What I’m Reading: Dominic Hoey
Dominic Hoey is a poet, author and playwright based in Auckland. His latest book The Dead are Always Laughing at Us (Dead Bird Books, RRP$35) is a collaboration with designer Trudi Hewitt.
I’m in the final phase of writing my new novel so reading has been a bit sporadic. I tend to read more non-fiction when I’m writing so as to not have other people's prose distract me.
I recently finished Naomi Klein's latest book Doppelganger. It’s a look at the fractured times we live in and how people are drawn into conspiracy theories and extreme-right movements. The premise is that Klein keeps being mistaken for the feminist author turned conspiracy theorist Naomi Wolf. Klein then becomes obsessed with what she calls the mirror world, the right-wing space where anti-vaxxers, grifters and crypto-fascists come together. Not a happy read but really engaging nonetheless.
I’m in Detroit at the moment and they have amazing second-hand bookstores. I recently picked up Dan Chaon’s You Remind Me of Me. If you're not familiar with Chaon’s work, he writes beautiful novels and short stories that are also dark and heartbreaking. He has an amazing way of capturing character with the simplest details; the way someone smokes their cigarette or cooks an omelette. I’m only a few chapters in and can tell it’s going to be great/make me cry.
The last book I’m diving in and out of is The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow. It contradicts so much of what we think we know about the history of humanity. I’ve been listening to the audio book and wandering around Detroit getting my mind blown. It’s way more accessible than you’d think a book on this subject would be.