In journalism, the days around and between Christmas and New Years are often known as "Dead Week." For an industry that relies on attention, this bubble of time represents a lack thereof: limited readership, quiet newsrooms, and traditional end-of-year layoffs.
Since most of the audience is busy doing other things, a lot of small publications give people the week off. But we didn't want to abandon you, our loyal readers. So instead, the reporters pre-wrote some bloggy-blogs to entertain you over the next week-ish, while they take a well-deserved break to eat, drink, and spend time with/avoid their families.
(I'm delighted to report that they stepped up to the challenge — I especially can't wait for you all to experience the truly deranged behavior at Megan Rose Dickey's annual holiday bake off, which you'll get to read about tomorrow.)
Until then, please enjoy this un-copy-edited list of the best books I read this year. Typos and inaccuracies are mine alone. Feel free to email me at cat@gazetteer.co if you disagree with any of my assertions.
Still Born, Guadalupe Nettel (translated from Spanish by Rosalind Harvey)
One of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read, "Still Born" is at once small — there are only a few characters, and each scene is focused on the small moments that make up a life — and an expansive portrait of motherhood, friendship, and selfhood. A friend described the writing to me as an “antidote to MFA fiction” when recommending it, and it’s absolutely true. Every word is there for a reason. If you’ve ever wrestled with ambivalence around having children, this book is especially for you.
All Fours, Miranda July
For women of a certain age in a hetero relationship, watch out, this book may make you want to kill your partner (no matter how lovely he is!). It’s good as hell, though. As a reader, the emotional transition from “what the hell are you doing?” to “go off, bitch, just burn it all down” reminded me of reading "Days of Abandonment" for the first time: It sucks you in, and then you emerge blinking into the light days later, slightly unhinged and very alive.
James, Percival Everett
It’s on every best-of list this year. It’s also everything you’ve heard it is: A nauseatingly blunt portrayal of American chattel slavery that’s funnier than Mark Twain, and a should-be-mandatory companion to its inspiration, "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." (I read it on the same vacation as I read the previous pick; a moment of gratitude for my husband, who both handled my "All Fours"-related misandrist outbursts with aplomb, and agreed to put aside his detective novel to read "James" with me so I would have someone to talk about it with.)
The Saint of Bright Doors, Vajra Chandrasekera
This book is a lot of things — a retelling of the story of the Buddha’s son, Rahula; a haunting portrait of the cultural forces behind the Tamil genocide in Sri Lanka; a loving examination of how children respond to their parents’ efforts to shape them; and a very weird fantasy novel about a sexually-fluid cult reject/assassin. Come for the searing indictment of mob violence and personality-worship, stay for the blowjob murder.
The Girl with all the Gifts, M.R. Carey
It’s a coming of age zombie horror told from the perspective of the zombie, with a side of very 2020s ‘hm maybe we DESERVE the plague’ vibes. They made it into a movie, but I haven't seen it. The book's a 10/10 for me (as is its sequel, "The Boy on the Bridge").