This month, we discuss Sunyi Dean’s debut contemporary fantasy The Book Eaters, “a story of motherhood, sacrifice, and hope; of queer identity and learning to accept who you are; of gilded lies and the danger of believing the narratives others create for you.” Joining us once again is Sacramento multimedia artist Sarah Marie Hawkins. Listen in as we talk about Dean’s creation of a new creature with in-depth lore, debate the technical definition of “cannibalism”, and Jason tries to figure out if he even read the right book.

Goodreads Synopsis

Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a secret line of people for whom books are food, and who retain all of a book’s content after eating it. To them, spy novels are a peppery snack; romance novels are sweet and delicious. Eating a map can help them remember destinations, and children, when they misbehave, are forced to eat dry, musty pages from dictionaries.

Devon is part of The Family, an old and reclusive clan of book eaters. Her brothers grow up feasting on stories of valor and adventure, and Devon—like all other book eater women—is raised on a carefully curated diet of fairytales and cautionary stories.

But real life doesn’t always come with happy endings, as Devon learns when her son is born with a rare and darker kind of hunger—not for books, but for human minds.

The In-Between by Alexander Nakarada | https://www.serpentsoundstudios.com
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Please Note: Transcripts are not available at this time. If you would like to request a transcript, please contact us.