The Curator: spill the family tea
Some family stories to get you in the mood to be near yours this holiday season.
Greetings from the new parents!!
No not a baby - it’s kittens!
Since I’ve forced everyone here to pretend to be interested thus far, I figured you were owed a cat update. On Sunday we adopted two sweet rescue babies who have done nothing but love us and keep us up all night. We are elated.
Names have been changed (Rizzie and Minnie), but I’ve called them both Peanut at least once so I conclude she has officially given us her blessing from the kitty spirit world.
[this is quickly becoming a cat newsletter and I don’t even care ‘tis the season].
Back to other topics!
It’s officially the start of the American holiday season (hence this day-early newsletter). Today is Blackout Wednesday, the one day of the year when every red, white, and blue-blooded young adult heads home for Thanksgiving and out to the local bars to get blasted at the unofficial class reunion. Without fail, you will always run into an ex. Make sure to look your best or married, either one.
With this synchronicity of timing - the cats and the holidays - I’ve been going hard after any and all books about family. General family fuckery is my second favorite subgenre, and there never seems to be a lack of enticing hot-mess familial stories to discover.
There are the happy-chaotic family dramas like Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake or Commonwealth. There is the hyper-realistic like Jonathan Franzen’s Crossroads or The Corrections. There’s the classics like Anna Karenina or East of Eden, or the friends-as-family niche like Hanya Yanigahara’s A Little Life or Sally Rooney’s Normal People. Then you have the sweeping epics like Abraham Verghese’s The Covenant of Water or Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko that just bowl you over into another dimension.
But my very favorite subgenre is the guilty Irish Catholic family drama. There is just something extra special about family dynamics in these wild, unpredictable stories that make me wish my parents didn’t believe in contraception. The three that made me fall in love with excess children:
Tana French’s Faithful Place (but also the entire Dublin Murder Squad series). It’s about a family living through hard times and hard cops, and the one guy who tries to escape it all.
Tracey Lange’s We Are The Brennans - this one is a bit of a sleeper. I don’t see it given enough attention, but it’s a fun, messy, loveable family story that is pure entertainment.
John Boyne’s The Heart’s Invisible Furies - once described by me as the closest I will ever get to The Royal Tenenbaums in book form, it’s about a young unwanted boy’s unrequited love and how he grows to love himself instead.
To keep the family theme going, I’ve got two mini-reviews this week, category: THE MEMOIRS. These are juicy gossipy family bits served with a side of piping hot tea. The books that say NEVERMIND throw us a rubber because some people should not have kids. And by people, I mostly mean money-hungry exploitative dads.
Anyway, hope those stateside enjoy their Thanksgiving, and everyone else enjoys Googling “Blackout Wednesday”. Cheers!
BOOK REVIEWS →
The Woman in Me by Britney Spears
There is not much that can be said that hasn’t already been said about Britney Spears’ memoir, and that’s mostly because it is not a serious book.
Clearly, very traumatic things happened to this woman, and clearly, she needs professional help. It feels exploitative to listen to her words, even though, ostensibly, she’s the one who authorized them. It’s the equivalent of handing a 16-year-old an Instagram account, a crop top, and a Smirnoff Ice and then expecting them to make wise, rational choices.
I don’t say this lightly. You can feel the pain coming through her simplistic language and over-explaining (and Michelle Williams’ EXCELLENT narration). Her dad sounds like a manipulative bag of dicks and so do all the rest of the men in her life. She’s been gaslit for what sounds like her entire life. And after all this time, Britney is still trying to prove she is a human being worthy of personal freedom. This memoir is her chance to be heard. Too bad she still doesn’t know exactly what to say.
Verdict: Free Britney (from Britney).
***
Counting the Cost by Jill Duggar Dillard
Man oh man if you are looking for a new horror story look no further!
If like me you grew up hate-watching TLC’s early 2000s trainwreck 19 Kids and Counting, then this is the cult awakening you’ve been waiting for. In it, second eldest daughter Jill Duggar describes her childhood in the most mind-numbingly obsequious way possible, showing us what it was like to grow up under parents committed to living by the Institute of Basic Life Principals (IBLP). Principles which include requiring women to obey their husbands at all times and also holding them responsible for the sexual lust of men caused by women wearing pants. Strike me down dead lord!
The writing is a straightforward personal narrative moving linearly through Jill’s childhood and on. She voices the audiobook herself, and it can be tedious at times, but the story was enough to keep me hooked. It was incredibly interesting to hear how Jim Bob Duggar used language as a tool of manipulation, keeping his children compliant, money-making machines well past marriage.
If you can make it to the end, you will be rewarded with a few fist-pumping statements Jill makes about finding agency over her own life and calling out the cult that kept her compliant and fearful for 20+ years. There is certainly some beauty in the madness, even if the tragic effects of this religious upbringing will haunt her for the rest of her life.
Verdict: the tea, it was spilled.
READING →
1/5th of the way into Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez. It’s very good but it’s leaving me feeling incredibly unsettled. I require a palette cleanser before bed or my dreams go haywire.
Finishing up Louise Penny’s A Fatal Grace at night on my phone until I inevitably fall asleep in my glasses.
WATCHING →
Lately I’ve been craving comfort movies and luckily my husband caught the comfort bug too. Our movie menu over the last few weeks included some real bangers:
Sister Act I
Sister Act II: Back in the Habit
Legally Blonde
The Wedding Singer
Hook
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II
So far the sleeper favorite is Sister Act I. Whoopie can really sing but Kathy Najimi steals the show.
BUYING →
Lots and lots of cat stuff, which probably doesn’t interest you.
I finally got my Book Beau reading pillow in from a pre-order and I am obsessed. It’s super firm and boomerang-shaped so it contours to your body and supports your arms when you’ve got that heavy hardback sitch going on. The selection is low right now but their Black Friday & general pre-order sale starts (when else) Friday.
NEW BOOKS →
No new books this week - it’s a weird one for publishing in the US, and nothing on the short pub list caught my attention. Instead, I found three cookbooks that might actually get me to make something more difficult than spaghetti or “tacos”.
Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat - I love understanding the why behind the what, and this is THE classic cookbook for mastering the basics.
One Pan, Whole Family by Carla Snyder - I have this never-ending fantasy that it’s possible to create a really good dinner while only dirtying one dish. I think it is a trauma response to watching too many 30-Minute Meals episodes in which nobody acknowledged the time it would take to CLEAN all those pots and pans.
Mocktails by Caroline Hwang - As a recovering binge drinker, what I miss most about drinking less is a really good drink. This recipe collection promises beautiful, booze-free drinks like the Blood Orange Creamsicle or the Pineapple-Mint Spritz.
RESTACK OF THE WEEK →
In keeping with the theme, I greatly enjoyed Sara’s take on messy family dramas. I’ve only read three on her list so I discovered some new messy families to take up with once I finish all the other books I said I would read…
LET’S CHAT →
Who is your favorite fictional family? It can be book-related or not, as long as it’s entertaining.
Tell me your plans for Thanksgiving (if you are stateside) and the dish you look forward to most. If not, tell me which American food traditions you think are the weirdest (I’ll go first, JELLO).
In Case You Missed It
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See you around the bookshelf!
Natalie
*EYE digress 🙄
Oh, MY. This was a momentous edition indeed. So much to chew on! Let me see if I can remember it all.
So OBVI, my favorite line was this:
[this is quickly becoming a cat newsletter and I don’t even care ‘tis the season]. You read my stuff so you KNOW that I already love your kittens and expect regular appearances, please. Congrats, mama! (and is the one your husband is holding a medium-long hair?). Also, this is apropos of nothing, but you and your husband are a nice-looking pair 🤩
Ok, BOOKS!
OMG, thank you for the Britney review. My instincts were telling me exactly what your review said. I’m ok to skip this one now, so thank you.
The Duggars...oh BOY. I love love love a good “I left a cult” story. Scientology, FLDS, Waco, Westboro...so, so many. Megan Phelps-Roper probably wrote the best one - I think it was called Unfollow. I’m digress - did you see the Duggar documentary? It’s mostly Jill and I think Jessa. Compelling; kept me from needing to read any books they write 😆. My TBR shelf is overflowing and I know there are more books coming for Solstice 🤦🏼♀️. I have a real problem.
You put The Royal Tenenbaums in my head and I believe they are my favorite fictional family, though the Roses of Schitt’s Creek might be.
Lastly...I finished Crying in H Mart and kept meaning to tell you that. I have many thoughts and feelings, but I don’t want to spoil anything or sully your experience. A gal like you will blow through it quickly. Whenever you do so, let’s compare notes.
Happy kittening! 😸😸