Episode 103 Transcript

"There are also books full of great writing that don’t have very good stories. Read sometimes for the story, Bobby. Don’t be like the book-snobs who won’t do that. Read sometimes for the words – the language. Don’t be like the play-it-safers that won’t do that. But when you find a book that has both a good story and good words, treasure that book."
--Hearts in Atlantis, Stephen King

Hi, this is Carla, and welcome back to There Might Be Cupcakes. I welcome myself back as well, because it's been a wild ride lately. You know I am always transparent with you about my health and everything I am going through, so today will be no different.

Because my inner compass points towards a life of learning--long-time listeners know that, if my health and my wallet allowed, I would attend college for the rest of my life, for fun--I view my personal years as September to September. School year to school year, as well as favorite seasons beginning. That forms the topic of this episode...but also...well, this past year, framed as such, has been one of the most difficult in my adult life. There are stories that aren't mine to tell, but the short version of those are that family members have had surgery and medical emergencies. Added to that, my mother in law, who lived in my home, passed away recently, and I I am now knee-deep in sorting through her life in objects, which is difficult not only emotionally but physically, because I can't dive in the way I would like. I say organize and sort and clean, and my body not-so-gently reminds me that I am disabled--and grieving, which exacerbates all of my symptoms. So I'm dealing with the feelings that swing around again in a cycle of feeling trapped in my body, feeling like I should be able to do things I can't. The never-ending grief cycle of becoming chronically ill and disabled, complicated by grieving our matriarch. It's...a lot.

Then I also lost my wonderful Arlo. Arlo Guthrie was my rescue and my constant companion. According to his DNA test, he was part pit bull, part chow chow, part collie, and part Super Mutt, which means he had a little wolf in him. I like to think Super Mutt is the dog version of having Viking ancestry. He lived to be either 18 or 19, depending on how old he was when he became ours, which is astounding for a bigger breed, so I know how blessed I am to get all that time with him. But I spent a great deal of time, starting last autumn, walking him home. Getting up with him in the middle of the night to give him his medication, holding him like a baby when he asked me to, watching over him to make certain he continued to be content and comfortable...it took the wind right out of me, but it was one of the greatest honors of my life. He was the very best boy, and he chose me for this honor. I won't spend this episode bragging about my polka-dotted buddy, but just know he was so cool that he could say his own name. That's right, Arlo could say "Arlo", and would do so when he wanted something.
So taking care of my mother-in-law and Arlo greatly overlapped. That's not a complaint, I'd do it all again in a heartbeat, but I will say this. past year has been a blur of emotion.

And then, last week, as the year ends and I am looking forward to autumn's beginning, I contracted Covid. Again. For the third time.
Yeah.

And as for me in general, my symptoms are getting a little more intense as I age. I expected that. My walking is more wobbly, and my vision is messing with me sometimes. But I try to remind myself that other strengths grow as I lose some. I have become more myself since I had to stop working and start receiving disability
.
So, that's where I have been. Like I said, I would have that work taken from me, but it's been a long journey.

So today, I thought I would look back over the past year in a positive light within the theme of the podcast. There were always, as always, books to comfort me and take me away for the moment, to be with me when I couldn't sleep or had to stay awake. So this episode is celebrating all of my five star reads over the past year, from September, 2024 to yesterday, the beginning of autumn, and appropriately enough, Stephen King's birthday. Let's raise a toast to the King, may he have many more, and celebrate the wonderful written word, in all its comforts.

I ran the numbers (of course I did, I'm autistic), and here's how my reading stats played out for this year. They skewed high, because I am choosy about what I read, so the odds of my severely disliking a book I've read are low--I probably won't even pick up something I suspect I wouldn't like. Again, autism. What can I say. I have read 85 books so far in 2025, and rated 29 of those five stars. I read 36 books from September 21 to December 31, 2024, and rated 19 of those five stars. So the grand total is 48 five star books out of 121 total. 40 percent. That's cooking with gas, as my great-grandfather would have said.

Let's start with fiction, and two shorter works. I finally read Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx (Proo). Yes, I cried. Now I need to finally watch the film. The prose was exceptional. I don't normally read westerns, but this one really captured me. It was lovely and rough-edged and real and tragic.

I also finally read Recitatif ("reh-sit-ah-teef") by Toni Morrison. As you know from the Beloved episode, number 78, "The Chaos of the Needy Dead", I adore Morrison's work and am on a slow but steady mission to read all of it. Recitatif is a exciting and challenging work, about two women who knew each other from school, and are now judging each other. One is white, the other, black. But which one? The reader is never told, and the more you think you know, the more you question your own racial biases. In the introduction, Zadie Smith writes, "Morrison wants us ashamed of how we treat the powerless, even if we, too, feel powerless." When I finished reading it, I felt like I needed to take time to take a personal inventory, something all the best literature should do--upturn your apple cart.

I read another of Toni Morrison's works this year, the second in the Beloved trilogy, Jazz. I won't describe this one to you, because I don't want to spoil anything about this foray into what I would call magical realism (I did find one article that said Morrison objected to that term, but several that claimed it for her works), but I will quote it, because Morrison's writing is like honey on the tongue. "They fill their mind and hands with soap and repair and dicey confrontations because what is waiting for them, in a suddenly idle moment, is the seep of rage. Thick and slow-moving." And one more: "Violet learned then what she had forgotten until this moment: that laughter is serious. More complicated, more serious than tears."

I also have as a goal to read all of William Faulkner's works, and As I Lay Dying earned five stars from me as well. I read The Sound and the Fury this year, too, and gave it four stars. As I Lay Dying, to quote my grandmother, got away from me it was so good. It's a gruesome story involving the building of a coffin and the transport of a family corpse, and said transport does not go well, and so this novel is not for everyone--some of the details are shocking--but it just so humanly flawed, as all of Faulkner's works are. Quote: "In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep. And before you are emptied for sleep, what are you. And when you are emptied for sleep, you are not. And when you are filled with sleep, you never were. I dont know what I am. I dont know if I am or not."

I listened to two short snippets of James Baldwin, and cried with how lucky I was to hear them: James Baldwin himself reading from Another Country, Not My Own, and from Giovanni's Room, thanks to libro.fm. I'll link to them on the website entry for this episode. That man was a beautiful genius, and hearing his voice in his voice deeply moved me down to my toes.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver was a sorrowful delight. It's a reimagining of David Copperfield. The description for the book reads "Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can’t imagine leaving behind." The AI summary on The Story Graph was not only on point but poignant: "For anyone who carries quiet wounds."
Here's a couple of quotes that stuck with me long after I read it:
"People love to believe in danger, as long as it’s you in harm’s way, and them saying bless your heart."
“Certain pitiful souls around here see whiteness as their last asset that hasn’t been totaled or repossessed.”

Then I broke my own heart again by reading Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. Mercy. I knew the premise and the twist because I had already seen the movie--and don't let anyone spoil it for you, please--but it was still a punch to the gut. I really can't discuss this one without spoiling it, so all I can do is beg you to read it when you are in the mood for some delicious melancholy. It just might be an excellent autumnal read.

Now we move into my horror fiction five-star reads from the past year. The next one would not be an excellent autumnal read; in fact, I don't necessarily recommend that you read it at all. I know, strange coming from a bookish podcaster, right? Bear with me. This book is notorious...I won't pull punches. It's told from the point-of-view of an incarcerated child molester as he converses by letter with a nineteen-year-old girl with the same tendencies. Now that everyone has turned the podcast off, I've offended my entire listener base, and I am just talking to myself...There is nothing graphic in this novel, though you might feel like you'd read something graphic when you're finished. It's not at all about the how, God no, it's about the why, written by an Orange Prize winning author. I asked the Readwise AI to describe it based upon my singular highlight and what it knows about the book, this is what I received:
Quote: "Based on your highlights from A. M. Homes’s The End of Alice, the book’s voice is unsettling and propulsive, with moments that read like a character is pushing through despair into grim momentum—“despite her depression, her despondency, she is actually galloping right along, catching up, catching on,” which captures that disturbing forward motion the novel sustains through its prison-confessional narrative and corrosive correspondences between narrator and a young woman."

As I said, very well written, and as challenging in a way as As I Lay Dying. But again, I don't necessarily recommend this unless you are into extreme horror and/or have no children. In fact, let's move on. Pretend I didn't say anything.

The next five-star horror story is also about motherhood, but much more mainstream. Don't read any press about it; a rather large reviewer of books spoiled the twist. It's called Mothered by Zoje Stage, and it's a fast and creepy read. Perfect for spooky season. Quote: "It’s good to get out of your comfort zone—that’s how you find out who you really are." When someone says something like that in a Nora Roberts novel, someone is about to stretch their wings and find their true love. Someone says something like that in a horror novel...you in danger, girl.

Back to adults being cruel to children. It really is not a theme in my reading choices, I swear, but when Joyce Carol Oates writes something, I read it. That's the rules. This one is actually a stand-alone short story, called The Sign of the Beast. I'll just leave you with the synopsis from the publisher: "Eleven-year-old Howard was born with a birthmark on his cheek. His Sunday school teacher mockingly calls it the “sign of the beast.” Too hateful to be named, for Howard she is only Mrs. S——. And she’s as careless in causing him misery as she is willful in arousing his shame. All Howard can do is look away—until he realizes he can turn the aggression on its head."

Next is Witchcraft for Wayward Girls from my buddy Grady Hendrix. Quote: "...a fairy tale that kept drawing her deeper into its trusting gusts until she couldn't get out. One that smelled like wet straw and virgin's blood." Oomph, I just love that. Girls at a home for unwed mothers discover their personal power. Also an excellent autumnal read, although it might be a little gooey for you if you are squicky about pregnancy and childbirth and such.

Next is a book made to be listened to, I discovered. This was a reread, but the first time I listened to the audiobook, and I was enchanted. Hearts in Atlantis by Stephen King is narrated by King himself and actor William Hurt, and it was so cozy and comforting despite the horror. Hurt's voice was perfect for the story. As long as this listen is--and it is twenty hours and nine minutes long--I was still sorry when it ended. Remember this collection is part of the larger Dark Tower Universe. I'll link that list of books in the website entry for this episode. The stories in this collection are "Low Men in Yellow Coats", "Hearts in Atlantis", "Blind Willy", "Why We're in Vietnam", and "Heavenly Shades of Night Are Falling". If you listen or read carefully, you'll hear connections to other books beyond the Tower. I'll leave them for you to find--I counted five different ones this time--but I will posit this: it is a personal theory that Christine might be one of the low men in yellow coats' cars that is not a car. What do you think?
I also wonder about something in "Blind Willy" being a reference to WIlliam Faulkner. In the story, Bill's has disdain for a man who would wear a red tie. In Faulkner's The Sound and The Fury, Jason's prejudice is that only traveling performers (i.e., seducers, flimflam artists, men beneath his station) wore red ties. This novel, with its five parts all tied together, has a similar structure to The Sound and the Fury.
The way King can turn a phrase, to quote my girl Harriet the Spy, really knocks me out sometimes. Listen to this: "...the Buick slipped down Broad Street Hill like a whisper behind a cupped hand." My God, can't you just feel that all the way from your scalp down to your toes?
The title comes from Donovan's song "Atlantis" which I'll quote here, since it's only obliquely referenced in the novel. It's worth mentioning in full. Well, mostly in full--it gets a little repetitive, because it's groovy, man. You understand.

The continent of Atlantis was an island
Which lay before the great flood
In the area we now call the Atlantic Ocean.
So great an area of land,
That from her western shores
Those beautiful sailors journeyed
To the South and the North Americas with ease,
In their ships with painted sails.
To the East Africa was a neighbour, 
Across a short strait of sea miles. 
The great Egyptian age is 
But a remnant of The Atlantian culture.
The antediluvian kings colonised the world
All the Gods who play in the mythological dramas
In all legends from all lands were from far Atlantis.

Knowing her fate,
Atlantis sent out ships to all corners of the Earth.
On board were the Twelve:

The poet, the physician, The farmer, the scientist,
The magician and the other so-called Gods of our legends.
Though Gods they were -
And as the elders of our time choose to remain blind 
Let us rejoice 
And let us sing 
And dance and ring in the new Hail Atlantis!

Way down below the ocean where I wanna be she may be,
My antediluvian baby, oh yeah
I wanna see you some day
My antediluvian baby, I love you, girl,
Girl, I wanna see you some day. 
My antediluvian baby, I wanna see you
My antediluvian baby, gotta tell me where she gone
I wanna see you some day Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up,

I then was privileged to read my friend John Boden's poetry collection before it was published (cover designed by my co-author Bob Ford, it's gorgeous as well) and it knocked me out. The collection is available now; I'll put its Goodreads link in the show notes and on the website. Privileged is too weak a word. These horror poems will get inside you.

The chaser was three more from the King family: a sharp short story from Joe Hill, Jackknife, a short story from Owen King, Letter Slot (don't sleep on Owen, he's a marvelous writer with a keen vision), then a rare and notorious early Stephen King: Rage.

Rage is one of the four "Bachman Books", published as such under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. Rage is from 1977, The Long Walk (which was just made into a movie) is from 1979, Roadwork from 1981, and The Running Man from 1982. It is now published without Rage in the UK, and the other three are published now as separate novels in the US; the publisher allowed the original to go out of print after the 1997 Heath High School shooting in Paducah, Kentucky. To quote King from a 2007 edition of Blaze, "Now out of print, and a good thing." I have an original run copy because...well, because I am old and I was around back then. I had never read Rage before now...I was busy being tested and stressed in school, and then King stated his wishes, and life happened...but I don't believe any literature needs to be feared, necessarily. Hammers can kill, and they pound nails and create. So I finally read it. And it was eerily prescient.
Now that I have said, I feel I have to temper that by mentioning the Heath High School students' names from that day. Not the shooter. He deserves to fade. Nicole Hadley was 14, she played in the band and on the basketball team. Jessica James was 17, in her senior year and also in the band. Kayce Steger was 15, she played in the band as well and on the softball team; she was an honor student who wanted to be a police officer.

Never let it be said that the horror community doesn't have a heart. We can write some of the most terrible things (read: Rage and The End of Alice) and be some of the kindest, most charitable, most tender people you could ever meet. I feel incredibly safe at a horror writers' convention, and I'm quite vulnerable in my wheelchair. I just thought that bears mentioning. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

The last three five-star horror reads are re-reads, and are not controversal. The crowd goes wild! All on audio: Caleb Carr's The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness, both narrated by George Guidall. I love this universe--early-twentieth century profiling, historical horror mixed with forensics. Marvelous and spooky.

Chased them with The Secret History of Twin Peaks, narrated by the show's cast, because I was given free tickets to the Twin Peaks Experience by a glorious Redditer who had extra at the last minute. Ray Wise flirted with me, people. We can shut it down, y'all can't say nothing to me. Ray Wise, Dana Ashbrook, and Sabrina Sutherland loved my Twin Peaks artwork, and Sabrina said it captured David Lynch's ideas, and that he would have loved it. The executive producer said this. I can't even stand myself, and that was a month and a half ago. I need to scan it for the website because Sabrina Sutherland said--

Yeah, books, focus, big head. The Twin Peaks books are both five stars. The sequel is called The Final Dossier, also by Mark Frost, also narrated on audio by cast members.

A little more King and King family, and no one is shocked. Another short story by Joe Hill, who has mastered that venue, in my opinion. Then two more Stephen Kings (happy birthday again, man), Later and You Like It Darker. To quote Later and sum all this up: "Remember what I said about being in a Dickens novel, only with swears? You know why people read books like that? Because they’re so happy that fucked-up shit isn’t happening to them."

That's all the five-star fiction for this September to September year. I was going to swing right into the nonfiction, but I am still recovering from Covid, and the exhaustion hasn't let go of me yet. It multiplies the normal fatigue I deal with daily, as does the brain fog. I usually have brain fog; add in Covid's brain fog, and I become someone who can barely answer a question. I'm exaggerating, but I can't believe I was able to organize all the details of this episode, frankly. So I'll be kind to myself, stop here, and be right back after some sleep and multivitamins with the five-star nonfiction reads for this past year. I hope you are all safe.

Some show business before I go. I have set up, thanks to the omg.lol service, carlapettigrew.com, where I list where I can be found, how I can be contacted, and what I am up to at the moment. My status log, otherwise known as the current thought in my brain, my own personal little Twitter, if you like, can be seen there or highlighted in a different color at the very top of theremightbecupcakes.com, because I actually figured out how to make a javascript work. Maybe I can conquer this brain fog after all. So, if you ever need to contact me, or want to follow me on a book-related service (the only social media I use now is Bluesky, which is also linked there), just hit carlapettigrew.com, which has a link in the footer of theremightbecupcakes.com.

Also, one more thing: part of handling my mother-in-law's estate is finding a home for all of her many, many books that either duplicate our own or that don't mesh with our interests. I have opened a Pangobooks bookstore for that purpose. It's linked in the shownotes and on carlapettigrew.com, or you can search for carlaclara on PangoBooks; so many hardcovers for 1.99, 2.99, etc. The money will be put toward the Little Free Library project and the podcast's expenses, and you'll help me declutter, which will be a godsend.

"Tell you what, the worst part of growing up is how it shuts you up."
--Later, Stephen King

Don't let that happen. I'm not shutting up. Find those cupcakes and yell to the sky about them. I'll be right back with more.