July 2021 Reading Roundup

My top reads in July 2021:

Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Volume One: Summary: Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

I thought it would be a dry slog. I was wrong. The writing is engaging and the content is immensely enlightening. I'm so glad that my friend Kathy agreed to buddy read this with me, because I've intended to read it since it was released in 2015, but kept putting it off due to fear of feeling sad and angry while grappling with the content. And it did make me sad and angry, but I'm very glad to have read it. This summary volume gives a good grounding in the complex ways residential schools have continued to affect Canada‘s Indigenous peoples. I now have a better understanding of what reconciliation means and feel more equipped to speak up when I encounter racism in my daily life.

Kathy adds: "the Report also places the Canadian Government's decision to create the residential schools in context. The report does a very good job of outlining the political, legal and religious views that made the Canadian Government's decision possible."

Essential reading for all Canadians. It's available free in pdf format on the TRC website.

Molly Falls to Earth by Maria Mutch

Bystanders surround a dance choreographer having an epileptic seizure on a sidewalk. This brilliant, kaleidoscopic novel takes place over seven minutes: her vivid memories, special people and long-held secrets are interwoven with scenes from a documentary about missing people. We are all interconnected: even strangers touch our lives, though our perceptions may differ. The included cityscape photos emphasize the personality of place—and New York City is definitely a character.

The city doesn‘t always know what to do with itself, so it invents, it makes new. You can‘t step in the same city twice.

Look up ‘seven‘ and it will say, absurdly, ‘six plus one,‘ but you won‘t be able to argue. The tautology won‘t end. The only way forward is forward.

The body is in time, it is time. It shows the passage of it. Which is why dance can be hard to translate, why filming it so often feels inadequate. The body reveals space, making us aware of what we take for granted. Conversely, the camera flattens space. Movement is something you have to be in the presence of, in order to fully see how a space is rendered in three dimensions.

I was overwhelmed with a love whose internal organs were shot through with what seemed to be an everlasting hate, but it was really only the flawed structure of this place, these bodies. And the fact that I kept people from the furnace of my heart—the place where they could so easily burn.

Zom-Fam by Kama La Mackerel

Kama La Mackerel is a trans Mauritian Canadian activist, artist and writer. Their debut poetry collection consists of eight long autobiographical poems. Family life—including spirituality, gender roles and colonial scars—on the former plantation island of Mauritius is vividly evoked. Kreol language, curry spices, coconut sweets, and burning sun. A tender and exuberant coming-out memoir in verse.

when i tell my mother that i am trans
[…]
she tells me that we come from a history & a culture
where women-men
& men-women
have always existed

-------

because colonial powers destroyed
people
lands
resources
cultures
but colonial powers
also scythed
the languages
of love

Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch by Rivka Galchen

Vivid, humorous voice—that of an indomitable old woman—combined with the depressingly ignorant voices of townspeople who have accused her of witchcraft. I was riveted by this historical novel based on real people who lived in southern Germany in the early 17th century. Entertaining and sobering. I wish it didn't remind me so much of the fearful superstitions I see surrounding Covid vaccinations and other science.

“I apologize for having no horse,” he said cheerfully. He didn‘t look like he‘d ever had a horse. Or even had a close friend who had had a horse.

I suspect the only thing I‘d be interested in reading would be a history. But I‘m told histories are hated, which is not surprising. People prefer to make it up themselves.

I had loved babies as a child, more than most people do, even. I loved their small fingernails. I loved the way they seemed to arrive older than their parents. I loved the courage they had to sleep as if there were no wolves, no soldiers.

He asked me to sit, encouraged me to have a bite to eat. He had a slice of apple on a tiny spear of some sort.
“What is that toy you‘re holding?”
“It‘s a fork. And I know you know it‘s a fork.”
“It looks like the tail of a devil,” I said. “Not in a bad way.”

A hummingbird once rested near my shoulder. It was a very ill omen. For one who isn‘t a flower.

I had Greta‘s voice in my head, telling me that all people are the image of God. Why not all voles, then? All fleas? They were God‘s creations, too.

The Archive of Alternate Endings by Lindsey Drager

The multiple strands of the millennium spanned in this novel-told-in-fragments are set 70 years apart, timed with each pass of Halley's comet. The stories feature pairs of brothers and sisters, often showing one excluded from their families, usually for the reason of one being queer, and the other remains with them in solidarity—so the Hansel and Gretel theme works very well. History is recorded by those who are dominant in society; it's refreshing to see things from a different perspective.

What is story if not the safe harbour for our most disturbing imaginings? I learned early that the notion of what will come to pass haunts better. But, too, it is about the storyteller—who you choose to trust and why.

A Map to the Sun by Sloane Leong

Cartoonist Sloane Leong has mixed ancestry—Hawaiian, Chinese, Mexican, Native American and European—and she draws on that variety in creating the five main teen characters in this wonderful graphic novel. The girls each have drama at home, plus the usual body issues and school drama, but when they form a basketball team, they find friendships, rivalries and self-respect. Larger gender and social justice issues add extra depth. Glorious artwork in vivid fauvist colours.

Thirsty Mermaids by Kat Leyh

I love this charming and very queer graphic novel! The humour is never mean: it's the "fish-out-of-water" type. There's no sex. Instead, it's friendship to the max, reminding me of the Lumberjanes series which is coauthored by Kat Leyh, although this standalone is definitely for age 18 and up. I say that because the central plot is about drinking as much alcohol as possible, which is the premise for a couple of merfolk and a sea witch deciding to venture onto dry land. Poor decision-making while inebriated and the hangover price do counteract the alcohol message, by the way. Leyh's colourful, cartoony artwork has a fresh buoyancy.