Spring events and new book reviews
THIS IS JANE
I’ve spend February working mostly on the libretto for THIS IS JANE, and I’m pleased with how it’s going. In addition to the scene composer Angela Elizabeth Slater and I had performed last summer at the Aspen Music Festival, we’ll soon have an aria finished for mezzo Margaret O’Connell to perform and record. Maggi and I first met at the Conservatoire Américain in 1993 when we were students there, and we’ve worked together on Woman Waits With Sword, which composer Lisa Neher and I wrote for Maggie to premiere in 2021 (Link to the score and video here.)
For Jane I’m using a lot of sources by women who were involved in the Jane Collective, including Laura Kaplan’s book The Story of Jane. Other easy-to-access sources include:
Bart, Pauline B. “Seizing the Means of Reproduction: An Illegal Feminist Abortion Collective?How and Why It Worked.” Qualitative Sociology 10, no. 4 (1987): 339–57. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00988383.
Galatzer-Levy, Jeanne. “On the Job with Jane.” CWLU Herstory Project, January 13, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190113232404/https://www.cwluherstory.org/jane-stories-articles/.
Gilles, Nellie, Sarah Kramer, and Joe Richman. “Before ‘Roe v. Wade,’ The Women of ‘Jane’ Provided Abortions For The Women Of Chicago : NPR,” December 12, 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20181212174041/https://www.npr.org/2018/01/19/578620266/before-roe-v-wade-the-women-of-jane-provided-abortions-for-the-women-of-chicago.
Johnson, Linnea. “Something Real: Jane and Me. Memories and Exhortations of a Feminist Ex-Abortionist.” CWLU Herstory Project, January 13, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190113232404/https://www.cwluherstory.org/jane-stories-articles/.
Surgal, Ruth. “Organizing a Clandestine Abortion Network.” CWLU Herstory Project, January 13, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190113232404/https://www.cwluherstory.org/jane-stories-articles/.
It’s a crucial story and I can’t wait to be able to share more of it on stage.
OTHER EVENTS
Coming up:
❀ Inversion Ensemble presents Two Choruses from MONTEVERGINE, March 1 at 7 pm and March 2 at 3 pm at Central Presbyterian Church, 200 E 8th St, Austin, Texas 78701. Tickets are available here.
❀ Poetry reading from A REGISTRY OF OMENS at Strong Women-Strange Worlds, online, April 4 at 12 pm. (With Darcy Little Badger, omg.) Free. Register at https://www.eventbrite.com/o/strong-women-strange-worlds-33460611105
❀ Live table-read of PROTECTRESS, Act 2, by Opera Contempo, April 19, at Marmelade Library, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2 pm. Free. Register at https://www.eventcreate.com/e/readers-theatre
BOOK REVIEWS
The Final Voyage of Avery Mothmere by Helen Whistberry. 5/5
Whistberry is one of my favorite authors. They are able to blend beauty and danger and horror and whimsey and magic together in a vast and dazzling way, creating books and visual art that is captivating. In The Final Voyage of Avery Mothmere, we accompany the titular character as they are washed up from a terrifying shipwreck onto a strange and mysterious island, and is cared for by two enigmatic residents. It’s the kind of book I race through the first time, trying to get in all of the words and imagery and ideas, and then immediately read again, slower, for more nuance and to linger of phrases and ideas. This novel reminds me a little—but is way better—than a novel about a fallen star, written by an author whose books I no longer own or recommend. If you’re seeking wonder and a balm for the heart and soul, this book is what you need right now. Consider this a prescription from Dr. Kendra.
Paris Undercover by Matthew Goodman. 5/5
This is a book about WWII unlike any other I've read. While it starts out like every other "what people did to resist" story, it's far more complicated than that, and author Goodman does a phenomenal job of disentangling myth and marketing and memory. Paris Undercover tells the story of two women—a Brit and her American friend—who lived in Paris together in the 30s. When the war came, they stayed in Paris, where the Brit—Kitty Bonnefous—throws herself into service work, starting with taking clothing and food to British prisoners or war and ending by smuggling servicemen out of the Occupied Zone in France. The American, Etta Shiber, is a bystander. Oh, she rides along with Kate and helps a little with the servicemen who shelter in their home, but essentially, she's just waiting for the war to end. But both women are arrested, and while both suffer, Shiber is released and transported home to the US, where she "writes" a book called Paris Underground, all about the work she and Kate did for the resistance. Her book—co-written and ghost-written by a number of people, some of who received no credit for it— is both full of lies and full of very dangerous truths, truths that, when the Gestapo gets hold of the book, nearly kill Kitty more than once. Goodman sifts through every detail of how Shiber's book came to be, what the real activities of these two women were, and what happened when the book was discovered by the Germans. This is not the typical "women of Paris fight the Nazis" story that has been made into so many mediocre novels—this is a masterfully researched and document story about propaganda, false heroism, betrayal, and utterly appalling ignorance and cravenness on the part of American publishers. It is a superb book.
The Red House by Mary Morris. 5/5
A lyrical and evocative novel about loss and discovery and self and otherness. Morris, of whom I've long been a fan, writes a story about the twentieth and twenty-first centuries that is both monumental—taking in war and displacement and massive upheaval and death—and intimate—about parents and growing up and place and habits. Laura's mother disappears when Laure is young, and Laura, after years of uncertainty, steps into her own investigation of who her mother was, traveling to places where her mother lived and finding lives with whom hers intersected. It's an elegant work about family and about despair, a eulogy and a cautionary tale all braided together. Highly recommend; I think it's a great novel to discussion book groups or classes.
The God and the Gwisin by Sophie Kim. 2/5
This follow-up to The God and the Gumiho is not quite as good as its predecessor. It's a little clunky with pacing and character development and character time, and suffers from trying to close loopholes and inconsistencies. The villain is easy to identify early on, but there's such a mess of other subplots and partial plots and things left over from the first book that aren't well-explained, it's all a bit of a disappointment. And a main character who is a lover of libraries would know that the Dewey Decimal system, which she mentions twice, is a racist and eugenicist and otherwise biased system that has been replaced in many libraries by the Library of Congress's classification system. So while I loved The God and the Gumiho and gave it 5 stars, this one gets only 2.
The Names by Florence Knapp. 5/5
The Names is a lovely and devastating book in the mold of Jo Walton's My Other Children (and countless other books and films such as Sliding Doors), in which a decision on the part of one character splits a single narrative into multiple ones. Cora, a young mother, is tasked by her violently abusive husband with registering the name of their baby boy. In one instance, she lets her daughter name him: he is called Bear. In the second, she gives him the name Julian, and in the third, in accordance with her husband's demand, she names him Gordon. She, her daughter, and the baby return home, and when she tells her husband what she's done, her story breaks into three paths, all with some similarities and some differences. The various lives of Cora and her children are each about the legacies of domestic violence, about finding one's own self, about manipulation and responsibility, about trust and love, and about grief. Knapp is excellent at getting into the character's thoughts in a way that feels entirely natural and comfortable. The narratives have unexpected twists and turns, making the entire novel a journey of discovery. I will caution readers who have experienced violence that this may be a difficult read or be triggering, but it's also a book I recommend very highly.
A Forgery of Fate by Elizabeth Lim. 1/5
On one hand, this is a loose re-telling of Beauty and the Beast, full of dazzling imagery and a happily-ever-after ending. On the other hand, it's a story about a powerful man manipulating and grooming a girl almost from birth, watching her family fall onto devastatingly hard times, and then offering her a bargain she can't refuse to help save them. Elang, a half-dragon, half-human prince, is in exile from his kingdom and has to find his one true love to dispel a curse placed on him. In a variety of human guises, he cultivates Tru, a gifted artist who has visions of the future. After contributing to her desperation to save her sisters from forced sex work, he forces her into a deal: she has to marry him and help him return to his undersea world and lift his curse, and in exchange he'll protect her family. I think what happens next is supposed to be an "enemies to lovers"-type story, but it doesn't sit right with me. Elang is abusive towards Tru, whose feelings of dislike, hurt, and attraction towards him come and go. She begins to care about the people she meets in the undersea realms, and manages to complete her part of the deal, at which point she recognizes Elang has having been one of her closest friends and mentor while he was posing as human. But her reaction isn't horror, but affection and gentle ribbing, and when Elang apparently dies, she's devastated. Psychological and emotional abuse is a very real thing, and we see Elang engage in it towards Tru throughout the book, where it's presented as him being protective, conflicted, and tortured by his own circumstances. But we learn at the end of the book that while he's been cruel to Tru, he's also been grooming her mother and sisters to see him as a charming and caring husband, a wonderful son-in-law. It's a classic case of abuse, and there's no way I can read it otherwise. Do I recommend this to readers? Only those who want to read it very deeply and deconstruct it and use it to understand—or show to others—how abusers accomplish what they do.
Ararat by Louise Glück. 5/5
Ararat, originally published in 1922, still feels as angry and fierce and heart-wrenching as ever. In it, Glück excavates her relationship with her parents and siblings, offering honest and raw takes on child death, depression, jealousy, and grief. The poems collected here are striking for their intimacy and persistent, unapologetic tone. For those who haven't read Glück before, this is an immersive way to experience the poet.
Huda F Wants to Know?: A Graphic Novel by Huda Fahmy. 5/5
Once again, Huda Fahmy has written a wonderful graphic novel, this time about getting through parents divorcing, trying to have it all in school, friends, and life, and mental health. I love Fahmy's books: the fictional Huda and her sisters and parents and those around them are great characters with real depth. Fahmy presents the slice-of-Musilm-life stories that make Muslims feel less alone in the US, and help teach non-Muslims that Muslims are people too, with the same concerns and interests as anyone else. Long may her books be available everywhere, including school libraries!
The Maid's Secret by Nita Prose. 4/5
Another sweet and fun mystery in the Molly the Maid series, this novel uncovers Molly's Gran's history in depth and puts Molly right in the middle of some layered mysteries involving a Faberge egg, an Antiques Roadshow-style tv show, and its charismatic hosts--who have more secrets, perhaps, than Molly. Some of it is a little improbable for me (I have relatives in the antique auction world) but might not bother other readers.
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones. 5/5
I'm a fan of Jones's work, and this might be my favorite so far (it might be tied with The Only Good Indians and Mongrels). The Buffalo Hunter Hunter's title says a lot, and readers will find themselves in a book inside a book. The first book is the story of Etsy, a young academic trying desperately to get tenure in a terrible academic world; the second is a journal belonging to her ancestor. Within the journal is the tale of a Pikuni--Blackfeet--man, a blood-drinking revenant forced to grapple with the demise of his humanity as he tries to protect his people and their traditional lands and ways from white soldiers intent on killing them and claiming their land and buffalo. It's heartbreaking and ghoulish and terrifying and also full of moments of beauty. You may be tempted to race through it, but my advice is to savor it, every horrifying moment, every dreamlike moment, every word and idea.
Be well, friends, and fight the fight you can.