Nimmieamee

The Sleep of Baby Filbertson and Other Stories, James Leo Herlihy. Short stories by the writer of Midnight Cowboy. I already said this but I love his prose style. His writing puts me in mind of Doctorow or Fitzgerald. The overall preoccupation here is the same as that of Midnight Cowboy: loneliness. Not a single protagonist seems capable of finding real or lasting communion with other people. As a result, every story feels unconsummated, possibly by design. They’re good stories. But there’s a Sisyphus quality here. You can try and try and try to find someone who knows you in life, but you won’t so there’s only the trying.

Trans/Rad/Fem and Brown/Trans/Les, Talia Bhatt. I like Bhatt’s substack and its self professedly radical feminist but not anti-trans (she is trans) essays, and I believe nothing on the internet is actually going to last so I bought her books to have hard copies of her essays. I could have, I suppose, printed them out, but then I wouldn’t be paying her for them. Anyway! Trans/Rad/Fem is primarily — but not exclusively — about a radical feminism that doesn’t hate trans women and Brown/Trans/Les takes aim at the ways ostensibly left-wing discourse (for example, “anti colonialist” discourse) gets used to discredit feminism. The first book is slightly stronger if I’m being honest. The second dips a bit too much into recounting Twitter interactions for my liking. That said, I mean. I think she’s right about a fair bit.

Mr. Collins in Love, Lee Welch. This book about a gay autistic Mr. Collins isn’t bad and that is about all I can say about it. Welch is a good writer. Their gay selkie book was good. Unfortunately, I could not fully enjoy this because listen to me. Listen to me, people. We have enough Pride and Prejudice retellings. We have enough in the exact same way we have enough Spider-Man retellings. And if someone wrote a book about a gay, autistic J. Jonah Jameson I would hate it but I’d also read it because I am a Hater. That is why I read this, and I should clarify that the gayness and the autism are the best parts because it’s true. Collins is so annoying you need to make him gay AND autistic to make him bearable and Welch manages to more or less pull that off. But still. We have enough Pride and Prejudice. Everyone needs to take a beat, take a fifty year pause!! You all have other Austen books you can obsess about (don’t call me unless it’s Persuasion)! Take a fucking beat!!