Small Press Book Club will be meeting on Thursday, July 24th, at 7 pm. We will be reading Your Love Is Not Good by Johanna Hedva, published by And Other Stories Press.
About the publisher:
And Other Stories is an independent British press founded in 2009 and based in Sheffield. They are a Community Interest Company (CIC), meaning they are not-for-profit. They say: “we make our decisions based on what we think is good writing and a good way of working. This sets us apart from shareholder-driven publishing companies where all decisions are ultimately about increasing profits.” Supporters and subscribers have the opportunity to take part in reading groups to discuss what books they should publish. And they donate 10% of their profits to literary magazines, public libraries, and other organizations which you can read about here.
About the book:
An artist of color becomes obsessed with a white model in a novel with the glamour of Clarice Lispector and the viscerality of Han Kang. At an otherwise forgettable party in Los Angeles, a queer Korean American painter spots a woman who instantly controls the room: gorgeous and distant and utterly white, the center of everyone's attention. Haunted into adulthood by her Korean father's abandonment of his family, as well as the specter of her beguiling, abusive white mother, the painter finds herself caught in a perfect trap. She wants Hanne, or wants to be her, or to sully her, or destroy her, or consume her, or some confusion of all the above. Since she's an artist, she will use art to get closer to Hanne, beginning a series of paintings with her new muse as model. As for Hanne, what does she want? Her whiteness seems sometimes as cruel as a new sheet of paper.
When the paintings of Hanne become a hit, resulting in the artist's first sold-out show, she resolves to bring her new muse with her to Berlin, to continue their work, and her seduction. But, just when the painter is on the verge of her long sought-after breakthrough, a petition started by a Black performance artist begins making the rounds in the art community, calling for the boycott of major museums and art galleries for their imperialist and racist practices. Torn between her desire to support the petition, to be a success, and to possess Hanne, the painter and her reality become more unstable and disorienting, unwilling to cut loose any one of her warring ambitions, yet unable to accommodate them all. Is it any wonder so many artists self-destruct so spectacularly? Is it perhaps just a bit exciting to think she could too? Your Love Is Not Good stuffs queer explosive into the cracks between identity and aspiration, between desire and art, and revels in the raining debris.