On the Write Track: Books about Writers

Nibbles and Sips

When I opened my front door and was greeted with an open-palm slap in the face from the cold, I knew it was time for stew. Here’s a recipe by Potawatomi Chef Loretta Barrett Oden for the traditional three sisters stew. It has a bit of a twist, as it has corn dumplings, but those are easily omitted if you’re not feeling them.

This isn’t stew, but is another three sisters recipe and is by Oglala Lakota Sioux Chef Sean Sherman. The three sisters dishes gets their name from how three main Native American crops —corn, squash, and beans— would grow next to each other, each supporting the others’ growth as sisters might. Here’s a little more on the Three Sisters legend. I know nothing about agriculture, so I didn’t know that crops could aid each other while growing, but I think it’s interesting how we have to learn how to live more sustainable lives now when— before colonization— Native Americans already were. Sean Sherman has a cookbook called The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen, if you were interested. Also, as with many Native American dishes, this can easily be vegan, vegetarian, or meaty.

Now on to the books!

Writing On the Struggle Bus

One thing these books have in common, apart from them being about writers of course, is that the main characters are suffering. These books depict their writer protagonists as unlimited metro card- wielding riders of the struggle bus. Conflict is a very normal component in novels, but the first book being a nonfiction makes me think there may be something to the idea of struggling artists.

Book Club Bonus: What do you think of the struggle contained within these books? Is it just because all novels need some kind of conflict, or do you think that pain and heartache are endemic to writers in general? Is it part of what compels them to write?

The Sinner and the Saint by Kevin Birmingham

Birmingham’s book places Fyodor Dostoevsky’s life alongside that of the man that inspired the murderer from Crime and Punishment: Frenchman Pierre Francois Lacenaire. In addition to being a murderer, Lacenaire just so happened to be a law student and poet. As Dostoyevsky’s fascination with convicts grew while writing his influential novel— no doubt influenced by his own time in the slammer— his murderous protagonist Raskolnikov started to resemble him more and more Birmingham also shows just how much Dostoyevsky went through it, detailing his struggles with epilepsy, gambling, debt, and death in the short sixty years he was alive.

Extra, extra bonus points if your book club reads Crime and Punishment and then Kevin Birmingham’s book. It would be nice to compare your thoughts on the first book with what actually happened in Dostoyevsky’s life. Although it is over 600 pages depending on your edition, so I know I would struggle with this myself *cries in ADHD*.

Seven Days i n June by Tia Williams

Y’all. This took me on a bit of a ride, not going to lie. My current contemporary romance fave Talia Hibbert (she of the Brown Sisters fame) highly recommended this, so I knew I had to go for it. I mistakenly thought it would be the same kind of real but fun and slightly ridiculous, steamy romp that Mizz Hibbert is so good at. It’s another thing entirely, but that’s not a bad thing!

It follows two Black writers who had a really intense week of romance back when they were teenagers. Now, fifteen years later, Eva Mercy and Shane have been reunited on a panel of other Black writers, no less. Shane is the highly regarded, yet enigmatic writer of literary fiction, and Eva has a loyal fanbase for her supernatural romance series (think of theTwilight fandom, but older). The present is told alongside the past, revealing the very traumatic existence they both had and the toxic ways they came to cope. This is definitely a darker kind of romance, on account of all the trauma and maladaptive coping mechanisms, but that may be what makes the ending more satisfying. There is also some great disability representation as Eva suffers from chronic migraines.

Writers & Lovers by Lily King

Thirty-one year old Casey arrives in the general Boston area in 1997 with a lot of things weighing on her. For one, she’s still processing the loss of her mother as well as the salacious affair she just had with a fellow writer at a writer’s colony. Now, she’s waiting tables and renting a raggedy room on the side of a garage. Despite everything, she’s still managed to hold on to her dream of being a writer, something many of her previously similarly-minded friends have already given up on. As she continues to work on the novel she’s been writing for the past six years, she becomes romantically involved with two other writers, giving her even more things to figure out. There’s also a great mystery here concerning why she walked away from golf having been a child prodigy, and why she’s estranged from her dad.

Don’t forget you can get three free audiobooks at Audiobooks.com with a free trial!

Suggestion Section

The history of copaganda in comics

For when you want your nonfiction nonconformist

Fellow Book Rioter Danika Ellis wrote a *fire* post on how the recent book banning have been targeting queer books: “Pandora’s box has already been opened. Teens know queerness exists. They’re questioning gender no matter how many book bonfires you build.”

Here are the most popular authors according to Goodreads (and Emily Martin)

Speaking of Goodreads, it’s time to vote in the 2021 Goodreads choice awards

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 talking more mess in the new In Reading Color newsletter as well as chattin’ with my new cohost Tirzah Price on the Hey YA podcast.

Until next time,

-E