As someone who has lived a good bit of her life in the Southern United States, I realized early on that I’m a bit of an outlier in my political leanings. Though I proudly claim to be a Democratic Socialist, I quite often get pushback from even my more progressive friends as to what that means. When I saw Answering Back by David Coates in my local used book store, I snatched it up, in hopes it would help me to be more clear about my […]
What is Art? Everyone’s favorite transvestite Turner Prize winner explains.
Grayson Perry has always been one of my favorite artists. I’ve admired his work, from his pre-Turner Prize days and felt a kinship to his interesting attempts to take ugly subject matter (poverty, drug addiction) and turn it into intimate and beautiful decoration on his masterful ceramic pottery. Who Are You?, his recent exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, (as well as a 4-part series on Channel 4) was one of the highlights of my last visit to London. Playing to the Gallery is a […]
Southern gothic, done right.
I am often wary of Southern Gothic novels. I am a Southerner by birth, but often feel my southernness is buried deep in my psyche in a way that allows me to understand southern ways of thinking and doing, but I rarely think or do things that way myself. Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin spoke eloquently to my inner Southerner and I enjoyed every minute of reading it. Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter pretends to be a mystery story, but is really a story […]
The Italian police are just the worst.
I picked up The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi several times at my local used book store and the library before I actually bought it. The cover, which depicts a Renaissance sculpture, suggests that the “True Story” takes place at that time. In reality, the Monster of Florence murders occurred between 1968 and 1985, and were never solved. The scandalous killings of 16 people, each involved couples, murdered at local trysting spots amongst the hillsides around the city of Florence. Both […]