How do we tell our own story? What are the lies we tell ourselves? How do we change the narrative?
In this memoir, Casey Parks unpacks growing up gay in the rural south, navigating a challenging relationship with her on-again, off-again addict mother, and unraveling the mystery of Roy Hudgins, a self-proclaimed misfit whose life challenged every preconceived notion about the south.
Diary of a Misfit is a deeply honest and sometimes uncomfortably revelatory memoir deeply rooted in place, and I loved it, especially the audiobook, read by the author. I’m working on my own memoir now, and Parks’ example inspires me to lean into the parts of my own story that hurt the most.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2022 by The Washington Post, Boston Globe, Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, New York Public Library, Minneapolis Star Tribune
Part memoir, part sweeping journalistic saga: As Casey Parks follows the mystery of a stranger's past, she is forced to reckon with her own sexuality, her fraught Southern identity, her tortured yet loving relationship with her mother, and the complicated role of faith in her life.
"Most moving is Parks’s depiction of a queer lineage, her assertion of an ancestry of outcasts, a tapestry of fellow misfits into which the marginalized will always, for better or…
Still True is an intimate novel that beautifully depicts the complex web of relationships in a small community.
It has many of the things I love best in fiction: a multigenerational cast of characters, a richly realized setting replete with unforgettable details, and deep empathy from the author. Painful things happen in this book, people hurt each other, and yet there is no villain, only the heart-aching reality of being imperfect humans in a world.
Ginsberg’s writing is lush and gorgeous, and I’m never going to forget the image of Lib running through a rainstorm in her nightgown—independent, fierce, and elemental just like this book.
One summer evening, Lib Hanson is confronted by her painful past when Matt Marlow, the forty-year-old son she abandoned as an infant, shows up on her porch. Fiercely independent, Lib has never revealed her son's existence-or her previous marriage-to her husband, Jack. Married nearly three decades but living in separate houses (to the confusion but acceptance of their neighbors), they enjoy an ease and comfort together in small-town Anthem, Wisconsin. But Jack is a stickler for honesty, and Lib's long-dormant secret threatens to unravel their lives.
When ten-year-old Charlie Taylor arrives at Jack's workshop shortly thereafter, he's not the first…
I’ve had Grand Canyon under my skin since 2022, when I took a twenty-one-day raft trip from Lee’s Ferry to Pearce Ferry.
I felt an instant kinship with female botanists Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter, whose real-life adventures unfold in Brave the Wild River. Like them, I’m a scientist. Like them, I’ve had to deal with sexism in my profession as well as on the river. Like them, I was utterly captivated by the surreal beauty of the region.
This book is top-notch science writing and rip-roaring storytelling. Sevigny delights with vivid descriptions of whitewater, natural history, and geology. She takes great care to present Indigenous perspectives and to frame the explorations of white men in the American West in the context of colonization.
In the summer of 1938, botanists Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter set off down the Colorado River, accompanied by an ambitious expedition leader and three amateur boatmen. With its churning rapids, sheer cliffs and boat-shattering boulders, the Colorado River was famed as the most dangerous river in the world. But for Clover and Jotter, it held a tantalising appeal: no one had surveyed the Grand Canyon's plants, and they were determined to be the first.
Through the vibrant letters and diaries of the two women, science journalist Melissa L. Sevigny traces their forty-three-day journey, during which they ran rapids, chased…
Jessie Vale dances in an elite ballet program. She has to be perfect to land a spot with the professional company. When Jessie is cast in an animalistic avant-garde production, her careful composure cracks wide open.
Meanwhile, her friend Dawn McCormick’s world is full of holes. She wakes in strange places, bruised, battered, and unable to speak. The doctors are out of ideas.
These childhood friends are both running out of time. At every turn, they crash into the many ways girls are watched, judged, used, and discarded. Should they play it safe or go feral?
