Volume 1, No. 17: Doorways + Craggy Rye Biscuits

Greetings, friends! Wow, have I got some exciting wildlife updates this week. I haven’t set up my bird feeder at my new place yet, and that’s because of this visitor:

I woke up on Sunday morning to my dog barking, and looked out the widow to see that a black bear had tipped over the can of birdseed on my deck and was happily enjoying it. Eventually the bear ambled off, and I moved the birdseed into the shed. My bear visitor returned the next morning at the same time, sniffed around, and left. Apparently bears have incredible memories for the location of food sources. We’ll see if this one keeps coming back once it realizes there’s no more seed.

It was amazing to see a bear so close, but I don’t want a permanent guest on my deck, so I won’t be hanging up my feeder this summer. Happily, I’ve still been enjoying the birds. On one of my first nights here, I listened to this gorgeous song all evening, which I successfully identified as a wood thrush.

But enough about bears and birds. Let’s talk books! This week, I've got three books that explore — or act as — doorways. Disability Visibility is a books that feels like a gateway into new ways of understanding, seeing, and thinking. Special Topics in Being A Human is all about how to build doorways in your life. And Infinite Country is a stunning novel about the inhumanity and violence of walls and borders, and the consequences of closed doorways.

The Books

Backlist: Disability Visibility edited by Alice Wong (Essays, 2020)

I read this book back in January, and it’s one of my favorite nonfiction reads of the year so far. It’s been a doorway for me — not only into new ways of thinking about disability and embodiment, but also into the work of many writers whose books have brought so much richness to my life.

The book is broken into four sections: Being, Becoming, Doing, and Connecting. The essays in each section relate in some way to that theme. I’m a reader who always pays close attention to how a book is structured, and I love how Wong chose to arrange these essays. The first half of the book is mostly about individual experiences, self-discovery, and the realities, both beautiful and difficult, of being disabled in an ableist society. The later sections move into disability justice, activism, and disability culture. It gives the book a cohesive feel, a sense of movement, and that’s something I always appreciate in an essay collection.

The biggest strength of this book, though, is the diversity of the contributors and their work. There are pieces by disabled people of many genders, ages, religions, cultures, and sexualities. There are so many ways of being disabled, and this book features writing from physically disabled folks, Deaf people, chronically ill and neurodivergent people, people with invisible disabilities, wheelchair users, and more. And while some of the essays deal with anger, heartbreak, trauma, and lack of access, the book as a whole feels like a celebration. It’s vibrant and varied and full of so many different ways of thinking and seeing.

The essays are intersectional and far-ranging, exploring disabled lives and experiences through a variety of lenses. There are essays about ableism and activism, about fashion, about representation, about health care and public transit and falling in love and different ways of communicating. Many essays explore the intersections of race, gender, queerness, and disability. I especially loved the essays about disabled joy, the creativity of access, and the intricacies of disability art and culture.

All my books are still in boxes, so my copy of this one isn’t in front of me. But it’s a must-read as far as I’m concerned. And you don’t have to take my word for it! A few reviews from disabled folks that I highly recommend reading: Kendra Winchester talks about what this book means to her, and the importance of de-centering non-disabled perspectives around disability. Autumn writes about seeing herself in these essays and also about how they reach beyond her own experience.

And a few books I’ve recently loved by writers whose work appears in this collection: Haben by Haben Girma, Care Work by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, and The Pretty One by Keah Brown.

Frontlist: Infinite Country by Patrica Engel (Fiction)

Family sagas might be my very favorite kind of fiction, and this one is basically perfect. For some reason I thought it was going to be long (so many family sagas are), so when I picked it up at my library I was surprised by its slimness. I then proceeded to read it in two sittings, and I am still in awe of how much story Engel packs into 190 pages.

The novel follows a Colombian family as they navigate the horrifying realities of US immigration policy. Mauro and Elena immigrate to the US with their young daughter, planning to save money and eventually return home. But one thing leads to another, they have two more children in America, and soon, they’re separated. Elena remains in the US with their two older children, while while Mauro raises their youngest daughter in Colombia.

At one point, a character observes that “everyone has a secret self truer than the parts you see.” Later, she states: “A life rendered will always be incomplete.” This book feels like an embodiment of both of those truths. It’s a story about how borders destroy lives, the violence of separation, what happens when doorways solidify into walls, and how the cruel bureaucracy of immigration affects the daily lives of a mixed-status family. But it’s not melodramatic or sensational. It’s a deeply human story, captured imperfectly on the page, because all captured stories are incomplete. Engel’s prose is beautiful and flowing. I wanted to savor every other sentence, but those gorgeous sentences never got in the way of the story. The whole book shimmers with depth and possibility. I could sense the stories Engel chose not to share, the untold bits, the parts of these characters too vulnerable and raw to bring to light. It’s an expansive novel, sparingly told.

It is also littered with doorways — broken, barred, sometimes open. “Leaving is a kind of death,” Engel writes, and then she pens those deaths onto the page. There are separations and rebirths. There are so many what ifs. Every character wonders what might have been. This is a human tendency, but the what-ifs hold different consequences for those living between countries, for undocumented people.

I often wonder if we are living the wrong life in the wrong country. If the reason I have felt so out of place is because I, like the narco animals, have no biological or ancestral memory of this strange North American landscape or its furious seasons. These mountains and rivers are not mine. I haven't yet figured out if by the place of my birth I was betrayed or I am the betrayer, or why this particular nation and not some other should be our family pendulum.

It’s haunting, the way Engel so often blurs these boundaries. At one point, Mauro is working as a handyman for a family in Colombia, and he sees his family superimposed on the family he’s working for, living their life. For a moment, this life not lived becomes real. The whole novel is full of these ghosts — lives not lived, choices not made. Many of these ghosts exist because of how Maura and Elena’s lives have been shaped by immigration policy. But not all of them. This is a human novel, full of romance and teenage angst, family drama and self-discovery. It is brutal at times, but it is not exclusively so. Engel is as adept at writing joy as she is writing grief.

I could have transcribed most of the book, but instead I’ll leave you with this passage:

I’ve had borders drawn around me all my life, but I refuse to be a bordered person. I hate the term undocumented. It implies people like my mother and me don't exist without a paper trail. I have a drawer full of diaries and letters I never sent to my grandmother, my father, even to my younger sister that will prove to anyone that I am very real, most definitely documented; photos taped to our refrigerator, snapshots taken at the Sandy Hill house or other friends’ fiestas, the Sears portraits our mother used to dress us up for every year…Don’t tell me I’m undocumented when my name is tattooed on my father’s arm.

Upcoming: Special Topics in Being a Human by S. Bear Bergman and Saul Freedman-Lawson (Graphic nonfiction, Arsenal Pulp Press, 10/12)

I always feel a little mean recommending books that aren’t coming out for a few months, but October is going to be here before we know it, and this gem is worth a preorder. I’ve been a fan of Bergman for a while (Blood, Marriage, Wine & Glitter is one of my most beloved books), so I was super excited to snag an ARC of this warm, tender, openhearted book full of practical and thoughtful advice about living life.

The book stems from Bergman’s online advice column, “Dear Bear”. It’s split into seventeen chapters, each one tackling a different question/problem. It’s a wonderful mix of big, heady stuff (“How to Be Yourself”) and smaller but equally important stuff (“How to Apologize” and “How to Take a Compliment Sometimes”).

Bergman offers a ton of useful, practical tips for a range of problems and life situations. I’ve made my share of pros and cons lists, but I’ve never considered making a weighted pros and cons list, and wow, that rocked my world. There’s also a ton in here about how to be a decent human being in the world, both to yourself and to others. There’s a great chapter on how to get people’s names and pronouns right. It’s simple, direct, and to the point. There’s a wonderful bit about how to take up less space/be less threatening in public places if you’re a man (or cis, white, straight, etc.) The chapter on making an apology is one I’ll be returning to again and again.

There’s also plenty of big-picture stuff. Standouts for me were the chapters on how to make big decisions, how to love people with your actions, and how to do things you’re not good at. The “How to Be Bad at Things and Do Them Anyway” chapter is especially moving. Bergman, the writer, does the illustrations, and Freedman-Lawson, the artist, does the writing. It’s poignant and funny and vulnerable and exemplifies everything I love about this book: it’s real, down-to-earth, and gentle.

It’s hard to describe how warm and comforting Bergman’s tone is. He’s inviting and caring, but he’s also firm. He’s shares his own past mistakes, his insecurities, the parts of himself he’s worked on over the years. So it feels like a conversation rather than a lecture. He also fills the book with affirmations, continually repeating that you, the reader, deserve to be loved, that you are awesome, that you can do this. It sounds cheesy, maybe, but it isn’t. He’s got this loud and earnest joyfulness that is infectious.

The art is also an absolute joy. It’s a mix of charts and graphics and drawings of people and situations. Freedman-Lawson draws so many kinds of bodies! The book is full of people of all genders, races, religions, abilities, body types. There are fat people and wheelchair users and people in hijabs, folks with canes, folks with all kinds of hair and clothes and facial expressions.

I can’t overstate how delightful it is to read a book like this written and drawn from a queer and trans lens. Being poly or non-monogamous, valuing friendships as much as romantic relationships, living alone, or with a group, or with partners — all of these things are named, expected, celebrated. Bergman writes about nontraditional families, and Freedman-Lawson draws them. There is no assumed “normal”, no cissexist, heterosexist norm to which our lives and decisions are being compared. I found it so easy to see myself in these pages because I saw so many kinds of people. This is so freeing — it made it easy to trust the book and its authors. I didn’t feel like I had to keep my guard up.

It’s out October 12th and you can preorder it here.

The Bake

This bake is a twofold doorway: a doorway into baking, because biscuits are one of the easiest things you can make, and a doorway (I hope) into the wonderful world of rye flour. This particular recipe came about because I wanted biscuits this weekend, and the first flour I found (my pantry is still in boxes) happened to be rye. Making rye biscuits sounded much nicer than digging around for a different flour, so that’s what I did.

Craggy Rye Biscuits

These are not elegant. They’re also not flaky like traditional biscuits. They’re craggy and crumbly and full of flavor. They’re wonderful warm with butter. They’re also the perfect vehicle for a tuna melt, as you can see in the picture above.

Ingredients:

• 218 grams (2 cups) whole grain rye flour

• 1 Tbs baking powder

• 1 tsp salt

• 10 Tbs (141 grams) cold unsalted butter, cubed

• 3/4 cup milk, plus 1-2 Tbs more as needed

Preheat the oven to 400. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.

In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the butter and blend with your fingertips until the mixture resembles coarse meal with plenty of small pea-sized pieces of butter. Add the milk and stir with a wooden spoon just until the dough comes together. If the mixture is still too dry, add a bit more milk a tablespoon at a time.

Scoop the dough into eight mounds and drop them on the prepared baking sheet. Oddly shaped scoops are just fine. Bake for 20-24 minutes, until the tops of the biscuits are golden brown. Let cool slightly before slicing (or breaking apart, these will crumble).

The Bowl & The Beat

The Bowl: Pasta Primavera Version 2,482

Honestly, I’m amazed that I’ve managed to cook anything at all since moving a little over a week ago. This dish is thanks to all the amazing veggies I’ve been getting in my CSA share. Is it even Pasta Primavera? Who cares! Cook some pasta, toss it with some veggies, yum.

In a medium skillet, sauté a sliced onion in plenty of butter. Add whatever veggies you have around. I used sliced summer squash, fresh peas, and spinach. Cook until your veggies are just tender, then add some crumbled feta cheese and the zest and juice of a lemon. Stir to combine and cook another minute or two. Toss with your favorite pasta. Add plenty of grated Parmesan, several glugs of olive oil, and a few handfuls of chopped basil or other herbs.

The Beat: Perfect on Paper by Sophie Gonzales

I actually finished this one a few days ago, but it was such an absolute delight I wanted to share it here. I’ve been on a mini queer YA kick on audio. I listened to May the Best Man Win by ZR Ellor (not my favorite, but I appreciated a lot of what its was doing), The Passing Playbook by Isaac Fitzsimons (enjoyed it a lot), and Cool for the Summer by Dahlia Adler (also enjoyed it). Perfect on Paper was my favorite of the bunch. It’s about Darcy, a bisexual teenager who has a successful side gig giving her fellow students anonymous relationship advice. But when her own relationships get messy, she discovers there’s a whole lot she doesn’t know.

I adore everything about this book. Darcy goes through so much growth and change, which is my absolute favorite thing in YA novels. She’s a big mess, she makes mistakes, she figures stuff out. It’s funny! The romance is my favorite kind of slow burn. It deals with internalized biphobia, but there’s a whole lot of queer affirmation. The side characters are all wonderful, especially Darcy’s older trans sister. There are so many queer friendships! Darcy is so passionate and confident, which is always a joy to read. And Barrie Kreinik’s narration is perfect. Perfect on audio.

The Bookshelf

The Visual

We’re halfway through the year, and I don’t know how that happened. Every July, I like to take stock of my reading and reassess what I want it to look like for the rest of the year. So I thought I’d share my monthly TBR process with you this week. Each month, I fill in this template, which has categories for reading challenges, my personal reading goals, kinds of books I want to make sure I’m reading each month, and current and upcoming books. It doesn’t mean that I’ll read all of these books, or only these books! Some months I read most of them, and other months almost none. But it’s a useful starting place.

My biggest reading goal for this year is to purposely read more books by trans, Indigenous, and disabled authors. I was already reading books by authors from these communities, but now I’ve made it a priority, and my reading life has definitely improved.

The Library Shelf

It’s going to be a while before I have a designated library shelf in my new place. Luckily, that doesn’t stop me from hoarding library books! My current library read is Kiss of the Fur Queen by Tomson Highway, and I’m enjoying it a lot.

Around the Internet

I reviewed a few of my latest listens over on Audiofile: The Guncle by Steven Rowley and The Ghosts We Keep by Mason Deaver.

Now Out

No new books I’ve previously recommended are out this week, but I am excited about Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin. I had an ARC I never got to, but I’m hoping to read it soon!

The Boost

A few rad things from some of the authors I’ve mentioned in this newsletter:

• The Disability Visibility Project, founded by Alice Wong, is definitely worth some of your time. You’ll find articles, interviews, a podcast, useful resources, and a whole lot more.

• S. Bear Bergman is also the co-founder of Flamingo Rampant, a small press that publishes feminist, racially diverse, and LGBTQ+ affirming children’s books. If you have kiddos in your life, I recommend checking out this little press!

As always, a little bit of beauty to send you on your way: Bears are truly majestic creatures.

And that’s it until next week. Catch you then!