Young, Logical, Autonomous, Fresh… and Devoured
Carriage Return, 10/10/20
Carriage Return is The Ribbon’s round-up of recent Literati Bookstore staff favorites, as well as an occasional place for useful links and news from around the literary web regarding upcoming events at the store.
Next week, Jeffrey Cranor and Joseph Fink release the second novel to take place in the same universe as their beloved, #1 international podcast Welcome to Night Vale, It Devours! What it is about? Well… let’s just say it involves a scientist outsider to the town of Night Vale confronting a group called the Joyous Congregation of the Smiling God, who worship his toothy power? What could… go wrong? Well, if you want to find out:
In two weeks, Literati Bookstore welcomes Jeffrey and Joseph back to Ann Arbor. They’ll be joined by artist and illustrator Jessica Hayworth, who lends her brilliant illustrations to the novel, and be in-conversation about the book with The Moth’s Satori Shakoor. Tickets are the price of the hardcover book with tax (you get the boook!) and are on sale here, now.
And now on to recent staff favorites.
Recent Staff Favorites (in Hardcover)
Manhattan Beach, by Jennifer Egan
Everything Jennifer Egan writes is a gift, but this book is particularly transcendent. As we follow one Anna Kerrigan — young, smart, and unabashedly ambitious — through the streets of WWII-era New York, we are lured into the quietly dangerous world that surrounds her. After her disabled younger sister dies and her mother moves away, Anna is forced to re-examine the mystery of her beloved father’s disappearance so many years ago. She becomes the first female diver at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, where she confronts both the dangerous task of repairing warships as well as the courage that’s been waiting within her. This journey, made mesmerizing and haunting by the depth of Egan’s prose, leads Anna on a collision course with a man that dominates memories of her father and, perhaps, to her father himself. — Claire
Logical Family, by Armistead Maupin
It’s been almost 40 years since the publication of the first Tales of the City novel, Armistead Maupin’s innovatively topical and infectious creation, first serialized in a Marin County paper, and then the San Francisco Chronicle. Maupin (and yes, Armistead Maupin is not a pen name) covers his early years in North Carolina as a young Republican trying to please his unreconstructed father — segregationist and toxic homophobe Senator Jesse Helms was even afamily friend. College, Naval officer school and Vietnam, beat reporting and feature writing, and the journey from 26 year old closeted virgin to activist member of the gay community in San Francisco, all follow. There are memorable stories with famous friends like Rock Hudson, Ian McKellen, Harvey Milk, and Christopher Isherwood. There are sad vignettes with a biological family that won’t accept Armistead’s homosexuality. And we meet the close friends (the “logical family”) who will in some cases fall victim to HIV/AIDS. An expert at holding an audience, Maupin’s relatively short memoir makes you want to hear more. — Carla
Autonomous, by Annalee Newitz
The best science fiction stretches our ingrained concepts of humanity and civilization into a series of questions that entrance and electrify its’ readers both by the nature of the questions, and by the contextual reality the author has created. Annalee Newitz shows her mastery of the genre with Autonomous, posing questions relating to ai, consciousness, and ownership, against the backdrop of Earth in 2144; where patent property law rules social order, and indentured people and bots are the new lower class. Autonomous follows Jack, a drug pirate desperately trying to fix a deadly mistake she made while racing against agents Eliasz (a temperamental military agent) and Paladin ( a newly conscious, indentured military bot). The story unravels as it progresses, revisiting Jack’s past to illustrate the evolution of her ideology, and showing a unique relationship blooming between Paladin and Eliasz. Newitz forces you to empathize with every character, while pondering the implications of each one of their choices. Autonomous is a true masterpiece. — Charlotte
Young Jane Young, by Gabrielle Zevin
Bouncing back from a political scandal involving a beloved congressman and a young buxom intern is a challenge, especially if you’re the female intern. In this book, our protagonist, Aviva Grossman, bounces back by changing her name to the anodyne, WASPy Jane Young, moving across the country and cutting ties with her old life. Told in alternating points of view — from young Aviva, Jane fifteen years later, Jane’s mother, the congressman’s wife, and Jane’s daughter — this deceptively light novel asks some hard questions. Why is it the woman is always to blame? Why are some women so quick to “shut slame” other women? Is it possible to truly start over? A funny, entertaining, timely, and thought-provoking book. -Jill
Isadora, Amelia Gray
This novel is a fever dream. Set in Europe just before the first World War, the novel drops us directly into tragedy: Isadora Duncan, the world-renowned dancer, infamous for her social and romantic exploits, is mourning the sudden death of her two young children. Waving away much of her life, work, and responsibilities, Isadora wanders across Europe as her brilliant mind slips toward madness under the weight of loss. Even still, Isadora remains a daring, fully realized, and unforgettable character, morbidly inspiring in her self-liberation. We as readers, much like the surrounding cast who are all equally unique and quietly tragic, are pulled along the jagged line of her life. Gray is a master of finding and digging out the guts of a good story — and Isadora is like knives right in the chest. — Matt
