Joy pouring in

Spring on the farm, the reading rut has lifted, some of my favorite recent reads, and books I ordered

Hello friends,
It’s been awhile since I’ve written to you. How are you doing? How is your heart?

The weather in Pennsylvania has been strange. Lows in the 40s. Highs in the 50s. Rain more days than not. On Thursday, it will be near 80. I feel thankful that I got just shy of 170 dahlia tubers in the ground several weeks ago.

Because it felt like fall recently, I smoked a whole chicken and then pulled it apart to make a soup with wilting celery from the drawer and kohlrabi in place of potatoes or carrots. I tossed in half a glass jar of wild rice I found in the back of the pantry. I added a glug of heavy cream. In a moment of nostalgia, I cut up hard boiled eggs for us to add into the soup, along with parsley, a nod to an Amish-made potato soup with hard boiled egg that my sister and I devoured as children and still talk about quite often. It tasted so similar, I felt transported back to being a kid. Then it warmed up and we grilled whole fish stuffed with herbs and lemons and sprinkled with a spice mix I pulled from the Lil’ Deb’s Oasis cookbook. This past weekend, I went strawberry picking and washed and cut berries to put up in the freezer for next winter. I walked down to the meadow that leads to our creek and picked mint for a big batch of meadow tea which we’ve been sipping on cold from the fridge. No ice. Never.

I’ve gotten back into the groove of devouring books after a long winter of rotting in front of screens. My hope for this year was/is to open myself up to the possibility for more joy, which was not specific to reading, but that’s one area where I am able to easily access joy. This intention was brought about by my tendency towards anger, and I was reminded of an Anne Carson quote an online friend sent to me on a hard day— “Anger is a bitter lock, but we can turn it.” (Thank you, Lindsey.)

Turning it, I am. Joy is pouring in.

Here were some of my favorite reads of the last two months:

My Lesbian Novel by Renee Gladman. This is one I have been wanting to read for awhile. I am a big fan of books published by Dorothy. If you haven’t heard of My Lesbian Novel, here’s the synopsis: The narrator of My Lesbian Novel is Renee Gladman, an artist and writer who has produced the same acclaimed body of experimental art and prose as real-life Renee Gladman, and who is now being interviewed by an nameless interlocutor about a project in process, a seeming departure from her other works, a lesbian romance.

It is form-bending, experimental, artful and vulnerable. I loved the feeling that Gladman was writing the story seemingly while I was reading it.

I could not put down Loved and Missed by the British writer Susie Boyt. I read it in one sitting out on the back patio and then went for a long walk in silence down the road, past the cattle farm, over the creek (twice— four times it you count the walk home), and back thinking about how much I felt for these characters. The story is about a mother who takes custody of her granddaughter from her daughter who is battling drug addiction. It is every bit as sad as it sounds but it is not just tragedy for the sake of tragedy. Boyt’s writing is witty and smart, and feels very British. There are moments I was reminded of Ali Smith, more in the relationship dynamic of the grandmother and granddaughter. It did not have Smith’s pacing or tangled web of connections. But it did have Smith’s big heart for people.

I read a well worn copy of Iris Murdoch’s Henry and Cato, the spine of which kept cracking and individual pages kept falling out, which in the past would have caused me to throw the book in the fire. But patience is a virtue that I’m slowly learning. My husband suggested I learn how to repair the book’s binding. That’s a nice thought, and perhaps one day I will (or more likely, he will, that patient, patient man). For now I can say that this one of Murdoch’s work felt like a muddled cocktail of Salley Rooney’s Intermezzo mixed with Middlemarch and some Midsomer Murders thrown in there as well. I liked it. It took me awhile to get into it, as is sometimes the case with Murdoch, for me. But by the second half, I was invested in the lapsed preist Cato’s relationship with Beautiful Joe and Henry’s blooming relationship to his late brother’s secret mistress (and Henry’s fraught relationship with his mother and she with her companion). And then there’s Cato’s sister. A tangled Murdoch web indeed.

I’m not sure who told me about Open, Heaven by Seán Hewitt by whoever did, thank you. I always seek out novels written by poets (i.e. Ocean Vuong, more on that below). The story takes place over the course of one year, chronicling the relationship between two teenage boys in the England countryside, as told by James who has returned to the same village in adulthood. It was full of misunderstandings, miscommunications, and things not said, all of which feel very significant when you are a teenager. While this book was tragic, it was not in the way I expected it to be. Coming out of the cold months of this long lingering early spring, I felt extremely held by Hewitt’s description of the cold and of the rural farmlands of England. And, Hewitt’s prose was beautiful.

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff is a book that I’ve picked up and put down no less than three times, and finally, it stuck. The story is of a marriage, in two parts. The first part, Fates, focuses on the perspective of a husband, Lotto, a playwright, who paints a picture of a marriage filled with kindness, support, mutual attraction, and success. The second half, Furies, shifts into a wife’s perspective, as Mathilde shares several truths previously withheld that entirely change the story as we believed it before. I will admit, that I have long been turned off by Groff’s explanation of her writing process to the point where it has made it hard for me to want to read her work. I put these feelings aside for this book which really was masterfully written, although some of the prose felt heavy handed.

Ocean Vuong’s much hyped new novel The Emperor of Gladness was everything I hoped it would be. Honestly, more. Better. If you’ve somehow dodged all the press about this book, the short synopsis is that it’s about a young man named Hai who becomes a caregiver for a stranger, an old woman in the throes of dementia, named Grazina. Hai grapples with the decisions he’s made and the decisions his family members have made, while working at a fast-casual chicken shop to support he and Grazina. It’s a story of chosen family, of weird small town living, of caregiving and accepting care. I was excited about this book having worked in small town foodservice as a teenager and understanding the tight and sort-of fucked up bond you form with your coworkers. That was only one small fraction of the beauty in this novel. It felt like Vuong stepping deeper into his craft as a novelist, not just a poet.

I, perhaps like many of you, listened to Ocean Vuong’s interview with David Marchese leading up to the publication of this book. It is emotional, so much so that it stopped me in my tracks while I was weeding the greenhouse. It had me sitting up on my heels and without realizing, holding my breath. However, the part that I keep coming back to now is the moment Vuong quoted Trinity Minha, in speaking about his (Vuong’s) writing process, saying “I do not write about, I write beside.” (I looked up the exact quote Vuong was referencing, and it is “I do not intend to speak about; just speak nearby’ in reference to Minha’s position against the colonizing gaze.)

It has me wondering, what would it look like to be besides your writing? I’m asking me. I’m asking you. I don’t have an answer, but it is something I’m meditating on as I go about my days.

And on the topic of writing, while I have no new classes on the horizon, a favorite writer of mine, Scott Broker, is teaching an amazing, three-week long Pride writing extravaganza starting June 12. More information can be found on his site. Scott also has a Substack. I’ve taken Scott’s classes before and hope to again in the future once my schedule allows. He is a thoughtful and thought provoking teacher and his reading lists are out of this world. If it fits into your schedule and budget, you should consider taking his class.

There is a lot to look forward to on the farm and in life these days. Our Saturday farmer’s markets have begun. The flowers are starting to come in. Last week I took arrangements with peonies and roses to market and they brought others joys too.

I placed a book order I am extremely excited about. It included two books I heard about from Ben’s Youtube channel— Breaking and Entering by Joy Williams and In the Eye of the Wild by Nastassja Martin. I also finally got my hands on a used copy of C. D. Wright’s poetry collection The Poet, the Lion, Talking Pictures, El Farolito, a Wedding in St. Roch, the Big Box Store, the Warp in the Mirror, Spring, Midnights, Fire & All. And since Thrift Books told me I could get a free book under $6, I added Iris Murdoch’s A Fairly Honourable Defeat to the cart. Hopefully the order arrives before we head to the sea later this month.

I hope that we talk before then but life is busy and the motivation to write this newsletter must come from organic sources. It cannot be planned. Regardless, until next time, whenever that may be– be well, treat others well, and send me an email with what books you are loving. Or send it in a letter— PO Box 19, Nazareth, PA 18064. I will do my best to write back.

CM