Best of Book Club Books, Part I

With Cultish, Montell promises to finally explain the appeal of cults for some people through language without jargon. She tackles everything from biological survival responses to society’s treatment of the word “cult” and how even that can be detrimental. She interviewed survivors of Jonestown, former members of the 3HO Foundation, and even covers certain fitness programs that have the us vs. them stance and sense of community that many cults have.

I’m not going to lie, this is a tome at around 800 pages. It’s definitely more than my struggle attention span can handle, but I know it’s worth pushing through. Jeffers tells a truer story of America, one that takes into account the mixing of cultures and its duality. This duality presents itself in many ways, one of which was first described at length by the books namesake. The duality Du Bois spoke of, or the “Double Consciousness,” has been inherent to many Black Americans, and isn’t lost on the book’s main character Ailey Pearl. Ailey is named after the famed Black choreographer Alvin Ailey, and her ancestor Pearl, who was a descendent of enslaved people. Ailey’s need to better understand her roots drives the story as she uncovers the truth of her ancestors— who they were, what they did, and what that means for her now— in this sweeping, elegant new American standard.

It’s curious how different parts of history are treated. Objectively, they’re all just what happened, and are no fault of those living now, but some people take offense at what certain parts of history imply. Take for instance, the guard in the Angola museum that Smith spoke to. When asked about what part Angola took in perpetuating slavery, the guide responded ” I can’t change that.” And so, books like this will always be necessary. The simple act of trying to arrive at a solid, undeniable truth is met with denial. Luckily, Smith’s quest to chronicle how specific locations— eight U.S. cities and one city in Senegal— reckon with their role in slavery is told with the grace of a poet.

Growing up, there was distance between Zauner’s mother and her brought about by her mother’s expectations of her, as well as her mother’s inherent otherness. This otherness is something that is commonly felt between the children of immigrants and their parents. With a new country comes a new way to grow up, while parents bring their own rearing from their home countries. The two experiences often clash. Despite this difference, Zauner and her mother bonded over food when they would visit her grandmother in Korea, and the food descriptions here might have you making some bad decisions at 10 p.m. on your food app of choice (jk, any time you’re able to order Korean food at 10 p.m., it’s a good decision).

Zauner is starting to come into her own as a musician just as she starts to feel the Korean aspects of her identity slip away. When her mother is diagnosed with cancer, she seeks to reconnect with that part of herself, and by doing so, her mother. As disease began to ravage her mother’s body, she wished away parts of herself— the parts that had bonded with her mother through food— by not eating. This is a lyrical and honest look at grief and identity, generously peppered with mouthwatering descriptions of food.

This is the perfect story for lovers of stories, as it shows the power of tales told through time. And by time, I mean hundreds of years. It starts in 15th century Constantinople as Anna reads the story of Aethon— and how he hopes to be turned into a bird and fly to freedom— to her sister as the city is attacked.

The ’50s saw Zino, an ex-soldier now in Idaho, working on translating the manuscript that holds Aethon’s story from Greek. When he reaches his eighties, he leads a play that showcases the story, and is acted out by children. Unbeknownst to him, there’s a bomb that’s been planted by a misguided teenager nearby, its existence an ever constant threat throughout the book.

Finally, hidden away in a ship, Konstance, who has never been to Earth, is busy writing down the story of Aethon as her father told her. As these stories converge, and the story of Aethon ends, we see the impact that stories can have.

There’s a great conversation here about how this relates to religion. And how certain civilizations have religions with similar stories.

I’m tempted to say that this is a queer retelling of The Great Gatsby, but that isn’t exactly true, as the original was actually queer. It’s interesting how I don’t remember it being discussed when I first read it as a teenager, but it was very clear once I revisited it as an adult. Vo gives more flesh to characters from the original as she tells of Jordan Baker, the queer, adopted Vietnamese girl brought into the monied American social circles of the ’20s. Jordan is seen as exotic and somewhat like a pet among the white socialites. The familiar story unfolds, as Gatsby tries to regain the object of his obsession, but there is more still. Dark bargains and magic surface as Jordan begins to understand her place in society.