happy pride!

"Everything they do is so dramatic and flamboyant. It just makes me want to set myself on fire."

Thanks Lucille Bluth for that stunningly self-aware reaction to a pride event.

I grew up as a missionary kid in a fundamentalist church where there was a lot of “hate the sin, love the sinner”¹ homophobic language thrown around, and that was like the kindest of their messaging. I really don’t know why homosexuality and gender is the hill so many evangelicals choose to die on; the magnitude of harm they have inflicted is beyond comprehension and I truly cannot grasp the reason behind it other than another classic case of us vs. them-ing that they just can’t stop themselves from doing because it makes them feel special or something. I wish they would just fucking calm down and I’m so thankful that I left that church and mindset far far away behind me.

For a time I attended a church in Seattle that is “affirming”, which I always found to be an odd term that I guess they have to use to set themselves apart from the myriad of other churches because they won’t² deny the basic humanity of anyone not of their ilk?³ It was so eye opening, beautiful and heartening to find these religious spaces celebrating their LGBTQ+ members and local populations. So many in the queer community have suffered at non-affirming churches and the supportive, vulnerable sermons spoken by LGBTQ+ members during these June services (and of course at other times ) really did a number on my emotions and convictions over the years. I’m extremely furious that the “loving” religious background I was raised in is the exact opposite of what it preaches and am still wrestling with all that baggage in regards to church abuse and the violence they’ve done in the name of God/Jesus/Gospel. I wish I had something more encouraging, wise and poignant to say here. Maybe in the future. Right now, I’m fucking angry, sickened and, at this point, often feel that I’m ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater church-wise. Which brings me to Pride!

To celebrate Pride Month, I wanted to highlight a few different books across genres that were written by LGBTQ+ authors⁴ and feature protagonists who also belong to the LGBTQ+ community. Today we’ve got a heartwarming magical tale, a tech world murder mystery and mother and son road trip memoir that all explore sides of the human experience from a queer lens.

Be utterly yourself and read one of these this Pride month, or any month really.

THE HOUSE IN THE CERULEAN SEA by TJ Klune

Linus Baker, a Caseworker regulating orphanages for the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, is happy in his regimented, solitary life. He has his cat and his routine, what else does he need? Everything changes when he is assigned by Extremely Upper Management to investigate and report on a small, “non-traditional” orphanage across the sea, run by the mysterious and handsome Arthur Parnassus. This orphanage houses some unusual children included a female gnome, a blob and the Antichrist⁵. As Linus’s routine and pre-conceived notions are thrown into disarray, he slowly learns how beautiful and lovable the world and its inhabitants are and his eyes are opened to the dangerous stigma and vitriol that has been lobbed at those labeled “other”. When he realizes the true reason he was assigned this case and the dangers his new loved ones are in, he must choose between his old life and the new; between safety and certainty or the unknown and magical possibility.

A fantasy/fairy tale/fable hybrid of sorts, this is all about the treasure of found family and being brave enough to step out of the controlled world you know to embrace curiosity and the unknown. Linus is a sweet, stuck in his ways curmudgeon that we just cannot wait to watch flail outside his lonely, tidy life and get charmed against his will by this island of misfit children and their dedicated caretaker, Arthur. The story is quirky, sentimental and heartwarming but with some true darkness as each character must battle forces both internal and external in their search for safety, acceptance, understanding and love in a world prejudiced and fearful of them. The setting is adorably magical, with the ridiculous delivered quite matter-of-factly and the tone is often humorous, especially when the children’s specific eccentricities come out to play. Linus and Arthur’s romance is a slow, blushing flirtation that steadily grows into tender love with each having their own distinct flaws and conflicts to overcome. I can see this reading as a bit saccharine to some, but I found it a creative, earnest and delightfully enchanting tale of the power of leaving one’s physical and mental comfort zones to find the enriching power of living and loving bigger and wilder instead of subsisting on something less and tamed.

Extra Credit: We’ve got a sequel coming this Fall! Somewhere Beyond the Sea is Arthur’s story publishing in September.

"Aren't you curious?"

Linus shook his head. "I can't be curious."

Mr. Parnassus looked surprised. "Why is that?"

"It does me no good. Facts, Mr. Parnassus. I deal in facts. Curiosities lead to flights of fancy, and I can't afford to be distracted."

"I can't imagine a life lived in such a way," Mr. Parnassus said quietly. "It sounds like no life lived at all."

THE VERIFIERS by Jane Pek

Claudia Lin is pulled in many directions, and yet is still directionless. She’s come out to her siblings (via the group chat) but not her mom, though she tests the waters there with various small rebellions as she pushes her way out of the model minority box her mom attempts to confine her inside. When she begins working for Veracity, an online dating detective agency, she’s finally able to combine her instincts for romance (her thesis was on Jane Austen) and detecting (she’s obsessed with the Inspector Yuan series) and it’s all fun and games until someone winds up dead. Teaming up with her intimidatingly hot and aloof colleague Becks, she must use all her wits, instincts and bravery to uncover a dangerous conspiracy and hopefully assemble the courage to finally live her life on her own terms. That is, if she makes it out of this alive.

This is a millennial murder mystery, family drama, tech thriller and modern dating commentary with a terrifically flawed and relatable heroine. It has your typical mystery tropes (stakeouts, mistaken identity, research rabbit holes and just a smattering of breaking and entering) framed inside the world of millennial malaise and the trials and tribulations of online dating which is clever and insightful with satirical elements. I loved Claudia’s character as she is realistic, funny, resourceful, smart and yet quite stupid at times and her playing it cool attraction to Becks was adorably awkward and charming. Also, I’m a sucker for a literature obsessed heroine searching for her identity. I enjoyed the mystery but also the family elements; her relationships with her siblings and mom are full of messy baggage and deep love which twine together with Claudia’s investigation into the mystery and her own psyche.

Extra Credit #1: This wrapped up neatly but did leave the door open for more story so I was pleasantly surprised to see its sequel, The Rivals, is coming out this December.

Extra Credit #2: This thoughtful LitHub essay: Reading Myself Into, and Beyond, Pride and Prejudice - Jane Pek on the Freedom of Choice in Love and Marriage

I know Becks thinks I'm Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey, hyperventilating over my own imagination. But. What if I'm Jane Eyre and there is a crazy person banging around in the attic?

MOTHER, NATURE by Jedidiah Jenkins

Keenly aware that his mother will not be around forever and hoping to connect deeper in spite of their differences, Jedidiah Jenkins decides to take his religiously conservative mother on a road trip. This trip will, by car, retrace the walk across America she did almost 40 years ago allowing them to revisit the locations and her memories of this time and serve as the setting for the answer to a question that Jedidiah has been avoiding since coming out as gay in a strongly worded email years before: when he eventually gets married to a man, will she come to his wedding?

I first encountered Jenkins when I listened his memoir To Shake the Sleeping Self, where he recounts his bike journey from Oregon to Patagonia. His religious upbringing and subsequent deconstruction⁶ is a familiar one so I was eager to catch up with him again. This is another story framed within a journey, but this time much less physically strenuous and decidedly not solo. The writing is fairly simplistic, earnest and adequately descriptive but this is stronger in its themes of connection, self-reflection and identity then in its writing style/prose. I very much identified with Jenkins’s evolution of faith coupled with his commitment to his mom and found common ground in many of his frustrations and lines of thinking. I’m often doing this wrestling and mental gymnastics myself with various people for various reasons; its quite tiring but (sometimes) worth the angst though it won’t ever be wrapped up in a nice neat bow. Especially with parents! How can we be in like our mid-late 30s but still feel like a kid!? Does that ever change? How to keep a relationship when major ideological differences pull you apart and should you even try? Can they/we have difficult, uncomfortable conversations and really listen and respect the other to end up with a stronger dynamic? One can hope. There were a few email exchanges in here that I totally felt a kinship with, especially the parts about the harms inflicted by the evangelical church and the dangerous idolization of the Bible.

Jenkins’s mom, Barbara, is a fascinating, multi-layered person and I appreciated the grace and honesty in the way he writes about her and their relationship. Her stories of her walk are incredible⁷ and her exuberant energy, friendly nature, lust for travel, constant photo taking, love for international dramas and sporadic topic flitting reminded me of my own mother which made me smile while listening. Also while listening I had to stop my walk to laugh out loud at her descriptions of the Glen Beck cruise she tries cajole him into joining. Laugh crying emoji. Full of sweet, frustrating and complicated conversations and interactions, this also included some engaging characters and setups along their route and is full of charmingly human idiosyncrasies. Jenkins is plagued by his mother’s lack of acceptance of his full self, but chooses to commit to a relationship with her while also enforcing some strict boundaries in line with his own convictions which can feel quite emotional to hear/read about; I can imagine most especially for others in the LGBTQ+ community who were raised in non-affirming faith traditions and seek to leave those hurtful, dismissive and often cruel environments behind.

I felt there wasn’t quite enough story to flesh this out as there’s some random extra filler in spots; he describes in too much detail the topics of the podcasts they listen to on the drive like DB Cooper, feral pigs, Butch Cassidy etc. But, I enjoyed his sense of humor, his kindness and grace as he fumbles his way to deepening his relationship with his mother and the dry, mildly petulant and self-deprecating voice he uses when being ornery and argumentative.⁸ A short, meaningful and very personal yet also at times fairly universal human journey.

“When Mom says “bong,” she means her nebulizer. It turns water into vapor, and she huffs it all day like a singer breathing hot mist before a performance… “Let’s get some colloidal silver in those lungs,” she says. Second to prayer, colloidal silver is Mom’s insurance policy on life. She makes her own, soaking two silver rods in a glass vat of water that sits next to her kitchen sink. I’ll let her explain it.

This is from one of her emails telling me how to live forever: “I use distilled water and 99% pure silver rods. The rods are connected to a positive and negative charge (think of a jumper cable for your car) and they are immersed in the distilled water. Some people leave the rods in the water 2–4 hours. I leave mine in for 8–12 hours so my silver water is extra strength and powerful…I drink ¼ cup colloidal silver in a glass of water before bed, and have for years and years. RARELY am I ever sick. I take a bottle of colloidal silver on every trip (especially overseas) in case I pick up a stomach bug or am around anyone who is sick. I use it on wounds, use it for pink eye, ear infections, the flu, and more because it kills over 600 viruses and most bacteria, including MRSA. There are also studies that show the benefits of colloidal silver against cancer.”

Every time I’m home, she gives me a bottle of the stuff to take back to Los Angeles. I, like a good millennial, googled its effectiveness. The scientific establishment seems to believe that colloidal silver does approximately nothing good, and in large quantities, some bad.

Have you read any of these? What did you think? What books would you add to this list? TELL US

1. srsly, wtf

2. like “a frozen banana that WON'T make you sick and kill you” type thing

3. you know that ilk; white, straight, cis-gender, mostly male

4. according to what i found on the internet on how they described themselves

5. nicknamed lucy, short for lucifer, of course

6. i know its an annoying term, but its useful

7. she wrote a few of her own books about the experience

8. i absorbed this in audio format and the author reads it