Here in Seattle, we’re in the “April showers” part of spring; outside of the occasional sunshine-filled afternoon, it’s grey skies and cold mornings for the foreseeable future. But this month has brought more than just endless drizzles—it has also brought new titles and an April Content Update to go along with them.
This month, we bounced around from feminist theory all the way to detective novels and short fiction; it seems being cooped up in the foggy weather has made eclectic readers out of us all.
Feminist Theory by bell hooks
Perhaps one of the first (and, arguably, finest) treatises on intersectionality and the gaps in modern feminism.
1984 – Feminist Nonfiction
In a 2016 Ted Talk, UCLA professor Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality,” a word she used to capture the interaction between varying degrees and types of social identity.
Chrenshaw defined the new term using an example: A young Black woman applies for a job at a car dealership but is rejected. When she files a discrimination case against the dealership, the case is ruled against her; the dealership employs Black men as mechanics and employs white women as clerical staff. Therefore, they neither discriminate against Black Americans or women. However, as both Crenshaw and the young woman argue, the dealership did treat her discriminatorily, on the basis of her intersecting identities as both a Black person and a woman.
It is this confluence of identity that hooks wrote of so many years earlier. Frustrated by the lack of precision and inclusion in the discipline of feminist study, she dedicated herself to creating a literary inheritance that reflected the lives of women—and men—as they faced and coped with the intersections of patriarchy, racism, class inequity, and more. Feminist Theory is an iconic text because it raised questions feminists at the time weren’t prepared to answer, because it presented ideas about identity we are still grappling with today. Indeed, many consider it a seminal text for a reason.
“The Kabuliwalah” by Rabindranath Tagore
Isolation, loneliness, and the found family that spirals—ever so briefly—from that darkness.
1892 – Short Fiction
A family of aristocrats and a peddler of assorted wares make strange bedfellows, yet in Tagore’s “Kabuliwalah,” that friendship seems nothing short of natural. Following two fathers—one wealthy and one decidedly less so—Tagore maps the unifying factors that make light of our sociocultural differences. Following an unnamed narrator, the father of a young girl named Mini, and a peddler of wares known as Rahamat, “Kabuliwalah” tells the story of unconventional friendship and the unexpected bonds forged through crisis.
As the story unfolds over years, the narrator finds himself compelled time and again by Rahamat. The man’s simple story and simpler livelihood first startle and then enamor him. Over time, he even begins to trust the strange man who has so entranced his young daughter. That is until Rahamat stabs a man during an argument, revealing a side of himself he has hidden from the narrator and his family. Even in the face of Rahamat’s actions, the narrator remains fascinated. And, as years pass —years in which Mini and Rahamat’s daughter grow into adulthood while Rahamat languishes in prison—the peddler continues to captivate the narrator.
Later, when Rahamat is coincidentally released from prison on Mini’s wedding day, the sight of the old peddler strikes the narrator to his core. The man’s presence deeply affects him, sparking tender memories of the past and leading him to ruminate on the universality of love. The story is brief, but its message is clear: In all of us lives the same sorrows and the same joys.
City of Glass by Paul Auster
The classic detective novel, but make it postmodern and about an unconventional kind of detection.
1985 – Postmodern Fiction
Paul Aster—playwright, translator, and begrudging author best known for a series he retroactively resents—published City of Glass, the first installation of the New York Trilogy, in 1985. The novel charts mystery writer Daniel Quinn’s descent into the complex throes of a mystery he has become inexplicably tied to. On the surface, City of Glass is a detective novel of the medium-hard-boiled variety. At its core, however, it is a deeply self-referential work. Throughout, Auster gestures to notions of authorship and identity, leading Quinn to question the very nature of self and personhood.
The novel follows Quinn as he navigates a case of mistaken identity. Confused for private investigator Paul Auster (the so-named character, not the author), events draw Quinn into a mystery much like those he writes. Quinn grows increasingly captivated by his newfound identity and the dangerous, unexpected life he now leads. Yet, as he delves ever deeper into a series of events, he finds that it ultimately destroys his life and leads only to ruin.
Rather than dusters and dark alleys, Auster reimagines the detective genre as one of deeper discoveries and heartier truths, ultimately concerned with the meaning of a name as an internal and external market of meaning. The City of Glass plies post-modern techniques and toys with the concept of detection in a novel, unconventional manner. Even still, many readers regard the work not for its post-modern bent but for its overt genre, a misconception Auster and his fans alike find frustrating.
“Gajar Halwa” by Githa Hariharan
Simple, composed of few ingredients, and enjoyable—just like the dessert its title references.
1993 – Short Fiction
Grating and stirring, grating and stirring—so goes “Gajar Halwa,” a short story narrating the lives of the servant class living and working in Delhi. Primarily concerned with the making of gajar halwa, the carrot-based dessert the story is named for, the story follows Perumayee, a young woman working as a household servant for a wealthy family of the Delhi elite. Having moved to the city to work, Perumayee feels displacement in every aspect: Removed from her rural home, isolated from her family, and adrift in an environment and set of responsibilities entirely unfamiliar to her.
But amid the chaos of her new life and role, Perumayee finds peace in the mindless motions of her daily routine, specifically in the making of gajar halwa. As she grates endless carrots, stirring them over a warm fire, she reflects on her life, seeing before and behind her the lives—all their joys and discomforts—that she has already and will eventually lead.
Through the lens of common manual labor, Hariharan meditates on the oft-forgotten stories of those navigating India’s strict social structures and equally restricting gender dynamics. On the surface, Hariharan’s abrupt presentation of a simple daily task feels almost comforting, rooted in the rote mechanisms of peeling, grating, and stirring. But beneath its sweet exterior, the story belies a sense of anger and grief, a stark awareness of the limited opportunities available to those like Perumayee, who can envision for themselves a future filled only with the cyclical routines of peeling, grating, and stirring.
More New Titles?
And that’s a wrap for April! We’re already looking forward to May flowers and new titles, so be sure to be on the lookout for all the exciting updates coming your way next month.
Not enough new titles in our April Content Update? Check out other recent additions to our site from March and February.