Tag Archives: The Book of Etta

One Question, Many Answers #3

What’s the first thing you think of when you hear the word “reading”?

 

“The odd places and attitudes I see children put themselves into while reading. I worry that ‘today’s kids’ don’t read. But SF/F novels’ popularity belies that concern.”

–Anonymous fan at BayCon 2017
East Bay Linux Users Group

 

“Books, lots of books.”

–Anonymous fan at BayCon 2017

 

“Imagination and excitement.”

–Jean Martin (costumer, editor-in-chief, dancer)
Creative Avocations

 

“Detectives, desolate highways, coffee, comfy chair, rain.”

–Tyler Hayes (Author)
The One About Jacob” (short story)

 

“How many books I have to finish.”

–Anna Rose (Author)
A Darker Shadow by Jake Keplin

 

“Being entertained by my own head, on my own terms, a perfect comfort and best pastime.”

–Meg Elison (Author)
The Book of Etta
megelison.com

 

Meg Elison’s Road to Nowhere series

You know how when you finish reading a really really good book, you want to read another book right away?  So you pick up a new book but put it back down after a few paragraphs, and you open another book but close it quickly, too.  And you realize that your head is still full of the really really good book, and you’ll have to wait for it to clear.

Reading Meg Elison’s The Book of the Unnamed Midwife followed by its companion novel The Book of Etta did that to me.

The two books, which constitute the first two parts in The Road to Nowhere series, are satisfying on many levels.

The books explore gender both overtly and subtly, as it affects the characters and societies and plot.  In the fragmented groups that the main character in each book encounters, we get to see a variety of responses to the scarcity of women caused by the worldwide plague.  Those responses seem natural because Elison handles them deftly; they unfold as organic elements, supported by solid worldbuilding and thorough character development.  And each of them shows us something different than the others, something complex, about gender, personhood, difference, and agency in our societies today.  Many of the responses pose questions.  Some questions are answered, and some are perhaps unanswerable.

The books have heart.  The characters are round and full of life; their emotions feel real, sometimes surprising but always true, even when the characters are hiding or struggling with truth.

The books’ prose balances detail and restraint; meaningful detail is sometimes purposefully underplayed, which rewards close reading and offers the attentive reader the pleasure of fitting puzzle pieces into place.

This review may sound stuffy and academic and clumsy, but I promise you, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife and The Book of Etta are deeply personal and mesmerizing.

One Question, Many Answers #1

At BayCon 2017, a science fiction and fantasy convention that’s taken place annually in the San Francisco Bay Area for the past twenty-five years, I cornered people in the hallways and asked them to participate in my One Question, Many Answers series.

Fans
Fans answered the following two questions:

  1. What is the first thing you think of when you hear the word “fan“?
  2. What is the first thing you think of when you hear the word “reading“?

Authors
Authors answered the following two questions:

  1.  What is the first thing you think of when you hear the word “writing“?
  2.  What is the first thing you think of when you hear the word “reading“?

Every couple of days over the next week or so, I will post answers to these questions, along with people’s names or pseudonyms and links to publications, passion projects, or charities that the fans and authors want to promote.

I’m going to start with a few of the authors’ answers to the first question.

Q.  What is the first thing you think of when you hear the word “writing”?

 

“That I should really be writing and not doing whatever it was I had been doing.”

–Anna Rose (Author)
A Darker Shadow by Jake Keplin

 

“Being a god, creating a world to make it my way and finally have the control that real life never gives.”

–Meg Elison (Author)
The Book of Etta
megelison.com

 

“My desk, coffee, morning, being cold, knit hats, penguins.”

–Tyler Hayes (Author)
The One About Jacob” (short story)