Front Table Newsletter 1/7/26
On this week’s Front Table, explore the realities of people who are told their illnesses are all in their head, study the ancient rocks that are the foundation of life as we know it, and embark on a labyrinthine fantasia in a classic Mexican novel. Hear traditional anthems meet songs of protest, frame the immigrant experience in the doorway of an exclusive nightclub, close-read great American films to understand "America" and "film" anew, and rediscover a novel of virus, isolation, and surveillance. Find these titles and more at semcoop.com.
Invisible Illness
(University of California Press)
Emily Mendenhall
From lupus to Lyme, invisible illness is often dismissed by everyone but the sufferers. Why does the medical establishment continually insist that, when symptoms are hard to explain, they are probably just in your head?
Inspired by her work with long COVID patients, medical anthropologist Emily Mendenhall traces the story of complex chronic conditions to show why both research and practice fail so many. Mendenhall points out disconnects between the reality of chronic disease--which typically involves multiple intersecting problems resulting in unique, individualized illness--and the assumptions of medical providers, who behave as though chronic diseases have uniform effects for everyone. And while invisible illnesses have historically been associated with white middle-class women, being believed that you are sick is even more difficult for patients whose social identities and lived experiences may not align with dominant medical thought. Weaving together cultural history with intimate interviews, Invisible Illness upholds the experiences of those living with complex illness to expose the failures of the American healthcare system--and how we can do better.
The Oldest Rocks on Earth: A Search for the Origins of Our World
(Columbia University Press)
Simon Lamb
Earth has existed for an immense period of time--an almost unimaginable 4.6 billion years. If we ventured far enough into the past, would we reach a time when our planet was fundamentally different? Did it always have landscapes like those we see today, sculpted by wind, rain, and the forces of plate tectonics? When did Earth turn into the distinctive "blue planet" where life could emerge and evolve?
Geologist Simon Lamb shows that the key to answering these questions lies in ancient rocks from the days when the planet was young. His research in remote southern Africa looks at some of the oldest known rocks--some more than 3.5 billion years old--which have survived unfathomable spans of geological time. He takes readers on a journey of scientific discovery, walking--and sometimes diving--through landscapes from the time of the earliest documented forms of life. Lamb unearths a violent world of volcanic eruptions, natural disasters, and profound geological forces in the deep ocean, along ancient shorelines, and amid rising mountains. In so doing, he shows how geologists work and think, and how they read rocks and decipher what they tell us about the past. Finding the foundations of our world, The Oldest Rocks on Earth sheds light on why Earth is the only planet known to harbor life and what this might tell us about our future.
Palinuro of Mexico
(Dalkey Archive Press)
Fernando Del Passo; Elizabeth Plaister (Trans.)
Palinuro, a medical student, is born into a polygenetic family: Uncle Esteban, who fled from Hungary during the Great War and traveled across the world to Mexico, clinging to his dream of becoming a doctor; Grandpa Francisco, a Freemason and old-time companion of Pancho Villa; Uncle Austin, an ex-British marine; grandmothers, aunts, cousins--an eccentric menage. Since childhood, Palinuro has loved his first cousin, Estefania, with an overwhelming and consuming passion. They indulge their incestuous desires and bizarre fantasies in a room in the Plaza Santa Domingo.
Drawing from a cultural cornucopia, del Paso propels Palinuro and his companions though the real and the imaginary realms of mythology, science, politics, social comment, the arts, advertising and pornography. This labyrinthine tour de force is a fusion of Rabelaisian wit, Swiftian satire, Shakespearean invention and pastiche ranging from Hawthorne to Galdos.
Anthems
(State University of New York Press)
Nancy S. Love
Anthems are songs of loyalty with religious or quasi-religious meanings, typically associated with nation-states. Singing patriotic songs together encourages a sense of shared identity and unified community among citizens. Anthems compares traditional American anthems, such as "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "America the Beautiful," with anthems of resistance from contemporary social movements, such as Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives matter, and Standing Rock. Although seldom fully recognized by political scientists, musical song plays a significant role in struggles for national unity and social justice. While America's national anthems celebrate a unitary (white) nation, these alternative anthems challenge the definition of sovereignty as property that characterizes modern Western democracies. They offer an alternative vision of a multicultural democracy still struggling to emerge. Written from an interdisciplinary perspective on culture, economics, and politics best described as critical theory, Anthems is intended for scholars, students, and, most important, citizens.
How to Get Into the Twin Palms
(Two Dollar Radio)
Karolina Waclawiak
How To Get Into the Twin Palms is the story of Anya, a young woman living in a Russian neighborhood in Los Angeles, who struggles between retaining her parents' Polish culture and trying to assimilate into her adopted community. She lusts after Lev, a Russian man who frequents the Twin Palms nightclub down the block from Anya's apartment. It is Anya's wish to gain entrance to this seemingly exclusive club. How To Get Into the Twin Palms is a really funny and often moving book that provides a unique twist on the immigrant story, and provides a credible portrait of the city of Los Angeles, its neighborhoods and character.
American Medium: A New Film Philosophy
(Stanford University Press)
Eyal Peretz
In this masterful new work, film critic and philosopher Eyal Peretz forges a new connection between the concept of "America" and the medium of film. Through exemplary close readings of six fundamental American films--John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather, Steven Spielberg's West Side Story, and Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation and Marie Antoinette--Peretz demonstrates the way the connection between "America" and film is enabled through the development of a philosophical concept of medium that allows both "America" and film to be thought anew.
As Peretz shows, "America" can be understood as a medium providing a new framework for understanding human life in modernity--an era that's seen the demise of theology (or the "death of god," as Nietzsche declared). Through incisive readings of the films mentioned above, Peretz shows each to function in its own singular fashion as an allegory of the way that "America"--that is, the demand to ground human life non-theologically--becomes the notion around which the medium of Hollywood film circulates.
Just the Plague
(Grant Books)
Ludmila Ulitskaya; Polly Gannon (Trans.)
Rudolf Maier, a young microbiologist working on a plague vaccine, is summoned to Moscow to deliver a progress report to his superiors.
Inadvertently, he carries the virus with him from the lab. When his illness is discovered, the state machinery turns with terrifying efficiency, rounding up dozens of people. But for many, the distinction between this enforced, life-sparing isolation and the constant churn of political surveillance and arrests is barely detectable, and personal tragedy is not completely averted. Based on recent events in the Stalinist Russia of the 1930s, this gripping novel, written in the late 1980s and rediscovered by the author during lockdown - and never before translated into English - surfaces uncomfortable truths about the current Russian regime and the pandemic crisis.