“‘I know what you want,’ said the sea witch; ‘it is very stupid of you, but you shall have your way, and it will bring you sorrow, my pretty princess.’” – Hans Christian Andersen, “The Little Mermaid”
Y’all know I love monsters. It’s not hard to get me to read or watch a creature feature. I also love fairy tales, fictional field guides, and scary and/or pulpy drawings in books. I also love Lanternfish Press, publishers of Jessica Lévai’s vampire opera in sonnets and Ted “Theodore” C. Van Alst Jr.’s devil novella. Lanternfish is an AWP book fair must-visit for me, and I really had to contain myself to not buy all of their Clockwork Editions books. This week, we’re reading one.
What’s that you say? There’s also an incredibly sick book of poems and drawings from Rose Metal Press? It’s a Halloween miracle!
What I’ve Been Reading This Week
Two books that really examine monstrousness in interesting ways. I’m going to be writing more about this next week or the week after, but these interrogations of what makes a monster have really stuck with me. I know, big surprise for the creature feature guy. These books had excellent extras, too. One’s delightfully annotated, you’ve got a scholar chaperoning you through the whole thing. The other has drawings from a tattoo artist. Super sick, both ways. I’m talking, of course, about Beastly: An Anthology of Shapeshifting Fairy Tales edited by Jennifer Pullen and Monster Portraits by Del Samatar and Sofia Samatar.
Beastly: An Anthology of Shapeshifting Fairy Tales, edited by Jennifer Pullen: like said, this is the first Clockwork Edition I’ve read, and damn, I really really enjoyed it. Jennifer Pullen’s introduction and annotations guide you through each text the way a fun Millennial college professor world. We begin with “Cupid and Psyche,” the oldest known Beauty And The Beast-typebeat from the second century CE, and end with “Prince Bairâm and the Fairy Bride,” a Pakistani folktale with no known original author. In between, there is Hans Christian Andersen, Madame d’Aulony, Oscar Wilde, and more. Before reading this anthology, I hadn’t fully appreciated just how many Beauty and The Beast stories were out there. Nor the obvious metaphor for arranged marriage/alliance marriage/property marriage. You’re a young woman whose parents say it’s time for you to go live with this man. If you know anything about men, they’re just as likely to kill you (quickly or slowly) as they are to be an equal partner in a long, fulfilling life. Look at the Pelicot case from a few years ago (extreme content warning for maybe the most vile crime I’ve ever heard of. Seriously, protect yourself before looking up the Pelicot case). This anthology has re-ignited my love of fairy tales. One of these years I am going to do a mostly fairy tale-themed reading list.
Monster Portraits by Sofia Samatar and Del Samatar: goddamn this book is so sick. That’s all I want to say about it, that it’s super sick and you should read it, but you come to this blog for a touch more than that. Sofia is a poet and Del is a tattoo artist, and these prosey, narrative poems are accompanied by very original and tattoo-art-influenced black-and-white drawings of monsters. This is a Rose Metal Press book, WE ARE BENDING GENRES. There’s this narrative of the Samatar siblings as sort of going into the field and studying monsters, but what does studying monstrousness reveal? Especially if you are the biracial children of immigrants? I don’t wanna give the impression that The Real Monster Was Racist Humans All Along, though. There are more layers, a lot going on in this book, and it never strays too far from this fieldwork aspect, this studying. If you, like me, think JK Rowling oughter fix her heart or chuck herself off the cliffs of Dover? Then this book is your Fantastic Beasts replacement. Bonus: this book isn’t phoned in and half-assed.
LINKS!
Something to listen to while you browse? Brendan put me on to The Comet Is Coming. My friends, the comet is coming. Listen to The Comet Is Coming.
- Let’s Remember Some Publications That Said We Would Get To Mars By 2026 by Sabrina Imbler in Defector
- A new island erupted from the sea – can it show us how nature works without human interference? by Patrick Greenfield in The Guardian
- A California teen trusted ChatGPT’s drug advice. He died from an overdose. by Lester Black and Stephen Councill in SFGate
- What If We Could Have A Future? by Albert Burneko in Defector
- Writing Should Hurt by John Paul Brammer in ¡Hola Papi! A choice excerpt: “Our problem, our big problem, is our relationship to comfort. It predates LLMs. We are powerless before anything that promises to reduce effort…But effort is creation. There’s no creation without it. I think writing should hurt. If it doesn’t hurt, you probably aren’t writing. Let’s define terms. What is pain? Evidence of aliveness.”
- BONUS SIXTH LINK WITH SOME PERSONAL NEWS: beloved neighborhood café Rivers & Roads—which L&E podcast listeners might recognize as “that café Brendan works at” or “that café they’re always throwing poetry readings at”—is expanding with a bookstore/market and ice cream shop! Who is going to be managing the bookstore, which is called Little Wild? That’s right, dudes, it’s me. I am beyond excited and grateful for the opportunity. Yes, there’s gonna be a lot of small press books. Yes, there’s gonna be a dedicated stage for readings and shows. Yes, there’s also going to be frozen and prepared foods from the same culinary geniuses at Rivers & Roads. It’s gonna be rad, and it’s gonna be on Devon Ave. Here’s a good writeup in Block Club from Madison Savedra.
What’re you still doing here? Do you need a Tiny Desk to listen to The Comet Is Coming?
If you work in the service industry, may you clean up in tips this weekend. May you not get married off to a monster this weekend. If you must, may they be a cool monster.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris