Smart Bitches, Trashy Books
Bringing you the famous and cheeky SBTB blog for romance enthusiasts. If you're into the romance genre, this is where you want to be. If you're not, avoid at all costs to preserve your sanity. Ha ha. We're just kidding. There are some good things happening in the genre. Stay Golden, Horny Girl!
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Sing along with us! Reach into the deep vault of your memory, and sing TV themes as we attempt to stump one another. We also start by talking about cat vomit because of course we do. We cover all the great children’s tv themes, teen crushes, songs that come with instant Pavlovian responses, and more. So if you were craving some bizarre and enjoyable silliness, this is your episode. (We hope you sing along!) We even made a Spotify playlist for all your sing-along needs! … Music: purple-planet.com Listen to the podcast → Read the transcript → Of course we made a playlist of tv themes! You can find it on Spotify. Cross stitch patterns…
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Colin Dobson-Fox is the co-host and producer behind one of my favorite YouTube channels, Foxes Afloat, which recently reached over 100k subscribers (a very big deal in YouTube Land). Colin and his husband Shaun live aboard a narrowboat in the UK, and produce weekly vlogs of their travels, and their lives, including Colin’s life with autism and with mental illness. This is a bit afield of my usual interviews, but I was fascinated by Colin’s editing process as he takes over 40 hours of film and edits to a 15-30 minute vlog. We also talk about how his relationship with his husband Shawn started (don’t miss that part) (Seriously, goodest part). Vlogs (and blogs, and podcast…
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A | BN | K My guest this week is author Hudson Lin (she/her) whose new book Hard Sell is out 25 May! Hard Sell is a trope-tastic queer romance between Daniel and Tobin, who have a secret affair while working opposite sides of a business deal. Lin and I talk about the writing process and how she portrays Daniel’s professional burnout in the story (no spoilers, I promise). We also discuss why Lin thinks romance is a revolutionary genre, and how it’s disruptive to existing power structures. … Music: purple-planet.com Listen to the podcast → Read the transcript → Here are the books we discuss in this podcast: …
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A | BN | K | AB Tara and I exclaimed at each other about Dr. Jen Gunter’s latest book, The Menopause Manifesto, so we figured we should exclaim at her, too. In this conversation, we cover the book, the facts and science about menopause, and the history of how predatory patriarchal bullcrap has influenced how we think, talk, and learn about menopause. We also talk about pseudoscience, getting health advice from Facebook and Instagram (bad idea jeans), and curly hair! TW/CW we talk briefly about weight changes during menopause, and how people in medicine treat people based on weight (not good). That section is at about 27:00 in and lasts for two minutes. … Music: purple-p…
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A | BN | K Author and actor Preslaysa Williams joins me to talk about her new book, A Lowcountry Bride, which she calls “a love letter to Charleston.” We discuss the beauty and pain of complicated history, the process of writing this book over ten years, and the weirdness of seeing your younger self in animated gifs. … Music: Purple-planet.com Listen to the podcast → Read the transcript → Here are the books we discuss in this podcast: You can find Preslaysa Williams on her website Preslaysa.com, and you can find A Lowcountry Bride wherever books are …
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A | BN Catherine and I chat with Lois McMaster Bujold (!!!) about The Assassins of Thasalon. If you like the Penric & Desdemona books as much as we do (which is a LOT) you’ll love this episode! We cover the origin story of Penric and Desdemona, how her retirement partially rests on self publishing, and how much manga she’s reading and watching – with recommendations. Thank you to our Patreon community for the transcript, and to Laura G., Francene, Jamie, and Agnes for the questions! … Music: purple-planet.com Listen to the podcast → Read the transcript → Here are the books we discuss in this podcast: …
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I asked the Patreon community what they’d like to ask Amanda and I, and howdy damn, I got some really thoughtful and fun questions! In this conversation, we’re talking about astrology, apps, allergies, and all the book recs. If you like hanging out while we chat, this episode is for you. Thanks to everyone in the Patreon community for their questions! … Music: purple-planet.com Listen to the podcast → Read the transcript → Here are the books we discuss in this podcast: …
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A | BN | K | AB Today, we’re going to talk about food safety law, and the history of women who probably poisoned their husbands. Allegedly. Mikki Kendall, on Twitter as @Karnythia and the author of Hood Feminism, is an eager historian into the mysteries of what women got away with, and so we cover poison clusters, dying of fever, and the poisons hanging out in your back yard. This conversation was inspired by two Twitter threads, and I’ll link to both below for your continued wide-eyed reading. As Mikki said in an email after we recorded, “we have evidence of poison clusters with inorganic poisons from autopsy reports & you can look at death record indexes when hunti…
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A | BN | KArielle Zibrak is the author of Guilty Pleasures, a new book in the Avidly Reads series from New York University Press. She’s also a former editor of romance fiction, and a professor of 19th century popular fiction. Her new book – which is terrific – examines the concept of the “guilty pleasures” and seeks to unpack and answer the question, “What is it about ribald romance novels, luxurious interior design, and frothy wedding dresses that often make women feel their desires come with a shadow of shame?” This is one of those conversations that made my brain go all jiffy pop with bunches of ideas. I hope you enjoy it as well! You can find Avidly Reads: Guilty Ple…
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We’re back! With more of your questions! We’re going to talk about tv shows we recommend, book recs, of course, mayonnaise, of course, summer treats, and middle school favorites. Thanks to Laura B, Karelia, Christina B, and Phoebe for the questions! … Music: purple-planet.com Listen to the podcast → Read the transcript → Here are the books we discuss in this podcast: http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=04…
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It’s part three of what I called “AMA with AMAnda and Sarah.” We’re chatting about our favorite recipes, cooking blogs, and cookbooks, favorite french fries, seasonal re-reading, contemporary cozy mysteries with romantic elements, trends, and adventure romance recs. Plus, how to snowboard while holding an onion. Thanks to Bransler, Cheri, Norette, Manda, and Laura B. for the questions! … Music: purple-planet.com Listen to the podcast → Read the transcript → Here are the books we discuss in this podcast: …
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Tara joins me to talk about how reading lesbian romances helped them realize their sexuality after having grown up in a very conservative religious environment. Side trips include Robin Hood in many varieties, “Don’t Stop Believing,” and movies to watch while kinda stoned. Romances help people understand a lot of aspects of themselves, and I love hearing about how reading has helped Tara live more authentically. TW/CW: we talk about growing up queer in a conservative church environment, the specter of conversion therapy, and the discovery of mass graves at Indigenous residential schools. … Music: purple-planet.com Listen to the pod…
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Amanda and I are chatting about our favorite romance-laden RPGs, and our favorite characters to romance in Stardew Valley, Dragons Ages (all of ‘em), Witcher 3, and more. We compare romance options, discuss favorite pairings, and yup, we really like Dragon Age. Moral of this episode: Don’t Bring Your Tits to a Gunfight. This is the TikTok we chortle about. … Music: Purple-Planet.com Listen to the podcast → Read the transcript → Here are the books we discuss in this podcast: …
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A | BN | K I’m joined by Morgan and Isabeau from the Whoa!Mance podcast! They are celebrating three years of podcasting, and their latest exploration of romance has been to look at category romances. I thought it would be fun to take a deep dive into a brand new contemporary romance, so we all read Awakened by the CEO’s Kiss by Therese Baharrie. This episode is a low-spoiler discussion of the book, and of all the interesting and subversive things that it does. We cover kiss tension, books that give you chest tingles, and more. You can listen if you’re read it, or if you haven’t, but you might really like this book so we recommend it either way! … Music: purple-planet.co…
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A | BN | K My guest this week is Becky Chambers, author of the Wayfarers series and the new novella, A Psalm for the Wild Built. We talk about the book itself, and themes of caregiving and comfort, and the process of writing a book with the goal of sending a hug out into the world. Thank you to Malaraa and Molly from our Patreon community for the questions! … Music: purple-planet.com Listen to the podcast → Read the transcript → Here are the books we discuss in this podcast: You can find Becky Chambers on her w…
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Laura Nash of The Short Game joins me to talk about romance in short games – games you can play in 8-12 hours. We cover dating simulators and interactive fiction, and we rank the Dream Daddies. Laura shares some upcoming and very-brand-new games she’s hecking excited about, too! … Music: purple-planet.com Listen to the podcast → Read the transcript → Here are the books we discuss in this podcast: You can find Laura Nash at The Short Game podcast, and on Twitter @LauraJNash. We discussed! Hades (Would you like to read our review?) Dream Daddy Monster Prom Hatoful Boyfriend (Steam) Boyfriend Dungeon…
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Amanda and I are back talking about recommendations, snacks, candy, and more! Sue asks about the behind-the-scenes part of running the website as a business, Ellen is looking for some recs to ease the wait for the next Tessa Dare novel, and recs for fantasy that avoid the problem of Too Much Plot/Not Enough Kissing. Thanks to Sue and Ellen for today’s questions – and we’ll come back to the recs for candy and books in the next episode, Ellen! … Music: purple-planet.com Listen to the podcast → Read the transcript → Here are the books we discuss in this podcast: …
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Amanda and I are arranging marriages between books and convenience store candies (we missed this part of Ellen’s question last week!) and we talk about what romances we’d want to see adapted into limited series, who we’d cast in our dream productions, and what we’ve learned over the years of working with the website. Thanks to Ellen, Kate K, Leslee, and Sue for today’s questions! … Music: purple-planet.com Listen to the podcast → Read the transcript → Here are the books we discuss in this podcast: …
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Amanda and I are answering one last round of questions! We cover day trips and all the places where it’s imperative that we eat fries, we’ve got book recs for fluffy contemporary romances, and we talk about table top games we love. Thanks to Tara, Christina, and Malaraa for the questions! … Music: purple-planet.com Listen to the podcast → Here are the books we discuss in this podcast: …
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A | BN | K | AB YA Author, reviewer, and editor Dahlia Adler joins me to talk about all the Badass Anthologies she’s editing, about her upcoming book, Home Field Advantage, and her latest, Cool for the Summer. And, inspired by a recent Instagram pic of her Bantam Love Stories collection, we also talk about vintage YA romances. Stay tuned for the outro where I have a special announcement of a new podcast project inspired by this conversation! TW/CW: discussion of anti fat bias in Sweet Valley. Music: purple-planet.com Listen to the podcast → Read the transcript → Here are the books we discuss in this podcast: …
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In our last collection of Patreon listener questions, we had two about the process of reviewing: what we look for, and what questions we’re trying to answer when we write a review. Shana joins Amanda and me to talk about the process of reviewing romance, how reviewing helps us identify what we most like to read, and how reading and review works for each of us as writers, and for me doing editorial oversight. Thank you to Patreon members Tara C. and Leslee for the very kind and thoughtful questions! … Music: Purple-planet.com Listen to the podcast → Read the transcript → Here are the books we discuss in this podcast: …
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A | BN | K My guest this week is author Ryka Aoki, whose new book Light from Uncommon Stars is out this week! We cover transgender identity, found family, space opera & The Brady Bunch, the liminal state of The Olive Garden, Chonky books, and what, and where, is the best donut? That last part is key! And! I really want to hear your donut recs: sbjpodcast@gmail.com! … Music: purple-planet.com Listen to the podcast → Read the transcript → Here are the books we discuss in this podcast: You can find Ryka Aoki at RykaRyka.com and on Twitter @Ryka_Ao…
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Amanda and I take a deep dive into interactive fiction with Rebecca Slitt from Choice of Games and Heart’s Choice. We get into the details of how interactive fiction works, and what the process of writing it is like – and we have some recommendations, never fear! … Music: purple-planet.com Listen to the podcast → Read the transcript → Here are the books we discuss in this podcast: You can find all the interactive fiction at Choice of Games and Heart’s Choice. Here are the games we mentioned in the interview: A Pirate’s Pl…
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A It’s time! It’s time! This is the first of the Sweet Dreams Romance Recap Project, wherein I am recapping the first twenty Sweet Dreams YA romances, starting with Sweet Dreams #1, P.S. I Love You by Barbara Conklin. This book is a lot. It’s angsty and tragic, but there are some moments I remember so very clearly, and I probably read this more than 30 years ago. This was definitely one of my gateway books. What about you? … Music: Purple-planet.com Listen to the podcast → Read the transcript → Here are the books we discuss in this podcast: If you like the podcast, you can subscribe to our feed, or fin…
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A Leslie Hachtel and Nikki Brock put together Love In The Mix: A Cookbook for Romance Readers to benefit ProLiteracy, and she joins me to talk about it. Leslie tells me all about the cookbook, how it came to be, and some of her favorite recipes. We discuss family favorites and family history through food, and then, as a bonus, I’ve added info about two favorite recipes for you to try. Over 70 romance authors contributed recipes and stories, and you can find the cookbook in print and digital editions everywhere books are sold. All proceeds benefit ProLiteracy! … Music: purple-planet.com Listen to the podcast → Read the transcript → …
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ALGONKIAN SUCCESS STORIES
WTF is Wrong With Stephen King?
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The Usherette (Historical Fiction). Meeting Orson Welles
Scene: Chapter Four. Jo returns to New York from visiting Madeleine in Florida after receiving a telegram from Orson Welles asking to meet. He wants to premiere "Citizen Kane" at the Palace Theater and needs someone to show him around. The scene captures Jo's passions and core decency - and why the movies matter to her. He wanted to meet at midnight.docx -
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Demystifying the Blog Tour: A Powerful Marketing Tool for Your Book Launch and Beyond
A blog tour is a marketing campaign that involves coordinating a series of blog posts and online promotions to create buzz and generate exposure for your book. It typically involves collaborating with bloggers and influencers who have an audience that aligns with your target readership. These bloggers will read your book, write reviews, host author interviews, and feature guest posts or excerpts from your book on their blogs. The goal is to reach a wider audience and generate interest in your book within their established community. The Blog Tour Framework Here's a breakdown of the framework for a typical blog tour: Identify and contact bloggers: Research and compile a list of relevant bloggers who cater to your book's genre or niche. Reach out to them via email or through their website's contact form, expressing interest in collaborating on a blog tour. Provide review copies: Offer a digital or physical copy of your book to the interested bloggers, allowing them time to read and review it before the tour begins. Create tour schedule: Coordinate with the participating bloggers to create a schedule for the tour. Each blogger will have a designated day to feature your book on their blog and share their review, interview, guest post, or any other agreed-upon content. Create content: Prepare author interviews, guest posts, or excerpts that you can provide to the bloggers to publish on their respective blogs. These pieces of content should be engaging and relevant to your book, enticing readers to learn more about it. Promote: As the blog tour progresses, actively promote each blog post across your own social media channels and any other platforms you use. This will help generate more visibility and encourage your existing followers to visit the blogs hosting your content. Engage with readers: Throughout the blog tour, make an effort to engage with readers who leave comments on the blog posts. Responding to their comments and answering their questions will help build a connection and potentially lead to more interest in your book. Blog Tour Benefits The benefits of a blog tour can be significant for your book launch or generating interest long after your book has been released. Some potential advantages include: Increased exposure: By leveraging the established audiences of bloggers and influencers, you can reach a wider audience that may not have been aware of your book otherwise. Social proof: Positive reviews and endorsements from bloggers can lend credibility to your book, encouraging readers to take a chance on it. Networking opportunities: Collaborating with bloggers and influencers can expand your network within the literary community, opening doors to potential future partnerships or opportunities. Enhanced online presence: The blog tour generates online content related to your book, increasing your online presence and searchability, which can have long-term benefits for your author platform. When to Plan a Blog Tour Determining the best time to have a blog tour for your book largely depends on your specific goals, timeline, and the nature of your book. However, there are a few general considerations to keep in mind when planning the timing of your blog tour: Book launch date: Ideally, you'll want to schedule your blog tour around your book's launch date. This ensures that the tour generates maximum buzz and attention during the critical period when your book becomes available to the public; however, a book tour can also help reignite interest in your book long after it’s been published.. Pre-launch promotion: Consider starting your blog tour a few weeks before your book's official launch. This gives bloggers and influencers ample time to read and review your book, and it allows you to generate buzz and anticipation leading up to the release. Pre-launch promotion can help build excitement and generate pre-orders or early sales. Availability of review copies: Ensure that you have review copies of your book available and ready to send out to bloggers well in advance of the blog tour start date. This allows sufficient time for bloggers to read the book and prepare their content for the tour. Consider providing digital copies for ease and quick distribution. Audience availability: Take into account the preferences and availability of your target audience. If your book caters to a specific season, genre, or holiday, it might be beneficial to align your blog tour with that theme or timeframe. For example, a romance novel might benefit from a blog tour around Valentine's Day. Other marketing efforts: Consider coordinating your blog tour with other marketing initiatives you have planned. This could include social media campaigns, advertising, or other promotional activities. A coordinated approach can amplify your book's visibility and impact. Blogger availability: Reach out to bloggers and influencers well in advance to secure their participation and confirm their availability for the tour. Keep in mind that popular bloggers may have busy schedules, so it's beneficial to plan ahead and be flexible with scheduling to accommodate their availability. Ultimately, the best time for a blog tour is when you have everything in place, including review copies, promotional materials, and a solid plan for engaging with bloggers and readers throughout the tour. Take the time to strategically plan and execute your blog tour to maximize its impact on your book launch or relaunch. Did you know WOW! Women on Writing offers blog tours as part of our marketing services? If you're interested in exploring professional assistance for your blog tour and other book marketing endeavors, check out WOW! Women on Writing's book marketing packages. We offer comprehensive and tailored solutions to help authors like you navigate the world of book promotion. Our team of experts can guide you through the process, provide valuable insights, and connect you with influential bloggers and reviewers in your genre. By leveraging the expertise and network of WOW! Women on Writing, you can enhance the effectiveness of your blog tour and ensure your book receives the attention it deserves. Learn more here or contact blogtour@wow-womenonwriting.com with questions. (C) Copyright wow-womenonwriting.com Visit WOW! Women On Writing for lively interviews and how-tos. Check out WOW!'s Classroom and learn something new. Enter the Quarterly Writing Contests. Open Now![url={url}]View the full article[/url] -
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Whatcha Reading? May 2023, Part Two
It’s time to wrap up May with our second Whatcha Reading! It’s also Memorial Day weekend in the States, which seems like a perfect excuse to get even more reading done before the month is over. Sneezy: I’m reading Right Wing Women by Andrea Dworkin. She takes no prisoners. Sarah: What’s that? The library has the next Veronica Speedwell audiobook? Don’t mind if I do! Currently listening to A Murderous Relation ( A | BN | K | AB ) and having a splendid time. The audiobook performance by Angele Masters is terrific. A | BN | KShana: I just finished a YA romcom that gave me the biggest book hangover, Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert. So much banter and sweetness! I’m now reading The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older, and liking it so far. Elyse: I just finished The Daydreams. ( A | BN | K ) Some of it was how awful tabloids were to young female stars in the aughts (Lindsay, Britney etc), but each of the main characters does something really shitty to another so it’s hard to really like any of leads. It was meh. Lara: Elyse recommended Loreth Anne White’s The Maid’s Diary ( A | BN ) and I’m hooked. No romance, but the suspense is phenomenal so far. Whatcha reading? Let us know in the comments! View the full article -
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Book Lovers: Know Your Tribe
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Writing Hot Sex Scenes - Saints Preserve Us!
I've been trained. It works! -
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Crucial Self-Editing Techniques - Don't be Hostage to a Line Editor
If you knew how many writers this has positively impacted, you'd say, it's no wonder. Fundamentals like this are too often neglected. -
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Podcast 564, Your Transcript has Bunny Ears
The transcript for Podcast 564. Bunny Aliens in Space: Cover Design with JL Logosz has been posted! This podcast transcript was handcrafted with meticulous skill by Garlic Knitter. Many thanks. ❤ Click here to subscribe to The Podcast → View the full article -
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Paul Schrader’s Master Gardener Doesn’t See the Forest for the Trees
Master Gardener is the third in Paul Schrader’s “God’s Lonely Men” trilogy, in each film of which a weary middle-aged man who has previously experienced alienation from mainstream society contends with his haunted past and hazy future, reflecting on these things, and his rote daily existence, via diary-keeping—a technique that suffices until his world is challenged by knowledge of something greater, and tested by a newfound bond with a distressed young person. Via these characters, the films in this trilogy tend to pair and interrogate the relationship between two normally unrelated topics: religion and climate change (First Reformed, 2017), gambling and the War on Terror (The Card Counter, 2021), and horticulture and racism (Master Gardener, 2022). Schrader is an accomplished, highly literary storyteller and his interests (particularly the the masculine-coded concepts of destruction and violence) have produced some of film’s most fascinating inquiries into the ills of modern society, from Taxi Driver to Affliction to American Gigolo, to First Reformed and The Card Counter. First a film critic and then a screenwriter (responsible for classics like Raging Bull and Obsession and famous for his collaborations with Martin Scorsese and Brian De Palma), Schrader’s later work as a director is epitomized by the triad of films about “God’s Lonely Men,” three anti-social anti-heroes in crisis: a self-loathing pastor, a troubled gambler, and a secretive gardener, all reckoning with the sudden collision of themes, lives, selves once kept at a distance. Many of his protagonists, but especially these three, can be read as homages to Alain Delon’s Jef Costello in Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1967 film Le Samouraï: cool, reserved, highly-competent professionals whose whose adherence to rituals and observances leaves them unprepared to confront unforeseen cataclysms. It’s almost never useful to compare films in a director’s oeuvre to one another; despite similarities, each is its own discreet contribution. But Schrader’s films are designed to reference each other—or, really, The Card Counter and Master Gardener are designed to reference First Reformed—so please forgive me while I place them all side-by-side for a moment. In First Reformed, Ethan Hawke plays Ernst Toller (no, not that Ernst Toller), a cheerless reverend at a small antique church upstate who keeps a diary of his own stark life the year he happens to encounter a distraught climate activist who opens his eyes to the ravishment of God’s green earth by greedy corporations, as well as the ways God’s own church is influenced by corporatization to the point of disregarding the stewardship of the planet. That film, a simmering hagiography of a soul in turmoil, provides the blueprint for Schrader’s subsequent two films, not only thematically, but also stylistically, in the terms I mentioned in the opening paragraph. The films are dark, lonely meditations into their protagonists’ natures, told via their floridly-written, allusion-rich journal entries, as they finally confront aspects of their lives and their worlds they have kept at bay for so long. The Card Counter inherits the framework of First Reformed, but reworks it enough for it to feel distinct; Oscar Isaac plays William Tell (no, not that William Tell), a former military interrogator and now card-counter, who carpetbags from casino to casino, living out of austere motels, until he meets a young man who informs him that he knows his true identity, as a soldier who served jailtime for his role in the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, and asks for his help committing an act of revenge against one of Tell’s military superiors. This film slowly explores the human capacity for both empathy and cruelty, teasing out the relationship between “keeping one’s cool” and “losing it.” I don’t have as conclusive a reading of the forces at work Master Gardener, arguably the film in this trilogy with the toughest conceit. Joel Edgerton plays Narval Roth, a taciturn head gardener of Gracewood Gardens, a privately-owned estate with gardens that are open to the public. Narval manages a team of polo-clad young people, overseeing their work but also instructing them in the history, philosophy, and science of horticulture. He answers to no one, except Norma Haverhill (Sigourney Weaver), the wealthy owner of the estate, who throws his carefully cultivated world out of order when she demands he take on an apprentice, her grand-niece Maya (Quintessa Swindell). Maya is biracial, the daughter of the “wayward” daughter of Norma’s sister, who left the family and “fell in with a bad crowd,” as Norma purrs. Maya seems to be her only relative left, so she is eager to draw her into the family—but not enough that she doesn’t insist that she work on the family’s land, first. Maya is a curious, intelligent twenty-something, surprisingly accepting of the fact that she’s a minimum wage worker on her great aunt’s estate. Norma wants Narval to educate her, teach her about the maintenance and culture and theories of horticulture, so that she might be able to pursue a career in the field in the future. Maya takes kindly to this earthy finishing school, especially because she appreciates the softspoken and passionate manner of Narval, her teacher. The movie appears to take place in the South (it was filmed in Louisiana), and the house looks like a plantation estate, so it seems like there might be some interesting explorations into contemporary white supremacy, the way Norma insists that Maya be fashioned into a more refined version of herself in order to be welcomed into her family tree, and simultaneously wants this self-improvement to take place as a farm-worker beneath her, and literally in the dirt. But the film wobbles from here on out, mostly because we learn about the haunted, Narval’s past as a soldier of a Neo-Nazi army, before turning state’s evidence against them and going into witness protection. Under his clothes, he is covered in White Pride and Hitler-fandom tattoos, which he looks at disparagingly in the mirror. He likes his current life as a peaceful caretaker of the Gracewood Gardens, is glad to have distanced himself from the silo of racism, misogyny, antisemitism, and violence in which (he explains) he was raised. That Maya and Narval form a bond, while he also has flashbacks to things that his proud boy/hillbilly cult leader told him about how his job is to “pull out the weeds,” suggests that Master Gardener will become a thriller about the insidiousness of white supremacy, juxtaposing it with a reading of gardening as a kind of fascism (or at least, a way to disguise it). In other words, perhaps Narval’s solitary salvation in gardening for a racist white lady becomes an outlet for the very impulses that allowed him to thrive in a fascist cult in the first place. Master Gardener doesn’t till this ground, though, which is fine, but it also doesn’t do anything else productive with all of these rich, ripe, and (productively) thorny thematic concerns. What begins as an incredibly fruitful plot soon wilts and shrivels into a wandering love story; and the kind of discipline and restraint that Narvals brings to his gardening becomes, exactly, the element missing from the story itself. Master Gardener quickly forgets its powerful portrayals about white supremacy and racism when it becomes interested in whether or not its protagonist can be redeemed, can be saved, and, in giving him some way to carry this out, represents Maya as needing to be saved by someone, too. If this narrative shoot were to blossom into a meaningful development (unlikely as it is), we would need a clearer understanding of Narval’s life or background, a focused explaining of how he has come to be changed in the first place. But more importantly, this whole angle not only misses out on saying anything thoughtful about race in America, but also robs Maya of the opportunity to be more than a plot device, perhaps (especially in light of Swindell’s elegant performance), the greatest sin of all. What results is a confusing film, overgrown in some areas and under-seeded in others. Instead of becoming as thoughtful and risky an exploration as The Card Counter, Master Gardener becomes like a game of 52-card pickup. It’s as if Schrader has a deck of cards and instead of laying them out strategically, throws them all in the air and lets them come down where they will. Instead of become the focused sermon of First Reformed, Master Gardener becomes one of those themed themed refrigerator poem packs. It has a lot of terms on the table, but shuffles them around until they say almost absolutely nothing. View the full article
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