Book Date No. 16
A trip to Cafe con Libros with writer J. Wortham.
A few months ago (as in this past March, ha) I took J Wortham—who I’ve long admired!—on a book date to Cafe Con Libros. I’m such a fan of channeling, J’s newsletter, which offers us a view into the non-writing stuff that informs their writing practice and life, whether that’s a good pastry or a fly shoe. It’s great. On our date we talked growing up in the DMV, reading books many moons before we probably should’ve and the things they’re reading right now. Read about that, below.
Can you state your name for the record?
What do you do?
I’m a writer and author.
Where are you from?
I grew up in Alexandria, Virginia.
How has that shaped you?
I was very lucky to grow up steeped in so many different cultures, Black culture, but also Asian diasporic culture, Muslim culture, knowing when Ramadan was, having iftar with friends. I grew up with people from so many different places. We would go listen to gogo, and also go to quinceañeras. We would all go out dancing – going out clubbing in DC was really big when I was in high school – and one night we would all be dancing to cumbia, and the other night is hip hop. That was really special. That's me looking on the bright side. It was also so suburban and conformist and conservative and I felt like such a freak all the time.
I was coming from New York and coming from Brooklyn and growing up in Brooklyn and then moving out to the Hamptons and then moving to DC. DC represented stability for me in every single way. Growing up in New York is a lot. Being a teenager here is a lot. And so going to DC I was like, oh great, I love that. It was suburban and I really enjoyed that. Blackness became coupled with something different for me there. I was also in PG County, so it's a little different.
Oh yeah, very different.
Yeah. So Black and very firmly middle class. I loved it.
I have this very clear memory of getting a pair of silver AirWalks for Christmas and being so excited. I have older sisters, so they were always buying me Jordans, making sure I got fresh braids. Always making sure I was cute. I got these shoes and wore them to school and everybody was immediately like, wait, are you gay?
That's so funny.
That really shaped me in a way where I felt I was different, but I really wasn't that different.
What role did reading play in your life as a kid?
My mom loves to say that I started reading really young, maybe three or four, helping her read recipes to make dinner. We were a family of readers; everybody had glasses. I would take my comforter and put it in the bathtub and get in on a rainy Sunday with all my books. Or if we were out to dinner, I would have my little plate of spaghetti and a book. It was encouraged and a big part of my inner world from the time I was really small. Public libraries and school libraries were a huge and important part of my existence. When I was in middle school, and I did a book report on a Stephen King book or maybe a John Saul book – we were also very into grocery store lit – and and the teacher was like, it's amazing that you're so advanced, but this is not an age appropriate book for the class. My parents were so unbothered, they were like wake me up when there's a real problem.
My parents were like that too. The right to privacy was very real, but only within the home. My parents were, my mom especially, was very, outside of the house, I need to know where you're at, what you're doing, but when I was home, she was not worried about me. So I was reading a lot of stuff. I read The Color Purple when I was very young. I read Push.
I read Roots too young and I was just bereft, crying and so upset. I read Push when I was really young too.
I was probably 11.
That’s too young. Was it in the house?
Yeah. My mom had all these books and so I would read 'em.
Same.
What books do you remember reading as a kid? Were there any you loved?
I think the reason I like making books is because they end up in people's homes. The first library you have access to is whatever your family brings in the house. For me it was Stephen King, a lot of Terry McMillan. I read Beloved really young and didn't understand most of it, which is incredible because by now, I’ve read Beloved at so many different points in my life and it keeps opening itself to me. I loved The Babysitters Club. Christopher Pike. R.L. Stine. I loved a spooky read.
When I could start picking out books for myself, I was like, I'll read anything. I remember reading Coffee Will Make You Black when I was really young and loving that book. It's about this little girl growing up on the South Side of Chicago in the fifties or sixties, and her teacher's a lesbian. I think that's why I liked it.
What books would you say shaped you?
A lot of grocery store lit. When I was growing up, you’d get into the line for checkout and it would be full of candy and books by Judy Blume books, all the VC Andrews prequels and sequels. Flowers in the Attic. I read all of them, over and over and over again. They were so compelling, so gripping. Later on in high school and college, I didn't know that writing could be a career, but I took a lot of literature classes and I went to an IB high school.
My wife was also in an IB program. She said no one ever got their certificate.
No one ever got their certificate! But at least the classes were good. We read literature that addressed class, race and gender and literature, in ways I am grateful that I had access to in a public school in Virginia. The same was true in college. I went to UVA and we had a really good English department. I was reading James Baldwin, Richard Wright and Toni Morrison very early on.
If you needed someone to understand you, what book would you tell them to read?
I don’t know. What about you?
I'd probably say The Color Purple. Not because my life looks similar to that. But to understand the way that I conceive of queerness as liberation. That was my starting point of what understanding the self could do for another person and how loving another woman could free you. Then Heads of the Color People by Nafissa Thompson Spires. That one to understand the hilarity of race. That it functions both as comedy and horror. And then the ordinariness of Blackness. I'd also tell people they had to listen to Jill Scott. She's really my North star. I love her so bad. She's just freaky and unapologetic and loves real hard and it's messy as hell. I love that.
I think about The Color Purple a lot. The audacity and brilliance of starting that book with Dear God. It establishes this little girl's inner world as is so rich and profound and more deep and beautiful than you will ever fucking know. It is so affirming. Alice Walker's diaries also mean a lot to me. The Same River Twice is a book that talks about identity and being a writer and fame and the intersections of success.
I understand. Another book that people would have to read to understand me is Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Full stop. Full stop. Full stop.
I think to understand Janie is such a, she's so daring as a character. She perseveres but she does not necessarily come out unscathed.
Not at all. Not at all.
But she gets closer to herself. And I think there's something really beautiful about the fact that getting closer to herself does not free her of pain and heartbreak and loss and making bad decisions. But the last line of that book, she called her soul to come inside and see is one of the most beautiful lines in the world. It's crazy.
Well, we know about Zora in a lot of ways because of the work Alice did. The practice of Black feminist stewardship and archive building and legacy holding that I think about all the time. I also read that book really early and it moved me so much. I wish the movie was so much better. I would love a very good version of that movie.
How would you describe your literary taste?
Rangey, like omakase. Give me a little bit of everything. Now I'm really here for the craft. I want to be the best writer I can be. I really want to think about structure. I really want to push myself. I have so much room to grow. So my taste is who's doing something new and interesting and doing it well? Who’s surprising me?
