A blessed Tuesday to us all.

Except Donald Trump, 5/9 of the Supreme Court, and pope-killer JD Vance.

Hi, all. Last week was quite exciting — a dear friend had a new baby, I took my son to a movie theater for the first time (the Minecraft movie, woof), and I engaged in a spirited debate with a beloved but ill-informed boomer relative about whether or not trans people have a place in college sports.

What I Read Last Week:

I had a great reading week. I started and finished two different books, both of which I absolutely ate up. First, as mentioned in a previous newsletter, John Green’s Everything Is Tuberculosis. Reading anything by John Green feels, to me, like chatting with a kindly older brother who has never once made fun of your pimples or banned you from coming into his room when his cute friends are over. He’s just warm. This book is a sort of abbreviated cultural history of tuberculosis, as well as a pretty fired-up argument that capitalism is the only thing that prevents this specific disease from being eradicated. It was fast, informative, moving, and entertaining. Read if you: like learning about complicated stuff in a way that doesn’t feel like school; hate every grifter in the pharmaceutical industry.

Next up, a book that I had to force myself to put down because I wanted it to last as long as possible: Abigail Dean’s The Death of Us.

Per Goodreads:

“Late on a summer’s evening when they are thirty years old, husband and wife Edward and Isabel’s home is invaded by a serial killer. Theirs was a classic story of young love that moves into true partnership—but their solid foundation implodes in the wake of this violence.

At fifty-eight, they are reunited for their tormentor’s trial and forced to confront their lifelong love the secrets, passions, and encounter that bind them still. Isabel has waited years for the man who nearly ended her life to be caught. As she’s tracked news of his increasingly violent criminal life, she’s connected with other survivors and prepared for the moment that she’d get to read her victim impact statement aloud in court. She is sure she’ll speak her truth and finally let the past go. Edward has spent the years since the break-in—and the breakdown of his marriage—trying to figure out how a near-miss with death killed so much else in their shared life. Unlike Isabel, he’s not eager to relive these terrible memories. Even though he’s moved on—he’s remarried, his old life almost unrecognizable ​to him now—he can’t resist accompanying Isabel to their intruder’s sentencing. What would revenge or justice feel like? Can closure set Isabel free? And what might that freedom mean for Edward?”

Just to pick up that ever-present Tana French thread, read this if you like Tana. Yes, there’s crime and violence, but like Tana’s books, it’s not junk food at all. Dean writes SO keenly about class, sex, aging, victimhood, and regret. It’s got the page-turnery vibes of an airport book, but with a big, fat brain. I loved the plot, I loved the prose, I loved the characters. I’ve also read Dean’s previous two books, both of which I really enjoyed, particularly Day One. Homegirl is very into the consequences of violence on interpersonal relationships, I’ll say that for her. Anyway, a can’t-miss book [provided you have the stomach for sexual violence (albeit written in a non-exploitative, un-icky way)].

---

What You Should Read: Motherhood Edition

In the spirit of Mother’s Day rapidly approaching and the many babies that have recently been born to people I love, I humbly suggest some of my favorite books about motherhood. Yes, it’s a huge topic, so this is by no means a comprehensive list — just some standouts.

First up, a book that I read with my sister that we surprisingly both loved, Vivian Gornick’s Fierce Attachments.

From the publisher:

“In this deeply etched and haunting memoir, Vivian Gornick tells the story of her lifelong battle with her mother for independence… Born and raised in the Bronx, the daughter of ‘urban peasants,’ Gornick grows up in a household dominated by her intelligent but uneducated mother’s romantic depression over the early death of her husband. Next door lives Nettie, an attractive widow whose calculating sensuality appeals greatly to Vivian. These women with their opposing models of femininity continue, well into adulthood, to affect Gornick’s struggle to find herself in love and in work.
As Gornick walks with her aged mother through the streets of New York, arguing and remembering the past, each wins the reader’s admiration: the caustic and clear-thinking daughter, for her courage and tenacity in really talking to her mother about the most basic issues of their lives, and the still powerful and intuitively-wise old woman, who again and again proves herself her daughter’s mother.”

What I love about this book is how tangly it all is; Vivian is flawed, her mother is flawed, poverty and death and sexism are pretty gnarly — but there’s room for grace, compassion, humor, and forgiveness. And the politics are fun, too.

Also: this is one of the most Jewish books I’ve ever read — what a fucking treat. L’chaim!

Next up, Susie Boyt’s heartbreaking, brilliant novel, Loved and Missed.

From the publisher:

“Ruth is a woman who believes in and despairs of the curative power of love. Her daughter, Eleanor, who is addicted to drugs, has just had a baby, Lily. Ruth adjusts herself in ways large and small to give to Eleanor what she thinks she may need—nourishment, distance, affection—but all her gifts fall short. After someone dies of an overdose in Eleanor's apartment, Ruth hands her daughter an envelope of cash and takes Lily home with her, and Lily, as she grows, proves a compensation for all of Ruth's past defeats and disappointment. Love without fear is a new feeling for her, almost unrecognizable. Will it last?

Love and Missed is a whip-smart, incisive, and mordantly witty novel about love's gains and missteps. British writer Susie Boyt's seventh novel, and the first to be published in the United States, is a pitch-perfect work of art.”

What you need to know is that I have recommended this book to so many people since I first read it. The prose is fucking incandescent. It devastated me. I think about it all the time. Read it, people. Maybe not while you’re in a dark emotional state, though, because I was a shell of myself for many hours after I finished this book, even though the ending is not terribly bleak.

[A lot of people say the most devastating book they’ve ever read is A Little Life. I hated that book so much. It was not devastating to me for many reasons, first of which is that I read only two pages before I stopped in disgust, and second of which is that, when I read the plot on Wikipedia to see what I was missing, I learned that it’s just a bunch of people getting molested and tortured and dying. And it’s SO LONG. If you want to read someone dunk on that book, enjoy yourself here.]

Ruth is one of the most endearing characters in recent memory — the way she loves her daughter and granddaughter is just gorgeous, and real-feeling.

Finally, I offer to you the incomparable Jeanette Winterson’s memoir Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

From the publisher:

“Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is a memoir about a life’s work to find happiness. It is a book full of stories: about a girl locked out of her home, sitting on the doorstep all night; about a religious zealot disguised as a mother who has two sets of false teeth and a revolver in the dresser, waiting for Armageddon; about growing up in a north England industrial town now changed beyond recognition; about the universe as a cosmic dustbin. It is the story of how a painful past, which Winterson thought she had written over and repainted, rose to haunt her later in life, sending her on a journey into madness and out again, in search of her biological mother. It is also a book about other people’s literature, one that shows how fiction and poetry can form a string of guiding lights, a life raft that supports us when we are sinking.”

While Vivian Gornick’s relationship with her mother was complicated, I think it was full of love. Not so for Jeanette, whose mother is such a goddamn loon you wonder how she ever made it out alive, and managed to make such brilliant art, too. This isn’t a standard trauma memoir, or else I definitely would not recommend it. It’s dizzyingly smart and unsentimental. Also, if you’re turned off by memoir, read Winterson’s novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, instead. Equally brilliant and more experimental in form.

---

Candy News: British Version

So, we spent last week in the desert with my husband’s parents. My father-in-law is one of the best gift givers I have ever met, which is why it came as no surprise to me that he had procured for me a package of British chocolate bars. Included in the package was this dream:

What is there to say about this candy bar except that it is simply perfect? A thin layer of milk chocolate enrobes the crunchy, airy, melty honeycomb toffee, creating a veritable symphony of textures in your mouth. I like to take a bite of a Crunchie, let the chocolate melt on my tongue, then eat the honeycomb separately and slowly. Honestly, I don’t feel like England has given the world much besides some very good writers and Clive Owen, so to me the Crunchie feels like what we DESERVE from those imperialist weirdos, in exchange for all the exploitation, cultural hegemony, and fucking nightmare person J.K. Rowling. Eat this candy if you want to take ten minutes out of your day to focus on something beautiful, instead of the ongoing Katy Perry in space discourse and/or the truly baffling news that Billy Ray Cyrus is now dating Elizabeth Hurley.

---

Pop Culture Moment I’m Thinking About: The Dog Whisperer

At some point in my early 20s, I was housesitting for a friend who had approximately 8,000 episodes of The Dog Whisperer on her DVR. I watched every single one of them over the course of the week. I learned some key facts: 1) Cesar Millan is a deeply compelling individual; 2) what every dog (and child!) needs are rules, boundaries, and limitations; and 3) chihuahuas can be legit psychos. My family had a chihuahua named ChiChi who was truly the sweetest, cutest, pudgiest seal/dog/piglet you’ve ever seen, but she may have been an anomaly.

This clip is one I return to regularly when I feel low, and I hope it brings you the same joy it brings me. There is true pathos here, as well as redemption, hope, and love. Also, a dog who legitimately is part vampire bat:

God bless this kind woman and her gentle heart, god bless this unhinged chihuahua, and god bless all of us for getting to exist in a world in which we can watch a four-pound creature go absolutely apeshit in the cutest way possible.

---

What I’m Looking Forward To:

Honestly, getting a new pope. Although it may surprise you, I am not, in fact, Catholic. However, I like magic spells and candles, so I feel an affinity for the Catholic people. Really, the part of getting a new pope that I like, though, is that he gets to choose a new name for himself. How fun to be a full ass adult and get to just change your own name and that’s what everybody has to call you!?!

In looking at the names of former popes to take inspiration for my own inevitable investiture, I have settled on: Boniface, Pelagius, or Eugene. If I stray from tradition and pick a totally new name, it will likely be Crystal, which is what I always wanted to be called as a child.

Anyway, hope you all have a wonderful week. See you in seven days.