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Books and Bites
JCPL librarians bring you book recommendations and discuss the bites and beverages to pair with them.
6_23 Books and Bites
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Carrie: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Books and Bites podcast. Each month we bring you book recommendations and discuss the bites and beverages to pair with them. I'm Carrie Green and I'm here with my co-host Michael Cunningham and Jacqueline Cooper.
Michael: Hello.
Jacqueline: Hi.
Carrie: Today we're talking about books by LGBTQ Q I A plus Authors. It's one of the prompts on books and bites
bingo, which we are. It's June, and so we are halfway through Books and Bites bingo. How are you guys doing with your books and bites Bingo?
Michael: Can't believe it's already been the year's almost half over. Well, Surprisingly, I am almost done with my Bingo card. I got four spots left, I think, and I'm not a fast reader, so I'm kind
Jacqueline: of mine's over almost three quarters full this year.
I mean, right now. Yeah.
Carrie: Nice. Yeah, I don't know how far along I am. I, [00:01:00] I forgot to look at that before we came in here. I still, my bingos are still kind of spread out everywhere. So, I mean, not my bingos, I haven't really, I haven't committed to, to, you know, actually getting, the bingos. You know for those of you who are playing along because we're staff, we don't have quite the incentive to complete our bingos that, that the rest of you do.
I'm being strategic and in reading for what we had planned to do for the podcast, rather than focusing on getting bingos. I don't know. You, are you guys.
Jacqueline: Yeah, that's what I'm doing. I'm doing, and then I'm, oh, this was the prompt. So I highlight it. Mm-hmm. And then every once in a while, I mean, I tend to read three books a month, so that helps as well.
Mm-hmm.
Michael: I tried to, I guess, read ahead a little bit. Mm-hmm. So I can go back and do some of the Other ones we're not covering, so. Mm-hmm.[00:02:00] Mm-hmm. I'm gonna finish it. I'm gonna, I'm gonna black it up.
Carrie: Yeah. That's, that's my plan.
Jacqueline: Yeah. Well, it's warming up right now, so the summer read outside one is, I'm ready to do
that.
One, one, this one.
Carrie: That's true. You know, I, I may have done that one and just not marked it off.
Michael: I did, we had a lot of warm months there in the winter, so. Mm-hmm. Already. Covered that one.
Jacqueline: You already Oh, you already did. You're welcome. Really?
Michael: 70 degrees a couple of times in February, so
Carrie: that's true. Yeah. Oh yeah.
And our Books and Bites Facebook group a lot of people in there are doing really well with the, with bingo and some have even finished. Yeah. The bingo card already.
Jacqueline: Mm, I'm looking forward to getting my enamel pin. Yes, that's my incentive. Is that pin? I really want that pin.
Carrie: Yeah. Yeah. We have to, we have to get our bingo cards full so we can, cuz staff can get the, the pins and the stickers.[00:03:00]
So don't forget to show your bingo card so you can get your pins and stickers too.
Michael: My pick this month is Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z Bright, a transgender author who is now known as Billy Martin. Though many of his past titles are still published under his former name, I recently started exploring a subgenre horror called Splatter Punk, which this book is considered a classic example.
Splatter punk really got going in the eighties when horror relied more on suggestion and implication. Horror author and co-founder of the Splatter Punk Awards, Brian Keene defines it best I think. "Splatter punk is quote, transgressive addresses social or political ills not pulling punches and pushes boundaries."
If horror is hard rock, splatter punk is very much death metal showing you all the blood, [00:04:00] gore and viscera and the Exquisite Corpse is no exception. I will give you fair warning, this book is not for everyone with explicit scenes of sex and violence. If you have a trigger, it's probably in here.
So this book opens with Andrew Compton sitting in a small cell on death row in England. He's in prison for killing 28 young men that he lured to his apartment. While in death row, he discovers that he possesses an uncanny ability that allows him to fake his own death in Escape prison. On the run, he kills a guy steals his identity and crosses the Atlantic finding his way to New Orleans.
In New Orleans, we are introduced to Tran, a young gay Vietnamese American who deals drugs in the French Quarter and his former boyfriend, Lucas Ransom, who after he learns he's HIV positive, creates an alternate persona, Lush Rimbaud on a pirate radio station that allows him to vent his frustrations and rage towards the AIDS epidemic [00:05:00] in the response to it.
Then finally, we are introduced to Jay Byrne, the reclusive son of a wealthy chemical Barron, who resides in the quarter. He has proclivities towards killing young men like Andrew Compton, but he also enjoys consuming their flesh. Jay Byrne purchased drugs from Tran in Jackson Square and becomes inextricably enamored with him.
Once Trane has more or less been forced to leave his parents' house when nowhere to go, he goes straight to Jay's house. Jay, while strongly infatuated with him, can't imagine a scenario that doesn't end in death for Tran, so he tries to distance himself from him. That is until Jay serendipitously meets Andrew, and both immediately fall for each other and learn each other's secrets.
A chance meeting at a bar one night leads Jay to introduce Andrew to Tran, who also becomes enamored with him while Andrew and Jay conspire each other about what to do with Tran, Lucas realizes he's still very much in love with him. After witnessing aids, takes several people close to him, he [00:06:00] resolves the track train down to confess his love.
That puts him on a collision course with Andrew and Jay. And as you might expect, as with many of my choices, the ending is not a happy one. While this book is told from multiple characters points of view, this is really Andrew's story with his chapters the only ones written, first person, and if you're a fan of true crime, you might be wondering for, Andrew and Jay are based actual serial killers, and it seems they are: the British serial killer, Dennis Nielsen and the infamous Jeffrey Dahmer.
And this book can be quite intense and I had to set it aside a few times, but Martin's prose kept me picking it up. It was lyrical and elegant, really drawing me in. I could read his writing all day. And another aspect of splatter punk I haven't mentioned yet is that they tend to focus on marginalized communities.
And this book accomplishes that with an unflinching look at the AIDS epidemic of the eighties and nineties and how it ravaged the gay community and was a specter of that stalked them everywhere they went. So this [00:07:00] is the second book I've read this year, taking place in New Orleans, and this time I paired it
with a take on a quintessential New Orleans dish duck and andouille gumbo. A recipe I found in Justin DeVillier's the New Orleans kitchen that sounded absolutely delicious to me. It calls for items such as duck legs andouille sausage, poblano peppers, onion okra, and mustard greens. I haven't made it yet. But would love to attempt it soon.
And considering the content in the book, I would probably eat this dish either a while before or after reading it.
Jacqueline: Yeah, I don't think I could eat anything after reading that book. Dahmer is pretty pretty creepy there. Yeah. What's the difference between just creepy and horror?
Michael: See creepy might be, you know, Something spooky or something moving by itself?
Well, there's horror and there's, I guess there's sub-genres of horror and there's, it's more [00:08:00] like a spectrum. So you got like the quiet, creepy stuff. There were like spooky ghost stories visiting graveyard night and you hear footsteps or something like that. That can be kind of creepy and spooky. Mm-hmm.
And then you got extreme horror and splatter punk on this far end, which is kind of on the rise. Mm-hmm. Right now, kind of getting popularity and that is, it shows you everything and it deals with a lot of taboo subjects that you just don't see in mainstream horror. Rape, incest and a lot of it's, I mean, traumatic stuff.
Jacqueline: I used to like to read some horror, but what I, I like the more like RL Stein, that's type of horror, which you might not even think that's horror. I don't know. Well, well,
Michael: I mean, you know, middle grade and you know, in kids. Children. I mean, yeah. That's horror. Yeah. Think
Jacqueline: that's definitely, that's
Carrie: what you, where you started.
That's I started,
Jacqueline: that's what started. Ok. Yeah. Yeah. I used, I [00:09:00] liked horror until I saw the movie Jeepers creepers and then they just, I felt like they just went too far and it really creeped me out for the longest time, and
Michael: I stay away from this book, do not read it.
Jacqueline: Oh, okay.
Michael: You can't do jeeper creepers.
Jacqueline: No, no. They went too far. Yeah. Well, good to know. Thank you, Michael.
Michael: And some people might think, you know, why just do gore for gore's sake? And, and I guess where on the surface it can appear that way. But if you actually read it and look, you know, look at the context of it, it's not, I mean, they're dealing with looks, really looks at the gay community, like in this book in the nineties and you just see mm-hmm.
They went through and how everybody kind of just. People, they're just dying and no one's doing anything about it.
Jacqueline: That's interesting. Cuz I chose the eighties, so my book set in the eighties, so that's, that's pretty cool that yours is in the, in the nineties. Carrie, when, when is your book set?
Carrie: I. It was [00:10:00] set in contemporary times, but it kind of goes back in time, in, in some, some areas.
Jacqueline: So we're kind of covering everything.
Carrie: Yeah, covering everything. Good. I think also, I mean, that time, the eighties and nineties, for, especially for gay men, you know, it was a hor a horror. Yeah. So it's kind of like a way of dealing with that traumatic experience.
Michael: Exactly. Exactly. Yes. Wow. And you do have these two serial killers in here, but like mm-hmm.
AIDS was so much worse. Mm-hmm. I mean, it was pretty much a ghost haunting the entire community. Like everybody's taking precautions down with nose. You're gonna take a test one week and then the next week you're positive. So, I mean, it's. Hmm. Yeah. And
Jacqueline: it was pretty much a death sentence. Yeah. For a long time.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Which they, A lot of people die in horror.
Michael: I know. I [00:11:00] know.
Jacqueline: There was one I watched used to be that like at least two people survive, but I saw something. Now, everyone nowadays like. They might kill everybody. Like there's
no
one left.
Michael: Oh yeah. That's what I call the Game of Thrones effect.
Jacqueline: Oh, okay.
Michael: Everybody's dead. Everybody's gonna get it.
Jacqueline: Oh, okay.
Michael: My favorite character, he's done, he's,
Carrie: I wonder if that's you know, life kind of feels like we're spiraling towards the apocalypse sometimes, and maybe that's, A way of getting used to that or I don't know. Yeah,
Michael: yeah. That's true. Mm-hmm. I mean, that might be a reason why horror is, you know, kind of in an it's golden age again.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right now why it's so popular.
Jacqueline: Yeah.
Carrie: Because real life is a horror too.
Jacqueline: We're so uplifting
Michael: At least I'm not as bad as this guy.[00:12:00]
Carrie: So my book is Girl, Woman Other by Bernadine Evaristo, Anglo Nigerian writer, Bernadine Evaristo, won the 2019 Booker Prize for Girl, Woman, Other, and it's been on my to be red list ever since. You may remember that I listened to her book, Mr. Loverman for a previous episode and loved it. As the title suggests, each chapter of Girl, Woman, Other is told from the third person point of view of 11 different women and girls and one non-binary person ranging in age from their teens to their nineties.
They represent different races, classes, and sexualities as well. Some of them are immigrants or children of immigrants, but most of them currently live in England. The chapters are [00:13:00] almost like novellas, giving a full picture of each character's life. You could easily read the chapters individually.
However, the book's power really grows as you see the characters' lives intersect. The first character we meet Amma is a middle-aged Black lesbian playwright whose play is about to premiere at the National theater in London. Amma has had to fight for her success starting a theater company with her best friend Dominique, when most theaters kept their doors shut to women of color like them.
The next chapter is told from the point of view of Amma's daughter Yaz, a student at Oxford University, who is very unimpressed by her artist mother, or her famous cultural critic father. The book then moves to Amma's friend and former business partner Dominique, who ends up in an abusive relationship with another woman in the United States.
And I should note here [00:14:00] that Girl, Woman, Other, while I'm sure it's not as graphic as Michael's book, does contain scenes of abuse and sexual violence against women, which could be disturbing. From there, the book Spirals outwards to Shirley, an old friend of Amma's who teaches at an underfunded school. Her former student, Carol, who becomes a successful banker, Carol's mother Bummi, who is originally from Nigeria and so on.
The characters all come back together in the final chapter, which takes place at the opening night after party of Amma's play. The epilogue provides a deeply satisfying and moving ending to this novel's complex structure and drives home the themes of interrelatedness Girl, Woman, Other is written almost like a novel in verse with limited punctuation.
Instead paragraph breaks, separate sentences. I did not have trouble following along, but if that's a concern, you [00:15:00] might try the audiobook version, which I partially listened to. The narrator doesn't change her voice much between characters, but she still gives a powerful performance. And since we talked about the importance of music in Michael's pick last time, let me say that this is a novel I wish included a playlist.
The music mentioned including artists such as Fela Kuti and Parliament Funkadelic are as diverse as the characters. The food mentioned is incredibly diverse too, and includes lots of Caribbean and West African dishes. But the description of Shirley's husband cooking a Thai chicken, coconut curry, had my mouth watering.
I found a similar recipe on Bon Appetit that sounds delicious. Lemongrass and coconut curry with summer vegetables. According to the recipe, it can easily be made vegetarian. Plus it looks like a great way to use up all that summer squash we're about to [00:16:00] get. We'll link to the recipe on our blog. That
Jacqueline: sounds really interesting.
I think I'd like to read that book.
Carrie: Yeah, it was really good. You know, it was kind of like the more you read, the more you appreciated it because all of the characters sort of came together and you could see how they were all, it was kind of like, what was it? What is it? Six degrees of Separation or, oh yeah.
Was it Kevin Bacon?
Michael: Kevin Bacon, Kevin Bacon Six degrees of kevin Bacon,
Carrie: yeah. It was kind of like that, but you know,
Jacqueline: interesting
Carrie: literary fiction version of it.
Jacqueline: Yeah. I think it's interesting how the different forms of writing is so acceptable nowadays too. You were saying there's very little punctuation, and I think that's very interesting cuz it used, I guess the English language is always evolving, so.
Yeah. Yeah,
Carrie: yeah. And you know, it's, it also kind of fit. I've been reading a lot of, of British stuff lately to get ready for my trip and [00:17:00] it was a nice way of kind of getting an overview of the diversity of the UK because there is still a lot of diversity there, even though we don't always think of that, you know, we think of like mm-hmm.
The, the manor or
Jacqueline: the Tudors.
Carrie: Yeah. But but there was a lot of diversity, so that was, that was nice too.
Jacqueline: And the food sounds good too.
Michael: Yeah. That Thai curry dish sounds amazing.
Carrie: Yeah. Yeah. All of the food that they talked about sounded great. And of course, yeah. I mean it's interesting you're talking about New Orleans and New Orleans has a lot of
caribbean influences and we and West African influences too. So those kind of go together. Yeah. And of course, Parliament Funkadelic.
Michael: I love the inclusion of music in, in books. I think just add to that little extra mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. [00:18:00]
Jacqueline: Something to it. Yeah. Yeah. I was one of my favorite books, Rebecca, when I was looking to listen to it.
Cause I've never listened to it. And they actually had like a play, a musical. Oh yeah. Playlist for it. And I was like, oh, I need to listen to that. Okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So cool. Music and books.
The book I chose to review is Aristotle and Dante discovered the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Aliri Saenz for this month's prompt. LGBTQ Q i a plus Author Saenz is a recipient of one of the country's top writing prizes, the Pen Faulkner Award for fiction, making him the first Latino, the first Texan, the first South Westerner, and only the second gay writer to claim the coveted prize.
His young [00:19:00] adult novel, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe is a coming of age, LGBTQIA+ story set in the summer of 1987 in El Paso, Texas. Although the author doesn't address the AIDS epidemic in this work, I believe the author intentionally chose to set the story in the eighties, since the eighties was a very volatile time for the L G B T Q I A community due to anti-gay sentiment.
In 1987, there were some significant efforts dispel false rumors about the disease, such as the creation of the National AIDS Awareness month which began with the CDC launching a massive public education campaign that warned everyone is at risk. I believe they hoped to not only correct the misconceptions of the disease and how it was spread, but also to ensure the rights of people with the disease be treated with dignity.
Also later that year, the Names Project displays its AIDS Memorial Quilt on the National Mall in Washington DC. [00:20:00] The author may have chosen this year. For his setting because of these event as well as other efforts that took place in 1987. The novel Aristotle and Dante Discovered the Secret of the Universe tells a story of a friendship between two boys on the cusp of manhood.
The author uses the boys' friendship to explore issues of family, ethnicity, and sexuality. He also introduces some tough topics such as hatred and crimes against the community, the L G B T Q I A community. The story is told in first person narrative by Ari, a 15 year old Mexican American. Ari has very few friends and he's a bit of a loner.
Ari has difficulty expressing himself with words, even with his family. He's bored and miserable. Everything was a mystery to him, girls, his father, and most of all his brother, Bernardo, who's in prison. Then he meets Dante. Like Ari, Dante is a bit of a loner, but in other [00:21:00] ways, he's also his opposite. Dante's carefree, self-assured and optimistic.
Their families are also very different. Dante's family is open, honest, and affectionate with him and others while Ari's family is uncommunicative and ignores past traumas, such as dad's experiences in the Vietnam War, and the reason that Ari's older brother is in prison. When the two boys meet, they become friends immediately.
The story of their friendship progresses over the next two years, the boys bond over books, art, dreams, and laughter. When Dante is almost run over trying to save a small bird, Ari jumps in front of the moving car to save Dante's life and almost loses his legs. However, Ari won't or can't explain the accident or why he risked his life to save Dante.
I think this passage does a beautiful job of explaining the book's message and the importance of loving someone for themselves. " I wanted to tell them that I'd never had a friend, not ever, not a real one until Dante. I [00:22:00] wanted to tell them. I, I never knew people like Dante existed in the world.
People who looked at the stars, knew the mysteries of water and knew enough to know that birds belong to the heavens and weren't meant to be shot down from their graceful flights by mean stupid boys. I wanted to tell them that he had changed my life and that I would never be the same, not ever, and that somehow it felt like it was Dante who saved my life, not the other way around.
I wanted to tell them that he was the first human being aside from my mother who ever made me want to talk about things that scared me. I wanted to tell them so many things, and yet I didn't have the words, so I just stupidly repeated. Dante's my friend. " This paragraph also emphasizes how Ari struggles with his family's dynamic.
It demonstrates that Ari realizes that he resents his parents because he believes that it his fault that he deals with trauma the same way they do. Ari is angry because he's unable to articulate his feelings even to himself. [00:23:00] When Dante is beaten for kissing, another boy Ari loses in control. Instead of dealing with his feelings, he lashes out and decides to get revenge.
Will Ari end up in prison like his brother, or will he learn to face his feelings? The writing in this book is quite lyrical. Dante's character is so realistic. For me when an author can make a character come to life, it's a sign of excellent writing. I couldn't put the book down. The author addresses some tough topics, which could be triggering since it addresses bullying and hate crimes.
I think the novel does a good job of addressing what some members of the LGBTQIA+ community face in the eighties and still face today. Although the author does touch upon the importance of love and acceptance of others, I highly recommended this for fans of realistic or historical fiction.
Having just enjoyed some of Terry Black's barbecue brisket when I was in Texas just earlier this month, I decided to pair this with [00:24:00] a brisket recipe from Edible Mosaic, and I haven't attempted to make it, but I think it would make a good choice for a summer picnic under the stars.
Michael: I love brisket.
Jacqueline: I love Michael's, actually, and I have been to a, a.
City barbecue. Oh yeah. With brisket. But this place is
Michael: Texas brisket is hard to beat.
Jacqueline: It's a little bit, it's even Oh,
Michael: I bet. I believe,
Jacqueline: oh, it's good. Yeah.
Carrie: You know, I'm not a huge fan of brisket, like that's not my favorite type of barbecue. I would rather go for like, um, South Carolina pulled pork, I have to say.
Jacqueline: Well, have you ever had the City Barbecue brisket here in in, in Lexington?
Michael: It's pretty good.
Carrie: Mm. I don't think so.
Jacqueline: It's not bad.
Michael: It's pretty solid. It's it's city barbecue. Mm-hmm. Is great for a chain barbecue. Mm-hmm. Like it's the best at the rest of them. Mm-hmm. [00:25:00] Hm. But my favorite part of the brisket is the burnt ends. I don't know if you've ever had burnt ends.
Jacqueline: Oh yeah. Those are
Carrie: burnt stuff is always better.
Yeah. My favorite french fries are always the burnt ones.
Jacqueline: The part we shouldn't probably eat.
Carrie: Gotta take a few risks here and there. But that book, we went straight for the food, but that book
Michael: I know.
Jacqueline: Okay.
Carrie: Book sounds really good too. I, I like that part that you read. It sounds, it sounds really like tender and you know, like it, I think. Mm-hmm. A lot of teenagers and even adults, you know, struggle to communicate what they're feeling.
And it sounds like it really conveyed that well.
Jacqueline: .Especially at that time, you know? Mm-hmm. In life with the, when you're just trying to figure out who you are and, mm-hmm. So I thought I really enjoyed it. His [00:26:00] writing. I, I wanna read his, he, the book, he won an award for everything begins and ends at the Kentucky Club, so I think that might be on my list.
Carrie: Mm-hmm. And is that YA too or does he write other
Jacqueline: I don't think it is. It's Yeah. I don't believe it's ya. I think it's a, it's like a short story collection. Hmm. Which you like short stories, don't You too?
Carrie: Yeah, I do. I don't listen to them very much. I mean, I don't read them very much. But I do, I used to read a lot of them.
Mm-hmm. I need to read a short story so I can cross off a bingo. So, oh, well there you go. Maybe I'll read one of his
Jacqueline: and,
Michael: and and that's a recommendation from library staff.
Carrie: That's true.
Jacqueline: Oh, there you go. Great. We're gonna get those bingo cards filled up real quick. Now everyone should work on their bingo cards.
Carrie: Thanks for listening to the Books and Bites podcast. To learn more about Books and Bites, [00:27:00] Bingo, visit us at jesspublib.org/books-bites.. Our theme music is The Breakers from the album in Close Quarters with the Enemy by Scott Whiddon. You can learn more about Scott and his music at his website, adoorforadesk.com.