I’m a self-identified politically-liberal, racially-conscious, pretentiously-cultured, literary millennial. So naturally it took me six years past the point of publication to read a widely lauded award-winning novel by a renowned Nigerian novelist. Sigh, after so many years I may breathe again; I have done my duty, and I have enjoyed it. Best book I’ve read in some time, congratulations M — you may continue to be the person who you imagine yourself to be.

But naturally, having steeped myself in such literariness, I immediately retreated to the slums of reading: I reread my favorite YA novel from my time as a hormonal and yet terribly undersexed teen. And I read it quickly, I might add. In less than 24 hours, no less, choosing to ignore my partner on our seven and a half hour drive and leave him to his own thoughts while I mercilessly tore through a book I had already read at least three times.

And then it was done, my small fiction drug-of-choice trip over with, and I had to turn my sad eyes to the empty road and the plain acknowledgement of my own complicity in global climate change (I did mention we were on a seven and a half hour road trip, no? Even worse, we have now become a two car family — I shall go to environmentalist hell, which I suppose we also sometimes call Texas).

For the purposes of this story, I should like to say I then floundered about in my own shame for a few days before turning to my next hit (for my favorite YA book was obviously a part of a book series, and clearly it was about witches); that I sat with myself and contemplated the degradation of mind and its pleasures; that I wallowed, mired in my own shame. And I suppose I did, during the, admittedly, less than 24 hours before I picked up book two. Yes, I did feel some shame, lying in my bed voraciously turning through digital pages, for perhaps an hour, until I came upon the following:

“Let’s see. … She kisses Gypsies in the woods and once locked me in a chapel after asking me to steal the communion wine. By the light of a pale moon, I saw her kill a deer and climb from a ravine naked and splattered with blood. She is also, strangely, one of my best friends. Do not ask me to explain why.”

Rebel Angels, Libba Bray

At which point I became, as the title suggests, shameless. How could a sensible woman, of whatever age, not be drawn to such willful oddity? Such strange comedic timing? The patent absurdity of writing the words “by the light of a pale moon” and not following up with a self-published erotic novel about werewolves who are working through their issues with the globalization of the industrial economy is enough to justify any level of devotion to Ms. Bray, regardless of its excesses. To that conviction I shall ever stand true.

So tonight I believe that I shall shamelessly binge upon a third YA novel by Ms. Bray, and who knows if tomorrow I shall not find a fourth. And then, full of my shamelessness, I just may make my way to a local ravine, and by the light of a pale moon nakedly announce my loyalty to the world.

‘Til next time,

M