Ep 756 - Private Rites, by Julia Armfield

Summary

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Podcast: Overdue (Headgum)

Episode 756: Private Rites, by Julia Armfield

Release Date: June 22, 2026
Hosts: Andrew & Craig

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Overview of the Episode

This week, Craig tells Andrew about Private Rites (2024), Julia Armfield’s second novel. The discussion focuses on Armfield’s blending of climate fiction, queer family drama, and light horror, set in a perpetually rain-soaked London. The episode unpacks the novel’s exploration of dysfunctional relationships, the legacy of an absent patriarch, and the inescapable grooves of familial patterns—against the backdrop of societal collapse. The hosts discuss Armfield’s influences, her treatment of the nuclear family myth in disaster fiction, and how climate anxiety permeates the work.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Julia Armfield: The Author and her Influences

• Armfield is an English writer, born in 1990, living in London with her wife and cat ([06:21]).
• She holds a master’s in Victorian Art and Literature and cites H.P. Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson, and Stephen King as major influences ([06:31]).
• Her debut novel (Our Wives Under the Sea, 2022) and her short story collection (Salt Slow, 2019) have garnered acclaim; Private Rites was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award ([07:18]–[07:49]).
• Private Rites is, in part, a riff on "King Lear," focusing on a fractured family post-patriarch ([08:36]).

Main Themes: Family, Climate Anxiety, and Queerness

• Rain and Climate Change as Omnipresent Force

  • The book is set in a never-ending, rainy London, “one of the dampest books I’ve read in a long time” ([03:32]).
  • The hosts link the novel to "cli-fi" (climate fiction), though with some gentle ribbing about the awkwardness of the genre label ([11:09]–[12:13]).
  • Armfield’s interview reflections: she aims to "deconstruct the idea of the nuclear family as a safe harbor during disaster," especially from a queer perspective ([13:16]; [13:55]).
  • "A lot of stuff’s got climate in it, despite not...I think this is more explicitly about climate than 'Ministry of Time' was. But it’s interesting to think about it as a thing that is just humming in the background of a lot of contemporary fiction." – Andrew ([13:39])

• Queer Alienation from Family

  • Armfield describes Private Rites as "a novel about queerness and dislocation from the nuclear family, which is so often held as a safe harbor" ([13:55]).
  • All three sisters are queer; their father, Stephen Carmichael, reacts poorly to this, cementing estrangement ([26:54]).

• Patterns, Trauma, and Inescapable Family Grooves

  • "She was interested in doing a novel that’s based around family and the way that people fall back into established patterns, even if they’ve changed since they were all together." – Andrew ([10:42])
  • Craig comments: “Family relationships act like record grooves where the needle will just slide back in there and that song will play whether or not you want to play those chords." ([28:10])

Plot: Rain, Inheritance, and Cultish Horror

• The patriarch, Stephen Carmichael, was a celebrated yet cold architect. He dies before the novel opens, leaving his house (White Horse) and various emotional wounds to daughters Isla, Irene, and Agnes ([25:04]-[27:51]).
• Sisters’ Profiles:
  • Isla: The responsible therapist, reeling from divorce, "in charge" but losing control ([33:41]).
  • Irene: Works in admin; escapes into online forums where people roleplay pre-crisis normalcy—highlighting the gap between loss and coping ([37:25]).
  • Agnes: Youngest, a barista, wary of intimacy, haunted by trauma, and targeted by an end-times cult ([40:35], [56:21]).
• The house is a symbol of privilege: it’s disaster-proof, but also the site of family and societal breakdown ([29:43]).

Memorable Discussions:

• Comparing the novel’s climate disaster to “Parasite’s” class inequalities—the rain devastates the poor, while the rich are only inconvenienced ([20:26]).
• The perpetual rain and inability for characters to escape cycles: "It’s a book about getting stuck in grooves and the immense effort, perhaps impossible, it would take to get out of them." – Craig ([62:49])

Stylistic Choices & Narrative Tone

• The book's style is "fuzzy...like you’re reading it through a fog" ([22:39]): events are often recounted in recollection, not direct scene, enhancing a sense of emotional distance ([46:11]–[49:47]).
• The city is treated almost as a character, with chapters titled "City," zooming out for world-building without anchoring to any one character ([46:06]).
• "It just always feels like it’s in one mood removed from the regular mood...the characters reflecting on themselves rather than us getting the literal events." – Craig ([49:19])

Horror and the Climactic Shift

• Early hints of cultish horror—an opening ritualistic scene—are relegated to the background until the explosive ending ([32:08], [54:10]).
• In the climax, the sisters are beset by a doomsday cult led by their father’s former aide; Agnes is targeted for a sacrificial ritual ([56:21]).
• The cult’s apocalypse fails, the house collapses, and only Irene and Agnes survive to a world where the torrential rain turns to unending snow ([57:45]).

Notable Passages:

• "Better to hold one’s hands to whatever warmth there is, to kiss and talk and grieve and hold tight against the whitening of the sky...for now, they stay where they are and listen to the unwanted quiet, the hush in place of rainfall, unfamiliar, the silence like a final snuffing out." – Julia Armfield (quoted by Craig, [59:42])

Aftermath, Reflection, and Thematic Closure

• The ending is intentionally unsatisfying and ambiguous—full of grief, unsettling change, and the erosion of hope for real, systemic change ([59:44]–[62:49]).
• Andrew highlights Kirkus Reviews’ warning that the novel is “relentlessly miserable”—but agrees it’s an intentional effect, building towards its rueful, meditative conclusion ([63:44]).
• The hosts discuss the persistent marks of disaster, like cable car pylons and faded signs—a metaphor for how past trauma lingers ([62:31]).

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Climate Anxiety & Fiction:

  "It’s interesting to think about it as a thing that is just humming in the background of a lot of contemporary fiction." – Andrew ([13:39])

• On Inescapable Family Patterns:

  "Family relationships act like record grooves where the needle will just slide back in there and that song will play whether or not you want to play those chords." – Craig ([28:10])

• On the Novel’s Perspective:

  "It just always feels like it’s in one mood removed from the regular mood...the characters reflecting on themselves rather than us getting the literal events." – Craig ([49:19])

• On the Uncanny Banality of Crisis:

  "What did we do to pretend that the world we knew still existed? ... What if we could do like game nights over camera or whatever." – Andrew ([38:29]–[38:34])

• On the Ending:

  "There’s a ruefulness to this ending that I’ve been sitting with...it is good to do this because what else could you do? But it’s important that the what else could you do is there as well, which is the sad part..." – Craig ([60:45])

• Final Word on Theme:

  "It’s a book about getting stuck in grooves, I think, and the immense effort, perhaps impossible effort, it would take to get out of them." – Craig ([62:49])

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [04:41] — Author overview and Armfield’s background
• [07:18] — Armfield’s publications and award recognition
• [10:14] — Spoiler warning and discussion structure
• [13:16] — Armfield on disaster narratives and the nuclear family
• [20:26] — "Parasite," class, and climate disaster
• [25:04] — Sketch of Stephen Carmichael and sisters
• [33:41] — Profile of each sister
• [37:25] — Irene and the longing for normalcy via online forums
• [46:06] — Narrative structure and city/world-building
• [54:10] — Cult horror emerges, climax set in White Horse
• [59:42] — Closing passage; the rain turns to snow, grief and ambiguity
• [62:31] — Lingering aftermath of disaster, trauma
• [63:44] — Review of the novel’s relentless tone and lack of comic relief

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Tone & Style

The hosts maintain their typical mix of dry wit, gentle banter, and sincere literary curiosity. They riff on rain and umbrellas, commiserate about therapy-speak and online escapism, and trade thoughtful observations about how trauma (personal, familial, societal) sticks around, even as external circumstances shift. Throughout, both keep the tone conversational but anchored in textual analysis—matching the melancholy and rueful humor of Armfield’s novel itself.

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For Further Reading:
Listeners interested in novels tackling climate anxiety and queer family structures might also want to explore Armfield’s other work (Our Wives Under the Sea) or recent Arthur C. Clarke-nominated/climate-inflected books discussed by the podcast.

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Next Episode Teaser:
Craig and Andrew will discuss Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Deniman (Dungeon/LitRPG genre). ([69:05])

Transcript

[Andrew]

This is a headgun podcast,

[Craig]

Andrew. This episode is brought to you in part by Mint Mobile. When people hear that Mint Mobile plans are only 15 bucks a month, a lot of people wonder what's the catch? Well, you know from first hand experience, Andrew, there isn't one. There's no gimmicks, no gotchas, just unlimited talks, text and data on the nation's largest 5G network. I guess that makes Mint Mobile a catch.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I was going to say the only thing I'm catching with my Mint Mobile service is all the bits and bytes from the Internet that I. That I am asking for with my good connectivity.

[Craig]

Because you have switched to Mint Mobile, you use them.

[Andrew]

Yes, I swear I switched to Mint Mobile many years ago before they were ever an advertiser on the show. I am a happy customer and I. That's. That's what, that's what I have to say.

[Craig]

To get your new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to mint mobile.com that's mintmobile.com overdue. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a [e-mail] overdue. That's it. There's no catch. I say $45 upfront payment required, equivalent to $15 a month. New customers on first three month plan only. Speed slower above 40 gig on unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details.

[Andrew]

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your

[Craig]

home and auto policies. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. While Andrew and Craig believe the joy of discovery is crucial to enjoying any well told tale, they will not shy

[Andrew]

away from spoiling specific story beats when necessary.

[Craig]

Plus, these are books you should have read by now. Hey everybody. Welcome to Overdue. It's a podcast about the books you've been meaning to read. My name is Craig.

[Andrew]

My name is Andrew.

[Craig]

How much do you like rain, Andrew? What is it?

[Andrew]

How much do I just like generally?

[Craig]

Hey Andrew, what's the weather this morning? It's raining outside. How do you feel?

[Andrew]

It depends on whether it was raining yesterday morning. Depends on, you know, whether my rain barrels need replenished. You know, watering the plants outside side.

[Craig]

Huh.

[Andrew]

It's. It's context dependent. Very context in general. In general it does not bother me.

[Craig]

Okay, that's good to know.

[Andrew]

I'm not like oh no rain. I'm like oh, boy. There's. I'm. I'm like, oh, boy, there's. I mean, sometimes it's annoying because there are things that you have to do and it's raining.

[Craig]

Yeah, sure.

[Andrew]

But then there is a bunch of optional stuff that's like, oh, no, I can't do it because it's raining. I can't help it.

[Craig]

Oh, that is kind of nice. Oh, I get to stay inside.

[Andrew]

Oh, no.

[Craig]

Oh, I can't come to your thing.

[Andrew]

Oh, no, it's raining really hard. I can't come.

[Craig]

Oh, I can't. Oh, I can't do the shopping today. I'll order food. Make the rain someone else's problem. That's kind of this book a little bit.

[Andrew]

It's making the rain someone else's problem a little bit.

[Craig]

Welcome to our book podcast, where each week one of us reads a book and tells the other person about it. This week I have read Private Rights by Julia Armfield, one of the dampest books I've read in a long time.

[Andrew]

Yeah, sounds pretty damp.

[Craig]

Very damp. Very rainy, kind of. You know what you've maybe heard about the Pacific Northwest, but worse is the prevailing climate.

[Andrew]

I mean, sort of this book, London, where the book is set and where

[Craig]

Julia Armfield never explicitly named as London. But sure, it's probably London. Also a foggy town. Foggy, rainy.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

You know, I don't presume that we have British listeners. I presume that our listeners are from the United States because that's where I'm from and that, I mean, you can see.

[Andrew]

But you. You can see in the stats, though, that we do

[Craig]

that that's where they're from. Yeah, you could. You could know.

[Andrew]

You could see in the stats that we do have that. We know.

[Craig]

We do. We do.

[Andrew]

Listeners. I don't.

[Craig]

We do.

[Andrew]

Yes. So, Julia Armfield, you ready? You ready to talk about.

[Craig]

Yeah, please.

[Andrew]

How do you feel about rain? What do you think?

[Craig]

I generally think rain is fine. I find umbrellas frustrating. My. You make me think about umbrellas. All I think is about being annoyed. There's a certain level of rain. I would rather just hit me in the face than the potential for an umbrella to get wind underneath it. I don't care for it. Um, maybe that means I should get a better umbrella, but I'm not going to do that right now. I'm just going to complain.

[Andrew]

Yeah, you should. You should think about a better umbrella. I would encourage you to. Or just get like a nice. Like. Like a poncho. Just like a night. Just carry some ponchos around in your bag. I could.

[Craig]

Yeah. Carry some ponchos. Could get one of those cool, like jackets from the 60s, you know, like I'm a businessman. Or from. That's even earlier where I. I don't

[Andrew]

know what you're talking about.

[Craig]

You know those big like tan jackets, probably from. I don't know if they're just from the 60s.

[Andrew]

Okay. Big Tan jacket, like a slicker.

[Craig]

Like what. You know what George Costanza's dad was selling.

[Andrew]

Oh, sure.

[Craig]

Those are not just the.

[Andrew]

Like a flasher coat.

[Craig]

Well, not when you put it that way, but. But like maybe I'm selling watches from inside this.

[Andrew]

Like if you like if you're three kids stacked on top of each other.

[Craig]

That's the word I. Yeah.

[Andrew]

There you go then. This is the kind of coat that you want, but not with the kids stacked under it. You want a real grown up in there.

[Craig]

I want a real grown up in there. So, Andrew, tell me about a real grownup Julia Armfield who wrote this book For Real.

[Andrew]

She's an English writer. She's born in London in the year 1990.

[Craig]

No fake successful people can't be born that way.

[Andrew]

She's old, earned a master's degree in Victorian Art and Literature from Royal Holloway University of London. She cites HP Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson and Stephen King's literary influences. She talks about many other authors and books that she enjoys and interviews with her that I. That I read. According to her author website, she lives in London with her wife and cat. Okay. She's. And she has said in interviews for this book, which is. Which came out in 2024, so pretty recently that she still works full time in addition to being a writer. I didn't like, run down what her day job is, but she's still doing other stuff.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

This is her second novel after 2022's Our Wives under the Sea, which is a horror novel slash love story that sounds pretty wild and possibly worth reading.

[Craig]

Yeah, like a lady won't come out of the bathtub. But it's more than that. That's kind of what I was reading.

[Andrew]

She has also published a collection of short stories called Salt Snow, Salt Slow. This came out in 2019. Story included in that collection called the Great Awake won the White Review Short Story Prize. Both of her novels have won, been shortlisted or been nominated for a few awards and Private Rights was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award. We've read a few books that have been nominated for this one or won it or been associated with this one lately.

[Craig]

Yeah, it Just kind of happened that way.

[Andrew]

Like all of our favorite awards. It's just one. A guy decided to start giving out and then he did it for so long that it became prestigious.

[Craig]

Yeah, that's how that works.

[Andrew]

Sierra Greer's Annie Bot, which we did a few episodes back, is the most recent winner. Next week's episode, Dungeon Crawler Carl is on the nominees list for 2026.

[Craig]

Huh.

[Andrew]

This. And this is an award for sci fi novels published in the uk. But the author does not need to be from the uk.

[Craig]

Yeah, it's very important.

[Andrew]

The book only needs to have come out there.

[Craig]

Yeah, that's fair. Okay.

[Andrew]

So that's, that's the bulk of what I have about her and the. And the work she's done so far. This still pretty early in her career. As I said, she was born in the year 1990. Relative to the 90s. Relative.

[Craig]

Only they know. Relative to this book. I did see that her mom was a theater stage manager. Her brother is an actor. Relative to this book being a riff on King Learn, which is interesting. I don't. I am not well versed in that play. You actually, I think read it for the show. Many, many, many, many, many, many, many moons ago.

[Andrew]

That would not. I don't. That doesn't make me well versed in it.

[Craig]

Oh sure.

[Andrew]

But I did read it. Yes, you're right.

[Craig]

But there is an ear for character here that I appreciate as a fellow theater person. So what else do you have on this book, Andrew?

[Andrew]

On this book I have a couple of interviews that she did. One with country and Townhouse, one that she did with Vogue. Yeah, she's just talking about. So this is going to get maybe a little bit into what the book is about.

[Craig]

How dare you. Before the break, come on.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I mean before the break. So I just wanted to pause and make sure it was okay with you that we do this.

[Craig]

It is okay. I will say up top. When we get later in this episode, I will talk about the ending of this book. It's pretty critical to like just what people's responses to the book I think are. And it doesn't in my estimation kind of. It wouldn't ruin actually probably would enhance your reading experience to know what the last chapter is doing. But if at any point in this conversation you think, huh, this sounds interesting. Maybe I'll read this book. Just like you could just go ahead and stop and just go ahead and read it.

[Andrew]

It.

[Craig]

Because I did like it. It's one of those. So.

[Andrew]

So this book is, you know, it's Sort of doing a King Lear thing. It's doing like, I'm always sort of

[Craig]

doing a king thing. Dividing. Anytime I order pizza for friends, I'm like dividing it up. Doing a saying. I'm doing a king.

[Andrew]

Oh. Which. Which of my friends loves me the most? Who shall have. Who shall have my pizza?

[Craig]

Who wants the most pep on their slice? Tell me how much you love me.

[Andrew]

Sort of doing a King Lear thing. She was interested in doing a novel that's based around family in the way that people kind of fall back into established patterns and in relationships.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

With their family members, even if they and their family members have changed since they were all together. And then it's also doing some. Some light horror stuff, some sci fi kind of climate fiction stuff.

[Craig]

Yeah, I saw, I saw Clifi tossed around you in a way that I didn't feel comfortable with.

[Andrew]

Yeah, you put that in a slack. And I was like, I don't know if we could say that on air.

[Craig]

I don't need to dive into it in the way that we have. Things like Solar Punk. It just a thing that, that I saw in some reviews. And I went, huh, I guess that's a word we could use. Moving on, Clifi.

[Andrew]

I mean, neither of those words are pronounced like that, which makes it even.

[Craig]

Yeah, right.

[Andrew]

No, climate is. Yeah.

[Craig]

Oh, okay.

[Andrew]

Cliff here. Cliff here.

[Craig]

Okay, Andrew, what. What you just said. I have never once considered the fact that the fi in sci fi does not reflect the word fiction. This is the first time hosted a book podcast with you for over a decade. I remarked when they changed the title of the name of that network to SIFI because maybe that made more sense. Wow.

[Andrew]

You haven't thought about how it's sci fi. Right. Interesting.

[Craig]

I'm learning a lot these days.

[Andrew]

Learning a lot these days. So this is her talking about. I mean, so she says to country and townhouse. I don't understand why they're doing book author interviews, but sure, fine, whatever. When I was mapping out the arc of this novel, I became very interested in the way that disaster epics and apocalypse narratives in film and literature tend to really ring fence the importance of the traditional nuclear family. In an emergency, the priority is to get your family in the bunker and keep them safe. What I wanted to do was deconstruct that a little from a queer perspective and consider what would happen if your nuclear family was not safe or worth keeping safe and how your disaster narrative would unfold in that case. And who would be in your bunker. And then on climate, she says, I thought this was. This was illuminating. I think what's so interesting about. I think what's so interesting is how much of contemporary fiction is unavoidably inflected. Inflected by climate concerns. Novels like Kayleigh Ann Bradley's superlative the Ministry of Time, for instance, which you and I, Craig, well, talked about a few months ago.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

Ministry of Time, for instance, which was not advertised first and foremost as climate writing, but is simultaneously utterly shaped by concerns about the slow and terrifying descent into something we can't put right. Again, I suppose writers always write about what they fear or what they. To make sense of. And it's unsurprising that climate anxiety colors so much new writing at the moment.

[Craig]

I lot.

[Andrew]

A lot of stuff's got climate in it, despite.

[Craig]

You know, that's.

[Andrew]

Despite not. I think this is more explicitly about climate than Ministry of Time was. But it's interesting to think about it as a thing that is just humming in the background of a lot of contemporary fiction.

[Craig]

I also read that Vogue interview, and I'm thinking of two things. One, one is that that nuclear family thing, there was a quote that stood out to me that she says, private Rights is a novel about queerness and about dislocation from the nuclear family, which is so often held as a safe harbor. So I suppose to some degree that is me taking a side about nuclear families. And I honestly. You said that. And that must have been. That was from the Roadhouse interview, whatever it's called.

[Andrew]

Country and Townhouse.

[Craig]

All I could, literally, my brain first went to, like, the Quiet Place. What is it? The Quiet Place. What is those movies that. John.

[Andrew]

What is the weakness?

[Craig]

Yeah, the. What is the weakness? Movies.

[Andrew]

Yeah, and, like the quiet. Yeah, Quiet Place.

[Craig]

And like that. That's like a good quintessential or, you know, even, like years and years ago, Day After Tomorrow or whatever, where it's like, got to get back to my son. The world's falling apart. Which I think people default to as a. Like, well, everyone's got a family. Clearly the audience will understand if these characters are, like, trying to reunite their family. Right. Like, it's a common human experience. And this is interesting to hear her articulate that as a storytelling trope and as one that doesn't resonate maybe for her or for people she knows. And so she's going to write something different. So that's kind of neat. And then on the climate thing I had seen in, I think it was the Vogue interview, she talked about her. Her previous novel, Our Wives under the Sea Being written in the first, you know, six months of COVID lockdown or something. And while she didn't, you know, I think she said like something about.

[Andrew]

She says, she says on a purely practical level, Our Wives was written between about March and December of 2020. So although I am not sure I identified it as a Covid inflected novel until long after its scope and the world it evokes are necessarily quite literally limited. Yeah, she also talks about, about. She talks a little bit about like, oops, I did two wet books in a row.

[Craig]

Yeah, well, whoops.

[Andrew]

And then she says, I'm probably not in. My next one's probably not going to be wet. She did say that. Not, I mean, not. I'm paraphrasing, but yeah, there's a big

[Craig]

storm in King Lear too. I think that's part of the connection. But this book feels covety too, in a way that I didn't know her first book was. But there's a lot. There's stretches of this book that are like, stay inside, don't go outside. Who's this new person that's in your kind of your pod? Everybody's disconnected because they're all just kind of trying to make it through. I have a couple other examples that are more specific, but it's interesting to hear her reference her prior novel as being more a product of that age. And then also this like, awareness of how we're engaging with the climate crisis and like, who is using some sort of metaphor or stand in in their writing and who is addressing it head on and that kind of stuff. So it's an interesting book. She seems like she is. I don't know. This is somebody who I'm like, guess we got to maybe read more of her books. She's only got another one.

[Andrew]

She doesn't. She doesn't have that many.

[Craig]

I guess she'll write more of them at some point.

[Andrew]

She's got a dry book coming up. I don't know when, but it's happening.

[Craig]

It's probably going to happen. Well, let's take a quick break, Andrew, and then I will tell you about these private rights. Hi, I'm Beck Bennett. I thought I was Beck Bennett. No, no, no, no. Kyle Mooney.

[Andrew]

Yes, sorry about that.

[Craig]

Exactly. No, all good. All good. Thanks, buddy.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And we host the show what's our here on Headgum. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all in one website platform designed to help you stand out and make you look like a kick ass person online. Like you're skateboarding through the Internet or you're like, you're surfing through the web. Squarespace gives you everything you need to claim your domain, showcase your offerings with a professional website, grow your brand, and get paid all in one place. I like that it's all in one place. I don't, I like that I don't have to go around, you know, like different stores or something. It's just all, it's like, oh, do I need to go to like, do I need another type of website to like, find the right pictures or to like another type of website to upload? You know, it's all in one place. The video or the audio or like, no, I want it makes it easy. Make it easy on me, please. Yes. And you can do all those things. Photos, videos, changing fonts, you know, I mean, the designs are amazing. They're catering to all your different needs. They're SEO tools, which. I know what those are. And their custom domains. Oh, let's come up with a domain right now.

[Andrew]

Let's see.

[Craig]

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[Andrew]

All right, Craig, we're back. And you were think you were, you were going to Tell me something about this work of Cliff that you read.

[Craig]

My, my favorite work of Kleefi. Private Rights by Julia Ardenfield. Did you ever see the movie Parasite, Andrew?

[Andrew]

No.

[Craig]

Okay. There's a scene in the movie Parasite where the family.

[Andrew]

That's the Korean one, right?

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Okay. Yes.

[Craig]

The like lower class family that kind of enmeshes themselves with this rich family to, you know, and all sorts of wacky stuff happens. There's a scene in which they're like basement apartment floods during a major storm.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

And it is but an inconvenience for the rich family. It is utterly devastating and life changing for the lower class family.

[Andrew]

Yeah, yeah.

[Craig]

And this book is like what if. And I don't, I don't say this to like be reductive about where Armfield is getting her ideas. It's just my own reaction as a reader. It's like, what if you took some of the themes and ideas in that like kind of central moment from a movie and like what if you just spun that out into an entire world and just like thought through the ramifications of oh, everyone in this city is dealing with this never ending reign. What would that do? What would that look like? Who would be impacted? Who would have a say in what happens? Who wouldn't? How would it in some ways feel banal to a certain class of folks and in some, for some folks be incredibly present and day to day disruptive? Yeah, that to me it's. We all went through it in some way shape or form. That to me is the part that feels the most of somebody who lived through COVID lockdown.

[Andrew]

Yeah, she, she, she talked a little bit about, about that. And is there is at least one character who sort of represents that, that banality and the ability to get used to just about anything?

[Craig]

Yeah, there's a little bit of that. So this book is. Okay, It's a fuzzy book. It's like you're, you're reading like a

[Andrew]

deckled edge or like what are we talking about?

[Craig]

No, you're kind of reading it through a fog. Like she is deliberately obscuring or pushing to the margins what a more traditional horror or sci fi work in this world would focus on. So like there are lots of references to people in the streets protesting how the government is failing them or people are being displaced housing wise because the city is just constantly flooding or. And this will become important to the plot of the book. There's an opening sequence that is like, is there some sort of cult ritual happening that may or may not be about the end times that everyone is sure is approaching. And like that's happening, you know, two layers removed from any of the characters, like immediate experiences. And so you're kind of. I wouldn't say it's a book where you read it waiting for the shoe to drop, but she is kind of allowing a lot of things to buzz in the backgrounds of these characters. And the bulk of the book is like, here are three sisters. They kind of hate each other. Their dad died and now they have to go through that together in a work of, like, climate fiction. Like in a work of apocalyptic climate fiction.

[Andrew]

So tell me, tell me about the dad a little bit.

[Craig]

Oh, let me tell you, get to

[Andrew]

the end of your thing because that, because that, you know, if it's, if it's a King Lear thing, then he's the. It's him as. He's the. He's the leader.

[Craig]

He is the leader. Except the like, primary difference is he is dead when the book starts. Like, he is not an active character in the novel. His name is Stephen Carmichael. The daughters are Isla, Irene and Agnes. And he is a famous architect, a famously prickly person who was neglectful at best and actively bad father at worst.

[Andrew]

Sort of an Ayn Rand character. A bit.

[Craig]

This guy sounds a bit. Yes. The particular climate crisis that we're dealing with, which is this never ending rain that does not have a specific like cause that is ever enumerated. It is more.

[Andrew]

Well, it's water falling down from the sky. It's water like evaporates up into the atmosphere and then it falls back down to the earth.

[Craig]

I know in fourth grade a man came to my school and sang about the water cycle. I've never forgotten the song. It's been burned in my brain ever since. It goes up and it comes down. The water cycle goes around and around. Yeah. Anyway, but this is not a book about, like, where did we. We should have prosecuted ExxonMobil or else the rain wouldn't have happened. It's not that type of book. It is 20 years ago the rains like really got bad. And 10 years ago something should have changed and we. And we missed the boat. And now where we're kind of beyond the Rubicon in terms of like, society should have done something. So we've got this very celebrated architect. His daughters, when the book starts, are in their mid-30s. Agnes is about 10, eight to 10 years younger than them, so in her mid to late twenties. The older daughters around Armfield's age, I guess. And he sucked. He was a bad dad. He Was not good at it. He once told, I think it was Agnes, that if she didn't stop crying, someone would come and take her away in the night. All of his girls are queer. And he reacted poorly to all of that.

[Andrew]

Yeah, sure, I would imagine. Yeah.

[Craig]

He was, I guess, married twice. And his first wife, the mother of Isla and Irene, took her own life as she was an eccentric, seemed to have some interests in some kind of non traditional ideas about the universe and what we might do about this disaster that's happening. And he did not permit his daughters to attend her funeral outright. Told them that she had done something selfish and they did not, they should not see her. And then had already married, remarried by the time they were divorced and had another daughter. And then within months of that daughter being born, that woman disappeared and went away. Okay, so you don't get a portrait of a good guy.

[Andrew]

No.

[Craig]

Especially relative to the girls themselves, the women themselves. I apologize for sometimes referring to them as girls. They are grown women. The book is interested in, as you said, the fact that they are three sisters.

[Andrew]

Yeah. For the girls or whatever.

[Craig]

Well, they are always. Yeah, they're always living one foot in the past with their relationships. They're like the. What Armfield seems to be interested in is the way in which long standing family relationships act. Kind of like record grooves where the needle will just slide back in there and like that song will play whether or not you want to play those chords. Like that is just the song of your life vis a vis your sister's perspective of you. And that is who you will be.

[Andrew]

Right.

[Craig]

And so he is this kind of bad father, but not like, you know, not worthy of being put in jail for it or anything.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

And he is also this celebrated architect who built homes for rich people, including his own house, White Horse, which is ominously named, that is kind of meant to survive this climate crisis, I guess. You know, I don't really remember if the book talks too much about what he was famous for prior to the Rain happening, but that really is a part of his personality and his public Persona. His own house has this like stilts that can go up and down Jetson style with the tides, which becomes important to the end of the book.

[Andrew]

I mean, when you say Jetson style, it's not that their houses went up and down, it's just that their houses were mounted on big poles in the.

[Craig]

Well, they would go up. There's that whole thing in like they would go up out of the smog. That's a thing in one of the in one of the Jetsons episodes, their houses could go up.

[Andrew]

Okay, if you say so.

[Craig]

I think that's true. Anyway.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

But anyway, I made a note and as I was reading it, that said a lot Jetsons. So it's true for me anyway. And he, you know, other houses that he would build that, that he would build that are like built into the side of a cliff away from a flooding city. So, like enabling rich people rather than using his gifts to like. We get images throughout the book of, it's a flooded city, so the first three floors of a skyscraper. Well, I guess all those apartments are gone. Where are those people supposed to go? And who is supposed to help them get there? Nobody in the government. Anyway. So four years prior to the events of this novel, he had had a major stroke and thought he was going to die. Attempted to give his three daughters large sums of money from his estate, and they all refused because they are. They do not like him. They are abhorred by his kind of oeuvre and that's his legacy. So then he does die after several years of being sick, and they have to now kind of come back to a second, what if he's dead? Okay, I guess he's really dead. And they had refused his money. So that's not on the table. But the house is on the table. That. That's the dad. So he, like. He doesn't even crop up as like a ghost or anything like that. He's not. You get him in some memories, but a lot of the book is them thinking through their relationships to each other in relation to him, rather than like pivotal scenes with him or something like that. Sure, he's not this, like, dumb. I did not find him to be a domineering, like, Lear figure throughout the book or something.

[Andrew]

Like he's important backdrop. But yeah, he's not like the thing that the whole story actively is revolving around necessarily.

[Craig]

No. And in a way. So the book does open with a pretty cryptic, ritualistic scene of violence where, like two women are talking to each other. You don't really know what's going on. Maybe one of them does something with a knife and maybe a kid is like hearing them and then running away, not understanding what's happening. You're reading this having no information as to what the novel actually is about. That does not come back in any explicit way until the very close of the book. But what I will say is the like, culty end time stuff that's happening in the margins of the story ultimately reveals him to be less powerful. Than he thinks he was. Like, there's even kind of an undercutting of him that happens at the end of the book. So.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

I like the. I guess I like the three sisters. I like. I found myself caring about them.

[Andrew]

Is it important that you like them or what's the intended?

[Craig]

Yeah, I don't. I don't. You know, I don't want to fall down a likability hole, I suppose.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

But I do. I don't even know what that would look like. I don't know. But I. I did find myself by the end of the book, like, I was happy to have spent time with them. We have Isla. They. They refer to themselves as like, three queer King Lear daughters, which is a little on the nose, but that is what is literally happening.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

We have Isla, who is the oldest, I believe a therapist going through a divorce. She is what I would dub the. I have two older sisters, and a big part of my experience with this book was recognizing a lot of truths about how I've seen them interact over decades and that there's just a lot of. A lot working here in this novel for me on that front. Isla, the quote, unquote, responsible one who is the one who, like, hired the Live in aid when their father had a stroke and kind of purports to be in charge. But then the night before the funeral is the one who gets the drunkest, like, just kind of, you know, she has control over what she thinks she has control over. But does she even have that? Sure. There's a passage that speaks to that. Her father had remarried mere days after his divorce was finalized, had kept his daughters from the wedding as he would later keep them from their mother's funeral. And the lack of control she felt over this brief span of weeks would sit with her long after the sting of the losses themselves had told. That's Isla in a nutshell.

[Andrew]

Mm.

[Craig]

Through her divorce, you learn about this character Morvin, who is the woman she was married to, who we get this, like, brief glimpse of kind of. I don't know, it's like a little children of many. Like, there are people out there trying to live a different life than just, like, drowning in the city. Like, there are people out experimenting with flotillas on the ocean. Like, sure. What else can we do in this. In this world that is drowning? There is Irene, who got her PhD in, like, religious studies, but now does admin work for a remote work like, facility. Like, they do payroll and support B2B stuff for businesses doing remote work because of the like, that's what they do, I guess.

[Andrew]

You know, every, every disaster needs a company like Zoom that comes out essentially whether people like the product or not.

[Craig]

Irene is married to Jude and Jude is a housing focused social worker who is the like. So one review that remarked on there not being much like to the character of Jude other than like, they go to their job and they try to help people. And I was thinking about this relative to our discussion last week, Andrew, where like, sometimes that's not the most interesting narrative to like to. That's not a character you want to. You find yourself building an interesting narrative around. They're like, they're a good person, they show up to their job that is mission driven and they do the work. And it does make Jude a little flatter than the other characters. I think I found myself fine with the purpose they served in the novel. But if you're like somebody reading it and you go, oh, I find that person interesting, the novel is like, no, it's kind of more interesting that these sisters don't really can never be like them. Like, the whole point is that Jude is a better person than they are. But the thing that I think you will find interesting about Irene is that she spends her time on forums.

[Andrew]

Ooh.

[Craig]

Specifically forums where people roleplay normalcy.

[Andrew]

Oh, okay. Like I was expecting, I don't know what word I was expecting to follow after role play, but normalcy wasn't it.

[Craig]

Like, there'll be a thread and this is. I'm going to go into a quote now. We'll take the underground and come up via the escalator and the light outside will be that particular kind of light you get when the sun has just burned off the morning and it's about to be a dry, hot day. The tone of the website is vaguely romantic. She says, if not to say sexual. Pre will frequently roleplay at dates, but seldom the central fact of the date as much as it's logistics. I'll pick you up in my car because I have a car. One post over explains. And after I picked you up in my car, I'll drive us both through the city because I have a car and we both love to dry. Like, it is just this interesting. What if the world was a way that it could never be anymore stuff. And I don't, I don't know, I. I was like taken back to 2020 lockdown. Like, I'm watching fake baseball in a browser because, like, what if that was a way I could enjoy the world again?

[Andrew]

Yeah, like, what if we could do like game nights over camera or whatever.

[Craig]

Yeah, just like, what did we do to pretend that the world we knew still existed kind of stuff.

[Andrew]

Yeah, what, what, what? Like not unfulfilling, but also completely not the same activities do we come up with to try and to fulfill that need. Scratch that itch.

[Craig]

There's been a hose ban. One person posts and another responds, I'm mowing the lawn. And another responds, I'm bored at the airport. And it's like, this is a thing that Irene does throughout the book, which is like, all three of these characters are mostly comfortable. Like, I think that's another thing that the book is pretty specific about, that they are not in immediate precarity, which means that we get this book of like a lot of their daily nonsense, obviously run through the filter of their dad just died and their relationships are all thrown out of whack. But, like, they are not immediately concerned that the never ending rain will displace them or, you know, take away their job or something like that. And I think the book is like working in a space where that critique is on purpose because, like, here's Irene, she has her like, payroll job, she has a mostly stable marriage and she is like on forums, dreaming about a different world, but nothing is coming to like, you know, take any of what she does have away from her immediately. And then there's Agnes, who's the youngest sister. She is a barista. And there is this kind of like, I don't know, I didn't really understand how specific it felt to have it be a barista until later in the book where it's like, it is. It feels weird that the world feels like it's ending and people are like, no, but I do gotta have my latte. Like, I do have that.

[Andrew]

We still gotta be able to do Starbucks size as jokes.

[Craig]

Yup. And like, there are, there are some very specific and some offhand references to like, there's limited. There's more limited food options than there used to be. There's, you know, all the wine tastes bad kind of stuff. And so, like, is the coffee even good? Probably not, but people are so wedded to the routine. And there is a bit where like in the middle of the day at 12:30, there's. There's like a. Not every day, but there's like a break where the. You actually can tell that the sun is shining even if you can't see it directly. Directly. And everybody just kind of goes outside. And Agnes is like, I guess I don't need to make coffee for People right now, because I'm going out there, I guess she is the one. She's the youngest from the second wife of the father, clearly the one who is living with the most trauma of how her father, you know, neglected her. Scared of intimacy, stuff like that. She strikes up a relationship with a woman that she meets. Stephanie winds up moving in with her. And that whole arc is about, like, her ability to actually have a lasting relationship. And Agnes is the kind of, you know, what. What if there was a future character, though she is also someone who witnesses someone, like, take their own life on a jetty. And you're. And that's just a thing that people are out there doing because, like, what else are they supposed to do? Yeah, kind of horror encroaches on the story. And so, yeah, I come through the novel feeling a lot for these three women, wishing them the best in a horrific situation. And they all treat each other like garbage because they don't actually care about each other. And their parents didn't model any sort of positive relationships for them.

[Andrew]

And I'm assuming the book is not about them all, like, coming to understand and care for each other in a

[Craig]

very, like, roundabout way that that doesn't not happen, but not in a like. And then this other good thing will happen as a result. Like, that is just not possible in this world. The big events of the book are that they're all told that he died. They go to view the body. There's a really. There's a scene that speaks to a very personal experience I've had where Agnes is in the room with the body and, like, literally doesn't want to look at it. Reminded me of something that happened with me when I was a kid and my grandmother was sick. And I was like, oh, Agnes, like, she is, like, looking at her hands and not looking at her sisters and not looking at her father. And, like, the second that she does is brave enough to look, that's when she realizes he's dead. And they're all struggling with whether or not they actually care about the fact that he's dead. But the aversion to the emotion itself was something that I very much identified with and spoke to me.

[Andrew]

Sure,

[Craig]

they go to the house together. They. There's contact with a lawyer, which is where they find out that Agnes is being left the house. Then they have to plan the funeral. Would you be surprised, Andrew, that when it's funeral time, the night before is when it is revealed that even though all of them were supposed to have a united front about not Taking his money. That one of them did.

[Andrew]

Yeah. No, this sounds like a classic sort of. There's a. There's an episode of Community where Chevy Chase's character is feeling neglected and he's in the hospital and he is bequeathing different things on members of the study group. And all of the bequeathals are obviously intended to sow division and discord in the group and make them all feel the way that he is feeling.

[Craig]

Huh.

[Andrew]

And yeah. And it works on most of them even if they don't want it to. And so yes, it sounds like the. Sounds like the kind of thing that it's sort of a manipulative jerk would do.

[Craig]

Yeah. That is how they. And they all know that it is being done to them. Or at least they surmise that.

[Andrew]

But it doesn't. But it doesn't like knowing it doesn't change the fact of it.

[Craig]

Yeah. Yeah. And when Irene cops to having taken the money, we later learned that like what did she do with it? She like paid off a student loan. She bought a nicer couch. She gave some money away. It's not like it was. And now I am a rich person doing rich person things. It's just like it made a tough life a little more bearable.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

Sort of thing. Structurally, the book is interesting. The three sisters each get kind of close third person POV stuff. Sometimes Armfield will sprinkle in chapters that just. Or like little passages that just have the header city. Like she. She gives them all like the name header for the character.

[Andrew]

So is it like the setting is a character in the story?

[Craig]

Listen, is it like.

[Andrew]

Is it like the set? Is it like there's the characters like the human characters and then the back. The. The place where the story takes place. It's also like a character in the stories like that.

[Craig]

Yeah. But it's not like the way that people are like New York's a character in this movie. It's not like that. It's not like New York's a character in the Sam Raimi Spider man movies. Like that's not exactly what's happening here. It is more I think anyway Armfield allowing herself a little non character specific world building because she's so intentional about tying everything to the characters perspectives.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

That she's like, what if I just. You're probably curious. Let me zoom out and just tell you that like the only TV that exists is news reports and terrible reality television. Like nobody makes movies and fiction anymore. It's just like love is blind equivalents. And the news huh is its own Interesting. Awful word.

[Andrew]

That is interesting. It feels. It feels like capitalism missing a beat by not serving the need that's being served by those forums where people pretend it's normal.

[Craig]

I think it is supposed to be telling us that, like, the resources to produce it.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Are gone.

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Craig]

Yeah. Such that all they can do is, like, put people in a room and have them bet on whether or not they want to kiss or whatever is described in this book. But the funeral happens. And then we get into, like, part two of the book, the second half of the book, and we finally get chapters from Jude, the partner of Irene, and Stephanie, the girlfriend of Agnes. We only get these two chapters from them. And it revealed something to me that Armfield is doing throughout the book where, like, yes, there will be dialogue scenes, but more often than not, she will, like, very quickly end a dialogue scene, jump to the next character, and then have that character be doing something else while recalling the scene that happened. So, like, the examples I have are, instead of actually taking us to this pivotal funeral scene, we get Jude and Stephanie. Jude is, like, going about their work as a nonprofit housing advocate or whatever equivalent exists in London and in drowning London. And Stephanie is, like, trying to do yoga in her bedroom and thinking about Agnes living with her. And then is also recalling the funeral. And you get, instead of more traditional, like, it's in quotation marks and whatever. It's all in, like, italics of, like, who said what? And stuff. It just is like, it's. She doesn't always use, like Isla had said or Irene had said. She just does Irene said or who Agnes said. But it feels like it's one. I don't know. The moods, Andrew, like, the grammatical moods. You know what I'm talking about? Subjunctive.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And the other moods.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

It. It just always feels like it's in one mood removed from the regular mood, which it has an overall effect of, like, the characters reflecting on themselves rather than us getting the literal events. Just. Just. I don't know. I don't. I don't have a. For a higher level thought about it other than to describe to you what the book feels.

[Andrew]

Yeah, no, it's just like, it's an interesting way to do it. And to. To spend the time and effort to do it means that you're trying to do something, probably.

[Craig]

Yeah. Yeah. And, like, I think a lot of maybe to. To pull at that thematically, it's like the characters are able to have a certain level of introspection, though Isla, who's a therapist, at one point remarks on how too many of her clients speak. Therapy speak in a way that seems to make her job irrelevant, which is an interesting thing to say. But they don't necessarily seem to be able to escape what they're in despite having that self awareness. So like maybe that's what she's kind of working with there.

[Andrew]

Yeah, sure, yeah. I mean I can relate to that. I can relate to being able to

[Craig]

talk about it and that changing anything.

[Andrew]

I can relate to having the terminology to express the. The issue and then not being able to fix the issue. Oops.

[Craig]

Armfield is also pretty good at like describing what I feel is kind of like modern. I have a phone in my pocket all times, but I still can't get anything done. Energy. When their father dies, Isla had hired a live in aide who literally she hired by talking to her over the phone, met her once to give her a key and then literally never saw her again. After four years the aide discovered their dead father and then they haven't been able to hear, they haven't been able to track her down since.

[Andrew]

Okay, and that sounds suspect.

[Craig]

It does sound a little weird. And Isla thinking about it, says now checking the clock in her office again, she wonders whether she ought to give Carolyn a ring just to check in to make sure nothing is amiss. She reaches for the phone, considers for a second, then shakes her head, remembers that she has needed the bathroom for the past half hour and gets up from her desk and that's the end of the chapter. And like she does not make the call, just she's another is Irene. It is preferable on the whole to stare for hours at a website rather than to recall her sister's face the night before the funeral. Her sister's face right before the slap. Yes, it is preferable to stare for hours at a website rather than the thing that just happened that you don't want to think about. Thanks Julia. After the funeral in which some people, some. Some woman accosts Agnes and says that Agnes looks like her mother and you get the kind of. You get this second hand from Jude and Stephanie, the way that this like kind of freak out rippled throughout the post funeral wake. But you're also quite not. You're never quite sure what exactly happened or who that was. The women don't talk to each other for five months and then the rain starts getting worse and so we get a few chapters of them, each kind of moving further in whatever plot they're in. Like Agnes and Stephanie are falling further in love, but also their apartment that they share with many other people is like flooding more and more. Irene and Jude's marriage is actually more on the rocks because Irene can't really confront any of her emotions. And Isla is really losing it about her divorce. And also watching her neighbor's house just like mud slide away. So the rain is now fallen harder and faster and there's a big power outage that rocks the city. And they all go to the house which they had all been avoiding going back to. They kind of have it out with each other. Like Isla is of this opinion of like, yeah, it's pretty terrible the way we all treat each other. And I know we don't like each other, but like, what if we could just take a break from being that bad? What if we didn't do that all the time?

[Andrew]

Sure. Yeah.

[Craig]

Maybe something could be better. I don't know. And then we get into the last part of the book. Andrew. I'm just saying that out loud in case anybody wants to go read the book or they don't want to know. All the cult stuff comes back. All the cult stuff just shows up kind of all at once. And I know some. There was some chatter in our discord patreon.com overdue pod if you want to join.

[Andrew]

Thank you.

[Craig]

Where I think it was adult beluga who had shared the COVID for this novel that is like a rainy coastal town. There's another cover that is like a woman opening a horrible red yeah baby cover.

[Andrew]

I don't. Yeah. Like, I think this one is superior to that one.

[Craig]

I do think so. But this is the part of the book that is the. You open a door and an awful red light comes out of it.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Like it is revealed while. While the girls, while the women are all in their father's dead father's house, a bunch of people show up. A lot of them obviously makes sense that there's a power outage across the city. This house seems to be functioning. Has its generator is standing above the water. Let's all go there. But they're not just refugees. They are some sort of end time cult that Agnes immediately clocks. This is the wrong genre. Like I guess referring to the book like now it's a horror novel that was promised maybe based on the author's other work. And this cult comes in. They are being led by the live in aid, Carolyn. Oh, and all of these memories that the daughters have had throughout the book of like, oh, I have a memory of when our dad's mistress came in through the back door. Or I have A memory of when our mom was talking to somebody weird in the kitchen. Or I have a memory of this time. My. Our mom talked to me while she thought I was asleep, and it kind of smelled like blood. And she said some weird stuff, but I guess I don't really know much more about that. No. These people have been stalking Agnes in particular, who seems to have been born for an end times ritual.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

That they are going to enact right then and there. Like, there's all these, like, carvings throughout the house that when the women see them, they're like, I don't remember which one of us was, like, drawing a random face on a wall. Like, that's not a thing I remember. And nobody. None of them were. It was the weird cultists that were doing it. And they also learn that this is probably what their mother was into before she took her life, that she was part of this. This whole thing. And then Agnes's mom was part of it as well. That. That is, for me, the interesting part of the father's legacy is that he seems to not know that this is exactly what was going on. It seems like they used him for what end is a little unclear, but that, like, he was not a member of the cult. Instead, he was a powerful man that they were, like, using as part of their ritual. And that undercuts, I think, his importance in a way that I think is interesting. But, no, the. The problem is the house on Jetson Stilts was not meant for dozens of people to be inside of it at once. During a flood disaster, it does collapse. And the only people who make it out are Irene and Agnes at the end. And the rain has turned to snow.

[Andrew]

I mean, I guess that's bad.

[Craig]

Maybe it's probably not better sacrifice. All the cultists are subsumed, but it is very scary.

[Andrew]

That's a weird left turn for the book to take.

[Craig]

And it was one of those things where I had to go back and reread the, like, preamble chapter to remind myself of what that tone of the book was, because that part of the book does feel like maybe there's a cult here. And the rest of the book is like, these sisters have problems. These sisters have problems in a rainy world. And then the end of the book is like, actually, there's a larger thing going on in this society that, like, the ivory tower of this rich guy and his daughters are not in touch with at all. Throughout the book, there have been people popping up and kind of being weird with Agnes. And this is kind of the Payoff for that. I do. I was reading it going, this is bananas. Why is this happening in this book? As I prepped for recording, I kind of thought about it a little more and am getting on the wavelength that it's like, yeah, these. This is a book about the folks who are inured from the worst of what's happening and would not. Would not be able to perceive that this was a force in the world that would be responding to the climate crisis. Like, a lot of it is like. Like I think it is. These folks think that if they, like, kill Agnes, like, it will end the rain. Like, that is what they think will happen.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And what we get at the end of the novel is that Isla doesn't make it out and the rain all turns to snow. And what are we supposed to do with that?

[Andrew]

That's a great question.

[Craig]

The book does not really give us an answer. Instead, it says, best to keep on wherever this is possible. Best in time to swim back from a drowning place and continue struggle back into dailiness and live with the icing over of windows, the frozen pipes and bad wiring and increasing impossibility. Better in whatever small way to go on until it becomes too cold to do so. Better to hold one's hands to whatever warmth there is, to kiss and talk and grieve and hold tight against the whitening of the sky. For now, however, they drift between the water and the snow, the sky between them a broad and starless absent of rain and yet busy with snowfall that doesn't stop, but only seems to grow more insistent. For now they stay where they are and listen to the unwanted quiet, the hush in place of rainfall, unfamiliar, the silence like a final snuffing out.

[Andrew]

I feel like she doesn't actually think it's best to do any of that stuff.

[Craig]

There's a ruefulness to this ending that I've been sitting with, where it's like this. It. I feel like I'm grieving as I read it, even though she is like, this is. It is. It is good to do this, because what else could you do? But it's important that the what else could you do is there as well, which is the sad part or the frustrating part or whatever. Yeah, it's a. It's an interesting book.

[Andrew]

It sounds like it's got some private rights, got some private wrongs.

[Craig]

Well, we didn't even talk about the private wrongs.

[Andrew]

But

[Craig]

yeah, I don't know, the. The, like, the sibling stuff will stick with me because I do think, and I guess Andrew like it Even, you know, you and I just spent some time with folks we've known for, you know, 20 years now. There is, there is that like, at what point are you. Whenever you're with folks that you've known for a very long time and as Armfield says, like, that people presume is a safe harbor for you. Right. Like, are you always the. The same person that. When and how can you change your relationship to those folks? And on what terms? Especially with a backdrop as like, like scary as this one.

[Andrew]

Right. Yeah.

[Craig]

The. The other thing, there's like a little image and this might be one of the last things I mentioned here. There's a. An image of cable cars that the city had like strung up 10, maybe five to 10 years into the disaster that then get flooded by the events of the novel. And like, you can see the pylons that they use to hang the wires, but nobody can use those trains anymore sort of thing. All I could think about was every once in a while I still see us a sticker on a floor about like six feet. Like staying six feet away from someone.

[Andrew]

Yeah. You'll head into a fine wine and good spirits and they'll still have the signage on the floor sometimes.

[Craig]

Yeah. And you're like, oh. Or like this is a place that has plast. Like you know, a plastic wall that didn't used to be there before or a fiberglass wall or something. Yeah. It's a book about getting stuck in grooves, I think, and like the immense effort, perhaps impossible effort it would take to get out of them.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Not a feeling I think either of us are familiar with at all and have never thought about.

[Andrew]

No. No, nothing that's. It's an interesting, totally made up thing that, that she did with this book. There's no bearing on anything that's ever happened to anybody.

[Craig]

No. No. I don't know what. What. I've been talking a lot, Andrew, just as we close out.

[Andrew]

I've just been. Just been.

[Craig]

Final thoughts.

[Andrew]

Letting it. Letting it wash over like an unending rainstorm.

[Craig]

Fair.

[Andrew]

Just that I. I think it was a Kirkus review that, that I read of the. Of the book that was like this is. This is well written, but readers be warned. Like, everybody in it seems kind of relentlessly miserable. Did I assume that the.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Oppressiveness and the. In the absence of. Of sort of any comic relief was. It's, it's all intentional. It's all like building toward the ending that we get. It's all, you know, it's.

[Craig]

It's all.

[Andrew]

It's There intentionally, but it's still there, you know? I mean.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

How did you encounter that? That.

[Craig]

It's not a book where somebody celebrates anything like that literally ever.

[Andrew]

Right. It's not. It's not like, a book where somebody looks at the camera and, like, points at their butt or anything like that.

[Craig]

No, I've never seen a movie where that happens. Ever. I won't. I won't talk about any movie that ever had that happen in it. But, no, it's a pretty sad book. And the. I guess what can mitigate it a little bit is she does have these, I guess, Rye, what is the word I'm looking for? Like, stuff. The way she talks about the, like, very bleak. Oh, that. When I was. I made a note for myself about the reality shows, and I just made a note that said bleak tv and it made me chuckle.

[Andrew]

Oh, that's funny. Like, peak tv.

[Craig]

Yeah, it was kind of funny. I didn't Google to see if anybody else had ever said that, so don't tell me. I thought I made it up for myself.

[Andrew]

I won't look either.

[Craig]

But some of that stuff has a wit to it that is enjoyable to read, even if, you know it's sad. There is a thing in Stephanie and Agnes's plot where one of the, like, nicer things that I guess somebody does for somebody in the book is Stephanie goes up and uncovers a tarp over a, like, an apartment roof pool because Agnes does like swimming, and they let the pool, like, fill with rainwater so that Agnes can swim in it. And they spend time in it together. It's very lovely. But in the back of my mind, I kept going, well, that's probably gonna crash through the ceiling. That never happens, but I did. I had trouble escaping the entropy of the book. And that's probably on purpose, too. It's like even these two people finding each other and building a relationship together is gonna happen against a very dismal backdrop. And that. That's just what Armfield's up to.

[Andrew]

Yeah, sure.

[Craig]

There's hope for change, I guess, among the three of them. No real depiction of what change is possible beyond them. Yeah, and that's. That could be a tough pill.

[Andrew]

I think it's bigger than them to the problem.

[Craig]

It is. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And it's about them learning about what's bigger than them. So there's also that. Yeah.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

So that's private rights. I think it's pretty good. I understand why people like it. And I do think that stuff about the nuclear family is. Is kind of really neat. And I will be thinking about that a lot in horror fiction forever now. Thanks Andrew for letting me tell you about the book. Thanks everybody at home for listening.

[Andrew]

Thanks for telling me about it.

[Craig]

That's what I'm here for. Andrew, it is my turn.

[Andrew]

Do it.

[Craig]

Thanks for listening. You can send us an email overdue potato gmail.com to let us know how you feel about rain. Would you like it if it was raining all the time, even if it wasn't a climate disaster? Like, what if it was raining all the time and you could just like enjoy it?

[Andrew]

What if it was raining all the time but there was like all the grading and the landscaping and stuff was

[Craig]

like really good and the sewers were

[Andrew]

fine and you had like a French drain.

[Craig]

Yes, yes. No worries for your basement. Yes. Let us know what you think. Find us on social media at Overdue Pod. Our theme song is composed by Nick Laurengis. Andrew folks on NOMU are about to show. Where do they go?

[Andrew]

Overdue podcast.com?

[Craig]

you're not used to the word more having two syllables.

[Andrew]

Overdue podcast.com is the Internet website. We have the schedule for the month. We have the books that we have read. We have little links you can click to buy books and read along. I know we got a couple people who try to try to keep pace, which I'm always sort of impressed by. Yeah, which is interesting. I can be impressed by it when someone else is doing it, but when I'm doing and it's like, well, this is the bare minimum that you could possibly be. And then patreon.com overduepod is the patreon page. Craig, you mentioned it a couple times, but you can kick us a couple of bucks there, support the show financially, make it possible for us to keep making it and get access to our Discord community, our monthly newsletter, dusty bookshelves, our bonus episodes ad free version of the feed, and so much more. TV, VCR repair and more. Patreon.com overdupod Craig, what are we crawling to next week?

[Craig]

Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Deniman is where we will find ourselves this time next week.

[Andrew]

Can't wait to crawl there with you.

[Craig]

I will bring up plus one book in my inventory.

[Andrew]

Great. Good, good. I'm glad that you'll be doing that. All right, everybody, until we talk to you, then, please try to be happy. That was a Headgum podcast.

[Craig]

Hi, I am Mandy Moore.

[Andrew]

Sterling K. Brown.

[Craig]

And I'm Chris Sullivan. And we host the podcast that was us now on Head Gun. Each episode we're gonna go into a deep dive from our show. This is us.

[Andrew]

That's right.

[Craig]

We're gonna go episode by episode. We're also gonna pepper in episodes with different guest stars and writers and casting directors. Are we gonna cry? Yes, a little bit. Are we gonna laugh a lot? A whole lot. That's what I'm hoping, man. Listen to that.

[Andrew]

Was us on your favorite podcast app. Or watch full video episodes on YouTube or Spotify. New episodes every Tuesday.