April 15, 2024 · 8:03 pm

The Fake: Not to be confused with The Fraud

Is it an accident that I’ve read two (great) books in as many months concerned with the stability of truth? Maybe. Probably more that I am so worried about ideas of reliability, trustworthiness, agreed upon Facts that I dwell only among books that share my anxiety.

In this – great – one by Zoe Whittall we follow Shelby and Gibson as they each meet and fall for (in different ways) Cammie, a spectacular con-artist who convinces them both of a series of escalating tragedies that have befallen her and why she needs their help. Eventually the lies unravel (so much to be carried by that metaphor) and Cammie is caugh out. Shelby insists none of it is her fault. That the lies upon lies owe to some kind of mental illness and that an intervention and support can help Cammie – perhaps, she speculates, Cammie is a narcissist and if she was only helped and better understood she could find her way back to the truth. Such hope proves misplaced, but still the reader is offered this explanation for harm. And while the book does – in its epilogue at least – point to the persistence of that harm – how Gibson can never properly trust again, how Shelby’s own mental health deteriorates following the dissolution of her friendship with Cammie – it doesn’t go quite as far as The Fraud in making the connection to our current moment of fractured relationship between what is said/read or seen and what is true.

Which is fine. It doesn’t have to be a novel about the end of shared facts. It can be – as it is – an excellent consideration of relationships, of how we grieve, and most importantly of who and how we trust.

If we imagine a future where we need to teach ourselves more intentionally how to tell what is true from what is declarative fiction the Fake would be high on my reading list. Oh, so yes, that time is now, so go on, read it.

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April 4, 2024 · 2:48 am

Going Infinite: That one time I decided to be a crypto investor

In case you need proof that I ought not to be responsible for large sums of money, it was the winter of 2021 that I decided I’d become a crypto investor. Indeed, that was just before the giant crypto crash: good memory. Thankfully my risk tolerance is that of a hospital administrator or air traffic controller, which is to say: low. And if I hadn’t lost my $50 in the crash, I’d have lost it because I misplaced the book where I’d painstakingly written down all the passwords to the many layers of security I’d installed – because, you know, someone was going to hack me for my $53-turned-$13-turned-who-knows.

All this to say it was with some sense of proximity to the crime – what with being a crypto investor myself – that I read Michael Lewis’ Going Infinite which describes the rise and fall of crypto-investor-turned-exchange-turned-convict Sam Bankman-Fried. Lewis does a fantastic job of grabbing hold of the reader and making clear just how bananas crypto investing was (is?). A casual two billion here, an easy three billion over there. And while the descriptions of outrageous wealth are, of course, fascinating, I found the turn toward trying to understand Bankman-Fried the most compelling part of the book. What were his intentions? What were his aims? How did he come to be in charge of such riches? (I think the short answer is math camp).

Oh and the intentions of the effective altruists. What a bunch! Taking the idea that the purpose of an individual life is to save the most human lives / reduce the most suffering (at least that was my read on their movement) they figure the best route is to make as much money as possible so that money can be invested in different domains (AI research, pandemic planning, etc) where it can do the most good. (I’m sure there’s an argument for why this EA approach is better than a redistribution of wealth that would see investments in these worthy aims made by government rather than the billionaire class, but I digress).

Anyway, thanks to C. and M. for suggesting this one. Non-fiction FTW. I think C. told me there’s also a good accompanying podcast about the trial and sentencing, so if you get fully hooked on SBF you can listen to that, too.

As for me I’m on to reading about forest fires because ’tis the season for angst.

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March 17, 2024 · 8:22 pm

Small Things Like These

Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These is lovely. A short – novella? – novel that follows Furlong, the small town coal-delivery man as he discovers truths both of his own past and of the horrors of the Catholic “mother and baby homes.” When Furlong discovers a young woman being held captive in a coal shed the nuns who have kept her there implicitly threaten to deny Furlong’s own daughters access to the Church-run school. Furlong must then decide between preserving the goodwill of the Church for his own family and rescuing – at least one – of these trapped women. Complicating his choice is Furlong’s status as a bastard himself, raised to ‘goodness’ through the mercy of a wealthy woman who allowed his own mother to stay with her despite her ‘fallen’ status.

What, the book asks, should we be willing to give up for a just cause? What personal sacrifice do we owe when institutional harm and state violence is being wreaked upon the innocent? How can we imagine ourselves inherently good or worthy or kind when so much of what we are and what we have owes to chance and circumstance? And so, with the privilege we do hold, what moral obligation do we have to use this privilege well?

For Furlong this is a question pondered by the fire with a decision that he recognizes as implicating those he loves best and. For the reader these are the questions that are not – as historical fiction always reminds us – of the past, but urgently present.

It is an excellent read and one offered on St. Patrick’s day for its very certain setting. Oh and to let you know it was adapted for TV with Cillian Murphy starring, so you know, that’s also a good reason to read it.

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March 1, 2024 · 2:54 am

The Talk: Excellent

I hadn’t heard of Darrin Bell before my mum suggested The Talk, but I can’t wait to spend more time with his work. The Talk is Bell’s memoir of growing up in amid racist structures and people and of his path to becoming a Pulitzer winning editorial cartoonist. A Künstlerroman for those collecting their literary terms. I wish I’d had it to recommend in a recent conversation with a white man who told me there were no racist police officers. Or that I was teaching a course that I could put it on the booklist for so that more white young people could hear early: racism is real and white supremacy is not an accident and you have responsibilities for change. And as Bell ends the book, so that more black young people could hear early: you are not alone. Alas, all I have is this humble platform on which to echo mum’s recommendation: go read The Talk!

Oh and if you needed more reason: it’s visually stunning.

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