Books to Think With From CHICAGO

States of Plague

Reading Albert Camus in a Pandemic

“Camus argued that ‘The true work of art is one that says the least’. La Peste is such a work, and States of Plague is a moving, thoughtful, and scrupulous examination of both the novel and its readers, the book’s inheritors.”—Times Literary Supplement

CLOTH $20.00

Dangerous Children On Seven Novels and a Story

“In a series of startling insights and evocations, Dangerous Children reveals just how uncanny and enigmatic children can be. In eight really quite brilliantly subtle chapters Gross shows us, improbably, that we have never really been curious enough about childhood.”—Adam Phillips, author of On Getting Better

CLOTH $27.50

Atmospheres of Projection

Environmentality in Art and Screen Media

“To project is to throw forth, to transform, to draw, to plan, to move forward. Existing long before the cinematograph and surviving the transformations of this medium in the digital era, projection is too pervasive to be forgotten.”—BOMB Magazine

CLOTH $45.00

Now in Paperback The Modern Myths

Adventures in the Machinery of the Popular Imagination

“Their fecund capacity to produce new narratives is what allows these myths to do their ‘cultural work’: they ‘erect a rough-hewn framework on which to hang our anxieties, fears, and dreams.’”

Los Angeles Review of Books

PAPER $22.50

W.

Edited by Paul Buhle and Herb Boyd

Introduction by Jonathan Scott Holloway Paul Peart-Smith (artist)

Deirdre Boyle

Edited by Andrew R. Spieldenner and Jeffrey Escoffier

Edited by Shantel Gabrieal Buggs and Trevor Hoppe

THE LARB QUARTERLY No. 37 SPRING 2023

Publisher: Tom Lutz

Editor-In-Chief: Michelle Chihara

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Editorial Interns: Genevieve Nollinger and Kali Tambreé

Cover Art: Image from Curtis Cuffie published by Blank Forms Editions. Photography by Tom Warren, 1997. Courtesy Tom Warren.

Cover Design: Ella Gold

The Los Angeles Review of Books is a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization. The LARB Quarterly is published by the Los Angeles Review of Books, 6671 Sunset Blvd., Suite 1521, Los Angeles, CA 90028. © Los Angeles Review of Books. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the Los Angeles Review of Books. Visit our website at www.lareviewofbooks.org.

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“Engaging and insightful ... each chapter reveals why, for many of us, music is as essential as breathing or eating.”

—Valerie Day, lead singer of Nu Shooz and Grammy nominee

“

The Narrow Cage and Other Modern Fairy Tales is a marvel in every sense of the word. Adam Kuplowsky’s translation is a masterful homage to a storyteller whose own journey holds all of the hope and despair the best fairy tales contain. Read this book!”

—Amanda Leduc, author of Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space

“A treasure trove of inventive and sometimes subversive fables that transcend borders.”

Tokyo Weekender

“The very best food journalism lifts the veil on everyday components of our diet, peeling away accumulated layers of hype, pseudoscience, and ingrained fallacies to reveal the truth. No writer today does this more deftly than Anne Mendelson. Spoiled is the result of scrupulous and unbiased research presented in delightfully readable prose. A masterpiece.”

Barry Estabrook, author of Tomatoland

“Vincent Figueredo helps us to understand the heart as a cultural symbol, biological miracle, and central theme in human history. A tour-de-force of scholarship and storytelling, The Curious History of the Heart is a great read and an important one.”

—Daniel Weiss, president and CEO, Metropolitan Museum of Art

“A thoughtful and thorough consideration of a global movement.”

Publishers Weekly

THE LARB QUARTERLY No. 37

SPRING 2023

INTERVIEW

13 FIRE ROUND with Tongo Eisen-Martin

NONFICTION

25 WHAT NOT TO WEAR

Bharat Jayram Venkat

31 “SIR, YOU DO REALIZE I AM 9-1-1?”

Jaime Lowe

37 SOWING THE FUTURE

Mike Davis and Jon Wiener

45 THIS NIVÔSE: THE DIARY OF A MONTH IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY CALENDAR

Sharon Kivland

59 TWO THINGS TOUCHING

Claressinka Anderson

PORTFOLIO

74 HERVÉ GUIBERT AND CURTIS CUFFIE

Introduced by Perwana Nazif

FICTION

69 ANOTHER MATTER: THE FIRE EXCERPTS

Alla Gorbunova, translated by Elina Alter

92 METAPHYSICS IN THE NUDE

Vladimir Sorokin, translated by Max Lawton

103 WITNESS STATEMENT

Bud Smith

109 OMISSIONS

Mike Jeffrey

122 BLACK SUN

Etel Adnan, translated by Laila Riazi

POETRY

131 THE WARRIOR IS A WOMAN

Tina Chang

133 HARVEST

Megan Pinto

135 THE NIGHT

Katie Peterson

138 PORCH POEM

Jessica Abughattas

139 [I HAD A BOUT]

Jane Huffman

141 THIS NATION

Shangyang Fang

“A revealing and original book about an understudied aspect of the Holocaust. Highly recommended.”

—Jan T. Gross, author of Neighbors

“[A] superb biography. . . . Turner’s beautifully written, rewarding and thought-provoking book about this imaginary woman shows how much her literary existence has to say about actual women’s lives.”

—Gillian Kenny, The Spectator

“One of our most eminent historians of American art here joins impeccable scholarship with an abiding love of blues, rock, and punk to spin the tale of California artists’ surprisingly central role in a cultural revolution.”

—Carrie Lambert-Beatty, Harvard University

“Written with Lavery’s precision and daring, Pleasure and E cacy is both a challenging theory of trans realism—developing the deep significance of DIY ethics and trans avowal over ontological approaches—and a lifeline of intellect and warmth in an era of transphobic violence.”

—Rei Terada, author of Metaracial