The Maris Review, vol 31

The scale and scope of the right wing book bans are absolutely not the same as the relatively few cases of book bans from the left. Let’s stop with false equivalencies!

Nov 19, 2024

∙ Paid

Dangerous Fictions: The Fear of Fantasy and the Invention of Reality by Lyta Gold

It’s like this book was made in a lab for me, for right at this moment. Book banning in America was already dramatically on the rise before this past election. As the new regime begins to emerge and Project 2025 threatens to label any queer content as “porn,”, Lyta Gold’s new book is a bit of a balm. Moral panics about books are cyclical, she reminds us. And they are almost always about something else: “While the specific context changes and evolves, the fear of fiction seems to always boil down to the fear of one’s current society and the people who live in it.”

Gold takes us through some of the stories that have been labeled “dangerous” over the years, everything from the romances of the 17th century to fascist novels to D&D in the 1980s and video games today. With wit and moral clarity, Gold argues that books are wonderful but they are actually not that powerful: they don’t have the power to make us bad, and they also don’t have the power to make us good or empathetic or whatever. I don’t always agree with her every thought on a sentence by sentence level, but the overall message is exactly what I needed right now.

Plus, she validates me on an important point: the scale and scope of the right wing book bans are absolutely not the same as the relatively few cases of book bans from the left. Let’s stop with false equivalencies. This is how we got here!

We Solve Murders by Richard Osman

And now for some escapist entertainment. Richard Osman’s new detective series is very fun (it’s often more fun when very rich people are the ones doing the killing or investigating the killing so we can go jet-setting along with them). This one has to do with mid-level influencers and why they keep getting killed. Who’s doing it and why? They couldn’t hurt a fly with 40K followers on Insta! Some of the characters are more convincing than others, but the Danielle Steel-esque romance novelist-turned - detective is absolutely divine.

More good news

Yes, we are feeling a little down these days, so I thought we could all use some reminders about the good stuff that’s (still) happening in the book world.

1. The National Book Awards are on Wednesday.

I won’t be attending this year, but it’s available to watch online (although I still donate each month to the NBF — they do great work beyond the awards). A confession: I’ve only read three out of the five fiction finalists, and zero of the other categories. And you know how diligent I am. Which is only to say that there are so many good books out there.

1a. Less whining this year.

Zibby Books and Book of the Month have pulled out of sponsoring the awards, so there will be no hissy fits about finalists potentially speaking out against genocide like last year. Zibby can instead look out from her beachfront propert and reflect on how books can bring people together no matter who they voted for in the election, or whose father gave Donald Trump millions of dollars because the Democrats were too antisemitic.

2. BlueSky is officially on.

Remember in like 2011 you went on Twitter and found cool, weird stuff and were’n’t harassed by neo-Nazis, bots, or ads for Cheech & Chong’s cannabis gummies? That is BlueSky now. I can see myself, like, building an actual community of people I want to to talk? It’s really nice.

3. We get to read The Dry Season next year.

Melissa Febos can do no wrong.

4. There is very good trashy TV.

Last week I went to a publicity lunch and sat next to a British book scout who told me that all of England was talking about Rivals on Hulu, so I checked it out. It is basically Dynasty but set in the Cotswolds with a lot more nudity. And because someone who works in books recommended it to me, today it counts as good book news.

5. I got a cool new literary hat.