Book Date No. 07
A trip to 192 Books with Jupiter Magazine founders Daria Harper and Camille Bacon.
There’s always a lot of noise about print being dead and thinkpieces about who might bring back the magazine, but there’s a lot of interesting and good writing happening in independent publications—and a lot of people who are preserving the form, you just have to know where to look. That brings me to today’s book date with Jupiter Magazine founders Camille and Daria. I met them at the launch of Jupiter and was excited by their expansive approach to art criticism and how seriously they took criticism as an art form unto itself. For our date we went to 192 Books in Chelsea (a first for all of us!) , and talked about books, breakups and sex scenes (I made them read a little section from my work in progress). Read about our date below!
Can you state your names for the record?
Daria Harper: Daria Simone Harper.
Camille Bacon: Camile Gallogly Bacon.
And what do you do?
DH: I’m a writer, editor and lover of life.
CB: I am a writer, editor and mutual lover of life. Specifically the life we’re cultivating together.
Where are you from?
DH: Dallas, Texas.
CB: Chicago, Illinois.
How have your hometowns shaped you?
DH: Dallas has had a huge impact on my taste and the way that I move through this world. It shaped my ability to play with different forms of expression. Dallas has a very underestimated art scene and music scene and I come from a very musical family. We all love to sing. I have family members that are musicians. It’s a huge part of who we are, how we relate to one another, how we love one another. A huge part of that was growing up and being able to experience the jazz music that I did. My parents were very invested in allowing myself and my siblings to try our hand at everything that sparked our interest and experimenting until things kind of clicked and made sense. Now, I’m constantly trying to learn more, discover more and remaining curious.
CB: I lived in Chicago until I was eight, but we have lived a very peripatetic life. My mother, father, brother and I moved to Ireland when I was eight, and we lived there for six years and then moved to India for three years, and then we came back to the US. That mode of growing up has really influenced the way I like to make friends. That has dovetailed into really going for as much enduring, long-term, deep collaboration in my work as I possibly can. Being ripped out of and deposited in so many different contexts made it really difficult to feel any kind of stability around the relationships that I was cultivating out of my own curiosity. In terms of Chicago, it is a city of such creative rigor. It's a city that's had to rebuild itself from literal ashes after the Chicago fire. It's a city that continues to rebuild and resurrect itself after many metaphorical fires that have happened since then. There is a Chicago lineage that I seek to be part of. It’s the land of Gwendolyn Brooks, the land of Muddy Waters, the land of Roscoe Mitchell and Henry Threadgill and Lorraine Hansberry. All of these writers and musicians in particular have had such a crucial impact on my work.
What was the first time you saw yourself on the page and what was that like for you?
CB: Sula by Toni Morrison. That is the book that I've returned to the most. I've read it like eight times now, and it's the only book I've read more than twice. At first I identified with Sula then I started to identify more with Nel. Over the last three reads, it's kind of impossible because I see them as the same double helix. They are the same DNA strand and they're intractable. That's the logic, that's the brilliance. The book reveals itself to me more every time and then mirrors back to me the work I need to be doing. I also love a confused intimacy. Nel and Sula are in love. I don't care what anyone says. I’ve also seen my writing life on the page through Akwaeke Emezi’s Dear Senthuran. There's an urgency with which they write about the personal stakes, the cost of being a writer that I deeply identify with. They have a whole bar about burning everything that gets in the way of the work. I also love a scorned protagonist so I, Tituba by Maryse Condé is an all-time favorite.
DH: I'm still looking for myself on the page. All of the layers of nuance and depth of being seen and the way that I'm craving or yearning for–it’s feeling like I need to write the me that I want to see.
Do you feel like you can visualize yourself on the page through art criticism?
DH: I envision writing myself through fiction, but I also think the other is possible.
CB: I feel like you do that in your work.
DH: I love that you sense that. I feel that too.
CB: Especially when you write about Ja’Tovia [Gary]. Her work unbridles the language that you then use to figure yourself out on the page. I think that’s what keeps calling us back, even in the midst of the untenability. There’s a deep necessity to criticism. It’s a way of seeing yourself.
DH: That’s true. There’s a way Ja’Tovia is grappling with her interiority. Every time I engage with it there’s this sparring and shadow boxing that happens. I don't want to look away from what she's offering because it feels like it's leading me to a thing that I've been trying to work through on my own.
How many books did you read last year?
CB: I read a book a month. So 12. My goal is always 24 though.
DH: Probably 10.
What books stood out most?
CB:
Vagabonds by Eloghosa Osunde
They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib.
It radically altered my perspective on what criticism is. I didn’t realize criticism could be that autobiographical.
Homebodies by Tembe Denton-Hurst (Note: I recognize that this is me, but bear with me for the sake of consistent formatting)
Once we get to the point where Mickey has been unceremoniously fired from her job and you're watching her relationship unravel on her own accord to a degree. I'm really transfixed by how you support someone who's going through that and the line in the sand. How do people negotiate that together? How do you talk about that? I am also really fascinated by her choice almost to flee, to go back home and ultimately end up exactly where she was geographically, but on a completely different emotional terrain. She also returns to the site of her initial subjection with Tee, and that becomes this purging moment that allows her to then maybe, or maybe not rekindle things with her partner. It feels so true to the ways I've tried to navigate seeing someone through something like that.
DH:
Undrowned by Alexis Pauline Gumbs.
It has been particularly life-altering because of my own relationship to water.
Black Performance on the Outskirts of the Left: A History of the Impossible by Malik Gaines
It’s a performance studies-oriented approach or dive into the work of Nina Simone as a virtuoso and looking at three specific performances of hers that really pinpoint where she was at within her personal life in relation to these performances that she gave. And thinking about what was transmuted through these different performances. I'm always thinking really deeply about the public, private, so much about performance.
Who in your life has the best reading taste?
DH: After Camille, my best friend Talia also has excellent reading taste. Andre Singleton also. He has been like a guide and prophet throughout my life, but has continued to share texts with me that later become very instrumental for reasons that, in the moment, I don't immediately get.
CB: After Daria, our answers are going to mirror each other, my best friend Sharmaine. She has the most eclectic reading taste. She will be reading WEB DuBois and erotica at the same time. My mom also has really good reading taste. She’s from the French Caribbean so she puts me on to a lot of French texts.
What was your young reading life like? How did you become a reader?
CB: I don't even remember. It has always been in my life. We were totally the kids where our parents were like, put the book away.
DH (laughing): I’m laughing because I'm the youngest in my family and it was just always a point of also something to poke fun at. There are so many instances of them being like bro, you got to chill. My mom is also a very voracious reader, and my nana as well.
What were you guys reading as kids?
CB: Every time we come back to the US, she'd drop us off at Borders and we would get all our books for the year and go back home. I was a big fan of A Series of Unfortunate Events. I fuck with Lemony Snicket. Then some young adult novels I was probably reading too early.
DH: I was very deep in the Nancy Drew streets. I credit my sleuthing obsession with that. I also tapped into A Series of Unfortunate Events by way of my older sister. I’d also say The Chronicles of Narnia. That was all the rage at my school.
What are you reading right now?
DH: Camille will be very happy to hear this. I just picked up Sula. I’ve been in a bit of reread space. I reread Jazz at the end of last year and Giovanni’s Room. I’ve been needing to resee some things.
CB: Come and Get It by Kiley Reid. Feeling very neutral about it.
What’s your reading routine like?
CB: I don’t have one anymore. That’s one of my main goals for the year.
DH: Right now it's very get in where you fit in. Its been feeling like I'm squeezing in time. I'm reading in smaller increments and moving a little bit slower with the text, which is fine. It has to be right now.
What’s your reading taste?
DH: I enjoy books where the essential character is working through something. A spiritual understanding of self and what the next chapter is, so in some ways coming of age, but also just working through life.
CB: My reading taste is tentacular. In terms of nonfiction, it depends on whatever research I'm doing at the moment. With fiction, definitely spiritual revelation, self-discovery, self awakening, reawakening. Narratives where the character has been put in a scenario where they have to make every single right decision in order to progress. All the stakes are set up against them and they triumph. I love a hero's journey.
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