ToF 2025 - final rounds!

[Chrissy]

To start off the final week of the Tournament, we have I Make Envy on Your Disco zombifying to face off against Poor Deer. As judged by Kip!

"When I volunteered for judging, I hoped for it to be easy, an absolute lay-up of a decision to carry on a personal favorite while saying some comforting platitudes about some book that the rest of you mistakenly allowed into this great tournament. Alas, when I saw I had a zombie round I knew these hopes were short-lived and I would have to judge a book that clawed its way through two matchups against a book loved by my peers. And though I do not know which is which, I certainly understood why both made it here.

My first hold that came available was for I Make Envy on Your Disco, a book I had avoided up to that point, mainly because I can only read so many books in a year, and also because an anxiety-ridden travelogue starring a 37-year-old protagonist just didn’t sound all that interesting to this 36-year-old with 3 kids who cannot travel as much as he wants or used to. But books are magic, because of course I was wrong. Eric Schnall professed that he wrote the book because he loved the city and this love exudes off the page. Brimming with appreciation for various neighborhoods and locales, Schnall does an exceptional job of showing Berlin as a near constant transitional place. I must admit that my appreciation for the book deepened as I had been to Berlin for a week myself around the same time period that book takes place and though I was not partaking in the myriad drugs that Sam enjoys during his time in the city, I felt transported back to a city that does truly feel unique from other large cities I have visited. A city dripping with creative expression and a deeply weighty past. Not only was Berlin a character itself, this book was filled with other lovable people in various stages of unrest and transition themselves. Sam’s friendships in the book are what pulls the book forward as it starts to lag somewhat, as much of the book is largely plotless. Instead we get these beautiful long conversations and nights out with Jeremy, Magda, and Kaspar. Friendships that will push and bend Sam into new perspectives on his own life with refreshing openness and honesty.

Poor Deer was the second book I had the privilege of judging and it was a reread for me that occurred just about 18 months after my first time through. I deeply loved the book the first time, and nothing changed on reread. I wrote a review of the book when I first read it… (Though “an appreciation” may be a better word for what I tend to put on goodreads. As a further aside, I think I might have stolen “an appreciation” from Lark herself although it could have been someone else in this group. If this shows bias, well sorry it’s impossible to not have bias when this group has shaped my reading more than anything else.) … and the part of the book I highlighted as the essential qualities is the way it “infuses reality, invented truths, and rickety deer monsters and constantly jolts you between the three.” The interior truths are created by Margaret to try and craft a world and a narrative about what happened to her as the adults around her largely fail to provide any type of support. Margaret is wonderfully written as not just a precocious mini-adult but as a kid with kid impulses and a kid’s understanding of the world. As the books moves along, it seems certain that Margaret will not find any kind of redemption for the horrible act that defined her before she even ventured to school but as she works through the various truths and how she wants to tell her story, it’s clear she is trying to find a version of reality where forgiveness feels possible.

I feel both books would have fit seamlessly into the main event Tournament of Books and could have gone on remarkable runs, but Poor Deer feels so perfectly molded to be loved by this group of readers we have all created. How to describe this ineffable off-kilterness that makes a book stand out in this literary bloodsport is beyond me, but I am sure Poor Deer itself would let me know if I got it wrong. Poor Deer takes it."

[Care]

What a lovely, lovely post. And this judgment is worthy of being in the main event ToB, as well.

[C]

A great explanation for your decision, Kip! An "off-kilterness" in ToB books is a great way to describe some of our ToB faves.

[Dianah (onourpath)]

Yay!!! Excellent judgment! 🎉

[Jan]

Great judgment and write-up, Kip. I’m sad that see how close to the end we’re getting, though. Sigh!

[Lauren]

Fantastic judgment, Kip! I agree that it belongs in the big tournament. I'm happy to see Poor Deer do so well here.

I've been short on time to join most of the discussion (and I even read all the books!), but here's what I wrote about I Make Envy... right after finishing it in May:

I definitely enjoyed most of this and appreciated the deep dive into the setting. But the pregnancy part at the end didn't work for me. It was too contrived/cringe/cheesy, and a man explaining to a woman (he'd only known a week!) why she should keep a baby she didn't want (and was not his) was ridiculous. That knocked it down from 4.5 to 3.5 stars for me. They could have easily done that part better if she wanted the baby to begin with, but was concerned about raising it on her own. The ending, as it was published here, felt like mansplaining/babies propaganda. ;)

But I get why the book as a whole went far here. It was a fantastic depiction of Berlin as a character, and a fresh exploration of the power of friendships (Magda being my favorite character).

But also, cheers to Poor Deer!

[Chrissy]

Our second zombie match-up sees I Cheerfully Refuse rising from the ashes to face Two-Step Devil, judged by Alison (RidgewayGirl):

"I guess having a busy summer and so getting in on the judging action late in the tournament is always going to mean having a hard choice to make. All the low hanging fruit is gone and here I am, one woman, who volunteered and so has no room to complain that it’s hard to make a decision here.

So let’s get to it. I Cheerfully Refuse is set in a dystopian near future world, where everything has broken down, but where ordinary people in out of the way places can still live functional lives as long as they stay under the radar. Rainy is a big guy who really loves Lark, who has an illicit bookstore she runs out of a bakery. Rainy does odd jobs and plays bass guitar in a band that gets weekend gigs at a local bar and sometimes they rent out their attic room for a little extra income. It’s a lodger that brings disaster down on them and Rainy has to flee in an old sailboat he was restoring onto the unpredictable waters of Lake Superior, setting him up as a sort of Odysseus, or maybe a Richard Kimble, moving from place to place, with the goal of reaching the Slate Islands, a place he visited with Lark and where he hopes to find her once again.

Rainy is a good guy trying to live ethically in a world that is doing its best to make that impossible. It’s hard not to root for him and for Sol, a Pippi Longstocking kind of girl who has already lived through some very bad shit. Sol gives Rainy someone to protect and to keep him going and their relationship is one of the best things in a very good book. At its heart, I Cheerfully Refuse is about keeping one’s humanity and ability to open oneself to other people even when all circumstances say that is a bad idea.

So then there’s Two-Step Devil, in which a man, called the Prophet, slowly isolates himself on a rural property on Lookout Mountain, which is where Tennessee and Georgia meet. He has visions and paints those visions, but supports himself (and his son until his son gets away and basically cuts all ties with his father) by growing vegetables to sell to tourists. It’s when he’s at a junk yard that he spots a teenage girl with two adults and figures out that she’s being trafficked, and nabs her to take her back to his cabin in what he intends to be a rescue, but may not look that way from the outside. The girl has indeed been used in sex work and given drugs to keep her compliant, and the Prophet cares for her as she goes through withdrawal and they form a kind of cautious relationship as her health improves and his fails.

The Prophet is a man trying to live righteously in a broken world and to obey the cryptic demands of his visions. He’s what most people who visit his cabin to buy vegetables would call a character, and is unyielding in his beliefs, which are a mix of what he reads in his Bible and conclusions drawn from his own experiences.

Quatro emphasizes the distance between the Prophet and the reader with his name and in her style of writing; this isn’t the immediate lovability of stalwart Rainy and the irrepressible Sol. Here, the narration stays focused on the Prophet until the final chapters, so that we only see what the girl thinks about this strange old man and his derelict house from the Prophet’s point of view, which certainly highlights all the uncertainties about what is going on, whereas we always know what’s in Rainy’s heart and it’s lovely and pure. There are obvious parallels between these books, from the rescuing man and the girl in peril, as well at the depictions of the world at large as an unsafe place. But the novels are so different in tone and intention.

Both authors write well, and let’s look at that. Here’s a description from Two-Step Devil:

The Prophet sat opposite a row of windows facing a propane plant on the other side of the river. Even from inside he could smell the sewage-like stench of the gas. A lavender dusk settled up around the bridges and behind the big houses on the hills, the air thick and gauzy with wet.

And one from I Cheerfully Refuse:

Look out the window, will you? At the clouds, ripped at the edges and moving fast. The sea like a shroud. The eaves bare of ravens, every bird flown.

I enjoyed both of these books, but eventually I began to give little side-eyes to some of the choices made in I Cheerfully Refuse to extrapolate insight from a single glance, like when Rainy passes a woman at a distance:

I waved a greeting she did not return. Her eyes were clear and farcical and I fell short in her assessment.

While both books were enjoyable, I have to give this round to Two-Step Devil for the writing and for that ending."

[Chrissy]

I loved both these books and would have been hard-pressed to choose, but your decision swayed me! I think Two-Step Devil had a more difficult purpose or goal in mind, and succeeded.

[Alison]

Chrissy wrote: "I loved both these books and would have been hard-pressed to choose, but your decision swayed me! I think Two-Step Devil had a more difficult purpose or goal in mind, and succeeded."

It wasn't an easy decision!

[Lauren]

Excellent judgment, Alison! I likely would have gone the other way, but only by a hair. Your reasoning is solid. Thanks for the time you spent with the books and this decision.

[C]

Nice assessment, Alison!

[Kip]

Yep, beautiful write-up of two books I really loved.

[Jan]

Alison, I’m fully on board with your decision and rationale, so thanks! ;-)))

[Bryn]

Oh Lauren, I conveniently forgot the baby part at the end of Disco. You are correct. It was definitely cringe and could be enough to swing the vote in favor of the perfect Poor Deer.

[Bryn]

Great write up Allison! I would have gone the same direction.

[Bryn]

Kip, that was a difficult decision. I love what you wrote.

[Chrissy]

Today is the day! Final round!

Both our contestants have survived a zombie apocalypse and live to fight on! In one corner, Two-Step Devil and in the other, Poor Deer. Will we end in a draw for the third year running?

(I actually am unspoiled, having not looked carefully at our results file.)

I won't have time to get all the results posted now, so I'll parcel them out throughout the day. More suspense that way! ;)

[Chrissy]

Our first judge, Kyle, says:

"While I do truly respect the creativity of Two-Step Devil, I think Poor Deer is the whole package - a beautiful and heartbreaking book that I'll remember for some time."

Poor Deer 1 - Two-Step Devil 0

[Chrissy]

And Alison writes in:

"I really prefer my choices to be easier than this one. Pitting two amazing books against each other, both named after hallucinations/spiritual manifestations and that featured truly fine writing, perfect endings and a lost girl made this choice even harder. In the end, I have to give my vote to Jaime Quatro's astonishing Two-Step Devil, for the inventiveness of her story."

Poor Deer 1 - Two-Step Devil 1

[Chrissy]

I'll close out this session of posting with @BkClubCare, who opines:

"Both inventive, unique, with propulsive prose. Both show skilled authorship, interesting quirky characters, and magic realism that would impress readers who hate magic realism. Both offer an understated humor, which very much appealed to me. While Two-Step Devil is dark and whacky - an unflinching look at crazy, at fervor, of bad versus good, I choose Poor Deer for its intimacy, that deeply personal look into child confusion & shame; attempting to grow up and through the guilt of deeds done way long before the understanding. Poor Deer is so heartfelt and is told incredibly well."

Poor Deer 2 - Two-Step Devil 1

[Chrissy]

I have 5 minutes between classes, so I'll post 2 more decisions. First, from Bryn Lerud:

"I love both of these books. As I type, I still haven’t decided which to choose.

They both concern traumatized children. They both have a unique structure where alternate versions of the story are told. I’m choosing Two-Step Devil just because it goes farther into the wretchedness of human beings. "

Poor Deer 2 - Two-Step Devil 2

[Chrissy]

And from Heather Cothran:

"I struggled with this decision as I found both of these books quite absorbing and excellently written, but I think Poor Deer was more cohesive and well-paced so I am giving it my vote."

Poor Deer 3 - Two-Step Devil 2


PS - I'm posting these in the order they were received, there's no fake suspense building going on!

[Chrissy]

I'm procrastinating my grading - time to finish this tournament up!

Aaron's judgement:

"In full transparency, I originally nominated Two-Step Devil for the tournament to begin with. I was both pleased and surprised that it not only made it into the tournament, but made it as far as it did. Unlike the matchup I judged in Round 1, the books here are both worthy finalists. Unlike as they are in plot, I found it interesting that both of these novels played with similar themes. While I was delighted by both, and as much as I enjoy an underdog, Poor Deer wins it for me. It was by a thin margin, but I'll be haunted by old iceboxes forever in a way that nothing in Two-Step Devil was quite able to accomplish."

Poor Deer 4 - Two-Step Devil 2

[Chrissy]

Kip's judgement:

"I do not have a negative thing to say about either book. Both are written with a unique and compelling voice. Both delve deep into trauma and the way it shapes us. Both, incredibly, have a nasty little creature harassing our main characters so they have no peace. I do not think anything separates these books, but we must choose; so I will go with the one that both times I read it, I finished it in a single sitting because I simply could not be convinced to stop. Deer over Devil."

Poor Deer 5 - Two-Step Devil 2

[Chrissy]

And last but not least, Jan:

"I was fascinated by Two-Step Devil--Jamie Quatro’s gonzo writing, the world she creates, and the misshapen characters she populates it with. But Claire Oshetsky won my heart with her portrayal of four-year-old Margaret’s understanding of God, guilt, and regret. My winner is Poor Deer."

Our final score: Poor Deer 6, Two-Step Devil 2
Congratulations to our winner, and so many thanks to our judges!

[Lauren]

So fun! Congrats to Lark, and cheers to Poor Deer!

Huge thanks to the organizers and judges for your efforts and bringing more attention to these fantastic books.

Happy reading and weekend to all. <3

[C]

Woohoo! Go, Poor Deer, go! I knew it would be the winner. It's a gem. and if anyone has yet to read 'Chouette', I highly suggest you read it soon!

[Jan]

Thanks, Chrissy, Emily, and my fellow judges for all the work that's gone into making this ToF run so smoothly and for letting me hang out with y'all and offter my two cents worth of opinions. It's been my honor, and a lot of fun too! I hope anyone who's even halfway interested in being a judge for ToF26 will give serious thought to volunteering!

[Kip]

thank you so much for all your organizing this fun! Appreciate it greatly.

[Care]

YAY! I appreciate ALL of you for such amazing insights - I learn a LOT from the ToB but mostly from the comments, the readers, which means Y'All. TY to the organizers for keeping us on track and keeping this engaging.

Thank you readers and judges for sensitivity, for discernment, for articulating what it means to be human and advocating for humanity.

Reading is more than entertainment. I am appreciative of the intelligence of this group whatever that means. Thank you.

NOW: what should I read before the long list is announced!?