Tucker Lieberman's Blog, page 6

Poems about grief (Part 1 of 3): Immediacy

Last year, I happened to read a number of poems that, to me, describe what grief feels like when one is going through it. They speak on other subjects, too, but I saved and organized them around the theme of grief. I’m not going to tell you which lines spoke to me. What matters is that these lines speak to you.

Paige Lewis, “On the train a man snatches my book, reads,” Gulf Coast

Kimberly Grey “Heroic Sentences” The Opposite of Light

Anna Rose Welch “Desire” We, the Almighty Fires

Wislawa Szymborska “Photograph from September 11” (trans. Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Barańczak)

Vievee Francis “White Mountain” Forest Primeval

Adam Zagajewski “Poets are Presocratics” (trans. Clare Cavanagh)

Ada Limón, “After the Fire” The Carrying

Jack Gilbert “Harm and boon in the meetings” The Great Fires

Sharon Olds “I Go Back to May 1937” The Gold Cell

Ayame Whitfield, “too late,” yell/shout/scream

Natasha Trethewey “Soil Horizon”

Carl Phillips, “On Triumph” Paris Review

Diana Arterian, “driving us through a wood” playing monster :: seiche

Amy Lowell “September 1918”

Brigit Pegeen Kelly “Guest Place” Song

Kathy Fagan, “Structural Engineering,” Sycamore

Leila Chatti, “Upon Realizing There are Ghosts In the Water” Tunsiya/Amrikiya

Jennifer Wolkin “the only truth is grief and grief is the sound of silence”

Kristin Garth “Kitten Smitten”

Tracy K. Smith “September” duende

Wanda Coleman, “George Death Anniversary” Hand Dance

Raúl Zurita, “Verónica” The Country of Ice

Joe Nasta, “Fire Main”

Heather Christle “Circumvention” Arkansas International Issue 5

Frederick Pollack “Nationalism”

Mary-Lou Brockett-Devine “Dead Reckoning” Karamu

Alicia Ostriker “Prayer in Autumn” 

Anna Swir, “My friend speaks when dying,” trans. Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan, Talking to My Body

Czeslaw Milosz “Notebook” Second Space

Ada Limón “The Conditional”

Ada Limón “What I Didn’t Know Before”

Joanna Klink “Elemental”

Brian Turner “Here, Bullet”

Meena Alexander “House” (see page 40) Illiterate Heart

Raymond Carver “Evening”

Danez Smith “acknowledgments”

Dana Curtis, “The Unchosen Twin” The Body’s Response to Famine

M. A. Vizsolyi “the ash leapt in place on our foreheads” The Lamp With Wings

Sam Sax, “New God of an Antique War” bury it

Sharon Olds, “Object Loss”

Polina Barskova “Manuscript found by Natasha Rostova during the fire”

Leah Silvieus “Vision” Season of Dares

Aracelis Girmay “To Waste My Hands”

Kristin Garth “Necropolis”

Javier Zamora “Pump water from the well” Unaccompanied

Brenna Twohy, “A coworker asks me if I am sad, still,” Zig-Zag Girl

Brenna Twohy, “Conversations about Top Chef” Zig-Zag Girl

Hieu Minh Nguyen, “Lesson,” Not Here

Hieu Minh Nguyen, “Still, Somehow,” Not Here

Brenda Hillman “On a Day, In the World”

Natalie Diaz “Monday Aubade”

Anna Akhmatova “[And all those whom my heart won’t forget]” trans. Judith Hemshemeyer

Agha Shahid Ali “Farewell”

“[I used to think silence was beautiful, but now I get why]” Anna Meister

Ruth Awad, “Lessons in Grief”

Joanna Klink “Wonder of Birds” at Length

Donika Kelly “Love Poem: Mermaid” Bestiary

Natasha Tretheway “Repentance”

Richard Siken “The painting that includes all painting”

Rachel McKibbens, “Letter from my heart to my brain,” blud

Rachel McKibbens, oath (blud litany), blud

Rachel McKibbens, “Out house” blud

Rachel McKibbens, “Una oración (bruja’s soliloquy)” blud

Mayuri Singh “lily demons, lurking”

Why is Jack Sparrow Obsessed with Eunuchs?

Captain Jack Sparrow (played by Johnny Depp) is enigmatic, charismatic, jovial, and mischievous. He’s an integral part of what has made the Pirates of the Caribbean (PotC) franchise so beloved. Now infamous in the blockbuster cinema canon, Sparrow has been immortalized with his own Wikipedia page, entire websites devoted to his lore, and perhaps the most infamous Saturday Night Live Digital Short of all time. The intertextual nature of this character is incredibly vast.

 

There’s nothing–and I mean NOTHING–more iconic and telling of Jack Sparrow’s place in our culture than this incredible skit by the Lonely Island and Michael Bolton.

Sparrow’s intertextual appeal is driven by the mystery that surrounds him. Mystery is seemingly built into his identity—his very DNA, even—and he devotes a lot of energy to maintaining his mythos; as the legend of his escape from a desert island using sea turtles shows, Sparrow not only crafts his mythologies, but lets them take on new lives of their own. He is legend inasmuch as what he tells others as what they tell of him.

Naturally, the legend of Captain Jack Sparrow raises a lot of unanswerable questions. While he does get broken down and taken to task more than one in the PotC franchise, all his oddities and curiosities are never fully revealed. Sparrow, more often than not, is an absolutely inscrutable character, and no amount of research and questioning can elucidate a fulfilling understanding of him.

With this notion of the character’s mythos in mind, there is a curiosity about Sparrow that begs to be explored: a particular fascination with eunuchs. In what context does this fascination occur, and what might it tell us about the infamous captain of the Black Pearl?

The Context of Eunuchs in the Pirates’ World

It’s important to note up-front that in the PotC franchise, the films have no (overt) eunuch characters. According to the PotC Fandom Wiki, the only “notable” eunuch in the PotC shared universe appears in the novel The Price of Freedom. In the films, eunuchs are only mentioned, and under specific circumstances:

Sparrow is the only character that brings up eunuchs
He discusses eunuchs only in relation to Will Turner (Orlando Bloom)

Why is this the case? Answering that is a tough question, but understanding the context of his comments about Turner is key to addressing Sparrow’s fixation.

Two for the Black Pearl

Sparrow calls Turner a eunuch twice in Curse of the Black Pearl. The first time is in  the blacksmith shop where Turner is an apprentice. When Turner returns to the shop after a meeting with Governor Swann (Jonathan Pryce) and finds Sparrow trying break his bonds and hide from the British soldiers hunting him across Port Royal, a conflict ensues. Realizing he can’t get out of the conflict so easily, Sparrow first tries intimidation and condescension to avoid a drawn-out fight. Only upon learning Turner is a well-trained swordsman with an air of bravado about him does Sparrow begin to panic and frantically fight.

During the fight, he attacks Turner verbally and physically, belittling him for spending so much time crafting weapons and practicing his swordsmanship. It is in this back and forth — after he ridicules Turner for a supposed inability to “otherwise woo” a love interest — that Sparrow remarks: “You’re not a eunuch, are you?” However, rather than distracting Turner or bruising his ego long enough to make an escape, the comment only seems to incense the conflict, to the point where Sparrow has to “cheat” and draw his pistol on Turner.

Later on in Black Pearl, Sparrow calls Turner a eunuch again, but in a very different context. By this point in the film, Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) and his crew have ransacked and destroyed the ship Turner and Sparrow commandeered to save Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley). During the battle between the Pearl and the HMS Interceptor, Sparrow — who had been taken prisoner by Barbossa — escapes the brig and attempts to find Turner, Swann, and the gold piece necessary to break an old, Aztec curse.

At this point, Sparrow and Turner both know Barbossa actually needs Turner’s blood to break the curse, not Swann’s. Turner’s father—known as “Bootstrap” Bill—was a former Black Pearl crewmember. After Barbossa committed mutiny against Sparrow and took command of the Pearl, Bootstrap was enraged. As Sparrow’s friend, Bootstrap avenged him by sending a piece of the gold to his son so that the mutinous crew would be cursed forever. After sending Bootstrap to the depths for this act, Barbossa and his crew realized their error. Ever since, they have been searching for Bootstrap’s child and the gold piece ever since; they need that child’s blood to end the curse. Sparrow, knowing all of this, desperately wants to regain control of the Pearl, already having tried to bargain with Barbossa for the ship.

Jack, trying desperately to bargain for his ship back.

With the battle lost and the gold piece back in Barbossa’s hands, Turner is Sparrow’s last play for control; now that the Interceptor is destroyed, the survivors — including Sparrow — are Barbossa’s captives. Barbossa is set on taking them back to the treasure and spilling all of Swann’s blood to hopefully lift the curse. His bargain having failed and his attempt to regaining control over the gold piece falling through, it’s possible Sparrow realizes now that he needs to bite the bullet and remain Barbossa’s captive until they get back to Isla de Muerta—the island where the cursed gold is kept. He needs to buy himself as much time as possible, and that’s where the young Turner messes up his plan.

When Turner threatens to kill himself if Swann is not set free and the incredulous Barbossa asks, “Who are you?,” Sparrow attempts to intervene. He says Turner is “no one,” a somewhat distant relation with a “lovely singing voice,” and yes: Sparrow once again calls him a eunuch. Unfortunately, Turner reveals what Sparrow has been attempting to keep close to the chest, and his entire plan backfires.

With the Natives in Dead Man’s Chest

In Dead Man’s Chest, the circumstances and context of Sparrow’s insinuation of Turner as a eunuch are again very different. In an attempt to find Sparrow and retrieve his compass for Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander) — who has imprisoned Swann for allowing the pirate to escape — Turner finds himself on an island of cannibals. Once there, he is captured by the cannibals and brought to their village, where he encounters a familiar face.

It initially looks as though Sparrow has been elevated to a god-like status to the island natives, who present Turner as a sort of gift to the pirate. Speaking in their native tongue, Sparrow apparently dissuades them from killing and eating Turner, using phrases like “eensy-weensy” while prodding his friend like a piece of old steak. Sparrow then says “eunuchy — snip, snip,” to which the natives ooh and ahh in recognition.

Before encouraging them to imprison Turner, Sparrow quickly whispers “save me” to his friend before he is taken away. We learn, in this moment, they don’t view Sparrow as a god—rather, they are priming him to be a human sacrifice. Turner is then reunited with the crew from the Pearl, who find a way to escape their cage and save Sparrow from an otherwise untimely end.

Sparrow’s Complex Interpersonal Dynamics

In the minds of many audience members, there’s existed little doubt that Captain Jack Sparrow is a complex character. He’s inherently amoral, self-serving, and enigmatic, but at the same time he shows loyalty, a sense of what he feels is right, and compassion. And as weird as it sounds, Sparrow’s invocation of the eunuch in his relationship with Will Turner is emblematic of these complexities.

In Conflict

First, consider how Sparrow leverages the idea of the eunuch in an adversarial context. When faced with Turner as an obstacle, he needs to find ways to win. This makes sense, given his true skillset; as DVD commentary for Black Pearl reveals, Sparrow is actually “the worst swordsman of the main characters.” Throughout the franchise, he only really wins duels by violating the traditional rules of engagement. Examples of this include:

Pulling the pistol on Turner during their first duel
Stealing the gold piece before fighting Barbossa at the end of Black Pearl
Turning Captain Norrington (Jack Davenport) against Turner in their 3-way duel during Dead Man’s Chest
Holding Davy Jones’ heart ransom at the end of At World’s End

 

Despite the swashbuckling, Jack is not as adept a fighter as he leads on…

Despite his reputation and experience, Sparrow is at a disadvantage when it comes to direct conflict. He needs other tools in order to win the day, and much of that boils down to his silver tongue.

With attitudes of the Colonial Era frankly negative toward eunuchs (they would eventually lead to a criminalization of eunuchs in British colonial territories such as India), it’s not much of a surprise Sparrow would try and weaponize them. Sparrow likely sees Turner — by all accounts a strapping young lad with what we might today consider a rather masculine profession and the build to go with it — as a man of insecurities; exploiting them through the insinuation of a lack of “manhood” would be an advantage he would try to seize.

A Need for Control

If you talked anyone who’s seen Black Pearl even once and asked them what Sparrow’s goal is throughout the narrative, pretty much everyone would say it’s to get his ship back. His motivation is almost painfully simple, but it’s essential to the heart of the first film in the PotC franchise. This is ultimately an issue of control and power for Sparrow; without his ship, he is nothing, and that’s reinforced over and over again throughout the film.

Invoking the eunuch as a controlling mechanism, therefore, should not be surprising. Even though he plays it fast and loose, Sparrow is a schemer who will say and do whatever it takes — even capitalizing on opportune moments. So, after plans A through Y fail him during the battle between the Pearl and the Interceptor, he’s got to find a way to leverage whatever he’s got left against Barbossa.

TFW an idiotic, lovesick boy ruins your plans for revenge…

Trying to stop Turner from messing it up for him, Sparrow attempts to steer the dialogue between his nemesis and his friend. His last shot is trying to save the Ace in his pocket (Turner) for the right moment, and that being blown too early would completely destroy the plan. In this moment, he plays up the legend of Turner’s “eunuch” status as a way of belying the truth of who Turner is. To control the situation, Sparrow needs to keep Turner in his place and create a barrier between him and Barbossa that can be scaled later — for the right price, of course.

Self-Preservation

Of all the ways in which Sparrow leverages the eunuch motif for his own desires and goals, how he uses the concept in Dead Man’s Chest might be the most telling about his character. Initially, the scene where he interacts with the cannibals and stops them from killing and eating Turner makes it seem like he’s invalidating Turner’s worth in an altruistic move. Rather than let the cannibals eat his friend, he uses that smooth, silver tongue of his to convince them the young man’s no good. In reality — as they take Turner away and Sparrow whispers “save me” to his friend — he’s merely attempting to save himself.

He’s fleeing…
…and he’s fleeing…
…and he’s fleeing some more.

You can argue Sparrow’s merits and wisdom in this moment until the end of time, but it appears his invocation of the eunuch has one of two purposes: either frantic Sparrow just wants another live body to increase the chances of survival for the remaining crew and himself, or he has faith in Turner’s ability to get him out of this situation. Regardless of the answer, it’s all selfishly motivated. In order to save himself, Sparrow must in turn save someone else — long enough to be rescued, that is.

A Crutch for an Enigma?

It could be argued that branding others as “eunuch” to diminish them is a sort of crutch for Sparrow — a kind of catch-all tool he can use in moments of crisis. Whether for winning conflicts, establishing power dynamics, or to save his own hide, Sparrow leverages the idea of the eunuch as an inferior directly in his relationship with Turner. This could be related to Sparrow’s insecurities in comparison to his fictional foil. Where he lacks morals, Turner has them in bulk; his swordsmanship is far outmatched by Turner’s; and Sparrow’s obsessive self-concern is dwarfed by Turner’s care for others throughout the franchise. Perhaps feelings of inferiority make Sparrow want to create an inferior in order to retain power.

The reasons for Captain Jack Sparrow’s insistence on calling Will Turner a eunuch are many, but there will never be one true answer. Sparrow is an enigma by nature, and as a character is altogether unreliable. Given his desire to control the narrative, you could argue there’s a metatextual element at stake here — the Sparrow we see on-screen is only the Sparrow he wants us to see. Whether or not this is the case, we’ll never know; in the meantime, all we can do is speculate about a character of legend.

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About the Author

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Nick Schofield is a writer based outside of Boston, Massachusetts. He is a marketing professional by day, and is the founder of Rex Machina, a science communication blog focusing on paleontology and natural history. Nick regularly contributes to Rogues Portal and Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs and has been published in journals such as The Worcester Review. His professional writing portfolio spans journalism, medical device, regulatory, IT, and cybersecurity industries. When he is not writing, Nick is often found geeking out over craft beer, hanging out with his partner and their cats, or crocheting until his hands seize up.

He is @boyjurassic on Twitter and Instagram.

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Want to read more about eunuch villains? Catch the book Painting Dragons by Tucker Lieberman.

Your characters’ memories and perception of time

Richard Restak’s article “Empathy and Other Mysteries” in the Winter 2011 issue of American Scholar contains a variety of insights from neuroscience. He didn’t address fiction writers, but fiction writers should take note.

When you say that “Next Wednesday’s staff meeting has been moved forward two days,” some people will believe that the new day is Monday and others will believe it is Friday. Yet if you say it was pushed forward two days, everyone will agree that it is Friday. Why? “Spatial and temporal information are processed differently within the brain,” he says. Spatial information is processed in “the frontal and parietal lobes,” while temporal information “doesn’t really have a clearly defined location in the brain.” It turns out that people who choose Monday have a “time-moving perspective,” in which they “conceive of time as coming toward you,” while people who choose Friday have an “ego-moving perspective,” and “think of yourself as moving forward through time.” People who have just gotten off an airplane will choose Friday, “having experienced themselves during their flight as moving forward from their initial to their final destination.”
When we are bored (for example, at a monotonous job, or sick in bed), we perceive time as moving slowly, but when that period ends, it seems that the time raced by. That’s because not much happened and there is little to remember, so it seems that we barely had that time at all. By contrast, when we are entertained, we perceive time as racing by, but when that period ends, it seems that a lot of time passed. That’s because we remember a series of events and we imagine that there must have been a lot of time to fit them all in.
Sometimes we are mistaken about the timing of cause and effect. We are used to adjusting for perceptual delays of light and sound, and this system can be fooled so that we perceive the “beginning” of something after it has actually begun. Quoting Eva Hoffman’s Time (2009): “No matter how much we may feel that our thought takes weightless flight, or that its velocity transcends time, mental processes work within biological materiality and have actual duration.”
People are easily misled into “remembering” something that didn’t happen. Often all that needs to be done is to tell them a story about themselves or show them an edited photograph of themselves. Later, when the false memory is revealed as fictional, it may nonetheless be difficult for the person to give it up. This “suggests the experience of a kind of double bookkeeping system within the brain whereby it’s possible for us to believe that something is true when intellectually we recognize that it is not.”

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How can these insights be used by fiction writers?

Think about how you can portray time as coming toward a person or as a person as moving through time. These are subjective states for your character.
Think about how rapidly events happen within your character’s timeline and whether they perceive their life as passing slowly or quickly during the events or after the events.
Just because you know the sequence of rapid-fire events doesn’t mean your character has to perceive them that way in the moment nor remember them that way later.
Just because the truth has been revealed to your character doesn’t mean they can easily give up their false memories and false narratives to the contrary.

All of these insights can apply to your consideration of your readers, too!

A talk with Skye Yvonne, author of ‘Astraethea’

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Today I talk with Skye Yvonne, author of the YA novel Astraethea, the first book in a planned series. She’s also known online as Laila Winters. You can find her on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Amazon, and her website. – Tucker Lieberman

T.L.: You provide a lot of sensory detail about this world. It seems like a place that the reader could step into. Do you ever feel yourself immersed in this imaginary place?

S.Y.: Astraethea is a world I see so clearly in my own mind that it’s hard not to become immersed in it. I think for any author, it’s almost impossible to not lose themselves in the worlds that they create—that’s the fun part about creating them. If we can’t dive into our own worlds and immerse ourselves in what we’ve built, then we can’t expect our readers to, either.

T.L.: What’s the significance—for us, as readers interpreting the story—of fighting people from Earth? How did you decide to take that perspective?

S.Y.: I love this question because in the very first draft of Astraethea, there was no conflict between the Astraetheans and the Earthlings. The humans truly did come to Astraethea seeking refuge, and Selene initially granted it to them. During revisions, though, I felt that Astraethea was lacking any true conflict beyond unrest and dissent between Selene’s councilors.

I scrapped the entire first draft of the book, and the second, and started fresh on the third. As far as the humans are concerned and conflict aside, Valor and Zaegan became the reason for their significance. They represent different sides of humanity: Valor the best, and Zaegan the worst.

Val ultimately causes the most turmoil at the very end of the book, but he doesn’t come out of it unscathed. His struggles and redemption in book two are important, both symbolically and for his character arc.

That, and if humans ever discovered extraterrestrial life, I’d imagine we’d be brazen enough to go storming in and disrupt whatever peace they might have.

T.L.: I noticed themes of loyalty and persistence. Is there a virtue that feels especially important to you in this story?



S.Y.: Given the betrayal on the very last page of the book, loyalty is especially important throughout the story. The characters are all deeply loyal to one another; Caly is so willing to rush into battle alongside her brother just to have his back that she nearly gets herself killed. Valor goes against his own morals and does the one thing he swore he’d never do just to protect the only friend he has. Loyalty is a core part of who they all are, except for Zaegan who’s loyal to no one but himself.

T.L.: Did you read any stories with LGBT characters when you were a teenager?

S.Y.: Unfortunately, no. Not only were stories featuring LGBT characters relatively unheard of when I was a kid, but I was also very, very deep in the closet. I did read a lot of LGBT fanfiction in secret, though, and writing an LGBT fic was how I first started experimenting with the idea that maybe I truly was in some self-imposed closet.

T.L.: Within the story, you don’t use the word “lesbian” to describe the relationship between the Queen and the Warrior. Is there a reason for that?

S.Y.: There was no reason, no. In their world, society views love and sexuality in a very different way. The prejudices and homophobia that people have here on Earth don’t exist on Astraethea; it’s not taboo or even unheard of for people of the same sex (or of any combination of gender, including our favorite non-binary Kodoreans) to love one another. Because it’s so widely accepted, I doubt there’s even a word in the Astraethean language that describes it or that can be used to self-identify one’s sexuality.

If Caly and Selene were to come to Earth and discover that there were people who disapproved of their relationship simply because they’re both female, I think they would be very, very confused. And Caly might stab them.

Spoiler: there’s a scene in book two where Valor refers to Caly as a lesbian (because for readers who enjoyed book one, who’s not waiting for this confrontation?), and she asks him what ‘lesbian’ even means.

[image error]T.L.: Did your story eventually take any turns you didn’t expect when you first started out?

S.Y.: I’m just the author—my characters do what they want, and I simply write it down. Astraethea took so many unexpected turns that it nearly gave me whiplash. The biggest turn, I think, is that in the first two drafts of the Astraethea, Valor’s character didn’t exist. He was always the one who pulled that trigger in the end, but I decided to add his POV throughout the book during one of my final revisions. Val ended up becoming one of my favorite characters, and I hope that by giving him a name, my readers enjoyed him and his story just as much as I did.

T.L.: What other space travel or fantasy stories do you enjoy?

S.Y.: I actually don’t read a lot of sci-fi, and Astraethea likely suffered a bit because of that. YA fantasy is more up my alley; give me magic and fairies and mythical creatures and I am one happy girl.

T.L.: What is most satisfying to you about the Astraethea saga?

S.Y.: Perhaps it makes me a bit vain, but I’m pretty satisfied that Astraethea has been well-received amongst my readers. I self-published the book after 40 rejections (though I received a revise & resubmit offer last month), and I was so afraid that the book was going to fail because I didn’t have the money or resources that are ultimately needed to make a self-published novel successful. And by no means is Astraethea “successful,” but it’s done better than I ever anticipated. It warms my heart knowing that people enjoy what I refer to as my “space gays.”

On a less arrogant note, I’m pretty satisfied with where the series is headed! I’m focusing on the R&R right now in hopes that the agent might pick it up, but I’m excited to start working on the second book. There’s a storm brewing in the human camp, Caly, in a downwards spiral, is far more reckless than usual, and Selene’s character will be a bit different going forward. I’ll also be introducing some new characters and I’m excited for readers to meet them.

T.L.: Who do you want your story to reach? What do you hope they’ll take away?

S.Y.: The only thing I’ve ever wanted is for people to read my books and know that they’re not alone; that it’s okay if you’re a lesbian, bisexual, gay, pan, poly, trans, non-binary, etc. LGBT representation in literature is something I wish I’d been exposed to as a teenager, and because I didn’t have it, I want to give it. Until I started seeing LGBT characters portrayed both in lit and in the media, I wasn’t comfortable coming out. If my writing can help just one person, in any way, I’ve personally succeed as an author.

T.L.: What lessons have your characters taught you?

S.Y.: My initial reaction to this question was, “Don’t take a sword into a gun fight.” But despite a few setbacks, Caly and Atreo are pretty lethal with their swords and so this might not be a good takeaway.

Every character has taught me something different. Caly taught me perseverance and unwavering loyalty. Atreo taught me to think and act rationally in tough situations. As she often leans on Eleon, Selene has taught me that it’s okay to lean on friends and family for support. On the flip side, Valor has helped teach me that family doesn’t always mean blood; it’s the family that you make for yourself that matters most. Andromeda taught me that I really wish I had a prehensile tail that I could use to knock sense into whoever annoys me.

‘Heart Berries’ describes the rough places

Terese Marie Mailhot’s memoir Heart Berries (Counterpoint, 2018; available from BookPeople) gives an important perspective on interpreting one’s own emotions and place in the world.

Mailhot, who is from Seabird Island Band, transcribes her experience with a psychiatric hospitalization. She shares what mental illness means to her:

“I am sick or possessed. The spirits used to possess the people. We called it ‘Indian sick,’ and it was the first illness to be accounted for. It begins with want, with taking, and ends with a silence that hurts and makes us beg. There were stories about the cures and causes. Women tried to eat soapberries, or nothing, and talked about how we all had it coming. When the first children died it was too late to stop talking. … The only thing, the right thing — the thing that brought about our immunity — was the knowledge that something instinctual would carry us back. The awareness that our ancestors were watching was vital.” (p. 15)

So much happens in these few sentences. “I am sick” gives us the simplest possible assessment of the situation on the ground, the assessment likely to be understood by the greatest number of people. She immediately grounds it culturally: “the spirits used to possess the people” is a mythological narrative, followed by “we called it ‘Indian sick'” which is a lesson on language and history, then “it begins with want, with taking” which is about how those particular sufferers experienced this sickness. “When the first children died” is a memorial to those who were lost. Then, the faith in redemption: “something instinctual would carry us back.” What is happening now will become part of all of this history: “our ancestors were watching.”

This small book accomplishes a lot. This is a lesson in how to describe those patches that are very nearly unexplainable.

Heart Berries: A Memoir

‘Freshwater’ gives fresh language for body and spirit

Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi (available from BookPeople) tells the story of someone whose identity has always been defined by multiple spirits, the ọgbanje.

“So we were still caged inside the Ada, with the grainy memory of charcoal coating the back of her throat. She was more isolated than ever and we were chafing at still being flesh, so the only thing left to do was hunt. If we were trapped in a body, then we would do bodily things. We painted the Ada’s mouth and lined her eyes with night, and we went out with Asụghara on a long and relaxed leash.”

The physical world, especially the human body in relation to it, and Ada’s body in particular within this novel, is called an “oath.” It serves as a reminder that spirits belong in the spirit world; hence, it is a promise made to those spirits who have stopped in and bound themselves to the physical world only for a time.

“With a force like ours, we dragged other things along — a pact, bits of bone, an igneous rock, worn-out velveteen, a strip of human hide tying it all together. This compound object is called the iyi-ụwa, the oath of the world. It is a promise we made when we were free and floating, before we entered the Ada. The oath says that we will come back, that we will not stay in this world, that we are loyal to the other side. When spirits like us are put inside flesh, this oath becomes a real object, one that functions as a bridge. It is usually buried or hidden because it is the way back, if you understand that the doorway is death.”

Emezi has achieved something special in their book. This is a powerful way of speaking about gender, personality, embodiment, culture, authenticity and fidelity to oneself, and the conflicting emotions and inner forces that pull us. Their website: akwaeke.com

Freshwater

Can the truth-tellers win?

Conspiracy theories lost their place in fiction as the 21st century approached, says Alan Glynn in his Vulture article last week. First, it no longer seemed “shocking that those in power might be bad actors.” Second, Internet-fueled “information overload led to a sort of heat death of what we know and understand, a point of entropy at which, if a conspiracy theorist believed one theory — chemtrails, say — they would most likely believe all of them: the moon landings, fluoridation, Waco, Lady Diana, the New World Order, WT7, take your pick.” This excess meant that “conspiracy theory itself had become a devalued currency.”

Conspiracy theories today, he says, are “customized to achieve desired political outcomes and then injected into the news stream via social media,” thus being “weaponized in the most cynical and partisan way.” So: “The new challenge is to catch them at it — to identify the truth of any given situation, to back it up with evidence, and to inoculate that evidence against the twin viruses of perception management and narrative bias.”

Powerful people always lie — there’s no problem with that premise for a novel. But, in such a fictional world, we should ask whether there’s any drama in watching ordinary people try to speak truth to power. Put another way: Does the novel hold out any hope that truth-tellers can win?

A couple hours of exercise music (a half-marathon playlist)

Need a half-marathon playlist? Here’s a couple hours of music to get you there. Organized by beats per minute (bpm) from slowest to fastest so you can gradually speed up.

Exercise relieves stress, clears the head, and can make opportunities for creative breakthroughs.

90 bpm “Kyrie” Mr. Mister | Amazon | iTunes

95 bpm “Water Under the Bridge” Adele | Amazon | iTunes

98 bpm “I Want You Back” Michael Jackson | Amazon | iTunes

103 bpm “Something Just Like This” The Chainsmokers | Amazon | iTunes

117 bpm “Billie Jean” Michael Jackson | Amazon | iTunes

120 bpm “Oh Sherrie” Journey | Amazon | iTunes

125 bpm “High On You” Survivor | Amazon | iTunes

128 bpm “Born to Hand Jive” Sha Na Na | Amazon | iTunes

128 bpm “Shut Up And Dance” WALK THE MOON | Amazon | iTunes

130 bpm “Jump” Van Halen | Amazon | iTunes

131 bpm “Invisible Touch” Genesis | Amazon | iTunes

133 bpm “If I Had My Way” Peter Paul and Mary | Amazon | iTunes

133 bpm “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” The Charlie Daniels Band | Amazon | iTunes

133 bpm “Boom Boom” Rye Rye | Amazon | iTunes

136 bpm “I Am Free” New Life Worship | Amazon | iTunes

136 bpm “No Air” Jordin Sparks | Amazon | iTunes

141 bpm “The East Wind” Gord Downie & The Country Of Miracles | Amazon | iTunes

141 bpm “Generals and Majors” XTC | Amazon | iTunes

144 bpm “Written In Blood” She Wants Revenge | Amazon | iTunes

147 bpm “Born to Run” Bruce Springsteen | Amazon | iTunes

148 bpm “Bottle of Smoke” The Pogues | Amazon | iTunes

149 bpm “Heartbeat Song” Kelly Clarkson | Amazon | iTunes

150 bpm “Only If You Run” Julian Plenti | Amazon | iTunes

150 bpm “Bang Bang” Jessie J, Ariana Grande, Nicki Minaj| Amazon | iTunes

153 bpm “The Promise” Within Temptation | Amazon

153 bpm “Sex On Fire” Kings of Leon | Amazon | iTunes

153 bpm “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” Queen | Amazon | iTunes

160 bpm “Greased Lightnin’” John Travolta | Amazon | iTunes

160 bpm “Zephyrus” Bloc Party | Amazon | iTunes

160 bpm “What I Like About You” The Romantics | Amazon | iTunes

163 bpm “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” Wham! | Amazon | iTunes

167 bpm “To Mistiko Mou Na Vris (I Can’t Help It)” Ivi Adamou| Amazon | iTunes

167 bpm “Georgia On My Mind” Ray Charles | Amazon | iTunes

169 bpm “Take On Me” A-Ha | Amazon | iTunes

170 bpm “Frei Zu Sein” In Extremo | Amazon

170 bpm “The Middle” Great Northern | Amazon | iTunes

170 bpm “I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked” Ida Maria | Amazon | iTunes

174 bpm “Man or Animal” Audioslave | Amazon | iTunes

174 bpm “Unstoppable” Sia | Amazon | iTunes

174 bpm “Change My Life” Ashes Remain | Amazon | iTunes

175 bpm “Attack Of The Ghost Riders” The Asteroids Galaxy Tour | Amazon | iTunes

176 bpm “Another Girl Another Planet” Blink-182 | Amazon | iTunes

176 bpm “Masai” Elli Kokkinou | Amazon | iTunes

176 bpm “Good Fight” Unspoken | Amazon | iTunes

176 bpm “I Am Yours” The Afters | Amazon | iTunes

Can fiction writers benefit from falsificationism?

In “The Falsification Mindset: How to Change Your Own Mind,” Mike Sturm explains why a belief system or theory should state “what specific evidence would prove it wrong.” For one thing, as proposed by Karl Popper, the theory isn’t scientific unless you do this. It’s also a useful exercise for making good life choices, even if you’re not a scientist. Contemplating the conditions under which you’d admit your own wrongness, Sturm writes, makes you explicitly state what you believe, realize that you could be mistaken, and commit to changing your mind if you’re proven wrong. This can spare you from making big mistakes.

I wonder how writers might use this insight in fiction. A fictional story as a whole, of course, is false. Still, the details of the story need to hang together consistently, and the insertion of certain details can spoil the story by introducing inconsistencies into its narrative. Other details may interfere with the insight or moral that the writer is trying to convey. Still other details may make the story seem implausible, absurdist, or nonsensical.

It may be wise for a novelist to divine ahead of time at least some of the words that simply will not work out within their tale. I don’t know what this process would be called. “Falsificationism” isn’t right, because the wrong details don’t falsify the fiction; the fiction is already false. “Parasitism” may be closer, because a wrong detail is like an invading organism that drains energy from the story. The writer or any given reader may be unaware of the parasite. Regardless of whether anyone notices it consciously, the parasite can injure or even kill the story. It may be a valuable exercise, therefore, for a writer to list the potential parasites that could threaten their story.

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Image: Live Tetragnatha montana parasitized by Acrodactyla quadrisculpta larva. Digitally altered, based on a photo that appeared in Biodiversity Data Journal in 2013 and is available on Wikimedia Commons (Creative Commons 3.0 license).

Spotlight: ‘Elegy for Mom,’ a caregiver’s memoir of empathy and growth

[image error]While Vicki Kaufmann’s mother suffered from mixed dementia, Kaufmann learned about the challenges of caregiving. She knows that caregivers want to research medical facts and also to let themselves feel empathy for the person who is sick. In this memoir, she aims to provide caregivers a new perspective on what they do. Caregiving can be, as she puts it, “a pathway to new levels of grace, courage, creativity, and love.”

Elegy for Mom: A Memoir of Family Caregiving, Alzheimer’s, and Devotion was published by Middle River Press in 2015. You can purchase it on Kaufmann’s website Caregiver Families.