In the small town of Leonberg, Katharina Kepler is accused of being a witch. The Thirty Years’ War has begun, and fear and suspicion are in the air throughout the Holy Roman Empire. The story begins in 1618, in the German duchy of Württemberg. At moments cruel, at others funny, it’s a worthwhile read that strikes at something of the now, despite its struggles to engage fully with issues of race and class in the manner it seemed to be aiming for.Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch by Rivka Galchen Overall, Blithe’s development and the role he plays in the narrative settle oddly for me. Future Feeling explicitly attempts to tackle Blithe’s experiences of queerness, transness, and his racial identity with respect to his white parents, it’s fair to note that Lake opened the door then… didn’t fully succeed at walking through it. No book can do it all, I know-but given that l.
However, that irreverent approach and Penfield’s often-myopic focus aren’t necessarily well-suited to deal with the weights of class and race that Lake draws to the edges of the narrative. Future Feeling gets at the absurdities of (a specific form of) trans life in the USA in a delightful, incisive, weird manner that I found refreshing. Though it does quite a lot that I adored, I’m ultimately in a state of conflict about Lake’s novel. Lake has crafted a closely observed, referential, and occasionally self-critical portrait of the pettiness and loneliness and loveliness of Penfield’s internal life as he journeys toward acceptance. It’s very present in the current moment, despite (or because of!) its use of futurism. a rambunctious novel full of hilarious, sly language games-but also advanced technology close enough to our own to feel relatable, dream-like flights of fanciful imagination, and an overarching concern with how trans and queer folks might form communities with one another.
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