Volume 2, No. 17: Best of the Backlist Part 2 + Candied Citrus Peel

Greetings, bookish friends! I am incandescent with rage and grief today. I often am. I am going to be bleak here for a moment, and admit to you that I am not an optimist. I do not believe that we can build a better world, a just world—not in my lifetime or my niblings’ lifetimes or their children’s lifetimes. I wish I did. I do not.

For years, this passage from We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates has guided my thinking on hope and action:

I don't ever want to lose sight of how short my time is here. And I don't ever want to forget that resistance must be its own reward, since resistance, at least within the life span of the resistors, almost always fails. I don't ever want to forget, even with whatever personal victories I achieve, even in the victories we achieve as a people or a nation, that the larger story of America and the world probably does not end well. Our story is a tragedy. I know it sounds odd, but that belief does not depress me. It focuses me. After all, I am an atheist and thus do not believe anything, even a strongly held belief, is destiny. And if tragedy is to be proven wrong, if there really is hope out there, I think it can only be made manifest by remembering the cost of it being proven right. No one—not our fathers, not our polices, and not our gods—is coming to save us. The worst really is possible. My aim is to never be caught, as the rappers say, acting like it can't happen.

I do not think that believing a better world is possible is a prerequisite for working toward that world. If hope fuels you to action, I salute you. I am grateful, deeply, for your hope. But hope does not fuel me. I want to use the slip of time I have on this planet to bring more justice, more care, more peace, to the lives I share it with, right now. That’s what fuels me.

If Roe v. Wade is overturned, people will die. It will disproportionally affect poor people and people of color. It will be devastating. But, as Coates points out, the US government is never going to save us. The US government is designed to protect whiteness and uphold patriarchy. I’m not saying government policy doesn’t matter. It absolutely does. But we can’t count on it. We can only count on each other.

So: Donate to the National Network of Abortion Funds here. Or view a list of national funds and donate to funds in your community and/or in states where abortion rights are currently being decimated. I have a monthly donation to my local abortion fund set up, but I found this post helpful in determining where else to donate. None of us need an incentive to donate, but The Feminist Press is rad, and they are sending free books to anyone who donates to an abortion fund this week. Check out the Keep Our Clinics campaign (funding for independent abortion clinics) and Plan C (for info on accessing abortion pills). Yesterday’s Anti-Racism Daily has some useful resources. Seven Stories Press is giving away free ebooks of The New Handbook for a Post-Roe America through May 5th. Please listen to Chase Strangio, who is far more eloquent than me.

Back to hope for a moment. I recently read We Will Not Cancel Us by adrienne marie brown, and was struck by how much it resonated with me, though her work is motivated by hope. I was moved by her insistence that we must model the world we want to live in, and that doing so is essential movement work:

Movements need to become the practice ground for what we are healing towards, co-creating. Movements are responsible for embodying what we are inviting our people into. We need the people within our movements, all socialized into and by unjust systems, to be on liberation paths. Not already free, but practicing freedom every day.

As far as books go, I’ve got another Best of the Backlist newsletter for you today. It’s been such a relief to have some time to focus on reading for future newsletters without the pressure of a deadline!

The Books

Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice (Post-Apocalyptic Fiction, 2018)

This is the quietest post-apocalyptic book I've ever read, which is quite a feat, considering books like this are usually action-packed. Set in a small, remote Anishinaabe community in Northern Canada, it explores what a loss of contact with the outside world means for a community that has already been displaced, whose land has already been stolen. The plot is extremely minimal. The power goes out; phones go dead; the internet vanishes. The rest of the book is about the slow rhythm of life afterward, and the disruption the community faces both from within and from outsiders.

The setting is exquisite. I love books set in northern places (I am obsessed with winter, after all) and Rice captures all the details of this particular place with precision. He weaves the landscape into everything that happens—I don’t generally visualize things while I’m reading, but I could see this small town, the trees, the creatures, the snow, the roads.

It’s the slowness, and the attention to small details, that makes this novel shine. Because it's not action-packed, and because so little focus is put on the cause of the disaster and how it's playing out in the wider world, Rice is able to focus on much more interesting things. It becomes a book about the ways that white people's land theft and erasure of Native histories continues to reverberate through every new crisis. It's about intimate moments between people. It's about winter. It's about what people choose to cary with them, about what stays the same after a major upheaval and what doesn't.

There’s one scene that I still remember vividly, even though I read this book years ago. An elder sits down with his grandchildren to tell them an old Anishinaabe story. The story goes on for quite a while. The children interrupt to ask questions. The grandfather answers them, and then goes back to the story. The plot—everything that’s happening outside this elder’s story—remains at a standstill. I listened to the audiobook, and my best guess is that this scene took a good 15 minutes. I can't think of another book set in a post-crisis world where the narrative pauses like this. This unexpected, meandering pacing is brilliant. It makes the story feel lush and expansive. It's not a long book, but it feels long. The storytelling, despite being full of tension, is leisurely and thoughtful. It goes where it wants to go, and takes its time getting there.

I think a lot about apocalypse these days. Not some future catastrophe, but apocalypse as it actually happens: the arrival of Europeans in North America, the transatlantic slave trade, covid. This novel begins with a devastating event that shifts the landscape of the world. All of us have lived through an event like this; some of us have lived through more than one. Rice captures something true about how that feels. Not the first shattering moment, but the long aftermath, the slow change that’s often the most terrifying.

Wandering in Strange Lands by Morgan Jerkins (Nonfiction, 2020)

This is my favorite kind of history book. It’s a collection of oral histories, hidden histories, histories with murky beginnings and no clear endings. It’s deeply personal and heavily researched. It’s full of process. It’s about things that happened hundreds of years ago and things that are still happening today. It’s a coming of age story and a family saga. It's an exploration of the effects of mass movement and migration on Black America, and, specifically, how Jerkins's own family fits into the larger story of Black American history.

In order to discover more about her roots and her ancestors, Jerkins, who grew up in New Jersey, the daughter of people who came north during the Great Migration, travels across the country visiting and interviewing Black people in many locales. She visits the Gullah Geechee people on the coast of Georgia, Creole people in Louisiana, and African-Americans with complex kinship ties to Cherokee and Seminole people in Oklahoma. She has thoughtful conversations with all of these people, reflecting on the places where her life intersects with theirs.

Using these visits as stepping-off points, she delves into the complicated histories of race and family in America. She asks big questions about the importance of blood and DNA in determining identity, and about the ways that labels and definitions are often murkier that we think, and can cause their own kind of harm. The section on Creole people, and how Creole identity has been been defined differently throughout history, was especially thoughtful.

Jerkins writes a lot about how learning about her family's messy history changes the way she thinks about herself. At times, it’s a book about Jerkins and her family. At times, it’s not about her at all. She’s clearly interested in sharing the histories of the people she meets as truthfully and accurately as she can. It reminded me a lot of The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio. Both are examples of brilliant non-objective journalism. Journalism is never objective, and both Jerkins and Villavicencio lean into that truth, which strengthens their work. They insert themselves into the stories they’re telling, because they are are part of those stories. They both know when to lean in and to step back.

Summer of Salt by Katrina Leno (YA Fantasy, 2018)

This is a lush and beautiful story about friendship and queerness and the ocean and feeling stuck and getting free. It’s a story about women who turn into birds and a teenager who just wants to be seen, about summer and floods and sisters and first love. It’s imbued with the kind of quiet magic I have come to love in books, soft magic that’s just creative enough to be intriguing, and just mundane enough to feel like no big deal.

It’s set on a tiny magic island off the coast of New England. I read it when I was living on Nantucket, and while my beloved island isn’t nearly as small or as weird as By-the-Sea, the setting still felt breathtakingly real to me, with all its mists and fogs and small town dramas. Leno captures the rhythms of island life so well: the tensions between the season and the off-season, the closeness of everything, the old families and their feuds, the pull of the mainland, the feeling of expansiveness and smallness that comes when you live somewhere surrounded on all sides by ocean.

The story centers on Georgina, a teenager eagerly awaiting the arrival of the magic that has been passed from women to women in her family, through the generations. Her twin sister already wields magic easily, and Georgina is starting to worry that she’ll be the first Fernweh women without the gift. The magical mystery unfolds slowly; the heart of the book is Georgina’s relationships—with her mother, her sister, her best friend. The characters are complicated, but the story is beautifully simple. It’s a love story and a coming-of-age story with a little magic and a lot of ocean. Sometimes that’s all I want.

The Bake

Full disclosure: I didn’t bake anything this week. Instead, I’ve got a baking-adjacent recipe for you! You may have noticed that I often include candied orange peel in my recipes. This is because a) I love it, and b) I make such a big batch of candied citrus peel every year during Cookie Extravaganza that I always have tons leftover.

Candied citrus peel is easy to make. It takes some time but not much effort. You can use any kind of citrus. It lasts basically forever in the fridge. The best part: it’s so good in so many baked goods! Scatter it on top of a cake for instant fancification. Add it to cookies and scones! Toss it into buttercream or ice cream for a little crunch.

Candied Citrus Peel

The method comes from Dorie Greenspan’s wonderful book, Dorie’s Cookies.

Ingredients:

• 3 medium oranges (or use 4-5 blood oranges, 6 lemons, or 6-8 Meyer lemons)

• 3 cups (720 ml) water

• 400 grams (2 cups) white sugar (plus more for dredging)

Prepare the citrus: Slice the tops and bottoms off the oranges (or whatever citrus you’re using). This will give you a flat base and make the fruit easier to work with. Using a sharp pairing knife, and working from top to bottom, remove slices of peel from each orange. I usually get 6-7 large pieces per orange. You want each piece to include all the pith, as well as a small strip (about 1/8 inch) of fruit. Once you’ve removed the peels, you can juice the oranges, eat them, etc.

Working with one large piece at a time, cut the peel lengthwise into thin strips. I like to keep these pieces fairly long and not too thin, about 1/4-inch. If some of your slivers still have a lot of fruit attached, you can use your knife to cut away a little bit.

Rinse the peel: Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Drop in the peels and boil them for one minute. Drain them in a sieve and rinse with cold water. Refill the pot with new water, bring it to a boil, and repeat the process two more times. Don’t skip this step—it keeps the candied peel from being too bitter.

Cook the peel: Rinse out the pot. Add 3 cups water and the sugar. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Add the rinsed peels, lower the heat, and cook at a slow simmer until the peels are translucent and the syrup has thickened and reduced. Depending on the size of your strips and the kind of citrus you’re using, this can take anywhere from 45 minutes to 1 1/2 hours. Check frequently, but don’t stir too much.

Finish the peel: Set a metal cooling rack over a baking tray or large piece of parchment. Remove the peels from the pot with a slotted spoon, letting as much syrup as possible drip off. Spread them out on the rack, let the cool for about 10 minutes, and then sprinkle them with sugar, using your hands to make sure all surfaces are coated. This will be messy and sticky. Sometimes I let them sit for another 10-15 minutes and then do it again. Once they’re fully coated, allow them to dry on the rack overnight. You may have to pick a few apart with your fingers, but I promise they’ll all dry eventually. Store in a jar in a cool, dry place for a few weeks, or in the fridge indefinitely. Save the syrup—it’s delicious on ice cream!

The Bowl and The Beat

The Bowl: Springy Fiddlehead and Mushroom Pasta

My kitchen inspiration has continued to dwindle, but I did manage to make this tasty pasta over the weekend. I also spent some time browsing cookbooks and YouTube channels and I’m actually feeling energized about May cooking! More on that soon.

If you’re using fiddleheads, wash them well, boil them for 5-6 minutes, drain and rinse them, and set aside. You can also use any other spring veggie: asparagus, peas, spinach, etc. Heat some butter in a large skillet. I used almost a whole stick. Add some pressed or minced garlic (I used a whole head), and cook briefly, until the garlic starts to soften. Add a big handful of sliced mushrooms and some salt and pepper and cook until the mushrooms start to brown. Add the fiddleheads (or veggie of your choice), a splash of vinegar or honey, and cook a few more minutes. Add a good splash of lemon juice (I juiced a whole lemon). Toss with your favorite pasta, a ton of grated Parmesan, and some cubed fresh mozzarella.

The Beat: Yerba Buena by Nina LaCour, read by Julia Whelan

I read this last year, but I’m giving myself the luxury of an audio reread. It’s even better the second time around. It’s one of the best contemporary queer novels I’ve read (and I’ve read a lot of brilliant ones), and possibly my favorite sapphic love story. I could go on and on about it forever. It’s out at the end of May. If you treat yourself to one pre-order this year, treat yourself to this one.

The Bookshelf

A Picture

This past weekend was Independent Bookstore Day. I made a daylong event of it, visiting bookstores all over the Valley! It was exhausting, but it was also a joyful way to welcome spring. I visited several shops I’d never been to before, listened to audiobooks while driving on quiet back roads amid flowering trees, and picked up a few books I can’t wait to read.

I feel so lucky to live in this beautiful place, full of so many thriving indie bookstores, including a few I didn’t even make it to! Here are the ten I did visit: Boswell’s Books, World Eye Bookshop, Roundabout Books, Federal Street Books, The Montague Book Mill, Amherst Books, Grey Matter Books, Odyseey Bookshop, Book Moon Books and Broadside Bookshop.

Around the Internet

My review of The Immortal King Rao is up on BookPage.

Now Out

Hurray! The Other Mother by Rachel M. Harper is now out, as is The Immortal King Rao by Vauhini Vara! I loved both of these so much. Go forth and find yourself copies!

More Best of the Backlist

A few from my Best of 2018 shelf: And Now We Have Everything: On Motherhood Before I Was Ready by Meaghan O’Connell (memoir); This Will Be My Undoing by Morgan Jerkins (yes, another!); A State of Freedom by Neel Mukherjee (bleak contemporary fiction).

The Boost

Some joy: There’s currently a Kickstarter going on for one of my favorite comics ever, Finding Home by Hari Conner. It’s already fully funded, but you can still donate to get a physical copy of the final volume and PDFs of the first three volumes. I cannot tell you how much I love this comic. You can also read it free as a webcomic, but it won’t finish posting until 2023—and believe me, you don’t want to wait that long!

As always, a little bit of beauty to send you on your way: The first tulips have arrived!

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