Deborah Markus > Recent Status Updates

"To speak broadly, the troubles of life as we find them are mainly traceable to the heart or the purse."

I mean, she's not wrong...

"What we do, as well as what is done to us, makes us what we are."

This book shows Gilman at her best and her worst.

...actually, ALL of Gilman's books show her at her best and her worst. I've seen her bring quotable wisdom and hideous ableism in the same sentence.

More about that later.

"She [Harper Lee's sister Alice] did the work of six strapping men," Nelle told me. Alice practiced law, Nelle said, "sweetly, quietly, and lethally."

Dear Author: Please make your whole book like this. Give us gems we won't find elsewhere, and don't bog them down with long boring anecdotes about your struggles to get your radio to receive NPR in your new house.

It's too late for that, you say? Oh.

Hoping to have more time to chat about books soon. For now, here's a nice bitter list for my autistic friends and any sympathetic neurotypical allies.

https://aphantasticwritercom.wordpres...

"My great-aunt kept chairs the way some people keep cats."

The first time I read this sentence, I thought she meant it the other way around. This is the kind of seemingly effortless comparison I'm delighted by and killingly envious of.

"When I return to my great-aunt's house with her ashes, the air feels uncertain, as if it doesn't know how to deal with me."

This novel is starting out to be one of those books my family wishes I wouldn't read because I keep wanting to quote funny and/or wonderful passages out loud.

Dear Neurotypical Parents and Stepparents:

Please stop being jerks about autistic people.

Sincerely,
The rest of us

https://aphantasticwritercom.wordpres...

just a blog post about elephants and aphantasia. you know, THAT old story.

https://aphantasticwritercom.wordpres...

New blog post + cute picture of an adorable coyote I saw yesterday!

https://aphantasticwritercom.wordpres...

Never read the comments.

...or, read the comments and then scream about them. Your choice.

https://aphantasticwritercom.wordpres...

A little disorderly conduct on my blog today.

https://aphantasticwritercom.wordpres...

I just got two friend requests where the answer to my question "why would you like to be friends with me?" is "Hi" followed by a six-digit number. The same one. Anyone else getting anything like this?

I started a blog called Aphantastic Writer. It may be a little bitter.

https://aphantasticwritercom.wordpres...

Me: This year, I want to try to finish the books I started last year!

Me: Okay: "The New Jim Crow," by Michelle Alexander; that big biography of the Brontës; "The Confidence Man," by Melville; that book about "The Great Gatsby" -- I think it's called "So We Read On" --

My conscience: "Melania And Me."

Me: wait WHAT

My memory (checking): You heard the author interviewed and thought she sounded "sad."

Me: #%&$

I guess I was feeling way too good about myself plus the world isn't terrifying enough these days...anyway, I just started querying agents.

YOU GUYS my local library just closed for at least two weeks that's cruel and unusual even for a pandemic

Fer realz: I'm not taking this lightly. I hope y'all are well. Our city just had its first confirmed case, so I'm an indoor kitty now other than necessary errands and occasional lone jogs.

But I swear I started to panic like never before when I got the alert about the library. It felt like the end of the world.

A sound downstairs.

It's quiet, just a low roll. Possibly the house settling.

"Wait," I say to Ed.

Then, clearly, a dry cough, a grunt.

Someone is in my kitchen.

"I have to go," I say to Ed.

I thought that this only struck me as bizarre because as a woman my impulse would be to STAY ON THE PHONE if you think you're in danger. Or only hang up to call 911.

However, my husband and son said the same. So...

So: why is Anna agoraphobic?

"Trauma. Same as anyone."

Seriously?

Um. NO.

People can be agoraphobic for a LOT of reasons. I know a lot of people on the spectrum who are agoraphobic because spectrum. I've struggled with agoraphobia myself.

Not all traumas lead to agoraphobia and not all agoraphobia is trauma-induced.

As this character ought to know, given that she's a THERAPIST.

sheesh

"Hey, when's your birthday?"

"You going to buy me something?"

"Easy there."

"Coming up, actually," I say.

"So's mine."

"November eleventh."

She gawks. "That's my birthday, too."

This isn't a scene from a preteen slumber party. These are two women in their thirties who've barely met. That first sentence is the beginning of a conversation. Because, you know. That's how humans talk.

(smh)

She wears a butter-yellow sweater that exposes a terse slit of cleavage;

Oh, no. Please, no. Stop.

her locket dangles there, a mountaineer above a gorge.

FOR THE LOVE OF MAUD STOP WRITING LIKE THIS

"Sometimes I've got too many thoughts at once. It's like there's a four-way intersection in my brain where everyone's trying to go at the same time."

I actually really like this line. That's nicely put. And I can relate.

Is it too late to ask the author to write the whole rest of the book this well?

(Spoiler: yes.)

Good news re COVID-19 and washing your hands again and again and again and again and again: you can use any temperature of water that's comfortable for you. Unless the water is actually hot enough to scald the skin right off you, hot water isn't any better than warm or cold. (Yes, this is in response to yet more misinformation going around. No, I'm not bitter.)

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/he...

An update is going around that in response to COVID-19, if you can't purchase hand sanitizer, you can make some yourself. And just use vodka if you can't get isopropyl alcohol!

Yeah. Um. NO.

Details in my comments below, but please read this short article with actual science in it, not that I'm bitter or anything.

https://www.newsweek.com/how-make-han...

She purses her lips again. Very active mouth, I notice.

OH GAWD DON'T EVER SAY THAT AGAIN

She turns to the television, furrows her brow.

"What are you watching? A black-and-white movie?" Baffled.

Oh, for the love.

We get it! You're a fan of old movies! Because you're special! You're SO special, people are "baffled" by the things you enjoy! I mean, who's even HEARD of black-and-white movies? I'm surprised this woman even knew what they're called!

(sigh)

Me: So where are you in the book?

Spouse (who's been reading along a little behind me): Oh, I'm at the part where she's about to go outside to faint.

Me: ...okay, I've been trying not to feed you any spoilers...

S: It just seems safe to assume. That's the author's fault, not yours.

Me: Fair enough.

Anna is doing online searches of ex-patients. She's looking at pictures of their families and greedily learning every fact possible about their personal lives.

These patients are young children.

"He really ought to activate some privacy settings," she thinks to herself about one.

The author describes her as "swollen with longing" as she does her "research."

More and more, this book is the wrong kind of creepy.

"What sort of movies?" he asks.

"Mostly old ones."

"Like, black-and-white?"

"Mostly black-and-white."

"I've never seen a black-and-white movie."

I make full moons of my eyes. "You're in for a treat. All the best movies are black-and-white."

And all the best books use the same phrase four times in rapid succession.

Probably just a coinky-dinky, but the Kindle edition of this book on the 1918 pandemic just went on sale for $2.99 (today only).

https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin...

Frantic, Polanski's ode to the master

So a woman -- a 38-year-old woman -- a woman who is a therapist who specializes in helping troubled and traumatized children -- THIS woman can mention Polanski as if he's a neutral subject? As if while he's still alive we can focus solely on his work?

I think the fact that this author is male keeps showing itself in some troubling ways.