What I’m Reading:
It is not often that I allow myself to get lost in a novel, so this week’s selection was a special delight. While I am not quite finished, I made my way through much of David Santos Donaldson’s debut novel Greenland, a novel-within-a-novel about queer forbidden love that crosses racial and socio-economic lines.
In it, narrator Kip Starling has locked himself in his basement with nothing but his laptop, a revolver, water, and saltine crackers for a period of three weeks to finish the novel he is writing about Mohammed el-Adl, the young Egyptian lover to well-known British author E.M. Forester.
In the house proper lives Ben, Kip’s older, white, more successful husband. In the process of writing Mohammed’s story, Kip comes face-to-face with the dynamics of his own failing relationship—Ben has recently asked for a divorce—and he comes to recognize himself in Mohammed.
They say that every novel is a confession of the author; Donaldson pushes this idea to its limits as Kip and Mohammed’s stories converge.
What I’m Thinking About:
As I read the book, one of the things that jumped out at me was the very real—very human—desire to be seen for who and what we are.
Early in the book, Kip discusses the widely replicated 1975 Tronick Study (better known as The Still Face Experiment). In it, mothers meet all their babies’ attempts at connection and recognition with a “still face,” one absent of any emotionality. They look at their babies, but they don’t see them. In both the original and follow-up studies, the babies became very distressed by this lack of reciprocity, to the point of inconsolability.
Kip points out that this response isn’t particular to babies. “If we are not recognized by those who we need, we lose our shit,” he says. “As adults, we don’t show it like babies do. We’ve developed strategies—just as many of the babies in the Tronick study eventually did—to disguise or busy our unbearable pain. But even as grown-ups, we are no different—the pain of not being seen is still unbearable. We need to know we exist, that we matter.”
It is not surprising, then, that in the book he’s writing, Kip describes falling in love as an intense experience of being seen. He tells the story of one of Mohammad and E.M.’s early encounters like this: “[E.M.] finally smiled and said I was the most beautiful person he had ever laid eyes on. He said he’d be happy to look at me forever. He didn’t try to touch me at all; he just saw me, and kept on seeing me. It was the best day of my life.”
Since reading that passage, I have been thinking about the many ways that we are trained to hide our sexual desires from a culture that shames us, partners who may disapprove of or fear them, and from ourselves.
I have also been thinking about the unique opportunity that the sex work session provides to take our masks off and be seen—really seen—outside of the confines of respectability. I’m still thinking through what this means (musing on it, if you will) but I feel like I’ve been fortunate enough in this work to both see and be seen and that these experiences have been profound.
What I’m Excited About:
After a rare month of no work travel, I will be making up for lost time this month. I’m very excited to be visiting three cities in August: Buffalo, New York City, and Philadelphia. It will be a fun mix of good food, live shows, intellectual engagement, and sensual delight (all my favorite things!).
I’ll be driving to all these destinations (evidently August is road trip month!), so if you have any recommendations for audio books or good podcasts, please reach out and share them with me!
Booking & Availability:
I’ll be in Buffalo today and getting ready for my travels for the rest of the year!
Buffalo, NY | Aug 11-13
NYC | Aug 16-18
Philadelphia, PA | Aug 18-21
Buffalo, NY | Sep 8-10
Cleveland, OH | Sep 21-24
Buffalo, NY | Oct 13-15
Boston, MA | Oct 26-29
Pittsburgh in between
Make sure to check out my complete travel schedule on my website.
