Okay, let’s see if I can actually write this without getting completely distracted by Hell Camp, a documentary about those culty and abusive nature camps wealthy parents send their out-of-control teens to. I’m so glad my family didn’t have the cash to ship me out into (barf) nature to stop my juvenile delinquinting. Much more economical to ignore and hope for the best. And look! I turned out just fine. Anyway, this program is screening right in front of me as I type on the couch, and its triggering whatever true crime brain chemicals these shows produce in my body. Focus. Jere are the books I read in 2023.
By ‘read,’ I must be transparent: some of these books I read deeply, closely, cover-to-cover. Others I gave a hard skim. Hard skim. Cover-to-cover, yes, but jumping around a bunch in between. I get way too many books every year, a truly blissful, huge plus of my life! So grateful! But it would not be possible to read them all and even make a dent in books I actually purchase at bookstores. Which I can’t stop doing. Even as fantastic, unsolicited literature shows up on my doorstep weekly.
My kid thinks this is bullshit, btw. He has diligently consumed multiple book series this year. He totally ate the Wings of Fire series, all 500 of them. He read all of Harry Potter – Oh! Just today at breakfast, at Norm’s Diner, over plates of greasy food, my son learned that JK Rowling is a horrible person. Santa and JK Rowling in the same month! What a coming of age! It just sort of came up, and I went with it. The shock and disgust on his face when he learned that JK Rowling is super terrible to trans people, in particular trans women, it was so fucking sweet. I can’t believe I used to worry about him being a serial killer, back when he was three or four and would growl “Put you in GARBAGE!” whenever he was. It’s so nerve-wracking raising a boy! But this one is a gem, an avid reader and a good person. Currently he is on the Percy Jackson series, and is hate-watching the new show on Disney, alerting us with outrage every time the action veers from the book.
Okay. This is what I read.
Border Crossings: A Journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway by Emma Fick. Emma Fick is a writer and illustrator and this book is a graphic memoir about her trip through Mongolia and Siberia, into Russia. What an epic jaunt! I really love Flick’s art; she has another book all about New Orleans, where she lives and where I found this book, at Garden District Book Shop, when I did a reading for my own book. I feel very compelled to buy a book when I do a book store reading, because I appreciate book stores so much, and I want to support them, and this makes buying a book seem like an almost political act, and then I really can’t say no. Anyway, Border Crossings is great and I so admire hardcore travelers who go to places that are, like, very cold, where you cannot access your preferred snacks. It seems deeply worthwhile (duh), but I think I will probably just keep going to Paris and this one spot in the Yucatan I love. I just could imagine spending all this time and money to get to a very far-away place such as Siberia and then looking around and being, like, okay. Cool. And then wanting to be in Mexico. No offense, Siberia. I was psyched to learn about it through Fick’s words and pictures.
Corked by Kathryn Borel. Part of my writerly life in Los Angeles is meeting TV and movie people and getting sucked into their orbit and brainstorming lots of very exciting TV and movie projects that don’t go anywhere. Even though they haven’t yet ever gone anywhere that doesn’t mean they won’t go somewhere, someday, so you say yes to all of it, all the time, and besides, the actual people that you meet and brainstorm with are, as a rule, the very best, most excellent people. Case in point: Kathryn Borel, with whom I brainstormed a TV show with an underlying structure that tracked the tarot. It was super fun, our ideas were great, and Kathryn didn’t even tell me that she wrote this rollicking memoir about going on a road trip with her dad – a French wine expert with a diabolical amount of joie de vivre – in the wake of a traumatic accident. When I exclaimed at Kathryn about never mentioning her book she said, “I’m Canadian. We get our passports revoked if we talk about ourselves too much.”
Streaming Now: Postcards From the Thing That is Happening by Laurie Stone. Hopefully, you already know about Laurie Stone and what a genius writer person she is – she has a Substack right here, and I believe does cool Substack hang-outs on zoom. This book made me excited to write and also to be alive. There is something about life writing, a person just writing frankly about their view of the world and all the world has brought to them, that fills me with such an energy. I mean, obviously I was put on earth to be one of these people (or it’s an addiction, but maybe I was put on earth to be an addict, too?) Anyway, Laurie is extraordinarily good at showing you her world and the contents of her mind. Read her sub and get her book, from the great small feminist press Dottir.
The Call Out: A Novel in Verse by Cat Fitzpatrick. I fucking love a novel in verse! What a cool project. And this novel occurs inside a queer scene comprised primarily of trans women navigating relationships and the internet in Brooklyn. It’s very sly and witty and sharp – there’s a Sex in the City vibe and also clever British period piece energy. Only the characters are trans and queer women you wish you were friends with, today, and if you live in Brooklyn maybe you are. I saw Cat read from this when it was in progress, at the Poetry Project, and it really blew me away and I’m so happy everyone can find it now and devour it.
Frantic Transmissions to and From Los Angeles by Kate Braverman. Remember I wrote a whole piece about the rise and fall of my friendship with Kate Braverman, and then her ghost came and crashed my computer? I always wonder, why would any ghost want to stick around and haunt anyone? Surely there are more wondrous things to do once you’re dead? But I do believe that Kate Braverman would surely come back to haunt us. I figured I should show her some respect and read and imbibe some of her work. I had never read Frantic Transmissions. As she once said to me about my own book Rent Girl – “Not your best work.” Chortle! What is her best work, IMHO? Wonders of the West, about a girl in the 60s living with a sick brother and a single, dating mom in this sad housing for cancer patients in Los Angeles. I also re-read Palm Latitudes, which is set in Echo Park and had given me all these images of that park and its lake and statuary, and I liked reading it again now that I live here. It’s kind of wild reading a white woman write from the perspectives of various Latina women. It was a different time (1988). Kat Braverman’s voice is singular, though. Dramatic, full of color and almost psychedelically lush description, even when (especially when?) detailing despair and abjection.
The Journals of Anais Nin Volume Five and The Four-Chambered Heart by Anais Nin. My re-kindled obsession with Anais Nin continues; currently I’m halfway through Incest, omitted portions of her sprawling diary that detail her sex affair with her father. Don’t judge her! You don’t know her life. What a truly remarkable, low-key insane, prolific femme. In Volume Five she’s carrying on with her psychoanalyst, and Henry of course, and June. And Antonin Artaud, who seems unwell. Despite her nymphomania, self-obsession, manic highs and watery lows, Anais actually doesn’t seem unwell. She seems like a sexed-up woman who somehow managed to do whatever she wanted, and as a result here I am typing about her in 2023. I worry I am really not living up to my Anasian potential. None of us are! The Four-Chambered Heart was a treat especially after reading so much about her experiences of writing fiction, and reading about the affair that the book fictionalizes back in the journals. She always knew her journals were her great work, but I do like her fiction as well. Footnote: Maybe Volume 5 is not about that era of her life? (It’s not - Ed.) It’s all like one long story in my mind.
Sapiens: A Graphic History: The Birth of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari I picked up at the little free library by the YWCA in Glendale. They always have great stuff. This is an excellent, big-thinking explanation of what we are, at least biologically. I liked it very much, though can’t remember much of it, making me wonder why I even bother.
The Biology of Desire: Why Addiction is Not a Disease by Marc Lewis. My husband brought this blasphemous book into our home. Kidding - I’m actually happy I’m no longer triggered by any thinking that challenges AA’s take on addiction. Which is still pretty much my take on addiction, even though I have strayed, what with my recent openness to psychedelics. I still feel like the only people who have an understanding of addiction that makes sense to me are people who been though AA, and I would not be celebrating 20 years without alcohol and narcotics in 2023 without that amazing program. But I did always think the disease model of alcoholism and addiction was off. It’s hard, because these conditions remain confounding mysteries at their core. While a million things sort of contribute to it, nothing really causes. Predispositions, sure. I sort of think that the problem is A. alcohol has a really strong effect on you physically and B. You get obsessed with it, regardless of whether or not the strong effect is positive or negative. But that’s not a disease, or an allergy. Nothing explains why you can kiss your fucking life goodbye if you are unfortunate enough to have it. I see why it’s an easy shorthand to call it a disease, but also, - bad science? It does speak to the reality of the body doing its own thing, puppeting the meat suit towards the drinks and drugs. Currently my 70-something uncle is hitting a serious bottom and still doesn’t think he has a problem, even though he’s homeless after being evicted after one of his lower companions was arrested for beating the shit out of the people next door, tying them up and stealing their television while parting at my uncle’s. He pulled a geographic back to Massachusetts and now is heading back to the Midwest, scene of his most recent crimes. It’s not a disease but it’s something, and he’s been in its clutches my whole life.
X by Davey Davis. I loved this sour, truly nihilistic narrator, a trans guy in a politically apocalyptic New York, in an America where a diverse demographic of undesirables are being kicked out of the country. A dystopian, queer noir, Jim Thompson vibes. It’s a very dirty, very horny book with much violent sex that, like my girl Anais, did make me feel like I’m not living hard enough. I know that this is fiction – dark fiction at that – but what can I say. IT’S PART OF MY DISEASE.
Joan Didion: What She Means. I was gifted this gorgeous, cloth-bound book by the sweeties at The Hammer Museum, a thank you for being in conversation with Maggie Nelson, something I would do, and sometimes do do, for free - and they paid us besides. So sweet! Hilton Als of course curated the show and what can you say about Hilton Als, he’s awe-inspiring. Actually I saw him read at the San Francisco Public Library once and he seemed sort of cuddly. A friend. I missed this show, so was very happy to take it in from my couch at my own leisure. If I ever get my drivers’ license it will be so I can cruise around the LA Freeways in a convertible, the Santa Anas darkening my mood, like Joan. Also so I can drive my kid to school instead of taking the bus.
Another stellar free library score. I want to go to Mexico City so bad, will I ever make it happen? I loved this book, super man-on-the-street, a Los Angeles-based writer dives into Mexico City and writes about his adventures with punks, fashion queers, Santa Muerte devotees. Speaking of, I just found a botanic supply store down by Santee Alley and it was like 90% Santa Muerte. I bought a road opener candle for a friend about to start a novel. The best thing you’ll never hear is an interview I did with Myriam Gurba about Santa Muerte and Mexican Folk Catholicism, for my Your Magic podcast. We stopped it before we could edit it. Blame capitalism. But if you are intrigued by me and Myriam in the same room, and you live in Los Angeles, you should come hear us read together at The Broad on January 11th. Free! I’m reading Creep right now – I was so proud of my stupid local bookstore, the Barnes and Noble and the Americana at Brand, for having it! Duh it’s excellent, grab it.
Okay, so – Hell Camp has ended and now Curry and Cyanide, a different true crime offering, is screening, and I have to go to an actual movie, Night of the Comet at the esteemed Vidiots. Apparently, an actress will be there live and in person, and what if it’s Mary Woronov? I’LL DIE! Remind me to tell you about how Mary Woronov once asked me if I was on Prozac. And read her memoir of her Warhol years. Swimming Underground. It’s very Party Monster.
I’m not done! I’ll tell you about the rest later. I read – and hard skimmed – way more books in 2023!
Kate Braverman was wrong about Rent Girl, it is a classic!!! I reread it every few years and love it so much.
Oh I got my Mary’s switched up! I thought you were talking about Mary Boone for a moment who hit on me at her gallery a decade ago. OMG I’m aging