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Hey everybody, and welcome to the Little Oracles podcast, an oracle for the everyday creative. I’m Allison Arth.
I think it’s high time for some Little Reviews, wouldn’t you say? So for those of you who are new to the podcast, I intermix these Little Reviews episodes among the Creative Chats and the Everyday Creative audio-essays, basically just sharing thoughts on what I’ve read recently — or sometimes not so recently [chuckles], but in this year; and that includes our Asynchronous Book Club picks, too — and I aim for each of these episodes to run a fleet 10 minutes or so.
I also do monthly reading wrap-ups that include micro — and I do mean micro, here — reviews of my recent reads over on Instagram (at) little oracles, so you can always follow along there for more timely thoughts on the ABC books, and the other stuff that I add to my personal list every month. Or if you just want to see pretty pictures of pretty books [chuckles], then I encourage you to check out what’s going on on Instagram.
Today, though, I have for you a collection of books that sit in that really emotionally rich and tender space of the aftermath – specifically, the aftermath of the death of a loved one.
But, before we dive in, I do want to give a gentle disclaimer, which is: definitely look up content warnings for anything and everything we discuss here on the podcast, because we want reading to be a safe and an enjoyable experience for everyone. So if you’re struggling with grief right now, or if you’re feeling a little sensitive or sad, or you just don’t feel ready to listen to these particular Little Reviews of books about death and dying and grieving, then, I just want you to know: this episode will always be here, and you can skip it now and come back later — just do what is best for you right now, and you can listen, or not, in your own time.
And now, without further lilacs and larkspurs [chuckles], let’s get into the Little Reviews. So I’ve got a whopping six books to rumble through today, and I wanna start off with The Furrows by Namwali Serpell. So, on the face, this is a book about a girl dealing with the loss of her brother, but what I want to focus on, here, is that the subtitle of this really dazzling little novel is An Elegy, and I think that’s incredibly telling and incredibly apt, because this book is definitely a lament; it has those, you know, uh, threnodic and almost nihilistic qualities woven throughout, and those are really quite stark and really beautifully lyrical at times. Here are just a few lines that stood out for me: "I don't matter. You don't matter. We're all just matter, codes, scrambles of signs and symbols, the language the world mumbles to itself, or maybe its consciousness: our eyes, and ears, and mouths sprouting like polyps, here to watch, and hear, and sense it, record its events and ruptures, its growing and its rotting, its dismal spin." So really gorgeous language, and really heartbreaking sentiment; there’s, like, something of W.B. Yeats in there; there’s almost something Shakespearean in the way that the– the rhymes are constructed — the internal rhymes in particular. So I just really enjoy the writing in this book.
But what really fascinates me is that this book edges into this, kind of, unmoored territory of the unreliable narrator — which we talked about way back in our first Little Reviews episode; and I’ll link that in the show notes — and it even edges into this hybrid speculative–magical realist space wherein time is in question, and reality — as in, the veracity of events — is in question, and, in those questions, the book reflects this kind of meta experience of grief, in the sense that the reader is equally adrift or wandering or grasping at what is true, and essentially living in the incongruity of memory alongside our main character.
And, you know, even with all this uncertainty, the story feels really well-paced, and plot-driven, almost, and it really just– it stuck with me, which, if you’ve been listening to the podcast for any length of time, you know that’s the hallmark of a good read for me, when I just keep turning it over and over in my mind, and I’m certainly doing that with The Furrows.
Next up, We Are Okay by Nina LaCour, who wrote Yerba Buena — I think that was kind of a breakout book for Nina; I haven’t read it yet, but it’s definitely on my To Be Read list — so, I’m not gonna bury the lede on this one: We Are Okay wasn’t my favorite of this little bunch that I'm gonna talk about today. Overall, it’s a lovely YA novel about a girl who lost her mother when she was 3 and was raised by her grandfather; it’s this true, you know, coming of age story that touches on depression and loss and queerness and unconditional love, and, like I said, it’s– it’s lovely; it really is. It’s this by-turns, kind of, heartwrenching and heartwarming novel that’s told across these alternating timelines, and it has some really great, savory turns of phrase that get that, you know, kind of, head nod of recognition, and that moment of, “Ooh, what a great way to say that” or express that experience or emotion — here’s example, "There are many ways of being alone." Just really pointed, really true, really easy and simple. But there were times that I felt this novel kind of careening into a bit of melodrama, a bit of that cliffhanging, big-reveal, sudden-redemption vibe that, for me, just isn’t always my cup of matcha [chuckles], you know what I mean?
But even though this wasn’t a so-called soul-book for me — you know, one I’ll reach for again and again — it was a pretty vibrant and weighty narrative that follows our main character through grief and surprise and friendship, and Nina LaCour depicts really adeptly this coexistence of resolution and continuation, or this ongoing processing in the emotional arc of our main character, which is really quite the balancing act. So if you like novels that trade in that emotional tenuousness and that operatic, big-feelings currency, you really might like We Are Okay.
So, next, I’m gonna do something slightly different; I’m gonna commingle a few memoirs and a memoir-like: In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss by Renaissance writer [chuckles] and psychotherapist Amy Bloom — and I mean “Renaissance writer” in the sense that she kinda does it all; Afterglow (a dog memoir) by poet and essayist Eileen Myles; and Alive at the End of the World, an in memoriam poetry collection by poet and podcaster Saeed Jones, and, as you might recall, one of our ABC picks for the month of April. And I’m co-reviewing these because they share some structural elements — some, like, phenotypical expression, in a sense — in that they are all reactions to an acute, if not an immediate, loss of a loved one.
And to back it up just for a second, to kind of expose my process a little: I read a lot of memoir — it’s a genre that I’d never really touched before a few years ago, actually — and I read most of that memoir in audiobook form, and that's for a couple of reasons: the first reason is that memoir, as opposed to fiction or poetry, for example, it’s really listenable, in the way that talk radio, or, like, a podcast, is listenable; and the second reason is that memoirs are often read by the authors themselves, so it gives the audiobook experience that extra zhuzh of vulnerability or witnessing or just plain emotion; it feels very personal and very immediate. So that’s my little plug for memoir in general, and audiobook memoir in specific.
But, back to the books. Here’s the topline for all three of them: In Love chronicles Amy Bloom’s grieving process surrounding her husband’s choice to end his own life at a Swiss death with dignity institute following an Alzheimer’s diagnosis; Afterglow is Eileen Myles' tribute to their dog, Rosie, following Rosie’s death; and Alive at the End of the World is Saeed Jones', kind of, reckoning with the decade anniversary of his mother’s death, along with other griefs symptomatic of racism, and cultural erasure, and mechanized white supremacy and heteronormativity in the American sociopolitical landscape.
And the primary reason I’m conglomerating these three is, yes, they’re kind of all these memoir-adjacent things, but they all share this quality, in their storytelling and in their expression of what I like to call “haze” — and what I mean by that is that they feel less like reportage, and more like this misty remembrance of these little moments, that, at the time they happened, might seem inconsequential, but that, on reflection, these authors infuse with deeper meaning — which is, essentially, one of those, you know, fundamental human responses to that elemental ephemerality of existence; you know, that tendency toward finding narrative and pattern and meaning, and that trend toward apophenic or pareidolic interpretation that comes really so naturally, and that these three authors do with such skill and style.
So with Saeed Jones, one of the most mind-blowing moments for me was in the Notes, actually: he called out the white space in one of his poems, calling it “ghost text as opposed to blank space,” which just transforms the experience of reading a poem, you know? And this collection is just fully haunted, okay? It’s just wall-to-wall ghosts and spectral interdiction and chance encounters with the veil — a true work of heart, if I can be that blunt and that basic, honestly. But it’s really, truly this extraordinary collection of poems about struggling through and sitting in grief, and I– I can’t recommend it highly enough.
And with Amy Bloom and Eileen Myles, it’s these incredibly simple but painterly declaratives that got to me — so, from Amy Bloom, this stunning sentence: "This disinterested dusk is hard." Just so raw and unadorned, and I love it. And that memoir is just full to the brim with these kinds of sentiments and sentences.
And here’s something from Eileen Myles — and this one hits, it really does; and if you are struggling with the loss of a pet, or if you have pets who are ailing or older — I am in this position myself; I have two very old cats; I’m sure you’ve heard them on the podcast — and this book was really hard for me to listen to. It was a beautiful experience, but I just wanna give that little disclaimer, there. But here’s a great line from Eileen Myles — and if you’re not familiar with their poetry, there’s kind of a– a combativeness, almost, in the way that Eileen Myles approaches writing; it feels very clipped, very blunt, very rough strokes, if I were to make, kind of, a visual art comparison, and I– I’m always here for Eileen Myles. So listen to this: "Because when something's gone from your life it's like the hole a giant rock leaves when it hits a pond, it doesn't just go, it makes ripples, and ripples from them, and slowly the circles move out. I've been swaying in this all year. I know eventually I'll be new without you." So I’ll just leave you with those, and say that if you’re interested in memoir in any capacity, I’d recommend all of these, though I will say that they are real heart-rippers, all three; I definitely cried more than once in my time with them, so take care of yourself and choose the time that’s right for you, mentally, emotionally, to pick up one of these books.
And, speaking of heart-rippers, I’ve got another one for you, believe it or not [chuckles] — I told you this episode wasn’t gonna be breezy right up at the top [chuckles] — but I want to close out with The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi. This is a novel that shifts between timelines and characters and memories, and that is such a moving exploration of identity, and what it means to be fully seen, and fully known, and fully you; this line, in particular, really gives me chills: "So, if nobody sees you, are you still there?"
Now, I’m not gonna go into the plot, here, because this book benefits from direct, rather than secondhand, experience, but suffice to say, it starts with a death, and it ducks and weaves and circles and spirals from there. There’s this unraveling and reconstruction of remembrance, told in this language that’s really rooted and kind of mysterious all at once — really mystical in the telling. And while the story, at its core, has this, kind of, “tale as old as time” quality to it, it’s nevertheless so surprising, and it's in that surprise that the Akwaeke Emezi deals the ultimate gut-punch, you know? It’s their dexterity with story and with detail and pacing — like, in true mystery-genre fashion — that delivers those huge emotional blows.
Honestly, this novel reminds me, somewhat, in its in-your-feels payload, so to speak, of books like There, There by Tommy Orange, or Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jessmyn Ward, or The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead, or even If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin — just this heavy, heart-rocking, spirit-rending kind of writing that, even though it’s rough read, you’re ultimately so glad and grateful for the experience of that art, and for the evocation of these emotions, you know what I mean? [laughs] I don’t know; maybe you don’t; maybe you don’t think crying is a fun outcome when you’re reading a book. [laughs] But in any case, I can’t recommend The Death of Vivek Oji highly enough, provided that you’re prepared for the true emotional rollercoaster that it is.
And that’s the long and the short of it — I think a little bit more long in this case. Thank you so much for being here; again, check out content warnings before you pick up any of these books to make sure your reading experience is safe and supportive. If you like what’s goin’ on over here at the Little Oracles podcast, share this episode or another episode you’re groovin’ on with a friend, or an enemy — you can share it with anyone. [laughs] Leave us a rating or a review; it helps the podcast grow. And if you want even more big book energy and creativity content, check out the blog at little oracles dot com, follow us on Instagram (at) little oracles, and, as always, take care, keep creating, and stay divine!
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[Secret outtake]
… that recognition of the ultimate– [cat trills] oh my goodness, sir! [cat half-meows] Guys! Wow!