ricardo (is) reading > Books: reviewed‎ (155)

Some topical reads for this most disquieting of weeks. ⠀

"The day was too big for small emotions."⠀

I'm a mood reader, as I've mentioned b

Some topical reads for this most disquieting of weeks. ⠀

"The day was too big for small emotions."⠀

I'm a mood reader, as I've mentioned before, and my temperament hasn't been the best these last few days. World news have done a number on my anxiety, and the frustration that comes from feeling powerless hasn't helped assuage it any, let me tell you. It's been a bleak week, essentially, and I was looking to read something dreary to match my current disposition.⠀
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This turned out to not be that read. Thankfully enough.⠀
⠀
Nine Last Days on Planet Earth is a compact and concise novella by Daryl Gregory that does what it says on the tin: it tells nine tales about main character LT, through whose eyes we see the gradual unraveling of a slow alien invasion. As a boy in the American South he witnessed a seemingly endless meteor shower that went on to wreak havoc all over the world. When the smoke cleared, humanity found that these rocks from space were actually seeds, which soon began to sprout forth countless of strange new plants. Over a slow amount of time, some of this alien vegetation begins to throw Earth's ecosystem off-kilter, causing considerable amounts of damage, while others seem to just... be there, harmless and passive. ⠀
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LT is one of the most wonderfully-realized viewpoint characters I've come across in a while. Over the course of the nine stories we see not only his interest in this unfathomable new flora blossom, but his personal life as well — from his growing estrangement from his family, to his burgeoning sexuality, to his establishing of a family life (additional points to positive and wholesome queer representation, here). And through LT's personal life we see how the world has changed. ⠀
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In Captured Ghosts, a documentary about his work, writer Warren Ellis talks about the concept of the "novum" in science fiction stories, which is, essentially, the Big New Thing that happens that causes the world to change forever. The thing that disrupts normality. In Nine Last Days we explore this nova event — in a slow, incremental fashion, much like a plant grows — through LT. Through him we see how humanity has adapted. Which of course it has. ⠀
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There's a lot of mystery surrounding these space plants — where did they come from what do they do were they sent here and why and by whom — which forms a lot of the tension of the story. But perhaps the most shocking thing about it all is how any answers we might or might not get are essentially inconsequential. Because the world has accepted it and moved on. Life found another way. ⠀
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This novella, you see, is less to do with annihilation of mankind (the "last days" of the title refers not to any final stage of life, but to concluding personal experiences) and everything to do with how we deal with the perplexing and the unexplainable (which is to say: most things this weird, wild world throws our way). We adapt. We change. We evolve. And we go on.⠀
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And so Nine Last Days on Planet Earth ends, as these stories so often do, on a note of hope. ⠀

"Words were not required. Sometimes the only way you could tell someone you loved them was to show them something beautiful."

Take care out there. Be safe. See you on the other side of the nova.

Some topical reads for this most disquieting of weeks. ⠀

"The day was too big for small emotions."⠀

I'm a mood reader, as I've mentioned before, and my temperament hasn't been the best these last few days. World news have done a number on my anxiety, and the frustration that comes from feeling powerless hasn't helped assuage it any, let me tell you. It's been a bleak week, essentially, and I was looking to read something dreary to match my current disposition.⠀
⠀
This turned out to not be that read. Thankfully enough.⠀
⠀
Nine Last Days on Planet Earth is a compact and concise novella by Daryl Gregory that does what it says on the tin: it tells nine tales about main character LT, through whose eyes we see the gradual unraveling of a slow alien invasion. As a boy in the American South he witnessed a seemingly endless meteor shower that went on to wreak havoc all over the world. When the smoke cleared, humanity found that these rocks from space were actually seeds, which soon began to sprout forth countless of strange new plants. Over a slow amount of time, some of this alien vegetation begins to throw Earth's ecosystem off-kilter, causing considerable amounts of damage, while others seem to just... be there, harmless and passive. ⠀
⠀
LT is one of the most wonderfully-realized viewpoint characters I've come across in a while. Over the course of the nine stories we see not only his interest in this unfathomable new flora blossom, but his personal life as well — from his growing estrangement from his family, to his burgeoning sexuality, to his establishing of a family life (additional points to positive and wholesome queer representation, here). And through LT's personal life we see how the world has changed. ⠀
⠀
In Captured Ghosts, a documentary about his work, writer Warren Ellis talks about the concept of the "novum" in science fiction stories, which is, essentially, the Big New Thing that happens that causes the world to change forever. The thing that disrupts normality. In Nine Last Days we explore this nova event — in a slow, incremental fashion, much like a plant grows — through LT. Through him we see how humanity has adapted. Which of course it has. ⠀
⠀
There's a lot of mystery surrounding these space plants — where did they come from what do they do were they sent here and why and by whom — which forms a lot of the tension of the story. But perhaps the most shocking thing about it all is how any answers we might or might not get are essentially inconsequential. Because the world has accepted it and moved on. Life found another way. ⠀
⠀
This novella, you see, is less to do with annihilation of mankind (the "last days" of the title refers not to any final stage of life, but to concluding personal experiences) and everything to do with how we deal with the perplexing and the unexplainable (which is to say: most things this weird, wild world throws our way). We adapt. We change. We evolve. And we go on.⠀
⠀
And so Nine Last Days on Planet Earth ends, as these stories so often do, on a note of hope. ⠀

"Words were not required. Sometimes the only way you could tell someone you loved them was to show them something beautiful."

Take care out there. Be safe. See you on the other side of the nova.

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in t

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.

— Christopher Smart, "Jubilate Agno"

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.

— Christopher Smart, "Jubilate Agno"

What they couldn't foresee was a mass audience swollen by the millions of veterans who'd acquired the reading habit overseas, thanks

What they couldn't foresee was a mass audience swollen by the millions of veterans who'd acquired the reading habit overseas, thanks to the Armed Services Editions of popular paperbacks distributed free to the troops. After the war, many of them would go to college on the GI Bill, as Gorey and O'Hara had. Vets made up a sizable part of the new book-hungry audience that gobbled up 2,862,792 copies of Pocket's Five Great Tragedies by Shakespeare the year it was published.

The above was essentially a throwaway detail in Born to Be Posthumous, Mark Dery's biography of Edward Gorey, which I read at the beginning of the year, included to add context and texture to Gorey's post-military service life. It stuck with me, though, mostly because it felt like something I should have come across before, given my interests. I highlighted the passage, with the intention of looking more into it later.

As it happened, a couple of weeks later Literary Hub published an article about the Armed Services Editions. I read it with interest, thinking what a great coincidence it was that an article about something I just recently learned would show up so soon after my learning about it.  My life is riddled with these serendipitous happenstances, though, (enough that I have my own name for them: coincidencias cósmicas — my cosmic coincidences), and whenever I stumble upon one, I’ve learned to give it more of my attention. The piece goes on to cite When Books Went to War by Molly Guptill Manning, and I figured this was the universe’s way of telling me to read it. The fact that I also picked this up at a time where book bannings are rampant all across the United States was yet another cosmic layer on top of it all. (I don’t believe in destiny, but I believe in confluence.)

War is not a subject I tend to want to read much about, not unless it’s something the caliber of Band of Brothers or Maus. But When Books Went to War proved to be a powerful and poignant story, with far more disquieting relevance than one would initially expect. In the Western world especially, we tend to view moments like the Second World War as these distant events, when in reality that are often so terrifyingly recent — a paragraph or two above us in the grand narrative of history. We also have the tendency to view the past as Things That Happened to Other People. It’s not our problem anymore. We don’t have to worry about these things any longer. This lack of concern and awareness is the privilege of the complacent and ignorant, and why we constantly repeat the mistakes of the long ago. We did not learn, and so we continue to err. 

When Books Went to War is the account of a very specific, seemingly trivial endeavor of U.S. military history. About a group of people who, sensing the despair and general lack of morale in those sent to fight a relentless ideologue of an enemy, understood the need and the importance for emotional escape and release. They developed organizations with the purpose of sending books — of sending stories — to the troops, fighting in lands where so many of those books were now forbidden. 

A small matter in the grand scheme of things, but one that was endlessly, massively appreciated by its recipients. Guptill Manning fills her book to the brim with letters and accounts of appreciation from countless soldiers. About how this book or this story or this writer saved them from anguish amidst a bleak situation. “I don’t think I would have been able to sleep this night,” wrote a Marine to author Betty Smith, “unless I bared my heart to the person who caused it to live again.” Hospitalized with malaria, in a deep depression caused by the trauma of war, he picked up a copy of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn on a whim, and it made him feel human again. An invaluable feeling to those in service who often felt like they were treated as no more than cannon fodder.

Much of the book focuses on the many innovations the publishing industry developed as they produced these books during wartime, having to meet special, intensely specific and rigorous requirements. It’s fascinating to read about, to be sure, but the emotional crux of Guptill Manning’s books lies with the moving reactions of the readers of these cleverly constructed books, as well as  the passionate efforts of the people who made them possible. Myriads of bureaucratic hurdles had to be jumped through; endless delicate political issues had to be finessed. People who ought to have known better sought to restrict and censor the types of books being sent out, worrying that some of their content would encourage dissent and discord — a motion that was fervently fought against. Pushing through all the nonsense and obstacles was the sheer conviction that getting books into the hands of these soldiers was not only important for their morale, but vital in the war effort as a whole. In a conflict where the idea of free speech was at its very center, against an enemy that concerned itself with the burning and banishment of books, meant that books and the written word were now, quite literally, weapons of war.

It was a bittersweet thing to read about a United States of America who fought and felt so passionately for books and the rights they represented, especially considering the current climate, where so many Americans who believe themselves to be patriots ban books with abandon, who are, indeed, eager and ecstatic to do so. They would do well to read the words of the soldiers so revered in American culture, of people who not only fought against the suppression and eradication of ideas, but actively rejoiced in the right to read whatever they damned well pleased.

Books were intertwined with the values at stake in the war, and Americans would not tolerate any restriction on their reading materials.

Ultimately, I choose to take solace, encouragement, and inspiration in reading about those who have actually fought for democracy and freedom and the written word. When Books Went to War is a celebration of these ideals, and it makes for an uplifting read.

When there were more men than ASEs, it was “not unusual for a man to tear off the portion of a book he had finished to give to the next man who doesn’t have a book to read saying — ‘I’ll save my pages for you.’” 

We are each other's harvest. We are each other's business. We are each other's magnitude and bond.

In Pet, author Akwaeke Eme

We are each other's harvest. We are each other's business. We are each other's magnitude and bond.

In Pet, author Akwaeke Emezi shows us a world full of hope and empathy. The town of Lucille, like the rest of the world, used to be riddled with society’s vile and vicious monsters. Until one day the people decided to get rid of them, burning the old world and the old ways to the ground. From the ashes, the victorious self-proclaimed angels constructed a community centered around compassion and comprehension. A place in which everyone is free to live out their truths. Without monsters there is no fear, after all. No vulnerability. No peril.

“Step one of making a new world is that you have to be able to imagine it. I think sometimes that's where the storytellers come in. Some people might have difficulty imagining a world where black trans kids are safe, where there are no police, where there are no prisons. So books kind of help you. Or Pet , in this case, can help create that window of possibility. If you can imagine it, that's the first step in making it happen.” 

— Akwaeke Emezi

But humans have a tendency of manifesting our own monsters. And monsters have a tendency of slipping through the cracks. Convinced that their way of life is changeless, the residents of Lucille begin to forget, and their willful ignorance makes for fertile soil, allowing bad things to take root once more, hidden and unseen by the complacent crowds.

Rising up to face this veiled evil is Jam, one of my favorite protagonists in recent memory. With Jam, Emezi showcases the very best of their imaginative community: a trans girl who is immediately, readily accepted, supported, and nurtured by her family and her community. A trans girl in a story that’s not about the pain and struggle of her identity. A story in which she does not get hurt. A story in which she, instead, gets to be the hero.

“If I'm writing something for black trans kids, what spell do I want to cast? I want to cast a spell where a black trans girl is never hurt. Her parents are completely supportive. Her community is completely supportive. She’s not in danger. She gets to have adventures with her best friend. And I hope that that’s a useful spell for young people. I hope that’s a spell where someone reads that and they’re like, this is like what my life should be like. This is a possibility.”

— Akwaeke Emezi

Ultimately, Pet is an optimistic tale, one that dares us to imagine a world where we can not only recognize our own faults but actively do the work to fix them. But it is also, at times, a very rough, disturbing read — it’s a story about evil, after all. And although the reader is never subjected to anything explicit, the text is evocative enough to unnerve. Those particularly sensitive to distressing subjects, I’d recommend looking up this book’s trigger warnings (which I don’t include here mainly because I think they contain spoilers for the story). 

Pet is unlike anything I’ve read lately, and it shines all the more because of this distinction. It’s a wonderful tale, wonderfully told, and I was particularly taken with Emezi’s writing, which is lyrical and visceral — veritably virtuosic. Theirs is a language that feels intrinsically organic, and it boasts some seriously beautiful, bustling phraseology and wordplay. An overwhelming read, in the best possible way.

Not at all my standard fare. In these days of stress and anxiety, I tend to lean towards stories that deal with either comforting subjec

Not at all my standard fare. In these days of stress and anxiety, I tend to lean towards stories that deal with either comforting subject matter, or that provide pure, unbridled escapism. Things which realistic fiction doesn’t really concern itself with much. I recognize their importance, though, and an excerpt of this novel was compelling enough to make me want to pick this up.

Daniel Aleman’s Brighter Than the Sun is a hard-but-heartwarming read about a young woman carrying entirely too many burdens and responsibilities on her shoulders. Protagonist Sol, true to her name, is really the shining star in this book. Resilient and vulnerable, her efforts to provide for her family while still being a rock and an anchor to them are often difficult to witness. But Sol’s journey is ultimately one of identity, of finding peace and stillness within herself in spite of all the chaos that surrounds her external life, and, as someone who has never had to confront the choices and conflicts this character comes across with, this aspect of the story is what resonated with me the most. 

A major recurring theme is that Sol feels like two different people: she lives in Mexico with her struggling family, but goes to school and works across the border in California*, leading a hectic, harried life, but one with friends and — she feels — more opportunities. In one world she feels restrained, and in the other she feels like she could grow. And then there’s her name: Soledad — Spanish for “solitude.” Not wanting to be defined by this isolating feeling, she decides to go by Sol instead, a nickname that begins as an aspiration but then quickly becomes an elusive ideal.

Sol’s attempts to consolidate these different aspects of herself form the crux of the story, and make it a wholly compelling one. You want her family to be better off, yes, but you also want Sol to realize and embrace all of her strength and potential. To live up to her chosen name and nature — and to then overcome it, to rise even higher and shine brighter than—

* Before picking up this novel I was entirely ignorant about transborder students. Reading about this particular aspect of the immigrant experience was fascinating and eye-opening.

Twelve-year-old Emmie is an entrepreneurial daredevil. Along with her best friend, Ale, they’ve started an online business selling craft

Twelve-year-old Emmie is an entrepreneurial daredevil. Along with her best friend, Ale, they’ve started an online business selling crafting supplies, with the purpose of raising money for their respective goals and passions: Ale for better beekeeping gear for her apicultural dreams; Emmie for a new decked out, reinforced wheelchair, the better to withstand her WCMX ambitions. Emmie says she was born for speed, what with having a father who was also an avid extreme sports athlete, and a mother who never told her to hold back. The tight knit community of her small town is used to Emmie’s antics, and they only become an issue when her school’s new principal, a stickler for rules and regulations, treats her like she’s made of matchsticks. A situation that is only made worse when Emmie, in part due to the school’s outdated facilities, takes a spill and breaks her wheelchair while attempting a trick she’s done hundreds of times before. Instead of updating the accessibility issues of the building, the school provides her with an aide that Emmie does not want and definitely doesn’t think she needs. Worse, the optics-obsessed principal and his staff decide to form a fundraiser to get Emmie her new, tricked-out set of wheels. Emmie knows she should be grateful, but part of her feels that these decisions made for her supposed benefit are being made without her involvement — that her choices have been taken away from her. And so she takes matters into her own hands, determined to show the school — and her town, and her grieving dad — that she knows exactly what she wants and needs and, more importantly, how to get it on her own.

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I think that sometimes there's a default assumption that all help is helpful as long as intentions are "good." But plenty of clear feedback from within the disability community begs to differ. At its heart, Air is a story about community and accessibility — and how hard it can be to change long standing assumptions, especially within one's own largely loving community, and how hard it can be to speak up for oneself in the face of well-intentioned ableism.

— Monica Roe,  in an interview

Air by Monica Roe was just a lovely, lovely read. Started it in  a somewhat gloomy afternoon and got so into it I literally flew through the whole thing — something that I've done only a handful of other times. A fun, lively book about disability rights, and the importance of agency in the lives of kids. Emmie is a wonderful protagonist: strong-willed, determined, and definitely not above being a bit of a huge jerk. The supporting cast is just as charming, in particular an old woman Emmie meets through her online business and with whom she strikes up a friendship. Known only as AK_SalmonGranny, she also uses a wheelchair, and spends the story dispensing valuable and delightfully direct and irreverent advice to our protagonist. She’s great.

I had no knowledge of WCMX as a sport until reading this book. I have since then looked up videos online and encourage you to do the same. Athletes in general are an amazing lot, but the people who do extreme sports are the ones that truly astound me. Human beings are awesome.

Also, as an aside: Air reminded me so much of the movies about extreme sports that were seemingly everywhere during my childhood in the nineties, specifically the early Disney Channel Original Movies. Brink!, in particular, kept coming to mind. Which I guess is why I pictured a present-day Eric von Detten as Emmie’s dad here. Which means, of course, that I am old. Always and forever a soul skater, though, brah.

Immediately after her twelfth birthday, budding baking big shot Zoe Washington stumbles upon a letter from her father. She’s conflicted

Immediately after her twelfth birthday, budding baking big shot Zoe Washington stumbles upon a letter from her father. She’s conflicted about this for various reasons. For one, she’s never received any sort of communication from him before. They have no real relationship of which to speak, him having been out of the picture even before she was born. Indeed, considering the fact that he is currently in jail for murder, Zoe’s not entirely sure she wants any sort of relationship with him. Still,  she knows precious little about her father, since her mother has all but forbidden the subject. Curiosity wins her over and she ends up replying, starting a series of correspondence that will upend everything Zoe thought she knew about her estranged father.

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From the Desk of Zoe Washington by Janae Marks is a quick and lovely read about a seriously heavy topic. The fact that it also happens to be about the baking dreams of a twelve-year-old girl and that it doesn’t detract from the seriousness of the more somber theme of wrongful incarceration is yet another testament to the versatility of children’s fiction, as well as the resilience of its target audience, who can — and should — read about weighty, complicated issues.  

There’s a lot to like here, starting with Zoe herself. The book is told from her point-of-view, and she has a playful, sagacious voice. The letters between her and her father, Marcus, are as charming as they are heartbreaking. She also has an inquisitive nature, which shines in the more mystery-inspired sections of the story. Given the themes here, adults obviously play a large part, and I like that they are portrayed in a reasonable and realistic manner, rather than the bumbling, oblivious way that is still the norm in a lot of children’s fiction. A great read, overall.

Buddy read this with my main spooky pal (and soon to be published author), Ally Russell, and I’m happy to say

Buddy read this with my main spooky pal (and soon to be published author), Ally Russell, and I’m happy to say we both dug it a hell of a lot. Which is only slightly surprising, considering we both went into this book with wildly different assumptions: Ally thought this was a middle grade affair; I thought it was a new adult sort of deal. Both of us thought it was a murder mystery with hints of horror. It took a couple of chapters for us to realize that, actually, this is a YA horror story, and that — ha ha!— we were both bamboozled by blurbs. (Whoever wrote this was Knives Out meets The Haunting of Hill House: you are a sick and twisted person.)

It was probably these misconceptions that made Kate Alice Marshall’s These Fleeting Shadows feel slow for me at the beginning (I wanted a murder mystery, what can I tell you). Eventually, though, the story managed to hook me with all its fascinating intrigue and, most crucially, its impeccable atmosphere (Marshall can set a mean mood). I finished the book sure that it will end up being one of my favorite reads of this year. 

Shadows is also part of that growing, provocative trend of Lovecraftian revisionism, subverting the often racist and misogynistic tropes that plague the subgenre by spinning eldritch yarns from the perspective of its most marginalized characters. Our heroine in this instance is Helen, a young woman who, due to the machinations of her most manipulative family, doesn’t feel at all in control of her life. Helen’s story is about reclaiming autonomy, of getting back her very sense of self. Her journey is harrowing, and at times difficult to witness, but that only helps make the explosive denouement that much more cathartic.⠀

These Fleeting Shadows is truly a wild, wild ride. I’m fairly sure it’s the only book I’ve read where the tone changes constantly — and often suddenly — but still manages to work for the story. There’s a certain chaotic thread that runs throughout, and the way the book is written complements it exceedingly well. Brava, Marshall.⠀

Very much recommended.

Edward Gorey is someone who is in my pantheon of personal icons, so Mark Dery's exhaustive (and sometimes exhausting) biography of this

Edward Gorey is someone who is in my pantheon of personal icons, so Mark Dery's exhaustive (and sometimes exhausting) biography of this somber cypher of  a man definitely made for some fascinating company these past couple of weeks.

Written in the affected and often ornate style of its subject, Born to Be Posthumous: The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey is chock-full of fascinating and gossipy anecdotes, and a myriad of quotations from people who belonged in circles that Gorey, being the consummate loner, was never really an intimate part of, but frequented enough to leave a lasting, singular impression, like a particularly epigrammatic, histrionic spectre.

[Gorey] asked some friends to move everything out of his apartment (“because I was already back up here on the Cape”) but had neglected to tell them about the mummy’s head gathering dust in the closet. “It didn't occur to me to say, ‘And don't forget the mummy's head!’” As it happened, they didn't notice the mysterious object swaddled in brown paper on the top shelf. The super, however, did. “I got a call from a detective at some precinct or other who said, ‘Mr. Gorey, we've discovered a head in your closet,’ and I said, ‘Oh for god's sake.’” 

Posthumous is not a perfect biography by any means. It could have done with some more thorough editing, since Dery has a tendency to repeat himself. He also devotes far too much time and space speculating about Gorey’s sexuality, a fruitless endeavour if there ever was one, as Gorey’s life — much like work —  defied any real categorization. As Dery himself notes in the introduction, Gorey  “was inscrutable because he didn't want to be scruted.” Gorey was famously evasive when it came to questions about his sexuality (as indeed, to questions about his personal life in general), often providing vague, demurring answers. The closest he ever came to admitting anything was in an 1980 interview for Boston Magazine. When asked directly, he responded, “I suppose I’m gay.” A declaration that is then, in typical Gorey mercurialness, immediately followed up with, “But I don’t identify with it much.” Dery seems to take issue with these sorts of statements, making the argument that they come from a privileged position and that they actually prevent Gorey from being properly considered as an important and prominent queer icon. It’s a fair assessment, and I’d allow that a more concrete answer would certainly add another interesting perspective from which to look at the life and work of the artist. But I don’t really see the point in making the “sure he says he’s this here but was he really” type of speculation Dery repeatedly insists on doing. Especially when Gorey’s declarations, while admittedly glib, seem to be fairly definitive. (For whatever it’s worth, Gorey was most definitely queer, and also assuredly asexual.) Ultimately, though, as fashion writer Guy Trebay is quoted as saying near the end of Posthumous, remarking on the futility of sexual speculation, Gorey was “far queerer than queer.”

Gorey didn’t fit neatly into philosophical binaries: goth or Golden Girls fan? “Genuine eccentric” or (his words) “a bit of a put on”? Unaffectedly who he was or, as he once confided, “not real at all, just a fake persona”? Commercial illustrator or fine artist? Children’s book author or confirmed pedophobe who found children “quite frequently not terribly likeable”? 

Rampant conjecture aside, Dery truly shines when it comes to analyzing and discussing Gorey's diverse variety of work, looking at much it from the lens of movements and philosophical schools of thought like Surrealism, Dada, and Taoism, all of which Gorey actively dabbled in throughout his life. They are also all topics that involve many complex and enigmatic ideas, but Dery does a commendable job at getting them across clearly. (Posthumous may be a hefty tome of a biography, but it is also an eminently readable one.) Dery’s admiration for Gorey is particularly palpable in these segments, which made for some of the most enjoyable parts in this book.

In the end, Born to Be Posthumous is a fascinating deep dive into the life of one of the most fascinating and brilliant literary eccentrics of the twentieth century. Or whatever.

“As with almost every sunset, but with this one in particular: shut the fuck up.”