Happy New Year
Greetings from the Antrim Coast
I have a knack for returning to places. I was conceived in San Diego, stationed there when I enlisted in the Navy eighteen years later, and—after swearing I would never come back—returned a little over fifteen years ago.
Cushendall, a sleepy little village on the Antrim Coast of Northern Ireland is another one of those places I keep coming back to. I’ve been here four or five times now. The last time I was here, in August of 2019, I did a residency in the Curfew Tower, the village’s most notable landmark. While I enjoyed my time in the Tower, it was far from comfortable and I spent the bulk of my time writing at the kitchen table, close to the tea kettle and the heater.
Thankfully, my friend Tom, who was instrumental in securing the residency for me, has a sister named Karen who has a cottage next door to the Tower. I had a key to the cottage and was able to use the shower and the Internet, which was quite handy as I couldn’t get a signal through the tower’s thick stone walls. Ever since Tom’s mother passed on from COVID-19 last year, his father has been spending more time in the cottage. When I told Tom that Nuvia and I were spending the holidays in Dublin and Belfast, he booked the house directly across the street from his sister’s cottage. This is where we’ve been since Boxing Day, the day after Christmas, and every morning when I got out for a walk the first thing I see is the Curfew Tower.
It’s been a welcome change of scenery. In Belfast we stayed in a home owned by Tom’s late Aunt Margaret, who passed away this summer. There are a great many things I’ve learned about Aunt Margaret and things I’d still like discover, but I can say with absolute certainty that she wasn’t thrilled with our presence in her house. The week we spent in Belfast were filled with low-key hauntings: the smell of fresh cigarette smoke, fire alarm going off for no reason, the hatch to the attic swinging open as Nuvia walked by. Aunt Margaret means no harm, but she was a lifelong smoker, and quite defensive about it all the way up to the end, and probably doesn’t care for our intrusion into her private world.
We didn’t spend much time in Aunt Margaret’s house anyway. We were always out and about doing holiday shopping, exploring Belfast, catching up with old friends, having and a grand holiday feast with Tom’s family. After several days in Dublin without any rain, it poured buckets on us in Belfast, which put a bit of a damper on our plans to walk about and explore the city on foot.
Cushendall is located at the foot of the Lurigedan, a mountain that comes to a head like a mesa and then rolls back into the fabled Glens of Antrim, the lush valleys where water tumbles off the mountains and makes its way to the sea. There are waterfalls everywhere and we’ve walked for miles and miles along cliff paths, forest trails, and narrow roads that connect Cushendall to the villages of Cushendun and Waterfoot. I’ve been to all these places many times and I’ll go to them again.
It all speaks to me in a way that’s hard to articulate. The rolling hills crowned with gorse, with yellow flowers that attract the eye and brambles that repel the hand. The steep cliffs of the green mountains. The seascapes with rivers flowing out as the tide comes in. On a clear day you can see Scotland’d Mull of Kintyre but there are very few clear days. I love all of it. You can have the Giant’s Causeway, which is just up the Coast Road about 50 miles. In my opinion, this part of the Antrim Coast is one of the most beautiful places in the world.
Tom is one of my oldest friends. He knew my mother and I knew his. Shortly before my mom passed away she dreamt about Tom’s mother and was convinced her own mother, whom she hadn’t seen in sixty years, would enjoy her company. Coming here so our families could spend time together felt like the right idea. But the Omicron variant has made it very challenging. Two people we have spent time with in the last week have tested positive. One is holed up in a hotel in Dublin. The other is isolating in an empty house in Belfast. It feels like I’m speaking of outlaws, people on the run, when it is the rest of us who have taken flight.
We’ve been taking tests every day and all have come back negative so far. Out of an abundance of caution, we’ve split up our families for a few days, isolating until it’s time for Tom to go back to work and for us to return to the States. It’s not the ending to the holidays we had hoped for, but we are hopeful we will be able to stay safe. If nothing else it’s been a good time to catch up on my reading, which brings me too…
2021: A Year in Books
Every year I make a list of all the books I read. (Here’s last year’s list.) I break the books into different categories that highlight my tendencies for the year. Some years I read a lot of poetry. Some years I don’t. And so forth. This project helps me understand why that may be the case. This year, like last year, I was immersed in a heavy research project so the list reflects that. I don’t expect that’s of very much interest to anyone except other book obsessives.
When a category has multiple books, they are listed in backwards order with the books I read most recently at the top. If the listing is followed by a link that means I wrote about it in greater detail. These categories are also a response to the onslaught of year-end best of lists, which are bullshit. To me, these best of lists are an award for the books that have succeeded in outmaneuvering all the other books for attention. The prize? More attention.
My goal was to read 53 books, one book for every year I’ve been alive. I read 55. So without any further ado, here are the books I read in 2021:
The Book That Made Me Question the Worthiness of the Human Project
Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor translated by Sophie Hughes
Welcome to La Matosa, where everyone is completely fucked. The relentless brutality of Hurricane Season is positively Faulknerian in its portrayal of the inhabitants of a small town on Mexico’s Gulf Coast who are trapped in the pincers of fate. Melchor unravels the story of the murder of a so-called witch through multiple points of view. It’s chilling portrait of the depravity of the human spirit that has been compared to Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 (namely The Part about the Crimes.) There are no heroes in La Matosa, only victims. Many, many victims.
The Book That Reaffirmed It
Model Citizen by Joshua Mohr (Interview)
This memoir occupies an unusual space in junkie lit: it’s a relapse memoir with an unusual twist that I won’t spoil here. Model Citizen is an expanded version of Mohr’s previous memoir Sirens, which brings the reader up to date on recent developments in his life. One of the most moving books I read this or any year.
Books about Music & Musicians
Sellout by Dan Ozzi (LA Times, Message from the Underworld)
Someone Should Pay for Your Pain by Franz Nicolay
Courtney Love: The Real Story by Poppy Z. Brite
When I Grow Up: A Memoir by Juliana Hatfield (Message from the Underworld)
Total F*cking Godhead: The Biography of Chris Cornell by Corbin Reiff
Fair Use: The Story of the Letter U and the Numeral 2 by Negativland
Oxbow: Thin Black Book by Eugene S. Robinson
Dance of Days: Two Decades of Punk in the Nation’s Capital by Mark Andersen & Mark Jenkins
You’re Living All Over Me by Nick Attfield
Too High to Die: Meet the Meat Puppets by Greg Prato
Taking Punk to the Masses: From Nowhere to Nevermind by Jacob McMurray
Coloring Outside the Lines: A Memoir by Aimee Cooper
Louie Louie: The History and Mythology of the World's Most Famous Rock 'N' Roll Song by Dave Marsh (Message from the Underworld)
Jrnls80s by Lee Ranaldo
Finding Joseph I: The Journey from Bad Brains Through My Mysterious Mind: An Oral History by Howie Abrams & James Lathos
I read a ton of books while researching Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise and Fall of SST Records. I read parts of quite a few more, but these are the ones I read in their entirety. Not all of these are SST-related. A couple were for the Evan Dando project and some I read for other reasons. The book I enjoyed most was Taking Punk to the Masses: From Nowhere to Nevermind by Jacob McMurray. I probably learned the most from this book and the presentation is top notch: a mix of direct quotes, compelling capsule summaries, and arresting images. The book I pulled from the most is Greg Prato’s Too High to Die: Meet the Meat Puppets. Prato’s book is kind of a data dump and the first few chapters are a slog, but once the story gets going it really cooks. I also loved Dave Marsh’s book about Louie Louie. It’s style is a bit dated but it has a ton of information in it. I couldn’t have written one of my favorite installments of Message from the Underworld in 2021 without it.
Books That Zapped Me into the Past
Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper
The Wreck of the Medusa: The Most Famous Sea Disaster of the Nineteenth Century by Jonathan Miles
On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed
In the Distance by Hernan Diaz
The Snow Fells Three Graves Deep by Allan Wolf (LA Times)
I’ve been wanting to go back to Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising series for years. I told myself I was going to reread it when I bought the books for my daughter ages ago. Annie read them all but I never revisited them. On a whim, I read Over Sea, Under Stone during my flight to Ireland and felt a little bit of that old magic, especially whenever the mysterious Great Uncle Merry turns up in that story. The Wreck of the Medusa combines my love of nautical disasters with one of my favorite paintings: The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault. The first time I saw it IRL one hungover morning in the Louvre twenty-something years ago, it stopped me in my tracks. The book is extremely thorough and takes a few long tangents but I enjoyed the voyage. Did you know that Gericault kept body parts in his studio while painting his masterpiece?
Books That Anticipate the Future
Zeroland by Ryan Winter
Depart, Depart! by Sim Kern
Not my best year for reading science fiction but I enjoyed both of these slim novels set in a near future disrupted by climate change.
Books I Read for Research
The Family by Ed Sanders (Message from the Underworld)
Books That Don’t Rhyme
The Voyage of St. Brendan by AB Jackson
I’m a sucker for anything having to do with St. Brendan’s voyage across the Atlantic and Jackson'’s account of the saint’s adventures didn’t disappoint. To be honest, I bought the book because of the linocuts illustrations by Kathleen Neely, whose work I greatly admire.
Books That Make Me Wanna Commit Some Crimes
Snow by John Banville.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood by Quentin Tarantino (Message from the Underworld)
A Man Named Doll by Jonathan Ames
The Watcher by Jennifer Pashley
No Room at the Morgue by Jean-Patrick Machette (Message from the Underworld)
The Searcher by Tana French
This was a good year for weirdo in the woods books and both The Watcher and The Searcher delivered but Snow fell short. At first I didn’t care for Jonathan Ames’s reluctant detective novel but he really won me over. Hank Doll is a fantastic character, but the ending felt kind of half-baked. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is not only one of the worst novels I’ve read in recent memory, it came close to ruining an almost flawless movie.
Books That Go Bump in the Night
The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen
Paradise, WV by Rob Rufus
I like melodrama as much as the next person, but 19th century English horror is peak hysteria. There’s a fascinating story at the heart of The Great God Pan but its kind of frittered away. I read Paradise, WV on a whim because I liked the cover when I saw it on Twitter and it didn’t disappoint. Although it was aimed at a younger audience I’m looking forward to seeing the TV series that is apparently being made about it.
Books by Sara Gran
The Book of the Most Precious Substance by Sara Gran
Marigold by Sara Gran (Message from the Underworld)
Dope by Sara Gran
Saturn’s Return to New York by Sara Gran
After finally finishing all the Claire DeWitt novels, this was the year I read Sara Gran’s back catalog. Saturn’s Return to New York fuses a tale of literary New York with woman’s struggle to come to terms with the death of her parents—one completed suicide, the other is dying of cancer—which really hit home with me. In the narrator’s close circle friends, love of astrology, and penchant for mischief one can find the seeds of Claire DeWitt. Gran’s second novel, Dope, is even sadder. It concerns a recovering heroin addict as a reluctant detective in New York during the late ‘40s. It’s a hardboiled tale that reminded me of Megan Abbott’s Queenpin, and for a long stretch I thought I knew where the story was headed. Gran delivers a sucker punch of an ending that left me saddened and stunned. The kind of ending that wrecks your day. Marigold is an audiobook project that came out earlier this year and The Book of the Most Precious Subject is a new novel that’s coming out early next year, but you’re going to have to wait until it comes out before I share my thoughts on it. I will say this: it’s like nothing you’ve ever read before.
Books with Pictures in Them
Double Nickels Forever: A Tribute to Double Nickels on the Dime and the Minutemen by Warren Craighead
Anti-Punk Rock: A History by Spot
Spot’s chronicle of the South Bay in the late ‘70s isn’t a book per se but a collection of photos with extensive notes from the photographer. The only way to get it is to order it through Spot’s website, which I’m very glad as it kickstarted my relationship with the elusive producer.
Books That Are Difficult to Classify
All Dogs Are Blue by Rodrigo de Souza Leäo
I Wished by Dennis Cooper
Cowboy Graves: Three Novellas by Roberto Bolaño
The GoldTwinz by Jardine Libaire
Mrs. Death Misses Death by Selena Godden
I read I Wished on the recommendation of a friend (Hi, Jeff!) and while there were moments when I wondered what the hell I’d gotten myself into—par for course when reading Dennis Cooper—Cooper’s foray into unclassifiable autofiction really spoke to me. While reading Cooper’s books, there’s always a moment when I ask myself, “Does Cooper know how weird he is?” In I Wished he answers that question: yes, of course he does.
Books with Short Stories in Them
Creative Types by Tom Bissell (LA Times)
That Old Country Music by Kevin Barry
Never Love a Gambler by Keith Ridgway
If you stop reading this and go on to listen to Barry read his short story “The Coast of Leitrim” instead I wouldn’t blame you one bit.
Books Recommended for fans of Roberto Bolaño
Space Invaders by Nona Fernandez (translated by Natasha Wimmer)
A Lonely Man by Chris Power (Message from the Underworld)
I could have easily put Hurricane Season here (or even Cowboy Graves, Bolaño’s most recent posthumous book for that matter). A Lonely Man makes some unusual moves that had me scratching my head but delivers an absolute knockout of a finish.
Books Recommended without Reservation
Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu.
Yu’s fictional treatise on racism and representation is clever, funny, and sneakily good. It’s like a more laconic, and much more aware, Vonnegut novel. I can’t say enough good things about it.
Book That Had the Biggest Impact
Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties by Tom O’Neill with Dan Pieperbring
It would be easy to put one of the books I read for the SST project here but to be honest few if any of those books had me texting friends and bothering my wife to talk about the revelations therein. I did a brief deep dive into a Charles Mansonland this year and found myself wallowing in the welter of information. So many creeps. So many cops. Chaosslices through all that with a white hot narrative that I literally could not put down. The decision to put O’Neil, the beleaguered journalist who misses deadline after deadline as the story mushrooms into an obsession, in the center of the story was a stroke of genius. It turns O’Neil into a detective of sorts, one who turns up clues that others miss, chases down leads that others would prefer remain hidden, and cobbles together the story in a metafictional manner right in front of the reader’s eyes. For me, there were many takeaways, but the biggest one is O’Neil’s determination. Even though he went years thinking he’d failed, he never gave up on the story. I’ve never tackled a subject as broad or as controversial (or as dangerous for that matter) but I think every writer knows what it feels like to get lost in the weeds and feel the book you’ve given so much time and energy to slip away. Chaos is a great reminder that those feelings are exactly that—feelings. The most important thing is the story and faith in that story can lead you out of the darkness.
The card counters in the audience will note that I’ve only discussed 52 books, not 55. I’ve saved the last three for a special installment of
PssSST (Books by Mark Lanegan Edition)
Sing Backwards and Weep (Message from the Underworld)
Leaving California
Devil in a Coma
Not too long ago I briefly discussed on of the poems in Mark Lanegan’s Leaving California. When I talked to Lanegan at his home in Ireland almost a year ago in January of this year, I asked him he was planning a sequel to Sing Backwards and Weep, his gnarly AF memoir of his time as the frontman of Screaming Trees. At first he dismissed the idea, and then like a good salesman he said the poems in Leaving California were his sequel to Sing Backwards and Weep. I bit on his pitch, preordered the book, and read it as soon as it arrived. Leaving California is many things, but it’s not a memoir.
Shortly before the Christmas holiday I was in my favorite bookstore in Belfast: No Alibis. There’s something magical about being in much-loved bookstore around the holidays. Shoppers were plucking books of the shelves and local authors were signing stock. The owner was greeting people and congratulated me on my purchases and he even remembered me from my previous visit many years ago. I was heading toward the checkout when a slim hardcover caught my eye: Devil in a Coma: A Memoir by Mark Lanegan.
Intrigued, I plucked it off the shelf, expecting to find another collection of Lanegan’s autobiographical poetry. While Devil in a Coma does include many poems, most of the writing is prose: short vignettes about his battle with COVID-19. Apparently, a few weeks after we spoke, Lanegan did a face-to-face interviewe by a writer from Belfast and contracted COVID-19. Remember, this was right before the vaccine was widely available. Lanegan was severely ill. He lost his hearing and barely able to move around took a header down a flight of stairs. He was rushed to the hospital, intubated, and placed in a medically induced coma for a period of six weeks. When he came out of the coma he languished for several more weeks but made a remarkable discovery: he could remember everything that happened to him while he was in a coma.
Devil in a Coma is one of the gnarliest accounts of battling COVID-19 I’ve read and like many, I suspect, I’ve read quite a few. What strikes me about Lanegan’s prose however is not the gritty details but the extent to which Lanegan holds himself to account. He engages in real reflection on his recent and distant past, shedding more details about his troubled youth, and coming to terms with who he is today. There’s no goal beyond that. No hope for a better future. No teary-eyed revelations. In Devil in a Coma he comes to terms with who he is in a way that I suspect old friends and bitter enemies alike will recognize as truthful. It’s the portrait of a man standing in front of a mirror and doesn’t like what he sees. The old Lanegan would punch that mirror rather than confront the reality looking back. So would the new one but he’s too weak to do it. Lanegan has no choice to consider his reflection and its many imperfections.
I think a project like Devil in a Coma would be disastrous coming from most writers. For Lanegan, it’s simply the continuation of Sing Backwards and Weep and Leaving California. Fusing the two forms he comes across as a kind of oracle precariously perched on a ledge straddling life and death.
Be safe. Be well. If you have it in you to be a better person next year than you were this year, do that. But whatever you do, hold on. This shitty story is better with you in it. XO
