Reading Riot: October Book Club’s Double Feature Reading ‘Having & Being Had’ + ‘Greiving’
Book Talk Streaming:
Tuesday, Oct 20 @ Noon - Biss’ Having & Being Had, On Zoom
Tuesday, Oct 20 @ 7pm - Biss’ Having & Being Had + Rivera Garza’s Grieving, Part 1, On Instagram Live
Tuesday, Oct 27 @ Noon - Rivera Garza’s Grieving, On Zoom
Tuesday, Oct 27 @ 7pm - Biss’ Having & Being Had + Rivera Garza’s Grieving, Part 2, On Instagram Live
This year we are turning towards our thoughts and actions with a lens of both dismantling and relearning, as we prepare ourselves to commit to actionable change. This pairing of work to ensure we are taking the right course of action is the very reason behind my choice to host a back-to-back feature for our book club this month: Eula Biss’ Having and Being Had, and Cristina Rivera Garza’s Grieving.
Members: You can get scanned copies of ⅓ of Biss’ Essays in our Community Access here. For the public, you can purchase Having & Being Had Online + locally at Wild Detectives, while you can purchase Grieving Online + locally at Deep Vellum.
My own bias: As a white woman, I thought it important to make sure I am checking my own privilege that has undoubtedly seeped into my life through the structures of our society. While the first book I chose is written by a white woman as well, I made this decision to showcase this book as I personally believe it is our own responsibility to become fully aware of the structures that have defined the smallest details to the heart of our relationships and daily lives. Simultaneously, my choice to highlight Rivera Garza is intentional as I personally believe in the importance of dismantling my own reality while passing the torch to individuals and communities who have intimately struggled at the hand of calloused structures and oppression.
On both books: I have us start with Biss, as we begin by creating the pattern of dismantling, dissecting and unlearning before we correct our knowledge, uplift the voices of others, and learn how to further our empathy and action for others who have been and are suffering from monstrous injustices. Bliss picks apart the world around her to explore how privilege and/or prejudice has seeped into every part of our lives. It ignites the desire in the reader to dissect their own life, but the view point is limited written by a white woman that comes from and remains in a place of extensive privilege. This series of essays is something that made me personally uncomfortable at times and I think it’s important to make sure we are feeling uncomfortable - we have to undo what we have allowed to exist or not diligently dismantled - I wanted to share that experience of discomfort as I undo how I have allowed certain cultural or social structures to support me and not others. However, this book explores privilege that some are already aware of, so I wanted to bring to the table the rich voice of Rivera Garza. This writer is one of my favorites — in this piece she lays bare the realities of conflict, violence and collective trauma that are reflected around the world in multiple countries and cultures (here, she explores her home country, Mexico). This is not just an eye opening history lesson wrapped in prose, this book is a call to action. So I choose both books because this is how I feel — the need to dissect and dismantle internally while igniting knowledge to spur action both locally and globally. Steeped in the vision of GoodWork, I wanted to bring a pair of books together that encourages us to redefine the world through humanity’s needs.