Chapter Seven: Homeward for the Holidays

Hello!

This week we discovered that each of us has invented our own, somewhat unorthodox, holiday traditions. More on that below, and also:

• our fave books from other small presses

• advice from Madame Bernarde l’Hermite

• a peek at our second book

Perhaps you celebrate Christmas, simply enjoy the time off, or don’t have holidays at all. Perhaps you wish to remind us that the New Year is in February. We at Homeward encourage you to pursue whatever floats your boat. For us, that involves:

Rebekah, who always tries to dodge Christmas, is going camping at a remote beach with a crew of tent neighbors who’ve been meeting there for seven years. She recently relinquished the role of Camp Dad to her friend Kate, who proved herself more dad by listening to a cricket match on the radio for hours.

Lara is firmly not hosting anyone—except for the guests of her infamous holiday party, which is always themed around a film. This year it’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service—thanks to its bonkers Christmas scene at a revolving restaurant on top of a Swiss Alp. (The gifts are bioweapons. Obviously!)

Huw will be hosting his Getting Old But Still Able to Fit My College Leather Pants party, which is held annually in response to the people who told him, “You will never wear those leather pants again!” when he was an undergraduate. He proves them wrong them every year on his birthday. (It’s his birthday.)

Rachel has participated in two of these holiday traditions already. She hasn’t been to the Leather Pants party, but this year, she might make it. Her thing is to spend the New Year adjacent to a body of water, and luckily, since she is not very fussy, there are plenty of them.

With esteem,

Rebekah, Lara, Rachel, and Huw

Our favourite books from other small presses

We think small presses publish the most daring, the most interesting books! Here are some we’ve enjoyed lately:

Lara keeps raving about The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt, from longstanding independent publisher New Directions. You might recognise DeWitt’s name from The Last Samurai or her weirdo co-authored novel Your Name Here, which took the bookstore world by surprise earlier this year. This one is more of a tasty snack than a robust multi-course meal, but it’s a very sophisticated snack.

If you’re in the UK, Silver Press has been republishing some of Ursula Le Guin’s works: Rebekah recommends Space Crone, a collection of short fiction and non-fiction. There’s also a lovely new edition of Steering the Craft, advice and exercises for writers.

Hagfish is a fabulous new press started by two friends of Homeward (and FSG alums). Rachel has been procrastinating on her grading by sneaking pages from their first book, To Smithereens by Rosalyn Drexler (weirdos; bad behavior; outré plots; the Egyptian Books of the Dead in a handbag). She’s looking forward to their second book, Man Hating Psycho by Iphgenia Baal.

Small Beer Press publishes the best collections of speculative short fiction around. Two particularly excellent ones are Jeffrey Ford’s Big Dark Hole, an obscure fave, and Sofia Samatar’s Tender—which, like much of Samatar’s work, is deeply involved with the questions of who’s telling this story anyway and why.

Also from New Directions comes Olga Ravn’s The Wax Child (gorgeously translated from Danish by Martin Aitkin). It follows the prosecution for witchcraft of five 17th-century Danish women—the spells and hexes it contains are extracted from actual grimoires and letters—and it’s unnervingly successful at portraying characters who are simultaneously both very other to our daily encounters and immediately relatable as fearing, hoping, breathing humans.

Some methods for avoiding difficult conversations with relatives

Games. The key is games. Chat pleasantly with an assured topic in place!

Make everyone play the Hidden Books Game, the annual creation of a UK bookselling organisation. (Yep, it’s an ad. For books.) It’s also so difficult that Rebekah doesn’t know anyone who’s been able to complete it without hints. But maybe you can!

What about a quiz? Everybody loves a quiz! What about the iconic Good Weekend Quiz from the Sydney Morning Herald? It’s satisfyingly international with the occasional trick Australian question thrown in. (Sample: ‘Match the warlord to the Mad Max film.’)

Board games. You will spend so long figuring out the rules of Wingspan that sheer concentration will preclude the need for conversation. And you get to learn about birds. (There’s a dragon version, Wyrmspan, if you don’t like birds.)

An oldie but a goodie: Geoguessr. Works really well on siblings. And when you’re defeated by it, you also have the opportunity to become transfixed by YouTube videos of the guy who is really, really good at Geoguessr.

The return of Madame Bernarde l’Hermite

Our first run at tote bags didn’t fully satisfy us, so we’ve printed more and better ones. Soon, you will even be able to buy them!

In the meantime, Mme. Bernarde, the hermit crab depicted above, is poised to dispense advice. You can reach her at [email protected].

Dear Bored in Baltimore.

First, I assume that you wish (despite its obvious failings) to retain your current job, and unlike me, you are not a hermit crab (if I am mistaken in the latter, and you are, in fact, a hermit crab, the solution is simple: keep the book open but safely out of sight, just inside the lip of your shell, and while attentively devoting one eyestalk to the meeting, direct the other toward the book; should anyone stoop to comment on your ocular dysalignment, fail not to remind them that such attention to the postural preferences of others is neither pertinent nor polite).

Now, assumptions acknowledged, allow me to express my heartfelt condolences: no one should ever be discouraged from reading—much less bringing—a book anywhere. In the face of such blatant oppression, I recommend solidarity and collective action: If your workforce is already unionized, call a meeting to urge all members to boldly carry books with them into every meeting that they attend (if you don't have a union, then it's time to organize and form one!)

If, however, you prefer a subtler approach, you might consider sowing the seeds of change, as it were, within the core of the conundrum: give your boss books—books so irresistible that said boss will a) cancel future meetings in favor of quiet group reading sessions, b) find inspiration to imbue meetings with such compelling literary qualities that they no longer bore you, or c) fire you for harassment (in which case you'll be free to read all the books you like).

Best of luck with all of the above, and as always, when in doubt, read a book!

Bien cordialement,

Mme. l'Hermite

For the first time, Jade Yeo takes physical form

Boxes of advanced review copies of The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo arrived at Rachel’s house last week! This isn’t the actual cover of the book, simply an early version: these will be winging their way to booksellers and reviewers in the near future.

You are a bookseller or reviewer? Please email us at [email protected] to request a copy!