“Part of that essay is my time spent working as a maid when I was young and the fact that my mom had been a maid and my grandma had been a maid, and I hated that job. I hated that job so much, and partly because it felt so demeaning, or that I was demeaned through the job. And because it’s not like I think that housekeeping is not valuable work; obviously it is, but the way I was treated by people in that job was probably the worst of any job I’ve ever had.” — Jaydra Johnson
Jaydra Johnson‘s debut essay collection, Low: Notes on Art & Trash, isn’t what you’d expect. At least it wasn’t what I was expecting heading into it.
It was judged by Maggie Nelson and won the Fonograf essay collection contest. Here’s a tidbit of what Maggie had to say about it:
“Jaydra Johnson’s Low is part instruction manual, part genealogy, part art criticism, and part memoir–all of it pushing with urgency and necessity. It’s written in wry, straight-ahead prose that hits no false notes, and feels honest and earned at every juncture … I found myself rooting hard for its narrator – while also realizing that there is no need, as she has clearly found her way, and is now our teacher.”
Lots of good stuff in this episode. We talk about:
- Luck
- Growing up poor
- Dialing up the weirdness
- And binge-buying books on eBay
If you want a bit more sauce (a full, mostly accurate transcript and the parting shot), check out the podcast-specific Substack here. Subscribe to get this shipped to your right around the time these podcasts go live. Forever free.
Then, of course, there’s the monthly rager, see below.
