The Pleasures of Reading, Viewing, and Listening in 2022, pt. 16: Caren Gussoff Sumption

 

Pleasures of 2022

 by Caren Gussoff Sumption

 

 

Can I really be writing about 2022?

 Like many of you, with chronic conditions, or loved ones with chronic conditions, lock-down hasn't quite ended for me; it feels, hand-to-the-gods, like it's Blursday, February 2020 version 2.12.

 But here I am, and, if nothing else, this has given me ample(r-than-usual) time to luxuriate in the brilliance of others -- and, honestly, the last twelve months has yielded some gobsmackingly marvelous masterpieces.

 

 This year, I fell in love with Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam. I know, I know. I'm tardy to this party, but better late than never getting to bask in her in weird, white-hot light. Like a daughter of Carol Emshwiller, Angela Carter, and Lorrie Moore, Stufflebeam hides kick-rib truths and no hold-punches inside a congestion of stylized prose, liminal settings, and circular chronologies.  Her latest collection, Where You Linger and Other Stories, first out from Vernacular Press and set to be re-released after Vernacular's shuttering, is, handily, the best book I read this year. It's a rare thing to read a collection start to finish, and that is exactly what I did.

 

Grace Chan's quiet near-future sci-fi novel, Every Version of You, was another that stuck with me long after I finished it. While the book itself was elegant and gentle, the questions it raises about what it means to be human, how we retain our humanity as we climb, willingly, into the enticing maw of new technology, and how it feels to live versus being alive are, rightfully, difficult to shake off. I especially loved how relatable the main character, Tao-Yi, was, in how many life-altering decisions she could make while never, in the moment, being able to understand her own motivations -- a lovely verisimilitude of how, indeed, life is constructed most poignantly of a buildup of seemingly mundane moments.

 

 Rounding out my three pleasures is the strange, uncomfortable novella, The Girl Who Outgrew The World, by the fine Zoje Stage. Written in YA style (but definitely not for a YA reader), this brutal, beautiful book is an unflinching look at societal gaze -- both at those who are female-identified and at those who are considered different -- continue to have power over how we move through the world. Stage couches this exploration in the story of Lily, a pre-teen who has never stopped growing -- to the point where she towers over her father, and just about everyone else in her town. Even as Lily's height squarely pulls the story into magical realism, there's a legit -- and raw -- subtext that runs through on puberty, and how no one, ever, has been given a fair deal at that most vulnerable age (there are good reasons we say growing pains). A content warning: the novella contains frank depictions of sexual assault and violence.

And finally, I want to toss in praise for this year's standout film, Everything Everywhere All At Once. There's no dearth of love for this film, for a thousand good reasons, but most reviews fail to mention the conversation embedded within the film: what it means to be an aging woman, looking back on your life choices, when you have more years behind you than before you. The message is, of course, hardly a new take -- coming to accept and love yourself, with all your literal and metaphorical sags and bags, is not a revolutionary message (no matter how true it remains). But Evelyn's struggles, resentments, fantasies, and regrets (portrayed so musically by the singular Michelle Yeoh), feel emotionally true in a way I've never seen on any screen. And the multiple reality/timeline bending tropes are played to its perfect conclusion. Time marches on, albeit it never in a straight line.

Perfect analogy, as well, for this never-ending Blursday.

 

 Caren Gussoff Sumption lives in a nest of books, knitting, and rescue cats, south of Seattle, WA. The author of 6 books and more than 100 short stories, Caren received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and in 2008, was the Carl Brandon Society’s Octavia E. Butler Scholar at Clarion West. Her latest, a deep space manners comedy novella, So Quick Bright Things Come to Confusion, is out from Vernacular Books (soon to be released by Lethe Books). Caren is autistic, Romany, Jewish, and can't carry a tune (she tries anyway, gods help us all). Find her online at www.spitkitten.com and https://linktr.ee/spitkitten. Aqueduct published her novella, Three Songs for Roxy, as Volume 42 in its Conversation Pieces series.