Fiction

Review, Jul-Sep '26

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

WIP

Books
Poems and Short Stories
1. Dishsoap Quarterly
2. Prospect
Music
1. This is Not a Place of Honor

Books

Cat’s Eye, by Margaret Atwood

Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened.
— Cat’s Eye, pp. 240

Cat’s Eye is Atwood’s opus.

“What’s in your pocket?” says Cordelia.
“Nothing,” I say. “It’s only a marble.”
It’s marble season; everyone has marbles in their pockets. Cordelia lets it pass. She doesn’t know what power this cat’s eye has to protect me. Sometimes when I have it with me I can see the way it sees. I can see people moving like bright animated dolls, their mouths opening and closing but no real words coming out. I can look at their shapes and sizes, their colors, without feeling anything else about them. I am alive in my eyes only.
— Cat’s Eye, pp. 157

It is the most impactful book I have ever read.

For a moment she says nothing. Then she says, not harshly, “Why is your picture so dark, my dear?”
“Because it’s night,” I say. This is an idiotic answer, I know that as soon as it’s out of my mouth. My voice is almost inaudible, even to me.
“I see,” she says. She doesn’t say I’ve drawn the wrong thing, or that surely there’s something else I do after school besides going to bed. She touches me on the shoulder, briefly, before continuing down the aisle. Her touch glows briefly, like a blown-out match.
— Cat’s Eye, pp. 181

Also, a tricky read: it was tough to make out the print while crying.

Cordelia did the same thing, at the same age. The same folded arms, the same immobile face, the blank-eyed stare. Cordelia! Put on your gloves, it’s cold out. So? I can’t come over, I have to finish my homework. So?
Cordelia, I think. You made me believe I was nothing.
So?
To which there is no answer.
— Cat’s Eye, pp. 219

Among many other things, Cat’s Eye is a devastating exploration of the work that is required to find empathy, and how natural it is to pass on cruetly you have recieved.

Cordeila is afraid of me, in this picture.
I am afraid of Cordelia.
I’m not afraid of seeing Cordelia. I’m afraid of being Cordelia. Because in some way we changed places, and I’ve forgotten when.
— Cat’s Eye, pp. 249

It is a treatise against eye-for-an-eye thinking.

I wonder, for an instant, how I can be so mean to my best friend. For this is what she is.
— Cat’s Eye, pp. 270

If everyone read this book, the world would be a much better place.

So, Cordelia. Got you back.
Never pray for justice, because you might get some.
— Cat’s Eye, pp. 454

The relatable mundanity of Elaine and Cordelia’s story makes it more visceral and affecting than the bleak dystopia of Gilead.

But nothing she can do or say will ever be enough, because she is somehow the wrong person.
— Cat’s Eye, pp. 274

The novel has three distinct sections in my eyes; each is brilliant, and each has a tear-jerker ending more brutal than the last.

“A marble!” says my mother, with a child’s delight. “Remember all those marbles Stephen used to collect?”
“Yes,” I say. But this one was mine.
I look into it, and see my life entire.
— Cat’s Eye, pp. 434

Until the final section, I had no idea where the story was ultimately headed. Then I figured it out.

She will have her own version. I am not the center of her story, because she herself is that. But I could give her something you can never have, except from another person: what you look like from outside. A reflection. This is the part of hersef I could give back to her.
We are like the twins in old fables, each of whom has been given half a key.
— Cat’s Eye, pp. 450

I began to dread what was to come, for it was sure to destroy me.

I know she’s looking at me, the lopsided mouth smiling a little, the face closed and defiant. There is the same shame, the sick feeling in my body, the same knowledge of my own wrongness, awkwardness, weakness; the same wish to be loved; the same loneliness; the same fear. But these are not my own emotions any more. They are Cordelia’s; as they always were.
— Cat’s Eye, pp. 459

I was not disappointed.

This is what I miss, Cordelia: not something that’s gone, but something that will never happen.
— Cat’s Eye, pp. 462

It has maybe the best first-final page pair ever written.

Time is not a line but a dimension, like the dimensions of space. If you can bend space you can bend time also, and if you knew enough and could move faster than light you could travel backwards in time and exist in two places at once.
— Cat’s Eye, pp. 1

If you read one Atwood book—hell, if you read a book at all—then do yourself a favor and make it this one.

— 5/5 —

A Pale View of Hills, by Kazuo Ishiguro

From where I sit, Kazuo Ishiguro is the most famous living literary novelist. Ever since he won the Nobel prize in 2017, I’ve had the intention of reading his work. Yesterday I went to the library to pick up my DVD hold for Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting (I had to request an inter-library loan), and on a whim decided to look through what Ishiguro novels were available; I knew his books were short, and wanted something different before diving into another massive Atwood tome (The Robber Bride).

“You see,” I said, “the little girl isn’t on a swing at all. It seemed like that at first. But it’s not a swing she’s on.”
— A Pale View of Hills, pp. 96

A Pale View of Hills lived up to expectations. The dialogue was stilted and awkward, but in a very purposeful way; it’s possibly only a slight exageration of Japanese dialogue of the time period. In a way it’s very similar to a Margaret Atwood book—a very flawed elderly protagonist remembering her life, a central mystery with a subtle reveal that recontextualizes the story—but it’s written in an entirely different style. There was a level of distance between us and the character that left a lot for the reader to interpret.

— 4/5 —

An Artist of the Floating World, by Kazuo Ishiguro

I returned her smile, but did not say anything. Of course, the old district had been fine. We had all enjoyed ourselves and the spirit that had pervaded the bantering and those arguments had never been less than sincere. But then perhaps that same spirit had not always been for the best. Like many things now, it is perhaps as well that little world has passed away and will not be returning. I was tempted to say as much to Mrs Kawakami that evening, but decided it would be tactless to do so.
— An Artist of the Floating World, pp. 126-127

I think Ishiguro may be a little too meticulous and literary for my taste, and a little light on personality and emotion. In this second novel I was already used to his themes and devices, particularly the focus on the memory of an unreliable narrator, and I was much less impressed with what ultimately developed. There’s still great stuff, but I found it quite repetitive and predictable. I know much of the repetition was by design, but, again, it was not to my liking.

— 3/5 —

The Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro

I suffered all the more because I believed I was alone.
— The Remains of the Day, pp. 154

The Remains of the Day deserves its reputation: it is a near perfect novel. The structure does not feel as contrived as in Ishiguro’s first two books, nor is the unreliable narrator hammer used to such a frustrating extent. It is also surprisingly readable and funny for being such a famous piece of literary fiction. I identify with Stevens to a frightening extent.

— 5/5 —

The Penelopiad, by Margaret Atwood

Proof that The Odyssey story can be told in such a way that I connect with its characters; I dislike Nolan’s film more and more with every passing day. But while The Penelopiad is a good book, I found it a bit short and slight compared with the rest of her bibliography. I enjoyed the begininning of the story the most, as well as the more experimental chapters like the jury trial.

— 3/5 —

The Robber Bride, by Margaret Atwood

But she was disguised as herself, one of the most successful disguises.
— The Robber Bride, pp. 135

The Robber Bride is far more opaque and mysterious than most of Atwood’s works: it never explains itself, not in so many words. Is it a comedy?

The twins are in the family room, watching a rerun of Star Trek.
“Greetings, Earthmom,” says Paula.
“Maybe she isn’t Mom,” says Erin. “Maybe she’s a Replicant.”
“Hi, kids,” says Roz. “It’s way past your bedtime! Where’s Larry?”
“Erla’s done our homework,” says Erin. “This is our reward.”
“Mom, what’s wrong?” says Paula. “You look like shit.”
“It’s old age,” says Roz.
— The Robber Bride, pp. 499

I laughed out loud many times, yet it contains perhaps the most disturbing chapters Atwood has ever written. Is it a thriller? A noir? A mystery? No, it isn’t any of those either. It’s often obtuse, along the lines of Surfacing, but with themes and a plot structure somewhere in the vicinity of Life Before Man and Cat’s Eye: we only think of the world from our point of view; empathy is work, it’s unnatural.

Before she goes to bed, Charis does a meditation on Zenia. She needs to do this, because although she has often thought about Zenia in relation to herself, or to Billy, or even to Tony and Roz, she has never truly considered what Zenia was in and by herself: the Zenia-ness of Zenia. She has no object, nothing belonging to Zenia, to focus on, so instead she turns off the lights in the living room and stares out the window, into the darkness, towards the lake. Zenia was sent into her life—was chosen by her—to teach her something. Charis doesn’t know what it was yet, but in time she will uncover it.
— The Robber Bride, pp. 498

Was Zenia a villain? I don’t think so. She was a survivor. Was Zenia real? Surely she existed in some respect, but it seems impossible that all the aspersions cast by our three protagonists were true, or could be true of any one person. Most accounts of her villainy came from heresay and supposition, or from the mouth of back-from-the-dead Zenia, whose bizarre nature I haven’t quite puzzled out.

The mere absence of a body would not stop Zenia; she would just take somebody else’s. The dead return in other forms, she thinks, because we will them to.
— The Robber Bride, pp. 517

The final two chapters give a lot of support to pro-Zenia theories, e.g. Charis’ realization about Billy. Maybe Zenia, in fact, rescued these women from horrible relationships! She’s a hero then, a vigilante? Was the story all about internalized misogyny, women blaming women in lieu of the true male culprits? But I don’t believe it’s that clear cut either.

— 5/5 —

Update: Zenia defenders rejoice! In Stone Mattress there is a sequel story set twenty years later: I Dream of Zenia with the Bright Red Teeth. Apart from being a lovely epilogue to the novel—Atwood seems to have developed a taste for happy endings in her later years—it heavily supports my reading of things:

In fact, says Charis, maybe Zenia’s intentions were benevolent all along. Maybe she stole Billy to protect Charis from such a bad apple as him. Maybe she stole West to teach Tony a life lesson about, well music appreciation or something, and maybe she stole Mitch to clear the way for Roz’s much better husband, Sam. Maybe Zenia was, like, the secret alter ego for each of them, acting out stuff for them they didn’t have the strength to act out by themselves. When you looked at it that way…
— Stone Mattress, pp. 156

Now this is Charis talking, of course, so it is a more optimistic view than the one I’d put forward—and likely more optimistic than the vision Atwood had in mind—but I think it’s closer to the truth than anything any of the three said or thought in the novel.

The Water Cure, by Sophie Mackintosh

I’m not sure what to take away from the plot of The Water Cure, but it was brilliantly written. A rare novel carried mostly by its prose.

For a second, I hate her. I want to lock my fingers around her throat. Then I remember as I always do that I am supposed to love her, so I look back into her eyes and think of an orb of pink light, my obedient heart.
— The Water Cure, pp. 77

I’ve seen some crtics state that the book takes a misandrist or “toxic feminist” point of view, but it did not come off that way to me. We are reading from the perspective of two abused, isolated women: I don’t think the text or the author fully endorse how Grace and Lia see the world. I thought James was presented as a very sympathetic character, and the ending felt similar to that of Carrie (1976): cathartic and tragic in equal parts.

It fits perfectly inside my palm and I slip it into my pocket, because even the unlovable deserve something, because I take my gifts where I can find them.
— The Water Cure, pp. 80

I also have to say that I found the book strangely erotic, even though there were no lurid descriptions and the “romance” was quite repulsive: I have no desire to live out a Llew fantasy, fooling around with an unstable woman who has been physically and mentally tortured for her entire life. No, what I mean is that Lia’s all-consuming desire was written in such a vivid, captivating way.

“I just thought I’d come and find you,” I say, self-concious. “To see if you wanted to do something.” I do not say anything we can do anything you want, not in front of the child, though if he was not there I might fall to my knees on the ground and beg.
“I’m busy,” he says. “Sorry.” He turns to Gwil. “Another game?” The child nods. As they walk back on the court, I run behind them. When I grab hold of Llew’s arm, he stops.
“Please,” I say, my mouth dry. “Please.” I can feel love slipping past me like a fast breeze. Like draining water. I am ready to humiliate myself, if that is what it takes. He pushes me a third time and I fall back, stagger hard to the ground. I am on my knees after all. Gwil looks at me in alarm.
— The Water Cure, pp. 196

Sophie Mackintosh is an interesting writer, and from interviews she seems like a lovely person; I’ll definitely read her later stuff. Plus she was the only participant out of the 100 writers surveyed for The Guardian’s 100 best novels article who put forward Morvern Callar.

— 3/5 —

Stone Mattress, by Margaret Atwood

He should have gone into Design, because he would have made a killing. But, said Tin, a killing was exactly what he didn’t want to make because to make a killing you had to kill, and he lacked the killer instinct.
— Stone Mattress, pp. 85

I picked up Stone Mattress from the library solely to read the sequel story to The Robber Bride: I Dream of Zenia with the Bright Red Teeth (see above). However, I started reading from the beginning while on a camping trip, and it pulled me in immediately. I read the entire book in two days. Apart from the aforementioned Robber Bride epilogue, and the opening triliogy about a love triangle, the stories span different genres than Atwood usually writes in. It was very fun to to see her tackle horror and thriller with the same skill and wit that she brings to literary, historical, and speculative fiction.

Story Ranking:

The Dead Hand Loves You
The Freeze Dried Groom
Alphinland
I Dream of Zenia with the Bright Red Teeth
Stone Mattress
Torching the Dusties
Revenant
Dark Lady
Lusus Naturae

But even Lusus Naturae is excellent: if I had to give number ratings, they’d all get a 4/5 (on the novel scale, they are among the best short stories I’ve ever read). Revenant and Dark Lady were ranked lower due to being very similar to her novels.

— 4/5 —

Darling Bud, by C. J. Skuse

I’m pot committed at this point: I’m going to read every one of these damned Sweetpea books. After The Bad Seeds I had zero confidence in Skuse as a storyteller, and for the first half here I thought she’d fully given in to self-indulgence. It reverentially quoted from the earlier books as Ivy read their in-universe equivalents, and seemed to be going down the predictable, stupid, route of least resistance. Here we go again, I’d thought: Skuse’s world is populated by comically evil men and women, and of course the only way for Ivy to survive will be violence.

Color me surprised then, when the book took the turns it did later on. I was convinced she was going to skrew it up, up until the very last word, but to my shock I found the ending both satisfying and surprising. If Ivy’s story ever continues, then it will be in a far more interesting direction than Rhiannon’s story could ever take. Despite being less funny, and following many annoying elements from Skuse’s formula, Darling Bud is perhaps the best book in the series. It even works as a standalone novel.

— 3/5 —

A note on the audiobook: I read physical copies for the vast majority of the novels I write reviews for, but for the Sweetpea books I used audio and I’ve grown quite attached to Georgia Maguire’s narration. Her timing and line delivery sold every moment of comedy, and I loved her silly accent work, especially Rhiannon’s fake Australian and American accents. Needless to say, Emily Jackman had a lot to live up to, and I think she did an admirable job. She tried to match Maguire’s style, which made Ivy’s story sound like it existed in the same universe as Rhiannon’s, but having a new voice for the new point of view was the correct choice.

Dancing Girls, by Margaret Atwood

Ann sympathized with his loneliness, but she did not wish to become involved in it, implicated by it. She had enough trouble dealing with her own.
— Dancing Girls (1982 ed.), pp. 203

The more Atwood I read, the more impressed I am—quite a statement considering the first novel I read from her (Alias Grace) was my favorite book for ten years, and then only lost its place to Cat’s Eye. Dancing Girls is a short story collection, but it contains several of the best stories that I’ve read of any length. It also stands apart from her novels in terms of style; it was exciting to discover a new side to her, fifteen books into her bibliography.

On his way out to the car it struck him that he loved her. The thought filled him like a goal, a destiny. He would rescue her somehow; he could pretend she was a cousin or sister; he would keep her hidden in the apartment with all his dangerous implements, razors, knives, nail files, locked away; he would feed her, give her the right drugs, comb her hair. At night she would be there in the subzero bedroom for him to sink into as into a swamp, warm and obliterating.
This picture at first elated, then horrified him. He saw that it was only the hopeless, mad Louise he wanted, the one devoid of any purpose or defense. A sane one, one who could judge him, he would never be able to handle. So this was his dream girl then, his ideal woman found at last: a disintigration, mind returning to its component shards of matter, a defeated formless creature on which he could inflict himself like a shovel on earth, axe on forest, use withouth being used, know without being known. Louise’s notebook entry, written when she had surely been saner than she was now, had been right about him. Yet in self-defense he reasoned that his desire for her was not altogether evil: it was in part a desire to be reunited with his own body, which he felt less and less that he actually occupied.
— Dancing Girls, (1982 ed.), pp. 72-73

About half-way through reading the copy I had checked out from the library (published in 1982 by Simon & Schuster), I looked on Wikipedia and found out that there are two separate editions of Dancing Girls: each has fourteen stories, but two stories differ, making for sixteen stories in total. I acquired an ebook copy of the 1977 edition so that I could read what was missing: The War in the Bathroom and Rape Fantasies.

Story Ranking:

Polarities
Training
The Lives of Poets
A Travel Piece
Dancing Girls
The Sin Eater
Hair Jewellery
Rape Fantasies
The Grave of the Famous Poet
The Man From Mars
Giving Birth
Betty
When It Happens
The Resplendant Quetzal
The War in the Bathroom
Under Glass

The first six tales I’d give 5/5, the rest 4/5. Dancing Girls is one of the best, and one of the most underrated, books she has put out.

— 5/5 —

Murder in the Dark, by Margaret Atwood

“The look on her face!” we screamed.
But we were terrified. It was the look on her face, pure hatred, real after all. The undead walked among us.
— Murder in the Dark, pp. 13

It was cool to see an early precursor to Cat’s Eye (Horor Comics), but to be honest this felt like reading a random literary journal issue: a mediocre collection, with a few standouts.

I’ve got nothing against telepathy, said Jane; but the telephone is so much more dependable.
— Murder in the Dark, pp. 61

There were too many to do a full ranking, but the poems/stories I liked were: Making Poison, Horror Comics, Raw Materials, and Murder in the Dark. And, while Women’s Novels wasn’t my favorite, I did find it quite witty by the end.

— 2/5 —

Poems and Short Stories

I’ve been reading a lot more short fiction publications, so from now on I’m only going to list the ones I loved.

Dishsoap Quarterly

Tests to Determine Whether Moonboy Has a Soul, by Chris Scott
We Wanted to Save the Planet, Then Summer Called, by Mathieu Parsy

Prospect

The Labrador Fiasco, by Margaret Atwood

Music

This is Not a Place of Honor (2026), by Hana Bryanne

secrets kept are cannon fodder

this is not a place of honor

must be something in the water

this is not a place of honor

I’ve been looking forward to this all year and it still blew me away; it’s my album of the year, at least so far. Hana is criminally under the radar, how does she only have 10k monthly Spotify listens?

recite it in pentameter

that’s how you can remember her

learning to believe in what you put your hands on

chased across an ocean

Mom’s bleeding, brain in motion

suicide was coward speak

after living all wrong

I’d love to buy her music, but she doesn’t sell CDs or Vinyl; I might have to pull the trigger on a Dollface baseball cap to show my support—I’ve certainly listened to that album enough.

Review, Apr-Jun '26

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Another quarter down without making much progress in my life, but at least I’m reading and writing.

Books

In April, May, and June I read 10 books.

The Edible Woman, by Margaret Atwood

“So I’m finally going mad,” she thought, “like everybody else. What a nuisance. Though I suppose it will be a change.”
— The Edible Woman, pp. 134

The Edible Woman is fast-paced, witty, and weird. It also features some of my favorite characters of all time: Marian, Ainsley, and Duncan are so specific and hilarious.

“I thought you were the capable type.”
“I am,” she said unhappily. “I was. I don’t know.” She didn’t want to discuss it.
“Some would say of course that it’s all in your mind.”
“I know that,” she said, impatient: she wasn’t a total idiot yet. “But how do I get it out?”
“It ought to be obvious,” Duncan’s voice said, “that I’m the last person to ask.”
— The Edible Woman, pp. 289-290

Margaret Atwood is cemented as my favorite author of all time. She can effortlessly throw down one of the best surreal comedies of all time, a 500 page meticulous historical mystery, or a classic dystopian fable.

— 5/5 —

Lady Oracle, by Margaret Atwood

What was the use of being Princess-for-a-day if you still felt like a toad?
— Lady Oracle, pp. 238

Another Atwood book about a sad sack contemplating her sad life, full of miserable, pathetic, quirky characters. I absolutely loved it. It’s not as virtuosic as the The Blind Assassin, and not as funny as The Edible Woman, but it’s close on both fronts.

— 4/5 —

Bodily Harm, by Margaret Atwood

The first thing he said to me was You look like your mother. And that was the end of him.
— Bodily Harm, pp. 102

Bodily Harm is funny, depressing, relatable, and surprisingly disturbing. While still mopey, Rennie has a bit more fire to her than Iris, Marian, and Joan, which was a nice change of pace.

She doesn’t have much time left, for anything. But neither does anyone else. She’s paying attention, that’s all.
— Bodily Harm, pp. 291

The ending was just as perfect as I’ve come to expect. One more masterpiece for the pile.

— 4/5 —

Surfacing, by Margaret Atwood

At the midway pond the heron was still there, hanging in the hot sunlight like something in a butcher’s window, desecrated, unredeemed. It smelled worse. Around its head the flies vibrated, laying their eggs. The king who learned to speak with animals, in the story he ate a magic leaf and they revealed a treasure, a conspiracy, they saved his life; what would they really say? Accusation, lament, an outcry of rage; but they had no spokesman.
I felt a sickening complicity, sticky as glue, blood on my hands, as though I had been there and watched without saying No or doing anything to stop it; one of the silent guarded faces in the crowd. The trouble some people have with being German, I thought, I have being human. In a way it was stupid to be more disturbed by a dead bird than by the those other things, the wars and riots and the massacres in the newspapers. But for the wars and riots there was always an explanation, people wrote books about them saying why they happened: the death of the heron was causeless, undiluted.
— Surfacing, pp. 150

Many people hate this book, for some reason—it’s one of her lowest rated novels—but it might be the best thing that she’s ever written. Surreal, dense, elliptical, brilliant.

— 5/5 —

Thorn in My Side, by C. J. Skuse

Even multiple murderers like day trips.

Somehow, Skuse’s series is still going strong; I might not even call this one a guilty pleasure! Sweetpea #4 is by far the most consistent entry since book #1, and features some of the best side characters of the series. I’m not a major fan of Raphael, but the rest of his family—and their reactions to the crazy nightmare that is Rhiannon—were a fantastic change of pace.

— 3/5 —

Rain, Wind, Thunder, Fire, Daughter, by Hannah Dierdorff

“i” isn’t quite sure if this is a poem but “i” has worried too much about the edges between binaries (heaven / hell) (human / nature) (prose / poetry) to now worry about belonging to a single category
— The Lyric “I” Goes Shopping at Trader Joe’s, from Rain, Wind, Thunder, Fire, Daughter, pp. 71

I’d never read a book of poetry before this one, mostly, it seems, due to misunderstanding what a book of poetry is. In film there is no hard distinction between an art film relying mainly on visual language, a handheld indie, a big budget blockbuster, or anything in between; they are all just called movies. Therefore anyone interested in movies (see me) will get recommendations for works from Superman (2025), to Funny Ha Ha (2002), to Daisies (1966), and watch all three in a cinema (or, most likely, in a web browser) without a second thought. Yet in writing, poetry is somehow separate, at least in the eyes of the layperson. (Again, see me, but I don’t think this separation is only in the eyes of a consumer, for MFA programs divide poetry from, uh, prose? Regular writing?)

It seems to me that this separation does a lot of harm to the potential popularity of poetry. Why would I want to read a book of poetry? I’d thought. Earlier this year I read two books by Alan Warner: These Demented Lands and The Sopranos. While I loved their narrative and dialogue, what I found most interesting and inspirational was their strange (to me) use of language and formatting. The Sopranos opened with a couple jokes without punchlines, instead their humor was explained by small illustrations or figures elsewhere on the page. Each also used odd punctuation, phonetic language (beyond what I’ve seen in other Scots writing), and would switch form between narration, written letter, scrap of historical document, even film script in one instance. Deciphering the meaning behind each of these choices and omissions was a fantastic experience, one I did not immediately connect to poetry, which sat in my mind to refer only to writing structured in verse.

I’ve now read more poetry this year than I had my entire life, and, eventually, I read the issue of Permafrost that contained As the West Coast Burns, by Hannah Dierdorff. The piece was compelling and personal; it reminded me of Surfacing, by Margaret Atwood, with its mix of anger, pain, sadness over environmental destruction and family history. After learning it was an excerpt from her book, this book I’m supposedly reviewing, I promptly ordered it and, four days later, here we are. I sat down to read the first few poems, to see how they compared, if they compared, to what I loved about the excerpt. Two hours later I have read every word on each of its 111 pages. I really enjoyed this book, the sense it gave me of having spent time within another person’s mind, not having them explain their thoughts, but experiencing them. I will read anything else H. G. Dierdorff writes, and I’ll read more poetry going forward.

— 4/5 —

Life Before Man, by Margaret Atwood

She couldn’t explain why her discovery that rocks were different from each other and had special names was so important. The names were a language; not many other people might know it, but if you found one who did, you would be able to talk together. Only about rocks, but that would be something.
— Life Before Man, pp. 97

Life Before Man is the first Atwood book that tested my patience. The characters were mostly excellent as usual, but the narrative progressed at such a snail’s pace due to following three character perspectives in such detail.

This is the problem. She knows by now that people do not behave the way she wishes them to. So what should she do, change wishes?
— Life Before Man, pp. 298

Similar to my feelings about Trainspotting, there were individual chapters that were absolutely brilliant (Lesje at the dinner party, Chris and Nate playing chess), but I found large sections to be a slog. I think the novel could have been 100 pages shorter and got the same ideas across.

China does not exist. Nevertheless she longs to be there.
— Life Before Man, pp. 351

Another knock-out ending, though. Atwood doesn’t miss.

— 3/5 —

The Bad Seeds, by C. J. Skuse

The Sweetpea finale is unbelievably strange. Not only does it take characters in nonsensical directions, but it seems to argue that Rhiannon’s behavior over the course of the series was justified. It makes me recontextualize some aspects of the story as cringy self-insert fantasy, rather than satire. I’m not sure how I feel about you C. J. Skuse. Hopefully the show won’t follow a similar track.

— 2/5 —

The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood

But why show it to me? I said, and then felt stupid. What could he possibly say? That he was amusing himself, at my expense? For he must have known how painful it was to me, to be reminded of a former time.
I wasn’t prepared for what he actually did say. Who else could I show it to? he said, and there it was again, that sadness.
— The Handmaid’s Tale, pp. 145

The Handmaid’s Tale is a good book, but it baffles me that it is her most popular. Is it just that it’s a dystopian story? Is it that it presents her ideas more bluntly than usual? In my eyes it is just another Atwood book (fantastic), but with much less interesting characters (disappointing). I also find the epilogue bleak, mean, and cynical, even for her.

When an author already writes such lugubrious (a word I learned from Atwood) stories about everyday life, giving her full reign to speculate over world building raises the level of pessimism to overwhelming heights. In my opinion this makes the messaging much less effective.

— 3/5 —

Edit: I keep thinking about this book, and I think I was too harsh in my initial review. There are still significant problems I have, but it’s a special piece of writing. The narrator is a quintessential Atwood protagonist: she’s not a hero, in fact she’s quite selfish, but understandably so. She’s traumatized to such a point that she cannot think beyond herself (Cat’s Eye explores this better, though). I still think it’s among Atwood’s lesser works, but she’s a genius.

The Testaments, by Margaret Atwwod

The truth was not noble. It was horrible.
— The Testaments, somewhere in the audiobook

The Testaments is a bizarre sequel. It is an entirely different tone, and almost an entirely different genre. It seems all these years talking to young girls about The Handmaid’s Tale, combined with the current state of the world, compelled her to write a hopeful young adult novel in the same world. I’m all for YA novels, and it’s fun to see Atwood take a stab at such different characters, but it’s hard to ignore how incongruous this story is with the 1985 original.

— 3/5 —

Poems and Short Stories

I continue reading short works in hope of learning how to write. Once again a # means I loved it, and I’ve introduced the shebang (#!) for the special case something was so 5/5 good I’d universally recommend it.

Permafrost

Elevation, by Alfredo Lafarga
Lick the Knife, by Desmond Everest Fuller #
Maybe a Deer, by Michael Czyzniejewski #
Disafiliation, by Donald Pasmore
Amber, by Erin Rodoni
Old Couple, by Tara Mandarano #
Salt & Ice, by Glo Chitwood
Kith, by Anne Duncan #
Veneration, by Shannon Bowring
[Voicemails in Slow Dissociation], by Judy Xie #
As the West Coast Burns, by Hannah Dierdorf #!

Litro

Illinois, by Desmond Everest Fuller #
Chances Are, by John Brantingham #

Other

Statement on Violence, by Samuel Day Wharton
The Road Out of Juneau, by Caitlin Scarano #
Twenty-Three, by Tobi Brun
Painted Eyes, by Tobi Brun

Music

A bunch of great stuff came out at the end of the quarter!

Nowhere, CA / May December (2026), songs by Hana Bryanne

Hana Bryanne’s Dollface was my obsession during the holiday months of 2024-2025, I must have listened to it 20 or 30 times while on vacation in Mexico. Her new songs are just as excellent; hopefully they indicate a new album in the works!

The Killjoy (2023), by Sarah Gross

I’m not usually one for country, but Sarah’s music is a lovely, modern, catchy mix of country with indie folk/pop/rock and progressive lyricism. I can’t wait for her new album in July, the two singles are bangers!

Chrysalis (2026), by Caronline Culver

to stay is to say

that I want it forever

we make and we break

we don’t know any better

Slush Puppy (2026), song by Tommy Lefroy

I had a feeling I’d go down in flames

just trying to be a girl in a surveilance state

dreaming for a future, waking up too late

sucking it down, don’t it taste so cold

sucking it down, but it’s chemical

I’ve had Slush Puppy on repeat all day as I finish writing up this quarter review. Tommy Lefroy is my favorite new band of the 2020s. They haven’t released much, but what they have is incredible. Born Blue was the best album of 2024.

YouTube

I’ve added a section for YouTube because I found some brilliant channels and I’ve nowhere else to shout them out.

Alison (@alisontalksbooks)

Alison is a refreshingly earnest, open, and authentic video essayist. She writes a substack that is equally worthwhile.

Marisa (@largeicedmochalatte)

It took me a litte while to understand the true brilliance of what Marisa is doing with her fast-paced, self-deprecating, over-sharing videos, that she purportedly writes on the subway after work, and films from her one-bedroom New York City appartment, but she is one of the most authentically hilarious people I’ve ever had the pleasure of listening to.

I think a lot of, you know, the reasons not to kill yourself kind of go out the window when you, when you really are an athiest. I don’t think you should do it, and this is an anti-suicide channel, uhm, because suicide is a lot of work, and why are you doing all that. If I ever die just know I, I am probably happy about it, but I didn’t do that shit myself. That was an act of god… So to speak.
— my thoughts on athiesm, 12:21-12:46

Her channel is a relatable, old-YouTube, sad-werid-person-talks-to-camera vlog, but written, performed, and editied by one of the most talented comedians on the platform. I’ve had to stop listening to the videos in public because I was embarassing myself laughing.

The Action Adventure Twins (@ActionAdventureTwins)

I’ve been obsessed with caves and spelunking ever since I first watched The Descent (2005). These guys may be a bit reckless, but they have the highest quality filming, editing, and energy of any caving channel on YouTube. Every single video is a gripping adventure, as advertised.

Theory

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

He searched the scrolling green outside her car for something of note. The shift had helped at first, but there loomed a point of no return; the whole summer to think of. “Do you know the area the cabin’s in?” he said, “From last time.” She had worked down there a couple of years before, something with counting fish.

“No,” she said. Then, after a moment, “We were a few miles up the creek, our place’s right in town.”

Our place. “Didn’t you get into town, though? It wasn’t all just salmon.”

“We’d carpool over to bars or whatever on weekends.”

“Salmon and drinking, then?” Yellow dashes on pavement,.

“There’s karaoke and trivia at The Yukon, this awful place Tony’s that had pool tables, sometimes live music played out a–”

“What, why’s it awful?”

“–t The Pit… Tony’s? Oh, it sucks, you’ll see. Maybe. I won’t be showing you.”

“A bad crowd? But no military there, at least.” That’s what was complained about.

“No, it’s just awful.”

He laughed, “It’s old then, another Kennecott situation?” She’d said that castles and cathedrals were the issue, but ghost towns had turned out to be trouble too. And historic-lodge-turned-museums.

“Ask around when we’re there.”

“We’re going to Tony’s first thing after we get in.”

“No.”

The signs and structures were already lit when they started to disrupt his forest view; it was early spring, though midnight sun would never touch this coast anyway. They pulled in for gas outside a Fred’s. He pointed across the way after she got back in, to green letters glowing in a window.

Over the table he met her eyes. “Still good to drive? I’ll do the night shift.”

“No, I like driving.”

They finished their burritos in silence. The neon word was the wrong way round. They were on the same side now. Buzzing.

The Subaru navigated vacant blocks, a break between highways. Past the city towered moonlit snow caps; their slopes pressed the road to a ledge over the ocean, until it finally relented and slipped inland up a valley. Down again and they had crossed the peninsula.

“Hey, I just got back into service.”

“…”

“Do you think that you will be there for a bit?”

“…”

“Okay, see you soon.” She hung up. “We’ll meet them at The Yukon.” Buildings thickened around the highway until it no longer was one.

The overhead florescents reflected off stained wood, bathing them in red. Short hair curled at the nape. He sat on a stool beside a ceiling post, behind the chairs, with the shot he’d bummed on introduction. Cold air across the face, then not again, but he couldn’t tell what was wrong.

Worn pebbles traced back to their parked vehicles; she had kept careful pace with the pickup down the winding dirt roads. Waves crashed, whipping across the bay, over from that street they had stumbled along. A tarp flapped before two double bunks. In the corner a camp stove flickered blue—one penknife against it all.

While the shelter lacked any windows, sunlight still bled in on account of the gaps. The two strangers filled their space, tending to a kettle that now sat atop the flame, but there was no sign of her from his pillow.

“Morning.” His elbows scraped wood through the bedding.

They each gave a nod. On the floor the heel of his Solomon poked out from under a blanket; farther up hung fingers.

“Tony’s,” one said, “Fuckin’ killed the whole night.”

He swung down and dug out the shoes. The digits retracted, and auburn tumbled above the quilt.

Gravel, waves, the bay and the town front, framed by mist and mountains under monochrome skies. Sunrise in Sepia: a 16mm exposure. The beach held nothing but the hut and bare trees. He urinated at a trunk, then strolled up the coast, away from where they’d driven in from. Docks came into view, but not a sail in sight.

“We made some for you, too.” She sat in bed, cross-legged with a mug, the blankets up around her shoulders. On the table a second mug stood beside the kettle. The brave burner had been snuffed.

“It’s freezing out there with the wind, my clothes are still damp from last night,” he said. Then, “Where are they?” Her hosts.

“They left for work.”

“Oh.” A knot. “Hatchery, right?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Mmm.” It was black with honey. British breakfast. “What’s the plan, then?”

“She said she can’t get us the keys until later tonight. Want to go to the library?”

His thumb moved towards the ceiling. After a left-handed struggle with a jeans pocket, he lowered the tea. “It doesn’t open ’til eleven. We could just park and walk around, that street looked nice.”

Her turn for a gesture.

The aisles were visible through panes on the second-floor. Next came a coffee hut, with a long line running from its window. A nautical cafe packed with fast-breakers. Thrift above a stairway. Crisp grass waved in the breeze, as did the floral flags hung from each lamppost. Whitecaps washed the neat rock bank. Pavement swept clean. For a moment, her shadow.

Along a row of residences was a Victorian that advertised espresso. Profiles sipped drinks in the upstairs window, above which was a steeple.

“Doesn’t look as crowded here,” he said. Over her shoulder, he could make out a stark dawn across the water.

“No.”

They took lattes up, and found a table.

Topics in Logic

Sat, 11 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Floor five was perverse. An ancient architectural puzzle, perhaps? Or else some administrative inside joke. The blueprint at the stairwell bore no decipherable resemblance to reality. Numbers skipped up and down the walls as they pleased.

His absences never registered with the rest, at least they’d yet to inspire a search. It was quite a difficult thing to comprehend. Aloofness in other matters may have impressed that this was by intention.

Beyond a doorway, over ten desks packed in awkward rows, he caught ’glimpse of another. Traipsing past lecterns, it opened to an isolated passage, apparently under an assumption that the intermediate furnishings were decorative. What happened here?

MATH 643/PHIL 661: Topics in Logic
Location: Barnette 533e
Time: 3:00pm-4:30pm Tue/Thu
Instructor: a name, no head shot, office, nor any academic genealogy.
Description: TBD.

That’d attract those to pass The Ways, he figured. Then again, he’d enroll…

Review, Jan-Mar '26

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

My aim at the start of this year was to read more novels and short fiction, rather than watch the disgusting amount of films I did last year. Three months in, I’ve been somewhat successful.

Books

In January, February, and March, I read 10 books out of the 12 that I’d hoped for.

The Shining, by Stephen King

I’m a big fan of The Shining film by Stanley Kubrick, but I’d always heard that it is very different from the original book. Most of the other media I’ve seen that is based on King’s stories has disappointed me, so I went into The Shining novel with some trepidation.

I needn’t have feared: the book is great. It is quite verbose—the majority of situations are shown separately from the three main characters’ perspectives—but never felt repetitive. The prose is simple, yet still interesting: a breeze to read; I flew through the 600+ pages of my mass market paperback in under six days.

In the novel, Jack’s point of view provides a warped and repressed picture of his past actions and his present motivations. He comes off as a much more sympathetic character than Jack does in the film—until he doesn’t.

Interestingly, while both are scary, the things I found most frightening in book are explicitly supernatural, and left out of the film. Even so, I personally think that Kubrick crafted a great adaptation: it takes liberties, but gave me a similar feeling of dread and decline. I’ll definitely check out more Stephen King, probably starting with the source material for my other favorite movie adaptations: Carrie (1976) and Christine (1983).

— 4/5 —

The next thing I read was These Demented Lands, a sequel to the novel Morvern Callar, which I read last year.

Morvern Callar, by Alan Warner (Read in 2025)

Morvern Callar, directed by Lynne Ramsay, is my unequivocal favorite film of all time. The movie released in 2002, while the novel on which it’s based was written by Alan Warner, and published in 1995. Online you’ll find numerous posts that dismiss the novel as inferior to its adaptation—so it was to my great surprise that I fell in love with the book as well!

It was the first time I’d slept alone in four year and you only listen to your heart when you sleep alone. I had kept my wrist watch on cause there was no one to scratch.
— Morvern Callar, pp. 37

I’ve re-read large sections of it several times, and the paperback stands alongside the blu ray among my most prized possessions. Regardless of medium, Morvern Callar is a story about grief and anxiety, loneliness and alienation, survival and independence. Morvern is one-of-a-kind; the most original and compelling fictional character I’ve ever encountered.

— 5/5 —

These Demented Lands, by Alan Warner

‘Man, you are zilch, you are zilch in weirdyness to things I did and saw way Down There,’ I shouted to him as he approached, the stag’s horns on his motorcycle helmet (that he was later arrested for as an accident hazard) moving slow from side to side as he braked to a stop; the old motorbike phuttering away.
— These Demented Lands, pp. 44

These Demented Lands is a bizarre creation. It’s a sequel that—beyond the narrative voice—never lets on that it is a sequel until the final line; it never even lets on if what’s written is meant to be taken literally. After only one read, I’m not capable of deciphering what it’s all exactly about, but I know that I had a blast. It is a sort of surrealist mix of Morvern Callar with Mad Max; more funny and more disturbing than Morvern’s first adventure, but not quite as profound.

— 4/5 —

The Sopranos, by Alan Warner

I went into The Sopranos not knowing what to expect. Why was Alan Warner writing about “the sexual adventures of Catholic girls,” as the quote from E. Anne Proulx on the back of my copy states? What could possibly have influenced such an about face from his first two works?

The first chapter had me chuckling, though, and I immediately realized my mistake: of course he should write a comedy, These Demented Lands was hilarious! When I reached the chapter titled Hymn to Orla Johnstone, I found he had not deviated at all: I was reading a continuation of the ideas in Morvern, just tackled from new perspectives.

But what Fionnula felt was anger, not anger at Iain or Catriona, not anger at Kay’s folk, not even anger at their absurd religion, but anger at the sky and the roundabout and the whole charade that puts a young, lovely girl, lost in a city; unknown as to what she really wants an too lonely to imagine.
— The Sopranos, pp. 236

The Sopranos is the incredibly written, hilarious, crushingly sad, and wonderfully hopeful story of a life-changing 24 hour period in the lives of six young women. The review I quoted above is unforgivably misleading: there is little on page sexual activity, and what there is, is not lurid. It’s not sexualizing Catholic schoolgirls, the characters are just 17 year olds; their conversations will, on occasion, veer into risqué territory.

Fionnula accepted what Orla had told her by reaching out, taking the fiver in her hand and gripping it tight, she accepted everything that was going to happen until the end.
— The Sopranos, pp. 323

The final chapter is one of the most emotional endings that I have ever read. Never have I laughed and cried so much while reading one book.

— 5/5 —

Under the Skin, by Michel Faber

Another week and another Scottish novel that served as source material for a film that I love. I won’t rag on this too much, but suffice it to say that the film is almost entirely different—and is much better for it. The characters were plain, the ideas surface level, and the world building made little sense beyond providing a contrived premise for the specific moral quandaries the author had in mind.

— 2/5 —

The Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood

But in life, a tragedy is not one long scream. It includes everything that led up to it. Hour after trivial hour, day after day, year after year, and then the sudden moment: the knife stab, the shell burst, the plummet of the car from the bridge.
— The Blind Assassin, pp. 417-418

One of the most impressive novels that I have ever read. It’s a page-turning mystery, a devastating tragedy, a complex romance, and a meticulous piece of feminist historical fiction, all woven into a whole that is even greater. Alias Grace has long been my go-to answer for, “What is my favorite book?” And The Blind Assassin is its equal.

— 5/5 —

In Bloom, by C. J. Skuse

The Sweetpea series is a guilty pleasure of mine. At its best, the writing is incredibly clever and funny. At its worst, the story devolves into trashy smut and the author’s repetitive musings on things that she finds annoying.

Previous to this year, I’d already seen the show and read the first book, but I won’t dedicate a full review to those. The Starz show is better than the novels in many ways—it mostly avoids self indulgence and shows how awkward and disturbing Rhiannon is when observed from outside her perspective—and worse in others—it chickens out of a certain plot line in a way that strains believability.

In Bloom is the second book of the series and it is probably the weakest of the three that I’ve read. Still, it was pretty darn entertaining and the ending was so great that I bumped my opinion into the positive.

— 3/5 —

The Stars in the Bright Sky, by Alan Warner

‘Anne Boleyn lived here for a short time, it said on the Internet.’
‘What happened to her?’ Manda frowned.
Kay drew her finger across her throat.
‘Dozy cow. Must have been asking for it. If she had this place, what more did she want?’
‘I can’t believe you even have a bad opinion of Anne Boleyn.’ Finn shook her head disappointedly.
— The Stars in the Bright Sky, pp. 172

TSitBS is an excellent sequel to The Sopranos, though I did not find it nearly as emotional. It’s also less creative in its language and punctuation, but still experimental in its commitment to ensemble conversations. The dialogue and character work is amazing, as expected, and it’s the funniest Warner book I’ve read so far. The ending is ridiculous—I couldn’t have worked it out even if I had 100 guesses.

— 4/5 —

Trainspotting, by Irvine Welsh

After devouring four Alan Warner novels, I decided to check out other Scots writing. What could be a better choice to start with than Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting? It’s one of the most popular Scottish books of all time, and Welsh and Warner seem to be good friends.

Trainspotting is one of the most disgusting pieces of fiction that I’ve ever read, and I say that (mostly) as a compliment. Individual chapters would frequently blow me away, but they never wove together in a particularly moving manner—unlike the set pieces in The Sopranos, which crescendo-ed to have me rolling with laughter or bawling my eyes out. Nevertheless, it features excellent prose and complex, entertaining characters, so I will definitely read more from Welsh in the future.

— 4/5 —

The Panopticon, by Jenni Fagan

The Panopticon is YA Trainspotting, for better and for worse. I loved each of the residents, and I was invested in their plights; I was on their side right from the jump, and I loved them, flaws and all. But the author cared far too much that us readers MUST love her characters, and eventually their goodness was spelled out to the point of emotional manipulation. As Scots writing, it felt inspired by Warner and Welsh, but it lacked their experimental brilliance.

— 3/5 —

Dead Head, by C. J. Skuse

The change of setting was welcome in Sweetpea book three, and the new characters were mostly excellent. However, it would periodically insert some bland new sexual predator or child abuser for Rhi to murder, and the author is clearly not interested in writing these scenarios anymore—I’m certainly no longer interested in reading them. Like the first two in the series, there is a fantastic dark comedy in this novel somewhere, but it’s cluttered by commercial trappings.

— 3/5 —

Poems and Short Stories

As I’ve been attempting to write my own short fiction, I decided to read some literary journals. Below are all the short fiction and nonfiction pieces that I’ve read this year. I don’t really know how to rate them, so I’ll just put # after any that I particularly enjoyed.

HAD

The Maw by the Sea, by Morgan Rose-Marie
The way I remember things probably didn’t happen, by Katherine Schmidt
The Ape God Addresses Mononoke, by Steven Duong
Summer Boyfriends, by Emily Polson #
Things I Should Have Outgrown by Now, by Megan Williams
I’m Leaving a Quart of Plain Yogurt and If You Don’t Want to Eat It Do You Mind Throwing It Out?, by Anney Bolgiano
Aries Season, by Frances Klein
Time Capsule Love Song, by Tom Snarsky
IF YOU WANNA FIGHT, FIGHT, by nat raum
Eat Local, by Julia Juster
One-Way Mirror, by Dylan Evers #
Are You Down to Summon Megan Fox, by Dylan Evers #
Ode to the Texture of Grapefruit, by Kyla Guimaraes
Cupid Frontiersman, by June Villers

Permafrost

Other People’s Email, by Andy Stevens
Slow Burn, by Daniel Webre
Hills & Dales Shopping Centre, by Eric Van Hoose
Reality, by Laurence Klavan
How to not drive cross country, by Carmen Catena
Sorrow’s Delicacy, by Matthew Meduri
Waiting for the End, by Angela Miyuki Mackintosh
The Log, by Keigh Ahr
À la Carte Blanche, by Zach Powers
The Trees They Grow So High, by Jacqueline Vogtman #
In the House of Eternal Return, by Michael Sheehan
Settle Road, by Morgan Rose-Marie
Spectral, by Rebecca Meacham
incantation, by Bex Pachl
Looking at the Meat, by Angela Townsend
Chalk Boy, by Charlie Rogers
Woofin’, by Alex Juffer
To the Man Who Didn’t Humiliate Me, by Brian Benson
She Wants to Swim with Narwhals, by Billie Hinton
East Palestine, Ohio: February 2023, by Ashley Anderson

Music

Lots of great albums this winter. Not quite last year with Samia, but we’re still eating well.

Not Anything, Just Everything (2026), by Kristiane

My first impression of Kristiane was that she was a budget Phoebe Bridgers. Nowadays I listen to far more Kristiane than Bridgers. Idaho is so damn catchy.

Tropical Lush Ice / 10 Drunk Cigarettes (2026), by Georgia Maq

Georgia Maq is my favorite artist, this new single and bangin’ cover are just as excellent as everything else she’s released. My most listened songs from the year so far, no contest.

Pumpkin (2026), by Georgia Parker

One of my most anticipated releases, and it did not disappoint. It’s one of those albums I think of as one piece, rather than dilineated songs. I just listened again to try and pick a favorite, but they all blend perfectly, I can’t do it.

Ricochet (2026), by Snail Mail

Snail Mail has been one of my favorite artists ever since I discovered her through one of ManneredMonkey’s chess streams; he’s also how I was introduced to Laura Stevenson, truly a man of fine taste (I haven’t watched him in years, so I can’t vouch for him now). Five years and one vocal cord surgery later, we finally have new Lindsey music! I listened to the whole thing several times over the night it came out, rocking out the whole time. Her voice is different now, softer and less raspy, but the album still slaps. Color me surprised when I went on Reddit and other social media to find middling to negative reviews.

no matter what

or come what may

I bounce right back to ya, ricochet

into the hole

you dug for me

’cause I keep holding you up, girl

there’s no release

People are sleeping on this one, the title track alone might be the best song of her career.

Workhorse (2025), by Isabel Pless

you’re allowed to bleed outside the lines

Isabel, you’re allowed to change your mind

Workhorse came out last year, but only found its way to me in 2026. Isabel is now one of my favorite artists. Brilliant, honest lyrics, and exactly my style of music. She recently released a new single as well!

for myself and for you.m4a (2026), by Olivia Barton

A stripped down, acoustic version of Barton’s excellent album from last year. I suprisingly much prefer this version, I doubt I’ll ever reach for the original again. Truly a special, personal piece of art.

Cartography

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

All was grey, wet, glistening in the sun. Between bare branches of birch and aspen, distant mountains peeked from hilltops. Footsteps crunched on crust with the occasional patch of melt interjecting.

Rumbles came up the road and the runner edged left, not a choice, and was muffled in the shoulder.

“Want a seltzer?” A bare hand draped dark blue papered aluminum out the window of a sedan.

There was a pause. “Uhm. Sure.” The can hopped rides. Then nothing.

“You looked thirsty!” The passenger laughed, and they were off around the bend.

After a time, crackles resounded once more. Held in front, bobbing at each impact, a streak of green and red aurora ran across the label.

The vodka bubbly lodged in a fridge door at the cabin, not likely to escape. Then it was up stairs—varnished 2x6 slats arranged at intervals between their tall brothers—to a cramped bedroom.

Thin black glass slipped out from a zipper pocket along their lower back. Cotton and denim replaced wool and synthetics, which were hung sodden from dresser knobs and bookshelf ends. The contours of hills illuminated at a touch.

A tiny triangle sat center of concentric ovals, with a path extending to the right; that one path eventually split into three. There were, also, a couple of words: Spring—where the north fork met a blue squiggle—and, some length below the crossroads—Entrance.

Battering Ram

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

CLICK. CLICK. CLICK. CLICK.

Behind, a relay switched on and off, on and off, a gray sheet of fuzz six inches above. I rolled in the bag and wormed up to jiggle the headlight switch; the noise stopped.

Stomach wedged between seats, legs on an inflatable pad across the plywood that covered my belongings, I managed the zipper down and cold flooded the gap. The keychain was in a denim pocket on the wrong side, so took a bit more managing. The ignition turned without response. A bike pedal pressed in my side, and doors would not open for hours yet.

My father and I had built the makeshift camper in the back four months prior for an opposite journey. I’d barely lasted one after he’d flown off, and that was in the mountains. At the doctorate I was to teach 40 freshmen, ‘kind of stealing it’d occurred. I’d gone back to say my intention and sit the conversations, then to hand over keys.

Alone among white aisles, my object was displayed on a cardboard stand. I tried not to resent the purchase. Big ceilings had my eyes fuzzy. I plugged the battery in at the pole beside my space, and the lot outlets were on thanks to the cold; then, it was the cold that’d caused the predicament.

Teeth separated two candy tablets out of the paper tube, a gift from the princess at the convenience counter. Though there’d been no shortage of highway strangeness, last night’s date registered in the dawn.

Before bed I’d pushed the lock without taking keys. Should’ve been a spare in the Broncos wallet I’d found in Colorado, but the bugger’d fallen down the center console. I had tried for the bathroom at Walmart, then stood and shivered in my jeans and sweatshirt.

Via text, my parents had helped to consult the hivemind: no roaming in Canada. A post mentioned cab companies could do car locks, yet the man on the line had been confused. He’d suggested the RCMP, and, loopy enough, I’d taken the shot; they had scoffed, rightfully.

Eventually Mom’d rang and read the number for a tow company. They’d “get me in a minute,” third call’s the charm, I’d supposed. The desk attendant didn’t object, but had kept eyes on me all the while I’d taken refuge in the hotel lobby. Out $75, I’d got safe in the bag.

An hour on the indicator switched green. Attaching leads, the vehicle hummed up without a fuss. Jump-starter sat passenger side and hooked via an inverter to the lighter. I had a McGriddle from the drive-through before the AlCan, while a voice read Let the Right One In. (The poor lady in hospital’d burned up.)

A shiny crack in the dark needles wound up and down between sections of flat straight. The sides cut 50 feet back, it was imposing in spite of the single lanes.

The empty sky reflected off snow in Fort Nelson, illuminating signage green, white in blinding contrast. Lunch was footlong chicken breast, my usual, infamously plant substitute. After cold cuts’ affair with cancer I liked to think, maybe, that I’d dodged a bullet. Probably the long term effects of ORCB aren’t studied, though.

It showed 1191 miles left, the route: Fort Collins to Fairbanks, a stop in Yellowstone. Whitehorse looked at least half that, so no hope tonight. If not for the course Friday I’d rather have made it in three days instead of two; she’d written a letter for the PhD so must’ve been surprised, but hadn’t asked. I stared at the map a little more, but no particular stood out. I’d get over the Rockies, I figured, and camp first chance afterwards.

After sundown I’d often seen naught but long hauls, each a dot on the horizon that would split in two. As paint lines’d start to drown we’d swap off the brights. Not one had failed me, nor I them. On the road past Fort Nelson even in the day I was solely among friends.

There was a lodge thing with two pumps out front. The gas contraption was worn looking metal shaped like a grandfather clock, with numbers displayed in the way of an old alarm one for a bedside. Apparently no mechanism for card payment had fit the aesthetic. Two pickups sat parallel to the log walls, but beyond the window was pitch black and my courage bled out on the welcome mat. It was yet to use half the tank, just the staring at the map had worried me.

I don’t recall the way the mountain part looked in the light, except for flakes began to fall before the sun did; surely that was a sight. My modus operandi of roaring down straights, each limit taken as a hint for the next corner, started to be put to serious question: their eyes caught by the cone’s edge, a clump of bison’d passed ten yards off the right door. Back at the apartment the thought would’ve been appealing.

It’d been hours since a structure or rest-stop and cell towers were in the dust. From windblown crust, the moon’s image outlined ridges against the stars. The infinite darkness of pavement hooked past down the hill. I’d raised my arms and twirled a while when a beam of whitish yellow cut ’cross the night.

My companion hurtled at a speed caution forbade in the best of conditions, but I fell in line, knuckles white from catching up. A few thousand pounds of hair and muscle would hardly worry such a creation.

The labeled dot was still many miles away when an orange image lit between F and E on the dash. There’d be a station there, I tried to believe, as ahead red squares careened ’round another steep bank. Each minute was an age.

The look of the dirt road did little to corroborate my silent affirmations. I nodded a salute to the receding lights and crossed left into blackness. Down a ways was a rectangular gazebo next to what appeared like a gift shop. This pump was a less cohesive piece than the last, but the plastic slot atop the keypad was the most beautiful I’d ever seen. That was until I worked out the interface was vestigial and my joke too close to home.

I’d crawled into the bag when the crunch of tires came alongside and a flashlight cast the shadow of shirt-draped handlebars. Faces and uniforms came into focus, then vanished before I could lower my hand.

I awoke drenched, as if I’d wet myself. It seemed all might become solid any second and I’d meet my end in an episode of Scooby Doo. I scrambled the key to the slot and begged the fuel to be enough and the cold not to have got the electronics again.

My clothes shed—they didn’t smell of urine—I struggled into long underwear and pulled over a coat and snow pants. No heat’d come off the engine yet, so I drove a couple circles and parked near the woods. A trickle ran down my leg as I slithered back inside.

The gas held out ’til a beater brown Ford pulled up to the building. In behind the register, her look shared that no winter gear was containing a week without a shower. When the hose nozzle clicked, and flow took up, a display sprung on to count the gallons. Some life after all.