Part 3: The Year In (and out) of Reading
An introvert's summer reads.
June of 2024 had way too many doctor and dentist appointments, and a friend in recovery from a surgery, which was not lovely except that it prompted a friend from Florida being here for a week.
I also had to go to a wedding and a dinner party in June and I loved the people involved but I hated the events. I go into anxiety mode when I have to be out in public, particularly when it requires me going somewhere by myself — which both of these events did. I arrived alone, entering into a situation with a group of people, many of whom I didn’t know.
I’m about to do some sharing, which nowadays means therapizing myself in print. Feel free to skip past my agonizing navel-gazing and self-involvement, right down to the book sharing portion.
I’ve long considered myself an introvert, a label (condition?) I believed to be an incontrovertible part of my make-up, a personality trait with which I was born. But, looking back (and I’m doing a lot of that now that I’m in my 60s), I’m not so sure I was born this timorous, tremulous, trembling, tip-toeing fellow. By all accounts I was an outgoing and happy child, in fact, I remember being happy and feeling loved and safe. Then I went to school. I won’t go into all the bullying and lack of sympathy about the bullying which every stereotypically gay boy in my era (and, all too often, still) goes through, but it took me no time at all to realize I was not like the other boys, and not only that, but I couldn’t make myself be like them, and worse, to not be like them was to be wrong, bad, an outcast who stuck out in any situation and was often subject to sneering, snide remarks, and, too, physical assault.
Years went by when I literally (and I know what that means) could not and would not walk into a store, a party, any gathering of strangers, by myself. And then there were the things that happened when I went places WITH people, and the homophobes would mutter, or snark, or outright out loud denigrate and threaten.
So, when I say I had to go to a wedding and and hated it, you understand how much I must have loved the people getting married. But arriving alone, at an event site out in the country with multiple buildings and tons of people in and out and around, was something I had to talk myself through. Luckily, I was spotted by someone I knew who said, “Come sit with us,” saving me. And then, the sole of my shoe came off.
Yes. Came. Off. Not just a little. Completely. It started by flapping a bit, and within seconds, boom. I’m walking on gravel with the sole of my shoe in my hand. I got away and home without anyone noticing, and I suppose the lesson for most people would be “one ought to buy dress shoes more than once every 20 years.” For me the lesson is, I have no dress shoes, great! I no longer have to say yes to social events requiring them.
And that will give me even more time to read. I read 40 books between June and August, some of them very good 4 star reads. Too many to recount. But, the five stars, I have to mention.
First and foremost, a heartbreaker because it was the end of a series by an author whose work I love and her heroine, who I have come to think of as a friend, Maggie Hope, penned by Susan Elia MacNeal. If you haven’t read the Maggie Hope Mysteries, do yourself a favor and get the stack of them and start. You won’t be disappointed until you get to this one, and disappointed only because it’s THE LAST HOPE, the 11th and final in the series that began with MR. CHURCHILL’S SECRETARY, which introduced us to the brilliant, courageous, loyal, raven-haired spy in 1940s London, and the fascinating cast of friends and foes she meets along the way.
Other five star reads were Armistead Maupin’s MONA OF THE MANOR, 10th in his TALES OF THE CITY series. Honestly, I don’t know that I loved this one all that much, but it prompted me to revisit the beginnings of the serial and so, yeah, forever a place in my heart for giving a young queer in the hinterlands hope that there was a place for him out there.
Then there was HONEY, by Victor Lodato, which I blogged about. CLICK HERE TO READ. I loved it. I also loved ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK, by Chris Whitaker, a mystery and multiple love stories and multi-generational saga not easily categorized. THE BRIAR CLUB, by Kate Quinn, an author who my sister told me I would love, and she was right. I’m working through her backlist now. THE WOMEN, by Kristin Hannah, which I was surprised to love because so many other people of the book club variety did and often that’s a tell for me that I might not feel the same.
And last of all, THE FRIDAY AFTERNOON CLUB, by Griffin Dunne. I am a sucker for all things Joan Didion and Dominick Dunne, and reading about their family history, well, yes. For me they and their people have sort of an Algonquin Round Table, Violet Quill, Bloomsbury Group vibe.
And so went the summer. And the bottom of my twenty-year old dress shoe. Introverts don’t need lots of dress shoes. Ha. Funny that, as just this week I read an article that said you could “un-learn” being an introvert if it was caused by childhood trauma. Well, no thanks, I’ve got about 400 to-be-read books waiting for me. Who needs to leave home? Not me. And if not getting out more meant getting to read more and endlessly, and that’s what came from being bullied and f*g-bashed, at least I got that much out of it, even if I didn’t get out much. The moral of that being, in my case anyway, what’s bad for the sole is good for the soul.
And that’s 1000 words, so …
Here I am, going. (To the couch. To read.)