Nicola Griffith's Blog, page 53

Tonight: Chuckanut Radio Hour, Bellingham

Tonight, starting at 6:30, I’ll be taking part in Village Books’ Chuckanut Radio Hour at Whatcom Community College’s Heiner Theater, Bellingham. Tickets are $5 and for that you get two hours of entertainment (music! jokes! reading! conversation! Q&A!) plus a discount on the price of a book. So come and help me amuse, frighten, and delight with stories of So Lucky.

Bring everyone you’ve ever met! This one should be a blast.

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New car: an accessible minivan

Meet the newest member of our household a 2016 Honda Odyssey Elite, all tricked out with hand controls and converted, with VMI system components, for my wheelchair by Kersey Mobility, Redmond.

I’m not driving it yet. We got the van just as So Lucky was hitting shelves, so although I have a new learner’s permit, and I’ve been out once in the van with an instructor, I’m way short on the hours of practise I need to be competent. Unlike most Americans, I didn’t get my first driver’s licence until my 30s, then I didn’t drive often, and as soon as my right foot became unreliable I surrendered my licence. So in many ways I’m a beginner, so right now I’m mostly a passenger. I’ll talk about the minivan conversion from the perspective of both passenger and driver.

The middle seats have been removed, the car jacked up a bit on its axles, and the floor lowered, so that there’s headroom in a wheelchair.

The key fob is the control centre. Push one button and the rear door slides open, the ramp glides out from under the van, and the whole vehicle kneels to make an easy 8-degree slope to zoom up. Once up, my wheelchair clicks into the Q’Straint QLK-150 wheelchair docking station bolted to the floor:

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Image description: A grey minivan with pale grey leather upholstery. The passenger side sliding door is open and ramp extended. Inside, the middle seats have been removed and a grey metal box bolted to the floor.

To make it safe to drive with my wheelchair in the car, we had to attach a heavy bracket, flange kit, and docking bolt to the underside of the chair. I’m not sure of the exact weight but I’m guessing the whole assembly adds at least 11 kilos/25 lbs.

Those who have lightweight folding manual chairs: this is not the system for you. Once you attach that bolt you cannot fold the chair. And the chair is no longer lightweight. This system is designed for heavy power chairs. I can make it work with my chair because of the power assist. Without power assist even an 8-degree slope would be too much with the added weight.

Here’s a close-up of the station, and a diagram to show how it works.

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Image description: A photo (top) and line drawing (bottom) of the QLK-150 wheelchair docking system. The metal box is about 8:5″ square and 2″ high. A docking bolt on the underside of the wheelchair slides into a V-mouthed tapered channel and engages a locking pawl which secures the chair.

The extra weight is worth it to me because the docking bolt means that even in a crash, the chair is secured. It also means that once I’m locked in, I can swivel on the spot to access the front driver’s seat.

You can’t really see here, but the problem with this swivelling in place is, believe it or not, dirt. The kind of tires I have are mud magnets. So if I trundle about off-road (which I can do sometimes in my spiffy power-assisted chair), then get into the van, the floor is a filthy mess. But one of the cool things about the Odyssey Elite is that it has a built-in vac: once the mud dries you can just suck it up out of there. (I never, ever thought I’d own a vehicle with a vacuum cleaner. I just…wow, things change.)

Once I’m locked down, and have spun about in place, I can transfer to either the passenger side or the driver’s side. Right now, as I’ve said, it’s mostly the passenger side. It’s harder to get into that than the driver’s seat, though, because the whole van conversion was designed with me-as-driver in mind.

So once I’ve swivelled, I lean forward and toggle a switch on the side of the B&D Independence Transfer Seat Base driver’s seat and it glides back on its rail. Another toggle and the whole seats swivels facilitating an easy transfer from wheelchair to seat.

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Image description: A woman sitting in a wheelchair in the centre of a minivan. The driver’s seat has slid back on rails embedded in the floor, and swivelled 45 degrees to align with the wheelchair.

A manufacturer’s image of the transfer seat shows the controls more clearly. (The third toggle is to raise and lower the seat above and beyond the original height adjustment standard with this vehicle model.)

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Image description: A photo of a Honda Odyssey driver’s chair on a railtrack system with footplate and swivel base. To the lower right is a kidney-shaped metal attachment with three toggles radiating from the centre, and protected from accidental engagement by a metal guard.

Once in the driver’s seat, I hit the two toggles in reverse order, and the seat swivels and glides back into driving position.

This is what I see when I get there. That shiny metal button in the lower right quadrant of the multi-button panel is the electronic bypass to switch from foot-pedal-and-steering-wheel operation to hand controls. As Kelley currently does the driving, this button is mostly unlit—and the electronic bypass off—so she can drive with both hands and feet.

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Image description: Photo of the lower control panel below the dash and to the left of the steering wheel. On the left of of the photo is a large panel with eight different controls, one of which is a simple chrome push-button. To the right, two rocker-buttons (labelled Kneel and Ramp) are inset over a square panel labelled with a big lock symbol and red sound-alert icon.

Note the rocker button that makes the van kneel to reduce the slope of the ramp. We often turn kneeling off. We live in a big, busy city. Traffic is horrible and parking spaces on the street (at the book shop, by the pub, at the café and the bakery and the library) are at a premium.

Go back and look at that first picture; note how far from the main body panel the door comes out when open. Note, too, the flare at the bottom of the door added to cover the lowered floor and ramp workings. This makes the door longer than that of an unmodified vehicle. In order not to grind on the sidewalk when opening, the manufacturer recommends that the car be at least 14 inches from the kerb. That’s impossible in most of the places we park: we’d stick out into traffic and be dinged, dented and sued in a heartbeat. So we turn the kneel off, and where the sidewalk is low (in older neighbourhoods) we can park right up against the kerb. And I just cope with the increased ramp slope.

Here’s the centre console:

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Image description: The centre console of a Honda Odyssey Elite minivan. A small screen at the top; beneath that, to the left, the red start button and the gear shift. In the centre a large screen with a multitude of knobs and buttons. Below that a retracted cup holder. And below that, a refrigerated cool box. 

This is where—to someone who until recently still owned her very first car, a 1992 Toyota Paseo—things start to look a bit like a spaceship. The top part, though it looks like the radio, isn’t; it’s the nav, video screen for the backup cameras, and display for proximity warnings. Trust me, when you’re driving with hand controls you need this stuff because it’s hard to turn and look behind you when both hands have to be on brake/gas and steering at all times. I’m relatively flexible, but I’m not the woman from The Exorcist; my head does not swivel 180 degrees.

Below that is the entertainment system controls. There’s a wide-screen HD Blu-Ray DVD with wireless headphones for rear passengers, with a sound system to match. And it’s a great sound system: 650 watts and 11 speakers. Here’s the thing, though: it doesn’t sound as good as it should, because it’s difficult to properly soundproof and converted car carrying a ramp in its belly. On the interstate things get loud. But, hey, so does the sound system. A recent road trip to Portland worked out just fine.

Below that is a very nifty extra: a powered cool box. That is, a box that can keep drinks refrigerated. Seriously, going to a picnic in the park? Put your Champagne and caviar in here, baby! I haven’t actually tried it yet—because still not reliably summer here in Seattle, hence the mud—but I suspect it would fit. A split of bubbly certainly would. This car is designed for family-sized everything.

Here’s the modified steering wheel:

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Image description: Dark grey leather steering wheel with dark grey push/rock hand controls attached to the steering column and sticking out on the left, and a high-tech spinner knob attached to the wheel at the four o’clock position.

Without my hand on it, the Sure Grip RF360 Spinner Knob on the right hangs upside down, but when I’m using it the wide part is at the top. It has all kinds of nifty controls built into it:

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Image description: A schematic of a Sure-Grip spinner knob. It is shaped a bit like a Thor’s Hammer amulet, with the thick T-bar at the top. Several controls are labelled. Starting at the lower left and moving clockwise: Horn; Click: Flash to pass, Hold: Dimmer Latch; Left Turn; Right Turn; 1st Click: Intermittant Wiper, 2nd Click: Low Wiper, 3rd Click: High Wiper, Hold: Wash; Wash. 

This high-tech spinner knob seemed like a good idea at the time, but it’s actually proving tricky. Perhaps it’s just because I’m such a beginner and grip the thing too tightly, but the first time I tried it, I kept turning the windscreen wipers on, and setting off the turn signals. If I need to, I’ll reprogramme it. If that doesn’t work I’ll just get a basic spinner knob and figure out how to manage all the other controls while both hands are already vitally occupied with brake/gas and steering. I’m sure it’s possible, but if I can make this method work, I think it would be safer.

You’ll see that I currently have two different attachments for the spinner knob. Everyone (that is, my driving teacher and conversion mechanics) wants me to use the one at 2 o’clock, but I originally learnt to drive from an advanced defensive-driving expert, and I learnt to keep my hands low—4 and 8—and feed the wheel through my hands. I can’t do that anymore, of course, but I still much prefer a lower, symmetrical stance. But I’m just starting out in this van, so if I change my mind, I can. Once I’m sure which one I want, I’ll have the other removed. The red button visible on the top socket is what makes it easy to pop the spinner knob off the wheel for two-handed drivers.

On the other side of the wheel is the FeatherLite Sure Grip Push/Rock: push to brake, pull to accelerate. It’s extremely sensitive.

This is what it looks like when I’m actually at the wheel.

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Image description: Photo taken through the open driver’s side window of a woman sitting at the wheel, left hand on a push/rock lever and right hand on a spinner knob.

My van conversion is by VMI Systems, but I’ve heard BraunAbility does good stuff, too. This short video from BraunAbility will give you a rough idea of what both companies do. (There’s a longer video from VMI, but frankly it’s tedious and repetitive.)

The van is not perfect, but it makes a lot possible that was not before.

Negatives

Parking. I’ve already talked about that. In a small town or a less-dense city, it wouldn’t be a problem. Here in Seattle, it’s a significant downside. Even those places that should have excellent disabled-access parking—hospitals, universities—do a seriously crap job. Two weeks ago I had an appointment with my neurologist at Northwest Hospital, part of the University of Washington system, and there wasn’t a single van parking space. There were plenty of disability spaces, but none with the striped pavement next to them, the 8 feet of additional space I need for the ramp and manoeuvring at the bottom of it. UW has just been sued for their inaccessible campus parking, so they will be fixing the problem there. I’ll be tackling the hospital soon and expect to get a good response. Meanwhile: those spaces are inaccessible to me on my own; it would be easy to get trapped if someone parks next to the van. With Kelley driving it’s no problem; she can get into the van without a ramp, back up, drive to an open space with room, and I can get in.

Size. The size has an impact on parking (see above) but it also has an impact on cost (see below). Mileage is not great on this van; the conversion makes it extra heavy. City driving is awful in terms of mpg: 15 on a good day with careful driving. Longer trips are much, much better: 25 mpg or more in Economode.

Cost. People say you can’t put a price on freedom but in this case I can. This van is insured for $91,300.1 That’s how much it would cost to replace. I will be driving it for a long time.

Positives

Freedom! Ease of movement! Independence!

I cannot tell you how amazing it will be to have free and spontaneous movement again after so many years. We live at the bottom of a steep hill in a neighbourhood without sidewalks and many blocks from a bus stop. The only way for me to leave the house is in a car. Uber and Lyft have no accessible vehicles in Seattle. There are a handful of wheelchair-accessible taxis but you have to book way in advance, they are obscenely expensive, and, worst of all, utterly unreliable. Once I have my licence I can go anywhere, anytime I want (assuming I can park when I get there). I don’t have to ask a favour from anyone. I don’t have to fit in with another’s schedule.

Our second car, a Mazda 5, was big enough for the wheelchair—if we dismantled it first, which meant taking the heavy wheels off (they weigh about 25 lbs each). That took two of us: me to sit sideways in the passenger seat, tilt the whole thing back on its anti-tippers, and Kelley to slide off each wheel, then secure each part separately in the back of the Mazda with a system of bungee cords and tie-downs. And no matter how well we tied it all down, it still rattled when we turned every corner, braked at every light, and thumped over every pothole (and, hey, it’s Seattle–lots of those).

If it’s pouring with rain (and, hey, it’s Seattle) we’d look like drowned rats by the time we even began the journey. And when I’m tired it was just too much damn trouble.

This van makes an incredible difference. I can go where I want! Even when I’m tired! The chair is secure!

Conclusion

For me the positives easily outweigh the negatives. Covering the cost was not easy, but it’s worth it. And we’re beginning to learn new parking habits. As soon as this round of book publicity is done, early/mid-June, I’ll be getting back to driving. I hope to have my licence in July. Then the party begins…

1 We had help from the Washington State Division of Vocational Rehabilitation. It was an epic two-year process that deserves its own post.

Lacey Timberland Library tonight!

Yesterday I was in Portland. Tonight Kelley and I will be in Lacey at the Timberland Library, 7:00 pm.

This one is special. Yes, I’ll be reading from So Lucky, as I’ve done a few times, but afterwards, still on stage, Kelley and I will have a conversation in which Kelley asks me questions we haven’t discussed beforehand. I have no idea what Kelley will ask. The thing is, when Kelley asks me a question I don’t dodge it. So things could get interesting. We’ve only done this once before, in Boston, and we had a truly amazing hour of conversation.

Then the audience gets the chance to ask questions, too—of both of us. Then we’ll sign books. Bring them if you’ve got them, otherwise buy from Browser’s Bookshop who will have stock on hand.

So join us! Bring your children and parents, friends and teachers, pets and service providers. Bring everyone. The more the merrier!

Meanwhile, to whet your appetite, here’s a link to a list of responses to So Lucky.

Powell’s City of Books tonight!

I’ve been having a great time and fab crowds at the So Lucky events. Tonight I’ll be in Portland, at Powell’s City of Books, 7:30 pm. I’ll be reading, talking about the book, and then having a conversation with the audience which, if recent experience is anything to go by, will probably encompass everything from empathy to rage to academia to avoidance behaviour to writing to origin stories to, well, life the universe and everything.

Join us! Bring your friends, family, and and random strangers! And their friends and medical professionals. And maybe cats if you’ve figured out how to get them to not steal the show. The more the merrier!

Meanwhile, here’s a new interview from Pacific Stand to keep you amused.

Elliott Bay Books tonight!

I had a fantastic time last night at the So Lucky launch, and will be doing much the same thing tonight at Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, at 7 pm.

Join us! Bring your friends and family and neighbours. And their friends. And maybe dogs if they’re quiet. The more the merrier!

Meanwhile, here an interview and two reviews to keep you entertained.

Seattle Review of Books

On Twitter Griffith has helped start #criplit, a series of hashtag conversations for, and about, disabled writers. They’ve covered a number of topics, including advice and information about including disabled characters in your fiction.

This is one of those before-and-after issues, where you — if, in fact, you were like me and less aware of these issues before starting the book — start evaluating every other book based on these criteria. Because once your eyes are open, the lack of disabled characters seems downright strange, held up to the world we live in. Fiction should reflect us and who we are, and when we notice instead that it reflects our prejudices or default assumptions, it is up to us to challenge them.

Lambda Literary

The world of Nicola Griffith’s So Lucky is governed by ableist misconception and ignorance, but also marked by hope and human connection. Magic realism is freely employed and crisp, clear language evokes the natural surroundings of the Atlanta in which Mara Tagarelli moves. Miz Rip, the kitten chosen because she fights, is a compelling addition. It’s a narrative that at once informs, confronts, puzzles and engages.

Disability Visibility Project, Part I

The term ‘autobiographical novel’ is in the synopsis on your blog with the word ‘autobiographical’ crossed out. You have MS and so does the protagonist, Mara Tagarelli. What were the challenges of writing a main character who has MS that was grounded in lived experience without relying on your own story?

As I said earlier, this book felt urgent to me. I wanted readers to tackle it in one sitting, for it feel like a spear-thrust—hard, fast, and very pointed. But I also wanted Mara to learn some of the lessons I learnt about MS and being disabled. I wanted to show what it’s like to go from physically strong, lithe, and athletic to visibly physically impaired—moving through all the stages of denial, invisible illness, rage, despair, community, and so on—but without taking the 25 years it took me to learn those things. So one challenge was compressing all that into a single year. I had to take some liberties with the etiology of MS.

Phinney Books tonight!

Today is So Lucky publication day, and I’m celebrating by doing the launch at our local bookshop, Phinney Books. Reading, conversation, signing, then off to the pub next door for a party! Join me—bring your friends, family, neighbours, and their friends and family and neighbours, too. Because parties need people! And books need beer!

Meanwhile, here are a couple of interviews and a Big Idea piece to hold you until you can get your hands on the book:

Crosscut

Mara is fiercely straightforward but almost comically unaware at times of her intimidating effect on other people.

Yeah, it’s one of her flaws. She thinks she sees everything so clearly. And of course, she doesn’t. Nobody does. And it was weirdly freeing to write her. She just does things and says things, convinced of her own righteousness and she doesn’t always have a clue how she’s landing. And, of course, she was the head of this massive organization, and she thought that she was totally understanding and knew everything and was really clear-minded about everything. And then she finds out, the first day she’s diagnosed, that she hasn’t really thought about that and clearly she’s not very good at this. And then there’s her temper. So, we begin to see her. As she realizes her physical vulnerability, I think readers see more and more her actual flaws as well. They’re deeply entwined.

Hazlitt

Tobias Carroll: In the afterword to the novel, you talk about the fact the writing of this book came as a surprise to you. Where were you in the midst of working on another project when this emerged?

Nicola Griffith: Well, I think of this as sort of nested avoidance behavior. I was about halfway through the sequel to Hild and I started to do a PhD. And then I got halfway through my PhD, and started to do this novel. And then, I finished the PhD, and now as soon as all this publicity stuff is done I’ll be returning back to Menewood the sequel to Hild. And I got a little stuck on Menewood, so I did a PhD. And I got a little stuck on my PhD, so I did a book and then I finished. So that’s one way to look at it. And the other, of course, is that I actually wrote a version of this book a very long time ago. And sold it. It was a novella and I sold it and I decided before it was published to pull it from publication, because there was something about it that made me unhappy. I wasn’t pleased with it at all. Have you ever heard of the term narrative prosthesis?

The Big Idea

I usually know years in advance what book I’m going to write next. But sometimes when you’re far away and thinking of something else a book will leap out from behind the sofa and shriek, SURPRISE! Then look hurt when you’re beating it about the head and yelling, Don’t. Ever. Do. That. Again!

That’s what happened with So Lucky.

In mid-2016 I was happily working on Menewood, the sequel to Hild, when I got accepted as a doctoral candidate. It was an amazing opportunity so I went for it. I had to set aside Menewood because though I’m guessing some people could write a huge book set in the 7th century and a PhD at the same time, I’m not one of them. But I worked fast and by mid-December I had a draft of my thesis. I sent it to my supervisor, who would get back to me in January.

So now I had three weeks with no pressing project and no one nagging me for stuff. I know! I thought. (Be wary, very wary of that phrase…) I’ll write that magic realist story…

Tomorrow is soon…

So Lucky is out tomorrow in the US as an FSG Original in print, digital, and audio editions (narrated by me). Handheld Press are publishing the UK print and ebook editions on November 22. But see below for the audiobook link.

Tomorrow I’m reading at Phinney Books, on Greenwood Ave, Seattle, where there will be ASL interpretation. And Wednesday I’m at Elliott Bay Book Company. You can order signed books from both stores. Or see below.

Meanwhile, here’s what people are saying so far (with links, where available):

“This genre-violating story begins straightforwardly then slides into a hallucinatory exploration of the body, reality, and identity. It is disorienting, destabilizing, and game-changing. I have never read anything like it.” — Riva Lehrer, award-winning artist, and author of Golem Girl

“All too often, stories glide past issues of the body…but what happens when our relation to our own body turns adversarial? Successfully disguised as a page-turning thriller, So Lucky is also a deep meditation on marginalization, vulnerability, and resistance.” — Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

“The narrator of Griffith’s new novel, after her award-winning Hild, is head of an Aids foundation in Georgia. Shortly after breaking up with her wife, she discovers she has multiple sclerosis: “Sufferer. Victim. Was that who I was now?” With great insight and power, Griffith chronicles one woman’s fight to maintain her independence and grit [and] the plot twists into a sophisticated thriller.” — Jane Ciabattari, BBC Culture

“Nicola Griffith’s So Lucky is compelling reading, a tour de force … that describes an autobiographical experience of disability from Day One with a relentlessness that can parallel disability itself. It is intense, sad, and dramatic, combining mystery, romance, terror, and hope. Just like life itself.” — Steven E. Brown, Co-Founder: Institute on Disability Culture, and author of Movie Stars and Sensuous Scars

“So Lucky fires a gritty, scary, wrathful, sometimes blisteringly funny broadside at the monsters of ableist culture.” — Maria Dahvana Headley, author of The Mere Wife

“So Lucky is somehow both a tense psychological thriller and a subtle character portrait… Nicola Griffith is an essential writer, and here she is at her most personal, political, and perfectly unputdownable.” — Robin Sloan, author of Sourdough

“In Nicola Griffith’s So Lucky, Mara is stalked by a phantom. The phantom threatens her work, her relationships—nothing less than her identity. This angry, funny, cleverly-written piece … ushers in a new wave of disability story.”  — Susan Nussbaum, author of Good Kings, Bad Kings

“Griffith’s lean, taut prose, and her willingness to delve deeply into Mara’s fears, transforms So Lucky into a story about what we all share: an unpredictable life filled with vulnerability and need for community.” — Kenny Fries, author of In the Province of the Gods

“This book is a body-slam of empowerment, a roar so sustained and compelling that it cannot be ignored […] Griffith demonstrates that when a story is necessary it sometimes emerges in a form difficult to categorize, but impossible to ignore. So Lucky is a tough, accomplished novel, a book that readers didn’t know they needed.” — Katharine Coldiron, Arts Fuse

“The way that Nicola Griffith navigates the nuances of disability feel more real than anything I’ve read … It is real and raw. Griffith doesn’t pull any punches just to seem more approachable for a nondisabled reader and even among what little fiction writing about disability by disabled writers there is, this is still a rarity.” — Kim Sauder, Crippled Scholar

Buy here:

US: Indiebound | Amazon | iBooks | Barnes and Noble | Google Play | Libro.fm
UK: Handheld Modern, available Nov 22 | Audible

“I need it, so I’ll have to build it”: So Lucky playlist

https://open.spotify.com/embed/user/nicolagriffith/playlist/3sD2Bq87jAu2tflOcNV6a1

So Lucky is about a woman, Mara, realising that she needs a community—other disabled people—that for her doesn’t exist yet. It’s about how she finds her people and then begins to discover and help shape a new culture.

“I need it, so I’ll have to build it” is where the queer community began in the 60s and the feminist community in the 70s. Both accelerated in the 80s. The HIV+ community did it in the 80s and 90s. The disabled community are doing right now.

Having no established community to lean on in times of need is terrible; it is alienating, Othering, and enraging. Finally finding your people and beginning to create a life, a history, a path, plan, and sense of purpose together, though? That is blazing joy. So few people get to be part of the building blocks of a culture. So many of us are born into a sense of belonging and history, and never get to really find out our own perspective on the world. We might change part of the way through our lives, but, generally speaking, any path we may follow is already well-trodden, ready-made and lined with relevant music, books, films, fashions, and documentary history.

But when you get to build the art and culture that doesn’t already exist, the art you create is fuelled by the emotional journey: the alienation and the homecoming, the fear and excitement, the rage and joy. It is rich with the delight of discovery, of making, of connection; the warmth of belonging and building your own hearth. But there’s always the thread of dissonance running through the whole, the sense that the world you’re conjuring is fragile, and that monsters lurk just outside the warmth.

In the UK in the 80s the lesbian feminist community went through this. It was an incredible time; the music and art that flowered from it is part of what made me (and certainly made my music: I fronted a band, Janes Plane). The sense of breaking rules—political, legal, social expectations of good behaviour—made our lives feel sui generis. So when I began to write about a woman entering a different phase of life as newly disabled, I reached for that sense of DIY culture.

It helped that I’d already been thinking about this music as part of my participation in the Visible Girls project (and now the new Visible Girls: Revisited exhibition put together 36 years after the original). I’d already begun to put together a playlist. This music is what I played, and added to, while writing So Lucky. Music of another culture’s flowering nearly 40 years ago seemed to fit.

Gloria, Patti Smith

To hear a woman singing about instant lust for another woman unshrouded by polite formulations of love and hearts and flowers was exhilarating.

African Reggae, Nina Hagen

I listened to this a lot when I was wasted on hash. I never really paid attention to the lyrics, but listening now the song strikes me as about the hypocrisy of western attitudes to weed, a commentary on cultural appropriation and misogyny. But that’s secondary. The importance to me was the sound.

Big Muff, John Martyn

I saw John Martyn live in 1980: just him, solo, on stage. He was dazzling. Again, this is a song about drugs, and the smooth, lubricated distance from reality you can achieve while still trying to get away, break free from a harmful habit and old ways of behaviour.

Exodus, Bob Marley

Why this one? I don’t know, exactly. Some combination of group journey, becoming conscious, taking change into one’s own hands and leaving the old ways for better ways (again). It has a driving sense of movement: unhurried, unstoppable, implacable.

Israelites, Desmond Dekker (with The Rumour and Akrylykz)

This is a sly cultural mashup and reminds me of my own brief musical career. Roland Gift (later of the Fine Young Cannibals) played sax for the Akrylykz and then formed his own band, the Righteous Brothers (really). My band, Janes Plane, supported them once.

Heard it through the Grapevine, the Slits

What I love about this song is how the sinister, droning bassline turns a Marvin Gaye song into a threat. Perfect for So Lucky which is ripe with threat.

Tyler, UB40

There are so many UB40 songs (UB40 is the name of the card unemployed people had to carry to sign on for their fortnightly welfare assistance; I had one) I could use. This one, sadly, could have been written recently for the #BlackLivesMatter movement. It speaks to the rage against the mortal danger of systemic oppression, which of course is something Mara, the narrator of So Lucky, is beginning to encounter for the first time.

Headache for Michelle, Au Pairs

The shape and spine of this song is emblematic of the new music women were making. Instead of the driving heart of the piece being two men on bass and drums, it is two women: a fat-sounding, relaxed but authoratative bass balanced by politically and melodically powerful lyric and vocals.

Ho Pet Hinny Hinny, Friggin Little Bits

This is an almost perfect exemplar of music that came from queer northern female experience, performed, recorded, and distributed by women. FLB offer a working-class queer female perspective in the kind of close harmony so common to embattled and Othered communities. Shared music is one of the fastest and surest ways to build group cohesion—ask any religious congregation—and the brilliant flashes of humour here are common, again, to communities used to being misunderstood.

O Superman, Laurie Anderson

Anderson was the Tilda Swinton of the 80s art world: alien enough for her audience to feel as though she has something to say to those who don’t belong, cool enough to be admired by everyone else, and surreal enough to remain intriguing. So much of what Mara goes through feels surreal but I wanted the text to be hyper real and precisely engineered with absolutely nothing wasted; and very clear, very pointed, calling out what is. Very Laurie Anderson, in other words.

Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3, Ian Dury and the Blockheads

Dury had polio; he sings from experience. Here, I’ve always assumed he’s talking about fatigue and depression, listing reasons to stay alive and get out of bed in the morning. There are times when Mara really needs to find reasons to stay in the world, and not give up and pull the covers over her head. (If you want to hear Dury angry about disability issues, listen to him sing “Spasticus Autisticus.”)

Papa’s Got a Brand New Pigbag, Pigbag

This song was a favourite during my snorting amphetamine years. It reminds me of Mara’s favourite drug, modafinil, which is just a smooth, high-tech (and legal) version of speed: it keeps you going, going, going.

Feeling Good, Nina Simone

This song is one of the best musical expressions of relief, joy and freedom I have ever heard. It’s about stepping into another life, to begin again, remade, to move ahead under your own control and go your own way. It is a song about finally stepping out from under the burden of others’ control and others’ demands and expectations. This song is on almost every playlist I have ever built.

Voice of the Exiled, Sweet Honey in the Rock

I know this song is not about disability, but even if I’d tried, I could not have written a better song for So Lucky: “They cut off my voices so I grew two voices.” Yes. One has to be indomitable because it’s that or die. Find your voice and cry into the void, find your people, and be heard. Community is strength. Community is life.

If the embed code at the top of the post is screwed up, you can listen to this playlist on Spotify.

This playlist will appear on www.powells.com on June 5, 2018.

Readings 5/15 and 5/16!

So Lucky is out in exactly one week and I’m doing readings and talks at a bookstore near you! Well, near you if you live in Pacific Northwest. I’m sticking close to home for this one.1

All events are free, unless otherwise stated.

5/15, Phinney Books, 7:00 pm. Seattle, WA: Reading, signing and launch party—drinks at the pub next door afterwards!
5/16, Elliott Bay Book Company, 7:00 pm. Seattle, WA: Reading, signing, audience Q&A—and, y’know, probably drinks at some bar close by afterwards.
5/22, Powell’s Books, 7:00 pm. Portland, OR: Reading, signing, audience Q&A.
5/23, Timberland Library, 7:00 pm. Lacey, WA: Staged interview and conversation with Kelley Eskridge.
5/29, Whatcom Community College’s Heiner Theater, 6:30 pm. Bellingham, WA: Village Books’ Chuckanut Radio Hour, Tickets $5, includes $5 off purchase of a book.
6/07, Eagle Harbor Book Company, 7:00 pm. Bainbridge Island, WA: Reading and signing.

All spaces are accessible for the mobility impaired. Mostly. That is, you can get in with your wheelchair to all of them, but one or two leave a lot to be desired in terms of either a) distance to walk, or b) the bathrooms, which are not always up to code and so occasionally difficult (though not quite impossible) to access with a wheelchair.

Even if you can’t be there in person you can preorder copies of So Lucky from any of the bookstores, and I’ll personalise them when I’m there and they’ll be shipped to you the next day.

Phinney Books 7:00 pm

Launch event! This is our local store with our local pub, 74th St Alehouse, right next door. We’ll go there afterwards. All welcome! It’s on Greenwood Ave, a small friendly space, and level entry with a deliciously light, easy-to-handle door—so distance is no problem if you can find street parking close by, or if you live in the neighbourhood, or if you’re getting a ride or using the bus (bus stops within a block in both directions). Several chairs at the front will be set aside for those who need them—just tell someone when you arrive.2 There’s no screen and no CART captioning but I can bring a couple of access hardcopies of the readings and points I’ll be making. (It won’t help with the Q&A, though. I’m sorry.) The sound system is a low-power Bluetooth system, but it should be adequate. There are no current plans for ASL interpretation but we might be able to arrange something if you let either me or the bookstore know. The bathroom’s problematic: level entry, but very tight manoeuvring and, if I recall correctly, no grab bars. The pub next door is also no-step access, but it’s a slope, and the door’s not the easiest in the world to open (I always have to get someone else to do it). The bathrooms are on the same level but, again, not particularly access-friendly.

If you can’t be there, order a print copy that I’ll sign and personalise for you that night and they’ll ship it to you the next day. And if you’re a fan of audio, use Phinney Books’ site to buy and download the audiobook. (If you use promo code LISTENUP you’ll get 20% off.)

For more information and to preorder, check out Phinney Books’ website.

Elliott Bay Book Company 7:00 pm

The other launch event! This is a much larger space, in Capitol Hill, with level access—if you use the wheelchair lift. The lift needs a key, and so a staff member has to operate it. There’s a bell by the lift on the street. Push it, and someone will come. I’ve had to wait a couple of minutes before, so don’t despair, they will come. If you have mobility issues some of the distances involved in order to avoid the stair are a bit daunting. EBBC have microphones, and plenty of seating and the bathrooms, on another level, are wholly accessible. I’m still negotiating ASL and hope to have an update soon. Meanwhile, please send me email via the contact form or ping me on Twitter. I’m also talking to EBBC about putting access information on their website.

Again, if you can’t be there, order a print copy and I’ll sign and personalise it for you that night and they’ll ship it to you the next day.

For more information and to preorder, check out EBBC’s website.

More

Later this month I’m in Portland, at Powell’s, on the Peninsula at the Lacey Timberlake Library, and in Bellingham doing the Chuckanut Radio Hour for Village Books. In early June I’ll be on Bainbridge at Eagle Harbor Books. I’ll talk more about those events closer to the time.

1 I toured three times for Hild: in the US for the hardcover, in the UK for the hardcover, and in the US again for the paperback. This time I want to get back to my real job—actually, y’know, writing—more quickly. So local only.

2 It’s always helpful BUT NOT NECESSARY to let the bookshop know ahead of time about this, just in case we need to save an unusual number.