the short king (book) report
All under 200 pages, with links to buy direct from indie publishers.
It’s spring! Here are some shortie books that you should consider purchasing! Possibly for reading on a picnic blanket in the sunshine, with a cute drink and a friend to take candid pics of you (but you really should read them, not just pretend for the photo op. I respect the content hustle and I have great taste).
1. Thirty by Marie Darsigny, translated by Natalia Hero (160 pages)
From Metatron Press:
Thirty is the story of a woman who is convinced that she is going to die at the age of thirty. Addressing those who will read it posthumously, she documents the last year of her life in a dark, obsessive diary. Other women are summoned into her downward spiral: spectral muses, heroines-ghosts, suicide writers; Nelly Arcan, Elizabeth Wurtzel, Marie-Sissi Labrèch, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Michelle Tea, and Angelina Jolie. A raw exploration of female suffering, the narrator creates a universe where the ghosts of heroines exist and who, in turn, allow her to exist.
The text embodies the capacity of literature to name and welcome both the personal introspection and social analysis of its theme. Through a prism of ideas, quotes, and poetry, Thirty assembles vignettes from popular culture and literature. The text flirts with anti-happiness rhetoric, mocks wellness culture, and cements itself in the tradition of ‘Bad Girl’ literature. In the end, Thirty emerges as a text that confronts both the pressure to be “a good girl” and the pressure to be happy. “I wanted to buy into the promise of happiness, but I’m too poor…” While she resists these tropes, does she survive them?
My review: Could not put this down. It’s like Darsingy was reading my mind. For my fellow sad academic hotties. It’s contemporary and intertextual and a depressing thrill.
2. Goddess of Filth by V. Castro (141 pages)
From Creature Publishing:
One hot summer night, best friends Lourdes, Fernanda, Ana, Perla, and Pauline hold a séance. It’s all fun and games at first, but their tipsy laughter turns to terror when the flames burn straight through their prayer candles and Fernanda starts crawling toward her friends and chanting in Nahuatl, the language of their Aztec ancestors.
Over the next few weeks, shy, modest Fernanda starts acting strangely—smearing herself in black makeup, shredding her hands on rose thorns, sucking sin out of the mouths of the guilty. The local priest is convinced it’s a demon, but Lourdes begins to suspect it’s something else—something far more ancient and powerful.
As Father Moreno’s obsession with Fernanda grows, Lourdes enlists the help of her “bruja Craft crew” and a professor, Dr. Camacho, to understand what is happening to her friend in this unholy tale of possession-gone-right.
My review: Juicy, abject, campy, with a heart of pure gold. For the horror girlies. Already ordered Castro’s next book, along with a collection of horror stories about bodily autonomy.
3. Polyamorous Love Song by Jacob Wren (192 pages)
From Book*hug Press:
From interdisciplinary writer and performer Jacob Wren comes Polyamorous Love Song, a novel of intertwined narratives concerning the relationship between artists and the world. Shot through with unexpected moments of sex and violence, readers will become acquainted with a world that is at once the same and opposite from the one in which they live. With a diverse palette of vivid characters—from people who wear furry mascot costumes at all times, to a group of ‘New Filmmakers’ that devises increasingly unexpected sexual scenarios with complete strangers, to a secret society that concocts a virus that only infects those on the political right—Wren’s avant-garde Polyamorous Love Song (finalist for the 2013 Fence Modern Prize in Prose) will appeal to readers with an interest in the visual arts, theatre, and performance of all types.
My review: Read if you’re interested in revolt, transgression, formal experimentation, meta texts, sex, or art. Or if you like weird stories. Will stick with you like a lens for viewing other art.
4. Paradise Rot by Jenny Hval, translated by Marjam Idriss (148 pages)
From Verso Books:
Jo is in a strange new country for university and having a more peculiar time than most. A house with no walls, a roommate with no boundaries, and a home that seems ever more alive as the days pass. Jo’s sensitivity and all her senses become increasingly heightened and fraught as the lines between bodies and plants, dreaming and wakefulness, blur and mesh.
This debut novel from a critically adored artist and musician presents a heady and hypersensual portrayal of sexual awakening and queer desire.
My review: Erotic and ambiguous and wet and liminal and dreamy. Probably one of my favourite books ever.
5. Shut Up You’re Pretty by Téa Mutonji (132 pages)
From VS Books:
In Tea Mutonji's disarming debut story collection, a woman contemplates her Congolese traditions during a family wedding, a teenage girl looks for happiness inside a pack of cigarettes, a mother reconnects with her daughter through their shared interest in fish, and a young woman decides to shave her head in the waiting room of an abortion clinic. These punchy, sharply observed stories blur the lines between longing and choosing, exploring the narrator's experience as an involuntary one. Tinged with pathos and humour, they interrogate the moments in which femininity, womanness, and identity are not only questioned but also imposed.
My review: Hyper readable and pulls you into its world. Sad and imaginative. Note that it’s really a novel as all the stories are about the same characters and proceed chronologically. Grew on me more and more and I was disappointed when it was over.
Love you! Support publishers directly! Fuck Amazon! Can’t wait to see you flourish in anticipation of summer! xoxoxoxo