1st Meet Roundup & 2nd Meet Book Selection

some brief musings and our next book choice.

Thank you to each of you (nine brilliant humans) for coming and taking time to pay attention to Rivka Galchen, Madeline Donahue and each other.

I left the evening with an extraordinary high thinking about how Little Labours is actually more funny than I initially thought given Brad’s comments about her use of “crystal child” and Claudia’s comments about the end of the book. Florencia’s astute comments about Donahue’s Scissors, in which the dog is the only one looking at us, the one observing the scene, was a profound entry way into considering our non-human relationships within familial contexts. For several of us with the paperback edition, there is also a dog, centred in the painting, looking at us while being suckled, on the cover of Little Labours! I somehow missed that until after. It is a painting by Korean artist Seosoo (1977). She also goes by Seo soo and lives in Berlin, otherwise nothing was noted online about the book’s painting.

Galchen’s reporting for the New Yorker has certainly shaped the voice we all noted: the distanced yet vulnerable anthropological lens with which to observe and analyze her existence in relation to others/the public now that she has become a mother. Indeed, like Patti said, it is a beautiful thing if we can make the art we need to make so we can feel fulfilled and model a life worth living for our children.

I cannot wait to see all of you again, 8pm EST on 30 March 2023. If you were unable to make it, I hope you can next time.

I heard you all clearly about decision fatigue, but I am still going to propose three books (The Leavers, Dept. of Speculation, and Nightbitch) that are easily accessible, as the one suggested by me and by Meaghan are difficult to get and out of print, respectively. Let us know by Wed, 1 March so we can have a month to read it. The titles are hyperlinks to more info. Please share any titles for upcoming sessions, as well.

The Leavers (2018) by Lisa Ko (368 pgs.)

“One morning, Deming Guo's mother, Polly, an undocumented Chinese immigrant, goes to her job at a nail salon--and never comes home. No one can find any trace of her.

Told from the perspective of both Daniel--as he grows into a directionless young man--and Polly, Ko's novel gives us one of fiction's most singular mothers. Loving and selfish, determined and frightened, Polly is forced to make one heartwrenching choice after another.

Set in New York and China, The Leavers is a vivid examination of borders and belonging. It's a moving story of how a boy comes into his own when everything he loves is taken away, and how a mother learns to live with the mistakes of the past.”

Dept. of Speculation (2014) by Jenny Offil (179 pgs.)

This is where the term ‘art monsters’ came from.

“In the beginning, it was easy to imagine their future. They were young and giddy, sure of themselves and of their love for each other. "Dept. of Speculation" was their code name for all the thrilling uncertainties that lay ahead. Then they got married, had a child and navigated the familiar calamities of family life--a colicky baby, a faltering relationship, stalled ambitions.

When their marriage reaches a sudden breaking point, the wife tries to retrace the steps that have led them to this place, invoking everything from Kafka to the Stoics to doomed Russian cosmonauts as she analyzes what is lost and what remains. In language that shimmers with rage and longing and wit, Offill has created a brilliantly suspenseful love story--a novel to read in one sitting, even as its piercing meditations linger long after the last page.”

“Offill is particularly strong on the strangeness of parenthood, as a time when the years roar by but the days within them can drag” - The Guardian

Nightbitch (2022) by Rachel Yoder (256 pgs.)

This is being turned into a movie directed by Marielle Heller.

“An ambitious mother puts her art career on hold to stay at home with her newborn son, but the experience does not match her imagination. Two years later, she steps into the bathroom for a break from her toddler's demands, only to discover a dense patch of hair on the back of her neck. In the mirror, her canines suddenly look sharper than she remembers. Her husband, who travels for work five days a week, casually dismisses her fears from faraway hotel rooms.

As the mother's symptoms intensify, and her temptation to give in to her new dog impulses peak, she struggles to keep her alter-canine-identity secret.”