Hello Smarty, It's the Week's Best Reads!
In times of darkness, look for the light.
Dear Wags,
For so many reasons, it’s a disheartening time. You know all the reasons why. It’s so easy to feel like this little democratic experiment is on its last legs. But last week, I visited the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture for the first time. I regret that it took me so long, because I left with an understanding that it’s ridiculously soon to lose hope.
I went with an old friend who happens to be Black. We took in the exhibits and soaring architecture together, sifting through a complex and often ugly history. There’s a lot about that long narrative that separates us; I confronted gaps in my understanding at every turn. But even the most damning indictment of our society holds within it seeds of inspiration, examples of ordinary people who risked everything to transcend differences and make things better.
Whoever we are, whatever we believe, we all share in this legacy. We hold it in rare times of unity and times like these. Nobody said lofty democratic ideals did not have to be fought for. Nobody said governing ourselves was easy. We must work toward a more perfect union. It’s a grueling game of inches, not some gimme.
What have most of us really sacrificed in that effort? There are those who gave their lives for the common dignity of citizenship, for the freedoms we say we prize but do so little to protect.
The museum obviously hails those stories. But what moved me most was its bookstore. The shop was chock full of volumes for all ages; great works of history, art, and fiction. It celebrated many authors I know and love —Angie Thomas, Brandon Taylor, Kwame Alexander. Dolen Perkins-Valdez. Bryan Washington, Jacqueline Woodson, Stephen Carter—all products of this uneasy firmament we call home.
Things have always been hard. But as we’ve gone along, we’ve pushed the boundaries of freedom — to think, to prosper, to simply read. We keep pushing, in bleak moments and otherwise. It isn’t something we have much choice about. It’s simply our story.
Yours ever,
BKP
There Is Happiness by Brad Watson
If you’ve never read Watson’s strange and beguiling short fiction, saddle up for wild ride. The lead story in this anthology features a chat between a serial killer and a wig stand—and that’s far from the weirdest scenario. Novelist Joy Williams intros the collection with an essay that reminds us “the good short story tells us something very alarming about ourselves and our puzzling sojourn on this earth,” and Watson knew how to deliver. His tales sound the alarm about a civilization that’s dangerously off-kilter. Sadly, he died at 64 and 2020. Treasure his final volume of powerful, boundary-defying work.
JFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography by Rosemarie Terenzio and Liz McNeil
Few people knew JFK Jr. like Terenzio, his longtime confidant and the chief of staff at George magazine. She teamed with ace journalist McNeil to craft this detailed and expansive biography. Their effort is not some clip-job chronicle of an American prince, but a Plimptonesque oral history that lets friends, colleagues, and loved ones narrate Kennedy’s life and times from his early years through his 1999 death. Sharply edited by Kim Hubbard, it’s the definitive chronicle of a great American life.
The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman
Grossman (The Magicians) understands the primal appeal of legend. His new trilogy is a canny reinvention of Arthurian saga that begins not with the sword in the stone but in a Camelot left in tatters by its monarch’s death. Collum, our protagonist, arrives at court in a suit of stolen armor to find the glories of the Round Table a thing of the past. But some mythical figures are kicking around the place, among them Merlin and Morgan Le Fay. Grossman weaves old yarns such as the story of Lancelot and Guinevere into his reboot, giving new depth to characters beloved for centuries. It makes everything very old new again.
