The Weekly Digest is a weekly (no shit?) update that captures highlights from the week that was. At the end of each week, I share a collection of thoughts, recommendations, and links. Like everything else I write, it's awesome, but it may be too long for email so make sure you click through.
☘️Reinforcin’ O’ the Stereotypes
I took Tuesday off to celebrate the High Holy Day, despite not being religious or having any plans besides drinking Guinness all day. I’ve been into my Irish heritage over the last few years. My family took a trip to Ireland back in 2022, and through a fluke of scheduling I had 2 nights in Dublin by myself before meeting up with my brother and driving across the country to Galway. I felt at home there.
Shortly after that trip, my son was born and things like “heritage” and “legacy” started to take on a more personal meaning.
Of course, when the Whites in this country mention “heritage” what they usually mean is back when they could murder and rape other human beings with impunity because it was good for the economy1. I stayed “plugged in” to all things Irish after my visit and found a central commonality between the Irish people’s innate sense of injustice and what I was thinking and feeling about what those Whites at the top of this paragraph voted for.
Anyways, I had an Irish Coffee read a handful of stories from James Joyce’s Dubliners, and took my family out for dinner, drinks, and (Irish step-) dancing. My Brazilian wife split the G twice. My Kiddo pooped his pants and stole shamrock decorations. It was a fine day, and no Englishmen were harmed2.
📚Book Bits
The Revenant by Michael Punke (Finished)
Good, not great read. Enjoyable but kind of a popcorn novel.
The Unmapping by Denise S. Robbins
Yes, I’m back on my reading-Substack-novels bullshit! I’ll have a full review of this one as per usual for Substack books, but I’ll say that I’ve been struck by how competent and clear the prose is. This is as polished as any literary fiction I’ve read over the past few years.
Embracing Vocation: Cormac McCarthy’s Writing Life, 1959-1974 & Reading the World: Cormac McCarthy’s Tennessee Period by Diane Luce
I find myself alternating between these two books, just reading a couple pages at a time and marveling at the density of the research. It’s impressive in a way that I can barely comprehend, like people who juggle fire.
Dubliners by James Joyce
I read “The Sisters,” “An Encounter” and (of course) “The Dead” on Tuesday, then read a couple more stories on Thursday. This feels like a book that would benefit from a re-reading; there’s a lot of subtlety to what Joyce does in these stories that’s worth plumbing.
Recent Book Haul:
Poor Damned Souls by Charlene Elsby
Edited by your frenemy and mine, Emil Ottoman. I’m excited to dive into this one the next time I need a change of pace from my usual reading.
The Shieldbreaker Saga, Book Two: Holiest of Cities by Tom Schecter (ARC)
Tom was gracious enough to send me an ARC of his latest entry in the Shieldbreaker Saga. You can expect a review of this in the near-ish future, and likely another interview to boot.
Statues to Silence by James Ryan
Review copy as part of The Substack Review (see below 👇).
💡Substack Spotlight:
I mentioned THE SHIELDBREAKER SAGA above; if you’d like to read Book Two: Holiest of Cities it is available for free as a serial on Substack now.
📰Substack Headlines
Timothy Atkinson has launched The Substack Review. This is a project that seeks to pair Substack writers/novelists with readers/reviewers and create a pipeline of discovery for everyone on Substack to discover both writers and reviewers. I’m excited to be a part of this endeavor and will keep you updated on when my first review will go up; I’ve already been assigned my first book by a new-to-me Substack author.
If you’d like to be featured in this section, you know how to find me. And if you don’t, you’ll learn.
🖋️Writing
I’ve been fortunate enough to have time this week. I put a new ink ribbon on my typewriter and knocked out a couple pages of a work-in-progress. Then I spent an hour the next day working through the structure of the story. This is new for me.
My writing - think Red Sky Mourning or Dead Bird - usually comes to me fully formed. There are some minor revisions, and I might allow the writing to meander if I’m feeling it, but most of the time I know what I’m going to write. This is also why what I write is usually Flash Fiction in length. Quick to write, quick to edit, quick to post, quick to read.
I’m working on allowing myself the space to be more expansive, to not just cut-it-down when something isn’t just right. I want badly for this story to be the best I’ve written so far. I don’t think that’s gauche to admit, especially since it will be the work I’ve spent the most time and effort on by… a lot. It feels like a personal hurdle I need to clear; like once this is exorcised, I can devote time to other projects (reviews, non-fiction articles I promised to write, etc.).
I understand, conceptually, that writing - serious writing - takes time and revision and the killing of darlings and/or bottles of whiskey. I have yet to cross this bridge, despite knowing that the work I want to be doing is on the other side.
🌸Fleeting Thoughts
I guess it’s Spring now, or close enough to it. The first quarter of year often feels like this liminal time where the year hasn’t really started yet until you wake up in April and realize you’ve wasted 3 months. Some of this is the shortening of time that comes with working a job, exacerbated if — like me — you work remotely. Add in a young child and your days functionally shorten to a couple hours after dinner. Something about DST “springing forward” has awakened me from a winter malaise. More than anything it’s just seeing the sun. We really are just sentient house plants.
Enjoy this song that’s been stuck in my head:
Stay frosty🤙,
— V
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Nothing has really changed, mind you, they’re just a lot quieter about it now.
For better or worse.
Hell yeah reading the unmapping.... good luck