What I'm Reading Wednesdays: High Brow, Low Spirits
Three things I'm reading and a personal story.
What I am reading for this week starts with a book, not an article. The book, “When We Were Sisters” just won the inaugural Shields Prize for Fiction, netting its author, Fatimah Asghar, a neat $150,000 and a virtual guarantee of a rise in sales.
I was introduced to the Shields Prize and the five finalists by Margaret Atwood, in her Substack, “In the Writing Burrow.” Atwood notes her skepticism that the prize - named after Pulitzer Prize-winning author Carol Shields - would ever get off the ground.
And it is truly a tribute to the perseverance of Atwood, author Ann Patchett and countless other female literati that this award is being inaugurated in a country at war with itself about the rights of women, and the role of artistic expression.
So… I bought the book. I love “literature.” I can’t read what my best friend calls “mind candy.” I’ve always gravitated to the serious stuff. Like the books of Shields and Atwood and Patchett.
“When We Were Sisters” is wonderful. And horrible. And I am forcing myself to finish reading it.
I don’t think it’s the book’s fault. Though I’m not certain. “The Handmaid’s Tale” was written in the 1980s, as the looming fascism we are seeing now was just a hint of a glow on the American horizon. We were happy. Unless you were gay or had AIDS or were Black. Then you were vilified by the President of the United States. But I digress.
It’s one thing to imagine a dystopian future, or pull the threads of a desolate past as an oblique comment on the present, as Atwood did in “Alias Grace.” It is another thing entirely to write about the dystopian present. Especially when we are reading about the dystopian present in our daily news.
“When We Were Sisters” follows three daughters of Indian immigrants whose parents die within the first five years of the youngest daughter’s life. It is told in stream-of-consciousness fashion by the youngest child. It breaks narrative molds. It is poetic and beautiful and heartbreaking.
And bleak.
So, so bleak.
So bleak that it is taking me forever to get through the book. I can only read it in fits and starts, when the bleakness that is surrounding me is not so overwhelming.
Instead, this past weekend, I watched “Queen Charlotte” - the Bridgerton spinoff that is so “mind candy” I think I might have bored a cavity in my brain. A happy cavity. Where I can hide in the unreality of what a beautiful, benevolent kingdom may look like.
Because these days, there’s only so much reality I can take. Even when it’s wrapped in beautiful words.
The Elysian
Quite literally, in the moments I finished writing the above on Monday, I moseyed over to Notes to find a restack of this note by Elle Griffin, who feels my pain and has created a Substack to address it.
Which was really intriguing. She feels all of our pain. She realizes many of her readers are writers on Substack and we all want to know how to get more (paid) subscribers on Substack, and, as writers, we generally suck at the marketing part.
Griffin does not suck at the marketing part. Her marketing is inspirational. The note she wrote is inspirational. And she uses her storytelling skills - always upping the ante and heightening the sense of excitement - to inspire us.
She wants her Substack, The Elysian, to be a literary salon, like a virtual Bloomsbury without the sex (maybe?), and she is offering up her Substack to serve that purpose. A place where writers can go to inspire each other.
So I subscribed. Before I even read more of her work. And reading her yesterday did not make me sad I subscribed.
I love the idea. I love her enthusiasm. I love that she is taking an art form that requires isolation (unless you’re a Hollywood screenwriter or a journalist contributing to a 4-byline fast-breaking news story) and is creating community.
Brilliant.
This is the paragraph that got me to subscribe:
“Now, our writers are no longer thinkers, they’re journalists. I have worked as a journalist and let me tell you the format does not allow for original thought.”
I think the difference between our thinking on this is that I have spent my life as a journalist (like Griffin, I started my own publication, which lasted for 20 years), and I want to change journalism. I am beating my head against the wall trying to change journalism. Maybe I should just give up and share thoughts? And get back to listening.
But… there’s so much bad journalism
OK, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out some major failings my brethren in the journalism world demonstrated this past week.
Let’s start with the catastrophe which was hordes of migrants flowing in from south of the border following the end of Title 42.
Wait… what? There was no catastrophe? There were no hordes of migrants? Migrant crossings have actually gone down?
But what of all the headlines on Wednesday and Thursday detailing a right-wing dystopian nightmare - or political dream, depending on how you look at it? Those headlines were… wrong?
Did anybody who wrote those headlines SAY they were wrong? I don’t remember seeing any “we regret the error” notes from CNN or the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Post or the AP, or even MSNBC.
They just changed their narrative without noting how ridiculously over-boiled their first one was. But not without caveats like “it was too soon to tell if the change marked a major shift or a brief lull.”
Just in case you thought they were wrong. They’re not wrong, apparently. They just got their timing messed up.
These, of course, are the same outlets who, in 2019, breathlessly reported Bill Barr’s purposefully incorrect summary of the Mueller Report before actually reading the report, and didn’t issue corrections then either.
And this week, we got headlines like, “Durham report sharply criticizes FBI’s probe of 2016 Trump campaign” and “In Final Report, John Durham Finds Fault With F.B.I. Over Russia Inquiry.”
We did not get headlines like, “John Durham, Trump’s last best hope, came up with nothing in his investigation” or “Durham’s Final Report Says Nothing New.”
Because people won’t read stories whose headlines tell them nothing of consequence actually happened. Which means the editors of these news outlets either had to make the story bigger than it was or not cover it. Why they all chose to cover it is beyond me. Some stories are just not news. This one should never have made anyone’s story budget.
Personal Story
I am, as of yesterday, the proud owner of a new, temporary, front tooth. Back in August (August!) I wrote about My Week of Abject Terror, in which the best thing that happened to me was losing my tooth.
Well, today - finally - I got a temporary tooth put in, so I don’t look like Alfred E. Newman anymore.
I have learned a lot on this journey. First, I learned to go to the fucking dentist when you know something is wrong! Second, I learned how dentistry has progressed in the last few decades. And I learned that my dentist, maybe five years out of dental school, is an incredibly skilled practitioner.
I have an immense affinity for skill. Also, this man is kind and gentle, and he made me laugh even in the most painful situations. (Me: I felt that prick. Him: What did you call me!)
I can’t say that I’m glad I lost my tooth. But like every experience I have, I found the good in it. And it has, in a way, restored my faith in humanity.
We are not quite done - a permanent tooth is coming, and I still have to pay for it - but I have a smile again. Which makes me smile.
The best thing I got was looking up at this sight for hours on end over the last eight months. He was kind enough to pose for me yesterday, after my tooth was in.
Wow, thank you for the very encouraging writeup about my work. I can't tell you how much that means to me! Also, Queen Charlotte is just the best kind of mind candy ever and I'm so here for it. 🤩