Thursday, February 27, 2020

Book Review: Homesick

Image: the cover of the book is a graphic design image of minimalistic shapes creating the appearance of waves moving up the book. They begin as a light teal at the bottom and get darker towards the top forming a dark teal or green. On the top wave is the title of the book in large, uneven, capital light blue letters, partly obscured by the wave. Below that is "stories" in smaller of the same letters. Scattered across the rest of the waves are mustard colored cutouts of a house. On the bottom wave is Nino Cipri's name in black letters and under that to the right side is a mustard colored cutout of a house key.

Homesick: Stories by Nino Cipri is an extremely versatile, creative, and enjoyable collection from the author. One of the things that really sets this collection apart from others of its genre is the diverse formats and genres the stories take on. There are some that are your run of the mill medium length short stories and some that read like plays. "Dead Air" in particular is one I would love to hear performed as a podcast. There are some stories that are scifi, some that are supernatural horror, and some that are just very very Queer. I actually found myself enjoying the stories with supernatural elements the most, even though the other realms are often more what I lean toward. The aforementioned "Dead Air" as well as "Presque Vu" were two of my favorites.

A diverse cast of Queer and/or trans characters show up throughout the book in a variety of ways. I am a Queer and trans person who doesn't particularly have a taste for stories where the whole thing is about someone's Queerness or transness. I do think there are a couple of places where Cipri explains too much for my liking. But, that's a personal thing. I imagine a cishet* person reading may appreciate the explanation of something someone like me understands from experience. There are plenty of stories though where the characters' identities are woven throughout seamlessly. This is the way I like to see LGBTQ characters written. Many of the characters are relatable in both their identities and their flaws and virtues. 

A variety of themes are explored throughout the book including obviously gender and sexuality as well as race, class, colonialism, personhood, and species. The novella that makes up the last third or so of the book follows a group of researchers who have discovered an ancient species with human-like intelligences. The discussions of academics and museum curators long history of colonialist grave robbing were perfectly placed. It's true that we don't see the dead bodies of pilgrims in museums, but to this day there are the corpses and bones of Inuit, Egyptian, and other Indigenous people whose graves were robbed as well as dead (and often alive) animals who were wiped out by colonialist collectors of dead creatures. It makes it difficult to attend museums and not either be angry the entire time or be indoctrinated into the othering and exploitation of the marginalized to entertain our fascination with the unknown.

There is some exploration of personhood and species membership relative to nonhuman animals, but I do wish Cipri would have taken it a bit further to include more present day species. There is discussion of "intelligent" species that exist today, but I really could have used that final push for the researchers to understand that all animals have their own intelligences, many of which far outshine our own. There is loving discussion of zoos and eating animals in this story that I can't help but noticing when reading. This is not to say it's not a well constructed and accurate picture of a group of researchers in a story like this. We all know that being a scientist or academic most assuredly does not make someone knowledgeable about everything in the world. If anything, the extreme specialization and focus increasingly required in graduate studies isolates people from wider knowledge of the world. Plenty of scientists who admire one species are cruel to vast numbers of equally sentient others due to their own interests and prejudices. But, I would not be a good animal lib proponent if I did not mention that I would have liked these particular researchers of intelligent weasels to also recognize the other intelligent rodents that make up most of the animals in laboratory cages (with no protections by law to boot.) I would have liked recognition that more recent research argues that many species have advanced communication and languages, not just humans (or fictional prehistoric weasels.) I'll step off the soapbox now. Do not let this repel you from reading this story. It is an excellent novella with an interesting premise, believable and relatable trans characters, important discussions of indigenous peoples and colonialism in academia, and many great discussions about species membership and personhood, regardless of if they met my high bar. It made me think a lot while reading it and I enjoyed it greatly.

I tossed a few criticisms out in this review, but I am still giving this book a high rating and recommendation. Many of my arguments here are things that good speculative fiction inspires us to think about. Homesick is an excellent introduction to Cipri's wide range of talents and creativity making it another book on my shelf by a QT author that I definitely look forward to more from.

This was also posted to my goodreads.

*cishet means cisgender heterosexual. Cisgender people are those who identify with the sex and gender assigned to them at birth, aka people who are not trans. 

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