Exit, pursued by a manicure

Dear Reader, 

What can I tell you about March? It was spent mostly in my house. Newfoundland and Labrador experienced an early version of the 3rd, or variant, wave -- an explosion of cases that hit in mid-February and threw us back in time by nearly a year to a full stay-at-home order for almost everyone. While the rest of the province was able to relax restrictions a couple of weeks ago, St. John's has been mostly locked down ever since. (The vast majority of cases were found in the city, rather than anywhere else.) Things change for us this weekend, when we'll jump from a Level 4 up to Level 2 -- which is good! I feel I have to explain that because for some reason, every region in the country seems to have a different alert system. We celebrated my daughter's 2nd Covid birthday but at least this time I was able to see her masked face in person, instead of phoning it in, quarantine to quarantine, St. John's to Montreal. 

What I've mainly been doing this month is writing -- I'm knee-deep now in a new novel, and the water rising on that is a really exciting feeling, as always. I have a few Humber students keeping me busy from now until August; I always like to have a little teaching on the go, as a way to mix things up. I think it's true, for me, that the exterior pressure of another schedule is helpful. I write more when I know my time is limited by other things -- at least, to a point. It's always a juggle to find the exact right "busy-ness": enough to keep the ball bouncing, but not so much that I start to panic and lose the flow. 

I also put the biggest focus I could on simply getting outside every day. Even in the grey, misty days of March, I tried to keep walking and skiing as a way to stay on track and not go mad. Everyone has a different threshold for 'staying at home' -- I have a friend who has twice, in the course of this pandemic, accidentally not left the house for weeks at a time. It turns out my threshold for these things is really low, so I have to get out and break a sweat every day or I become a bit of a bear. While there's no way of knowing if we'll continue our streak of good luck (and to be honest, excellent management on the part of our Chief Medical Officer of Health) things look promising right now. Grades 9 and under are all back in school, while the high schools attempt to sort their shit out; I've booked a mani-pedi with my daughter, part of her birthday present, a gift for both of us after this long, weird year. 

What I've been thinking on most this month is the experience of grief. Grey skies, I guess, but also something in the zeitgeist. I've said before that I think Emerald Fennell's Promising Young Woman can be seen as an exploration of grief, and I found that the subject kept re-emerging for me this month, in everything I read and watched. When I was younger, I used to think of my life as marked by what I called 'unfair death' -- my childhood best friend stolen by violence when I was 9, then another friend stolen by AIDS when I was 18. Through most of my early adulthood, I pushed to 'get things done' before the inevitable came for me; I didn't feel the kind of wide open possibility that I saw in many of my peers at the time. Instead, I felt panicked, like I was just barely escaping something, that I was constantly cheating death rather than just being 23. 
 
I recognize this now as a weird relation of PTSD. Of course, every death is unfair. Isn't it? I've learned to give myself space to breathe, mostly through the wonder of therapy, and also because time really does heal wounds; these days, I plan hard to live to be 100. And I've found my own ways to circle the subject, without taking it so personally all the time. What is a crime novel, after all, if not a narrative of unfair death, and the writer just a person trying to figure it out? The question of every book: But how could this have happened?

***

What I'm Writing: 
I'm really face-and-eyes into the novel by now, so I have nothing truly new for you this month. But, I did notice that this piece I wrote for The Walrus around this time last year seems to be making the rounds on Twitter again -- so, ICYMI, my thoughts on divorce and co-parenting during a global pandemic.

What I'm Reading: 
·       Top pick for this month was Norwegian author Agnes Ravatn's brand new noir novel, The Seven Doors-- about a literature professor who finds herself trying to solve a missing person case that comes dangerously close to home. It's atmospheric and very intelligent, and of course, fjord-y. I think this title will officially be out in May in North America, but I was lucky enough to get an advance copy, and interviewed Ravatn for TIFA this past month. The interview technically aired this past Wednesday evening, but I believe it has a 72-hour window, so you may just be able to squeak in today? To attempt registration, click here. I liked the book so much that I've ordered her first novel, The Bird Tribunal, and impatiently await the mail. 
·       I'm just finishing Hilary Leichter's Temporary, a novel that is a really delightful and intriguing and surreal waltz through the nature of work (I think, especially for women) and in some ways, a true send-up of the gig economy. If you enjoy Gary Barwin's novels, you will like this. If you like Aimee Bender, you will like this. If you have ever worked a temp job, you will like it. Honestly, I don't know who wouldn't like it. Recommended! 
·       I also read Amanda Boyden's memoir, I Got the Dog, admittedly more out of morbid curiosity than anything else. (The fact that Chapters Indigo will not carry the book in Canada, not even for special order, made me perk up my ears. I ordered it from Kings Co-op in Halifax, but it's available here through every indie and Amazon.)  I'm not sure I can recommend it as a finished piece, but I do think it shows perfectly the chaotic moment after a divorce-- the longer the marriage, the deeper the chaos-- as she attempts to sort out her life and traumas pre-marriage and come to terms with how to navigate the after. 

A few longer-form pieces: 
·        In The Guardian, this excellent profile of Frida Guerrera, a Mexican journalist-turned-activist-turned-manhunter, is really worth a read. BTW, I am available to write this series for television: Hunting the Men who Kill Women 
·       In Jezebel, The Convenient Lie of 'Sexual Empowerment':  an adapted excerpt from Tracy Clark-Flory's new book, Want Me: A Sex Writer's Journey into the Heart of Desire -- ​a memoir about coming of age under the illusion of sexual freedom. To wit: "The improvement of women’s sexual experiences has now been detached from imperatives of social justice and collective struggle. Instead, empowerment is cast as a personal problem, which places pressure on individuals to successfully navigate systemic disadvantages… The appearance of sexual freedom is one of those normative burdens.” In the 90s, this was gift-wrapped as being ‘the cool girl’, but-- especially as teenagers-- who among us can really make informed, individual decisions about our sexual agency, if we’re raised in a culture that sees women as sexual objects first? An object, by definition, has no agency at all. In other words, how do you know what you want, when your job is just to be wanted? I’m eager to read the whole book.   
·       In the NYT, my friend Anakana Schofield’s excellent piece on grieving the death of a friend after assisted suicide. 
·       And in Harper's, Ann Patchett writes about a gift of friendship that came out of the pandemic, rather than despite it: These Precious Days.  (I will read anything Patchett ever writes. I would read her grocery lists.)
  
What I'm Watching: 
·       Top marks to It's A Sin, but I won't lie: it's a difficult watch. My generation grew up in the shadow of the AIDS crisis-- our first pandemic-- and watching a story so similar to that of my friend play out on television gave me the cathartic cry I didn't realize I'd been holding in since 1992. Grief is long. Available on Prime Video.
·       Murder Among the Mormons is not, at first glance, something I thought I'd be interested in-- as my daughter said, "it's a bombing story, not really a murder story." But it's actually much more than that, perhaps deceptively so. I'd say this one is made for easy consumption, a low-key watch: part-scandal, part-actual news. But if you ask me, the lede is buried in the last 10 minutes of this 3-part documentary. On Netflix. 
·       I'm also watching American Gods right now, with George-- he's read the book, I have not, we are both equally on board. Top-notch storytelling. On Prime Video.

What I'm Listening To: 
·       Not doing much listening this month, but I did take in the Hollywood & Crime series, The Dating Game Killer. This is some classic true crime stuff, a little more on the schlocky and sensational side of what I'd usually listen to, but if you have the stomach for it, it's a clear representation of how the legal and law enforcement systems fail women -- I think in this case, even despite their best efforts to the contrary. (The story is full of cops and prosecutors who tried their best.) Rodney Alcala appeared on The Dating Game-- and even won-- in 1978, after he'd already been to jail for sexually assaulting a child, and after he was deemed 'an anti-social personality' by the military hospital that discharged him from his service. Imagine a television show premised upon setting women up with dates, that doesn't run background checks on their contestants. (Just imagine that. It's the first of a series of jaw-droppers.) There are a lot of hard stories in this podcast, so a big giant trigger warning to those who may need it. Now I'm dying to read an interview with Cheryl Bradshaw, the woman who picked Alcala as the winner that night-- then, after meeting him face to face, told TV producers she refused to go out with him. 

***
Spring is here -- or soon will be... or will be by June, if you live in Newfoundland. My only advice this month is to get outside and breathe -- and cry if you need to. Grief is long. This year has been long. Trust that your body will give you what it needs. 

xoEdM