Book of the Day Roundup: May 27-31, 2024
In the Garden Behind the Moon
A Memoir of Loss, Myth, and Magic
Alexandra A. Chan
Flashpoint
Softcover $24.95 (432pp)
978-1-959411-54-3
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Alexandra A. Chan is an archaeologist, and her eloquent, inventive memoir In the Garden Behind the Moon chronicles her search through her family’s history, which woke her to new ways of seeing.
The book begins with a riveting account about Chan’s grandfather, a scholar in imperial China whose revolutionary ideas prompted him to leave for the US under the threat of execution. This story is used to deliver the subtle implication that lineage and the will to live by one’s convictions are powerful. From there, the book’s sections build around the years of the Chinese zodiac, its animal lore, and stories of endurance gathered after Chan’s father’s death when he was 102 years old. She knew him as a veteran and a maverick in addition to his parental role; in the wake of his loss, she reconciled herself to the notion that living can’t be directed by rationality alone. Herein, she forms a collage of memories, recalling childhood enchantments, absorbed wisdom, and her multitalented mother. And she draws inspiration from her relatives’ lives throughout.
The interconnected essays seek the magic that underlies the visible world, reaching out for what’s just beyond Chan’s grasp. Poetic quotations, vintage photographs, and original Chinese brushwork embellish the book, alongside references to other books, travel, and ideas about the importance of telling stories and making “patterns of meaning.” These are used to reshape Chan’s grief. She also addresses her audience, encouraging activities like going into nature, gardening, self-exploration, and shamanic journeying in an inviting way.
Mixing insights from psychology and philosophy into its fond personal reflections and appreciation for tradition, In the Garden Behind the Moon is a hopeful memoir about cultural heritage, family, and healing.
KAREN RIGBY (April 25, 2024)
Exile in Guyville
Amy Lee Lillard
BOA Editions
Softcover $18.00 (138pp)
978-1-960145-20-8
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Within its compact length of six stories, Amy Lee Lillard’s collection Exile in Guyville packs a major punch with its hard-hitting science fiction that centers women’s perspectives. Sometimes darkly humorous and sometimes just plain dark, it troubles what-if scenarios in stylish, visceral, and often witty prose.
The stories center themes of agency and power, with women in dilemmas in which they lack both. In “Exile in Guyville,” women from different eras are transported to 2074 and placed on exhibit for prospective husbands; the only viable alternative to marriage is becoming a curator and perpetuating the cycle of dehumanization. In “Typical Girls,” a harried customer service agent implants a human operating system in her brain to improve her work and love prospects, but the system’s AI provides more than just advice. In the bleak entry “Blackbird,” women are raised in a postapocalyptic community to be hounded for sport, sexual assault, and mutilation when they come of age.
But even through grim turns, the collection is enthralling due to the humanity of its characters and its precise prose. Every dystopian scenario comes with an accompanying glimmer of hope, whether it’s a mad dash to a place of sanctuary or the possibility of reclaiming power. The latter informs “Things You Say,” which merges the myth of the Sirens from Homer’s Odyssey with riot grrrl attitude, as women use their newfound powers to get payback for past wrongs. Sometimes conflict even leads to peculiar truces: in “Corporeal,” a woman gets the opportunity to live out her life as an alternate version of herself, and both consciousnesses struggle toward rapprochement.
Confronting sinister implications and flirting with horror, the short stories in Exile in Guyville are intense and cathartic as their women struggle against the ever-present combination of technology and subjugation.
HO LIN (April 25, 2024)
Cast Out of Eden
The Untold Story of John Muir, Indigenous Peoples, and the American Wilderness
Robert Aquinas McNally
Bison Books
Hardcover $34.95 (328pp)
978-1-4962-2726-3
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Robert Aquinas McNally’s Cast Out of Eden is a detailed biography of American naturalist and Sierra Club founder John Muir.
Born in Scotland, Muir arrived in the United States as a boy. He was brought by his father, who began a farm in Wisconsin, believing that white men had a divine right to the land, then cleared of Native Americans. As soon as he could, Muir left home in pursuit of his true love: the wild outdoors. An ardent Christian steeped in the ideas of Manifest Destiny, he ventured out into the North American wilderness in search of the Garden of Eden. He believed he found it in Yosemite.
A key figure in the history of American conservation, Muir’s ideas of a pristine wilderness were infected by his father’s ideas about Native Americans. These views influenced the US’s national park system and the Sierra Club from their foundations. Noting theories of settler colonialism, the book brings the significance of how Native American civilizations were destroyed in the name of American conservationism to the fore throughout. Connected slurs in the movement (some archaic) are recognized, written with only their first letter followed by a line.
Chronicling Muir’s life in detail, the book does an able job of exposing the hypocrisy behind Muir’s philosophies: he expressed a spiritual dedication to preserving the American wilderness while also condoning the killing of Native Americans and the slaughter of the buffalo. But its generous coverage of the many paths that Muir took in his life also somewhat mutes his Yosemite National Park and Sierra Club triumphs, which become but two turning points in a lifetime that included many.
A revealing biography, Cast Out of Eden details the hypocrisy, cruelty, and astonishing achievements of John Muir.
ERIKA HARLITZ KERN (April 25, 2024)
The Sun Never Hurries
Roxane Turcotte
Lucie Crovatto, illustrator
Pajama Press
Hardcover $18.95 (40pp)
978-1-77278-307-0
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Golden yellow and sherbet pink pair with calming greens in the mystical illustrations of this picture book that reminds us all to enjoy the journey. When Papa Jo tells Charlie that his hourglass reminds him to take his time, she doesn’t understand; Charlie has always done things the fastest way. As they cook instead of going out to eat, walk through wildflowers instead of driving on roads, and eat homemade ice cream, she comes to appreciate the benefits of slowing down and being present.
DANIELLE BALLANTYNE (April 25, 2024)
A Haunted Girl
Ethan Sacks
Naomi Sacks
Marco Lorenzana, illustrator
Image Comics
Softcover $14.99 (132pp)
978-1-5343-9777-4
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Supernatural horrors meet frank discussions of mental health in Ethan and Naomi Sacks’s bighearted graphic novel A Haunted Girl.
After a suicide attempt and a stay in a psychiatric ward, Cleo struggles to reintegrate. She avoids her best friend and has conversations with her father through her bedroom door. Pressure from her competitive school and memories of a career-ending karate injury add to her heavy mental load. Cleo’s circumstances nosedive further when she begins to experience visions of spirits. She’ll face death again in the form of an ancient goddess who’s intent on destruction. Power flows through Cleo’s bloodline, and only she can stop the impending apocalypse.
As Cleo breaks the veil between the living and the dead, other boundaries blur too: between dreaming and wakefulness, reality and hallucination. When others begin to witness the horrors—like a sinister, blood-red rain—Cleo realizes that she does not have to face fear alone. Her loved ones acknowledge her hauntings and her pain.
In a subversion of disability tropes, Cleo’s story isn’t metaphorical. Her supernatural abilities emerge apart from her suicide attempt, and the realities of her depression are expressed in uncomplicated terms. And notes from mental health advocacy groups are included throughout.
The expressive illustrations blend cultural influences with skill. The villain’s design evokes ukiyo-e art of Japan, while the colors and textures hearken to the punchy traditions of American superhero comics. Cool blue tones diffuse the pages, haunting the story through lightning, fluorescence, and ghost plasma.
During her recovery, Cleo’s therapist plies her with gentle insights: “Your old normal doesn’t exist anymore. You need to find a new one. And that takes time and grace.” Over the course of four action-packed comic book issues, A Haunted Girl gives Cleo both.
LUKE SUTHERLAND (April 25, 2024)
Kathy Young
