Distractions
-Listen, I know it’s been a very long time but I’ve had a lot going on.
-The biggest one thus far is writing a novel. This is one of those rare things where I had a concept to write a novel and now I am getting paid to write said novel and said novel is due in this November. It’s going to be a particular feeling, looking back at this year as the year I wrote This Novel. I outlined extensively and didn’t really start getting into the meat of it until March. And now, I have 40k words. That weird thing happened that happens every time I write which is I don’t really remember writing it. I remember where I was: biking to various coffee shops, that day at the library the man started screaming and he had to be detained, on my green couch, at my mother’s house in the kitchen, on the train to Boston, at Molly’s apartment with a bowl of sliced watermelon next to me, etc, but I don’t remember the words coming out of me. When I go to edit it’s like wait what? Okay that’s really good… Or Okay, cut this, you took this from a Lifetime movie you saw when you were six. Anyway I took a break from it for a week because I was in Paris (my beautiful life!!!) and the am going to write 40k more words and then send it to my editor and then spend the fall revising and revising.
-General Anxiety Disorder. Honestly so so boring but I panic about panicking and it gets in the way of everything. Can’t really take the train unless I have noise-cancelling headphones on so I’ve been going on really long walks and now my calf-muscles could cut a square of cheese.
-I got COVID. The big C finally came for me at AWP where I was in packed rooms with writers from all over the country drinking alcohol and not sleeping at all. So random that that’s bad for your immune system. Anyway, I was pretty sick but insisted that it was not that bad even though I felt like ass, piss, and also shit. I didn’t let myself read or write for 10 days because I was afraid of long covid and brain fog, which is not unreasonable. For about 2-3 weeks afterward, I couldn’t do a lot of heavy excersisisising. I would get out of breath while walking or riding my bike and to be honest with you, it made me feel really depressed because a lot of my wellbeing stems from being able to take myself on a long walk, like a little dog. I’m a dog! I remember walking quickly to the bus with Arti only a week after my 10 days to get to the Botanical Gardens and I felt my heart racing and a very specific dizziness come over me. I was a woman writing a letter in 1866!! Bro, I was so sad about that! I always joked about being a sick hot girl with huge tits but I didn’t know what kind of life that really entailed! I also was getting overwhelmingly, violently, hangry. If I didn’t eat every 2 hours I went full Cunt Bitch, just scowling and walking away from people like I was in a reality TV show. My midwestern roommate very politely suggested I get Cliff Bars from COSTCO and honestly, that saved my life. At some point, as everything goes, without even noticing, I felt like myself again, and two days I go I spent the day biking all around Brooklyn doing various errands, happy that I could continue living my little dog life.
-I went to Paris with my boyfriend and couldn’t believe how beautiful the world could be, and thought too about how much pain and suffering must have gone into the beauty and is traveling colonialism if two brown people are doing it? Are WE, as a unit, as lovers, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez? I was addicted to the sites and to pretending I was French and eating everything I could and crying at a statue not because I was moved but because it scared me. It was also unbelievably nice to be there with somebody I was in love with because the world was very scary while I was over there, and it was nice to be like, “Well at least this view is gorgeous and at least I don’t have service and at least I am very in love.”
-This year has passed by at an alarming rate, and I think it’s because things are relatively normal, or rather, my weeks are made up by consistent plans and not me staring at my ceiling hoping I am not infected because I’m supposed to see my friend outside with a mask on in two weeks. There also isn’t the mania of last summer, where every touch felt like a sexual asteroid and there was this collective feeling of breaking up, hooking up, throwing yourself into a dance floor while slightly intoxicated and then feeling the emotional hangover of heartache and too much stimulation the next day. This year it’s kinda just like … okay we’re all mentally better and the world is worse. And all of a sudden it’s the end of June.
DISTRACTIONS AS ALEJANDRO VARELA
Alejandro Varela (he/him) is a writer based in New York. His work has appeared in The Point Magazine, Boston Review, Harper's Magazine, The Rumpus, Joyland Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, The Offing, Blunderbuss Magazine, Pariahs (an anthology, SFA Press, 2016), the Southampton Review, The New Republic, and has received honorable mention from Glimmer Train Press. He is a 2019 Jerome Fellow in Literature. He was a resident in the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s 2017–2018 Workspace program and a 2017 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Nonfiction. Alejandro was an associate editor at Apogee Journal from 2015 to 2020. His graduate studies were in public health. His first book, The Town of Babylon came out this past March. His second book, The People Who Report More Stress, is forthcoming (Astra House, 2023).
what was your relationship to books like as a kid?
I didn't read much in my youth. I remember my mom reading one of the Get Along Gang books to us, usually the same one every night. I also had a copy of an illustrated Bible, for children. My parents were very proud that I read it cover to cover. Frankly, I found reading boring and difficult. In today's parlance, I was a child with ADHD—undiagnosed. I couldn't concentrate or sit still. But I forced myself to read, primarily because I was competitive above all things. I was shit on a sports field, but I was, to quote the nuns, bright, a decent student. And once I got a taste for being good at something, there was no going back.
what’s an example of good public health writing in fiction and what is an example of it being poorly done?
Toni Morrison was one of our greatest public health novelists. She had a way of bestowing empathy that gave even the most dastardly characters dimensions. She gave cause to their actions. She implicated society and not just the individuals. Public health work is too often about getting people to change their health behaviors. But it's supposed to be about understanding the systems that lead to the behaviors. The problem is that humanity is incredibly unimaginative. If we can't see a quick solution to something, we won't entertain it. Worse, we'll ridicule it. The mistakes we make in public health are the same as those we make in the world at large: we focus on the downstream, which isn't a tactic entirely bereft of use, but it leads to a piecemeal approach. Whereas, if we traveled further upstream and envisioned more creative and farther-reaching interventions, we would be much more effective at lightening the burdens that lead to all of the health behaviors that worsen health. Morrison builds in histories and the causes of the causes into her fiction. Public health at its finest.
I don't want to dog anyone in particular. But there was a novel that came out last year. It was the follow-up to an acclaimed debut by a scion of the literary industry. There were moments of brilliance, but frankly, it did something that's all too common, namely, highlight suffering without providing much analysis. It was a horror show, albeit artistic and at times incredibly beautiful. It left the reader with the impression that some people are just damaged. C'est la vie. Very Scorcese: Italians are violent, and unions are corrupt. Never mind that union strength is tied to better income and health outcomes. (To be fair: I to recall that The Gangs of New York attempted to get at the history of Italian discrimination and its consequences.)
This isn't to say that all fiction must be educational, empathic, or excavatory. What I am saying is that life expectancy is 79 years in this empire, and I don't have much time for or interest in work that isn't all of these things.
in what ways is reading public health if at all?
It's not. Lol. Unless, that is, if it's a collective activity. A book club in which folks come together to share a meal and discuss what they've read. (See: research on the health effects of social support.) Or I guess, to my earlier point, if it's elucidating the importance of upstream and institutional analysis. But personal empowerment and education isn't enough unless there is a clear plan of action or dissemination. In other words, reading can be very healthful, but that doesn't make it public health.
what’s a book you always come back to?
I know people do this, in particular writers, but I read slowly and find it difficult to go back and re-read something. There's so much I haven't yet read. But I have picked up The Bluest Eye and skimmed it many times since I first read it. Frankly, it reminds me of beauty. Witnessing the artistry of others gives me confidence. I do the same with Javier Marías (Mañana en la batalla piensa en me) and Natalia Ginzburg (The City and the House), but nowhere near as often.
what’s a scene in a book that is so visceral you feel like it happened to you?
It's been years, but there was a devastating confrontation between David and Giovanni in Baldwin's Giovanni's Room. Essentially it's a break-up scene. But it involves a closeted gay guy dumping his lover for a woman. In my teens and early 20s, that was my worst fear—now it's flying, public speaking, and smallpox. I identified with David throughout the book, in a way, but ultimately, I was Giovanni. Heartbreaking.
what’s a book that you associate heavily with a specific period of time in your time, not because of content but just because you were reading it then?
On 9/11, I was trapped in a building a couple of blocks from the WTC. The floor filled with smoke, and dozens of us sat on the floor trying not to breathe in the noxious air. From beneath a desk, I read Crime and Punishment for nearly 3 hours. I read the same paragraph over and over again, trying, in a way, to stay calm, but I couldn't retain a word I read. The rote exercise became about survival. After we got out, I set the book aside. Years later, I picked it up, but I couldn't recall the fateful paragraph. I wish I could say that I had a deep connection to Raskolikov's turmoil. I merely remember the book as part of my 9/11 experience.
lastly, when does reading suck and when does reading rule?
Reading sucks when I'm at the beach because I'd rather be glancing at half-naked men, finding the right balance between coquettish and assertive eye contact.
Reading rules when my children aren't around because they make a lot of noise. Unless, we're all reading at once.
What I’ve Read In Case You Give A Shitt!!!
This is a book about a girl in a cult living in a drought city. The plot is pretty straightforward and predictable but that is comforting because the protagonist goes through a lot of trauma and it’s nice to just be reassured that she’s gonna be okay, based on everything you know about narrative. The writing is a beautiful poetry and it made me want to be pregnant, sorry if that offends you!!!
Puloma texted this to me and was like TEXT ME WHEN YOU’RE DONE and when I was done I facetimed that bitch with my hand over my mouth. We were both mad that we hadn’t wrote it but also felt like we had learned something about writing. Which is what a good story does!
TOWN OF BABYLON by Alejandro Varela
Surprise, Alejandro is on my press and we have the same editor and are both middle children! That aside, I’ve never read a book like this before. On the train with some friends getting their PHds in psychology (I am a novel-in-verse), they told me that if they weren’t psychologists, they would be writers, because they’re so curious about people and why they do they things they do, and that as a writer I am very psychologically in touch with why people do what they do. I think about this when thinking about Alejandro’s book, a novel about a queer Latinx man who returns to his hometown for his high school reunion while also dealing with his father’s failing health, the memories of his dead brother, and a reappearance of his first love. I loved the way this novel was able to all at once zoom in and out of people’s lives from the perspective of a public health worker and seeing the ways their livelihoods are impacted by the particularities of American Stress. It really makes you think about what our motivations are and how they’re impacted by wanting to feel mentally & physically well, which can only happen if we have enough money. It also, not to use a word that the industry loves, but UNFLINCHINGLY looks at how we’re all complicit, regardless of immigration status, race or sexual orientation, because we’re all trying to survive?? After I read it I want back to a scene in my book where a character has a heart attack and rewrote it because I was like, okay, but do I even know why heart attacks happen? This book made me feel overwhelmed at all the things that brought me to this point & how out of my control they are. Anyway, you should read this.
DETRANSITION, BABY by Torrey Peters
Admittedly, I didn’t like this book when I first started it because I thought a few lines of dialogue sounded like fan fiction and also my ex-boyfriend loved it and I guess we all have our little biases. Anyway, I started it again because my next book is about motherhood and pregnancy and I feel like this is an essential book about motherhood! Readers of this substack, I did indeed love and devour this book. It’s so good. The hype is right. I loved each character very deeply and would have been happy just reading about them sitting down and talking to each other about meal prep.
This is about a woman who works in her family’s morgue and can only feel close to random tinder hook-ups. One day her mother dies and, not being able to deal with the grief even though she deals with death every day, she runs away to Tasmania where she gets involved in the local BDSM community. It’s overall just a very funny book about grief that made me happy to be alive and want to write things with more levity. I laughed out loud and teared up a lot.
A poem, why not?
the kardashians are genuinely so grateful,
opening the doors to their private planes & having appearances on talk shows. because they want it and befcause they are afraid it will leave them, it makes me feel, a little bit, like they deserve it.
when they shake their salads, i can feel
the almond grains hooked into my gums
(i will pay off my root canal by next march)
i do not want to look like this: thanking God
for all my opportunities i starved people for
while diving into a private spot in the dominican republic, except when i do want to look like this:
all hip & tits without the renaissance belly that holds them together, all of the girl without any of the folding or creases: just a bed already made.
the boyfriends work out loyally next to them on treadmills, suprise them with ice creams you can only find on staten island, kiss red toes and say you’re not getting rid of me, you’ll be obsessed with me soon, anything my baby wants.
they thank god and they thank god and they thank god and i love them, after all of this, i love them. i want to have their long red nails melted down into a couch where i am fucking my lover,
looking like such a woman on top,
plump and shaking like the hen i am,
cursing the inevitable rise
of the morning