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The Gay Road Less Traveled

The Gay Road Less Traveled

Tag Archives: fiction

Menagerie – Rachel Vincent

14 Wednesday Nov 2018

Posted by johnjernigan in Books Check 'Em Out, introducing, My Favorite Things, Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood

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authors, book reviews, books, Carnival, fantasy, fiction, gay, gay authors, gay writers, john jernigan, LGBT, movies, queer, Rachel Vincent, the gay road less traveled, Unicorn, writers

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A compelling, awesome, unique and imaginative story…so different it’s hard to explain, fantastically good!

“There there is breathtaking beauty behind the seamy and grotesque reality of the carnival. Gallagher, her handler, is as kind as he is cryptic and strong. The other “attractions”—mermaids, minotaurs, griffins and kelpies—are strange, yes, but they share a bond forged by the brutal realities of captivity. And as Delilah struggles for her freedom, and for her fellow menagerie, she’ll discover a strength and a purpose she never knew existed.”

“Welcome to the menagerie, where beauty and grace shine from every cage and peek from every shadow. You’ve never seen anything like the exotic wonders within, so keep your eyes open, ladies and gentlemen, because in our world of spectacle and illusion, what you see isn’t always what you get.”

“But if monsters could look like humans, and humans could look like monsters, how could anyone ever really be sure that the right people stood on the outside of all those cages?”

“Drea, why don’t you turn a circle and give us a good look?” the talker said, his chest all puffed out, as if he’d had something to do with making me perform.

“Fuck you,” I said, nice and clear, in spite of my fuller voice, so everyone could hear.

A couple of teens near the back of the crowd laughed, but the mothers scowled and covered their children’s ears.

“Sorry about that, ladies and gentlemen,” the talker called with an amiable chuckle. “Most of our exhibits were born and raised in the carnival, and they hear a lot of rough language.”

“Most of our handlers are full of shit,” I added, drawing more laughter from the back of the crowd. “I learned to cuss the same place all of your kids did. In middle school.”

“A wolf will growl to warn you that it’s angry and a bull will paw the ground before charging. Rattlesnakes rattle, cats moan and hiss, and hyenas grunt and cackle. But a man will smile right in your face as he drives a knife into your heart.”

“If you cut off my hands, I’ll write with my feet, and if you cut off my feet, I’ll write with my nose, and if you cut that off, you may as well cut my whole head off, because no matter how you slice and dice me, you can’t control what I think, or what I feel. You can keep me locked up for the rest of my life, however brief that may be. But you will never, ever own me.”

“She won’t serve her dish cold,” the oracle mumbled, almost with giddy joy as chill bumps rose all over her skin. “And two graves won’t be near enough…”

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We The Animals – Justin Torres

05 Wednesday Oct 2016

Posted by johnjernigan in Books Check 'Em Out, My Favorite Things, the Flaming Homosexual

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author, book reviews, books, child abuse, fiction, gay, LGBT, literature, memoir, mental health, reading, writer

image“We  wanted more.  We knocked the butt ends of our forks against the table, tapped are spoons against our empty bowls; we were hungry. We wanted more volume, more riots. We turned up the knob on the TV until our ears ached with the shouts of angry men. We wanted more music on the radio; we wanted beats, we wanted rock.  We wanted muscles on our skinny arms. We had bird bones, hollow and light, and we wanted more density, more weight. We were six matching hands, six stomping feet; we were brothers, boys, three little kings locked in a feud for more.

We wanted more flash, more blood, more warmth.

Always more, always hungrily scratching for more. But there were times, quiet moments, when our mother was sleeping, when she hadn’t slept for two days, and any noise, any stair creak, any shut door, any stifled laugh, any voice at all might wake her, those crystal, still mornings, when we wanted to protect her,  this confused goose of a woman, this stumbler, this gusher, with her backaches and headaches and her tired, tired ways, this uprooted Brooklyn creature, this tough talker,  always with tears when she told us she loved us, her mixed up love, her needy love, her warmth, those mornings when sunlight found the cracks in our blinds and laid it self down in crisp strips on our carpet,  those quiet mornings when we’d fix ourselves oatmeal and sprawl onto our stomachs with crayons and paper, with glass marbles that we were careful not to rattle, when  our mother was sleeping, when the air did not smell like sweat or breath or mold, when the air was still and light, those mornings when silence was our secret game and our gift and our sole accomplishment –  we wanted less : less weight, less work, less noise, less father, less muscles and skin and hair. We wanted nothing, just this, just this.”

 

 

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The Silver Star – Jeannette Walls

23 Thursday Apr 2015

Posted by johnjernigan in Books Check 'Em Out, My Favorite Things

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authors, best gay blog, book reviews, books, culture, fiction, gay, Jeannette Walls, The Gay Road Less Traveled John Jernigan, The Glass Castle Jeannette Walls, The Silver Star Jeannette Walls, writers

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The Glass Castle (about her chaotic childhood) and Half Broke Horses (about her awesome grandmother’s childhood in frontier Texas) were both memoirs, and both are all-time favorites. The Silver Star is Jeannette Walls’ first foray into fiction, and I really enjoyed it. A mother with mental health issues, 1960’s racism, the Vietnam war, class system injustice in a mill town, and the rape of her sister are just some of the plotlines in this very satisfying offering. Also, there are emus.

“Don’t be afraid of your dark places,” Mom told her. “If you can shine a light on them, you’ll find treasure there.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Silver Star

“What I do know is that wondering why you survived don’t help you survive.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Silver Star

“I’m none too big on giving advice,’
Aunt Al said. ‘Most times when folks ask for advice, they already know what they should do. They just want to hear it from someone else.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Silver Star

“Job, chapter fourteen, verse seven,” Aunt Al said. “ ‘For there is hope for a tree, if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its tender shoots will not cease.’ ”
― Jeannette Walls, The Silver Star

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Turning Tables – Heather & Rose MacDowell

07 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by johnjernigan in Books Check 'Em Out, My Favorite Things

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authors, book reviews, books, chefs, cooking, Curtis Stone, fiction, fine dining, gay, Gordon Ramsey, Michelin star, writers

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A great little story about a twenty-something who lost her job in marketing, and bullshitted her way into waiting tables at a Michelin-starred fine dining restaurant, without knowing the nomenclature.

1. Soup is considered a beverage and should be served and cleared from the right like other beverages.
2. A cocktail is never more full than when it’s dropped.
3. Never ask why (try not to even think it). Say “Of Course” or “I’ll attend to it immediately.”
4. The handle of a teacup is called the “ear” and should be placed at the 4 o’clock position to the right of the guest.
Do: Treat the busboys like a rich old aunt. If you’re nice to them you stand to make a lot more money.
Don’t: Check your tip in view of the dining room. Get mad later, in private.
Do: Channel your inner psych nurse and use a soothing voice with rude guests.
Don’t: Be honest if anyone asks how you like working at Roulette. You love what you do and plan to stay forever, right?
Never: Refold a guest’s napkin and put it back on the table. Replace the used napkin with a fresh one.
Always: Thank your lucky stars. You could be selling ladies shoes at JC Penney or trimming trees in Oklahoma in December.

“The fish special this evening is roasted monkfish with crispy shallots, mache emulsion, and an eggplant and Black Zebra tomato napoleon. The grill selection is a 10 ounce ribeye. It’s organic, free range, slaughtered humanely, and dry aged at high altitude. We will be serving it with a Jerusalem artichoke gratin and red pepper jus. Both specials are $42.”

Dr. Bernitz flips a few pages of the wine list before glancing up.
“How’s the fish tonight?”
“Flown in this morning, sir” Cato says crisply. “If you’re interested in seafood I suggest the wild salmon.”
“Why?”
“It has a firm texture and rich flavor that goes perfectly with chef’s caramelized ginger-shallot broth.” “Interesting, let’s hear about the lobster.”
This is the beginning of a 10 minute dance that is less a customer-waiter exchange than a subtle negotiation between adversaries.
“Where do the blood oranges in the relish come from?” asks the doctor, clearly enjoying the challenge.
Cato looks as if he might yawn. “Andalusia, Spain by way of 737.”
“You don’t happen to know who makes this china, do you?
“Chef had it designed exclusively for Roulette by Arte Italica. If you turn it over, you’ll see his signature. Of course I wouldn’t recommend doing that with a full plate” Cato laughed lightly.
“My mother would love a set, can you arrange that?”
“Just leave me her address and she should have it by Monday morning, unless she would prefer afternoon delivery. in
“Do any of the ingredients come from countries that use child labor?” the doctor says, gazing over the freesia at his wife. Martina needs to know before we order.”
“That’s why I memorize the menu” Cato tells me when we’re away from the table. “Not to make Gina happy, not to make money. To put assholes in their place.”

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I Love Books!

17 Saturday May 2014

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@thejohnjernigan, Augusten Burroughs, authors, book reviews, books, buy John's book on Amazon $3.99, Chuck Palahniuk, culture, dating, David Sedaris, essays, fiction, gay, gay dating, home decor, IKEA, interior design, Jim Butcher, John Burdett, LGBT, libraries, lifestyle, love, memoirs, R.A. Salvatore, relationships, sex, short stories, the gay road less traveled, used books, writers

I Love Books!

Home alone on this Saturday, with no money and no man, I organized my library and discovered I am RICH!…in books. I do have several date possibilities for tonight, with different men, including Jim Butcher, Chuck Palahniuk, John Burdett and R.A. Salvatore.

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My Books, my precious

06 Tuesday May 2014

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Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, Angela's Ashes, book reviews, books, buy John's book on Amazon $3.99, Catcher in the Rye, Choke Chuck Palahniuk, Emma McLaughlin, essays, fiction, gay, gay dating, High Fidelity, J.D. Salinger, LGBT, Life of Pi, maddaddam, Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake, queer, Sara Gruen, second hand, St. Petersburg Florida, Tampa Bay, Thrift Store, Wagon Wheel Flea Market, Water for Elephants, writers

My Books, my precious

Killing time in Tampa waiting on some nuggets to get home from school, I stumbled across the Life’s Treasure Thrift Center, with the following sale sign at the door: Entire store 50 % off ! That meant $1 hard covers and 50 cent paperbacks 🙂 I hit the jackpot, including 3 of my favorite books of all time; Life of Pi, Choke, and Oryx and Crake. $11.00

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25 cents each at the Wagon Wheel Flea Market, Catcher in the Rye, Angela’s Ashes, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter and High Fidelity $1

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Using my 1/2 price coupon for the entire store, my precious books from New 2 U Thrift in Seminole…a little chic lit, but i am very much in touch with my feminine side, so they say 😦 $3.75

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The Dune Universe

19 Saturday Apr 2014

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Alia Dune, art, book reviews, books, cover art, culture, Duncan Idaho, Dune, fantasy, fiction, Frank Herbert, gay, Leto Atreides, LGBT, modern art, Muad' Dib, Paul Atreides, science fiction, Spice - Eon, the spice must flow

The Dune Universe

“My brother is coming, for he is the Kwisatz Haderach”

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Leto Atreides
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Fremen Warrior
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“He who controls the spice controls the universe”

“The Spice Must Flow”

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Books: 10 for $1 !!!

28 Saturday Dec 2013

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art, authors, book reviews, books, culture, Dune, fiction, gay, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, love, memoirs, Narnia, the Book Thief, the Butcher Boy, writers

Books: 10 for $1 !!!

The St. Vincent de Paul thrift store on 34th in St. Pete practically gives books away, 10 for one dollar! On at least a weekly basis I stop in, adding to my library. On my last visit I found a Jonathan Livingston Seagull, hard cover, in excellent shape, not bad for 10 cents.

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A Bag of Books

28 Saturday Dec 2013

Tags

A Wrinkle in Time, book reviews, books, Clan of the Cave Bear, David Sedaris, fiction, First Lord's Fury, gay, gay blog, LGBT, memoirs, Naked, Thrift Store, Water for Elephants

A Bag of Books

The Tarpon Springs thrift store sign said “Books $1 each or a bag full for $2.99.” Naturally, I spent 30 minutes agonizing over which books made it to John’s house, including Clan of the Cave Bear, A Wrinkle in Time, Water for Elephants, First Lord’s Fury and Naked.

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Bangkok 8 – John Burdett

09 Monday Dec 2013

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authors, Bangkok, book reviews, books, City of Angels, culture, farang, fiction, gay, gay blog, John Burdett, john jernigan, Krung Thep, Thailand

Bangkok 8 - John Burdett

A Buddhist cop named Sonchai Jitplecheep is the main character in this dark, sleazy, complex and smartly written introduction to Bangkok’s underbelly, where Sonchai’s mother is a successful madame in a successful whore house, catering to “farangs.” Bangkok 8 is the 1st of 5 books, all about the magical Krung Thep, City of Angels.

“Bangkok is one of the world’s great cities, all of which own red-light districts that find their ways into the pages of novels from time to time. The sex industry in Thailand is smaller per capita because the Thais are less coy about it than many other people. Most visitors to the kingdom enjoy wonderful vacations without coming across any evidence of sleaze at all”

“You don’t understand. I only prostitute the part of the body that isn’t important, and nobody suffers except my karma a little bit. I don’t do big harm. You prostitute your mind. Mind is seat of Buddha. What you do is very very bad. You should not use your mind in that way”

“I don’t want enlightenment, I want him. Sorry Buddha, I loved him more than you”

“The great weakness of the West is that it has nothing with which to inspire loyalty except wealth. But what is wealth? Another washing machine, a bigger car, a nicer house to live in? Not much to feed the spirit in all that ”

“Lumpini Park at night: love at its cheapest, but the incidence of HIV is said to be over 60 per cent. In the darkness: furtive movement on benches and on the grass, muted moans and whispers, rustlings of large animals in heat, the intensity of the atomic fusion of sex and death (highly addictive, they say)”

“The sound she is making is the sound hearts make after they’re in pieces and the fragments dissolve into the overwhelming sadness of the universe. The power to hear it may be the only privilege of the thoroughly dispossessed ”

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Friends of Strays

08 Sunday Dec 2013

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authors, book reviews, books, boston terrier, Cricket the French Bulldog, dogs, fiction, french bulldog, Friends of Strays, gay, inspirational, john jernigan, pet adoption, pets, Squeak the Boston Terrier, St. Petersburg, thrift shop

Friends of Strays

One of my favorite places (and community resource) the Friends of Strays thrift store on Gandy is closing. One of their signs on Saturday said “Hardback books $1, paperbacks 10 cents.” Due to budgetary constraints, I didn’t buy any hardbacks, but did buy 25 paperbacks, for $2.68 !

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By Nightfall – Michael Cunningham

02 Monday Dec 2013

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art, authors, books, books reviews, By Nightfall, culture, fiction, gay, inspirational, john jernigan, love, Michael Cunningham, New York, perspective, point of view, queer, relationships, sex, The Hours

By Nightfall - Michael Cunningham

A story about loving, and knowing you shouldn’t love, and having your heart broken

I love you, Michael Cunningham

quotes from By Nightfall:

“Please, God, send me something to adore.”

“He’s one of those smart, drifty young people who, after certain deliberations, decides he wants to do Something in the Arts but won’t, possibly can’t, think in terms of an actual job; who seems to imagine that youth and brains and willingness will simply summon an occupation, the precise and perfect nature of which will reveal itself in its own time.”

“Accept that, like many men, you have a streak of the homoerotic in you. Why would you, why would anyone, want to be that straight?”

“What marriage doesn’t involve uncountable accretions, a language of gestures, a sense of recognition sharp as a toothache? Unhappy, sure. What couple isn’t unhappy, at least part of the time? But how can the divorce rate be, as they say, skyrocketing? How miserable would you have to get to be able to bear the actual separation, to go off and live your life so utterly unrecognized?”

“You know what I am?” he says.

“What?”

“I’m an ordinary person.”

“Come on.”

“I know. Who isn’t an ordinary person? How horribly presumptuous to want to be anything else. But I have to tell you. I’ve been treated as something special for so long and I’ve tried my hardest to be something special but I’m not, I’m not exceptional, I’m smart enough, but I’m not brilliant and I’m not spiritual or even all that focused. I think I can stand that, but I’m not sure if the people around me can.”

“Peter glances out at the falling snow. Oh, little man. You have brought down your house not through passion but by neglect. You who dared to think of yourself as dangerous. You are guilty not of the epic transgressions but the tiny crimes. You have failed in the most base and human of ways – you have not imagined the lives of others.”

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God’s Demon – Wayne Barlowe

10 Thursday Oct 2013

Tags

art, Beelzebub, book reviews, books, fantasy, fiction, gay, God's Demon, Halloween, heaven, hell, horror, john jernigan, LGBT, Lucifer, religion, Sargantanas, Wayne Barlowe

God's Demon - Wayne Barlowe

“Their appearance was as grotesque as their croaking chorus; they were as varied and individual as the capricious laws of the demons could create. Somewhere in Hell, a veritable army of lesser demons had their way with the endless flood of souls as they entered the realm. Legless, headless, corkscrewed, folded, torn, and pierced, each soul wore but the thinnest mask of mankind.”

Lucifer has disappeared from Hell, passing his administrative duties to Beelzebub. Beelzebub is cruel, even for a demon, and a rival, Sargantanas, begins to dream of redemption and a return to heaven. A war over that belief splits Hell into two mighty armies made up of creatures that only the most vivid imagination can conceive. Lilith is here. She belongs to Beelzebub, tossed to him by Lucifer along with the staff of the kingdom. Every demon desires her, dreams of her, and wants to possess her.
Hannibal Barca, Eligor and Valefar are players in this mighty struggle, powerful demons all.
The fallen angels, now demons, are corrupted, twisted, and bear little resemblance to their former beautiful embodiments. Politics made up of shifting alliances born more out of mutual interest and fear than out of loyalty dominate the ongoing struggle for power in the realm.
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John hearts books

15 Sunday Sep 2013

Tags

arts, authors, book reviews, books, culture, D. Scott Ball, fiction, gay, IKEA, john jernigan, LGBT, Life, literature, perspective, reading, St. Petersburg, Tampa Bay, Thrift Store

John hearts books

Finally broke down and put my IKEA bookshelf together. My library is looking good and taking shape again. When I left Ft. Lauderdale I donated like 300 books to Goodwill, because they wouldn’t fit in my car and I couldn’t afford a U-haul. I’ve started collecting again…on the 1st and 15th of each month the Parc Thrift Store has a sale, everything 1/2 off, meaning $1 hardcovers and $.50 paperbacks. I’m on my way, I’m excited, it’s a party! A cool, hip, gangster book party…

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Dumpster Diving

25 Sunday Aug 2013

Tags

Alabama, art, book reviews, books, culture, fiction, funny, gay, john jernigan, LGBT, perspective, point of view, St. Petersburg, Taco Bus, Tampa Bay, thrift stores

Dumpster Diving

I live on Central Ave. in downtown St. Pete. On Sunday mornings I like to take the dogs on long walks when I can. Central has plenty of thrift stores, antique shops, art galleries, coffee shops…plus a few halfway-houses, sketchy bodegas and dive bars. Today I turned left at the Taco Bus and we walked down an alley behind this little red bookstore. It’s dumpster was chock full of books and there was a nice chair next to the dumpster as well…for me? All of this for me?
As I dug into the dumpster and started shopping in earnest I thought about my new boyfriend on the facebook…like, would he be horrified that I was digging in the trash? Shaking ants off of stuff that looks like treasure to me? To somewhat clarify our relationship, I haven’t actually talked to him on the phone or met him, but he seems to be really articulate and knows ALL his words, plus he has almost 700 facebook friends! Wow, he must be great. I also know he has real vacation destinations like Palm Springs or Europe (way nicer than say Ft. Walton Beach)…so he’s fancy and whatnot. Hopefully he wouldn’t have a hissy fit if he saw his domestic partner (goddess?) knee deep in the garbage, hopefully.
I start pulling out books, books, books check ’em out! including:
Flowers for Algernon – Daniel Keyes (brand new!), Inventing the Abbotts – Sue Miller,The Snows of Kilimanjaro and The Old Man and the Sea – Hemingway, and the Complete Works of Rabelais…also Ivan Turgenev, Joseph Conrad, Tennyson, Richard Bachman, Wuthering Heights, Vanity Fair, Frank Miller, John Feinstein and Edith Wharton. I take my booty home (that’s treasure booty not booty booty) wipe some food stains off of a few books and Febreze my new chair, and I’m on the come up, my wealth is increased, I’m rich! Well maybe not rich, how about uniquely different? I hope my future ex husband in rural Alabama thinks so anyways…
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The House of the Scorpion – Nancy Farmer

22 Monday Jul 2013

Tags

book reviews, books, cloning, fiction, gay, Matteo Alacran, Nancy Farmer, St. Petersburg, Tampa Bay, The House of the Scorpion

The House of the Scorpion - Nancy Farmer

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Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card

07 Sunday Jul 2013

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Abigail Breslin, Asa Butterfield, book reviews, books, Ender's Game, fiction, gay, Hailee Steinfeld, Harrison Ford, john jernigan, movie reviews, movies, Orson Scott Card, science fiction, St. Petersburg, Tampa Bay

Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card

Probably my favorite true science fiction novel, about to be a major motion picture starring Harrison Ford as Ender’s mentor…mentor me as well please sir.

The story of “Ender’s Game” is set 70 years after a horrific alien war, and follows an unusually gifted child sent to an advanced military school in space to prepare for a future invasion.

quotes:
“In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them…. I destroy them.”

“I think that most of us, anyway, read these stories that we know are not “true” because we’re hungry for another kind of truth: the mythic truth about human nature in general, the particular truth about those life-communities that define our own identity, and the most specific truth of all: our own self-story. Fiction, because it is not about someone who lived in the real world, always has the possibility of being about oneself. ”

“I don’t care if I pass your test, I don’t care if I follow your rules. If you can cheat, so can I. I won’t let you beat me unfairly – I’ll beat you unfairly first.
– Ender ”

“Because never in my entire childhood did I feel like a child. I felt like a person all along–the same person that I am today.”

“Ender Wiggin isn’t a killer. He just wins–thoroughly.”

disclaimer : The author, Orson Scott Card, is a homophobic asshole and nothing he wrote after Ender’s Game is worth a shit…but this first offering is awesome nevertheless.

Card makes no bones about his stance. In an essay in the Mormon Times, he writes that gay marriage “marks the end of democracy in America,” that homosexuality was a “tragic genetic mixup,” and that allowing courts to redefine marriage was a slippery slope towards total homosexual political rule and the classifying of anyone who disagreed as ‘mentally ill.'”

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Beatrice and Virgil – Yann Martel

17 Monday Jun 2013

Tags

allegory, Beatrice and Virgil, book reviews, books, dating, fiction, gay, john jernigan, Life of Pi, relationships, sex, St. Petersburg, Yann Martel

Beatrice and Virgil - Yann Martel

“Art is the suitcase of history, carrying the essentials. Art is the life buoy of history. Art is seed, art is memory, art is vaccine.”

“Words are cold, muddy toads trying to understand sprites dancing in a field-but they’re all we have.”

“In his entirely personal experience of them, English was jazz music, German was classical music, French was ecclesiastical music, and Spanish was from the streets. Which is to stay, stab his heart and it would bleed French, slice his brain open and its convolutions would be lined with English and German, and touch his hands and they would feel Spanish.”

“We are cynical about our own species, but less so about animals, especially wild ones. We might not shelter them from habitat destruction, but we do tend to shelter them from excessive irony.”

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Cold Days – Jim Butcher

17 Wednesday Apr 2013

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book reviews, books, Cold Days, dogs, fantasy, fiction, Harry Dresden, Jim Butcher, john jernigan, Mab, pets, Queen of Air and Darkness, Santa Claus, Sidhe, The Wild Hunt, Winter Knight

Cold Days - Jim Butcher

Harry Dresden isn’t dead…he’s the new Winter Knight for Mab, the Queen of Air and Darkness…there is a big twist and surprise at the end of this tale, involving the grasshopper.

“Rest. Heal. Sleep. I shall most likely kill you on the morrow.”

“You? A Princess Bride quote?” I croaked.

“What is that?” she asked.”

“Go back,” he said.
“Can’t. Stand aside?”
“Can’t.”
“So it’s like that?” I said.
Fix exhaled. Then he nodded. “Yeah.”
And for the first time in a decade the Winter Knight and Summer Knight went to war.”

“We need to get out,” I said. My voice sounded raw to me. “Trouble coming.”

“No,” said a beautiful Sidhe baritone. “Trouble is here.”

They appeared from behind their veils, one by one, with so much melodrama that I was mildly surprised that they hadn’t each struck some kind of kung fu pose.”

Mouse

Species: Similar to a Caucasian Shepherd Dog or Tibetan Mastiff, Mouse is a temple dog (or Foo dog), a descendant of a divine guardian spirit and a mortal canine.

Mouse was introduced in the novel Blood Rites as a small furry puppy rescued from a group of demons. A Tibetan monk employed Harry to recover a stolen litter of puppies believed to be the descendants of an ancient Foo spirit. This meant they were supernatural and special, both qualities that Mouse has shown as he has attained his massive mature size. While Harry returned all the Foo puppies he could find, one particularly scrappy pup hid under his car seat and he was unable to return it. Mouse grows startlingly large by the start of Dead Beat, with his shoulders reaching nearly to Harry’s waist, and kills the former Denarian Quintus Cassius in order to prevent him from killing Harry.

In Proven Guilty Mouse was hit by a car and survived, and he went on to take down supernatural enemies while emitting a faint glow. Mouse has shown an aptitude for detecting dark energies and presences, and he has a strong empathy for humans who display no such dark traces. He also shows intelligence greater than that of any other dog, and seems able to plan, anticipate and comprehend abstract concepts, as well as speech. In addition, in White Night when Harry begins to play the guitar (poorly) as part of therapy for his hand, Mouse gets up off the living room floor and goes into the bedroom, shutting the door behind him. In Turn Coat Mouse intercedes in several violent situations in Harry’s apartment while he is away, defusing them with both his strength and intelligence. He even feigns extreme pain after being shot to teach Molly an important lesson, without any prompting by Harry.

After Mouse exhibits further supernatural abilities in White Night, Bob describes additional powers the dog has, such as a warning bark that awoke an entire building full of people during a fire when the actual alarm could not be activated. This bark can also apparently scare away some supernatural, incorporeal beings. If that doesn’t work, Mouse can actually physically damage a supernatural enemy, usually with his teeth, as has happened with fatal effects during two battles. Also in White Night, Elaine claims that Mouse is a Temple Dog and is stunned he belongs to Harry. Oddly, in Proven Guilty Madrigal Raith exclaims with apprehension that Mouse is “not a dog”. In Small Favor, Nicodemus shows a genuine uneasiness about Mouse’s presence in his meeting with Harry, asking Harry “What is that?” and making sure to keep his shadow in between himself and Mouse.

Despite growing to massive size, Mouse still defers to Mister, allowing the cat to eat before he does and appearing nervous after Harry tells him to take away Mister’s catnip before he gets ill. Harry calls him a cross between a chow, a woolly mammoth, and a “West Highland Dogosaurus.”

The guardian statues that the White Council uses to guard meeting entrances are modeled after Foo Dogs. In Turn Coat, Ancient Mai is shocked that Harry has a Foo dog (exclaiming, “Where did you get such a thing? And why were you allowed to keep it?”), apparently not taking Mouse’s wishes into account. However, she and several other wizards in attendance confirm his reliability as a witness, and Harry uses him and a set of surveillance photos to expose a traitor within the White Council.

In Small Favor, it is indicated that Mouse, in addition to comprehending speech, can show emotion on a level with humans – when told to “take the catnip away” if it makes Mister sick, he seems to indicate doubt; when Thomas claims that what he said earlier about Harry was a joke, Mouse merely flicks his ears and turns away. Also, when Harry jokes about shaking himself dry like Mouse in Michael Carpenter’s home, Michael responds that Mouse would be too polite to do so inside and is promptly proven correct.

In Changes, Mouse is proven to have intelligence as great as any human, and in correct circumstances the ability not only to comprehend human speech but also to communicate as well as any human in his own language. He is also referred to as a “Mountain Ice Demon from the Land of Dreams” by two high ranking Red Court Vampires, as well as Harry’s Fairy Godmother, who, if not afraid of Mouse, is at least wary of his abilities. He also indicates, when the Leanansidhe questioned Harry’s having “won” Mouse, he was the one who “won” Harry, raising the question as to which one actually “owns” the other, although Jim Butcher has stated that Mouse and the Leanansidhe did not mean the same thing when they said “won”. In addition, it is here shown that he has a personality very similar to Dresden’s, evidenced both by his willingness to fight and kill Lea in order to turn the group back to normal after remarking, “That bitch,” and his response to Lea’s comment that he was far from his sources of power to which Mouse is described as shrugging and replying “I live with a wizard, I cheat”. While it’s possible that the similar personalities are a result of living with Harry most of his life, as a puppy Mouse displayed the very Harry-like trait of standing up to things far bigger than him.

In Ghost Story, Mouse is the protector of Maggie Dresden and living with the Carpenter family. He is able to see and physically interact with the spirit form of Harry. The archangel Uriel calls Mouse “little brother” and tells him his task is not yet over. Uriel also assures Harry that temple dogs live for centuries, and Mouse is more than capable of protecting Maggie for a lifetime, even a wizard’s lifetime.

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My Korean Deli – Ben Ryder Howe

02 Tuesday Apr 2013

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authors, Ben Ryder Howe, book reviews, books, Brooklyn, culture, different, fiction, Gowanus canal, humor, inspirational, john jernigan, Korean, My Korean Deli, New York, non-fiction, opinion, Paris Review, perspective, point of view

MyKoreanDeli
I loved the nomenclature of this book, and getting to use the word nomenclature…the author(a senior editor for the Paris Review) and his wife (lawyer) buy a Brooklyn bodega for his hardcore, traditional, no-nonsense Korean mother-in-law. He ends up working there 4-5 nights a week, blocks from the projects and the polluted Gowanus canal.

“Howe and his relatives do spend an awful lot of time failing. The store makes less money than expected even as it is hit with massive tax bills; vendors and deliverymen screw over the new owners, leaving cartons of unwanted products on the floor of the store and then invoicing later. The city also tries to confiscate the deli’s refrigerators and nails Howe for selling tobacco to a minor. Howe’s evocation of the financial knife-edge on which he finds himself is so convincing that even if you step away from the book and go out into the world, you’ll still thrum with low-level panic.”

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A Dog’s Journey – W. Bruce Cameron

20 Wednesday Feb 2013

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A Dog's Journey, authors, book reviews, books, boston terrier, dogs, fiction, french bulldog, gay, inspirational, john jernigan, LGBT, pets, W. Bruce Cameron

A Dog's Journey - W. Bruce Cameron

Every pet lover should read this book and then go love on their dog or cat or child like I did, as soon as I finished it. Such a tearjerker, but in both good and bad ways, not like Marley & Me. I cried three or four times…but maybe that’s because I’m a little crazy right now? 😦

“A charming and heartwarming story of hope, love, and unending devotion, A Dog’s Journey asks the question: Do we really take care of our pets, or do they take care of us? More than just another endearing dog tale, A Dog’s Journey is the moving story of unwavering loyalty and a love that crosses all barriers. Break out the tissue, dog lovers! ”

“You can usually tell that a man is good if he has a dog who loves him.”

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White Horse – Alex Adams

16 Saturday Feb 2013

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Alex Adams, authors, book reviews, books, fiction, gay, john jernigan, literature, novel, Pandora's Box, White Horse, writers

White Horse - Alex Adams

I started reading this book and didn’t stop until I finished it six hours later. Our heroine Zoe finds herself alone and pregnant in a post-apocalyptic world where 95% of the population have already died. Those who have survived are starting to show genetic mutations. There is no government, no military, no electricity, no food or medicine, no one to help her…Zoe has only a mother’s strength and her courage to rely on as she journeys to Delphi. White Horse is the name of the virus that has destroyed the planet.

White Horse has been called “McCarthy’s The Road on steroids” and is the first book in a trilogy that I expect will blow the doors off the Hunger Games.

“I’ve heard the story about the woman who opened the box and let havoc grab a choke hold on the world.”

“It’s not just college grades that fall in a curve. Human decency is bell-shaped, with some of us slopping over the edges. Saints on one end, sinners on the other.”

“This is not the country where gleeful tourists toss coins into the Trevi Fountain, nor do people flock to the Holy See anymore. Oh, at first they rushed in like sickle cells forced through a vein, thick, clotted masses aboard trains and planes, toting their life savings, willing to give it all to the church for a shot at salvation. Now their corpses litter the streets of Vatican City and spill into Rome.”

a12White Horse Back Cover Alex Adams

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The Beach – Alex Garland

03 Sunday Feb 2013

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Alex Garland, authors, book reviews, books, fiction, gay, john jernigan, Leonardo Dicaprio, Moby, movie reviews, movies, sex, Thailand, The Beach

The Beach – Alex Garland

The Beach starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tilda Swinton and Robert Carlyle

Porcelain – Moby

“Trust me, it’s paradise. This is where the hungry come to feed. For mine is a generation that circles the globe and searches for something we haven’t tried before. So never refuse an invitation, never resist the unfamiliar, never fail to be polite and never outstay the welcome. Just keep your mind open and suck in the experience. And if it hurts, you know what? It’s probably worth it.”

“There’s this saying: in an all-blue world, colour doesn’t exist… If something seems strange, you question it; but if the outside world is too distant to use as a comparison then nothing seems strange.”

“When you develop an infatuation for someone you always find a reason to believe that this is exactly the person for you. It doesn’t need to be a good reason. Taking photographs of the night sky, for example. Now, in the long run, that’s just the kind of dumb, irritating habit that would cause you to split up. But in the haze of infatuation, it’s just what you’ve been searching for all these years.”

They thought they had found paradise in the south China seas, a utopian society, shangri-la…

abeach

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Blue Boy – Rakesh Satyal

29 Tuesday Jan 2013

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authors, Blue Boy, book reviews, books, fiction, fort lauderdale, gay, gay culture, humor, inspirational, john jernigan, LGBT, Punjabi, Rakesh Satyal, Strawberry Shortcake

Sweet little Kiran is on a voyage of self-discovery in Blue Boy, so confused and unhappy and socially inept. His traditional Punjabi parents are very hard on him,they don’t get him at all, not seeing any of the sweet uniqueness that make him so utterly special in his “difference.” He has his Strawberry Shortcake (and Blueberry) dolls, he’s taking ballet, he’s incredibly smart, he’s an artist…and he can sew. His failures at trying to fit in are funny and heartbreaking and sad, ending with Kiran performing Whitney Houston’s “How Will I Know” in his school’s 6th grade talent show…in his mother’s traditional Indian sari.

“A book’s content never changes, and yet it is always intriguing; something you read can mean something completely different to you at a different time. This is not the case with my classmates. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that people can be devastating at any moment.”

“I have my own language. I am my own language.”

“I am destined for great things, too. I am blue, too. You just can’t see it yet.” – Kiran referring to Krishna

“Blue Boy proves that if you don’t quite fit in, then you might as well stand out with as much wit, color, and audacity as you can muster.”

a blue

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White Oleander – Janet Fitch

23 Wednesday Jan 2013

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authors, book reviews, books, culture, fiction, gay, inspirational, Janet Fitch, john jernigan, reviews, White Oleander

White Oleander - Janet Fitch

“The Santa Anas blew in hot from the desert, shriveling the last of the spring grass into whiskers of pale straw. Only the oleanders thrived, their delicate poisonous blooms, their dagger green leaves. We could not sleep in the hot dry nights, my mother and I.” – the author goes on to describe how her mother’s mental health fluctuated like the Santa Ana winds, rough then calm, strong then gentle, hard then soft, crazy then sane

“Her fingers moved among barnacles and mussels, blue-black, sharp-edged. Neon red starfish were limp Dalis on the rocks, surrounded by bouquets of stinging anemones and purple bursts of spiny sea urchins.”

“His voice was cloves and nightingales, it took us to spice markets in the Celebs, we drifted with him on a houseboat beyond the Coral Sea. We were like cobras following a reed flute.”

“She was a beautiful woman dragging a crippled foot and I was that foot. I was bricks sewn into the hem of her clothes, I was a steel dress”

“She was sitting cross-legged on her bed in her white kimono, writing in a notebook with an ink pen she dipped in a bottle. ‘Never let a man stay the night,’ she told me. ‘Dawn has a way of casting a pall on any night magic.’ The night magic sounded lovely. Someday I would have lovers and write a poem after.”

“Loneliness is the human condition. Cultivate it. The way it tunnels into you allows your soul room to grow. Never expect to outgrow loneliness. Never hope to find people who will understand you, someone to fill that space. If you expect to find people who will understand you, you will grow murderous with disappointment.”

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Watership Down – Richard Adams

15 Tuesday Jan 2013

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authors, book reviews, books, culture, El-ahrairah, favorites, fiction, gay fort lauderdale, good reads, inspirational, john jernigan, point of view, richard adams, watership down

Watership Down - Richard Adams

One of my all-time favorites…extremely enjoyable as a simple read for a 12 year-old. Decidedly more enjoyable to read again as an adult, understanding the allegories, the symbolism, the subtle nuances…an appreciation for the nobility and “animality” of our leader Hazel-rah and his warren.

“Animals don’t behave like men,’ he said. ‘If they have to fight, they fight; and if they have to kill they kill. But they don’t sit down and set their wits to work to devise ways of spoiling other creatures’ lives and hurting them. They have dignity and animality.”

“El-ahrairah, your people cannot rule the world, for I will not have it so. All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.”

“There’s terrible evil in the world.”
It comes from men,” said Holly. “All other elil do what they have to do and Frith moves them as he moves us. They live on the earth and they need food. Men will never rest till they’ve spoiled the earth and destroyed the animals.”

“With a kind of wry envy, Hazel realized that Bigwig was actually looking forward to meeting the Efrafan assault. He knew he could fight and he meant to show it. He was not thinking of anything else. The hopelessness of their chances had no important place in his thoughts. Even the sound of the digging, clearer already, only set him thinking of the best way to sell his life as dearly as he could.”

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Brand New Human Being – Emily Jeanne Miller

10 Thursday Jan 2013

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book reviews, Brand New Human Being, different, Emily Jeanne Miller, favorites, fiction, fort lauderdale, inspirational, john jernigan, perspective, point of view

Brand New Human Being - Emily Jeanne Miller

A stay-at-home father whose own father has just died, struggling in his career, possible infidelity of his wife, her success as a big-time attorney, their son an odd child who isn’t fitting in at school and is instead regressing back toward babyhood…this father is asking: Is this what life means? Is this all there is?
excerpts:
My name is Logan Pyle. My father is dead, my wife is indifferent, and my son is strange. I’m thirty-six years old. My life is nothing like I thought it would be.

The three of us plus one dog, Jerry, live in my childhood home, a sweet and sturdy Craftsman-style bungalow on a quiet block in a tree-lined section of a small Western city that was until the end of the last ice age the bed of a glacial lake. We sit at the confluence of three rivers, two of which — the Clark Fork and the Blackfoot — come together just east of town. A few miles downstream they receive a third, the Bitterroot, and the three persist across the Idaho panhandle and into the great Northwest as one. The scenery — the natural world in general — gets a lot of attention here. We’re ringed on all sides by mountains, and the sugar maples that line our streets turn outrageous shades of red and orange and gold every fall.

“Where’s the blue, Jules?” I shout in the direction of the stairs. “It’s a blue day, but I only see red. Julie,” I shout once more. A sudden pain clutches at my spine. “Fuck. Four is too big to be carried,” I tell Owen, depositing him a little roughly on the bed. Right away, his thumb is in his mouth.

“You sure it’s blue?” asks Julie, rather dreamily, from downstairs.

“It’s the twentieth,” I shout back. “Odd, red, even, blue.”

“Four and three-quarters,” he says, showing me the fingers of his free hand.

“Exactly my point. Now come on. Take that thumb out and help me look.”

He frowns. “I don’t want to.”

“Julie,” I shout again. I give up on the top drawer and start in on the middle. “Sometimes in life we have to do things we don’t want to do,” I tell Owen. “It builds character.”

“What’s character?” he asks, around the thumb.

“Pardon? I can’t understand you with that thumb in the way.”

He takes the thumb out and says, “What’s character?” then pops it right back in. Flipping over, he buries his face in the pillow and sticks his rear end in the air.

“Sit up like a big kid, please,” I say.

He shakes his head, squeezes his eyes shut. “Shh. Baby sleeping.”

“Christ, Owen, now? We have to go.”

“Baby sleeping,” he says again. I sit down next to him and rest my hand on his rump.

He’s been carrying on this way for weeks now — “regressing,” according to one or another of the myriad parenting books Julie’s perpetually reading half of, then quoting to me. Besides the thumb, he’s gone back to the bottle and climbing into our bed in the middle of the night, and he even insists on wearing a diaper some days under his pants. And now and then he’ll slip into an odd, German-sounding baby talk it pains me to hear. Julie insists it’s normal, or at least common — “‘a phase many children experience,’” she read aloud to me last week, while we were getting ready for bed. “‘It’s incumbent that the parents of the distressed child recognize his or her behavior as expressing a critical emotional need and react accordingly,’” she said, laying the book down. “What that means is that we have to act like whatever Owen does is okay.”

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The Silver Linings Playbook – Matthew Quick

05 Saturday Jan 2013

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authors, book reviews, books, bradley Cooper, Chris Tucker, fiction, fort lauderdale, Hank Baskett, inspirational, Jennifer Lawrence, Matthew Quick, movie reviews, Philadelphia Eagles, point of view, Robert de Niro, The Silver Linings Playbook

The Silver Linings Playbook - Matthew Quick

I actually saw the movie before I read the book, never a good idea. My imagination would not have cast Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence as the main characters…but Robert de Niro is spot on as Pat’s father. I read the book over the Christmas break, my holiday this year wasn’t fun at all…this story helped me make it through,I could say it took a swing at my depression and pessimism. The storyline centers around the mental health of the two protoganists, Pat and Tiffany, Pat having just been released from a psychaitric hospital after a 4-year stay. He doesn’t know how long he’s been committed and is unaware of the things he did that necessitated his commitment. Pat is reading all of the literary classics, in his narratives he critiques and reviews books for the reader. He has very interesting perspectives on a variety of works, from Catcher in the Rye to Huck Finn to the Great Gatsby. The horrible dsyfunction and unhappiness in his parents’ marriage is a secondary plotline that sheds valuable insight into who and why Pat is who he is.

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Winter’s Bone – Daniel Woodrell

29 Saturday Dec 2012

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americana, authors, book reviews, books, Daniel Woodrell, fiction, Jennifer Lawrence, movies, Ozarks, point of view, Winter's Bone

Winter's Bone - Daniel Woodrell

Jennifer Lawrence before the Hunger Games, our heroine Ree Dolly is a teenager taking care of her mentally ill mother and younger siblings in the poorest part of the Ozarks. Her father has just been murdered following a drug deal that went bad and her mother is unable to take care of them. Ree has to find a way to keep her family from starving, they are in danger of becoming homeless and her younger brothers being removed by the state. She also tries to find out who killed her father, putting her own life at risk.
Quotes from Winter’s Bone:

“Never. Never ask for what ought to be offered.” – when the boys are hungry and want to beg for food from the neighbors

“Long, dark, and lovely she had been, in those days before her mind broke and the parts scattered and she let them go.” – Ree’s mother, before her mental health breakdown

“I said shut up once already, with my mouth.” – Ree’s uncle, after punching her

“The men came to mind as mostly idle between nights of running wild or time in the pen, cooking moon and gathering around the spout, with ears chewed, fingers chopped, arms shot away, and no apologies grunted ever. The women came to mind bigger, closer, with their lonely eyes and homely yellow teeth, mouths clamped against smiles, working in the hot fields from can to can’t, hands tattered rough as dry cobs, lips cracked all winter, a white dress for marrying, a black dress for burying, and Ree nodded yup. Yup.” – the hardscrabble, tough unglamorous life in the Ozarks

“The boys crept to her side at early dark to sit around her, mournful, with their heads bowed down like they wished they knew how to pray the oldest prayers and pray her well. Harold held a cool cloth to her swollen eye. Sonny made fists and said, ‘What was the fight about?’ ‘Me bein’ me I guess.’ ‘How many was it?”‘ ‘A few.’ ‘Tell us the names. For when we grow up.” – after Ree is beaten up trying to find out who killed her father

“Whatever are we to do about you, baby girl? Huh?’ ‘Kill me, I guess.’ ‘That idea has been said already. Got’ny other ones?’ ‘Help me. Ain’t nobody said that idea yet, have they?” – Ree & the men deciding if they are going to kill her for trying to find out what happened to her father

“I got my face close up to the man still standing. I let him understand that there was oodles of danger in me; my head wobbled loose, three ticks off center. This scary face is all them such as me has to show this other world, the world in charge of our world, that musters any authority, gets any reluctant respect at all. If us lower elements didn’t show our teeth plenty and act fast to bite, we’d just be soft, loamy dirt anybody could walk on, anytime, and you know they would, too, since even with a show of teeth there’s a grassless path worn clear across our brains and backs.” – Ree standing in front of the bad men and trying to show them she wasn’t afraid, that she was a Dolly who demanded respect

awb2

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Mountains of the Moon – I.J. Kay

23 Sunday Dec 2012

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authors, book reviews, books, culture, different, fiction, fort lauderdale, gay fort lauderdale, I.J. Kay, inspirational, Mountains of the Moon, point of view

Mountains of the Moon - I.J. Kay

Our heroine is a complex creature who tells her story in two voices: as a poor, uneducated and brutalized child and as a hard-as-nails woman who served a decade in prison for murder. Mountains of the Moon refers to a mountain range in Africa. As a child our heroine Lulu would pretend she was prowling the Masai Mara, spear in hand, lions hunting her. She dreamed of becoming a Masai warrior. It makes sense: she is very tall and has always had to fight.She would escape to Africa when she was physically abused, or sexually assaulted, or when her mother had a schizophrenic episode.

excerpt:

I get a job in the bowels of a warehouse, mixing mountains of potpourri with a shovel. Every day I choke on a different fragrant chemical. My wellington boots fill to the rim with ingredients from around the world. The boss is pleased about having someone he can trust. I do deliveries to London in the van, serve customers in the warehouse and go to the bank with the cash. I work fourteen hours a day for the same money I’d get on the dole, and he makes sure he gets his money’s worth.
“What do you want from me, blood?” I say. The boss laughs; he thinks I’m joking but I’m not. I lie about where I live and where I’ve been. When the wage packet comes I send a fiver to Bernie in the station cafe with a note saying thanks. I pay rent for the room in the hostel and the use of the kitchen. It isn’t great but it’s somewhere to try and sleep. There’s reporting in and out; a night curfew of ten o’clock; there’s someone who shits in the showers and someone who’s got a gun because the police come wearing bulletproof vests and break down my bedroom door by mistake. A member of staff gives me a list of organisations that help with resettlement and housing. I phone them up. They can help me if I’ve got children; if I’m fleeing from domestic violence; if I’m a refugee or from a minority group; they can help me if I’ve got issues with alcohol or drug abuse. I don’t fit the criteria. I never have. The last one on the list baulks when I mention prison.
“Our organisation only helps and supports young women who have problems with their mental health.”
“OK, sorry to bother you,” I say and hang up.
Upstairs my room has been broken into and trashed. The wages I’ve been saving have gone from my hiding place. I phone the mental health people back. It’s a different woman that answers my call. I lie about my age. She asks me if I have suicidal thoughts; I say yes, about four times a week. They give me somewhere to live, a room in a halfway house. It’s in Bristol, a city I like, the city where my love lives.
I hitch to Bristol down the M4. The house is comfortable, clean and safe. Except that, on account of the other women in the house (who have problems with their mental health) it’s only halfway all right. One mad old woman knocks on my door constantly, threatens to kill herself if I don’t come out. I don’t come out. Another girl phones the police all night, every night, to complain about raging parties next door but the elderly couple living there go to bed at eight o’clock, there isn’t a sound. I am the love object of another, she gropes my breasts and between my legs at every passing chance. I ask her nicely to stop but she doesn’t. I have to get assertive and shove her off but then she does it more, for sport, to wind me up. I could kill her but I don’t.
I have to serve extra time in that house, eighteen months, reducing my suicidal thoughts to once a week, then once a month, until finally the organisation decides that I’m able to take care of myself and they fix it with the housing association for me to have this flat.
I sound ungrateful, I’m not; a housing association flat is, after all, a guaranteed home for life.

i mt use

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Recent Posts

  • The Gay Road Less Traveled March 20, 2020
  • Lost Without You – Freya Ridings February 27, 2020
  • Happy National Boston Terrier Day! February 19, 2020
  • John’s Favorite 1990’s Movies February 18, 2020
  • Johnny’s Favorite Songs of 2018 December 9, 2018

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The Very Inspiring Blogger Award

C.L. Bolin Books & Art: When I get the chance, I love reading John Jernigan’s blog. I’m laughing, homesick, crying and peeing myself all at once.

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Versatile Blogger Award

Illuminating Blogger Award

The Gay Road Less Traveled

A friend of mine who used to be one of the hard working under appreciated social workers for the State here in Pensacola has written a book now available on Kindle, John Jernigan’s “The Gay Road Less Traveled.” I purchased it tonight to start it, couldn’t out it down, it was so funny. Graphic, real, and hysterical, John’s writing is endearing, funny, smart and if you happen to be drinking coffee, it may shoot out of your nose at some point during one of his vignettes. You can read it on Kindle.

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