Soothsayer Cocktail and More
Well, it's been a Rough Winter in the Spector Household, during which I was lucky enough to have no writing or editing that had to be done. It's a long story, but know that numerous sicknesses and ailments descended upon us.
So, a rather late and scattered update. But it does include a custom cocktail, an amazing musical number, and one of may favorite manicures yet.
The Rotfelsen Winter
The wonderful Elias Eells has created the Rotfelsen Winter, a cocktail based on Kalyna the Soothsayer. What a treat, what a dream, to have someone make a drink to match my book. He included an ingredient for each faction color in the book—green, yellow, red, and purple—and somehow ended up with a drink that tastes great, which is very impressive.
If I'm lucky, maybe I'll also get a cocktail for the sequel, Kalyna the Cutthroat. Although, based on my first draft, a drink to match that book might include some, uh, illegal substances.
Anyway, you should watch Elias' video on the book and the cocktail. And, if you're a drinker, consider making one at home (I did). Here's the recipe:
1 oz brandy
.5 oz green chartreuse
.5 oz yellow chartreuse
.5 oz black cherry grenadine
.25 oz creme de violette
Add all ingredients to your mixing glass, then ice. Stir for 20 seconds, then strain into a stemmed cocktail glass over shaved ice. Cheers!
Realism is Overrated
Before anything else, just watch this musical number. Please.
The song is a fucking jam, the cinematography is beautiful, and a group of people dancing on top of a moving train is some real Buster Keaton/Jackie Chan type spectacle.
I love it. For about 20 years—after first seeing a very low quality video online—I loved it. In the time since, I've had multiple periods of obsession with Bollywood movies and music, but I'd never seen Dil Se.., the movie that throws this set piece at the viewer in its first few minutes.
When I finally got to Dil Se.., just over a week ago, I was floored. It begins with a meet cute, followed by "Chaiyya Chaiyya" (which, it turns out, is a dream sequence), and then proceeds to entirely upend the classic Bollywood playbook.[1] Turns out, the movie is about Assam separatists and the follies of blind privilege and nationalism. (So, if you've read Soothsayer, you probably get why I liked it so much.)
It's a rough watch at times! But Dil Se.. being about some dark shit never stops it from also being entertaining: beautiful people in beautiful places; melodramatic subplots; a flock of cute kids; dance numbers that made my spouse, my friends, and I actually scream multiple times. None of this makes the film less wrenching or its ending less impactful—if anything, the fun elements make the themes hit harder.
I wrote even more about Dil Se.. on Letterboxd. Weirdly, as part of my review of an entirely different movie, 1948's Force of Evil. (You should watch that one, too.)
New Favorite Pull Quote?
Arturo Serrano wrote a pretty amazing (to me; I'm biased) review of Soothsayer over at Nerds of a Feather. He really dug into the book's politics,[2] which I obviously love to see.
But I'm especially happy that now I have the two perfect, contrasting pull quotes for this weird book I published:
“A frank portrayal of the cruelty of class inequality and the poisonous allure of belief in destiny.”
- Nerds of a Feather“[A] delightful debut fantasy adventure.”
- NPR
March 16 Event for The Faithless
I get to talk to C. L. Clark about The Faithless next month! Their first book, The Unbroken,[3] is wonderful, and left the possibilities for its sequel, The Faithless, in a very interesting place.
"I really loved reading an exciting fantasy book that also made me think about Fanon."
- Me, in an email to Clark about The Unbroken
Register: C.L. Clark In Conversation With Elijah Kinch Spector
While you're at it, get a copy of The Faithless from Tubby & Coo's, a queer-owned indie bookstore in New Orleans. (Fuck. I need to go to New Orleans.)
And here's proof that I was sent an early copy of The Faithless, alongside my deco-disco, retro-future, Xanadu-ass manicure.
Turns out, Dil Se.. isn't really considered a "Bollywood" movie at all, but part of the parallel cinema movement, even though it Trojan horses that "parallel" sensibility inside of what appears to be a normal romantic drama.
Enough for me to stop feeling like a dilettante? Of course not! I wrote a book about imposter syndrome, after all.
You may recall that I got to write a bit about The Unbroken over at Tor.com.