Welcome to Litsy!

What a strange novel. The ending was ambiguous, but the bulk was about real people navigating life, and what happens when you only listen. The evangelical community was challenging and hypocritical and a good mirror to Pew

Identity. Sense of self. Agender? Very much resonating.

So I was the liturgist at church this morning. At my church, it‘s kind of the opening act for the minister. 😉😊

I‘m not sure how to rate Lacey‘s book about a person found in church. I liked the way she used the fact that Pew didn‘t speak to reflect both the best and worst impulses of church members. I think she meant Pew to be a Christ-like figure, but how she brought their story to an end at the Forgiveness Festival didn‘t work for me.

A stranger appears, found sleeping on a church pew, and is taken in by the insular religious community there. In an effort to uncover who our recalictrant protagonist is, the community members reveal themselves, oftentimes inadvertently. What begins as welcoming turns to suspicion and mistrust as the community prepares for a festival. Lacey writes her story with a gathering menace that recalls the work of Shirley Jackson. A compelling read.

This was so good. Strong southern gothic vibes addressing issues of identity, othering, religious toxicity, and how well we know ourselves and our own motivations. The style in which this is written is very unique too. It reminds me a bit of Rachel Cusk‘s Outline trilogy in that much of the content is written as comments and confessions that are made to the MC (who says almost nothing themselves).

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

This is the very lengthy first line of “Pew” by Catherine Lacey

This book made me sad and mad and disgusted. It‘s so thought provoking.
We know we haven‘t always been fair to everyone. Certainly -no. But we‘ve always been fair to people according to what the definition of fair was at the time.
You know nothing more about the protagonist Pew from the beginning of the book to the end of the book. But you know a lot about the towns people from their reactions to them. Generosity turns to fear and suspicion, ⬇️

Lordy! I need to read this again, but more slowly. How an author does what Lacey did with this story is beyond me. Projections, assumptions, racism, gender, sexism, religion, supposed charity and altruism, compassion, all in a very short book. Thank you to those of you who recommended it. I‘m looking at you in particular @Reggie

This book is amazing! ♥️

So true….

This passage is on pg.9 and the hits just keep on comin‘. This book, THIS BOOK, totally took the kid I used to be, who grew up in church and rough housed him in the best way possible. An unknown person wakes up in the pew of a church during service and gets taken in by a family. It‘s all told by the people who see themselves refracted in this unknown person. It‘s a horror of humanity‘s conscience kind of book. There are some passages that👇🏼

I love this book.

This is a wonderfully strange little novel. A stranger wakes up in a small church in a small community and the congregation take turns figuring out who this person is and how they can help. In short chapters we end up with sharp insights into each person. A story with no plot but many glimpses of human failings, disconnection, weakness, violence and religiosity. A thought provoking book full of unease. 5 stars for me. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

"Sometimes I think that nobody is just one person, that actually we're a bunch of different people and we have to figure out how to get them all to cooperate and fool everyone else into thinking that we're just one person, even though everybody else is doing the same thing."

What‘s the best book you‘ve read so far in 2022?

For me, it is Pew by Catherine Lacey.

February Wrap Up

February favorite: Pew by Catherine Lacey

Friends recommend challenge: Fangs

Dead Silence ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Near the Bone ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Room ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Fangs ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Sound of Gravel ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

None Shall Sleep ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

August ⭐️⭐️

The Changeling ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Yonder ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Ocean State ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Pew ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

My Sister, the Serial Killer ⭐️⭐️⭐️

And Then I Woke Up ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Silence ⭐️

This story is an exceptionally profound look at what lurks underneath the surface of “good” human beings. Superficially, the lines may seem simple, but many of those lines are laced with a profound second meaning. I loved processing what the author was trying to say through all of this.

My full review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4051160103

“It began to seem possible that a person might have pains and thoughts that resisted language and had to be transfigured through an instrument, turned into pure sound, spun into the air, and heard.”

“But what about when you lose someone who is still alive? When you lose track of the person you know within the person they‘ve become - what kind of grief is that?”

“I had known hunger so well and for so long that fullness had been difficult to recognize, but now, faced with all of this, I could hardly eat. Since I had woken up in that pew, the meals had been endless and I wished I could have reached back and given one of them to those days of hunger in the past…”

“Perhaps an honest feeling will always find a way to force itself through, an objector crying out in a crowd, hoping someone will hear.”

Ended my reading year on a high note. Southern gothic vibes with a dash of Shirley Jackson‘s The Lottery. Thought-provoking and mildly creepy.

This book uses a character who refuses to conform to rules and expectations to tell a story about how well evil can be cloaked in “goodness.” It made me feel a little Flannery O‘Connor and a little Shirley Jackson and I really liked it. I think it‘s also loosely based on the story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.”

Having a chill Sunday evening. I‘ve had this book on hold since July 2020 when it came out, and finally the right time has come. I‘ve put this off for too long! Also wow that deliver later button is a life saver !!

Pew is a brief novel about insular communities, and the ways we seek to understand. Lacey explores the concept of categorisation and the role it plays in our social structures and relationships. It‘s a story that‘s clearly been influenced by Le Guin‘s ‘The Ones That Walk Away from Omelas‘ and Jackson‘s ‘The Lottery‘. At times these references were a little too close for me, and so this story didn‘t offer me enough that was new.

Yeah this is going to be the goods

I loved this bizarre, thoughtful little book about a person of no particular race or gender, who does not speak, who is found sleeping in a church. I liked how Pew was never pinned down, and how the way they inspired people to confess to them felt so natural and didn‘t need explaining. The whole community was beautifully sketched in, subtle and not a word out of place.

December 7: Cut by Catherine Lacey. Story published in the New Yorker

We meet a middle aged woman as she interacts with her husband, friends and students.

“Menstruation, for instance. Humanity should have solved that one by now, but instead had just ignored it, like dishes in the sink, for thousands of years.”

This was the first story by a woman and my favorite so far.

When an individual of ambiguous race, age and gender is found sleeping on a church pew in a small, secluded town in the American south, they are taken in and given shelter by a family whose first reactions to the stranger are curiosity and empathy. When their silence lasts for days, with the town Festival (mysterious in itself..) approaching, the community grows impatient and our quickness to judge others and need for labels become apparent...

My dear friend sent me a gift card to Jenny Lawson‘s Nowhere Books! All my spoils arrived today! Is there a word for wanting to read every book at once?

‘Pew‘ whose gender, race and age are unknown, is found sleeping in a church by the god-fearing residents of small Southern town. Welcomed under their protective wing as they plan for an ominous festival, Pew‘s muteness leads the townsfolk to fill the silence with their confessions and secrets. But soon their openness and kindness turns to suspicion and fear. The story is unsettling, the writing beautifully haunting and really got under my skin.

@TheAromaofBooks Here are my #bookspin and #doublespin choices. Super excited about both! 💕

July reads. Always my best month of reading every year ❤. Everything was good this month too! I literally rated every single one 4 or 5 stars on Goodreads and only a couple were 3.5 rounded up.

#weeklyforecast @Cinfhen

In Progress....
- finish up my Fleishman re-read on audio for a bookclub on Zoom Wednesday

Up next....
- Two on the left for #popsummer20
- the well-travelled ‘Before the Coffee gets cold‘ is up soon, so I can send it on to the next lucky Litten
- The hardcover of Pew is so beautiful I couldn‘t resist, and the story sounds intriguing

I've been absentee for awhile but going to try update more regularly again. Tonight I'm reading Pew, a quite experimental lit fic. Narrator of unknown gender, race, age, background finds themself in a deeply religious small town after being discovered sleeping in a church pew. Not super far in but has all the feel of a magic realism parable without anything I can point to that is ACTUALLY magic realism. I'm quite enjoying this though.

Yay! In bookstores and libraries today!!

https://wellreadneck.wordpress.com/2020/07/21/pew-catherine-lacey/

I so love Catherine Lacey‘s novels and this one is no exception. This was the rare book that I received an ARC from both #Edelweiss and #netgalley (as a result of my mismanagement of requests really) #ARC

This has been my favorite read of 2020 so far! It was beautifully written and I can't wait to buy a copy so I can mark some of the lovely quotes/passages. I do think it will not be for everyone's tastes, there is a lot of ambiguity (both in the main character Pew and in what you take away from the story). I loved the mystery of Pew and being drawn into the mind of a character, yet not knowing their gender, race or age. Thanks to #netgalley for ARC