book chat I By B.A. Kelly

I’ll Show Myself Out, Essays on Midlife & Motherhood

Jessi Klein, best known for her work as a television writer and stand-up comedian, uses her second collection of essays to tap into the wisdom of Joseph Campbell’s “Hero with a Thousand Faces.” Her follow up to “You’ll Grow Out of It” deftly and hilariously relocates the experience of motherhood into the same neighborhood as the classic hero’s journey—an epic filled with, as Campbell put it, “strangely fluid and polymorphous beings, unimaginable torments, superhuman deeds and impossible delight.”

Jessi Klein

Harper

Available at Amazon.com

Water Mask

Is there a better premise for a memoir than that of an itinerant therapist who travels to villages throughout Alaska? I think not.

In Monica Devine’s memoir expect wild rivers, the Artic tundra, the deserts of New Mexico and the open sky of Wyoming, but also a remarkable story of family bonds, the humbling forces of nature and the exaltation of the human spirit. The book is a finalist for the Willa Literary Award.

Monica Devine

University of Alaska Press

Available at Amazon.com

The Witches of Abiquiu: The Governor, the Priest, the Genizaro Indians, and the Devil

Behold the reallife—yet obscure— witchcraft trial that occurred in Abiquiu, New Mexico, from 1756 to 1766. The trial, which took place only decades after the Pueblo Revolt, represented the resistance of the Genízaros of Abiquiu against forced Christianization.

This rigorous and extensive book explores how the Abiquiu Genízaro land grant—a crucial part of Gov. Vélez Cachupín’s peace plan—played a significant role in achieving harmony between early New Mexican colonists, Pueblo Indians and nomadic indio barbaros. This captivating account positions the Abiquiu witchcraft trial as a pivotal event in New Mexico’s history, comparable in importance to the infamous Salem witchcraft trials of 1692 and just as rapt with supernatural forces.

Malcolm Ebright (Author), Rick Hendricks (Author), Glen Strock (Illustrator)

University of New Mexico Press

Available at Amazon.com

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