{"id":55,"date":"2020-01-01T20:46:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-01T20:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/?p=55"},"modified":"2025-04-01T17:38:11","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T17:38:11","slug":"2019-book-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/?p=55","title":{"rendered":"2019 book list"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n            <script src=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/widgets.js\" data-type=\"list\" data-list-slug=\"2019-book-list-lexington-ladies-lit\"><\/script>\n          \n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<details class=\"wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow\"><summary>LaRose by Louise Erdrich<\/summary>\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-layout-flex wp-block-group-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"429\" height=\"648\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-11.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-61\" style=\"width:auto;height:384px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-11.jpeg 429w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-11-199x300.jpeg 199w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 429px) 100vw, 429px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-container-content-9cfa9a5a\">In this literary masterwork, Louise Erdrich, the bestselling author of the National Book Award-winning&nbsp;<em>The Round House<\/em>&nbsp;and the <em>Pulitzer Prize<\/em>&nbsp;nominee&nbsp;<em>The Plague of Doves<\/em>&nbsp;wields her breathtaking narrative magic in an emotionally haunting contemporary tale of a tragic accident, a demand for justice, and a profound act of atonement with ancient roots in Native American culture.<br><br>North Dakota, late summer, 1999. Landreaux Iron stalks a deer along the edge of the property bordering his own. He shoots with easy confidence\u2014but when the buck springs away, Landreaux realizes he\u2019s hit something else, a blur he saw as he squeezed the trigger. When he staggers closer, he realizes he has killed his neighbor\u2019s five-year-old son, Dusty Ravich.<br><br>The youngest child of his friend and neighbor, Peter Ravich, Dusty was best friends with Landreaux\u2019s five-year-old son, LaRose. The two families have always been close, sharing food, clothing, and rides into town; their children played together despite going to different schools; and Landreaux\u2019s wife, Emmaline, is half sister to Dusty\u2019s mother, Nola. Horrified at what he\u2019s done, the recovered alcoholic turns to an Ojibwe tribe tradition\u2014the sweat lodge\u2014for guidance, and finds a way forward. Following an ancient means of retribution, he and Emmaline will give LaRose to the grieving Peter and Nola. \u201cOur son will be your son now,\u201d they tell them.<br><br>LaRose is quickly absorbed into his new family. Plagued by thoughts of suicide, Nola dotes on him, keeping her darkness at bay. His fierce, rebellious new \u201csister,\u201d Maggie, welcomes him as a coconspirator who can ease her volatile mother\u2019s terrifying moods. Gradually he\u2019s allowed shared visits with his birth family, whose sorrow mirrors the Raviches\u2019 own. As the years pass, LaRose becomes the linchpin linking the Irons and the Raviches, and eventually their mutual pain begins to heal.<br><br>But when a vengeful man with a long-standing grudge against Landreaux begins raising trouble, hurling accusations of a cover-up the day Dusty died, he threatens the tenuous peace that has kept these two fragile families whole.<br><br>Inspiring and affecting,&nbsp;<em>LaRose<\/em>&nbsp;is a powerful exploration of loss, justice, and the reparation of the human heart, and an unforgettable, dazzling tour de force from one of America\u2019s most distinguished literary masters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n<details class=\"wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow\"><summary>Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood<\/summary>\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-layout-flex wp-block-group-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"678\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-12-678x1024.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-62\" style=\"width:auto;height:384px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-12-678x1024.jpeg 678w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-12-199x300.jpeg 199w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-12-768x1159.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-12.jpeg 795w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 678px) 100vw, 678px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The childhood of poet Patricia Lockwood was unusual in many respects. There was the location: an impoverished, nuclear waste-riddled area of the American Midwest. There was her mother, a woman who speaks almost entirely in strange riddles and warnings of impending danger. Above all, there was her gun-toting, guitar-riffing, frequently semi-naked father, who underwent a religious conversion on a submarine and found a loophole which saw him approved for the Catholic priesthood by the future Pope Benedict XVI, despite already having a wife and children.<br><br>When an unexpected crisis forces Lockwood and her husband to move back into her parents&#8217; rectory, she must learn to live again with the family&#8217;s simmering madness, and to reckon with the dark side of her religious upbringing. Pivoting from the raunchy to the sublime, from the comic to the serious, <em>Priestdaddy<\/em> is an unforgettable story of how we balance tradition against hard-won identity\u2014and of how, having journeyed in the underworld, we can emerge with our levity and our sense of justice intact.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n<details class=\"wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow\"><summary>You Think It, I\u2019ll Say It by Curtis Sittenfeld<\/summary>\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-layout-flex wp-block-group-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized wp-container-content-9cfa9a5a\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"298\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-13.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-63\" style=\"width:auto;height:384px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-13.jpeg 298w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-13-199x300.jpeg 199w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 298px) 100vw, 298px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>A suburban mother of two fantasizes about the downfall of an old friend whose wholesome lifestyle empire may or may not be built on a lie. A high-powered lawyer honeymooning with her husband is caught off guard by the appearance of the girl who tormented her in high school. A shy Ivy League student learns the truth about a classmate\u2019s seemingly enviable life.<br><br>Curtis Sittenfeld has established a reputation as a sharp chronicler of the modern age who humanizes her subjects even as she skewers them. Now, with this first collection of short fiction, her \u201castonishing gift for creating characters that take up residence in readers\u2019 heads\u201d (The Washington Post) is showcased like never before. Throughout the ten stories in You Think It, I\u2019ll Say It, Sittenfeld upends assumptions about class, relationships, and gender roles in a nation that feels both adrift and viscerally divided.<br><br>With moving insight and uncanny precision, Curtis Sittenfeld pinpoints the questionable decisions, missed connections, and sometimes extraordinary coincidences that make up a life. Indeed, she writes what we\u2019re all thinking\u2014if only we could express it with the wit of a master satirist, the storytelling gifts of an old-fashioned raconteur, and the vision of an American original.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n<details class=\"wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow\"><summary>Severance by Ling Ma<\/summary>\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-layout-flex wp-block-group-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"668\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-14-668x1024.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-64\" style=\"width:280px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-14-668x1024.jpeg 668w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-14-196x300.jpeg 196w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-14-768x1178.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-14.jpeg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 668px) 100vw, 668px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Candace Chen, a millennial drone self-sequestered in a Manhattan office tower, is devoted to routine. So she barely notices when a plague of biblical proportions sweeps New York. Then Shen Fever spreads. Families flee. Companies halt operations. The subways squeak to a halt. Soon entirely alone, still unfevered, she photographs the eerie, abandoned city as the anonymous blogger NY Ghost.<br><br>Candace won\u2019t be able to make it on her own forever, though. Enter a group of survivors, led by the power-hungry IT tech Bob. They\u2019re traveling to a place called the Facility, where, Bob promises, they will have everything they need to start society anew. But Candace is carrying a secret she knows Bob will exploit. Should she escape from her rescuers?<br><br>A send-up and takedown of the rituals, routines, and missed opportunities of contemporary life, Ling Ma\u2019s <em>Severance<\/em> is a quirky coming-of-adulthood tale and satire.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n<details class=\"wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow\"><summary>Normal People by Sally Rooney<\/summary>\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-layout-flex wp-block-group-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"678\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-15-678x1024.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-65\" style=\"width:auto;height:384px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-15-678x1024.jpeg 678w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-15-199x300.jpeg 199w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-15-768x1160.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-15-1017x1536.jpeg 1017w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-15-1356x2048.jpeg 1356w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-15.jpeg 1400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 678px) 100vw, 678px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>At school Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He\u2019s popular and well-adjusted, star of the school soccer team while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her housekeeping job at Marianne\u2019s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers &#8211; one they are determined to conceal.<br><br>A year later, they\u2019re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years in college, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. Then, as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.<br><br>Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a story that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the complex entanglements of family and friendship.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n<details class=\"wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow\"><summary>Pachinko by Min Jin Lee<\/summary>\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-layout-flex wp-block-group-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"312\" height=\"475\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-16.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-66\" style=\"width:auto;height:384px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-16.jpeg 312w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-16-197x300.jpeg 197w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 312px) 100vw, 312px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is pregnant\u2014and that her lover is married\u2014she refuses to be bought. Instead, she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son&#8217;s powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations.<br><br>Richly told and profoundly moving, <em>Pachinko<\/em> is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. From bustling street markets to the halls of Japan&#8217;s finest universities to the pachinko parlors of the criminal underworld, Lee&#8217;s complex and passionate characters\u2014strong, stubborn women, devoted sisters and sons, fathers shaken by moral crisis\u2014survive and thrive against the indifferent arc of history.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n<details class=\"wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow\"><summary>The New Me by Halle Butler<\/summary>\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-layout-flex wp-block-group-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"669\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-17-669x1024.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-67\" style=\"width:auto;height:384px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-17-669x1024.jpeg 669w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-17-196x300.jpeg 196w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-17-768x1175.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-17-1004x1536.jpeg 1004w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-17-1339x2048.jpeg 1339w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-17.jpeg 1519w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 669px) 100vw, 669px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>A biting satire of the false promise of reinvention, by a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree and Granta Best Young American Novelist<\/strong><br><br><em>I&#8217;m still trying to make the dream possible: still might finish my cleaning project, still might sign up for that yoga class, still might, still might. I step into the shower and almost faint, an image of taking the day by the throat and bashing its head against the wall floating in my mind.<\/em><br><br>Thirty-year-old Millie just can&#8217;t pull it together. Misanthropic and morose, she spends her days killing time at a thankless temp job until she can return home to her empty apartment, where she oscillates wildly between self-recrimination and mild delusion, fixating on all the little ways she might change her life. Then she watches TV until she drops off to sleep, and the cycle begins again.<br><br>When the possibility of a full-time job offer arises, it seems to bring the better life she&#8217;s envisioning &#8211; one that involves nicer clothes, fresh produce, maybe even financial independence &#8211; within reach. But with it also comes the paralyzing realization, lurking just beneath the surface, of just how hollow that vision has become.<br><br>Darkly hilarious and devastating, <em>The New Me<\/em> is a dizzying descent into the mind of a young woman trapped in the funhouse of American consumer culture.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n<details class=\"wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow\"><summary>Three Women by Lisa Taddeo<\/summary>\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-layout-flex wp-block-group-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"687\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-18-687x1024.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-68\" style=\"width:auto;height:384px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-18-687x1024.jpeg 687w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-18-201x300.jpeg 201w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-18-768x1145.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-18-1030x1536.jpeg 1030w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-18-1374x2048.jpeg 1374w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-18.jpeg 1399w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 687px) 100vw, 687px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>A riveting true story about the sex lives of three real American women, based on nearly a decade of reporting.<\/strong><br><br>Hailed as \u201ca dazzling achievement\u201d (<em>Los Angeles Times<\/em>) and \u201criveting page-turner that explores desire, heartbreak, and infatuation in all its messy, complicated nuance\u201d (<em>The Washington Post<\/em>), Lisa Taddeo\u2019s <em>Three Women<\/em> has captivated readers, booksellers, and critics\u2014and topped bestseller lists\u2014worldwide.<br><br>In suburban Indiana we meet Lina, a homemaker and mother of two whose marriage, after a decade, has lost its passion. Starved for affection, Lina battles daily panic attacks and, after reconnecting with an old flame through social media, embarks on an affair that quickly becomes all-consuming. In North Dakota we meet Maggie, a seventeen-year-old high school student who allegedly has a clandestine physical relationship with her handsome, married English teacher; the ensuing criminal trial will turn their quiet community upside down. Finally, in an exclusive enclave of the Northeast, we meet Sloane\u2014a gorgeous, successful, and refined restaurant owner\u2014who is happily married to a man who likes to watch her have sex with other men and women.<br><br>Based on years of immersive reporting and told with astonishing frankness and immediacy, <em>Three Women<\/em> is both a feat of journalism and a triumph of storytelling, brimming with nuance and empathy. \u201cA work of deep observation, long conversations, and a kind of journalistic alchemy\u201d (Kate Tuttle, NPR), Three Women introduces us to three unforgettable women\u2014and one remarkable writer\u2014whose experiences remind us that we are not alone.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n<details class=\"wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow\"><summary>Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado<\/summary>\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-layout-flex wp-block-group-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"683\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-19-683x1024.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-69\" style=\"width:auto;height:384px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-19-683x1024.jpeg 683w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-19-200x300.jpeg 200w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-19-768x1152.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-19-1024x1536.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-19-1366x2048.jpeg 1366w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-19.jpeg 1707w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>In<em> Her Body and Other Parties<\/em>, Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. While her work has earned her comparisons to Karen Russell and Kelly Link, she has a voice that is all her own. In this electric and provocative debut, Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women&#8217;s lives and the violence visited upon their bodies.<br><br>A wife refuses her husband&#8217;s entreaties to remove the green ribbon from around her neck. A woman recounts her sexual encounters as a plague slowly consumes humanity. A salesclerk in a mall makes a horrifying discovery within the seams of the store&#8217;s prom dresses. One woman&#8217;s surgery-induced weight loss results in an unwanted houseguest. And in the bravura novella Especially Heinous, Machado reimagines every episode of <em>Law &amp; Order: Special Victims Unit<\/em>, a show we naively assumed had shown it all, generating a phantasmagoric police procedural full of doppelgangers, ghosts, and girls with bells for eyes.<br><br>Earthy and otherworldly, antic and sexy, queer and caustic, comic and deadly serious, <em>Her Body and Other Parties<\/em> swings from horrific violence to the most exquisite sentiment. In their explosive originality, these stories enlarge the possibilities of contemporary fiction.<br><br>The husband stitch &#8212;<br>Inventory &#8212;<br>Mothers &#8212;<br>Especially heinous &#8212;<br>Real women have bodies &#8212;<br>Eight bites &#8212;<br>The resident &#8212;<br>Difficult at parties<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n<details class=\"wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow\"><summary>The Sundial by Shirley Jackson<\/summary>\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-layout-flex wp-block-group-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"229\" height=\"364\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-20.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-70\" style=\"width:auto;height:384px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-20.jpeg 229w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-20-189x300.jpeg 189w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 229px) 100vw, 229px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Aunt Fanny has always been somewhat peculiar. No one is surprised that while the Halloran clan gathers at the crumbling old mansion for a funeral she wanders off to the secret garden. But when she reports the vision she had there, the family is engulfed in fear, violence, and madness. For Aunt Fanny&#8217;s long-dead father has given her the precise date of the final cataclysm!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n<details class=\"wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow\"><summary>Stay and Fight by Madeline Ffitch&nbsp;<\/summary>\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-layout-flex wp-block-group-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"683\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-21-683x1024.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-71\" style=\"width:auto;height:384px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-21-683x1024.jpeg 683w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-21-200x300.jpeg 200w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-21-768x1152.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-21.jpeg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Helen arrives in Appalachian Ohio full of love and her boyfriend\u2019s ideas for living off the land. Too soon, with winter coming, he calls it quits. Helped by Rudy\u2014her government-questioning, wisdom-spouting, seasonal-affective-disordered boss\u2014and a neighbor couple, Helen makes it to spring. Those neighbors, Karen and Lily, are awaiting the arrival of their first child, a boy, which means their time at the Women\u2019s Land Trust must end.<br><br>So Helen invites the new family to throw in with her\u2014they\u2019ll split the work and the food, build a house, and make a life that sustains them, if barely, for years. Then young Perley decides he wants to go to school. And Rudy sets up a fruit-tree nursery on the pipeline easement edging their land. The outside world is brought clamoring into their makeshift family.<br><br>Set in a region known for its independent spirit, <em>Stay and Fight<\/em> shakes up what it means to be a family, to live well, to make peace with nature and make deals with the system. It is a protest novel that challenges our notions of effective action. It is a family novel that refuses to limit the term. And it is a marvel of storytelling that both breaks with tradition and celebrates it. Best of all, it is full of flawed, cantankerous, flesh-and-blood characters who remind us that conflict isn&#8217;t the end of love, but the real beginning.<br><br>Absorbingly spun, perfectly voiced, and disruptively political, Madeline ffitch&#8217;s <em>Stay and Fight<\/em> forces us to reimagine an Appalachia\u2014and an America\u2014we think we know. And it takes us, laughing and fighting, into a new understanding of what it means to love and to be free.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n<details class=\"wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow\"><summary>The Witches are Coming by Lindy West<\/summary>\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-layout-flex wp-block-group-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"265\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-22.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-72\" style=\"width:auto;height:384px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-22.jpeg 265w, https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-22-199x300.jpeg 199w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 265px) 100vw, 265px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>In this wickedly funny cultural critique, the author of the critically acclaimed memoir and Hulu series <em>Shrill<\/em> exposes misogyny in the #MeToo era.<\/strong><br><br>THIS IS A WITCH HUNT.<br>WE\u2019RE WITCHES,<br>AND WE\u2019RE HUNTING YOU.<br><br>From the moment powerful men started falling to the #MeToo movement, the lamentations began: this is feminism gone too far, this is injustice, this is a witch hunt. In <em>The Witches Are Coming<\/em>, firebrand author of the <em>New York Times<\/em> bestselling memoir and now critically acclaimed Hulu TV series <em>Shrill<\/em>, Lindy West, turns that refrain on its head. You think this is a witch hunt? Fine. You\u2019ve got one.<br><br>In a laugh-out-loud, incisive cultural critique, West extolls the world-changing magic of truth, urging readers to reckon with dark lies in the heart of the American mythos, and unpacking the complicated, and sometimes tragic, politics of not being a white man in the twenty-first century. She tracks the misogyny and propaganda hidden (or not so hidden) in the media she and her peers devoured growing up, a buffet of distortions, delusions, prejudice, and outright bullsh*t that has allowed white male mediocrity to maintain a death grip on American culture and politics-and that delivered us to this precarious, disorienting moment in history.<br><br>West writes, \u201cWe were just a hair\u2019s breadth from electing America\u2019s first female president to succeed America\u2019s first black president. We weren\u2019t done, but we were doing it. And then, true to form\u2014like the Balrog\u2019s whip catching Gandalf by his little gray bootie, like the husband in a Lifetime movie hissing, \u2018If I can\u2019t have you, no one can\u2019\u2014white American voters shoved an incompetent, racist con man into the White House.\u201d<br><br>We cannot understand how we got here-how the land of the free became Trump\u2019s America\u2014without examining the chasm between who we are and who we think we are, without fact\u2014checking the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and each other. The truth can transform us; there is witchcraft in it. Lindy West turns on the light.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[13,12,6,11],"class_list":["post-55","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-yearly-book-lists","tag-13","tag-female-writers","tag-literature","tag-read"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":245,"href":"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions\/245"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lexingtonladieslit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}