“Then she spotted his missing toe…ripped off her own left shoe…When Jack saw her extra pink toe, he swore he felt his missing one come back into its place.” – Caitlin Chung, ‘Ship Of Fates’
New website day! I am not sure this email sent. Still figuring things out over here. Normally, I’d put a subscribe widget right here. You know, part of why I put off this switch is because we wanted to hit the ground running, have the website look perfect right away. Maybe that’s just unrealistic for Brendan and me, two midrange Millennials who don’t know how to code or website. WHO CARES THO THERE ARE BOOKS TO BE READ. Got a good one this week, too.
What I’ve Been Reading This Week:
A book whose cover grabbed me at AWP—I’d gone to the Lanternfish Press table looking for Never Whistle At Night co-editor Theodore C. Van Alst’s book (found it, super stoked), and couldn’t leave without this book. A book that takes place largely in a bar on a run-aground ship on the Bay Area’s Barbary Coast in the late 19th century—come on, like that’s not right up yr man the Shipwrecked Sailor’s alley. I’m not to proud to admit that a cover like this, the word ‘ship’ in the title, and a back-of-the-book summary that mentions both an ancient lighthouse keeper and a coming-of-age fairy tale is more than enough to sell me a book. I’m talking, of course, about Ship Of Fates by Caitlin Chung.
I hope it doesn’t sound like a backhanded compliment, but this is the exact right amount of pulp for a novel(la). The main story is packed with sleaze and desperation, with a late 19th-century Bay Area setting. Everyone’s either a former gold rusher or a Chinese immigrant. People’s lives are wagered at a poker table where the starting bet is always a single .45 mm bullet. That table, again, is in a bar on a run-aground boat. A couple with 20 toes between them even though neither of them has 10 toes has sex in the crow’s nest. That said, this is not a pulp novel. There’s just a pulp story nestled in between this Interview With A Vampire-style frame narrative of a young woman interviewing an ancient lighthouse keeper. The lighthouse keeper tells her the story of the Chinese woman who refused a marriage, stole her suitor’s gold, and fled to California. This is how California got its gold—and it put a curse on the woman. What unfolds from there is a story about lineage and generational inheritance and yes, gambling. This book rocks, it was a perfect novel to get a quick and dirty STORY after all that poetry I’ve been reading for the last five or six weeks.
LINKS!
Something to listen to while you browse? Have you listened to Burgers Or Tacos? yet?
- As someone who will defend today’s NBA as aesthetically and strategically interesting, but will absolutely cop to some “I’m not always super sure what is happening” feelings, I really enjoyed Patrick Redford’s “How To Watch Basketball” at Defector. I have a theory that the 2010s rise in smart basketball writing—Zach Lowe, the FreeDarko dudes, TrueHoop—has made people meaner on the internet because everyone’s afraid that they don’t watch basketball smart enough. Then again, we’ve also seen really smart media people arise out this movement, like Mo Dakhil and Nekias Duncan and the Thinking Basketball dude. Maybe some sports fans are just always gonna be dicks. Stoked to sign my kid up for soccer this fall.
- “My Other Girlfriend Is A Corvette” by Amorak Huey in trampset
- “Successful Auditions for the Roles of Colleen’s Dearly Departed” by Timothy Boudreau in Bluestem
- “Woman Peeing in a Barn” by Han Vanderhart in Gulf Stream
- Really loved this look from Trinity Alicia in The Triibe at Chicago’s tradition of JB Skating, aka “James Brown Skating,” aka the Chicago way to get down at the roller rink. Listen, I loved Skate Night in elementary school. Mal loves skating, too, and she’s got a cousin in Baltimore who skates. But we’ve never gone to a roller rink in Chicago. That’s gotta change soon. The child can almost skate.
What’re you still doing here? Don’t you know that Micah and Brendan have a show? Don’t you know that I’m not sure if this video’s gonna properly embed?
If you work in the service industry, may you clean up in tips this weekend. Hey, indulge your vices—smoke some weed, have a shift drink, enjoy some consensual sex—but maaaaaan, watch out for gambling. I’ve never been much of a gambler because I’ve never felt like I could afford it. Ship Of Fates, uh, did not make me want to gamble. Stay safe out there homies.
Sorry (if) you (actually) got an email,
Chris