Welcome to In The Club, a newsletter of resources to keep your book group well-met, well-read, and well-fed.
Friends, do y’all have a safe space? A place to go when just need a pick me up? Well, one of mine is Target, or “tar-zhay,” as us cultured folk call it. I once saw a tweet on Black Twitter asking what everyone was getting at Target that day. Someone responded “Target will let me know when I get there,” and I agree. This week, when I got to Target, she let me know that I should get a mug that said “witch’s brew” and sparkly, glam pumpkins from that lil discount section they have at the front (as well as *whispers* a pumpkinspicelatte). Target is so wise.
Now, on to the club!
Nibbles and Sips
Y’all. Two words: pumpkin flan.
Look how at how beautifully caramel it is. Meseidy over at the Noshery gives us the tea on how to achieve this. You’ll need: sugar, pumpkin puree, eggs, evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk, vanilla extract, and pumpkin spice. Basically what dreams are made of.
Spooky Latinx
In celebration of Latinx History Month, which is September 15-October 15— and just in time for spooky season— we’re discussing tales from the Latinx crypt.
Genre chameleon Machado uses magical realism, horror, comedy, and science fiction in this collection of stories to examine what it’s like to have a female body: the entitlement others have to it and the feeling of disembodiment the owners of such bodies feel at times. Among the eight stories are: a Law & Order: Special Victims Unit tale with ghosts, a horror story about a woman who refuses— against her husband’s pleas— to remove a green ribbon from her neck, and the unfortunately timely tale of a woman who remembers her sexual encounters as an epidemic rages. In addition to having writing that is inventive, queer, and beautiful while being furious, Machado is also apparently clairvoyant. Reading that plague story now might hit a little close to home.
The Ecuadorian matriarch of the Montoyas has been through it. Now, she summons her descendants to distribute amongst them their inheritance. They hope to finally get some answers concerning the secrets that surround her. Instead, she is transformed, leaving a bigger shroud of mystery than before. Years later, Orquidea’s blessings are visited upon her descendants, but then an unknown entity starts to make its way through the Montoyas in this book about generational curses with Marquez vibes.
Enríquez brings the dark parts of Argentina to life in this collection of stories that feature macabre and grotesque explorations of life in a place ripe with inequality and violence. A young woman walks into an abandoned house and never returns; a fanged and feral boy is kept chained; and women set themselves on fire to protest domestic violence. Fans of Shirley Jackson will appreciate Enríquez’s dive into the terrors of everyday life.
Before her best friend Riley died, she and Mila were the somewhat outcast spooky girls of their small town high school who dabbled in witchcraft out of boredom and curiosity. Once a string of high school girls die— including Riley— Mila decides against her better judgement to use a mysterious grimoire that showed up randomly to bring her friend back to life to. She accidentally brings back the high school mean girls as well. Now, she has to keep three undead teenage girls together as she tries to be on her Olivia Benson ish and figure out who killed them all before the spell wears in a week. This also has a little in common with the reveal in Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. If ya know, ya know.
Suggestion Section
RIP, Chadwick! Netflix, Howard University Establish $5.4M Chadwick Boseman Scholarship
“Bewilderment” is the latest selection for Oprah’s Book Club
Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga to Star in ‘Macbeth’ on Broadway
I hope this newsletter found you well, and as always, thanks for hanging out! If you have any comments or just want to connect, send an email to erica@riotnewmedia.com or holla at me on Twitter @erica_eze_ . You can also catch me choppin’ it up with Kelly Jensen on the Hey YA podcast every couple of weeks.
Until next week.
-E
