“There’s only drowning ahead, and no gods to help us.” – Hailey Piper, ‘No Gods For Drowning’
Hey, that line’s literal in the book, but you kinda gotta live life like that, too. Happy Juneteenth. Slavery is an evil as powerful as any malignant god, and I can’t imagine a horrifying metamorphosis quite like being violently taken from your home and forced into chattel slavery. One way to celebrate Juneteenth is to remember the people who made the end of slavery possible—not just politicians who signed papers but people who risked everything in the Underground Railroad, people who fought and died, people who spent their whole lives fighting for abolition and didn’t live to see it. Happy Juneteenth, fuck racism, reparations now.
What I’ve Been Reading This Week:
A book that was a re-read, and I knew I needed the re-read. I’ve said before that eldritch horror is a bit difficult for me to totally picture the first time around. Plus, I’m not much of a fantasy reader—though N.K. Jemisin is doing her best to change that—and given the imagined world here, this book has some strong fantasy elements. This is a novel that imagines a pantheon of gods, then takes their presence in the world seriously. It’s a book with fedora-and-trenchcoat wearing detectives, but also sea monsters. It’s a book filled with blood and ritual sacrifice, and a book that is, for the second time this month, really concerned with water. I’m talking, of course, about No Gods For Drowning by Hailey Piper.
No Gods For Drowning by Hailey Piper: to semi-rehearse what’s happening here—the gods that protect the holy land of Aeg have abandoned their city-states. Fled the continent. No gods, and no one knows why, and drowning is imminent. Without the gods to protect people, the sea threatens. In the sea are not only sharks and whales and sea monsters, but the glories—an aquatic but almost-humanlike race of people-eaters. Our four main characters are Arcadia (a flood-fighter), her new beau Lilac (the daughter of a goddess), and private detectives Alex and Cecil (Cecil is also a descendent of gods). Lilac begins serial killing people as a sacrifice to Logoi, her goddess mother, in an attempt to bring divine aid. Alex and Cecil, without knowing it’s their friend Lilac, investigate the murders. Arcadia, suffering from PTSD after refusing to participate in a “sacrifice” that was just some cops machine gunning a village, has turned the service life of a flood fighter, evacuating neighborhoods and fortifying barricades.
Too much plot rehash isn’t as fun as just reading the book, so lemme say: it’s pretty wild that this is such an imaginative and inventive world in a standalone book (some other stories exist in this universe, per Hailey’s website). It has the same kind of genre pastiche and set piece quirks that you’d find in, say, John Wick or anime. We have priests and priestesses next to Bogart-style PIs and pawnshop owners and evil mermaids and lore about Dawn Gods. This novel takes place in a loud world—a touch of theatre kid in how long the world is—but it is genuinely fun, imagining all of these stock characters hanging around in this wholly original setting.
There’s plenty of metaphor, too. The great storm is coming, and the sea contains horrors. It didn’t used to be like this. I really appreciate the gods leaving Aeg as a metaphor for enshittification. It also says something interesting about humans that the presence of gods doesn’t seem to make anyone any more or less moral. Gods have no right and wrong, only whims. People can be killed in the name of gods, temples seem to be more like orphanages and foster homes more than ultra-powerful institutions. One cool thing about the gods? If you’re trans, you can visit one, pledge lifelong loyalty, and get magical gender affirming surgery. Everyone seems to think it’s pretty cool, too. As I said a couple weeks ago, this book is a real mind-expander. Give it a look if you’re feeling adventurous (and wanna read about blood getting spilled, because there are buckets of blood spilled in this book).
LINKS!
Something to listen to while you browse? I missed Andersonville Midsommar Fest this year because we were in Baltimore, my wife’s cousin got married. Midsommar is an absolute highlight of my year, and I’m sad to have missed it, so we’re gonna listen to some Bev Rage and The Drinks. I know I link to them a bunch, sorry if this is a repeat, but honestly—here’s a Bev Rage and The Drinks video, are you really gonna be upset about it?
- It’s gonna NBA Championship links, but first, this week in ICE (I know I am not covering everything this week, I’ve definitely seen some headlines I haven’t been able to follow through on yet: “ICE never really left:” car crashes and courthouse arrests mark spring escalation by Dave Byrnes, Dominic Guanzon, and Zoë Takaki in Unraveled, Ms. Rachel Goes To Washington, carrying letters from children in ICE custody by Caitlin Gibson in Washington Post, At the Department of Homeland Security, a Culture of Sexual Violence Runs Deep by Nicole Froio in Prism, Women at Delaney Hall demand firing of a guard they say is sexually assaulting detainees by Steve Strunksy in NJ.com, Street Vendor Ticketed By Police, Then Detained By ICE: ‘We Don’t Know Who We Can Trust’ by Mina Bloom and Francia Garcia Hernandez in Block Club,
- Tom Ziller on how you absolutely do not gotta hand it to James Dolan in Good Morning It’s Basketball
- ‘It feels the way I hoped it would feel’ by Seth Rosenthal in Posting and Toasting
- Howard Beck in The Ringer on the Knicks finally exhaling
- “There’s No Place Like New York City” by Israel Daramola and “Scenes From The Street After A Knicks Title” by Barry Petchesky in Defector
- Kelly Dwyer in On Hoops about new Bulls coach Tiago Splitter
What’re you still doing here? Wanna watch some OG Anunoby highlights from the championship run? On a team full of lovable players, he was my favorite to watch this postseason.
If you work in the service industry, may you clean up in tips this weekend. You know, one reason No Gods For Drowning is difficult for me is how much I hate rigid hierarchies. Yes, I enjoy the feeling of knowing I am cosmically insignificant. Yet I get irritated at gods interfering with human lives, or expecting deference when they’be been assholes (throughout all of literary history, gods are assholes). This isn’t a problem with Hailey’s book, this is a problem with my psyche. Also, as a Socialist who goes to Anarchy church every now and again, I really resent the idea that humans need gods to save them. WE KEEP US SAFE, I shout against the cosmic tide of demons that is ICE. Then again, I understand cosmic insignificance. How does all this fit into the service workers’ benediction? Idk dude. Disobey your boss or something this weekend.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris