“With everything that happened, she now fully believed Charlie’s story. She shivered, as the reality of everything agitated her that much more deeply.” – Lauren Bolger, ‘The Barre Incidents’
What up 2026! Hope you all had a restful end to the year. If you celebrate holidays, I hope you spent them with people you like. Hey. Should we read some books this year? Let’s read some books this year.
What I’ve Been Reading This Week:
Two books that, in different ways, inspire me to write. One makes me go, “okay, I don’t quite write like that, but I want to write this stuff.” Another makes go, “okay, I don’t quite want to write this stuff, but I want to write like that.” Style and content, my dudes, this stuff comes from lots of different places. If you are an artist of any kind, you need to know which parts of which influences are within you, you know? Should be obvious that both of these books are a joy to me, and it just so happens that they are both written by people whom I feel lucky to consider friends. I’m talking, of course, about The Barre Incidents by Lauren Bolger and HAIR SHIRT by Adrian Sobol.
The Barre Incidents by Lauren Bolger: first of all, it’s pronounced Barre, not Barre, like I keep doing. Talk about some cosmic horror to start the year! This one comes drenched in Norse mythology, a welcome departure from Lovecraftian mythos. The inciting horror might be undead miners, but theres also a world tree, Nidhogg, Indrid Cold, Mothman, and vicious dog people. Of course, none of this horror works without human beings at the center. That’s Kara and her best friend/crush, Alec, two restaurant workers who understand that their town has supernatural goings on, but have no idea the shit they’re about to go through. Their friendship has some early Jim and Pam dynamics—they banter, they worry about one another, they’re vulnerable with one another. It’s a strong foundation of a friendship, and that’s necessary when you have to battle a demon of the underworld for the soul of your dead father.
That dead father was a miner, so like Juan Martinez’s Extended Stay, we have the victims of cosmic horror tied to an incredibly taxing and often invisible working class job. In the Martinez text, it’s restaurant workers in a hotel. Here, it’s a miners, a job that you really can’t do without some physical punishment. It’s worth checking out these Secretly Incredibly Fascinating podcasts about salt mines, coal, and silica gel packets. I like this idea of the working class as the victims of cosmic horror—something to monitor for any syllabus makers out there.
Quick last thought on this novel in particular, but it’s a similar thing I had when I read Extended Stay for the first time: I picture images in my head when I read, but not very vividly. Lauren’s prose (Juan’s, too) often has strange and bizarre and otherworldly images washing over you as you read. I found myself having to re-read paragraphs more than usual. Not necessarily a criticism of the prose, just something I’m noting for myself about how this type of horror reads to me. Maybe it’s a great trick, too—what the character is seeing is mind-bending and unbelievable, so my sympathetic reader’s mind is also trying to not believe what I’m reading. Maybe?
HAIR SHIRT by Adrian Sobol: there are a million unread poetry books on my shelf because I can’t control myself at AWP. For this reason, I read a lot of poetry over break 1) because I wanted to and 2) to try to cut into that pile. This book, however, was a re-read. Frankly, it’s because my good friend wrote a book that Makes Me Want To Write, and that’s a beautiful thing. What I love most about Adrian’s poems is the leaps he makes, the way that the poem logic jumps from thing to thing, never wandering too much but—most crucially—never letting something get hammered to much. He never plays the chord you expect next, but your ear is never bothered, either, if that makes sense. That’s a quality I want in my own writing. Read HAIR SHIRT if you haven’t.
LINKS!
- ‘Monster Girls’ Trailer – First Documentary to Explore the Work of Women in Makeup & Creature Design by John Squires in Bloody Disgusting
- Little people, ghost cars, vengeful spirits: the Indigenous supernatural crosses past and present by Brian Bull in Buffalo’s Fire
- “I’m Not Going to Give Up”: Leonard Peltier on Indigenous Rights, His Half-Century in Prison & Coming Home – the former political prisoner interviewed by Amy Goodman in Democracy Now
- ‘Abolish ICE’ Snowplow Name Gets National Attention — And The Mayor’s Support by Molly DeVore in Block Club
- Chicago Under Siege: How Operation Midway Blitz Changed Our City by Francia García Hernández, Madison Savedra, and staff and Why Block Club Wrote ‘Chicago Under Siege’ by Kelly Bauer in Block Club, and The Day They Took Jesus by Nick Merlock Jackson in SouthSide Weekly
What’re you still doing here? Micah and Brendan have wrapped ABSOLUTELY. More stuff coming from them soon. I’ll have to figure out something to do with this slot. But first, why not the hourlong supercut of ABSOLUTELY?
If you work in the service industry, may you clean up in tips this weekend. Look, I wouldn’t wish dying on the job on my worst enemy. Particularly because a lot of my enemies are politicians, and all I really need them to do is leave, like self-exile to Antarctica or something, not die. Anyway, I hope no one dies on the job, but if dying on the job traps you in an undead state where you are controlled by a Norse dragon demon? Yikes. If you suspect you’re at risk for this, quit your job.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris