Front Table Newsletter 10/06/2023

On This Week's Front Table, sift through complex histories of Black queer history makers Bayard Rustin and iconic jazz musician Billy Strayhorn, to a memoir rich in psychological research and moving detail about the connection to a person's native language and what it means to learn a language later in life, to a comprehensive history and defense of the essential food assistance program SNAP, to a queer and feminist retelling of the famous story of Hercules. 

Herc
(Hanover Square Press) 
Phoenica Rogerson

This should be the story of Hercules: his twelve labours, his endless adventures... everyone's favorite hero, right? Well, it's not. This is the story of everyone else:

• Alcmene: Herc's mother (She has knives everywhere)
• Hylas: Herc's first friend (They were more than friends)
• Megara: Herc's wife (She'll tell you about their marriage)
• Eurystheus: Oversaw Herc's labours (He never asked for the job)
• His friends, his enemies, his wives, his children, his lovers, his rivals, his gods, his victims.

It's time to hear their stories. Told with humour and heart, Herc gives voice to the silenced characters, in this feminist, queer (and sometimes shocking) retelling of classic Hercules myth, perfect for fans of Madeline Miller and Joanne M. Harris.


Bayard Rustin
(New York University Press) 
Michael G Long 

While we can all recall images of Martin Luther King Jr. giving his "I Have a Dream" speech in front of a massive crowd at Lincoln Memorial, few of us remember the man who organized this watershed nonviolent protest in eight short weeks: Bayard Rustin. As a world-traveling pacifist, he brought Gandhi's protest techniques to the forefront of US civil rights demonstrations, helped build the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, led the fight for economic justice, and played a deeply influential role in the life of Dr. King by helping to mold him into an international symbol of nonviolent resistance. Despite these achievements, Rustin was often relegated to the background. He was silenced, threatened, arrested, beaten, imprisoned, and fired from important leadership positions, largely because he was an openly gay man in a fiercely homophobic era. With expansive, searching, and sometimes critical essays from a range of esteemed writers--including Rustin's own partner, Walter Naegle--this volume draws a full picture of Bayard Rustin: a gay, pacifist, socialist political radical who changed the course of US history and set a precedent for future civil rights activism, from LGBTQ+ Pride to Black Lives Matter.

Why SNAP Works
(University of California Press)
Christopher John Bosso 

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is the nation's largest government effort for helping low-income Americans obtain an adequate diet. How did SNAP, formerly the food stamp program, evolve from a Depression-era effort to use up surplus goods into America's foundational food assistance program? And how does SNAP survive? Incisive and original, Why SNAP Works is the first book to provide a comprehensive history and evaluation of the nation's most important food insecurity and poverty alleviation effort. Christopher Bosso makes a clear, nuanced, and impassioned case for protecting this unique food program, exploring its history and breaking down the facts for readers across the political spectrum. Why SNAP Works is an essential book for anyone concerned about food access, poverty, and the "welfare system" in the United States.

Queer Arrangements
(Wesleyan University Press)
Lisa Barg 

The legacy of Black queer composer, arranger, and pianist Billy Strayhorn (1915-1967) hovers at the edge of canonical jazz narratives. Queer Arrangements explores the ways in which Strayhorn's identity as an openly gay Black jazz musician shaped his career, including the creative roles he could assume and the dynamics between himself and his collaborators, most famously Duke Ellington, but also iconic singers such as Lena Horne and Ella Fitzgerald. This new portrait of Strayhorn combines critical, historically-situated close readings of selected recordings, scores, and performances with biography and cultural theory to pursue alternative interpretive jazz possibilities, Black queer historical routes, and sounds. By looking at jazz history through the instrument(s) of Strayhorn's queer arrangements, this book sheds new light on his music and on jazz collaboration at midcentury.

Gender Heretics
(Pluto Press UK)
Rebecca Jane Morgan 

For decades, conservative evangelicals and so-called gender critical feminists have worked hand-in-hand to oppose trans liberation. But how did this alliance come about? What makes it tick? And how can trans people and allies respond? In Gender Heretics, Rebecca Jane Morgan tackles this reactionary alliance head on. With unique insight, she explores how theological arguments snaked their way from anti-trans feminist tracts into the everyday practices of evangelical churches today, and how the unlikely alliance remains strong in spite of seemingly irreconcilable worldviews. Shedding light on the roots of today's transphobic backlash, she provides crucial tools to overcome it, offering a hopeful way forward for Christians  and advocating for a full recalibration of evangelical thought on gender identity and trans activism.

Memory Speaks
(Belknap Press) 
Julie Sedivy 

Julie Sedivy was two years old when her parents left Czechoslovakia. By the time she graduated from college, she rarely spoke Czech, and English had taken over her life. When her father died unexpectedly and her strongest link to her native tongue was severed, she discovered that more was at stake than the loss of language: she began to feel she was losing herself. In Memory Speaks, Sedivy explores the brain's capacity to learn--and forget--languages at various stages of life, poignantly combining a rich body of psychological research with a moving story that is at once deeply personal and universally resonant.

Dinosaurs
(W. W. Norton) 
Lydia Millet 

Hailed as "a writer without limits" (Karen Russell) and "a stone-cold genius" (Jenny Offill), Millet's  new novel is the story of a man named Gil who walks from New York to Arizona to recover from a failed love. After he arrives, new neighbors move into the glass-walled house next door and his life begins to mesh with theirs. In this warmly textured, drily funny, and philosophical account of Gil's unexpected devotion to the family, Millet explores the uncanny territory where the self ends and community begins--what one person can do in a world beset by emergencies. Dinosaurs is both sharp-edged and tender, an emotionally moving, intellectually resonant novel that asks: In the shadow of existential threat, where does hope live?