Novels

THE MEDEA COMPLEX (2015)

March 7, 2025

It’s Victorian era London and Anne Stanbury has sentenced to rehabilitation in an asylum for killing her son. Her lower-class husband, Edgar, deeply resents her for destroying his chance at assuming the Stanbury estate. Compounding matters, Edgar is drowning in debt while surrounded by in-laws and servants who hate his guts, not to mention being pestered by his alcoholic parasite of a father.

This is Rachel Florence Roberts’s debut novel THE MEDEA COMPLEX, and everyone is not as they seem. Was Anne gripped by a bout of madness, or was she right-of-mind when she killed her son? Does Edgar truly love Anne? What sort of duplicity are the in-laws and staff up to?

“You’re lying to yourself.”

THE MEDEA COMPLEX is a gripping page turner, propulsive but also reflective; it has sensational action, but also features an array of interior musings by the major players in the tale. Each character is intriguingly complex, and their motives and full back-stories unfurl through the pages, until you realize that each and every one of them are selfish assholes.

I love a book chock full of despicable folks, especially when they’re acting out of faulty reasoning.

While THE MEDEA COMPLEX was spurred into existence by Roberts’s postpartum depression, it was also inspired by the Victorian-era realities of inheritance and estates, barbaric grasp of psychiatry and mental illness — which included the belief that madness in women can be induced by reading — and cruelty of some ‘baby farms’

Baby farms in the Victorian era were a service where individuals took in children whose parents could not support, either because of finances, illegitimacy, or other reasons. While some farms were well-run, others were little more than profit centers and often resulting in exploiting the children or worse: allowing them to die due to starvation, or simply killing them.

As detailed in the author’s notes, Roberts emphasizes that — while a number of the characters are absolute fabrications — some are inspired by real-life scumbags, such prolific baby farmer/serial killer Amelia Dyer. *1

There’s nothing like drawing from the well of actual historical criminals to give your morally grey character a pitch-black veneer.

While the characters often act cruel and perform reprehensible acts, they are often the actions of necessity and of survival, especially the acts committed by women. One of the few well-meaning characters, Anne’s doctor — Dr. George Savage — is extraordinarily sexist, but in a blunt manner that was professionally accepted at the time. Roberts handled the reality of the situation by having Anne and others subvert his expectations in satisfying ways, ways that come to haunt him in the end.

Colorfully dour and unsavory, with characters sinking lower and lower with every page, immersed in a historically accurate and unsentimental rendering of Victorian London, MEDEA is delightfully cynical while not quite being nihilistic. It’s a taunt work of intrigue that confidently scrutinizes the effect of patriarchy on medical matters, on generational inheritance, of the fiscal and mental fallout of motherhood.

“After all, ranking is merely an accident of birth.”

  1. If you’re interested in reading about how lurid Victorian murders were and how they were portrayed and detailed by the media, I highly recommend Judith Flanders’s THE INVENTION OF MURDER (2011). It’s telling that baby farming is only allotted a handful of pages and not considered nearly as scandalous as other acts of the time!) ↩︎

FIVE LITTLE INDIANS (2020)

February 26, 2025

CONTENT WARNING

This post discusses trauma, including physical and sexual abuse.

I write a lot about media that tackles trauma because, well, artistic works have helped me realize and come to terms with a lot of my own trauma. It’s not a subject that you can easily broach with others and, often, something that is buried instead of confronted. The works that do reckon with trauma can be a provocation or a balm or both.

Michelle Good’s FIVE LITTLE INDIANS was certainly both for me.

FIVE LITTLE INDIANS scrutinizes five Indigenous youths who were forced into the same Canadian Indian residential school. If you’re unfamiliar with the practice, Canadian Indian residential school system was a program instituted by the Canadian government and overseen by church members. At the age of six, one is cut off from your parents and hauled off to a boarding school. You’re taught European and Christian ideals until you’re 16 years old. You’re then booted out, left to fend for yourself in an unforgiving world.

The intent was to indoctrinate and assimilate by whatever means deemed fit by their institutional headmasters. Instead it cut thousands off from their culture and heritage and ruined lives. This government-mandated cruelty lasted for over a century, well into the 1960s.

Good’s five Indians — Kenny, Maisie, Lucy, Howie and Clara — are have overlapping stints in the 1950s at the Mission School. All five of them are starved, humiliated, and suffer physical and sexual abuse from their overseers. Both Kenny and Howie manage to separately run away, whereas Maisie, Lucy and Clara serve all ten years.

All five of them, one way at one time or another, find their way to the slums of Downtown Eastern Vancouver and into each other’s lives, bound together by what they endured at the Mission.

While FIVE LITTLE INDIANS is specifically about the trauma inflicted by colonizers and how it was specifically enacted to bulldoze cultures, the ways the characters confront or cope or ignore their trauma are easy to identify with.

For example, take this exchange between Kenny and Lucy as they discuss reparations the government is preparing to make:

“They call us survivors.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t think I survived. Do you?”

“I just don’t know. I’m so tired, Lucy.”

Kenny later states:

“Sometimes I think I did die, I’m just still walking around.”

Reading the two of them reflecting on the label of ‘survivor’ rattled me, as I’ve had the same exchange with my therapist when they have labeled as a ‘survivor’. The only difference? I stated that all I did was ‘continue to exist’. They responded:

“That’s surviving. A lot of people who have been through the same did not…”

That’s undeniably true, especially in FIVE LITTLE INDIANS, as all five of them have been affected by those who did not survive what the Mission had wrought. All five feel like they’ve survived nothing, that there’s no glory or satisfaction in having made it to another day.

Empathizing with the thoughts and sentiments expressed in FIVE LITTLE INDIANS is why I write about works that focus on lesser-discussed topics such as abuse and traumatic experiences. These topics that are rarely discussed outside of physical and mental health offices and are assumed to be verboten and off-limits, even to those closest to you. It may make others uncomfortable, it may make them view you differently, or you simply might feel that it’s unworthy of sharing.

All of the above are touched on in FIVE LITTLE INDIANS, as they don’t have any kind of template or guide to help them process what they’ve lived through. Similarly, the Canadian government is also struggling with addressing the abuse these people endured. Mostly, it’s financial reparations, but also through acknowledgement that these acts occurred and that these acts were acts of cruelty and abuse and physically and mentally devastated so many.

It’s this recognition, not just in the past by those who have lived it, those who have inflicted it, those who were complicit in it, and Good for weaving this tale to bring attention not just to the acts, but the acts and the fallout, that is so important.

The power of words, of phrasing, of articulating, of airing these matters — both personal and sociopolitical — can help to heal, even if it hurts at first. Some may say it can bring closure. Frankly, I don’t believe that; for many reasons I know I’ll never have closure for the acts done to me, despite finally confronting it. It’ll always be there; so much of who I am, how I interact — or fail to interact — is entangled with that history that … there is no hope for closure, but that isn’t the point — that isn’t the endgame — of acknowledgement and recognition of abuse, neglect, and exploitation.

This may come across as rudimentary or obvious but reading stories like these, fiction centered around fact — be it historical events or simply lived experience woven into a tale — can elicit awareness in a number of a ways, from those who have experienced it, those who can empathize, those who can sympathize, those who can relate, and those who were previously oblivious.

FIVE LITTLE INDIANS works on all of the levels while also unfurling an engrossing multi-generational arc of nuanced characters. It might be a book you can read for some insight on the crimes of the past, or it might be something that’ll open your eyes to events others may have endured, or it might trigger you, or it might make you feel slightly less alone in the world, it may help someone talk to you or to talk to others about trauma, or maybe it’ll do all of the above as it did for me.

FIVE LITTLE INDIANS is available through Bookshop. Support indie bookstores!

TALES OF THE CITY (1978-)

January 27, 2025

Armistead Maupin’s series TALES OF THE CITY — which started off as a series of reads in the -San Francisco Chronicle- — is an array of a queer found family to be jealous of. The first collection, aptly named TALES OF THE CITY, follows the antics of naive, very straight 25-year-old midwesterner Mary Ann as she moves to San Francisco.

Mary Ann takes up residence at 28 Barbary Lane, a quaint apartment building overseen by kindly weed-aficionado Anna Madrigal. Living under Ms. Madrigal’s roof is Michael “Mouse” Tolliver, a gay man with commitment issues, free spirit Mona Ramsey, and others who help to weave Mary Ann into the fabric of San Francisco.

As you might have surmised from the title and significant cast of characters, TALES OF THE CITY is extremely Dickensian, even down to adopting some of Dickens’ predilection for the outrageous. Maupin doesn’t go as far as incorporating spontaneous human combustion into the works, but the residents of 28 Barbary Lane often do find themselves in outlandish melodramas fit for a soap opera. (It’s telling that the extreme primetime TV soap MARY HARTMAN, MARY HARTMAN is mentioned in the first fifteen pages.)

Yes, the sensational and lurid elements of TALES OF THE CITY are effectively titillating and propulsive, it’s the sense of time, place, and relationships that hooked me: Mary Ann grows more and more comfortable with counter-culture — queer or otherwise —; Mouse’s mood shifts as he longs for a substantial and fulfilling relationship, but instead fills his days with club nights and numerous hook-ups; Ms. Madrigal’s back-story and how she juggles it as well as the needs of all around her. They’re all heartfelt tales, all deeply rooted in San Francisco at the times Maupin was penning the installments for the paper: mid-70s for TALES OF THE CITY, late 70s for MORE TALES OF THE CITY, and early 80s for FURTHER TALES OF THE CITY.

As the TALES OF THE CITY books are being published to this day — although only the first five were previously published in weekly newspaper installments — it remains a fascinating document of cultural shifts, generational schisms, mores, moods, urban changes, and perceptions of societal, sexual, and gender norms. Not to mention reading about the San Francisco imagines it to be — artsy, extremely left, very weird — instead of the dudetechbro nightmare it’s become.

An aside: I’ve only read TALES OF THE CITY, MORE TALES OF THE CITY and FURTHER TALES OF THE CITY. It’s one of those series that I’m trying to slowly dole out, as its emphasis on ever-shifting culture. However, you can certainly feel the specter of AIDS looming over FURTHER TALES, ensuring that I need to emotionally gird myself for BABYCAKES, the fourth volume.

The series was wildly popular for years, was turned into a TV adaptation in the 90s which was resurrected by Netflix for a mini-series, and is one of BBC’s Top 100 Most Inspiring Novels.

However, like how MARY HARTMAN, MARY HARTMAN burned so bright in the mid 70s and is almost entirely forgotten today, it wasn’t until recently that I discovered the series. I’m certain that’s partially because some the situations and perspective and language is dated, but that’s a feature — not a bug. As we as society are rather cyclical, it’d be wise to not let the series collect cultural dust.

Lastly? Now more than ever, we need to hear liberating and enlightening and life-saving finding your own family can be, that you can find safety and security and form lifelong bonds with others.

28 Barbary Lane is fictional, but 28 Barbary Lanes exist all over. I’m currently living in my own 28 Barbary Lane, in a queer and weird slice of Chicago that I wouldn’t trade for the world. If you still haven’t found your 28 Barbary Lane, well, let Armistead Maupin pen you a map.

KITTENTITS (2024)

August 21, 2024

How to guarantee that I will pre-order and voraciously consume your novel:

  • Name your novel KITTENTITS because I love a title that has no shame.
  • Have a hot pink cover because I love hot pink.
  • Have a hot pink cover with a cute kitten on it because I love cats.
  • Have a hot pink cover with a cute kitten on it and shiny silver starry eyes because shiny silver covers remind me of the first comic book I bought.
  • Have GONE GIRL’s Gillian Flynn tweet about your book because I love Gillian Flynn.
  • Have Gillian Flynn’s imprint publish your novel because I will read anything that she helps will into the world.
  • Have a significant portion of your novel takes place in Chicago.
  • Have your novel center around inventively filthy-mouthed dirtbags because I am a filthy-mouthed dirtbag and can use the company.
  • Have your novel center around filthy-mouthed dirtbags who are young aimless fuckups who make all of the wrong choices because it will remind me of my youthful indiscretions.
  • Have your story be intensely internal, peppered with loss and trauma and fucked up circumstances that slowly unfurl into an absurdly comical and fantastical and horrific tale that leaves you questioning what you just read while also savoring its twists and deft prose.

See? Nothing to it. If you need more help, read Holly Wilson’s KITTENTITS because there’s far more of interest in her debut work than I have listed here.

HARLEY QUINN: REDEMPTION (2024)

June 17, 2024

Spoiler Alert

This post contains spoilers for HARLEY QUINN: RECKONING and HARLEY QUINN: RAVENOUS.

HARLEY QUINN: REDEMPTION is the final novel in Rachael Allen’s DC Icons Harley Quinn trilogy, wrapping up Harley’s arc from Harleen Quinzel — a curious and brazen student of science — to Harley Quinn — a brilliantly anarchic and transformed student of both science and law-breaking and violence, all for her perceived notion of aiding others.

REDEMPTION kicks off with Harley on summer vacation at Ivy’s parents overly spacious home. Harley’s single-mindedly trying to cobble together an intimacy solution to prevent Ivy’s lips from killing Harley upon contact. Is it going well?

No, it is not going well. Failure upon failure.

On top of that frustration, her prior Reckoning partners have abandoned her and she’s getting daily creepy stalker missives from an unknown person, each note accompanied by a heavily altered doll.

Harley, with Ivy by her side, piece together that the sender of these disturbing packages is abducting youths and young women from the streets and the dolls Harley receives? Each are small facsimiles of how he sculpts each victim or, as he — often referred to as The Dollmaker — sees it, transforming them and bringing them to a higher aesthetic and physical plane by bending, warping, appending and removing facets of their body.

(For those familiar with Batman lore, yes, there have been a number of iterations on The Dollmaker, although none who match the very specific kind of self-perceived physical abuse that he enacts.)

The Dollmaker is partnered up with the Mad Hatter — a mainstay of Batman’s lineup of villains — who requests that The Dollmaker occasionally shape one of the abducted into an ‘Alice’ and hand them off to him. Unfortunately, often The Dollmaker’s Alices don’t always match Hatter’s tea party expectations, resulting in the need for a new Alice.

To keep their victims placated, The Dollmaker and Hatter utilize an improved iteration over the inferior mind-altering chips they handed off to Scarecrow in REDEMPTION. These chips last longer and allows for them to mentally mould their victims to their whims and desires, which essentially means making them subservient and as happy with their new twisted and weaponized bodies as possible.

Harley becomes ever-increasingly embroiled in The Dollmaker and Hatter’s activities and that’s when REDEMPTION pivots to something far darker than explored in the prior two novels. Bodies are chipped and ground away and turned into something both inhuman and super-human, the latter for the benefit of crime bosses and governments who want some additional protection. Or just a novelty to show off at galas.

Even for this trilogy, The Dollmaker’s ‘artistic endeavors’ are cruelly outlandish and upsetting, although it ultimately works against him in ways that I will not spoil, in ways that underscore the trilogy’s overall message of women turning the tables on the abuse that men inflict.

It’s not all body horror and torture, however. As Harley often does, she imparts herself on friends new and old, and builds and rebuilds a found family and support network. Harles and Ives go to pride! King Shark wears a shark costume! Fun is had and cotton candy is consumed!

If anything, Harley is too exuberant and bubbly. (I didn’t know such a thing was possible.) She banters around the term ‘love language’ quite a bit. She is exponentially more elated at the slightest bit of physical or emotional shiny she comes across than the prior two novels. While Harley is always a bit much, here her gushing and wide-eyed wonder at the world occasionally comes across as a titch too much, even for her. I kept waiting for someone to ask if she’d take it down a notch — even a resigned ‘Harrrrleey’ utterance from Ivy — but no dice.

Allen dedicates REDEMPTION “To everyone who loves Harley Quinn and sees a piece of themselves in her.”

It’s clear, even from the beginning of the trilogy, that Allen knows how Harley has resonated with so many, even to those like myself that don’t exactly fit the Harley mould. Allen also deftly excises the more fraught, subservient and coercive facets of what normally constitutes Harley’s history, making her even more of an inspirational figure without sandpapering over Harley’s impetuous and occasional blinkered flaws.

As I mentioned in my write-up of RECKONING — the beginning of the trilogy — there are many different Harleys. Allen’s Harley can be inspiration. Her Harley is a tale of a lower-class misfit who has lived through and endured a lot of lows and abuse in her life. Despite that, Harley is smart and is determined to be herself, to push herself further and help people in need when she can, of aiding those taken advantage of, of those who are abused, of exacting vengeance on those who abuse their power and mentally or physically tear others down.

This trilogy is part of the DC Icons series, a young adult imprint of Penguin Books. Each work examines popular DC characters when they were teens. That’s… seemingly all that exists of the DC Icons mission statement. It’s questionable whether it exists as an entryway to comic book for teens who eschew the funny pages which, given the wide financial disparity between how much the movies gross and how low actual DC comic books sell, might not be the worst idea. Especially since some of them are New York Times bestsellers.

It also helps that Harley’s mercurial, impetuous, extremely emotional nature mirrors life as a teen, and because the world is harsh and people are cruel, and it is hard to go through life without putting yourself in danger and Harley is all about reckoning with these dangers.

(Worth noting is Allen’s series isn’t even the only YA Harley work out there, as there’s also Mariko Tamaki’s HARLEY QUINN: BREAKING GLASS which examines a different youthful life for Harleen.)

For those whose first encounter with Harley are these books — I know, that’s highly unlikely but bear with me — I can’t help but wonder the rude awakening one might have upon reading some of the earlier solo works, Amanda Conner & Jimmy Palmiotti iconic run, or newer flights-of-fancy such as HARLEY QUINN: BLACK & WHITE & RED, the multiverse tales of Harleys, or even going way back to the source BATMAN: THE ANIMATED episodes as well as MAD LOVE.

I can’t help but think it’d be a rude awakening to go from the very queer, very scholastically and scientifically minded Harley, someone who has a staunch sense of morality, someone who is very, very queer, to then see her constantly shackled and emotionally abused and toyed with by the Joker; to experience a Harley with an extremely cavalier disposition towards maiming and murder and mayhem and meta-commentary, not to mention often serving as eye candy in the worst ways that comics can be.

Oddly, HARLEY QUINN: THE ANIMATED SERIES comes closest to the young Harley & Company portrayed in Allen’s trilogy, and while swearing and sexual content are absent from those novels, every minute of Harley’s animated work is crammed full of heart-warming filth.

All of my question and speculations are besides the point. I will set those aside and simply state that REDEMPTION is propulsive, thrilling, heartfelt, inventively unsettling, and perfectly brings the arc from Harleen to Harley, from orphan to having a found family, of growing and learning while leaning into her strengths and being aware of her weaknesses.

Regardless of whether it’s your first Harley-go-round or hundredth, Allen succinctly weaves the totality of Harleen and Harley’s experiences and growth — even if they don’t match with what one may have previously read — this Harley is one to aspire to.

HARLEY QUINN – RAVENOUS (2023)

June 10, 2024

Spoiler Warning

Please note that this post contains spoilers for the first book in this series, HARLEY QUINN: RECKONING.

Where Rachael Allen’s HARLEY QUINN: RECKONING (RECKONING from here on out) deals with Harleen’s gap year of science and super-villain study, Allen’s HARLEY QUINN: RECKONING — the second of three in the DC Icons young adult Harley Quinn series of novels — sees Harleen attempting to settle into life as a freshman at Gotham University or, as colloquially referred to, Gotham U.

With her mother dying when Harleen was young, her father murdered due to some poor withdrawals from mobster loan sharks, Harleen is officially an orphan. Her ex has took the fall for The Reckoning’s antics, and due to Harleen wanting to focus on studies instead of blowing shit up, the other two members have turned their backs to her.

While Harleen has a free-ride scholarship thanks to the paper scrutinizing the Joker and elevated levels of trauma-induced modifications to the Super-Villain gene, she still has to worry about financial matters like non-food hall sustenance and sorority dues while still juggling classes and labs.

Those with any prior knowledge of Batman lore, especially regarding one Dr. Crane and Talia ah Ghul. Talia is delightfully integrated, especially given how Harley comes to see her as a mentor. Those who aware of these characters will quickly recognize where the novel is going, but watching Harleen piece matters together and pick her bat up again is just as thrilling as if you have no knowledge of Gotham villains.

Again, if you’re even vaguely familiar with Batman’s motley number of popular villains, you’ll quickly suss out that RAVENOUS centers around Scarecrow, and part of the plot includes ‘chipping’ victims to make them more pliant.

If you are a fan of Harleen’s gymnastic skills — especially the beam and bars — Allen doubles down on Harleen’s agility and how she utilizes them in the wild.

For those looking for some Harlivy, well, the seed of their romance is planted here — sorry, not sorry — as Harleen and Pamela Isley become fast-friends and they divulge some of their deepest secrets.

While, yes, yet again the Joker makes an appearance, he’s mostly backgrounded apart from one moment, but Allen dodges the bulk of his canonical abuse and coercion.

The following could potentially be construed as a slight spoiler for RAVENOUS, so only expand it if you have fear no spoilers.

Spoiler

RECKONING does tackle the metamorphosis of Harleen from Harley via the same Joker chemical bath, however it does differ in that Harleen takes the plunge outside of the realm of the Joker and falls of her own volition. (Also see: HARLEY QUINN: THE ANIMATED SERIES – ‘Being Harley Quinn’.)

[collapse]

As usual, Allen’s prose is crisp and clean and propulsive, peppered with her wide scientific knowledge. While there were a handful of visual design elements in RECKONING, RAVENOUS features even more forms, clipboards, diagrams and handwritten elements which may sound dry but vividly heighten the work. RAVENOUS also temporally jumps around a bit more, and chapters are centered more along the lines of Harleen/Harley traversing Gotham U, Arkham Asylum and Arkham Acres; Gotham in general, clarifying matters.

If you have any interest in Harley Quinn you should read RECKONING, however! RAVENOUS does an exceptional job of succinctly weaving in the events of RECKONING so — if you just want to jump into the DC Icons and see how they handle Harleen’s future as Harley — you can do so with ease.

Like with RECKONING, while this is technically a young adult book, it is an electrifying read, one that I burned through in a day and a half. I’m a tad hesitant to see where REDEMPTION — the third and final novel in Allen’s Harley Quinn trilogy — goes, but I do feel confident that with Rachael Allen? I’m in good hands.

“I choose me.”

HARLEY QUINN – RECKONING (2022)

June 3, 2024

CONTENT WARNING

The following discusses abuse, coercion and trauma.

There are so many Harleys.

So many.

Not just in the comics. Novels. Film. TV.

This is only a sampling of Harleys: BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES Harley! (Obviously, the first Harley!) Cathy Yan’s BIRDS OF PREY Harley! Kelly Thompson’s BIRDS OF PREY Harley! Old Lady Harley! A whole buncha terrible videogame Harleys! Even more animated Harleys! That fucking awful Harley in David Ayer’s SUICIDE SQUAD that only worked because of Margot Fuckin’ Robbie! James Gunn’s THE SUICIDE SQUAD Harley! GOTHAM CITY SIRENS Harley! Amanda Conner & Jimmy Palmiotti’s Harley! DC Rebirth Harley! All of the MAD LOVE Harleys! The young Harleen in BREAKING GLASS! The current Tini Howard Harley! The Harleen/Harley in this trilogy of books!

So many Harleys!

As I’ve repeatedly said? I will never, ever shut up about Harley Fuckin’ Quinn.

Harleen Quinzell and Harley Quinn represent so much and so many terrible outcomes. The coercion. The abuse. The trauma. Not just by the Joker, but often by her parents and others.

Also? She represents the folks who are smart but went wayward. She represents the anger against abusers. She represents folks trying to repair themselves. She represents pushing through and attempting to be a better person, even though she — and you — will often fuck up along the way.

She means so much to so many because while most comic book characters are power fantasies? She has no super-powers. She is someone who is muscling through all of her issues and is fucking pissed off and so goddamn strong and trying to make the best of her life.

This is exactly why I empathize with her, a fictional character in a wildly stupid comic book universe.

This is also why so many others love Harley. She’s multi-faceted; she’s had so many iterations — hell, I even wrote a four-issue series about her encountering all versions of herself! (I shelved it because after I wrote it? The monthly Harley Quinn comic did a multi-verse Harley arc. It’s not even close to what I penned; mine was brutally emotional and probably unpublishable but whatever.)

The moment I saw the ‘Being Harley Quinn’ episode of HARLEY QUINN: THE ANIMATED SERIES? Where she realized she leapt into the acid of her own volition? That she did so to please ‘Mistah J’? That she told herself for years that she was pushed by him? That it was her origin story? That shook me to my core. (I also identify way too much with Harley disassociating, which also sucks!)

I am not proud of that! But it did!

That’s my Harley. I’ve lived through versions of all of that. (And yes, plural.) I hated it. I have never really understood why I accepted all of the abuse and bullshit but Harley didn’t either and she found a way through via a support network, and I am trying to do the same.

While there are many Harleys, these are the fundamentals:

1) She has ADHD.

2) She is extraordinarily physical and loves to throw herself around.

3) She is extremely smart.

4) Being smart didn’t prevent her from being coerced and transformed from Harleen Quinzel to Harley Quinn.

5) She is queer as fuck.

6) She is a product of trauma.

7) She managed to work through her trauma.

8) She is a survivor. 1

9) She is extremely gregarious.

10) She has a flair for argyle patterns.

I am not Harley. I am not fun like Harley. I have a lot of issues, but ADHD? Nope. Also? Not gregarious! I’m a fucking introvert!

Everything else? It tracks, although I’m still working out my trauma issues and I am not sure that I am as smart as she is.

Item #2 to me is paramount. Yeah, Jason Todd was an acrobat and all, so that dovetails with all of this shit, but you know what? I fucking loved gym. I was game for any and everything. I loved tumbling; I loved the pommel horse; I loved the beam.

But what I really loved?

The fucking uneven bars.

I have said — probably to a sickening amount — that I love to throw myself around.

Well, you can’t throw yourself around more than on the uneven bars.

I love that Rachael Allen’s Harley Quinn novel RECKONING — technically a young adult novel, but I found pleasing despite not being a young adult — puts a pin in Harley as being a beam person because? The way she throws her way around? The way Rachael Allen pens her? It’s the same sort of feeling, that sort of balance and elation and abandon and self-confidence.

Fuck. I’m telling this all wrong.

RECKONING is about Harleen, not Harley. Harleen is eighteen years old and in her gap year and enrolled in an advanced STEM college course and not acid-bathed. (It is worth noting that Rachael Allen’s day job? A scientist. She knows her shit.)

Harleen is surrounded by abuse, and as she is want to do, wants to absolutely rectify matters and go to town on them, along with a few friends who also want to dole out some punishment and light terrorism. The name of their vigilante crew? The Reckoning.

Also? Harleen falls in love — albeit not with Pamela Isley. It’s a very succinct, clearly penned thrill-ride that goes down easy without being pandering. It also fleshes out Harleen, whose pre-Harley life is often ignored or simply glossed over!

I will note that the Joker does make an appearance, and Harleen immediately feels a magnetism towards him which… yeah, but still sucks.

Also? It features a cover by the so very awesome Jen Bartel!

Sidebar: If you haven’t seen the collegiate women vigilante canceled-too-soon TV series SWEET/VICIOUS? Read RECKONING and watch SWEET/VICIOUS in tandem and get back to me.

Joker aside, it is a great read and a terrific set-up for the next two books filling out the trilogy. If you are a Harleen/Harley fan, it is a necessary read.

You can purchase HARLEY QUINN: RECKONING via Bookshop.org!

Notes

1 I do not like the term ‘survivor’, despite having it ascribed to me more than a few times. In my opinion? You’re never a survivor. You simply persist to live. I do not feel like I’ve survived jack-fucking-shit. Like Harley? I feel like I’ve died several times over. Hell, I should have. Nonetheless, I’m still here motherfuckers.

Favorite Non-2023s of 2023

January 3, 2024

Author’s Note

Since my 2023 media diet featured very little in the way of works released in 2023, I figured I’d extoll the works I read, watched and played in 2023 that were released in prior years. Perhaps some of them will be as new to you as they were for me!

Books

HARLEY QUINN: BREAKING GLASS (2019)

This work crystalized to me exactly what Harley can impart on folks. Fundamentally, Harley Quinn is victim of her own circumstance, and BREAKING GLASS showcases her as a youth, shining a light on how she’ll inhabit that space, her space, while still never browbeating her decisions but — Harley being Harley — she’s rarely makes the ‘best’ decision.

It’s a tale of growing, of self-realization, but also realizing you can be drawn into the webs of others and that they may not have your best interests in mind.

Is it labeled for young adults? Yup. Could anyone read and love and empathize with it? Definitely.

It also helps that Steve Pugh’s art is so fucking energetic and the colors are so vibrant and fitting!

I wrote more about it here!

Also, my wife found me the All Saints equivalent of her argyle sweater. (They literally label it as Harley Argyle. They knew what the fuck they were doing. And yes, yes I’m fucking rockin’ it.)

LIFE IS STRANGE: STEPH’S STORY (2022)

While doing research for my LIFE IS STRANGE posts, I discovered STEPH’S STORY, a LIFE IS STRANGE: TRUE COLORS tie-in novel by Rosiee Thor which is something I didn’t know I needed, but I desperately did. It’s an intimate character-based queer romantic melodrama that hit me from all sides and I absolutely loved it and can’t wait to revisit it.

Predictably, I wrote about it almost immediately after reading it.

DOOM PATROL: RACHEL POLLACK OMNIBUS (2022)

Have I repeatedly re-read Grant Morosson’s DOOM PATROL iconic run? Yes, yes I have.

However, I was shocked to discover that I’d never read Rachel Pollack’s DOOM PATROL which is ever queerer and just as inventive and far more heartfelt.

I wish I had been prodded to read it earlier — I only found out about it due to her death earlier this year — but better late than never.

As I’ve previously penned, DOOM PATROL is all about the misfits of society, the ostracized, those who have to live on the edges and never feel like they fit in, except in the house that Chief built who — spoiler alert! — not as altruistic as he makes himself out to be.

It is a supremely resonant work, one that cuts to the quick when it comes to coercion and the desperation to want to be seen and accepted. Again, I wish I had found it earlier.

And yes, yes I wrote about it.

The Story of the Lost Child (2014)

This was the year that I finished reading Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels.

Yes, yes, I realize that these works are frequently lumped in with (apologies in advance for the pejorative term) chick-lit for reasons absolutely unknown to me.

This is a supremely amazing epic of lives lived, of contrasts, of personas pushing-and-pulling, of classism, of intellectualism, of hubris; it is a lot and I fucking loved it and the fact that it isn’t recognized as capital ‘L’ literature reminds me how much women’s stories are so belittled. Ferrante’s prose is so succinct and exacting in a way that makes me so jealous of her skills.

Fucking do better, critics.

Film

WEREWOLVES WITHIN (2021)

Cinematic comedic horror at its fucking best. While it doesn’t have the visual verve of Sam Raini’s work, it is so clever, so funny, but also features a human core.

I’m not one for making ‘island’ lists, but I could watch WEREWOLVES WITHIN every fucking day of the year. It’s so funny and endearing and thrilling but never traumatizing. It is an astounding work.

(I’ll note that I did finally try to play the game, but it’s VR-only and while I’m sure they make the most of it? Fuck that noise.)

As you might surmise, I couldn’t shut up about it.

FASTER PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! (1965)

“Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to violence!”

It is a fucking crime that this film is practically impossible to watch without doling out far too much money or catching it on Turner Classic Movies — R.I.P. TCM Underground — which is why I was so delighted that my favorite theater — the Music Box — wrangled a print of it.

While, yes, yes, Russ Meyer mostly wrote films solely so he could stare at busty women but, perhaps accidentally? This is an extraordinarily subversive work, one that has influenced so many others.

This is a ferocious film, one that simmers with anger and frustration, and while it is definitely meant to be titillating, you can feel the resentment against the motherfucking patriarchy.

It’s goddamn thrilling, a film that makes you pump your fists in the air, one that makes you root for fucking awful people throat-punching even worse people, and those doling out the hits? They look amazing while laying louts to the fucking ground.

PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE (1974)

Brian De Palma at his campy best. This pre-dates the Webber work by a good decade, and is definitely my favorite take on the work.

(I’ll note: I do need to re-evaluate Wes Craven’s take on it. Also: In high school I had to play the cello part of the theme and for fucks sake, nothing else apart from perhaps Canon in D is a duller work to play.)

I briefly wrote about it as part of our 2023 Halloween binge!

TV

LEOPARD SKIN (2022)

Yes, it was only available via NBC’s peacock streaming service, but it was still terribly overlooked. This is one steamy potboiler of a neo-noir thriller that deserved more attention. It has an intensity so many shows which they could aspire to.

Do not sleep on this, because who knows how long it’ll be available to watch.

MRS. ‘ARRIS GOES TO PARIS (1958)

September 25, 2023

I first encountered this work via the 2022 film adaptation featuring the marvelous Lesley Manville (PHANTOM THREAD) and while that adaptation is exceptional, I only want to focus on the novel and what it means.

Paul Gallico’s novel MRS. ‘ARRIS GOES TO PARIS (‘ARRIS from here on out) is about wants and needs, but most importantly? It’s about anchors and goals and the lengths others will go to selflessly assist one in realizing them.

To summarize: widow Ada Harris is a London charwoman (essentially a housecleaner) who sees a Dior dress and becomes utterly and completely infatuated with having one of her own. She scrimps and saves for years, and when she finally has what she feels is enough money, she flies to Paris to acquire her fixation. (I won’t spoil the rest, but it’s an amazingly endearing and warm tale.)

I’ve never been someone who has been well-off. There have been points in my life where I was dead broke. Rent went unpaid and excuses were made. Despite the fact that my wife is ensconced in fashion, and despite the fact that I try to pull off looks, I’ve always been reluctant to spend much on presentational matters. If you have been broke, you know the feeling; it’s a fear, a fear of over-spending, a fear of losing not just comfort but a fucking roof over your head, a fear that you aren’t worth extra expenditures. I’d say it’s financial hoarding but let’s face it: you can never have enough money.

Consequently, when I first saw the film adaptation, I admired its warmth and compassion and understanding exactly what garments mean to people. (My wife has crafted more than a few wedding dresses and I was often tasked to take photos, so I’ve seen how folks glow when they feel they look their best.)

The novel does a better job at drawing out just how much of a struggle Mrs. ‘Arris goes through to get a Dior dress. It’s far more protracted, far more strained, the act of saving becoming a similarly unsatisfying routine effort as her charwoman work. Consequently, the payoff as to when she hits her financial goal hits harder than it does in the recent film. (I’ll note that there is a prior adaptation which features Angela Lansbury, although I have yet to see it, but that’s some amazing casting right there.)

I’ve never felt justified to spend that much on my own presentation until relatively recently. I’ve said many times that I will never, ever shut up about Harley Fuckin’ Quinn. In a prior post I touched on the fact that I would get a tattoo that would somewhat recreate her wraparound band, a band that very infrequently appears in the texts and the BIRDS OF PREY film because I have my reasons.

It took a bit of time but when it suddenly snapped into focus as to how and why Harley is who Harley is and what the character — her abuse and trauma and recovery — means to me, I knew I wanted that argyle pattern in my skin. I know it’s dumb. It’s super dumb. However, once you realize what you want to look like and why you want it, you can’t shake it off. If you don’t see it through you will always hate yourself.

Like Mrs. ‘Arris, I was absolutely, completely fixated. I latched onto the idea like a lamprey. Like Mrs. ‘Arris, I scrimped and saved because large tattoos are not cheap. Also, you do not want to get a bad tattoo artist, and good ones are hard to find and are worth every penny. (I lucked out and got an absolutely amazing one thanks to the recommendation of a friend.)

My tattoo took a few sessions and even for what I paid, I feel like it should have cost more. (Also: fucking tip your tattoo artist, even if they’re the owner of the outfit.) I’m still amazed that I actually went through with it, but now I can’t imagine myself without it.

After the final session, I was all wobbly and discombobulated, but still managed to endlessly thank the artist for his work and patience and graciousness. I know it was just a job for him, but it meant the fucking world to me, just like Mrs. ‘Arris sitting in on a Dior showing.

What’s great about ‘ARRIS is that it recognizes all of this internal desire in the most gracious, most welcoming ways. Fashion and general presentation — including hair and tattoos — are how we show ourselves to the world. They speak for ourselves before we can speak. When you find what and how you want to look, when you find a visual identity before you can acquire it, you will sacrifice so very much to attain it. We all want to be seen for how we see the best of ourselves.

Thankfully, ‘ARRIS’s world is a benevolent world, one that understands that need, even for those who are considered lesser folks because of their class or stature or looks.

It is worth noting that the ultimate message of ‘ARRIS is absolutely none of the above, but to say why would spoil matters. However, her journey up until the end is something that I think would wildly resonate for anyone.

It is a magical novel, one that encapsulates the wonders of the world and the potential grace of humanity.

AMY AND ISABELLE (1998)

August 21, 2023

Traditionally for my birthday I go to a local bookstore and buy myself a mess of books. I didn’t do so this year because of reasons but last year I was floating down the very stacked aisles of Ravenswood Used Books and Elizabeth Strout’s AMY AND ISABELLE caught my eye.

Given that I loved OLIVE KITTERIDGE and THE BURGESS BOYS, I nabbed it, and it sat on my ‘to read’ shelf for about a year. I didn’t realize that it was Strout’s debut novel. All that mattered was it was penned by her, and she has a certain sensitivity and New England sensibility that is catnip to me.

I usually prefer to go into books blind, especially from authors that have penned works I appreciate but, for whatever reason, this time I read the back cover copy. I won’t quote it, but it gave the impression of a late 1960’s staid mother (Isabelle) pushing against a burgeoning teen daughter (Amy) leaning into a queer life.

I was gravely wrong. This is a work about how men abuse anyone they can.

AMY AND ISABELLE is a slice of life about living in a turning point of America, of women being in the workfield, of being mothers to daughters, of daughters taxing their mothers, and simply just trying to endure their hardships, to live the life they’re handed, the life handed down to them. I know that description sounds too vague, too nebulous, but I can’t describe it any other way.

Thirty pages in, I could already see Amy’s trajectory. Fifty pages in, I was telling myself: “You really should not be reading this. You know this hits too close to home for you.” One hundred pages in, I asked myself: “Why the fuck do you persist in reading this?” It came to a head around page 118. I was reading this one chapter on a bus after returning from a rather stressful cross-state trip. I read the words, read Strout detailing how the daughter Amy was taken advantage of, and my fingers curled, gnarled around the cover and pages. I tried to keep reading, but instead thrust it into my bag. If I were at home, reading it while rocking in my chair on the porch, I would have thrown it to the ground; not out of disgust, but because it cut too close to the quick.

It’s the mark of a great author that can recreate traumatic scenarios that, to others, may seem endearing, but also to those who have lived through these experiences, rather harrowing. That’s what Strout manages here, in a way I’ve never read before.

That said, I fucking hated it. I hated reliving it through her words.

With texts, you can sit with words. You can put the forward momentum on pause. If it’s a positive piece of prose, you can revel in it. If it’s a negative piece of prose, you can either beat yourself up about it, or curse the creator.

When you’re dealing with something that you wish you’d never read? You do not want to read further, but you can’t put the full piece on pause; the unwanted part resonates in your mind.

I kept going, just like I keep living.

Amy and Isabelle endure, just like the luckiest of us, but both are left haunted. This is a brutal gut-punch of a novel, something I was not expecting, something I didn’t want, but it resonates so loudly.

I write far too much about how artistic works emotionally impact me, I know, but I will never, ever apologize for it. That’s what works like AMY AND ISABELLE do; they affect those who feel seen, but also impart a worldview to those who haven’t lived those experiences, and to help placate those who have, even if they can’t forget.