Blood & Whiskey #30
The Portland Book Festival; secrets and lies; an interview with Tim Johnston; LOTS of cocktails; best of the year lists; and a gourd.
Hello friends and readers,
Lots of bookish stuff to cover this month. I’ll start with my recent visit to the excellent Portland Book Festival, run by Literary Arts. Like many arts organizations, Literary Arts got bruised by Covid, but attendance at this year’s festival was impressive and inspiring. There were lines out the door to see Viet Thanh Nguyen, Tim O’Brien, Safiya Sinclair, Michael Lewis and others. My little slice of the action was moderating a discussion about “Family Secrets” with Edan Lepucki and Angie Kim, whose recent novels — Time’s Mouth and Happiness Falls — I’d featured in this newsletter over the summer.
In advance of my interview with Edan and Angie, I also read their debut novels, both packed with secrets and lies. Angie’s Miracle Creek (opening line: “My husband asked me to lie”) is the story of the tragic explosion of a hyperbaric oxygen chamber called Miracle Submarine that kills or injures a few occupants. Run by a Korean immigrant family, the Yoos, the chamber was used to treat assorted physical conditions, from autism to cerebral palsy to impotence. In the aftermath of the explosion, we revisit the incident from multiple POVs, mainly through a courtroom drama, as the entangled secrets and lies unfold. It’s a tightly woven page-turner, but more than a murder mystery it’s a story of family sacrifice, immigrant struggles, community mistrust, autism, and more.
In Edan’s California, everyday husband-and-wife moments take on weight and menace as we learn why Cal and Frida have fled L.A. and are living in the woods of Southern California. An apocalypse of some sort has turned the world they once knew to chaos and ash, but the book is really the story of a marriage. “That’s what I’m worried about,” Frida admits at one point… “You and me, alone.”
The country has been wracked by wildfires, snowstorms, floods, earthquakes, an epidemic. A band of radicals called the Group wreaks more havoc — Frida’s brother, now dead, had been an acolyte. When Frida becomes pregnant, she and Cal seek out the nearest settlement of survivors, a menacing community that forces them to confront their own secrets. Cal tells Frida as they tromp through the woods: “It was stupid of me to lie to you.” Her reply: “We all have our secrets.”
Next up… I really enjoyed Distant Sons, by Tim Johnson, whose previous books (2019’s The Current and Descent, from 2015) I also devoured. The new book is the story of two aimless and wounded men, Sean and Dan, who meet accidentally in a small Wisconsin town, where decades earlier three boys had disappeared. Sean and Dan start working together on a remodeling job at the home of cranky-old Marion Devereaux. Troubled and troubling back stories and secrets of all three men trickle out slow and smooth. Tim’s writing — lovely, smart, dark — reminds me a bit of Peter Heller, Dennis Lehane, and Ivy Pochoda, who called the book “edgy, refined and complex.”
Johnson understands hard-working, blue collar America and I loved the language of the trades… PEX lines and sweating copper; century-old rough-hewn studs that, when cut, smelled of dust and cinnamon; the chop of a trowel into a wheelbarrow of mortar and a well-buttered cinderblock. He’s also a patient and beautiful writer who drops clues slowly as storylines slowly mesh and tangle. As one character observes: “Behind every good, the bad waited it’s turn. You thought you knew it but then you forgot.”
I did a Q&A with Tim, the full version of which is now in the slow-growing “Interrogations” section of Blood & Whiskey. (Past interviews include Megan Abbott, Dani Shapiro, Laura Lippman, Andres Dubus, and Edan Lepucki. More of that to come in 2024.) A sample from my Q&A with Tim:
NT: More than a murder mystery I found the book to be a beautiful exploration of real life in the hard-working heartland… Is this an intentional effort to show readers the world you come from or admire, or just writing what you know?
TJ: It turns out that these characters mostly come from the kind of lands and small towns that I come from, which is a small college town in the Midwest (Iowa City, IA). As someone who has worked with his hands in the heartland, I feel a strong connection to such people, men and women. But I've also done my time in academia, as student and teacher, and I feel these two backgrounds—blue collar guy and college guy—simultaneously within me, and I do like to get both experiences in play, sometimes at odds with each other, in the storytelling realm.
Back to Portland… While at the book festival I picked up the latest from Patrick DeWitt, whose 2012 novel The Sisters Brothers (Book Prize finalist, also a pretty good movie) was a revelation and remains a favorite. His new novel, The Librarianist, is smart, sweet, funny, occasionally slow but a charming and fast read. This is the story of Bob Comet, a retired Portland librarian whose quiet life is tumbled around when he finds a mute woman at a convenient mart and returns her to the senior home she’d wandered away from. Bob starts volunteering there and we learn more about his small, mostly solitary life. An early mentor tried to warn him away from the “syrup-slow” job of a librarian and the “language-based life of the mind,” coaching him to live bigger: “You’re supposed to be out there getting girls you don’t love pregnant … you should be in a gang, Bob. You should be getting into knife fights.” But Bob prefers books, and I admired him for that. The third of four parts felt grafted on and my gaze wandered, but it was mostly a rewarding look at getting older with grace.
Next up on the TBR pile… Same Bed Different Dreams, by Ed Park, and The Lost Van Gogh, by Jonathan Santlofer
Listening: If you’re a podcast listener, here’s a 3-episode deep dive I wrote (for the Wondery show American History Tellers) on the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake:
Cocktail(s) of the Month
Since the holidays are coming, here’s a bunch of booze…
First up (keeping with the Portland theme here) is a tasty drink from author
via her fun newsletter . She calls it the Tin House Tipple, named for Portland-based publisher, Tin House. (My nephew is one of their authors.)2 oz bourbon
1 oz huckleberry syrup (or another fruit syrup — see note below*)
1/4 lime
mint leaves
club soda
blackberry + mint leaf + lime wedge for garnish
Combine the first four ingredients in a cocktail shaker and muddle well. Strain into a short tumbler filled with ice. Top with club soda and garnish.
[*I cheated and made my own syrup: a few mashed blueberries, a tablespoon of fig jam, some honey and water, heated to a low simmer, strained and cooled.]
Next… For the Portland Book Festival I partnered with spectacular Multnomah Whiskey Library cocktail bar to pair a few of their drinks with books/authors featured at the book fest. A write-up in their newsletter is HERE. (I don’t have the proportions for each drink. You’ll have to visit the library, or wing it.)
1. MWL Old Fashioned + Brooklyn Crime Novel, by Jonathan Letham
The drink: Old Forester 100 Bourbon, Demerara, Angostura Bitters, Peychaud's Bitters
The book: Letham’s new novel is a celebration of — and reimagining of — the tradition and form of the old-fashioned crime novel. Starting in the 1970s, in the borough of his birth, Letham tracks the violence and economic crimes that have transformed Old Brooklyn.
2. Over Yonder, , by Cody Mulcahy + Time’s Mouth, by Edan Lepucki
The drink: Wild Turkey 101 Bourbon, Assam Tea, Montenegro, Cocchi Torino Vermouth, Lemon Oleo
The book: Women at a ‘80s California commune sip mint tea each morning, awaiting their cult leader Ursa’s next mysterious and energizing episode of time travel. When Ursa’s granddaughter, Cherry, discovers she too can travel yonder and back, Cherry seeks to uncover family secrets.
3. The Cold Smolder, by Pete Kellers + Happiness Falls, Angie Kim
The drink: Balcones Brimstone Whiskey, Mellow Corn, Nixta Corn Liqueur, Clear Creek Cherry, Kramer’s Aromatique, Mole & Memphis BBQ Bitters
The book: Angie Kim’s second novel — about a seemingly close-knit Korean American family in Virginia, searching for their mysteriously missing dad — simmers, smokes and smolders. At times it’s sharp and bracing, at times hiding the truth behind a smoke screen of deceptions and secrets.
4. Low Tide + Every Drop is a Man's Nightmare, by Megan Kamalei Kakimoto
The drink: Altos Plata Tequila, El tequileño Blanco, Carpano Bianco, Cap Corse Blanc, Pineapple, Verdita Oil
The book: This buzzy debut story collection, by a Japanese-Hawaiian writer from Honolulu, is both a love letter to Hawaii and a eulogy to a colonized island paradise, a land caressed by the Pacific tides yet haunted by the ghosts, myths, and legends of its storytelling people.
5. I Got U-Bae, by Arland Bay + Chain-Gang All-Stars, by Nana Kawame Adjei-Brenyah
The drink: Cornflake Reyka Vodka, Avua Amburana Cachaça, Yzaguirre Blanc, Licor 43, Ube Cream, Pineapple
The book: Inside packed arenas, thousands cheer as hammer-wielding, bad-ass female gladiators wrapped in leather try to kill their foes — live and onscreen. Could be a Beyonce show if not for the bloody, televised killings. This remarkable novel is as over the top as this drink.
6. Glass Cannon, by Dakota Nidalmia + Good Night, Irene, by Luis Alberto Urrea
The drink: Altos Blanco Tequila, Mezcal Unión, Paranubes Rum, Cappelletti, Watermelon, Absinthe rinse
The book: Tijuana-born Urrea might approve of the trio of Mexican liquors in this cocktail. But the Irene of his stunning new novel — a gritty Red Cross volunteer serving in Europe in WWII, based on Urrea’s mother — would surely have appreciated the addition of an Italian aperitivo.
7. Golden Age, by Dakota Nidalmia + A Man of Two Faces, by Viet Thanh Nguyen
The drink: Knob Creek Bourbon, Sfumato, Oloroso Sherry, Cocchi Torino Vermouth, Lemon, Soda
The book: In this searing memoir, Nguyen revisits his family’s escape from Vietnam and their uneasy resettling in golden California when Nguyen was 4. A beautiful exploration of race, war, family and what it means to be a refugee, an immigrant, an American.
Speaking of Viet Thanh Nguyen … He was here in Seattle last week as part of the amazing Seattle Arts & Lectures lineup this season (and at the Portland Book Festival before that). I missed his PDX talk, but at SEA he discussed his family’s struggles and traumas and “how difficult it is for us to know ourselves.” Last night I saw Tim Egan interview David Brooks.
Speaking of Seattle Arts & Lectures (aka SAL)… SAL’s former executive director, Ruth Dickey, now heads the National Book Foundation, which last week announced this year’s National Book Award winners, with Blackouts by Justin Torres named the fiction winner. (Chain-Gang All-Stars, which I reviewed back in June, was a finalist.)
Speaking of best of the year… end-of-2023 lists are popping up all over, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, Publisher’s Weekly, Time, and the New York Times’ top 100 (which most closely reflects my tastes, and features ten books that have appeared in this newsletter this year).
Finally, with Thanksgiving two days away, I thought I’d share one of my favorite seasonal odes: It’s Decorative Gourd Season, MF-ers…
That’s all folks. Till next time…
-Neal
Find me @ Instagram; sometimes Facebook, LinkedIn, Goodreads.
Hey, thanks for the shout-out! That cocktail was a real crowd-pleaser.