Culture Consumption: December 2022

Hi, lovelies. Here’s my month in books, movies, television, and games.

Books

Brom’s Slewfoot is from the start just a pretty book to look at — the cover and illustrations within (all done by Brom) being gorgeous images of the fantastical.  The story itself is also richly told.  Abitha is a spirited young Englishwoman balking against the constraints of the Puritan society, where she is expected to be a demure wife and do as she is told. When her husband suddenly dies under uncanny circumstances, she is left alone and without his protection. However, something else lurks in the woods, something dangerous and unsettling and beautiful — and it may be the key to either her freedom or her damnation.

Slewfoot explores the constraints and hard-fought freedoms of a woman living in Puritanical America. Abitha fights hard for what is rightly hers as she navigates the rocky waters of her reality. I love her as a characters — and I equally love the strange creatures that lurk in her woods.

I will definitely be acquiring and reading more work from Brom.

15 Ways to Stay Alive by Daphne Gottlieb uses a mixture of found and original poetry to explore “broken hearts, scattered dreams, postpunk politics.” With gritty and vivid imagery, these poems explore survival and healing on both a personal and communal level.

“A map of the ground is writing itself
on my ankle, hip, knee; gravity’s kiss
in blackening my ribs. There is nothing
broken, they say, except the ride.

We are all alive, they say,
we should all be grateful.
We should not get lawyers.”

— from “after the midway ride collapsed” by Daphne Gotlieb

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