“George did not sing along but he listened intently to the words of the song. He found them to be the words of a people that must have been constantly afraid, at battle with something bigger than themselves at all times.” – Joshua Trent Brown, ‘The Walls Are Closing In On Us’
It’s another double podcast week! On The Line Break, Bob and I read two wonderful poems: “READING MARY OLIVER IN LA VERNE” by Summer Farah and “WE” by Mar Romasco Moore. Obviously, those two poems led to us talking about the retirement of Russell Westbrook. Over on Lazy & Entitled, Brendan and I talked about our show, had a reading from Studs Terkel, and—oh my god really?—talked about The Walls Are Closing In On Us by Joshua Trent Brown.
The Line Break on Apple | Spotty | SoundCloud
The Lazy & Entitled Podcast on Apple | Spotty | SoundCloud
What I’ve Been Reading This Week
A book that had me marveling at the endurance it must have taken to write it. A book that felt precisely sculpted. It’s not genre, though—Southern Gothic, sure, but it’s not like we’re hitting certain plot beats at certain times. It’s a book that is at least partially based on a true story, which had me thinking “this novel would also make one hell of an episode of The Dollop.” I’m talking, of course, about The Walls Are Closing In On Us by Joshua Trent Brown. Content warning for just about everything.
The Walls Are Closing In On Us by Joshua Trent Brown: our story begins with our hero in the process of dying. Never a sign of a cheery time. George is a half-white, half-Choctaw man whom four white men have just beaten, stabbed, and attempted to hang. He’s also been bitten by a snake. George is not long for this world, and his life flashes before our pages. He grows up on a reservation in Mississippi, never knowing his father. His mother is killed for ignoring a white man’s advances. He goes to live with two friends, one of whom lost a foot after a snakebite. Eventually, one of the brothers gets a job with a well-meaning white boy who buys tickets to the state fair for his Indigenous friends. All they have to do is wear whiteface. By the end of the night, George has been sexually assaulted, found out his father is a white supremacist candidate for Governor, had his life threatened, killed a man in self-defense, and run away to join the circus.
Life is sort of like that—you have a bunch of well-remembered, era-defining traumas, and those can be nearly impossible to move on from. The in between times offer warmth, love, and food, though. Yes, it is evident that George is a half-Choctaw man living in one of the most racist periods of USian history (early 20th century). Yes, the walls are closing in on him and anyone like him. But is George’s whole personhood defined by the one man he killed in self-defense? Is George’s whole life only the worst things that happen to him? You can say George never had a chance, and that’s true if you ignore the close friendships he forms and the loving family he gets to have. The walls close in on that, too. It’s not like George gets a happy ending—we’re told on page one that he’s dying. But this novel is more than one long fall.
This is a truly impressive book. Carefully written, language full and dripping like Spanish moss on a humid August evening. The landscape is infused with the ghosts of everyone who’s lived there before. And it’s filtered through the (third person limited) thoughts of this guy who sees the world a little more matter-of-factly than you or I might. He’s caught off guard when people act hatefully, and surprised at the depths of people’s hatred. Can’t you relate?
LINKS!
Something to listen to while you browse? Sometimes, I go to the “Similar Artists” section of Apple Music, below a band I like. I don’t do it often enough. As I’m typing, “Fiesta Brava” by Astros de Mendoza & Los Mirlos came on, and oh my god. Whole set’s available, too.
- This Week in ICE: Mutual aid group quietly feeds families fearing ICE by Sophia Qureshi in Decaturish, Judge to Baby: File an Asylum Application by Jackie Llanos in NotUS, Rep. Al Green Introduces New Articles of Impeachment Charging Trump with Operating ICE and CBP as Unconstitutional Paramilitary Police Forces in Free Speech For The People, What is a ‘Mega Master’ Hearing? by Tara Mobasher in Borderless Mag
- Chamique Holdsclaw Made Headlines, Made Mistakes, And Made History by Nina Mandell in Defector
- Angel Reese’s Game Is Too Weird Not To Appreciate by Tom Ley in Defector
- The WNBA needs a new leader. Now by Tom Ziller in Good Morning It’s Basketball
- Older piece, but Frankie just re-upped it on Bluesky, and it’s worth your time: Let’s Hear It for the Dolls: A Day Shooting Hoops With Brooklyn’s Trans Basketball League by Frankie de la Cretaz in Self
What’re you still doing here? Did you miss Words // Friends Wednesday night? We talked about it. The reading hosted by Sara Matson, with me, Bridget Gordon, Mckendy Fils-Aimé, Jotham Austin II, and Madison McCartha? No worries, homie. Whole thing’s on YouTube.
If you work in the service industry, may you clean up in tips this weekend. Reading a book so full of astonishingly casual evil—well, working in the service industry just isn’t quite as bad. But the behaviors are related. Someone’s rude to a server, then they’re making sexist jokes, then they’re on an episode of 48 Hours because their first wife was buried in the Pine Barrens the whole time.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris