’t know anything about England. He’s really sunshiny and optimistic, and everyone in England kind of doesn’t know what to make of him. There’s like a hotshot Mancunian fuckboy on the team, there’s a like older grizzled soccer veteran who’s kind of reaching the end of his career. The team’s owner is a very hot woman who I think is like from the West End, so her posture is beautiful. And she’s just an ice Queen, a la kind of Gillian Anderson type character, and everyone just becomes really great friends and builds grudging respect. And there’s lots of jokes, and it’s the greatest show that I have watched in a really long time.

Whiskey Jenny  4:03

I cannot wait to see this. I have heard from multiple sources an equally ringing endorsement, and I’m so excited to watch it.

Gin Jenny  4:40

It’s great for everyone, but it’s especially great for you, I think.

Whiskey Jenny  4:55

I can’t wait. I can’t wait! Every single word you said was like, Yeah, I like that.

Gin Jenny  5:10

What are you something else-ing?

Whiskey Jenny  5:11

I am painting! I’m very excited to — I’ve been getting into the holiday spirit because we’ve been decorating the house, and my newest project that I’ve suddenly become very attached to is I cut out (and this was inspired by something my friend and my mom said a while ago), but I cut out pieces of cardboard in the shape of a light bulb.

Gin Jenny  5:32

Uh huh.

Gin Jenny  5:32

But like a Christmas light bulb, you know, like a string. Then I’m going to paint those like glitter and stripes and pretty colors, and string them on like fishing wire and hang them.

Gin Jenny  5:42

Oh, that sounds wonderful. That sounds so Christmassy and lovely.

Whiskey Jenny  5:45

Very excited about it. Like I came up with this plan to do this, and then immediately it was like, I will die trying to do this, and my mom was like, Okay? All right? I’m very attached to it, and I will send photos when they’re done.

Gin Jenny  6:00

Yes. Oh my gosh, please. I was just about to ask for that. I just put up my very tiny fake Christmas tree and put my Christmas ornaments on it. And even though it’s so tiny and fake, it’s still making me happy.

Whiskey Jenny  6:10

Yay!

Gin Jenny  6:11

Yeah. So on today’s podcast we did– We’re not able to this year, due to COVID and other complications, we were not able to do our thing that we love to do, which is help you pick out presents, listeners, for your loved ones. But we still did want to do our holiday gift guide where we’d pick out some things, some gifts that you could get for your people. A generic you. I love my choices so much. Whiskey Jenny, do you want to go first?

Whiskey Jenny  6:34

Ah, sure! So my first thing is The Ripped Bodice, which is a romance-only bookstore in LA, I think. They have a subscription service. Did you know about this? I just found out about it.

Gin Jenny  6:47

I didn’t know about that, but I love subscription services, so.

Whiskey Jenny  6:49

I know! So it’s called Read Romance Repeat. And they send you romances. They just send you romances in the mail or your person. I think it’s monthly.

Gin Jenny  7:01

Uh-huh. To what extent are you able to customize it? Like can you say, I just want historicals? Or I just want contemporaries? Or do they send you an assortment and expand your boundaries?

Whiskey Jenny  7:07

I think it’s an assortment.

Gin Jenny  7:09

Okay, cool.

Whiskey Jenny  7:10

So it’s two a month. And you get — they say it’s a mix, but that they do tend to favor contemporary of it. And it’s new stuff.

Gin Jenny  7:18

Well, it sounds great. That sounds like a perfect subscription.

Whiskey Jenny  7:20

Doesn’t that sound delightful? Just romance in the box every month! Two romances in the mail every month! Yeah. So that’s my first one.

Gin Jenny  7:28

That’s really good. Especially because I know that The Ripped Bodice really cares about diversity in the romance industry. So I bet that they’re picking out like really great, marginalized authors to promote, which is awesome.

Whiskey Jenny  7:37

Yeah, I agree.

Gin Jenny  7:37

Yeah, they do the diversity report every year to show how bad romance publishing is at diversity.

Whiskey Jenny  7:42

Still bad!

Gin Jenny  7:43

Still bad, yeah.

Whiskey Jenny  7:45

So what’s your first thing?

Gin Jenny  7:46

Okay, so my first one is a little weird, but I am gonna stand by it. So my friend Alice, who’s one of the two hosts of the For Real podcast, told me about this product called the Book Beau bean. And I was like, oh, does anyone in the whole world need that? But she was correct. She was the visionary. It’s a little pillow that’s shaped like a little bean. It’s about the size of a travel pillow. And you use it to put your book on. I know this sounds insane and like, you don’t need it at all, but I bought one for someone in my life this year for Christmas. And before I wrapped it up for them, I tried it because I wanted to see, you know, is this a cool thing? You can put it in your lap or if you’re lying on your back, you can put it on your chest. Or if you’re curled up you can use it like a travel pillow. And it just really improves the reading experience in a like minor but noticeable way. It’s just a better way of life.

Whiskey Jenny  8:30

Boy, that’s a great sell, because I’ve also like– but I mean, it’s just a pillow, right?

Gin Jenny  8:33

Yeah!

Gin Jenny  8:34

But it sounds like it’s more than a pillow.

Gin Jenny  8:37

Have you ever had a baby small enough that you’ve had like a Boppy that you see when you’re holding the baby? You have something to rest the baby on?

Whiskey Jenny  8:43

No.

Gin Jenny  8:44

Okay, well, listeners if you’ve ever had one of these, the book bean is like that, but it’s smaller. It’s like a Boppy for your books.

Whiskey Jenny  8:50

Now I need to know what a Boppy is. You put the baby on the Boppy?

Gin Jenny  8:53

Yeah, it’s like a larger bean-shaped pillow, it kind of wraps around your waist. So when you’re holding the baby, it’s not just your arms holding up the baby forever because you’ll get really tired. You can kind of rest a bit. The baby’s still in your arms, but your arms are resting and the baby’s like butt is resting on the pillow. Anyone who’s like breastfed is definitely aware of this. My sister has several of them for my my baby niece. And they’re great for a baby, and the Book Beau Bean is great for a book. I just, I can’t account for it! I got it in the mail. I was like I’m gonna try this. I’m worried it’s not going to be any good. And it it just was like a little bit better.

Whiskey Jenny  9:29

Wow, amazing.

Gin Jenny  9:30

So that is the Book Beau Bean.

Whiskey Jenny  9:32

My next one, I was going to try and do a transition, to be like, you could rest it on the Book Bean, and I guess you could!

Gin Jenny  9:40

This has been: A segue!

Gin Jenny  9:45

The next one is this company called Vintage Paper Co, in the Orkney Islands in Scotland. They do have a lot of vintage paper, which is awesome, from like really old like 17th century stuff all the way up to, I got my mom some 1950s watercolor paper? Ooh, and they also, so that’s really cool. But they also have newly made stuff. They have a lot of really beautiful blank books.

Gin Jenny  10:11

Oh my gosh.

Whiskey Jenny  10:12

They describe like the artisan and the process and it’s really cool. They are kind of expensive, but there is other stuff on there. You don’t just have to get the blank books. They also like reprint a lot of vintage paper patterns. So they have like really beautiful like, end papers and things like that. A lot of gorgeous stuff that I am obsessed with recently. So vintage paper.

Gin Jenny  10:36

That sounds great. So do you have, have you purchased one of their blank books? Like have you touched the paper in them?

Whiskey Jenny  10:41

No.

Gin Jenny  10:42

Okay, I was just curious how the paper feels.

Whiskey Jenny  10:44

It’ll say. It’ll be all different. But whichever one you buy, they’ll say like, this is the pound and the texture and things like that.

Gin Jenny  10:51

Oh, cool. Okay. All right. Good to know, because what I want in my notebooks is like very smooth paper.

Whiskey Jenny  10:56

They might not have that, but they might have some different smooth plain paper. I don’t know. Check it out.

Gin Jenny  11:00

I will check it out. That sounds amazing.

Whiskey Jenny  11:02

Yeah, they’re great.

Gin Jenny  11:02

Well, I actually also have a British stationery recommendation. Yeah, I guess I’ll do it here. And then you know, it’s on a theme. It’s a stationery from a company called Pigeon Posted. Yeah, I can’t say enough about Pigeon Posted stationery. I learned about it this year from someone I follow on Twitter. It’s a British stationery company that sells six-packs of stationery. The patterns on them are so cute. But the killer is the stationery is all one single piece. So you write the letter on the inside part, and then it folds up into its own envelope, and you seal it closed with a stamp.

Whiskey Jenny  11:31

It’s just so cool.

Gin Jenny  11:33

It’s so cool. It’s so cute. They just came out with new patterns. I’m obsessed with them. They’re also like very affordable. If you’re in the US you probably want to buy a bunch at once to make the international shipping worth it. Which is what I did. I honestly like I bought, I think, seven, and I could have bought 20. I love them so much.

Whiskey Jenny  11:50

They are so pretty. I got a packet from Gin Jenny, and I am so excited about it. They’re like so nice too! They’re like really heavy textured. It’s great.

Gin Jenny  11:58

Yeah, they’re great. One of my quarantine things is that I try to send one lovely note per day. And mostly I do postcards, but now that I have the Pigeon Posted stationery, I’m trying to do some like more longer letters.

Whiskey Jenny  12:08

Plus it feels very old timey because didn’t they used to fold up stuff?

Gin Jenny  12:10

Yeah, it feels very Jane Austen-y. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it definitely does. I love it. So yeah, Pigeon Posted stationery. If there’s anyone in your life who loves stationery, I’m always trying to tell this to non-stationery people, because they’ll be like, “well, I can’t get them stationery, they already have a lot,” and I always want to be like, You don’t understand.

Whiskey Jenny  12:26

If you like stationery, it’s never enough.

Gin Jenny  12:29

If you like stationery, you literally can’t have enough.

Whiskey Jenny  12:32

You cannot! It’s never enough.

Gin Jenny  12:34

It’s like quilting. You just want more and more forever.

Whiskey Jenny  12:36

Is that like quilting?

Gin Jenny  12:38

To my understanding, having spoken to some quilting people. So there you go: Pigeon Posted stationery, you won’t be sorry.

Whiskey Jenny  12:45

So my next thing is not at all literary. But I’ve just been really into copper lately. And there are some really beautiful copper cups, like hammered copper cups.

Gin Jenny  12:57

Like Moscow Mule cups?

Whiskey Jenny  12:58

Yeah! They don’t have a handle. But, but yeah, you could put, you know, I don’t know what you’re gonna put in it. But they’re on MadeTrade, which also is a nice kind of marketplace for different makers of like eco-conscious and ethically made and sourced goods, I suppose. Goods? Stuff? That’s the fancy word for stuff. So I enjoy, I enjoy browsing their stuff. But in particular, these copper cups have been calling my name. And sometimes I just put stuff that I want on this gift guide because–

Gin Jenny  13:30

Oh God, me too.

Whiskey Jenny  13:31

That’s how my brain works!

Gin Jenny  13:33

Well, I love putting stuff that I’ve personally enjoyed. Because I think it’s always more fun to give a gift that you also like.

Whiskey Jenny  13:39

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Gin Jenny  13:40

It’s not always possible. Like sometimes you have to get something that you would not care about at all. But ideally–

Whiskey Jenny  13:45

Takes a village. Yeah.

Gin Jenny  13:46

Um, that’s great. That’s a great, that’s a great, great choice. I, you sent me a gin advent calendar this year.

Whiskey Jenny  13:53

I did.

Gin Jenny  13:54

And it’s, it’s been terrific, a of all.

Whiskey Jenny  13:56

Yay! I am so glad.

Gin Jenny  13:58

And b of all it’s a fun way to like use different glasses because, like what I did this past Friday, my sister came over for sister night, and we did a little tasting menu of the most recent three gins. We made three gins and tonics and sampled each. And it was really fun. It was a really pleasant experience.

Whiskey Jenny  14:15

All right, were they all different? Because you’d be like, Oh, yes, this one does have notes of Acacia flower.

Gin Jenny  14:20

I’m not able to do that. But yes, they were definitely all different. What we did was she picked her favorite one. And that was her– Because I was the DD. So she picked the first one and that was her drink, and then I picked my favorite And that was my drink, and then she got to choose the last one. But they were all delicious. And they were definitely all different. And I told you this, but I will tell the listeners too: The one that I opened yesterday was blood red and it’s called like Bloody Shiraz gin. Yeah, it’s very exciting. I’m planning to make a gin and tonic of it in today’s one.

Whiskey Jenny  14:51

Oh, I can’t wait.

Gin Jenny  14:52

I know. I’m really looking forward to it.

Whiskey Jenny  14:53

I bet it’ll be so pretty.

Gin Jenny  14:54

Yeah, it’ll be really pretty and I looked online and it seems like they’re good to put a lot of lemon versus lime. Yeah, so I’m gonna try it out, see how it goes. I have a lemon fortunately.

Whiskey Jenny  15:03

Keep me posted.

Gin Jenny  15:04

I will keep you posted.

Whiskey Jenny  15:06

I have to tell you I stole the– I mean, I didn’t steal it, it’s from my life, but the Acacia flower reference in pretentious wine tasting comes from when I was in France. And kind of towards the beginning of my study abroad program in college, we went to a vineyard, and our kind of program leader– It was early on in the program; we had, like, just gotten there. So our program leader was sort of like helping translate a little bit if we needed to. And the French for Acacia flower is like a really easy cognate like it, it’s like acace or something. It’s pretty, it’s pretty similar. And she made this big show of like, what’s it, what is the English word? What is it? Oh right, Acacia flower! Yeah, it was just the strangest, just, it’s acacia flower.

Gin Jenny  15:56

I now have conceived a great desire to go to a vineyard with you and taste all the wines. I’ve never done that before. But it sounds really fun.

Whiskey Jenny  16:04

I mean, yeah, I hope if you’re prepared for me to be just making jokes about notes of wine.

Gin Jenny  16:09

Oh, God, no.

Whiskey Jenny  16:09

I don’t, I can’t actually taste wine.

Gin Jenny  16:13

I think there have been studies that prove that wine people can’t either. It’s all just nonsense.

Whiskey Jenny  16:17

My dad, whenever I’m like, Oh, what’s this one like? He says, ah! it’s an unpretentious little wine from Argentina or whatever, wherever it’s from. Like, every time his joke is its unpretentious. It’s an unpretentious little red from Chile. Wine: What a joke.

Gin Jenny  16:33

Well, speaking of nonsense, my next choice is a subscription to Real Simple magazine, or as I call it, Basic Bitch Monthly.

Whiskey Jenny  16:42

Yes, great, go on.

Gin Jenny  16:44

I love this magazine so much. It’s like a, I don’t know, it’s like a lifestyle slash cozy house having magazine. And every issue they have like recipes, recommendations for makeup and storage solutions, people talking about things they did to improve their lives in minor ways. And I find it very peaceful and soothing. It has a lot of suggestions that are nonsense, but it also has some things where I’m like, Yeah, I could throw a party like that. I’m not gonna but I could. Yeah, and they have I mean, they have a lot of good little storage solutions. Like I have definitely bought stuff that I saw on the pages of Real Simple and been very happy with them. So yeah, it’s not too expensive. It’s a really nice thing to get in the mail every month. It’s so silly. It’s full of nonsense. And we need that in our lives, I think.

Whiskey Jenny  17:28

I can’t stress enough how nice it is, as a gift receiver, to get something monthly. Like subscriptions are just so great. They last all year long.

Gin Jenny  17:35

Yeah! Real Simple, the subscription I currently have was a gift. And it’s I mean, every time it shows up in my mailbox, I’m so excited.

Whiskey Jenny  17:41

Like, oh, yeah, this! Well, my next one is not a subscription, but it’s still exciting. There’s a place called Third Vault Yarns, also in England. So sorry, if you’re not in England and have to pay extra for shipping, but it’s really cool. It’s this beautiful hand-dyed yarn for the fiber or knitting fan in your life. But all of her colorways are inspired by science fiction or fantasy stories. So there’s like a, there’s like, you know, different characters that have their colors and different properties. It is just, it’s such a delight.

Gin Jenny  18:17

Oh my gosh, that’s amazing. Like, what’s an example of a character or property that is featured?

Whiskey Jenny  18:22

Yes. Stand by. Stand by. Okay, Transform is inspired by Molly, the Transworm from season three episode one of Discovery. So I guess, Star Trek Discovery?

Gin Jenny  18:33

Oh, I know what that is.

Whiskey Jenny  18:34

Do you know what that is?

Gin Jenny  18:35

Yeah. Yeah, that’s the that’s the really hot guy who turns out to be– He’s like, he appears to be a mercenary, but he’s basically a Sierra Club volunteer. Yeah, he’s taking care of these endangered species called transworms.

Whiskey Jenny  18:48

Ah, okay. His yarn, or the transworm yarn, is beautiful. It’s sort of like mauvey purple and teal and a little rose in there.

Gin Jenny  18:57

Nice. Man, I’m so excited I knew that reference.

Whiskey Jenny  19:00

Great job. She has all these knitting patterns as well. They’re inspired from board games. I don’t know the references, but somebody might. Someone who’s really into like Cataan or something, right?

Gin Jenny  19:15

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. So tell me the name of it again?

Whiskey Jenny  19:17

It’s called Third Vault Yarns.

Gin Jenny  19:19

Terrific. That’s a really good choice. Yeah. My next one is for if you have a child in your life, I want to recommend the Atlas of Adventure series. It’s the series of oversized books that are so cool. I got the Atlas of Animal Adventures at the library. And it starts with a map of the world, and a bunch of countries are labeled with specific animals that live there. And then the book is a series of two page spreads, each of them about a different animal migration. So for instance, there’s two pages about the migration of fruit bats in Zambia. And it tells facts about the bats. It tells facts about other animals in Zambia, and it shows where Zambia is in Africa. So it’s really cool. It reminds me a little bit of those amazing Animal Facts binders that we had when we were kids. Did you have them?

Whiskey Jenny  19:59

Yes. Those were great. Those were so cool.

Gin Jenny  20:02

They were really cool. And this kind of reminds me of that. The one that I have seen is the Atlas of Animal Adventures. But there’s also like, Wonders of the World and Ocean Adventures and different stuff like that. So depending on what the child in your life is interested in, you can pick one that caters to their interests, and they’re really, really, really cool.

Whiskey Jenny  20:19

And then you can get your child into the sea! Which is the correct thing to do.

Gin Jenny  20:23

Exactly. And also you can learn something! Like I did not know a lot of these things about fruit bats and Zambia, but thanks to the Atlas of Animal Adventures, now I’m wiser.

Whiskey Jenny  20:30

Yeah, I don’t think I know anything about fruit bats in Zambia. All right. Well, my last one is a donation.

Gin Jenny  20:36

Yay.

Gin Jenny  20:38

You could do the food bank, a local food bank of whoever you’re doing a donation in memory of. God, not in memory of. In honor of! Or in memory of but that’s a little darker. Or like a racial justice initiative local to them as well. I’m going to be doing Emancipate NC, which is a North Carolina racial justice organization.

Gin Jenny  20:59

Nice.

Whiskey Jenny  21:00

So let’s let’s hope they don’t listen before Christmas to this.

Gin Jenny  21:04

Well, my aunt, I know does not listen to this podcast, I’m getting her a donation to Doctors Without Borders. So hopefully she’ll like that.

Whiskey Jenny  21:10

Yay, lovely!

Gin Jenny  21:11

Yeah. Okay, my last one is something, it’s a little goofy. It’s a set of Artiphany playing cards. These are very cool playing cards in various patterns. So there’s like a dog one, there’s a cat one, there’s a bird one, there’s a mermaid one. And the illustrations on the face cards are really pretty. But also each run of a suit tells a little story. So in the hearts thing on the cat deck, the ace is a little cat knitting a blanket with one little heart on it, and as you get to higher numbers, the blanket grows and grows. It’s adorable. And they all have stuff like that. So you can choose, you know, what kind of creatures you like the best. I have been wanting to — yeah, it’s so cute. I’ve been wanting to get a pack for someone in my life for the longest time. But I like haven’t. I haven’t found the right recipient yet. So hopefully some listener will be able to profit by this.

Whiskey Jenny  21:57

Boy, I hope so because that sounds adorable.

Gin Jenny  21:59

Oh my God. It’s so cute. I cannot recommend– Even if you don’t want to buy them, I do recommend going to look at them because they’re damn cute. Yeah, so that’s the end of our gift guide. I love presents.

Whiskey Jenny  22:07

Yay, presents!

Gin Jenny  22:08

I have gone a little crazy with presents this year.

Whiskey Jenny  22:11

Presents are fun!

Gin Jenny  22:11

They are fun! And so little things are fun right now. So like I need this.

Whiskey Jenny  22:15

Yeah, I think we all do.

Gin Jenny  22:16

Give a present. You’ll feel so nice! It’s so lovely to give a present.And it’s lovely to get presents. I loved my gin– I have currently loved and loved when it arrived my gin Advent calendar. It’s just really doing me right.

Whiskey Jenny  22:27

Hooray. I’m so pleased! I’m glad that they’re actually good. Because sometimes you never know.

Gin Jenny  22:31

Yeah, you do never know. Robyn didn’t like one of the three that we tried. But I did. I thought it was a, it was like an unusual flavor, but I found it pleasant. So what did we read for this podcast, Whiskey Jenny?

Whiskey Jenny  22:41

We read The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, who also wrote The Mothers, so this is one of our rare repeat authors on podcast, I think. But we love Britt Bennett. It is about twin sisters growing up in a small town in Louisiana, and then they sort of run away from that small town and then begin living their separate lives, because one of them returns to the town with her daughter. And they’re Black. And they are living as Black back in the small town. But the other twin passes for white and then lives that life separately. Their two daughters meet. Yeah, that’s in the marketing stuff. I mean, they do meet I just didn’t know if that was a spoiler or not. But it’s in the marketing stuff. Their two daughters meet. So it’s also kind of a multigenerational family saga, if you will. What did you think about it?

Gin Jenny  23:30

I liked it a lot. I don’t know if we discussed this when you were choosing it for podcast, but it’s not really my type of book, in the sense that it is kind of a multigenerational family saga, but I was just really blown away by it. I got caught up in the story. I thought the writing was really beautiful. It left me with so many thoughts to think about. I had some questions, but like yeah, overall, I thought it was really wonderful. How about you?

Whiskey Jenny  23:48

Yeah, same. I loved it. I loved it. I didn’t even like it. I loved it.

Gin Jenny  23:53

I found it really– I was not expecting this. I found it really– The plot became really engaging. Like I hit a point where I really couldn’t put it down. I was like, Oh, I have to find out what happens, which is not what I was expecting.

Whiskey Jenny  24:03

I thought so too! I thought so too. And one of the, I think it’s interesting because one of the quotes in the back mentions “breathtaking plot twists.” I sort of like both disagree and agree with that. It’s breathtaking in that it’s incredibly engaging. It’s a page turner and you just have to– But it’s not like–

Gin Jenny  24:20

Yeah, there’s no twists!

Whiskey Jenny  24:21

Soap opera twists. Yeah. So I thought I was just like a funny way– It feels like there are twists, but it’s not twists.

Gin Jenny  24:27

Yeah, it’s plot events. I was just really, really interested to… I just never knew what’s coming next. It was really exciting.

Whiskey Jenny  24:32

I agree. And I think that that sort of originality where you can’t guess sort of the conflicts that are about to happen is really refreshing. There were, I mean obviously there’s sort of a big– Can I call it a lie? There’s a big lie. Yeah, there’s a big lie in that Stella, the twin was passing for white, you know, her husband does not know, her daughter does not know. But in other cases, I found myself anticipating the conflict and being like, Oh no, now here we go. Now he’s not gonna, you know, Early is not going to tell Desiree that he was sent there by her abusive ex-husband, but it’s gonna be a whole thing. And then like the next page, he would tell her, and then we got to go somewhere, like more new and interesting. And I, yeah, I agree. I think the originality of the storytelling was really what was grabbed me, I guess?

Gin Jenny  25:16

Yeah, no, totally. How did you feel about the time jumps?

Whiskey Jenny  25:19

A little confusing? I’ll be honest. I was a little confused sometimes. Because I think that, you know, it’s divided into parts. And there are time jumps, and it gives you the year, and it skips around, like, third person– not omniscient, but third person personal, what do you call that?

Gin Jenny  25:38

Third person limited?

Whiskey Jenny  25:40

Is it limited?

Gin Jenny  25:40

Whiskey Jenny  25:41

Anyway, it skips around, it skips around different viewpoints, and sometimes the part would be like, Pacific Cove, 1986 or whatever. And then it would be a person in 1986, reminiscing about 1982. And it was just a little– I did get a little confused. I’ll be honest. I still loved it. I still love the book. But there are a couple of times that he’d be like, Wait, who? Who are you? Not who are you? But where are you?

Gin Jenny  26:07

Yes, totally, totally.

Whiskey Jenny  26:08

Where in time are you? What did you think about them?

Gin Jenny  26:11

I really liked them. I think partly it was because I don’t tend to love books set in small southern towns. So when I started the book, it’s set in St. Landry Parish, which is a place where a bunch of my kin are from. But nevertheless, I was like, I felt so claustrophobic and so anxious about the characters experiencing like additional, like even more racialized violence than they already had. So I was excited about the time jump, and it gave the book, to me, like a really propulsive feeling. And yeah, I was all about it.

Whiskey Jenny  26:35

Yeah, I agree. It’s not gimmicky in any way. Like it’s really serving the story, I thought as well.

Gin Jenny  26:41

Yes. Agreed. Agreed. Whose point of view section was your favorite?

Whiskey Jenny  26:44

Early.

Gin Jenny  26:47

I don’t know why I bothered asking that question!

Whiskey Jenny  26:51

That’s a– No, I’ll pick a really answer because that’s not a very good-faith answer in that we get like two pages from his perspective.

Gin Jenny  26:57

I knew you would love him, though. I also loved him. I thought he was great.

Whiskey Jenny  27:00

Like Early Jones, first of all, is an amazing name.

Gin Jenny  27:03

And he’s a PI. You love a PI.

Whiskey Jenny  27:05

I love a PI! Early Jones shows up, and he and Desiree, one of the twins, fall in love. The twin that returns to the city, or the small town, they fall in love. I would love to read Brit Bennett to write just their romance novel. as well. Like I as soon as he showed up, I love that man. And then they fall in love it. It’s really great. And then at the very end, there’s like one of the most beautiful passages I think I’ve read in like, not ever, but just one of the most beautiful, most human passages about Early caring for Desiree’s mother, who has Alzheimer’s. He’s just being so kind and sweet and loving to her as her. I think Desiree calls it, “her memory is unraveling,” which I thought was also was a beautiful, heartbreaking way of talking about Alzheimer’s. Anyway, this is a woman who sort of chased him away from her daughter, because his skin was darker than theirs. And even when they were together, she didn’t ever really talk to him, and it said just like shouted out lists of things for him to do around the house. But he would always do them, and now that she’s so much more vulnerable, he’s just being so kind to her, and they went fishing and she’s asking if they have to go to work. And it was just, it’s gonna make me cry again! It sounds so stupid! She asked if she had to go to work, and he said, No, you have the day off. Because that was just like the easiest way to be in that moment with her, but to explain to her why she didn’t have to go to work even though she hasn’t gone in a year, I think. And she was just like, so thrilled to have the day off with him. And they went fishing, and he’s just really beautiful to her. It was so sweet. So anyway, Early. I could read about Early forever.

Gin Jenny  28:51

Okay. But supposing that was not a good faith answer, what was your other? I actually, to be clear, I don’t think it’s a bad faith answer. But I am curious about like, which of the more substantive chapters…

Whiskey Jenny  28:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so I think the Desiree sections, I connected the most with, and I sort of– Yeah! Yeah, I would say connected the most with and always wanted more of, I always wanted more of her story.

Gin Jenny  29:13

Yeah, I did. Actually, I’d love to see more Desiree, in fact.

Whiskey Jenny  29:17

Yeah, I think it was Desiree. What about you?

Gin Jenny  29:19

I had a hard time choosing between Stella and Jude. I liked both their sections a lot. I think with Stella, I mean, she does some really unforgiveable things in this book.

Whiskey Jenny  29:29

She does, yeah!

Gin Jenny  29:31

But what kind of kept me on board with her is how– or, kept me on board with her as a narrator is how desperately she wants to be able to control what people see and know about her, but in trying to exert that control and open up more choices for herself, she ends up so trapped and stuck. And I thought that, as a as a piece of writing, it was really impressive that Brit Bennett managed to pull off the trick of showing that, even though Stella doesn’t quite acknowledge it in that way to herself.

Whiskey Jenny  29:57

Not always, yeah.

Gin Jenny  29:58

Yeah. So I think she did a really great job of not excusing the things that Stella does that are really horrible, but also making you viscerally feel the terror that Stella has about losing this life that she’s made for herself.

Whiskey Jenny  30:09

I agree. Yeah. And just sort of how, how shaped by trauma she is.

Gin Jenny  30:13

Yeah, absolutely. And then with Jude, I just, man, I just wanted the best for her. I thought she was, I thought she was really great. I thought she– I was happy she had a good relationship. I was happy she pursued her dreams of going to medical school and had a good life. And the scenes where she’s making friends with Kennedy, with her cousin, and not letting on who she is, I was like, oh, man, respect to you!

Whiskey Jenny  30:33

So yeah, so Jude, sorry. Jude is Desiree’s daughter, and Kennedy is Stella’s daughter. So yeah, Jude is black, and Kennedy is white.

Gin Jenny  30:44

As far as she knows. Yeah.

Whiskey Jenny  30:45

As far as she knows. Yeah. Thank you. And, I mean, yeah, all props to Jude. Like she is very much in control of her own story. And I respect that a lot. Those scenes though, where she’s– I don’t know, Kennedy just kept ordering around and having her bring her like hot water with lemon in it. And I was getting really annoyed at Kennedy. Being a real white girl, you know?

Gin Jenny  31:08

No, Kennedy was very annoying. And I think again, though, I think Brit Bennett did such a good job of like, portraying this entitlement and annoyingness. while also having compassion for the character. Like that was just, man, such good writing here. But yeah, Kennedy sucks.

Gin Jenny  31:22

Also great job naming the white girl. You mentioned Jude goes to medical school. I thought that was so interesting. Cuz I think in general, this book is so– I feel like whenever people are like “oh, the physicality of the performances,” it bothers me. But I feel like this book is is very physical, and all the characters are very aware of their own bodies. It’s obviously it’s about race and how being black, you don’t have the liberty of not being aware of your own skin color. But I just thought it was really connected to our flesh, and like the flesh that we have in this world, and how how much it impacts the way we move through the world. And then I thought Jude sort of cued into medical school because she takes an anatomy class. And I just really liked that kind of undercurrent of Jude also being fascinated with bodies and what secrets they hold and what they contain and what you can never know about them and what you want to know about them. Yeah, I just I was like, Cool! Bodies! Great!

Gin Jenny  32:25

Well, since we’re on the subject, can we talk about Reese, because I had some follow up questions about Reese?

Gin Jenny  32:30

Yeah, I think that’s a great segue. Yes, please.

Gin Jenny  32:32

Okay, so Jude’s boyfriend, Reese is a trans guy. And I had complicated feelings about how he was portrayed for a couple of reasons. So he’s portrayed very positively, I would say. He’s a trans character who really doesn’t struggle with his identity, and neither just Jude. He’s saving up for top surgery, he eventually gets top surgery, he doesn’t encounter too much bigotry in the narrative of the book, although he has in his past. And on one hand, it was really great to see a trans character whose main story isn’t like trans suffering. He’s a sweet guy, he’s a good boyfriend to Jude. And so to an extent, it was great to see a trans character portrayed in this very unfussy, loving way. Um, but I also kind of felt like his character lacked specificity. And it felt really weird in a book that’s primarily about people grappling with their identities and their past traumas. I wasn’t sure what to make of Reese. It’s not like he doesn’t have trauma. His family threw him out and disowned him, and that’s not really explored emotionally, in terms of how it impacts his life. So it felt more like he was there to make a point versus to be a character a little bit. Even though I liked him a lot. I was like, so happy Jude had this good relationship, I was like, oh, they’re solid as a rock. But yeah, I felt complicated about it.

Whiskey Jenny  33:42

I felt complicated about as well. And I like that, as you said, it’s not like an issue for Jude when she finds out about his past. But on the other hand, I agree, I think you– It also seems like you got even fewer moments from his perspective, even than, Early. Yeah. I think a bit more from his perspective would have helped, but on the whole, I thought it was, I did think it was still a respectful portrayal, I guess.

Gin Jenny  34:05

Yeah, I did, too. And I, you know, I’m a soft person. So like, in many ways, so I saw this like, loving solid relationship, and I was like, Yay! I’m a simple woman of simple pleasures.

Whiskey Jenny  34:15

I think the, I mean, the propelling relationship of the book is Stella and Desiree, the twins, and the separate paths that their lives take. I think that we kind of only get Jude’s story like in relation to that, and her relationship with Reese is separate from that. Not separate, but not tied to the relationship with her mother. So we just don’t see as much of it. Just their relationship in general, I’m not– I’m invested in them because I like them together., but like, I don’t know what they do in their free time. You know what I mean? I just never really–

Gin Jenny  34:48

Yeah, I agree.

Whiskey Jenny  34:49

You said specificity and I think that that translates to the relationship as well. I don’t see them together.

Gin Jenny  34:54

Agreed. I agree with all of that. The one thing I did want to say, I got a little nervous when Reese showed up. I got a little nervous that the author was going to compare being trans to racial passing.

Whiskey Jenny  35:04

I thought so too. I don’t think it happens, though.

Gin Jenny  35:07

I don’t think that’s what she was doing. Like, I would say that if trans readers read this and don’t feel comfortable with where she landed, I totally get that. It seems pretty clear to me that her intention was not to say that they’re the same. I think the comfort that Reese feels about his identity and the honesty and beauty of his relationship with Jude, I think is pretty clearly set in opposition to the relationship Stella has with her husband, who she’s never not been lying to.

Whiskey Jenny  35:30

Agreed.

Gin Jenny  35:31

Yeah. So in some ways, the relationships, you know, Stella is has the secret that is eating her alive and making it impossible for her to be truly known. And that’s just not happening at all with Jude and Reese. So I think Brit Bennett is clearly saying these two things are not the same. Nevertheless, it was a tricky, it was a tricky portrayal, and I’m just not sure how I feel about it. If anyone who’s listening to this has read any reviews by black trans readers, I would love you to send them my way so I could link them, because they’re obviously a lot more qualified than me to speak about this.

Whiskey Jenny  35:56

Yes, please. Agreed.

Gin Jenny  35:57

So yeah, in sum: complicated!

Whiskey Jenny  36:00

Yeah. And I also thought that, I think in my copy, the blurb calls this book “a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of race, gender, and identity.” And as I read that, after I read the book, I’m like, IS IT an exploration of gender?

Gin Jenny  36:14

I don’t think so! To me, no.

Whiskey Jenny  36:16

To me, it was more race and identity. Of those three things, I didn’t find it an expression of gender.

Gin Jenny  36:23

And I don’t think it’s necessarily trying to be!

Whiskey Jenny  36:26

Yeah, exactly. No, and that’s not a– Not all books need to be an exploration of gender. That is absolutely not a knock. I just thought it was kind of like marketing speak for Reese’s character.

Gin Jenny  36:37

There’s a trans character in here?

Whiskey Jenny  36:41

And yeah, complicated.

Gin Jenny  36:42

Since we’re talking about marketing, I have to say The Vanishing Half is like such a good title for this book, and how many things it applied to.

Whiskey Jenny  36:49

So many things! Yeah.

Gin Jenny  36:52

When I finished it, I finished it and I put it down, and I was looking at the title and I started thinking of all the things: like half of Desiree and Stella’s parents vanish when they’re children. Half the set of twins vanishes from the family still tries to vanish half of her identity, or well, Kennedy’s, I guess, half of her identity. Their mom gets Alzheimer’s and half her memory’s circling. The town they grew up in like vanishes, it gets subsumed into Palmetto. I respected the hell out of it. It was such a good job.

Whiskey Jenny  37:16

Yeah, I completely agree. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Great title. And the cover is really beautiful as well.

Gin Jenny  37:23

I was just so impressed. And just so impressed with Brit Bennett as a writer, especially because I know sophomore novels are very hard.

Whiskey Jenny  37:28

They’re difficult, yeah. And I think, as soon as this book started, I was like, Oh, I’m in good hands. Like, it’s just it’s very confident and assured, and I think it really respects the reader. And she made it look easy, I feel like. And it’s, it’s obviously not, but it’s just got that sort of casual conversational tone. It’s very relaxed, I guess it feels it feels very relaxed and assured. And I was just like, the, like the first paragraph in, I was like, Oh, I can, like I can trust this person about where we’re going.

Gin Jenny  37:59

Yeah. And I also love that I think in a lot of ways, it was a very merciful book. Like there’s a lot of pain and trauma in it; there’s also just so much kindness and mercy. Even Kennedy and Jude eventually have this relationship where like, they talk on the phone, sometimes. They’re a little bit snippy with each other, but they do feel this bond. And I just thought it was really like fascinating, and I felt like she mostly avoided easy answers and like really focused in on emotional specificity in these relationships in a way that I just really loved. I was really impressed.

Whiskey Jenny  38:28

Specificity is such a good word, and I think that’s what really makes those relationships ring true. There was one moment where Desiree says her mother blamed her because Stella was no longer there to blame. Right, what you said about trauma. Obviously, there is a lot in this book, but I didn’t ever feel like it was trauma for trauma’s sake. It just felt like this is a realistic portrayal of what their lives would have been like.

Gin Jenny  38:51

Yeah, I think that’s why I found the Stella chapters so captivating, because I’ve said this before on the podcast that when– Something I find almost unbearably suspenseful is the kind of thing where someone has done something, and they’re waiting to find out if the thing is going to be uncovered. So I found that chapter really suspenseful in that way. But also, it just got really into like, the complicated emotions that Stella has about her racial identity and how terrible she is about dealing with that in a like, productive, non-horrible way. Yeah, yeah. Great book.

Whiskey Jenny  39:23

Great book! Yeah.

Gin Jenny  39:25

I have a question for you.

Whiskey Jenny  39:26

Go.

Gin Jenny  39:27

I feel like Brit Bennett is the kind of author that everyone’s very excited for her first book, and maybe her second book, and then time goes on and people are like, wow, we can’t believe we let ourselves care about a book that’s mostly about feelings. It’s obviously a mom book for mom book clubs, and kind of shuffles the author into that category. And it’s such a gendered thing. I’m just very worried that’s what’s gonna happen to Brit Bennett. What do you think? I want her to have a long and thriving career with all the accolades. Thoughts?

Whiskey Jenny  39:49

I do to– Awww. Oh, that’s so true. Oh, dear. Yeah, I’m so sorry. I wish I could reassure you, but that is an extremely true and real thing that happens all the time to female writers. Yeah, you’re right, I’m worried it’s gonna happen to her. But I hope not! Not that being a writer for moms and book clubs is bad, also! It’s just, you shouldn’t have to get pigeonholed.

Gin Jenny  40:11

Yeah. And I think books for moms and book clubs, like, they’re the kind of books that people like, Oh, we liked that, you know, last year, and now it’s done. But I mean, I hope that doesn’t– I just don’t want her to be in the same category as Where the Crawdads Sing, you know.

Whiskey Jenny  40:23

I’ve not read that. But sure.

Gin Jenny  40:24

I haven’t read it either. But it’s by a white lady. It’s about like, racism in the South, I guess. And she and her husband are not welcome in, I want to say, Zambia, because he killed a man there.

Whiskey Jenny  40:34

Jesus.

Gin Jenny  40:34

Yeah.

Whiskey Jenny  40:35

Wow.

Gin Jenny  40:36

Yeah

Whiskey Jenny  40:36

Boy! All right, yeah.

Gin Jenny  40:37

I think of it every time I see that book,. It didn’t look good. I was never gonna read it, it looked terrible. But also now I’m like, oh, you’re husband has killed a man and just got away with it.

Whiskey Jenny  40:46

Boy, did not know that. I don’t want her to get categorized with that person, for sure.

Gin Jenny  40:51

Yeah, I just want her to keep getting accolades and everyone being impressed by her, because writing about feelings is not easy. It’s very hard, and she does it amazing.

Whiskey Jenny  40:59

Yeah, yeah, I want her to keep getting accolades, but I don’t– Like I want to bring down the system as well. I don’t think anyone–

Gin Jenny  41:05

Yeah, same. Same.

Whiskey Jenny  41:06

It’s not that I just want to save certain people from that fate. I just don’t want that fate to exist at all.

Gin Jenny  41:10

Okay, I agree with that. You’re completely right. I should have said it that way.

Whiskey Jenny  41:14

No, I don’t mean that you are banishing people to– Off with their heads! To book club.

Gin Jenny  41:22

I do, by the way, think this would be an excellent book club book.

Whiskey Jenny  41:25

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Brit Bennett, man! Just killing it!

Gin Jenny  41:31

I can’t emphasize enough how much I don’t like this type of book usually. I’m just so impressed that she got me so good.

Whiskey Jenny  41:37

Yay! In all honesty, I did not realize it was quite so multigenerational when I picked it.

Gin Jenny  41:43

Oh, sure. No, I know. You would have said.

Whiskey Jenny  41:45

I would have! I would have said!

Gin Jenny  41:46

As I recall, you said “let’s read this for podcast” on podcast. I was like, Cool! What is it about? And you were like, [noncommittal noise]?

Whiskey Jenny  41:51

Dunno! Brit Bennett! Yep.

Gin Jenny  41:56

So yeah, Brit Bennett, autoread for this podcast, I think.

Whiskey Jenny  41:58

Yeah, I think it is now!

Gin Jenny  42:00

Yeah. Okay. Do you want to hear what we are reading for next time?

Whiskey Jenny  42:02

I do. Tell me.

Gin Jenny  42:03

So our book for next time is Plain Bad Heroines by Emily Danforth. It is a big chunky book, so we are being ambitious here. But the interior design is very beautiful. So I’m excited about it. It’s about a film that’s being made about a creepy old boarding school where a bunch of girls died in mysterious circumstances in the, I don’t know, 20s? 1910s? The olden days. So it goes back and forth between the olden days when the girls were dying, and the present day when the movies being made. It seems like everyone’s gay in it. And it sounds spooky. So I love all those things.

Whiskey Jenny  42:37

Spooky boarding school, meta.

Gin Jenny  42:40

Meta, exactly. Yeah. And it’s got, it’s got not a lot of footnotes, but it has some footnotes, which I always think is fun.

Whiskey Jenny  42:45

And illustrated, right?

Gin Jenny  42:46

Yeah. And it has some illustrations as well.

Whiskey Jenny  42:48

I’m very excited.

Gin Jenny  42:49

Yeah, I’m excited too. It’s gonna be really fun, I think! It looks like just a really fun winter read. It feels great to like cuddle up with a blanket and read it. Well, thank you so much for listening. Happy Holidays. If you have any amazing gift ideas, please drop them in the comments, because I am always on the hunt for good gifts. And until next time, a sad quote from The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, and I’m sorry it’s sad, but her writing about death was really beautiful. “Her grandmother’s death hit in waves, not a flood but water lapping steadily at her ankles. You could drown in two inches of water. Maybe grief was the same.”

Whiskey Jenny  43:22

I wrote that one down. When you were like “it’s about death,” I was like, it’s either the water one or the other one.

Gin Jenny  43:27

Well the other one I wrote down– I put two because in case you used one in the course of the pod. The other one was “that was the thing about death–”

Whiskey Jenny  43:36

“Only the specifics of it hurt.” I was like, Aaaaa!

Gin Jenny  43:40

Oh my gosh, it’s really like very resonant now, eh?

Whiskey Jenny  43:45

Yeah. Oh my God, and the last line?

Gin Jenny  43:47

Oh, it was so good!

Whiskey Jenny  43:48

“This river, like all rivers, remembered its course. They floated under the leafy canopy of trees begging to forget.” Oh my God.

Gin Jenny  43:56

She’s such a good writer. Way to GO, Brit Bennett!

Whiskey Jenny  43:57

We love you, Brit Bennett!

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The post Episode 140 – Holiday Gift Guide 2020 and Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half appeared first on Reading the End.

Episode 105

Here are the time signatures if you want to skip around.

1:43 – What we’re reading
6:09 – What we’re listening to
8:17 – LOTR Reread: Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapters 6-10
23:44 – Great American Novelists (who aren’t white dudes)
38:17 – Undead Girl Gang, Lily Anderson
51:06 – What we’re reading next time

Here’s the Jonathan Franzen profile that Whiskey Jenny is talking about. It’s magical.

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 events. We have a very exciting agenda today, a lot to get through on it. We will cover what we’re reading and what we read over the hiatus. I have several updates.

GIN JENNY: Oh, great.

WHISKEY JENNY: Our something else-ing topic, as voted on by our lovely Patreon patrons, is what we’re listening to. We will cover the final thrilling conclusion to Fellowship of the Ring.

GIN JENNY: Woo!

WHISKEY JENNY: Our topic this week is non-white dude great American novelists.

GIN JENNY: In belated honor of the Fourth of July.

WHISKEY JENNY: And, can I say this, in slight opposition to all the Franzen pieces coming out? [LAUGHTER] Mostly just the one.

GIN JENNY: Don’t trash that Franzen piece. It was such a source of joy.

WHISKEY JENNY: I mean, it was a great piece. But just the idea of Franzen being back in the running for great American novel contention, yeah. The book we read this time is Undead Girl Gang, by Lily Anderson. And lastly, Gin Jenny’s going to tell us what we’re reading next time.

GIN JENNY: Yes.

WHISKEY JENNY: Phew! So first item on the agenda. What are you reading?

GIN JENNY: I am reading The Great Gatsby like I said I was gonna. I’m so proud of myself.

WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, well, look at you, following through.

GIN JENNY: Yeah, exactly. I’m very excited to report that it’s holding up really well so far. F Scott Fitzgerald—

WHISKEY JENNY: That’s exciting.

GIN JENNY: Yeah, he’s a really good writer. And I agree with what you said before that it’s maybe not your type of story, and it’s not really necessarily my type of story either. But it’s sufficiently wry and self-aware that I’m able to enjoy it. And I’m hopeful that I’ll continue to all the way through. I’ll enjoy the whole thing and it will still be a book I like, which would be great

WHISKEY JENNY: Hooray.

GIN JENNY: Yeah, my only reservation, there’s been some slurs that people have used—there was a slur for a Jewish person that someone said in the book—which are mostly by—unlikable characters say them. But it’s still not super pleasant to come across.

WHISKEY JENNY: Sure.

GIN JENNY: What about you? What are you reading?

WHISKEY JENNY: I’m currently reading the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl YA prequel, Squirrel Meets World, by Shannon Hale and her husband Dean Hale, I think. And I am almost done with it, and it is just the cutest. Jessie, our lovely theme song composer, lent me her copy. And it is so cute and sweet, I am loving it.

GIN JENNY: Aw! Have you read the comics?

WHISKEY JENNY: I have not, no. This is my first Squirrel Girl experience, and it’s delightful.

GIN JENNY: Oh, well I think you’ll love the comics. They’re also delightful.

WHISKEY JENNY: Yes, I can’t wait. But I had no idea till Jessie pointed out to me that this book existed. And it was by Shannon Hale, who has written a bunch of other stuff that I have really enjoyed, like Austenland and The Goose Girl and that whole series, and all kinds of good stuff. So very exciting.

GIN JENNY: Awesome.

WHISKEY JENNY: But previously—I just wanted to cover two other things that I read. I picked up the second book by Lish McBride in her Firebug series called Pyromantic. And she wrote the Hold Me Closer, Necromancer series, which I loved, and then—anyway, there’s the first book in this series, which was OK. I didn’t love it, though, like I wanted to, so I was a little skeptical of Pyromantic, which is the second in the Firebug series. And it turns out it was so great. I loved it so much.

GIN JENNY: Aw!

WHISKEY JENNY: My favorite part was there’s really scary kelpies as apex predators in this book.

GIN JENNY: Oh, wonderful sea creatures!

WHISKEY JENNY: But one of the scary kelpies becomes really, really protective of a young human girl who’s on the team, and it’s so precious. I love it so much!

GIN JENNY: Yay! You were telling me about this, and it does sound great.

WHISKEY JENNY: I think if it sounds up your alley but you don’t want to wade through the first one, you don’t really even have to. You can just apply to me, and I will tell you all that you need to know, and you can just start with the second one, and it will be great.

GIN JENNY: Terrific. I’ll probably do that, then.

WHISKEY JENNY: Not that the first one was bad, but it was just like, this one’s so much more fun. And then also I wanted to cover, because I know that it is relevant to your interests, I read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, by John Berendt.

GIN JENNY: Yes! I was so excited about this. Listeners, I was really worried, because Whiskey Jenny asked me if this would be a good book for her book club, because nonfiction is often a challenge for book club discussions. And I said yes. And it haunted me. I was like, what if I’m wrong and the book club discussion is terrible? But it sounds like it went OK.

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, it went well. Yeah. Ashley in particular, Friend of the Podcast Ashley, who’s in this book club also, was very skeptical of this, a nonfiction pick. But I think everyone really enjoyed it and we had a good discussion. It was on a super hot Sunday, so maybe perhaps not as animated as it could have been had we not been afraid to move for fear of dissolving into a puddle of sweat.

GIN JENNY: Sure.

WHISKEY JENNY: But yeah, it was so much fun. I had no idea I was going to be so bananas. That book is batshit insane.

GIN JENNY: It’s nuts. And he does such a good job of capturing the way different people speak, which is amazing to me.

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, I was really impressed at how he handled the myriad of different characters that he’s covering. I think he mostly did a good job of reminding you and himself that most of the people I’m talking about are white, very upper class, and this is not everyone’s story in this town. This is not the tale of Savannah; this is a tale of Savannah.

GIN JENNY: Yeah.

WHISKEY JENNY: You know, he could’ve done better, but I think he did try, and that was really helpful. And also, it’s just bananas. Can you imagine going to that town and being like, you know, this is interesting. Maybe I should write a book. And then a murder happens! [LAUGHTER] It’s just so weird. It’s crazy!

GIN JENNY: And that’s when the murders began.

WHISKEY JENNY: It really is, though! [LAUGHTER] So anyway, it was a total blast, yeah.

GIN JENNY: I am so, so glad.

WHISKEY JENNY: I don’t know what my previous impression of that book was, but it was not this.

GIN JENNY: I read it a while ago, but I think that I had the same experience. I was expecting something way less fun and charming than this book turned out to be.

WHISKEY JENNY: Totally. So yeah, holds up.

GIN JENNY: Yay! Well, what are you listening to?

WHISKEY JENNY: So I checked my Spotify history from this week. And I have a big deadline at work coming up. I’ve been really having to buckle down and charge ahead and get a lot done. And when I really want to take care of business, I like listening to dance music. So I’ve been listening to a lot of Fast and the Furious soundtracks, [LAUGHTER] particularly number seven. I think number seven is my favorite. And a lot of Pitbull. So that’s been fun as well. What are you listening to?

GIN JENNY: Music-wise, I’ve been listening to Dry the River, which is a late aughts alt rock band that plays these very slow, mournful songs, but they have really lovely and interesting lyrics. And then I’ve also been—so my guilty pleasure is not so much watching The Bachelor and Bachelorette, because it varies so much in quality from season to season that I often skip it. But listening to Bachelor franchise recap podcasts makes me feel so happy and nice. [LAUGHTER]

So my forever favorite was The Right Reasons, which was a Grantland reality TV podcast with Juliet Litman and David Jacoby. And I’m always chasing that high. But Juliet Litman has a solo podcast at The Ringer now called Bachelor Party, which is also good. And I also listen to Here to Make Friends at The Huffington Post.

WHISKEY JENNY: Well, that’s a nice title.

GIN JENNY: Right? Yeah.

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. Me too, podcast. Me too.

GIN JENNY: And Here to Make Friends has a Feminism Fail Scale, so at the end of every episode they evaluate the worst feminist moments of the episode.

WHISKEY JENNY: That’s helpful.

GIN JENNY: I stopped watching this season of The Bachelorette because the bachelorette is so sensible and reasonable that she’s kind of boring to watch.

WHISKEY JENNY: Are we still on Ti—no, not Tia? Ra—Raven?

GIN JENNY: No, Tia was in the running to be the Bachelorette, but they went with Becca because she was agonizingly broken up with on public TV.

WHISKEY JENNY: Becca, that’s right. But someone that she likes used to date Tia?

GIN JENNY: Yes.

WHISKEY JENNY: And they’re friends?

GIN JENNY: So there’s three people whose names I know who are left. Because it’s hometowns now. The three people that I know are left are called Blake, Colton, and Garrett. And those names are all very similar to me, so it’s very hard for me to keep track of which one is which. One of them I like, one of them dated Tia, one of them is an Instagram racist, but I’m not sure which is which, and some of those might be overlapping.

Well, do you want to talk about Lord of the Rings?

WHISKEY JENNY: I do. [SADLY] Aw, yeah.

GIN JENNY: Yeah. So we read the second half of book two of Fellowship of the Ring, which was I think chapters 6 through 10. And they travel through Lorien, they fight some orcs, Boromir attacks Frodo, and then they split up. It’s the breaking of the Fellowship. It’s really sad.

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. That’s what the last chapter is called, “The Breaking of the Fellowship.” Yeah. Oh my god, they spend so much time in Lothlorien, too.

GIN JENNY: I was just going to say, coming into this you had some concerns. [LAUGHTER] How was it in reality?

WHISKEY JENNY: It wasn’t quite as bad as I was anticipating, but still, I was like, oh my god, are we still here? [LAUGHTER] I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the same feeling that you had for Tom Bombadil and Goldberry, who you referred to as a trophy wife. But the Galadriel and Celeborn relationship just drives me absolutely nuts.

GIN JENNY: It’s so dumb.

WHISKEY JENNY: Why is he there? She’s the one with the ring. She’s doing all the work, but she still has to call him “my lord” and stand behind him, and it drives me up the wall!

GIN JENNY: Oh, no, it’s terrible, I completely agree. That’s in my notes as well. And now that you’ve said elves are jerks, I can’t unsee it. And I don’t know if, without your input if I would have had the same response, but it’s all I can think about. They are so rude to Gimli.

WHISKEY JENNY: Oh my god, yeah.

GIN JENNY: Like, for no good reason.

WHISKEY JENNY: That’s my first note. All caps, “Gimli is right to be mad about this.”

GIN JENNY: Yes!

WHISKEY JENNY: And Aragorn, our beloved Strider shakes his head and is like, dwarves are so stubborn. And I’m like, no! This is not Gimli’s fault.

So the elves decide when they first get to that land that because they have a rule that no dwarves can be there, basically—

GIN JENNY: Racist! Just straight up racist!

WHISKEY JENNY: Straight up racist. They’re like, you can come, but we’re going to have to blindfold you. And Gimli’s like, excuse me, I don’t want to come, then. Big problem. And everyone’s like, oh, don’t make a big deal out of it, Gimli.

GIN JENNY: And they just want to blindfold Gimli. They do not bring it up for any of the others.

WHISKEY JENNY: It’s purely because he’s a dwarf.

GIN JENNY: It’s especially aggravating because they know that Gimli is someone who chose to come on this very dangerous quest to save all of Middle Earth. They have that information from Elrond.

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. They have the update.

GIN JENNY: And he has indeed come through many dangers, defending the ringbearer and stuff. And moreover, it’s a bit rich to not trust him—I’m not trying to be Aragorn about it—but the elves are the ones who lost Gollum! The dwarves haven’t done anything!

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, they did lose him previously.

GIN JENNY: Elves lost Gollum, so I don’t think they can be up on their high horse about, like, dwarves aren’t trustworthy. Like, you lost Gollum!

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. I really enjoy that Legolas, though, is like, I mean, it’s not that big if a deal, Gimli. It’s fine, don’t worry about it. And then Aragorn is like, OK, so to make it fair we’re all going to have to be blindfolded. And Legolas is like, whoa, let’s not make any hasty decisions here. [LAUGHTER] Surely we can come to some sort of agreement. [LAUGHTER]

GIN JENNY: Yeah.

WHISKEY JENNY: I did laugh at Legolas for that.

GIN JENNY: I did. That was funny.

WHISKEY JENNY: The nice thing, though, that does happen between elf and dwarf relations in this is Gimli and Legolas become besties in these chapters.

GIN JENNY: Yeah, it was just so sweet.

WHISKEY JENNY: So sweet. It’s all sort of offscreen. It’s just like they start going on more of the little scouting parties while they’re in Lothlorien. I guess because they’re like, well, Jesus, I guess we’re going to spend four months here. We might as well get busy.

GIN JENNY: Yeah, what the hell? Again with the timelines.

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, it’s very strange. So they start going on scouting parties together, and I imagine that is where their bond is formed. And then when they’re dividing up boats, they’re like, well, obviously we’re going to be in the same boat, because we’re buddies.

GIN JENNY: We’re best friends now.

WHISKEY JENNY: It’s so cute.

GIN JENNY: It’s lovely. But yeah, Celeborn just is a steady-on jerk a lot.

WHISKEY JENNY: Eugh.

GIN JENNY: Like, OK, the fellowship arrives. They tell him how sad they are that Gandalf has died. And instead of being courteous and sympathetic to his guests, he’s like, well, number one, dwarves are stupid. And number two, it’s pretty dumb for Gandalf to die in Moria.

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah! Come on, man. Can they not mourn him without you butting in, please?

GIN JENNY: Seriously. OK, so Galadriel does correct him. She’s like, hey, that’s rude. And he’s like, oh yeah, my bad, that was pretty rude. But I don’t think you should have to be told that it’s rude to make fun of someone who’s just died to the people who are mourning that person.

WHISKEY JENNY: Who he died in front of. You’d think he would have known that.

GIN JENNY: He’s been around for a while.

WHISKEY JENNY: As they keep reminding us.

GIN JENNY: You know, I was glad Galadriel stuck up for them. But then she’s kind of a jerk too, and she tests all the fellowship members, suggesting telepathically that if they want to go home they could. Like, why? Why?

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. I mean, that is kind of a jerk move, but also I see why. Because you want to see what’s going on there.

GIN JENNY: You know what? It’s none of her business. She’s not involved in this.

WHISKEY JENNY: I guess she is because she has a ring?

GIN JENNY: I guess.

WHISKEY JENNY: And all of the world is involved in this because the fate of the world depends upon it.

GIN JENNY: Sure. But she’s not going on the quest, you know what I mean? So for her to be like, I wonder if these people are brave enough to do this quest—like, shut up, man. They already have done it. So!

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, no, that’s true. Yeah. But I can see how you would want to do some recon.

GIN JENNY: I guess. Yeah, it just seemed like a sneaky, snotty way to do it. Like, poke inside their minds.

WHISKEY JENNY: No, absolutely. It’s a very elf movie.

GIN JENNY: It is. But I liked how Boromir said, “It need not be said that I refuse to listen. The men of Minas Tirith are true to their word.” It’s like, good for you, Boromir.

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah! So what else did you notice about Lothlorien?

GIN JENNY: Well, I felt really sad for Sam, for a couple of reasons. First of all when the elves show up, they say that Sam was breathing so loud they could have shot him in the dark. And then afterwards you see him on purpose trying to breathe quieter. [LAUGHTER] I was like, aw, Sam.

And then also, I forgot this happened because it doesn’t happen in the movie. Galadriel shows Sam her magic mirror pool, and he looks into it and sees some of his own awful future in Mordor, and also the scouring of the Shire. And he’s really sad about it. He’s like, I don’t want to see any more magic. And he’s just being so brave, and it’s costing him a lot. And I really felt for him.

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. He’s always in such an awkward position, where he—you know, eventually he’s the ringbearer himself, but he’s also the sidekick, the companion. So he always is a step behind, and Frodo’s the most important. And Frodo can see the ring on Galadriel’s hand, but he’s like, what are you guys talking about right in front of me? [LAUGHTER] Because I don’t see what you see. And he’s just always stuck in this awkward position where he doesn’t have all the same information. Not to mention the fact that he’s about to die at all times. Like all of them, but yeah. Sam.

I do really love the gift that he received, which is the dirt.

GIN JENNY: Yes.

WHISKEY JENNY: That he gets really emotional about.

GIN JENNY: Yeah. It’s dirt to help him grow plants when he’s back in the Shire. It’s very fertile dirt. I have to say, OK, she gives really cool gifts to people. She gives Aragorn a really fancy sheath for his sword and an expensive brooch. And then she gives Boromir a belt. And it’s like, we get it, you hate Boromir. I got it.

WHISKEY JENNY: Uck. Maybe if people weren’t so mean to Boromir all the time and offered to help Minas Tirith, instead of being like, well, if Minas Tirith could hold the pass, we’d be fine. Like, maybe help them out some and then he wouldn’t feel like he needed the ring.

GIN JENNY: Oh, I will say, my favorite thing is Aragorn—we find out that Aragorn’s plan was always that he was going to eventually go back with Boromir to Minas Tirith and defend Gondor. And I was like, that’s so nice. I’m so glad one person recognizes Gondor’s need and is going to help out.

WHISKEY JENNY: I thought we knew that Aragorn was going to do that from earlier.

GIN JENNY: Did we? I must’ve just forgotten.

WHISKEY JENNY: Basically before they left at Rivendell, I thought he was sort of like, yeah, I guess I’ll probably do that.

GIN JENNY: Anyway, it was nice. It was nice to see that reiterated.

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, it’s lovely. But even Aragorn was like, well, now that Minas Tirith isn’t holding the pass. It’s like, well, they’re trying, all right?

GIN JENNY: They’re doing their best, man.

WHISKEY JENNY: Nobody else is helping them fight the actual out front battle. Which still has to be fought. You can’t lose that.

GIN JENNY: Right, exactly. You have to hold that territory.

WHISKEY JENNY: Hmph.

GIN JENNY: But she gives Frodo a lantern type of thing, situation. And the line that she says when she gives it to him, “May it be a light for you in dark places, when all other lights go out,” is still just a really, really good line. It is justly famous.

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. I love the lines when she’s talking about Sam’s dirt, too. “It will not keep you on your road, nor defend you against any peril. But if you keep it and see your home again at last, then perhaps it may reward you.”

GIN JENNY: Aw.

WHISKEY JENNY: It’s just so sweet, and normal, I guess.

GIN JENNY: It is sweet. And I think it’s nice because Sam kind of keeps hope that he’ll get back to the Shire through everything. So it’s nice for Galadriel to reinforce that and be like, yeah, that’s going to happen. Potentially.

WHISKEY JENNY: So the brooch that she gives Aragorn is token from Arwen? Is that right?

GIN JENNY: Yes, that is my understanding. Yeah, yeah. I think.

WHISKEY JENNY: I vary so much between being—because all the Arwen/Aragorn references are very cloaked in the actual book. And I vary between being getting really annoyed at the Aragorn/Arwen story, because we get so little of it, and then it’s just these veiled references that I’m supposed to care deeply about, I guess. And I’m like, why do you have to be so coded about it, JRR?

But then there’s that one line where he is talking about the hill in Lothlorien, and it gets me every time. [LAUGHTER] Also, I think it comes right after a time when I’m like, I don’t care about Aragorn and Arwen! [LAUGHTER] And then that hill happens and I’m like, OK, I do care actually. It’s so sad!

“‘Here is the heart of elvendom on Earth,’ he said, ‘and here my heart dwells ever, unless there be a light beyond the dark roads that we still must tread, you and I. Come with me.’ And, taking Frodo’s hand in his, he left the hill of Cerin Amroth and came there never again as a living man.” He said “here my heart dwells ever,” and he never gets to go there again! It’s so sad!

GIN JENNY: That is really sad.

WHISKEY JENNY: Aw. So yes, and then they finally leave Lothlorien.

GIN JENNY: In boats. They go down the Great River.

WHISKEY JENNY: Turns out a bunch of time has passed, because Sam’s like, wait, the moon moved. [LAUGHTER] And he thought they lost like two days and actually they lost a month or something? That part was unclear. It was like, eh, elf time.

GIN JENNY: Not really helpful, elves.

WHISKEY JENNY: Really not, no. Yeah, so they’re in the boats, and then they have to fight some orcs. And it’s scary.

GIN JENNY: And I want it noted that as soon as Samwise Gamgee sees something he suspects might be someone following them, he tells someone about it, Frodo.

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, he does. He tells Frodo, though, and then they both agree that they don’t need to tell anyone else. Guys, why don’t we share this information?

GIN JENNY: Yeah, I don’t blame Sam. I know that he kind of follows Frodo’s lead. But I don’t know what Frodo’s problem is.

WHISKEY JENNY: I don’t either. I don’t know why he won’t share it.

GIN JENNY: Me neither And what made me really mad is that Sam refers to himself as being, quote, “no more than luggage in a boat.” And Frodo says, ha ha, no. You’re luggage with eyes. Frodo.

WHISKEY JENNY: Frodo!

GIN JENNY: You can take your bullshit and cram it directly up your butt!

WHISKEY JENNY: Seriously.

GIN JENNY: Disrespectful talk to Samwise Gamgee.

WHISKEY JENNY: Extremely disrespectful.

GIN JENNY: A living angel.

WHISKEY JENNY: He is also just so helpful.

GIN JENNY: He is really helpful!

WHISKEY JENNY: Just in the boats, he’s the one who’s like, oh no, let’s not run into those rocks, before they’re about to hit the rocks.

GIN JENNY: Luggage with eyes. What are you, Frodo? Luggage with eyes who’s constantly drawing the attention of the Dark Lord to where you’re at!

WHISKEY JENNY: Just don’t put the damn ring on, dude! It’s not that hard! I mean, it is hard. I know it’s hard. Because the ring wants you to put it on. But like, stop it!

GIN JENNY: But then we have the confrontation between Boromir and Frodo.

WHISKEY JENNY: Mrr.

GIN JENNY: Yeah.

WHISKEY JENNY: This was actually—I love Boromir, but actually he comes off a little worse in that conversation than I remembered. I was like, oh, Boromir, man, no, no. This is bad.

GIN JENNY: It’s bad. I like a lot, though, is he gets this concept in his mind as to why the ring actually should belong to him. And it’s good, because it’s very reminiscent of how Bilbo and Gollum both had a narrative where the ring was legitimately theirs.

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, totally.

GIN JENNY: It was really creepy and effective, and I thought that was so, so good.

WHISKEY JENNY: It’s very well done. And it makes sense, too, that he’s the one most in need of a powerful, battle-ready army.

GIN JENNY: Yeah.

WHISKEY JENNY: It makes character sense, too. It’s just like, oof, yeah. It is not a good luck for my dude Boromir.

GIN JENNY: It’s not.

WHISKEY JENNY: I do think it’s funny that he’s like, OK, but we haven’t tried it for men. Like, everyone else caved under it, but what about men of Minas Tirith? And it’s like, what? [LAUGHTER] It’s an evil ring. They’re probably still going to cave too.

GIN JENNY: Yeah, Galadriel and Gandalf both felt like they couldn’t take it. So, um.

WHISKEY JENNY: Eventually we just need to say it’s the ring not the bearer.

GIN JENNY: So Frodo puts on the ring to escape from Boromir.

WHISKEY JENNY: Yes. And then decides—he’s basically already made up his mind that he has to go to Mordor. And it cements his thinking that he has to go to Mordor alone. So he’s going to sneak down to the boats.

GIN JENNY: Right. And this is what I in fact found more unsympathetic in Boromir than just the original thing. Boromir goes back to the group and lies about what happened, so it takes them a while to realize that Frodo hasn’t come back to camp.

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.

GIN JENNY: I was pretty mad about that with Boromir. Yeah, he was tempted in the moment, fine. It’s an evil ring. But the fact that he didn’t go back and cop to it really, really was not OK.

WHISKEY JENNY: Not cool, man. But Sam uses his non-luggage brain and figures out what Frodo’s plan is and is like, nope, you’re not going without me, and throws himself into the water even though he can’t swim. And he’s a beautiful, beautiful soul.

GIN JENNY: It’s so sweet. And I like it because everyone else in camp just takes off running, like where’s Frodo?

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, that was funny. Aragorn’s like, but buddy up! And everyone’s gone already.

GIN JENNY: Yeah. And he’s like, Boromir, can you go please get the hobbits, and I’m going to just watch Sam. And he goes looking, and Sam thinks through what is going on and how Frodo would have behaved and comes to a conclusion about where he is, which is just really—

WHISKEY JENNY: And it’s a correct conclusion. He nailed it.

GIN JENNY: He knows Frodo. He knows what’s up. It’s just a really great way for them to begin their journey together.

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. So they go off in a boat on their own. And I totally forgot that that is where the book ends, because I think the movie ends a little bit later.

GIN JENNY: I mean, in a more sensible spot, I think.

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah! So I was all ready, also, for the harrowing capture of Merry and Pippin and for Boromir’s redemption, sort of. And then it didn’t happen, and I was like, oh. Oh. But, no.

GIN JENNY: Oh, it was still so great.

WHISKEY JENNY: Do you have any thoughts on the book as a whole?

GIN JENNY: It was a lot what I remembered. I still found Tom Bombadil really irritating, so that tracks with my memory. [LAUGHTER] I think the biggest thing for me, I was surprised at how much the elves were jerks. I didn’t really remember that, and they are really big jerks.

WHISKEY JENNY: They really are. I don’t think I picked up on the racial coding that was happening the first time I read these. So that’s been a new experience. And there’s so much less fellowship than I was expecting. Like, they get started pretty late all together, and it feels like they’ve formed these unbreakable bonds, but actually they don’t spend all that much time together. They have two big battles—they have this last one and the first one in the mines.

GIN JENNY: Yeah, it’s not a lot.

WHISKEY JENNY: In my head it was so much more of them being all a team together.

GIN JENNY: Yeah.

WHISKEY JENNY: And then they split up. “The Breaking of the Fellowship.” It’s such a harsh chapter title, man.

GIN JENNY: It is. So for next time we’re going to start The Two Towers, my favorite in the series historically. We’ll see if that holds true.

WHISKEY JENNY: Oh really?

GIN JENNY: Yeah.

WHISKEY JENNY: Well, I think it’s my least favorite historically.

GIN JENNY: Yeah, a lot of people don’t like it. They don’t like the Sam and Frodo in Mordor stuff. But I do.

WHISKEY JENNY: It’s not that I dislike it. It’s just, of all this stuff it’s not my favorite. But don’t we get Ents in this one?

GIN JENNY: Yes, we do get Ents in this one.

WHISKEY JENNY: I do love the Ents a lot. And I love the beginning of the Ent relationship, too, for sure.

GIN JENNY: So we’re reading chapters 1 through 5 of book three, which is the beginning of Two Towers, for next time. So join us if you wish. Spot the mean elves—actually, I think we’re mostly done with the elves. I think this is the most elves we’re going to get, right?

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. I think there might be a bunch of them at the end again.

GIN JENNY: Yeah, right, at the end. But for now I think we’re on an elf hiatus. So, yay.

WHISKEY JENNY: Woo hoo.

GIN JENNY: Well, our topic for this week was your brilliant idea, so do you want to tell the people what we’re thinking about this episode?

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. So I think it was sparked by that article referring to Franzen as a great American white male novelist. So they did sort of qualify it like that, I suppose. But I was like, man, that title always gets thrown around to white dudes.

GIN JENNY: To white dudes, it does.

WHISKEY JENNY: So we thought we would throw it around to some some non-white dudes.

GIN JENNY: Woo hoo!

WHISKEY JENNY: Or some non–white dudes.

GIN JENNY: Yes, with an en dash.

WHISKEY JENNY: Get that punctuation correct, listeners.

GIN JENNY: So important.

WHISKEY JENNY: For those of you taking notes at home. [LAUGHTER] So we each picked five people that we would like to anoint with the title of Great American Novelist.

GIN JENNY: Before we start, I have a question for you. As I was making these notes, I was thinking, this is hard for me because I don’t read that much literary fiction by American authors, and most of what I do read by American authors is genre fiction. And then I discovered that what I think is that a Great American Novel can’t be a work of genre fiction, that it has to be literary fiction. And I was wondering if you felt the same.

WHISKEY JENNY: No, I picked a couple of genre people.

GIN JENNY: Oh, good for you.

WHISKEY JENNY: I think you’re probably right in that the traditional interpretation of it is never a genre.

GIN JENNY: Yeah.

WHISKEY JENNY: Unless it transcends the genre.

GIN JENNY: Right. I was sad to find this mental block in myself. Because I love genre fiction, as you know.

WHISKEY JENNY: Gosh, does that bring up a good point? Should we talk about, did you have any other qualifications or things they were looking for in these people?

GIN JENNY: Well, what were you looking for in the people that you were considering?

WHISKEY JENNY: I was looking for if I thought you really captured a specific American experience.

GIN JENNY: Mmhm, me too.

WHISKEY JENNY: —was one thing. Or if your books were like, an event when it came out.

GIN JENNY: Oh, interesting. OK.

WHISKEY JENNY: Not a Game of Thrones event, but an everyone takes notice sort of event.

GIN JENNY: I didn’t think of that, but that’s a really good qualifier. So can we start by you telling me one that the qualifier was that it was an event? Because I’m curious what’s an example of that.

WHISKEY JENNY: Well, I crossed off Donna Tartt because I was like, well surely Gin Jenny will mention her, so I don’t have to waste a space on her.

GIN JENNY: That’s true. She’s on my list.

WHISKEY JENNY: OK, great. she’s one that I would put in that category of when there’s a new Donna Tartt book, it’s a thing, you know?

GIN JENNY: Mmhm. She’s published so few.

WHISKEY JENNY: For valid reasons, and yeah, because there are so few. So the other person, that I’m actually using a space on— [LAUGHTER] and thanks for letting me do that.

GIN JENNY: This was not discussed, listeners. She just knows me.

WHISKEY JENNY: So the other person that I would put in this category of an event is Marisha Pessl, who, we read Night Film for podcast and have also both previously read Special Topics in Calamity Physics. And I mean, they’re not perfect books, but I think they are very impressive endeavors, both of them.

GIN JENNY: Ambitious.

WHISKEY JENNY: And I guess that’s another qualification, is the ambition behind the books, too.

GIN JENNY: That’s a great point.

WHISKEY JENNY: So that’s who I’m putting up on the board. Who’s your first one?

GIN JENNY: So I think I also agree that I wanted it to capture the American experience, whatever that may be. And I did also think about ambition. And also kind of—well, no, that’s not true. I was going to say variety, but that’s not really true. Although if an author does have a wide variety of things, I do find that at least interesting.

WHISKEY JENNY: Ooh, like within a single author’s oeuvre?

GIN JENNY: Yes, exactly. If they try different things.

WHISKEY JENNY: OK, cool. That’s a good point, yeah.

GIN JENNY: I didn’t actually put that into practice. I said that to you, but it’s not really what I’ve gone by.

WHISKEY JENNY: I think—it’s a good note, though, I think. We’ll pick it out there. [LAUGHTER] Yeah.

GIN JENNY: All right. Well, we’ve already spoiled one of my picks, so I’m just going to say it.

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, sorry.

GIN JENNY: Donna Tartt. Donna Tartt. No, don’t be. [LAUGHTER] I think each of her books is very local in an interesting way. Like, Secret History is very, very New Hampshire. The one I didn’t like—what is it, The Little Friend—is very much like the South. And The Goldfinch is several different locations, but I thought she did a good job with each of them.

WHISKEY JENNY: Totally.

GIN JENNY: That was the thing for me. And then also, yeah, the ambition and scope of her books. They’re all just big, strange kinds of books that deal with a lot of themes.

WHISKEY JENNY: Lot of themes, lot of plot, lot of characters. Yeah.

GIN JENNY: So I say Donna Tartt. Also, I feel like as an author, she has author mystique, you know what I mean? She’s always looking so cool in her author photos and is like, I only release one book every 10 years.

WHISKEY JENNY: Totally. Absolutely. Does she give a lot of interviews? I feel like no.

GIN JENNY: I feel like no. Also, I went to a talk she gave one time and I had her sign my copy of A Secret History, which is not something I really care about usually. And I gushed about it a bunch, and she was like, [VERY QUIET] thank you.

WHISKEY JENNY: Man. Respect.

GIN JENNY: I was like, all right.

WHISKEY JENNY: Sure. I guess that’s just her way.

GIN JENNY: Yeah, I guess so. But that seems like a very Great American Author thing to do.

WHISKEY JENNY: Absolutely. [LAUGHTER] Uh, your praise is noted.

GIN JENNY: Right.

WHISKEY JENNY: My second one is, I’ll say Alice McDermott next, because I think that she also does what you said for Donna Tartt, which is really get into a very specific place and maybe time. Alice McDermott, I think her jam is Catholics in the northeast, I suppose.

GIN JENNY: My people! My ancestors!

WHISKEY JENNY: Your ancestors, yes. And I am not a Catholic in the northeast, so I cannot speak to its accuracy. But having read one, all the rest of them feel very familiar. So they’re at the very least consistent.

GIN JENNY: High praise indeed.

WHISKEY JENNY: I just think that she also captures the giant range of emotions that often goes overlooked in small domestic moments. But there’s still just a lot going on behind the scenes of that one visit to someone’s shop, and that one conversation between these two people. So I think it gets at something in the human experience. How’s that?

GIN JENNY: It’s very good.

WHISKEY JENNY: Who’s your next person?

GIN JENNY: I’m going to go with another Alice—Alice Walker. As you know, I really love The Color Purple. The Color Purple is one of my all time favorite books, in my top 10 for sure. And The Color Purple is set in 20th century South, and I just think she does so well at exploring the racism of that era, and also writing about the ways that people found hope in very dark circumstances, but not eliding how much suffering they endured based on white people’s prejudice, which I feel like is pretty fundamental to America. So yeah, I just think that her writing is amazing. I don’t know what to say. I love The Color Purple so, so, so much. It’s, gosh, it’s so great. I could read it every year. I pretty much read it every year.

WHISKEY JENNY: Is that the one that you’re constantly deciding whether or not to Forcen me to read?

GIN JENNY: Yes it is.

WHISKEY JENNY: Where do you stand?

GIN JENNY: Yeah, I mean, if we do the Forcening again, I’m definitely going to Forcen you to read it, for sure.

WHISKEY JENNY: What do you mean if we do the Forcening again?

GIN JENNY: I mean this year.

WHISKEY JENNY: We’re not going to do it again? I thought we were.

GIN JENNY: No, no no! I more meant, you might not wish to be Forcened to read The Color Purple, and I don’t want to Forcen you if you actually really don’t want to. Because it’s a rough read. There’s a lot of violence. It’s a dark book, even though ultimately, I think, really hopeful.

WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, we definitely will do the Forcening again. I think we both sort of forgot about it after this Hatening.

GIN JENNY: Yes we did.

WHISKEY JENNY: We should do it soon.

GIN JENNY: Yeah, we should reconvene the Forcening. OK. If, when we reach the Forcening, you’re up for quite a dark book, that’s probably what I’ll choose. Alice Walker, the best.

WHISKEY JENNY: OK. I guess these three are all more on the early side of their careers.

GIN JENNY: Ooh, exciting! That’s great.

WHISKEY JENNY: —than the previous Alices we’ve talked about.

GIN JENNY: You’re anointing them early.

WHISKEY JENNY: Or maybe this is like a Great American Novelist preview. I hope they become Great American Novelists, maybe? I don’t know.

GIN JENNY: I love it.

WHISKEY JENNY: But so in this youngster’s category, now, I’m putting—I think we actually read all three of their books, too, for podcast. I think maybe they’re all your picks, so great job choosing.

GIN JENNY: Thank you.

WHISKEY JENNY: The first one I will mention is Yaa Gyasi, who wrote Homegoing.

GIN JENNY: Oh, yeah, yeah.

WHISKEY JENNY: Did we read that for podcast? We did, right?

GIN JENNY: Did we? I don’t—

WHISKEY JENNY: Did we not?

GIN JENNY: —remember. We might have. Gosh, we’ve been podcasting for so long, who knows?

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, to humble brag. [LAUGHTER] It just gets hard to remember all the lovely episodes we’ve spent together.

GIN JENNY: Yes, it does.

WHISKEY JENNY: But I just thought that that novel was stunning. It had such a scope, it had such a hard structure to accomplish. And it totally nailed it. And I was just blown away by it. Every chapter is a different perspective, and it’s a different generation, starting with slaves from Ghana who get forcibly brought over to the US, and runs through the present day of all of their descendants. And it’s just, it’s breathtaking, really, I thought. So yeah.

GIN JENNY: Yeah, absolutely. It’s amazing.

WHISKEY JENNY: So I can’t wait to see more from her.

GIN JENNY: Yeah. OK, so my next one, actually—OK, so this is not so much a Great American Novelist nomination as a Great American Novel, which I hope is OK.

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.

GIN JENNY: It’s Americanah, by Chimamada Ngozi Adichie, who is Nigerian, so I’m cheating a little. But I think that this novel gets really deeply into immigrant experience and race in America in ways that I think are really interesting. And I feel like those are two—race and immigration are two really huge parts of the American experience, so I’m fudging it a little. But I think I’m right, though. It’s called Americanah, so it’s basically right there in the title.

WHISKEY JENNY: I think it’s certainly a Great American Novel. I eliminated her purely because I was like, wait, is she Nigerian-American or is she just Nigerian? And she’s just Nigerian. But I needed random reasons to eliminate things, so it was actually helpful.

GIN JENNY: I understand perfectly.

WHISKEY JENNY: So I don’t think there’s any rules that you’re breaking. I don’t think we established novel versus novelist. But I agree that that book was so great.

GIN JENNY: Yes, it’s really good. I want to reread it. It’s been—I don’t think I’ve read it since we read it for podcast, so it’s been a while, and I want to—

WHISKEY JENNY: I definitely haven’t.

GIN JENNY: —want to go back to it.

WHISKEY JENNY: Well, the second person who’s only written a debut—I should mention, Homegoing was her debut novel, so it’s even more impressive that she accomplished all that. So the other debut author that we read for podcast that I wanted to mention is Brit Bennett, who wrote The Mothers.

GIN JENNY: Oh, yeah. Oh, that’s a good one.

WHISKEY JENNY: Which I think we both really enjoyed. It wasn’t perfect, but sort of in a similar way to Alice McDermott, I though it also did a great job of capturing the drama of family life and small moments, and it also had that ambition and scope, in that it had a sort of a Greek chorus character.

GIN JENNY: Which I liked a lot.

WHISKEY JENNY: So she gets points on the board for that, [LAUGHTER] for trying new things like that. And just the writing was gorgeous. What are all the Great American Novelist writing words I can use? It was lush. The prose was lush.

GIN JENNY: Lyrical.

WHISKEY JENNY: Elegiac, lyrical. [LAUGHTER]

GIN JENNY: Elegiac. Nice, that’s really good.

WHISKEY JENNY: So I loved her writing, and for both of these people. I’m just so excited for whatever they do next.

GIN JENNY: Oh yeah, absolutely. Well, now I’ve got an older entry into the category.

WHISKEY JENNY: OK, hit me.

GIN JENNY: Which is Shirley Jackson, who I just love.

WHISKEY JENNY: Ooh.

GIN JENNY: Yeah, this is the closest to a genre pic that I had.

WHISKEY JENNY: It’s pretty genre, right?

GIN JENNY: It’s pretty—yeah, it’s genre-y-ish, kind of.

WHISKEY JENNY: OK.

GIN JENNY: Well, because The Haunting of Hill House is horror, but if someone shelved it in literary fiction and not horror I wouldn’t be like, that’s absurd.

WHISKEY JENNY: Get it out, now!

GIN JENNY: That’s ridiculous!

WHISKEY JENNY: Thank about what you’ve done!

GIN JENNY: Yeah, it’s definitely ambivalent if there’s any supernatural elements going on. I don’t have much to add. I just really think her books are super weird and creepy and get at the claustrophobia of being looked at in society, which I think is really interesting. And I don’t know, I just think she is the best.

WHISKEY JENNY: I think I had a very strange interpretation of We Have Always Lived in the Castle, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

GIN JENNY: Wait, what was your interpretation?

WHISKEY JENNY: I was just like, I just wanted those two sisters to be happy, and whatever it takes for them to be happy, I’m fine with. Like, kill whoever you want.

GIN JENNY: That is a hot take.

WHISKEY JENNY: I kind of read the book as a happy ending at the end, because they get to just do whatever they want now.

GIN JENNY: Oh man, that’s amazing.

WHISKEY JENNY: But I think you’re right that it captures that skin crawling sensation of everyone dissecting you and being under the microscope. And I think because she captured that so well for those two sisters, I was 100% on their side no matter what they ever decided to do. [LAUGHTER] So it’s a testament to her skill.

GIN JENNY: Oh, wonderful. Well, good, I’m glad my choice is approved. What’s your final one?

WHISKEY JENNY: Of course, all of your choices are always approved. My final one is—we read him for podcast, but it wasn’t a debut novel. He’s got several out, so he’s maybe not quite as early in his career. But I just thought The Changeling, by Victor LaValle was—

GIN JENNY: Oh, yeah.

WHISKEY JENNY: —such a blast. And I guess this is my sort of genre pick. Well, it’s straight up genre.

GIN JENNY: Yeah.

WHISKEY JENNY: It was definitely horror. But I don’t read a lot of horror, and I was so impressed at what he was able to accomplish within that horror novel, and everything that he covered theme-wise and emotion-wise. I was impressed at everything that he was able to say about race and parenthood and ginormous topics like that through the sort of folk tale and fairy tales entryway that he picked.

GIN JENNY: I agree, and I read one of his other books, The Devil in Silver I think similarly did a really great job with dealing with a lot of issues in the carceral mental health treatment, and race as well, through the lens of maybe there’s a monster in this institution. So I agree, I think that’s a great choice. Also our only dude. Is that true?

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, I believe that is true.

GIN JENNY: Really happy with that, actually. OK, so my last one is Zora Neale Hurston. I just love Zora Neale Hurston. Separate from her novel writing, she did a lot of really important work collecting folklore, which is really important to preserve. They recently had that thing come out that she had interviewed a survivor of the slave ships, which is really an incredible thing to preserve. But also the book that I read of her, Their Eyes Were Watching God was again just a really great book about race and gender in America. I’m probably not going to reread it because it deals with the Great Flood of 1927, which is too much for my little heart. But it was a really good book, and she’s an amazing author, and I feel like everyone should be reading her books. Everyone without exception should be reading her books in school.

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.

GIN JENNY: She’s the one I feel most strongly is 100% Great American Novelist.

WHISKEY JENNY: Wow. Great endorsement.

GIN JENNY: And that’s all I got.

WHISKEY JENNY: Well hooray! Yeah, they’re all on the board now. It’s official.

GIN JENNY: If you have suggestions for Great American Novelists who are not white dudes, leave us a comment, or send us an email, or tweet at me. Because I had a hard time coming up with my list, and I’d be curious to get additions for it.

WHISKEY JENNY: Always. Well, for this time we read Undead Girl Gang by Lily Anderson, which was originally brought to my attention by Friend of the Podcast Ashley. In this book, our main girl is Mila, and her best friend Riley has just died. She thinks it was murder. The autopsy went down as suicide. And so she does a spell and brings her friend back from the dead. What did you think of it?

GIN JENNY: So I liked it. It was a fun summer read in a lot of ways. But also, oh my gosh, there were parts that were very, very, very dark indeed. So a roller coaster of reader response.

WHISKEY JENNY: Seriously! Yeah, it felt really packed in, too, to me. It’s pretty short, but there’s a lot of roller coaster twists and turns emotionally in it that I did not see coming. So it felt especially whiplashy, almost.

GIN JENNY: Yes, it did. There were a lot of tonal swings. Which in fact just kind of resonant with my past experience of Lily Anderson’s books. Mostly they’re super charming and delightful, and then there’s some dark as hell moments, and then it’s back to being charming. And you’re like, wait, did that just happen? But it did.

WHISKEY JENNY: Can we just—yeah.

GIN JENNY: Let’s start with the good stuff, I guess? The charming part.

WHISKEY JENNY: For me, the most charming was that when she resurrects Riley, she also accidentally resurrects two other girls who also died recently in this town, ah-ha-hem. And these girls were in the popular crowd, and they were not friends of Mila and Riley, and they were mean to them. But throughout the week a friendship formed between all four of them. And I found it really, really sweet.

GIN JENNY: I did, too. So I didn’t care that much about resolving the murders, and they also didn’t seem to care that much about solving their own murders.

WHISKEY JENNY: Right. Which is an interesting stance, but sure.

GIN JENNY: It is, yeah. But I really enjoyed them all going around town buying clothes, or stealing clothes, or stealing food, and hanging out and developing their grudging respect. That was fun. And I liked that the book didn’t pretend that either side of them didn’t exist. It was true that June and Dayton could be really fun and nice, and it was also true that they were horrible to Mila and Riley when they were alive. So those things are both true, and I like that Lily Anderson doesn’t try to pretend one of those is canceled out by the other one.

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, I agree. It was well handled. And it’s not saying that, oh, actually Mila and Riley just misunderstood them. They have that depth to them.

GIN JENNY: I really loved Dayton. I was so charmed with Dayton.

WHISKEY JENNY: She was so nice! Yeah, she was great.

GIN JENNY: My favorite part is Mila’s trying to figure out how to do another spell, and she says, “Now we have to figure out where to get a calf’s heart,” and Dayton claps her hands and says, “From a baby cow!”

WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, gosh, yeah. They were just great.

GIN JENNY: She was great. And she always tries to protect Mila. She goes with the flow, she’s really cool. She’s nice about being resurrected, which I would be pretty annoyed by.

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. I think when we originally picked it we talked about this, but one of the things that Ashley really liked about it that I also did was the worldbuilding around the their zombie state, which is that they had to be within 100 feet, I think—100 paces? I don’t know. 100 somethings—of Mila and they look totally normal. But when they go outside of that zone, they look like scary zombies and they shamble around. And they don’t have some of their memories, but otherwise they are themselves. They don’t want any brains or anything.

GIN JENNY: Right. Yes, they do not. Which is great. I’m all for that.

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, I found it was a really interesting take on the zombie structure, and also really helped build that grudging respect that we like so much, because they had to be around each other all the time. I think the counter side to that is we don’t ever really get to see Riley and Mila be friends. We get to see Mila grieving her, and then when Riley comes back, she obviously is pretty conflicted about being brought back—rightfully so!

GIN JENNY: Yeah.

WHISKEY JENNY: But therefore the only glimpses really that we get of their friendship is kind of muted. And especially in contrast with this beautiful blossoming friendship with the other two girls, I wish we had gotten more of their friendship before she died.

GIN JENNY: Yeah, no, I did too.

WHISKEY JENNY: Any other charming stuff?

GIN JENNY: No, do you want to talk about the traumatizing stuff?

WHISKEY JENNY: Yup, that’s all of the other notes.

GIN JENNY: There were a couple of things. Where to begin? You go ahead, because there was one huge thing that was going to haunt my nightmares forever, but there were several other things that I was like, Jesus.

WHISKEY JENNY: Well OK, I would say a compliment of the sad things is, I think at the very beginning it is really accurate at the grief of missing small things. Like Mila says something about how the hardest part of Riley’s funeral is she doesn’t have anyone to sit with, because normally she’d be sitting with Riley. And she wants to text Riley all this stuff, and I thought that the everyday responses were really spot on.

OK, so the first thing that I was like, whoa, holy shit, is Mila’s family is not great.

GIN JENNY: No.

WHISKEY JENNY: And it’s not even really addressed. It’s just like, her parents are awful and are like, I don’t know, it’s been a couple of days. You’re not over your best friend dying yet? Why aren’t you over her?

GIN JENNY: Right, shockingly dying. Yeah.

WHISKEY JENNY: And she’s really—Mila herself is really mean to her sisters, but then her sisters are also like, I don’t know, could you cry quieter at night? [LAUGHTER] There’s a lot going on there.

GIN JENNY: None of the adults in this book are much good.

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, no. But I kept expecting it to be like, actually, my parents didn’t say that, I was just misinterpreting it. At the end, we came to a mutual understanding. It was like, no, her parents are just awful the whole time, but it’s not the point of the book.

GIN JENNY: Which I guess is like real life. Teenagers have things happen to them that don’t involve their terrible parents.

WHISKEY JENNY: True. Yeah, but man they were terrible.

GIN JENNY: Yeah they really were bad. Another set of responsible adults in Mila’s life are the people at the magic shop.

WHISKEY JENNY: Mmhm.

GIN JENNY: They show up at the zombie hideout with guns and just shoot the whole place up while Mila’s inside.

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. That was the scariest part to me. The old ladies, who she thought she could trust, with guns.

GIN JENNY: And they’re not sorry.

WHISKEY JENNY: No, not at all. They’re like, well, you shouldn’t have done that, so we were in the right. Um, no you weren’t, ladies. You were not in the right.

GIN JENNY: You just can’t show up and shoot up a house that contains children. You just can’t do it.

WHISKEY JENNY: Like, no.

GIN JENNY: Yeah, that was really, really alarming.

WHISKEY JENNY: You brought a bajillion shotguns to a bunch of children. What are you doing? So that was really scary.

GIN JENNY: Yeah, it was scary. And at the end the adults are like, well, it was your own fault. And Mila’s like, OK, I can kind of see that. It’s like, no! Nuh-uh!

WHISKEY JENNY: I don’t know, I kind of feel like it was the fault of the people with the shotguns.

GIN JENNY: Yeah! And Mila’s like, yeah, I should be more responsible. Like, no! [LAUGHTER]

WHISKEY JENNY: Mm-mm. Mm-mm.

GIN JENNY: I mean, she should be more responsible, but shotguns are not an appropriate response.

WHISKEY JENNY: Agreed. Yeah, for sure. Also I don’t feel like the girls were that much of abominations. They’re going to go back in their grave at the end of seven days. I don’t understand what the big deal was.

GIN JENNY: And they were being pretty nice and chill. They did a couple of dead girl shenanigans that they oughtn’t. [LAUGHTER] But when they were alive, they did live girl shenanigans that they oughtn’t. So settle down.

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, they didn’t come out at anyone with shotguns, either, so in the grand tally here [LAUGHTER] of shotguns.

GIN JENNY: Yeah, the magic shop owner’s not coming out ahead.

WHISKEY JENNY: Not at all. OK, the next traumatizing thing I want to talk about is Riley and Mila’s fight. Is it time for spoilers? can we do spoilers now?

GIN JENNY: It is now the spoiler section.

WHISKEY JENNY: So it turns out that the person who’s been doing all the murders is Riley’s older brother Xander, who Mila has always had a crush on, and who has been becoming closer and closer with after Riley’s death. They don’t have—they’re pretty sure it’s him, but Mila’s like, OK, well, we have to end him now. And Riley’s like, I need a little time, because he’s my brother and it’s hard for me to believe this, and maybe there’s another explanation, and I don’t think we should jump to conclusions. And Mila gets so furious at her for not thinking her brother is a murderer. And calls her an abomination.

GIN JENNY: Oh no, yeah, that’s right.

WHISKEY JENNY: And leaves her, which is even worse than just leaving the person who you were a ride for, which she is. But Riley is super dependent on her. She doesn’t have a cell phone. She can’t call anyone else. She doesn’t have any—

GIN JENNY: Recourse.

WHISKEY JENNY: —other people she can call. She has literally nothing else she can do. She can’t be seen around town because A, she’s supposed to be dead, and B, when Mila leaves she’ll turn into a zombie looking person. And it was just like, that’s not even a bridge too far. That’s a continent to far. [LAUGHTER] You just can’t do that to her. And she did. And then at the end, Riley had to apologize to Mila and was like, I’m sorry I didn’t immediately believe my brother was a murderer. And Mila’s like, that’s OK, I understand, [LAUGHTER] and never apologizes for her horrible behavior. I was so upset about that.

GIN JENNY: Yeah, and especially because Riley did not ask to be resurrected. That’s all on Mila.

WHISKEY JENNY: No. She did not.

GIN JENNY: So Mila has resurrected her and then stranded her. That’s terrible.

WHISKEY JENNY: Can I just read the passage? Because reading the words again are, oh my god. “‘The coven was right,’ I say softly. ‘You’re an abomination. My best friend, my real best friend, wouldn’t protect a murderer—’” who by the way is her brother and she just wants to make sure. “‘So whoever you are, whatever you are, you can go straight to hell. Because you aren’t the Riley Greenway I wanted to bring back.’ And then I leave her crying in front of the house she’s not welcome in any more, the gash in her forehead spreading wider and wider the farther away I get.”

GIN JENNY: It’s brutal.

WHISKEY JENNY: Dude, you can’t do that. You just can’t do that.

GIN JENNY: Yeah, no, it’s terrible.

WHISKEY JENNY: So let’s talk about Xander. Did you see that coming? Because I did not.

GIN JENNY: I pegged him as the murderer immediately.

WHISKEY JENNY: I did not. Did not at all.

GIN JENNY: Yeah, I did.

WHISKEY JENNY: Well, good for you. Congratulations.

GIN JENNY: Yeah.

WHISKEY JENNY: I don’t mean that sarcastically. I mean actually congratulations, you did it.

GIN JENNY: Yeah, no, I don’t really guess endings, partly because I’m not that smart, and partly because I read the end so I never really have a chance to think about things. I’m just like, oh, I wonder who the murderer is, and then I go and check. Which in fact happened. I was like, oh, I bet he’s the murderer, and then I flipped to the end, and he was indeed the murderer.

WHISKEY JENNY: Super the murderer.

GIN JENNY: He’s super was. For a weird reason. I wasn’t totally sure about his motive. But regardless, I will never ever stop being traumatized by the fact that Mila casts a spell to make the murderer rot, and he starts growing mushrooms, mushy white mushrooms all over his body.

WHISKEY JENNY: Everywhere.

GIN JENNY: And at the end she talks about how he has mushy white mushrooms instead of tonsils. And I’m telling you that because I don’t want to be alone with it. I have to live my life now with that image in my mind.

WHISKEY JENNY: Yep. Everywhere. Everywhere!

GIN JENNY: Ew, tonsils. In his mouth! Bleh!

WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, god.

GIN JENNY: It was such an effectively gruesome image.

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, it was very gruesome, and a pretty dark ending, because he ends up trying to murder them all, and then they have to murder him. And I really like a protective older brother character, and I was very sad to see it twisted into something so horrifying this time. It was not my favorite. [LAUGHTER] And I just did not see it coming. I mean, I guess once the mushroom thing started happening [LAUGHTER] the writing was on the wall.

GIN JENNY: Sure. [LAUGHTER] It was so gross. It was so, so gross.

WHISKEY JENNY: Golly, it was. But then have that happy, fun yay we’re dying tomorrow party. Which was actually really sweet. I loved the party at the end.

GIN JENNY: The undead girl gang was the best part of this book, Undead Girl Gang.

WHISKEY JENNY: For sure. Yeah, their last party was very sweet. I like the activities that they chose to do. I thought that was really fun.

GIN JENNY: Yeah, I did too. I have one final thing. So a content note for talking about suicide now. I guess this is probably really predictable, but I felt like the way the book talked about suicide was pretty irresponsible. I know, you’re shocked that I would have that opinion about something.

WHISKEY JENNY: In what way? Can you say on?

GIN JENNY: Yeah, so none of the adults in the book respond in a helpful way to what in their mind is a rash of teen suicides. And I get that in part the book is satirizing people who respond badly to unexpected death. But it felt really irresponsible to me in a YA book not to have a voice of reason who’s actually addressing the reality of teen suicide. It’s almost not even treated as a real problem.

And especially—this is what I really, really hated—there’s a part where Mila is talking to her school counselor, who later we’re supposed to view as a voice of reason, even though her school counselor was one of the shotgun people. But I don’t think we’re meant to think Dr. Miller is a terrible person, right?

WHISKEY JENNY: I don’t think we are either, which was surprising, because she’s a shotgun person.

GIN JENNY: Shotgun! [LAUGHTER] So Mila says, “What makes more sense, three unrelated suicides, or three connected murders?” And the book doesn’t push back on that. And it’s very infuriating to me, because it is very basic and find-outable information about suicide contagion—knowing someone who has died by suicide is a really significant risk factor for attempting suicide. So if two students die in a suicide pact, as Dayton and June are believed to have done, then the other kids at school are actually at really high risk. And Dr. Miller should have known that, and the book should have known that, and it was really messed up that they didn’t say anything about it. And I know I’m getting super serious about a goofy fun book, but I feel really strongly about this, and I was upset that the book didn’t even talk about that at all.

WHISKEY JENNY: You know, you still have a responsibility to get important things right, no matter how goofy and fun your book is.

GIN JENNY: Right.

WHISKEY JENNY: First of all. And second of all, this got plenty dark in other cases. So it’s not like it’s afraid to go there, I suppose.

GIN JENNY: Yeah, so that made it—I enjoyed the book mostly, but that made it harder for me to view it as just a fun romp. I would be reluctant to recommend it to an actual teen.

WHISKEY JENNY: True. Yeah.

GIN JENNY: Take care of yourselves, guys.

WHISKEY JENNY: Always.

GIN JENNY: Yeah, so do you want to hear about what we’re reading for next time?

WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, lay it on me.

GIN JENNY: So for next time we’re reading Confessions of the Fox, by Jordy Rosenberg. It is about a college professor who finds a manuscript that appears to be the memoirs of a real thief from the Georgian era in London, Jack Sheppard. And the professor’s annotating the manuscript and trying to authenticate it. And it appears from reading it that Jack Sheppard was a trans guy, as is the professor. So it’s about Jack Sheppard and how he comes to his life of crime, and his rivalry with a thief taker and criminal gang leader called Jonathan Wild. And then in the footnotes it’s also a little bit about the professor’s life and his job woes and the run ins he has with an increasingly capitalist university situation. And it just sounds really weird and fun and cool and weird. Sarah McCarry, who is another author I like, wrote a really good review of it on Tor.com and said she just really loved it, so I’m super excited about it.

WHISKEY JENNY: It sounds really cool. I love some fun footnotes. I love a double structure like this.

GIN JENNY: Yes! Me too, me too.

WHISKEY JENNY: So it should be fun.

GIN JENNY: Yeah, excellent. I’m really looking forward to it.

WHISKEY JENNY: Yay!

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 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, you can become a podcast patron at Patreon.com/readingtheend. And if you’re listening to us on iTunes, please leave us a review.

And until next time, a quote from Too Much and Not the Mood, by Durga Chew-Bose. “Backyard things have never appealed to me. Weather-worn plastic chairs, flimsy, spongy cushions, benches with wrought iron roses, ivy, and grape clusters that look, however modest, haunted or trapped in time—cursed, even. Backyards for me have either been fiction or totally spooky. There are few things more unnerving than when, in the dead of night, a backyard light motion detects something but reveals nothing.”

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.

The post Reading the End Bookcast, Ep. 105 – Great American Novelists and Lily Anderson’s Undead Girl Gang appeared first on Reading the End.

All the excuses people give for making shitty racist movies, and why none of them are that convincing. (Clap your hands if you are pleased to see Ghost in the Shell bombing.)

On feminist SF writers and the dystopian worlds they create. And it’s got a hell of a concluding paragraph.

Oliver Sacks’s partner, Bill Hayes, writes with such clear-eyed love and sweetness about Oliver Sacks. It’s not everyone who can write about the person they love as well as this.

Feminist hypocrisy is the new trend in start-up narratives.

I am perennially furious that guys are given such a narrow range of potential gender performance. Boys look great in makeup! Let boys wear makeup, society! Here is a deeply personal and lovely essay about sexuality, gender performance, and Snapchat makeup filters.

Brit Bennett, author of The Mothers (which I liked a lot), talks to The Millions about black stories and having her book adapted for film.

On the myth of the lone wolf terrorist.

This article and then this article on the accuracy of the therapist’s depiction on Big Little Lies has made me 150% more likely to actually watch this show.

Art world scandals are my favorite scandals.

Marvel’s being shitty again, but luckily Gavia Baker-Whitelaw is here to explain what’s going on. Swapna Krishna has some ideas for Marvel to bring in more female readers.

Stephanie Powell Watts on books you love that don’t love you back.

Have a wonderful weekend!

The post BOYS SHOULD GET TO WEAR MAKEUP: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

Episode 71

Ask us for our gift book recommendations over at the Holiday Gift Guide! We’ll be giving out recs on the podcast that airs on December 14th, so hurry and get your requests in!

Here’s my tweetstorm about how to be a good ally.

What We’re Reading

Tarcutta Wake, Josephine Rowe
City on Fire, Garth Risk Hallberg
Crooked Kingdom, Leigh Bardugo
The Wangs vs. the World, Jade Chang
Multiple Choice, Alejandro Zambra

(but not The Revolutionaries Try Again)

What We’re Thankful For

My Dad Wrote a Porno podcast
“Seriously,” by Sara Bareilles; performed by Leslie Odom, Jr.
the NBC show The Good Place
Writers I’m grateful for: Ijeoma Iluo, Ann Friedman, Gene Demby, Kat Chow, Wesley Morris, Wesley Lowery, Mychal Denzel Smith, Nikole Hannah-Jones, and Alexandra Petri (“Five Stages of Trump Grief”)

They Can’t Kill Us All, Wesley Lowery
The Reactionary Mind, Corey Robin
The Power Broker, Robert Caro
13th, dir. Ava DuVernay
The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander

Trump 2.0 Syllabus and Rape Culture Syllabus from Public Books

Watership Down, Richard Adams
Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi
Gifted, dir. Marc Webb (heartwarming trailer here)
Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel

The Mothers, Brit Bennett

After recording the podcast, I found this article where Brit Bennett says she doesn’t want her writing career to be about translating black pain to white audiences. So hey, the thing I liked about this book was a thing she specifically set out to do. Yay!

Additional podcast note: Whiskey Jenny has told me several times that even if she’s dead for five years, it’s not okay by her for me to get with her grieving boyfriend/fiance/husband. We had this discussion when we were watching Arrow together, because I felt that Oliver was being totally unreasonable to object to Laurel dating Tommy. I told Whiskey Jenny she can feel free to get with my person if I have been dead for five years. We differ on this point.

ETA: Mallory Ortberg kind of ruled on this in a recent Dear Prudence column.

(If it helps, I once had a weeks-long, only-sort-of-joking quarrel with a partner about how long each of us should wait for the other if we were lost at sea, so I know the pain of getting suckered into an argument about something that will probably never happen but feels deathly important. The correct answer, by the way, is a baseline six months out of respect/odds of a miraculous ocean rescue, plus one additional week of waiting for every month of the relationship’s duration.)

Get at me on Twitter, email the podcast, and friend me (Gin Jenny) and Whiskey Jenny on Goodreads. 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

The post Reading the End Bookcast, Ep.71: What We’re Thankful For, and Brit Bennett’s The Mothers appeared first on Reading the End.