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sinceileftyoublog · 2 years

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Honey Harper Interview: Intentionality Over Authenticity

Photo by Colin Medley

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Honey Harper started out as a love story and became a country story.

Singer-songwriter William Fussell met keyboardist Alana Pagnutti, who was from Toronto, in New York City in 2013. Pagnutti’s visa was running out, but she was able to move to the UK with an Italian passport. (Keep in mind: pre-Brexit.) Fussell had fallen in love with her, so he went to the UK with her. Eventually, they decided to start a family and moved to Toronto where they could rely on the support of her family. And they also wanted to make music.

While the earliest Honey Harper songs sound like a Fussell solo project, they’re anything but. Pagnutti was the one who first encouraged Fussell to record music full-time and helped draw up the songs. Then, she joined the live band. Eventually, on Honey Harper’s debut record Starmaker, she took on a larger role. The band billed their gorgeous dream pop-country hybrid as “country music for people who don’t like country,” more 22, A Million than Glen Campbell.

Now, Honey Harper seems limitless, much because their follow-up, Honey Harper & the Infinite Sky (ATO), is a full-band record, with heavyweights like bassist and contributing writer Mick Mayer, John Carroll Kirby, Spoon’s Alex Fischel, guitarist Jackson MacIntosh, pedal steel guitarist Connor Gallaher, and TOPS drummer Riley Fleck. With this all-star, genre-traversing cast, Honey Harper is consciously making “country music for everyone,” challenging the assumptions of previous generations, toying with Internet obsessions over authenticity, all rooted in the philosophy of Jean Baudrillard. Yes, you read that right.

But if that sounds like some misguided, B-rate Coen Brothers-esque gobbledygook, fear not: Honey Harper & the Infinite Sky is, simply, fun as hell, a well-paced album with something for everyone. “Reflections” opens with the pedal steel twang from your favorite country records, eventually subsumed by sparkling keyboards, trotting drums, and strummed acoustic guitars, a plaintive, deep-voiced Fussell winking and nodding to, “Take my dreams and put them in your pocket for somebody else to see”. “Ain’t No Cowboys in Georgia” is straight country rock, while “Broken Token” adopts a Southern rock choogle. “One Thing” is a crooned waltz. "Boots Mine Gold” is cosmic country funk; “No honky tonk could save my soul,” sings Fussell, belting at the end among Bee Gees-level harmonies. “It’s hard to make a living when you’re not living at all,” Fussell sings on crunchy stomp “Hard to Make a Living”, the type of universal line that’s so simple, yet so powerful, no wonder he’s priming to write for massive country pop artists.

First things first, Honey Harper is still a DIY project. The band’s tour with Amanda Shires--planned entirely by Fussell and Pagnutti--has been up and down, with a few dates cancelled due to COVID and one broken-down van. But they’re keeping on, with the opportunity to present Honey Harper both as a full rock and roll band and as a stripped-down three-piece that acts as a bridge between Starmaker and Honey Harper & The Infinite Sky. The band’s opening set tomorrow night at SPACE in Evanston will be comprised of the latter, a true gift for those of us who like our country music in all of its forms.

A couple months ago, I spoke with Fussell over the phone about the history of Honey Harper, why he’s interested in ideas of authenticity, pedal steel, guitar harmonies, and scams. Read our conversation below, edited for length and clarity.

Photo by Angus Borsos

Since I Left You: When did you decide to have Alana take on a bigger role in Honey Harper?

William Fussell: She’s really been involved the whole time. The project wouldn’t exist without her. I was working on something in the studio in 2016-2017 in London. That morning, I was playing songs for her. She said, “You should record that song today.” She was the one who told me to record “Secret”, the first song I ever recorded for Honey Harper. I went to the studio that day, recorded it, and came back and she said, “This is what you need to be doing.” I took all the songs I had made, and we formulated them together. She’s been involved since the beginning, just in the back. She joined the live band in 2019. It was a natural progression of her becoming more and more involved in the project until she joined the band full-time. It’s the first time I’ve worked with a partner. We’ve done a lot of music together. It creates really amazing situations, for sure, as you know each other so well. She’s a great editor. She’s an author, too. She’s done a lot. She’s a very smart person, and I needed someone like that to help. She gives my esoteric nonsense all meaning.

SILY: On this record, why did you decide to expand the sound and play with a full band?

WF: It was done painstakingly over about two years, piece by piece, going to Paris to work with producers, going to Hungary to record strings with the Hungarian Studio Orchestra. [In the beginning,] we were sitting on our assess the first two months of the pandemic being sad about stuff, thinking, “It took us two years to write the last record. Let’s write this one in two weeks.” In order to do that, we needed a good band, and a good studio, and we ended up finding those things. It was all intentional to do it quite differently. We recorded songs three times and took the best take. If you feel that live energy, that’s why, harkening back to 1970s California. We recorded it in California, so I think we achieved it.

SILY: There are some pretty big names here. Had you worked before with John Carroll Kirby and Alex Fischel?

WF: John Carroll Kirby was all over Starmaker. I met him through Sébastien Tellier in Paris in 2018. He’s a wizard, man. He’s a genius. He’s one of the best piano players of our time right now, especially with his taste. What he can do with the synthesizers is very cool as well, a little bit of a Herbie Hancock/Stevie Wonder situation. His own music is very different, too. He’s a great producer. I love that guy.

SILY: In the album bio, you talk about playing with ideas of authenticity and what country music is. You’ve called Starmaker “country music for people who don’t like country music.” And there are definitely certain ways that the genre is splitting, ambient country players versus more traditional players. Why is exploring non-country country music something you’re interested in doing with this project?

WF: It’s interesting: It is happening with folks like Sturgill [Simpson] and Metamodern Sounds In Country Music and folks like Daniel Romano who were doing it back in 2013. Those are the forerunners of this new modern wave of things, obviously influenced by some stuff in the early 2000s like Beachwood Sparks and Neko Case. This is an interesting time for [country]. [With Honey Harper,] we’re trying to come at it from a bit of a different perspective, a postmodern ideology that’s kind of aware of what it’s doing. That’s what I mean by playing with authenticity, with my belief that nothing is truly authentic. That idea is a bit outdated, and the idea of continuing to create [authenic music] kind of stifles you in a sense. This record really tries to break that mold by incorporating ourselves fully really deep, choosing to do it in three takes, taking the photos, using this imagery. It’s all very intentional. None of it is to make it less than, it’s that wherever you come from or whatever you do, this music is for everyone, now. I think that’s what I’m trying to say. It’s not geographically located anymore. For so long, it was.

I also don’t want to overthink it. I was talking to my uncle about Baudrillard the other night, and he said, “You gotta stop overthinking shit so much. Just play the music, man!” It’s hard. We want to give the music meaning and life and think about what we’re reading and let people into our heads. But at the same time, it’s supposed to be fun. You could break this down and I could talk to you for hours about Americana and country music. [At the same time,] this sounds like a fun 1970s country record.

SILY: From what perspective are you singing in “Ain’t No Cowboys in Georgia” when you sing, “Sick and tired of three chords and the truth / I think I’m ready for some computer blues”?

WF: That’s a lot that has to do with the Baudrillardian idea of authenticity. It [was written during] a time period in my life when I might have been a bit more angry that it’s impossible to break into the idea of reality. None of it’s really about truth. Everyone’s just making up stories. There are so few people that sing truthfully. It was a bit of a passive-aggressive line, for sure. It’s meant to be a bit funny, as well. It’s a little tongue-in-cheek.

A lot of this record was based in this conversation we were having in the studio about Baudrillard’s idea of simulation, and our initial idea of what’s real was based on something created not too long before it, and that was based on something created not too long before that.

The song title itself was given to me by my papa. I did an interview with Interview Magazine a while ago, and I was talking about my deteriorating relationship with my grandparents, and Trump being elected and this divide that happened in so many families. It happened in my family, and I got mad. [My grandfather] read the interview and got mad and sent me a long string of messages. He’d always end messages in very crazy ways. In the interview, I had said, “You can't always trust a cowboy,” speaking about my family in Georgia. So he ended his messages to me with, “By the way, there ain’t no cowboys in Georgia.” I was like, “Damn, that’s a good song lyric. Thank you for that.”

So the song has two places it’s coming from. This idea of trying to create a world that is Honey Harper right now, living in the farce of authenticity, but also talking about deep relationships with my grandparents. And now that they’ve passed away, the harshness that comes from that deep mourning and that loss, but that the relationship had already died long before. There’s a dual meaning behind that song to me, part personal and part philosophical.

SILY: How much does your aim to reclaim country music for everybody have to do with the fact that certain areas of country music are traditionally associated with conservative politics?

WF: That’s big talk, now, with Maren Morris and Aldean’s wife. It takes a lot of guts inside of that industry to do [what Morris did]. We listened to this really interesting podcast about how mainstream country music became a tool for the right. At first, it was folk songs for union boys that were very antigovernmental. In the 50s and 60s, it kind of got taken over again. In the 70s, it went to Willie and Waylon, the exact opposite, outlaw shit. Sometime in the 90s, it started becoming a tool for the right, and in the early 2000s, when 9/11 happened, with Toby Keith and all these people writing these crazy patriotic songs about soldiers going to Afghanistan. It’s interesting what happened. Many books could be written about the political and philosophical idea of what happened inside American country.

SILY: As much as your uncle said, “Don’t overthink this so much,” even the moments when you are being philosophical come across as conversational. You’re just riffing with people.

WF: It’s not clickbait. It is a little bit. It’s a little bomb you can drop to see how people will react. It’s a conversation starter. I’ve witnessed a little bit of that in my older years of people who like to do that stuff.

SILY: On “Tired of Feeling Good”, when you sing, “John says that the band sounds tight,” are you talking about John Carroll Kirby?

WF: I’m talking about Jon Salter from ATO Records. I think that line was written by our bassist. That was another tongue in cheek, Dr. Hook kind of song. I like talking about people in our lives and the music industry. Jon Salter was at a show, and we ended up talking to him later on. I’ve done that in the past on my EPs, just quote people. Some of the best lyrics in the world are just people talking.

SILY: How did you approach the sequencing on this record?

WF: We were working with this management group for a few months. The label and Jon had some ideas too. It was a collaborative effort for sure. One thing I knew was I wanted “Reflections” to be the first song. The last song and the first song I knew what I wanted. Everything else kind of fit in between it. “Reflections” to me is a nice bridge from Starmaker into the new record. It starts out in this synthy world, and by the end of it, you’re in this country rock thing. I love the song, too, the chorus in it and that we’re content creators these days and addicted to our cellphones and our self worth is in social media. Everybody talks about that.

SILY: The pedal steel these days is making a huge comeback, and it’s sort of that bridge between traditional country and ambient country. Did you have any input in Connor Gallaher’s pedal steel playing, or did you let him do what fit?

WF: These guys are great at what they do. The etherealness of what he would do was all Connor. I had some hooks in my head that I wanted the lead guitarist to do. A lot of it is electric guitar and the pedal steel doing guitarmonies, which is my favorite thing in the world. More than vocal harmonies, when guitars harmonize together, it’s just so sick. There’s no other way to put it. It’s so fun to listen to, so unapologetically awesome and stupid. Any time you hear it, it’s always good.

Starmaker was influenced by [Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois, and Roger Eno’s] Apollo. When I first heard that, I thought, “This is what cosmic country should sound like.” That to me, sonically, is the most cosmic country record ever made. Synthesizers and pedal steel. It’s so cool.

SILY: Do you listen to Luke Schneider and Chuck Johnson?

WF: Yeah, I love them, they’re great. And Harold Budd. I wanna work with [Luke] one day. [I also like] North Americans out of California.

SILY: Andrew Tuttle?

WF: Hayden Pedigo out of Amarillo. There are a bunch of cool people. William Tyler, Jake Xerxes Fussell. [Jake and I] share a last name. Maybe we’re related. People like that I’d love to work with and make something like that. The next move, I have some ideas for it. It’s kind of in the works. There are two ways to go with it.

SILY: Do you have a favorite guitarmonies song ever, or one that you think best encapsulates the idea of it?

WF: There are obvious ones, like “Layla” or “Bell Bottom Blues”. All Allman Brothers songs, like “Ramblin’ Man”, are amazing guitarmonies songs. The intro to “Ramblin’ Man” is so freakin’ good. I could listen to that intro over and over again, which is why “Broken Token” was created, because it was a tribute to that kind of thing. Little River Band’s “Lonesome Loser”.

SILY: I always think of “Reelin’ in the Years”.

WF: Oh yeah, Steely Dan. Duh.

SILY: Do you have a favorite song from the record, or a favorite song to play live from it.

WF: “Crystal Heart”. “Lake Song” and “Crystal Heart” are very Starmaker-y. “Crystal Heart” is about when we almost became Scientologists but ended up changing our minds. We were considering it, walking in London and thinking, “Let’s go get our thetans tested.” We thought more about it and realized, “This is how they get you.” You go in and think, “This seems fun to do” and then you spend the rest of your life praying to Zorb or whatever. It got into my head, the whole idea of being taken into this cult. That’s what the whole idea is about, going clear and what not. It was a brief conversation that turned into a bigger story.

SILY: Are you the type of person especially prone to scams?

WF: [laughs] Probably, honestly. I really love people and probably trust them a little too much. I think Alana has taught me how to be less vulnerable to scams. If you can catch me by myself, you got me, but if Alana’s there, you got no chance. That’s just a little news for anyone there trying to get me to join their cult.

SILY: What’s the inspiration behind the cover art?

WF: We wanted to have something that was a continuation of Starmaker. We thought that was a cool idea, almost a transformation. This young, blonde pretty angel came to earth in the middle of the pandemic, got stuck, and came out the other side older and grizzlier and more tired.

SILY: Is your live set these days mostly these songs?

WF: I have two different bands for this tour. I have a full rock and roll band. But when we play Evanston, it’s going to be a different show. It’s going to be a 3-piece that’s more of a bridge between this record and Starmaker. I have two amazing musicians joining me. I’m excited that I got on this tour and had two options. You’ll hear more of both records with a three-piece. My full band is all the new record.

SILY: Have you played SPACE before?

WF: No. I haven’t played Chicago as Honey Harper. But I’ve played Empty Bottle and Schubas and Lincoln Hall.

SILY: What’s next for you in the short or long term?

WF: This tour is taking up the rest of the year. I’ll be working some things in the meantime. It’s a lot of prepping for this tour and next year in Europe and more in the states later on.

I’m getting into producing for some different projects in Nashville. I’m trying to get involved in songwriting for bigger pop-country artists.

One of the directions we’ve discussed going is going even deeper into the idea of authenticity and creating a bit of an alter ego, a pop country Honey Harper. It’s so fun to write [those kinds of] songs, even though they can be kind of ridiculous.

SILY: How’s touring with Amanda Shires been?

WF: So far so good! My band and her band go back a long ways. The keyboard player for my band and the drummer and bassist of her band used to play for Butch Walker. The bassist in my band and the bassist in Amanda’s band are dating.

SILY: Anything you’ve been listening to, watching, or reading lately that’s caught your attention?

WF: I’ve been listening to a lot of Ethel Cain. She’s one of my favorites right now. Rina Sawayama. Chappell Rone. A lot of Carpenters. I’m all over the place. Red Hot Chili Peppers. Melvins.

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rollercoasterwords · 1 year

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hiii so i'm trying to have a "get fucking educated" summer where i tackle a lot of nonfiction and learn about shit. i've seen you recommend some books on ur blog before but do u have any nonfiction books u especialy reccomend that u found super educational/eye opening?? i'm really interested in like prison abolition for example, just not sure where to start

omg get fucking educated summer love that for u <3 and yes of course would love 2 give recs!!

for prison abolition, all my recs are gonna be u.s.-centric as that's where i'm from, so if u are from outside the u.s. + looking to learn abt abolition specifically in ur country then u will perhaps want 2 do a more specific search (+ if i have any mutuals who wanna recommend texts on prison abolition for countries outside the u.s. please do!!). BUT that said i definitely recommend starting with are prisons obsolete? by angela y. davis, and honestly any of davis's writing about prison abolition is great. i also really liked the end of policing by alex s. vitale as like an intro text to prison abolition.

as for nonfiction i've found particularly eye-opening/educational -- there's a ton!! capitalist realism: is there no alternative? by mark fisher has been a favorite this year, and jamie berrout's essays against publishing also felt v eye-opening. i've also really enjoyed whipping girl by julia serano, screw consent by joseph j. fischel, and various andrea long chu writings (the pink, on liking women, females) in terms of texts that have like. really pushed me to think. i've also been reading a lot of marx + engels recently thanks 2 some recs from a mutual (hi laura) + would highly highly recommend--so far i've read socialism: utopian and scientific, principles of communism, wage labour and capital, and value price and profit + if i had to recommend just one of those 2 start with i'd probably say wage labour and capital!

OH and almost forgot - rn i'm reading playing the whore: the work of sex work by melissa gira grant + i'm only abt halfway thru but would HIGHLY recommend it as well--overlaps quite a bit w prison abolition as sex workers are a group that suffer heavily from police violence!!

#and of course if u have any other specific topics ur interested in lmk + im always happy 2 see if i've read anything that i could rec!#ask #book recs

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newyorkkiss · 1 month

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its me 🥄 im still around im like.. on tumblr to an embarrassing degree because i have. well, problems i suppose. so rest assured i am, more often than not, seeing and enjoying the posts- i really do like all the fun stuff you find and the things you scan and the photos and gifs you post/make! also btw i just got done listening to that mount kimbie/king krule song you posted and i absolutely loved that. sorry i dont reach out much or come off anon ever its the. aforementioned problems. fun fact i live in united states central timezone (spoon technically qualifies as a semi local band to me) and have for all this time! i just dont ever sleep right haha. due to, circumstances. things sure suck and are weird huh! in a general sense. i think you can probably relate. 🫂 <- this is us if you want.

anywayyy sorry this got weird and sad lmaooo please keep listening to good music, including spoon, and posting about it so i can see!! i need to keep learning about how genuinely odd (affectionate <3) britt daniel is. something to be said for how ethereal and feylike he can come off while simultaneously being the most literally just some gen x guy ever. sir why are you willowy.. why are your features so delicate. why is your hair so downy. WHY are you wearing the lamest fit ive ever seen. and so forth, you know what i mean. i also like learning from you about what an adorable babygirlifiable dork alex fischel is which i had been sorely overlooking

obligatory ↑

but yes spoon anon i missed you so much. you are so loved. please feel free to literally say anything any time. cutting this cuz i'm gonna yap.

that description of britt is so... accurate. like nail on the head 100% truth, words taken straight from my mouth, etc. he can genuinely be so beautiful – it's actually stunning. sometimes he can look like an evil goblin lol. it's astounding. seeing it irl is kind of blinding, hypnotic in a way? he moves so fluidly and perfectly. like 100% control and command of the space he's in – he knows what he's doing. like he could just be like any other performer and just stay stood in one place barely moving – let alone interacting with any other members, which is very lovely to witness – all interaction between them is so heartwarming, like you just know they all actually love doing what they're doing and enjoy performing. they goof off sometimes, don't give a fuck when they do. it's just lovely.

and yes alex is literally the babiest girl to have ever existed imo. only one other man is that good to me but i'm not mentioning (not shameful, just don't think anybody cares. it's sebastian vettel.) that aside he is also so... bizarre? which is something even i overlooked for an extremely long time until i was like Okay what is up w this guy what is his lore. he has a deeply attention deficit riddled childlike quirkiness that i have to resonate with. his tweets on the spoon twt are really unhinged. even his personal tweets are unhinged. he says some of the most random shit sometimes in interviews. he somehow manages to look so fucking beautiful when he's bored as fuck in interviews. i made a heap of gifs from one bts video from their twms era acl performance (need to track down the full thing and make more) and he's so fucking drunk it's endearing – he's just vibing the fuck out in his own little world the entire time. in the post-show interview he's looks utterly hammered sipping from a bottomless solo cup, not saying anything.

^ literally girls when they're drunk and have no idea what anybody is saying.

it is impossible to hate him. he's genuinely hilarious and all second hand descriptions of him being an instigator and a wild man are extremely accurate. and he's also obviously extremely talented. it's so jhghd to see how -.- he kind of gets whenever britt complements him on that. i'd have to dig around but there was a lots era pod they did and britt complemented him on his ability to play guitar which is a more recent-ish thing for him and said he's better than he is and alex was like Ummm okay? that's not true -__- and it's like ohgh man.... like the first (noisy) solo on satellite is alex btw and it's good?? he even bashes himself for not being able to sing too which is such a lie he sounds like an angel whenever he does live backup... but alas. he is so loved. we love him. everyone loves him. we all know britt loves him. he is the entire universe.

also yes i will forever be posting my garbicth music need not worry... nothing will ever stop me from posting spotify links here or anywhere else. i have a massive general diary playlist of everything i listen to on a near daily basis and it's updated constantly. it's just one huge log of everything i've enjoyed since i was 16 lol. only becomes truly curated after mid 2017, though. also i apologize for the vast amount of greyed out local file tracks in that playlist but i swear a lot of them are worth tracking down if you're really interested.

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ithinkibetterfollowyouaround · 1 year

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Spoon - "I Can't Give Everything Away"

Spoon – “I Can’t Give Everything Away”

Spoon shared their cover of David Bowie’s “I Can’t Give Everything Away”, from Bowie’s last album “Blackstar”, it is now available to stream anywhere, everywhere. Britt Daniel shared this about the cover: “’I Can’t Give Everything Away’ is a tune Alex Fischel and I have been playing since we learned it for an acoustic and piano show in Mexico City in 2016. It’s just a fantastic song, and as the…

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reportwire · 2 years

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Phoebe Bridgers Joins Storefront Church for Cover of Low's 'Words'

Phoebe Bridgers Joins Storefront Church for Cover of Low’s ‘Words’

Lukas Frank, who records under the moniker Storefront Church, has teamed up with his childhood friend Phoebe Bridgers for a rendition of ‘Words’, a song from Low’s 1994 debut I Could Live in Hope. Frank and Waylon Rector co-produced the track, which also features Spoon’s Alex Fischel on piano, Daniel Rhine on bass, and Cynthia Tolson on strings. Take a listen below. Frank said in a statement…

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rockpicschick1 · 2 years

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portinfinite · 2 years

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fuckyeahspoon · 1 year

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#spoon #spoontheband #alex fischel

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savkss · 5 years

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God, I feel B L E S S E D

💕 💕 💕 💕 💕 💕

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rollercoasterwords · 2 years

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omg hi, hello, it’s me again (anon from the non fandom rec ask)

I’d absolutely love to hear the nonfiction recs you alluded to as well.

Already added all the last books to my reading list, thank you so so much 😖🙏

omg hi hello yay this is so exciting for me okay here are some nonfiction recommendations!!! most of these are pretty accessible even if u aren't super familiar with reading theory + i've noted the ones that are a little more dense or might require some more background knowledge before jumping in:

The Invention of Heterosexuality by Jonathan Ned Katz. Literally what the title says - Katz traces the historical invention of the word "heterosexuality" along with how its meaning has changed over time, bringing into focus just how recent our modern social constructions of sexuality are. You can also find a condensed article version if you don't want to read an entire book--same title and everything.

Screw Consent: A Better Politics of Sexual Justice by Joseph Fischel. I just finished this book recently and loved it, but it's not something I would recommend engaging with if you don't already have some like...groundwork for engaging with feminist and queer theory. Like it is very much not a beginner text but the work it's doing is so so important in addressing a lot of the issues with our post #MeToo cultural rhetoric and politics when it comes to discussing rape culture and sexual violence.

Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde. Personally I simply think everyone should read some Lorde at some point in their lives.

Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldúa. Because I also think everyone should read some Anzaldúa at some point in their lives.

Women, Race & Class by Angela Davis. Another essential feminist text.

Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Davis. Highly highly highly recommend for anyone wanting to learn more about prison abolition (specifically within a U.S. context).

The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale. This goes hand in hand with the Angela Davis listed above and is a pretty straightforward breakdown of why police are unnecessary and some possibilities of what a society without them (or defunding them) could look like (again, within a U.S. context).

+ some bonus recs that are a little more niche:

Regarding the Pain of Others by Susan Sontag. This book dives into the ethics of like...trauma + photography but honestly a lot of the points Sontag makes feel very relevant beyond that context considering the world we live in where pretty much everything gets uploaded online.

No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive by Lee Edelman. This is perhaps the single most influential work of theory i've come across in my life on just like...a personal level. Like Edelman's theory of reproductive futurity is burned forever in my brain and fundamentally altered my worldview. That being said this book is NOT FUN to read and it is incredibly dense. I had to return to it many times and discuss it at length with the professor who was teaching it to me before I finally started to grasp it, and then it was literally like my eyes had been opened and could never be shut again. so! i feel compelled to include it in any nonfiction recommendation list, but i definitely recommend going in with some groundwork already laid when it comes to ur engagement with queer theory.

Men, Women, and Chainsaws by Carol J. Clover. Simply a quintessential text for anyone interested in feminism + horror, which i very much am.

Zombies and Sexuality: Essays on Desire and the Living Dead ed. by Shaka McGlotten and Steve Jones. This book is soooo fucking fun i absolutely love zombie theory. some of the essays are denser than others so it's probably best to go in once you already have some background engaging w queer + feminist theory. my favorite chapters were "Take, Eat, These Are My Brains: Queer Zombie Jesus"; "A Love Worth Un-Undying For: Neoliberalism and Queered Sexuality in Warm Bodies"; and "Re-Animating the Social Order: Zombies and Queer Failure".

+ my current nonfiction read:

Texts after Terror: Rape, Sexual Violence, and the Hebrew Bible by Rhiannon Graybill. Look even if you've never touched the bible in your life my favorite thing about this book is the way Graybill questions our frameworks for discussing sexual violence and proposes new ones that better account for the gray area that is so often (and so problematically) scrubbed out by the cultural emphasis on consent. This text engages with the Fischel book I mentioned above, it's just that Graybill's trying to add more nuance into our discussions of rape culture specifically in her area of expertise, which happens to be the Hebrew bible. This is another one where I'd recommend some groundwork in feminist and queer theory before jumping in though :)

#i simply love reading and learning and thinking about topics!!!!#book recs

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