Of the Week: Mourning Keeps Me Alive
Of the Week: Mourning Keeps Me Alive
New interview and what I'm reading and cooking
In January, I spoke with Diego Gerard Morrison about his new novel Pages of Mourning (Two Dollar Radio) and our conversation was published in BOMB earlier this week. Please give it a read and consider buying Diego’s book, I really was moved by it and marveled at how it plays with form.
Here’s the intro I wrote:
In Diego Gerard Morrison's latest novel, Pages of Mourning (Two Dollar Radio), we travel from Mexico City to Comala and circle around the inner lives of Aureliano, a struggling writer, his aunt, and his father. They are all mourning Aureliano's mother, who disappeared when he was young. In different ways, they each ask, What do I do when closure seems impossible?
Pages of Mourning is also a metafiction about the struggles of writing a novel, having a love/hate relationship with a genre (in this case, magical realism), and participating in a competitive literary community. He uses magical realism to delve into themes of mourning, disappearance, and the ambiguity of death in the context of Mexico's ongoing crisis of forced disappearances. Although he remains somewhat skeptical of magical realism as a genre, he expresses a fascination with Juan Rulfo's Pedro Paramo and its ability to give voice to the forgotten dead. Through this, Morrison asks us to consider how synchronicity—which can feel like magic—is generative both in life and in writing.
The timing of the interview coming out is eerie to me, slightly, as I’m deep in the throes of early grief and seeing signs everywhere. Diego’s book is many things, and one that stayed closest to my heart is that it shows what happens when we can’t mourn (because we don’t know if our loved one is alive or dead, as is the case with forced disappearances in Mexico) or don’t mourn (because we’re avoiding death.) The book makes a compelling invitation and encouragement to embrace mourning in all of its forms.
Reading
I finished Food in Cuba: The Pursuit of a Decent Meal by Hanna Garth and a day later stumbled upon the exhibit Migration Stories: Arizona Collects Cuban Art at the Phoenix Art Museum. The synchronicity was very much appreciated. Next I’m reading Retail Inequality: Reframing the Food Desert Debate by Kenneth H. Kolb and The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center by Rhaina Cohen. I’m also listening to an audiobook (read by the Patrick Stewart) of The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis and really enjoying revisiting a favorite from my childhood.
Cooking
I made a pot of Flor de Junio beans (sold out now, but there are many other kinds available from Primary Beans) yesterday and ate them with quinoa (that had been in my pantry too long), local kale, and kimchi. It’s getting hot and I’m falling back into my summer cooking patterns — roast vegetables very early or late in the day, cook vegetables quickly in a pan, keep all the lights off. And I’ll be plugging my crock pot in outside soon.
The Good Enough Weekly comes out every Friday, alternating an essay with Of the Week. I also take on freelance editing and writing projects. Reach out if you’re looking for help in those departments — I’ve worked on everything from zines to textbooks. More info here. My zine of adapted Irish fairytales, Desert Pookas, is available for preorder now!
