Making some progress. So far is is good reading…but I’m only on the ship at the very start. I just finished another book, so will get to this one quickly now. 
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I’ve been loving these short stories by Manuel Muñoz, so heartfelt, compassionate.
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I feel personally attacked.
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Indeed. Same with this one.
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I’ve been reading Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey, the first of the Dragonriders of Pern series that I’ve known about forever but never got around to reading. I’m shocked that the first thing the book does is dispel the notion that it’s a fantasy series. Sure, reading through the book there’s no reason to say it’s not fantasy, but the backdrop is clearly sci-fi. And I immediately have such appreciation for the story because it’s something in not sure could be published today, especially by a new-ish author. What’s important here is the world the story builds, and I’m already invested. Fortunately, the lot of books I received my copy (which I only just recently realized was a first edition) in also includes at least the next two novels to keep me going.
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It never occurred to me that Pern could be fantasy. Even thought the mind blended sex bits went straight over my pre-adolescent head.
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These were all assumptions from never having read the books. Riding dragons doesn’t usually make one think of sci-fi.
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Anorher of the mighty white male ones bites the dust.
Bleak, macho stuff, but mostly honest, I thought.
Child of God is a very dark, class-based revenge fantasy that I found hard to turn away from. And Blood Meridian tells as much truth about American history as any other I’ve ever read by a white male novelist.
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I’ve been hearing this is a far better read than Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy.
Part of the block in writing her Appalachian novel, she realises, is that she had “internalised the shame” of her rural upbringing. Now she feels she has not “just the right but the duty” to represent her community. “The news, the movies, TV, it’s all manufactured in cities about city people. We’re nothing. We don’t see ourselves at all. And if we do show up, it’s as a joke, the hillbillies. We are the last demographic that progressive people still mock with impunity.”
In one memorable passage, Demon lists off all the insults thrown at them: “Hillbilly, rednecks, moonshiners, ridge runners, hicks. Deplorables.” The last alludes to a comment by Hillary Clinton, referring to Trump supporters as “a basket of deplorables”. Now Kingsolver often spots bumper stickers proudly declaring “I’m a deplorable” in her neighbourhood. But her agent and editor, both based in New York, questioned whether she should include it. “I decided, yes, I’m leaving it in because I want this to make the reader uncomfortable…”
For her, the role of fiction is to give hope. “The difference between pessimism and optimism is constructing a good ending,” she says.
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Two things to say to that:
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I’ve lived decades in Chicago and also some years in NYC, and have never heard anyone say such things about rural people. In fact, I would say the issue is that city people basically don’t think about rural life at all. It’s almost like there’s a concerted effort to make rural people think assumed-Democratic voters look down on them.
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This is a good place to recommend “Somebody Somewhere” as a phenomenal TV series, set in rural Kansas…and yes, as someone living in rural Indiana, it feels ‘right’ to me, which makes sense, as the lead character, for example, is from there.
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The women’s fiction prize is the one literary prize I really pay attention to, not the Booker, not the Dublin international, not the Pulitzer. I immediately bought that for “work” when I read the article. I don’t like Dickens much though.
And I just got Cory Doctorow’s Red Team Blues from the library today. Gonna have to read it before Kingsolver comes in.
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To be fair I think we see a dismissive attitude, broad brush, and contempt often enough here on this bbs.
That said the rural conservatives who complain about that constantly paint New York, for example, as a crime ridden hellhole. Plus the racism etc. Kingsolver is a friend of Hilary Clinton apparently and talked in that article about proud deplorables. Now that wasn’t a term for rural people but her term for the coalition of white supremacists, conspiracy theorists, christofascist hypocrites, and simple grifters that the crazy wing of the Republican Party is. Or at least that’s what it always seemed to me from outside.
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I have that interview up to read, but haven’t gotten to it yet… I’m interested in it now, though.
Reminds me of a line from a a Nanci Griffith song about her great aunt and uncle… “our kids they live in the city / and they rest upon our shoulders / they never want the rain to fall / or the weather to get colder…”
“but not too close to Lubbock, nobody likes to be too close to Lubbock!”
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Yes, exactly. It got twisted to fit the script that Hillary Clinton was prejudiced against people living in rural areas, when that absolutely was not what she was saying at all.
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A couple of weeks ago I finished reading a book I found in a charity shop.
It was that memorable that I’ve passed it on to my best friend and he is loving it.
It’s not a new book, so probably been posted here before, but if you haven’t read it, then I cannot recommend it highly enough:
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Rereading the Charlie Parker book series this summer. The supernatural elements don’t become explicit until the 4-5th book. Not everyone’s cup of tea - but an excellent writer.
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Cute!
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