Magic, Ascension, & Homecoming - Celebratory Reviews feat. Victoria Mier and Hanif Abdurraqib

It's March 26th! Which means several super fantastic books have released, two of which we're looking at today.

Both works deal with homecoming in many ways. Victoria Mier explores what it means when you're concept of home and belonging is drastically uprooted by the myth and folklore we often drift to when seeking out said belonging in our identity. For Hanif Abdurraqib, home is a complex entity that functions as a place of belonging and community, yet embodies the contradictions of living within constructed spaces meant to uphold white supremacy.

How do you define home for yourself? Does home hold particular scars or warm memories? How comfortable have you felt in your home, as well as home state, through placements of class, redlining, stolen land, etc?

There's no simple answer, nor is there a particularly right one. We're merely here to explore these ideas and concepts. With that, shall we?

Beyond the Aching Door by Victoria Mier, Self Published

I've talked quite a bit about my love and appreciation for The Spiral Bookcase. A beloved staple of the Manayunk area in Philadelphia, though their brick and mortar store is now closed, Victoria Mier (she/they) keeps its powerful light alive through a now online space/store, with hopes for the future.

Today, however, we celebrate Victoria's newest achievement as a published author! Finally released into the world, Beyond the Aching Door is the first in what is called The Fatebound Duology. Following a headstrong reporter based in Philadelphia, whose current story regarding some bizarre drownings on land throughout the city leads to her blurry past exploding open into a magical realm of Irish, Scottish, and even some Greek folklore/fairytales.

Now, I haven't talked about it much, but I'm not the biggest fan of romantasy as a subgenre. I'm not against romance in fantasy novels, but it has become a saturated market that is not only blindingly heterosexual, but also tediously formulaic. Again, that's not inherently bad, many readers find comfort in this form of reading and that is a-ok. I simply like most of my romantasy to be queer and more out-of-the-box (clap-clap!!) in terms of its themes, much like last years stellar To Shape a Dragon's Breath.

Mier, as a debut author, has crafted a fantasy that retains much of the steamy romance one might come to expect from your Sarah J. Masses of the publishing world, yet sacrifices not a single iota of its expansive, fantastical action and world-building. Raegan Overhill, the stories central protagonist, is a hilarious, snarky, relatable millennial who wants nothing more than to learn the truth of her father's disappearance many years ago. A father deeply invested in the folklore and myth of the Faelands, Celtic mythology, Baba Yaga–you know, the fun stuff.

When Raegan finds herself assigned to these mysterious drownings, her life is turned topsy turvy by her finding the culprit: a kelpie, otherwise known as the creatures that can lure folks down to the underworld using the victims wishes against them. In her engagement with this kelpie, she learns that her father was working on an intensely powerful spell, and only the King of the Fae can assist her. Little do we know that Raegan and the King are more closely linked than we may realize...

What follows is a beautifully original and addictive fantasy adventure about what it means to search for a home that you've been kept from your whole life. Raegan is every bit the Philly girl she's always known, but is that all she is? What happens when the pull inside of her reveals a much larger world than she expected? Mier has set up a remarkable new look at the folklore and mythology that has influenced so many, retaining its classical characteristics while bringing them to a more contemporary playing-field. This is world-building helmed by someone who knows the stories, legends, and rules like the back of her hand, leaving readers with the sense that they've visited this land before. It's very reminiscent of the works of Neil Gaiman and Kelly Link, specifically Gaiman's classic, Neverwhere, in how it so deftly mixes the real and Fae worlds together.

While the romance of this novel focuses primarily on a coupling that appears heterosexual, Raegan is a loudly queer character, and Mier does not have time for the ways in which we gender ancient beings, leading to some delicious gender fuckery later on in the story. This is one of the exciting aspects of BtAD as a contemporary fantasy, being that many mainstream releases focus on binary romances.

An additional highlight is in Raegan's physical description as a full-figured gal. Whoa. No way. Not a rail thin waif of a silvery-blonde elf??? Get outta town...It's true. And Mier does not shy away from showing her as every bit of confident and desirable as the other characters who exhibit ethereal beauty. It's a profoundly welcomed breath of fresh air in a genre that typically leans a little more fat-averse than I would like.

Beyond the Aching Door is a book that needs readership, not merely for its outstanding prose but because it is a debut novel by a self-published author. This is the kind of story to help shake up the current landscape of romantasy as a whole, injecting further life into a comfortable genre. If you love Sarah J. Mass and the authors of that community, then you will absolutely adore, and tear through, this fabulous epic adventure.

There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib, Penguin Random House

If there was ever an author who could get me absolutely psyched out of my mind to read 300-some pages about basketball, it's Hanif Abdurraqib.

One of my absolute favorite essayists/poets/thinkers from the Chicago community of greats, Abdurraqib has written some of my favorite explorations of music, culture, and an entire book about A Tribe Called Quest. Not only is his repertoire so varied, but his voice as a writer has delivered some of the most intimately devastating paragraphs in recent memory. He's the kind of writer I aspire to be.

In There's Always This Year, the author turns his eye on basketball, as well as how influential the sport remains in his home state of Ohio. Part memoir, part sports journalism, all parts political theory, this collection of searing and loving essays delves deep into the heart of communities who view basketball as gospel. Evoking biblical concepts as a means of parsing through his memory of the 90's and onward seasons, as well as the meteoric rise of players such as Lebron James and how communities may feel entitled to those players once they move on from that perceived home.

As is the way of an Abdurraqib book, the larger framework of basketball is woven throughout with his experiences with incarceration, the murders of Black children at the hands of the police sate, and concepts of hero worship, homecoming, and what ascension means for/to the people who seek it. There is consistent room for contradiction and complexity, never landing on one concrete answer, yet leading with enduring hope that acts as a spotlight throughout.

What appears on the surface as a sports book quickly reveals something massively expansive, offering an experience that only this author can deliver. Poetic, empathic, and emphatic, There is Always This Year shows Hanif Abdurraqib at his most passionate and electric. Judging from the amount of lines I highlighted throughout, there is so much wisdom and heart throughout this monumental achievement.

If you were to read one sports book this year, I cannot recommend this enough, as well as Abdurraqib's entire back catalogue. Nothing is ever as it seems and you will grow as a thinker and lover by the last page.

Two vastly different genres discussing a concept we continue to struggle with as Americans. Home will always be a contested subject, being that many of us live on homeland stolen from Indigenous communities and remains gatekept by powerful people with hatred toward communities of color.

Is the concept of home a privileged space to inhabit? What does the feeling of ownership over the cities and towns we've inhabited for large periods of time mean when we don't truly own any of it? Is that borne from the resistance toward those who own these spaces?

All I can ask is that you consider approaching these books and asking yourself such questions as you read. The answers become imperative to not only our communities, but the world at large.

The happiest of release days to both of these astounding authors.

Victoria Mier can be found on Instagram @by_victoriamier, and you can purchase a copy of Beyond the Aching Door at The Spiral Bookcase.

Hanif Abdurraqib can be found on Instagram @nifmuhammad, and you can purchase There's Always This Year: On Basketball & Ascension everywhere books are sold. You could also join Hanif and poet Airea D. Matthews at The Free Library of Philadelphia tomorrow at 7pm to hear more about the book!