2009 Reading #64: Sea, Swallow Me

[snurri]

Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
Books 31-40.
Books 41-50.
Books 51-60.
61. Hmong in Minnesota by Chia Youyee Vang.
62. Myths and Legends of the Sioux by Marie L. McLaughlin.
63. Heir of Sea and Fire (Book Two of the Riddlemaster trilogy) by Patricia McKillip.

64. Sea, Swallow Me and Other Stories by Craig Laurance Gidney (aka ethereal_lad). (Nominated for a Lambda Literary Award.) Full disclosure: Craig is a friend. He's also a writer with a talent for evocative language, and for stories in which the protagonists are overmatched by emotions they can't understand until they understand themselves. As such, most of these stories are about grappling with identity--with gender, sexuality, and race. Faves from this collection include "Her Spirit Hovering," about a man haunted by his mother both literally and figuratively; "Circus-Boy Without a Safety Net," which posits Lena Horne as both angel and devil to a young man trying to come to terms with his sexuality; and "A Bird of Ice," possibly the most elegantly written of these stories, about a Buddhist monk who learns to expand his definition of the divine.

Comments

[mroctober.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked the book!

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Thanks for publishing it!

hi

[zuma.livejournal.com]

thanks to craig's post on this post, i've come and enjoyed learning about him and his works, and you all. i didn't know he was an author (or much else about him) at all. and the works sound strong and substantive and wonderful. enticing write-up indeed. (which leads to curiosity of your own works, certainly.)

least of all though, i must admit what struck me first here was the most trivial; your lj format colors, of all things.

Re: hi

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Craig's stories are well worth seeking out. (Hopefully mine are, too, but I'm hardly an impartial critic :-))

And I'm glad you like the design. I can't really take credit for it, although I was looking for a color scheme like this when I switched it.