Dear Friend,
Thank you for joining us as we make our triumphant return from March hiatus!
I’m particularly excited to be returning to the project with the recent National Book Award-winning novel, Blackouts by Justin Torres.
The New York Times describes the book as a “radical queer novel” and “genre-defying,” one that asks what it means to be erased and how to persist after being wiped away. That description alone would be enough to pique my interest, but I also happen to be a huge fan of Torres himself, having loved his debut novel We the Animals (2011), which I still count as a personal favorite.
Publisher’s description: Out in the desert in a place called the Palace, a young man tends to a dying soul, someone he once knew briefly, but who has haunted the edges of his life. Juan Gay–playful raconteur, child lost and found and lost, guardian of the institutionalized–has a project to pass along to this new narrator. It is inspired by a true artifact of a book, Sex Variants: A Study in Homosexual Patterns, which contains stories collected in the early twentieth century from queer subjects by a queer researcher, Jan Gay, whose groundbreaking work was then co-opted by a committee, her name buried. As Juan waits for his end, he and the narrator trade stories–moments of joy and oblivion–and resurrect lost loves, lives, mothers, fathers, minor heroes. The past is with us, beside us, ahead of us; what are we to create from its gaps and erasures?
Inspired by Kiss of the Spider Woman, Pedro Páramo, Voodoo Macbeth, the book at its own center and the woman who created it, oral histories, and many more texts, images, and influences, Justin Torres’s Blackouts is a work of fiction that sees through the inventions of history and narrative. An extraordinary work of creative imagination, it insists that we look long and steady at the world we have inherited and the world we have made–a world full of ghostly shadows and flashing moments of truth.
Why Contemplative Reading?
Contemplative reading asks us not just what we’re learning about the book in our hands (or ears), but what we’re learning about ourselves through the experience of reading it. The aim is to create deeper awareness of ourselves and understanding of others. It is often described as “holistic,” but also as “heart-knowing.”
Heart-knowing. Doesn’t that sound nice?
The Plan
This book comes in at about three hundred pages, so I will divide my reading and responding into three mostly equal parts. Approximately every ten days/100 pages, I’ll share my thoughts. In other words, my posting schedule will look like this:
- April 9: Response to beginning through page 100.
- April 19: Response to pages 101 through 200.
- April 28: Response to pages 201 through end (297).
As always, I don’t plan on doing any other research, since this is not a study but a contemplation. That said, I do have an extensive background in LGBTQ+ literature and history, which I’m sure will influence my reading of this novel. If anyone is interested in my scholarship on the subject, you can find my book, From a Whisper to a Riot: The Gay Writers Who Crafted an American Literary Tradition for sale on Amazon.
Reading & Responding
Each set of reading will guide my responses here on the blog and on social media. I might sometimes share the most provocative line or passage, and what it makes me think about. Other times, I might ask questions about the reading, things I’m wondering about or confused about. And still further, I might compare what I’m reading to what it reminds me of from other readings or experiences. I don’t want to give too much guidance about how to read, except to say, read attentively, read slowly, and listen to yourself. What thoughts and feelings arise as you’re reading? Write them down and give yourself some moments to reflect on why you’re thinking what you’re thinking, or why you’re feeling what you’re feeling.
I will also be interacting on social media, of course, and may share micro-thoughts and favorite quotes or reactions on Instagram, Threads, TikTok, and Facebook. I encourage you to join these conversations or leave your thoughts in the blog comments.
On social media, please #theCRPblog.
Meditation
“Love him and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaven really matters?” – James Baldwin
Love always,
~Adam
Contemplative Reading Project 
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