The Audacity.: The Audacious Book Club

John of John: Patriarchal Matters

Roxane Gay — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 16:15:11 GMT

Douglas Stuart creates such compelling characters and has a keen understanding of place. As you come to the end of the novel, what are you thinking and feeling about this story? In what ways do both Johns benefit and suffer from patriarchy? How do these men treat (and think about) the women in their lives? In what ways do the women in this novel assert their own agency? Who, on the island is the most free?

We’ll be in conversation with Douglas tomorrow, on the 24th. What questions do you have for him?

John of John: Tradecraft + Tradition

Roxane Gay — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 14:35:58 GMT

It’s easy to understand why Cal feels so suffocated living on this remote island with his father and grandmother. That said, Cal is extremely talented and has a special gift for his family’s craft and trade. In what ways does the rigidity and pressure of tradition hold back new talent? How does religion factor into this dynamic? What parallels, if any, do you see between the suffering as holiness ethos of the Scottish Isles and the rugged individualism of the American Dream?

John of John: Growing Pains

Roxane Gay — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 15:45:57 GMT

At the beginning of John of John, the younger John (Cal) is returning home after his time attending art school on the mainland. He’s broke, couch surfing, and having trouble finding a job in the field he’s spent years learning. Although this novel is a period piece, the challenges facing recent college grads (especially in the arts) are not that different now. What did you think about the way we are introduced to Cal? I was particularly engaged with how atmospheric the early pages of this novel are. I could feel the dampness and cold of the Hebrides and the awkward comfort of returning to a home about which you have mixed feelings. What difficulties did you face in the transition between youth and adulthood? What factors influenced the choices you made during that time period? Why do we put so much pressure on young people to succeed/figure themselves out quickly? What advice would you give a young adult you care about as they transition into adulthood?

Introducing John of John

Roxane Gay — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 14:35:54 GMT

In the opening of Douglas Stuart’s 2020 debut Shuggie Bain, it’s 1992, and Shuggie, the 15 -year-old protagonist (who is pretending to be 16) is working at a supermarket in Glasgow, living alone, and hoping one day to be a hairdresser. Before the novel moves back to reflect on Shuggie’s childhood and to illustrate why he’s found himself in this situation, Stuart chronicles Shuggie’s daily deli routine and also his attempts to fill in for a coworker at her rotisserie stand:

“He prayed for strength. Why did no one want a whole chicken anymore? He would lift the carcass using long prongs, careful not to touch the birds with his gloved hands, and then he would dissect the parts neatly (skin intact) using catering scissors. He felt like a fool standing there against the broiler lights. His scalp was sweating under the hairnet and his hands were not quite strong enough to artfully snap the back of the chicken with the dull blades. He hunched slightly, the better to throw his back muscles behind the pressure in his wrists, and all the time he kept smiling.”

Stuart is meticulous in proffering details about Shuggie’s discomforts, the minutiae required to manage the deli, and in his descriptions both of Shuggie’s mother Agnes’s struggle with alcoholism and Shuggie’s attempts to save her. Stuart is also meticulous in his revelation of Shuggie’s queerness and in chronicling Shuggie’s attempt to hide that fact both from himself and from others.

It is that meticulousness and secrecy that also echo in Stuart’s third book, John of John. The novel’s protagonist, John-Calum MacLeod is living in Edinburgh, going to art school to study textiles, when his father calls him and insists he return to his home on the insular Isle of Harris, part of the Hebrides, to care for his aging grandmother. What Cal finds on his return is the same home he left behind and seemingly the same father, a man who criticizes his clothing and hair as well as his decisions. But what Cal soon finds is that nothing is what it appears to be: his father, a weaver and farmer, is breaking one of the key rules of the trade on the island, and his family is struggling to keep its secrets.

In some ways, Stuart’s novel is a faithful retelling of the prodigal son; his language is steeped in both the religious fervor of the conservative Presbyterian church and stark yet bucolic descriptions of the island’s landscape. But nestled within that narrative is a very different story, the threads of which interweave the story of the son with the story of the father, a story filled with sharp and startling insights into the nature of queer longing and loneliness. John of John forces us to consider not the scandal of queerness in communities that pride themselves on adherence to tradition but more importantly the cost: what compromises must people must make in order to love in secret? What lies must they tell? What shape must love take if that love is forbidden?

John of John is a gorgeous and often heart wrenching novel, one that reminds us that we don’t always know our families as well as we think we do, and that sometimes coming home doesn’t ground us but unsettles us instead. I’m looking forward to discussing this wonderful book with you throughout the month of June. We will be in conversation with Douglas Stuart on June 24th at 8 pm EST/5 pm PST. Registration is open!

Have you started John of John? What are your early impressions? If you’ve read Stuart’s previous two novels, what do you see in how his work has evolved?

The Violence: Betrayals and Their Aftermath

Roxane Gay — Tue, 26 May 2026 13:35:50 GMT

I was really interested in Esther and Anibal’s relationship. Even though they were a romantic match, how did cultural and patriarchal customs threaten that love? In what ways was Esther required to carry the load or keep the peace? How did you feel when you read about Anibal’s betrayal coming to light at the funeral? Have you had to reconcile with the l…

The Violence: Family Histories

Roxane Gay — Tue, 12 May 2026 14:35:54 GMT

As we begin reading The Violence: My Family’s Colombian War, I’d love for us to talk about how Ramirez weaves together family and political histories. What are your first impressions of Esther? In what ways does specific, personal narrative help us understand historical events that a regular history cannot?

If you were attempting to write your own famil…

Introducing The Violence: My Family's Colombian War

Roxane Gay — Tue, 05 May 2026 13:31:47 GMT

Early in Dead Boys: A Memoir, a series of linked essays, Adriana E. Ramírez talks about watching a pirated news feed from Mexico and seeing nine bodies hanging from a pedestrian bridge. Ramírez writes that she is familiar with the bridge; she has driven across it many times. As she listens to a news anchor list the names of the dead, Ramírez realizes th…

Black. Single. Mother.: Sharing the Burden

Roxane Gay — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 13:35:52 GMT

The last third of the book is a collection of stories from a group of Black single mothers sharing their experiences. I really loved how Jamilah Lemieux was able to share the pages of her book in this way.

One of the things that really stood out to me was the burden of having to shoulder most of the caregiving responsibilities, when in many cases, singl…

Black. Single. Mother.: The Mother Of It All

Roxane Gay — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 13:35:55 GMT

Over the years we’ve read about many different kinds of mothers, both real and imagined. How did Jamilah Lemieux’s thoughts on Black single motherhood put some of the other stories we’ve read into context? Does reading about mothers make you more empathetic toward your own mother/mothers in your life? Does it sometimes make you jealous? Why? Are there a…

Black. Single. Mother.: The Stories We Tell Ourselves About Ourselves

Roxane Gay — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 13:35:38 GMT

One thing I really loved about this book was how honest and self-reflective Jamilah was about her own less-than-flattering behavior. It is risky and brave to admit to your own faults and ways you wish you would have done things more maturely. Writing like this, that is vulnerable and honest, always encourages me to think about the narratives I’ve been t…

Black. Single. Mother.: What Makes a Family

Roxane Gay — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 17:49:03 GMT

Black. Single. Mother. starts with author Jamilah Lemieux opening up about her experience with her own Black single mother, mostly absent father, and her own journey into single motherhood. For those of you who were raised by single parents, what did your experience look like? Did you see parts of your story in what Jamilah shared? What behaviors did yo…

Introducing Black. Single. Mother.

Roxane Gay — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 12:35:37 GMT

In September 2009, writer and cultural critic Jamilah Lemieux wrote an open letter to Tyler Perry. In that letter, Lemieux talked about how she appreciated Perry’s dedication to giving jobs to Black people and how his work often features empowering messages about love and self-worth threaded with humor. But still, Lemieux said, she felt conflicted abou…

Tell Me How You Eat: Food, Access, and Power

Roxane Gay — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 20:15:33 GMT

Let’s talk about the politics of food and food access. What stood out to you from your reading about the ways in which food and power are connected? The urge to care for and feed each other is at odds with the ideology that there’s no such thing as a “free lunch.” In what ways is feeding and making sure others are fed radical? Why do you think those in …

Tell Me How You Eat: Literally, Like... Tell Me

Roxane Gay — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 22:38:40 GMT

Amber Husain begins Tell Me How You Eat by sharing the difficulties she had with her appetite and feeding herself during the pandemic. Let’s talk about eating. Tell us how you eat! How has your relationship to food and keeping yourself fed changed over the course of your life? Is there a discrepancy between how you’d like to eat and how you actually eat…

Introducing Tell Me How You Eat

Megan Pillow — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 14:15:30 GMT

In her second book Meat Love: An Ideology of the Flesh, Amber Husain writes about John Berger’s 1979 book Pig Earth, a work of fiction that he wrote after spending time living in a peasant community in France. Berger, notes Husain, chronicles the story of a pig who has been fed “like family” until the day he is slaughtered. That visceral moment of slaug…

The Age of Calamities: Haunted Houses

Roxane Gay — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 13:35:17 GMT

“Inside the House of the Historian” really delivers on the spooky, surreal, and unsettling elements of a good haunted house tale. What did you think of this particular cast of characters? What do the dynamics between the historian, the professor, and the dinner guests say about academia, media, and what people and events get remembered? What do you thin…

The Age of Calamities: Acts of Possession

Roxane Gay — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 15:15:24 GMT

In “Our Lady of Resplendent Misfortune,” we get to read another possession story! What do you enjoy about this particular plot device, and how does the presence of another consciousness help us understand the interiority of the possessed character? What do you think possession stories have to say about consent and bodily autonomy? There’s a great line o…

The Age of Calamities: Survival Skills

Roxane Gay — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 15:15:18 GMT

I loved the story “The Wolves,” and it reminded me of I Who Have Never Known Men, which I read last year and highly recommend. What do you think this story, along with others you’re reading in the collection, has to say about violence against women? On page 45, she says, “it’s such a waste of time, dearest boy, to fear you’ll be disbelieved. But what ca…

The Age of Calamities: Losing Your Head

Roxane Gay — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 15:15:25 GMT

The Age of Calamities starts with a bang—in “Let’s Play Dead,” a beheaded Anne Boleyn pieces herself together and returns to Henry, who proceeds to kill her again and again and again. In what ways does this fictionalized version of a historical event make us understand it differently? How, paradoxically, do the fantastical elements bring out the truth? …

The 2026 Audacious Book Club Selections

Roxane Gay — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 21:48:52 GMT

There are so many amazing books published each year so it is really difficult to pick just one a month (and in October, well, we picked two), but here is what we will be reading this year. As a reminder, if you’d like to receive the books automatically each month, you can sign up with Allstora, our book purveyor. And here are our FAQs.

January

The Hitch by Sara Levine

February

The Age of Calamities, by Senaa Ahmad.

March

Tell Me How You Eat by Amber Husain

April

Black. Single. Mother. By Jamilah Lemieux

May

The Violence: My Colombian War by Adriana Ramirez

June

John of John by Douglas Stuart