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USA Today
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- USA Today
It's a toxic lesbian vampire summer: ‘Bury Our Bones' is V.E. Schwab at her realest
It's a toxic lesbian vampire summer: 'Bury Our Bones' is V.E. Schwab at her realest V.E. Schwab is hungry. The bestselling author of 2020 breakout 'The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue' has spent most of her career assimilating, presenting herself as less feminine and less queer. She used a pseudonym for her first name, Victoria, in part as a gender-neutral appeal to fantasy readers, a historically male-dominated genre. She was told to temper her ambition. She was told to want less. Over a dozen novels later, Schwab says she's done filtering herself. She's starving to be her most creatively uninhibited self and 'Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil' (out now from Macmillan) is her meal ticket there. 'The thing you realize when you spend so many years just trying to be what everybody else wants and trying not to rock the boat is that you're the only one that drowns,' Schwab tells USA TODAY. 'Bones' lets messy LGBTQ+ villains bite "Bones," which Schwab calls 'three novellas in a trench coat,' follows three vampires – one in 16th-century Spain, one in London in the 1800s and another in Boston, circa 2019. It's a toxic love triangle, a cautionary tale of vengeful exes and a thrilling, genre-defying ode to queer want. It's her most explicitly queer novel yet. After she saw how LGBTQ+ characters in spy thriller series 'Killing Eve' and AMC's remake of 'Interview with the Vampire' were embraced, Schwab was inspired to write a story centering messy, queer villains. Historically, LGBTQ+ characters are typically killed off (see the 'bury your gays' phenomenon) or sanitized. But as queer representation increases in media, audiences crave different, more complex stories. 'I just desperately wanted to write messy people, because when we insist that queer characters be perfect citizens, we say that their queer analogs in reality also can't make mistakes,' Schwab says. 'It's so reductive, it doesn't allow for complexity, it doesn't allow for nuance. It doesn't allow us to take up the same amount of space in the world as our straight counterparts.' Vampires on page and onscreen have long had queer undertones, especially with social outcast, androgyny, seduction and desire not embraced by larger society. Schwab calls 'the turn' from human to vampire the perfect metaphor for queer awakening. She's not the only one ready for more frank representation. AMC's 2022 remake of 'Interview with the Vampire' focused explicitly on queerness, where the original novel and 1994 movie left it up to fans to decode. 'Bones' takes that a step further by centering on female vampires. 'I felt like (vampire stories) often centered men, or if there were female vampires, they kind of were just objects of sexual desire on the periphery,' Schwab says. 'There is an inherent violence to moving through the world in a feminine body. You invite violence by simply existing, you are marked prey by the world. And I thought about the ultimate liberation of moving from prey to predator.' Schwab's characters are liberated – after they turn, they can live authentically. They also all deal with their vampirism differently, an apt metaphor for how coming out can affect people differently. All three characters share a common desire for more than their old life could offer. 'When I say that this is a book about hunger, I mean everything – it's the hunger to be loved, it's the hunger to be seen, it's the hunger to be understood, it's the hunger to take up space in the world, it's the hunger to take what you want as well as what you need. And hunger in the wrong hands is violence. Hunger in the right hands is romance,' Schwab says. 'Hunger, to me, is one of the most universal sensations. … it could be a meal or a life.' New book isn't 'Addie LaRue' – and Schwab is OK with that Still, the leadup to 'Bones' hasn't always felt so joyous. Every time Schwab teases information about the book, people ask her to write a sequel to 'Addie LaRue' instead. She's seen some readers declare 'Bones' an automatic skip because it has lesbian characters. She isn't letting it deter her. 'If I couldn't translate the success of Addie LaRue into sheer unapologetic storytelling, then it was a disservice to that book,' Schwab says. 'There is an inclination when you have such a large success to conform to it.' Instead, she says she wrote 'Bones' for her and hopes readers find her where she is. Early rave reviews confirm her hopes. 'Addie LaRue' taught her to abandon perfectionism and instead focus on purpose. Schwab wants to see both publishing and readers make room for other queer writers, who she says are 'always told to hunger for less or just settle.' In a landscape of exceptionalism where few marginalized writers break through to mainstream success, Schwab's rallying cry is 'more.' 'I'm hungry for stories, I'm hungry for art, I'm hungry for music that makes me want to make (art), I'm hungry for books. I have a voracious appetite for anything artistic,' Schwab says. 'Men are told to hunger, women are told to feed. And I think it's totally OK to hunger.' Biggest books of the summer: Taylor Jenkins Reid surprised herself with 'Atmosphere' Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY's Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you're reading at cmulroy@
Irish Times
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
‘We would go to motels to have sex. In Brazil, as in every Catholic country, there's a huge degree of hypocrisy'
Karim Aïnouz is not quite the man you would expect from intense, visceral films such as Madame Satã, The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão or, most particularly, the sordidly incoming Motel Destino. That is a silly thing to say. Many are the horror directors who chortle over hot chocolate. The Dardenne brothers make harrowing social-realist films, but you won't meet two jollier fellows. Anyway, the Brazilian film-maker turns out to be endlessly good company. Round-faced, grey-bearded, he takes any opportunity to rattle out a good yarn. I note that he has long been resident in Berlin and make some highfalutin noises about the cultural richness of that city. 'No, for me I think it's the parties. I am going to be very upfront with you,' he says with a laugh. 'I love going out, even if I don't go out as much as I want to any more. I love the sense of Bohemia of the city, the sense of freedom. I've been coming here since the 1980s – in the time of the Wall. Then I came in the 1990s. I feel I live in what I dreamed the future would be. It's really inclusive. It's a really mixed neighbourhood. It's a really funky city.' I wonder about the contrast with Brazil. Aïnouz, who was raised in the northeast of the country, said recently that he left because of the homophobia, the sense of feeling 'marginal'. That was back in the 1980s. There has been a great deal of social ebb and flow since then. READ MORE 'It has changed since I left when I was 18,' he says. 'It is too a very homophobic environment in the country. But I find it's funny, because it's the country with the biggest gay pride in the world. So, you know, it's complicated. We have the best and the worst of both worlds.' The child of a scientist mum and an engineer dad, he first studied architecture but then drifted towards the less practical arts. As anyone who saw Walter Salles ' recent I'm Still Here will understand, Brazil went through huge traumas during the military dictatorship that lasted from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. 'I'm from a generation that was raised and became adolescent just after the military left,' Aïnouz says. 'There was this sense of taking back the country. So politics was a big part of my upbringing after the age of 16.' Architecture felt like a way of embracing many intersecting cultural disciplines. It seemed 'ecumenical'. But Aïnouz didn't feel wholly fulfilled. He had a go at painting. He then moved towards photography. While dabbling with Super 8mm film cameras, he dived into cinema history and found himself at home. Karim Aïnouz: 'Cannes is very heterosexual. That's why these queer festivals, these gay festivals that I had done before needed to exist.' Photograph: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Then living in New York, he was at the centre of the 'new queer cinema' that developed in parallel to the Aids crisis. These were, as he explains, films made with great freedom but with a 'strong political will'. He got some work as an assistant editor. He programmed festivals. 'Then I thought, If I make a feature I can make some money,' he says. 'It was twofold. It was out of love for the craft. It was also out of understanding that this is a really powerful way of expressing what you're saying – something that can change the world.' It's all sex, violence and tackily damp corridors. Lubricious moaning emerges from every door. Peepholes offer clues as to what goes on within One of the more unclassifiable careers in world cinema had begun. He co-wrote the social drama Behind the Sun for Salles. Madame Satã, Aïnouz's debut as director, from 2001, following a cross-dressing cabaret performer in 1930s Rio de Janeiro, kicked up a squall of outrage at Cannes. Suely in the Sky, from 2006, concerned an abandoned wife who put herself up for raffle. Invisible Life: Carol Duarte in Karim Aïnouz's 2019 film. Photograph: Bruno Machado Something like critical breakthrough came, belatedly, with The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão, in 2019. An adaptation of a novel by Martha Batalha, the drama followed two sisters as they fought intolerance in the Brazil of the 1950s. The ecstatically reviewed film won top prize at Un Certain Regard in Cannes and confirmed the director as a force. 'I was very surprised,' he says. 'I am very proud of An Invisible Life, but it's a very 'classic' movie. It's so f**king classic. And I don't think I really chose to do that movie. I think that movie chose me to do it, because it's a story that was given to me by a really good friend who's a producer. It's a very thin book, and I loved the book. It was the time that I was losing my mom. And it was really shocking, the similarities with her story.' [ The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão review: They don't often make them like this any more Opens in new window ] I want to go back and ponder how he feels the world engages with gay cinema. Alisa Lebow, interviewing Aïnouz for Film Quarterly in 2022, noted that, at the Cannes premiere of Madame Satã, 'half of the audience walked out, incensed by a tensely homoerotic sex scene.' Sorry? What? At Cannes ? In the 21st century (albeit only just)? 'Cannes is very heterosexual, you know,' Aïnouz says. 'It's a straight man running the show. It has always been. It's the film industry. That's why these festivals – queer festivals, these gay festivals – that I had done before needed to exist.' He had, indeed, between a director of New York Lesbian and Gay Experimental Film Festival, aka Mix NYC, when he lived in the city. One of his first decisions was to bring that programme to Brazil. 'That was really exciting. It was 1993. But it was the first openly queer festival there. And it was quite violent as well, but it was really exciting at the end of the day.' As if to deliberately confound any attempt at simplistic categorisation, Aïnouz followed up the Invisible Life triumph with the sort of entertainment BBC Two might have screened on a Sunday evening in 1978. Firebrand, his first film in the main Cannes competition, from 2023, starred Alicia Vikander and Jude Law in an unthreatening study of Katherine Parr's conflict with Henry VIII. A year later, as Motel Destino premiered, at least one critic wondered if a director had ever offered two more contrasting films in successive races for the Palme d'Or. The film stars Iago Xavier as a reluctant hoodlum who, after retiring to the titular establishment for a one-night stand, wakes up with no money and nowhere else to escape circling danger. It's all sex, violence and tackily damp corridors. Lubricious moaning emerges from every door. Peepholes offer clues as to what goes on within. 'A romantic triangle that plays like James M Cain with sex toys,' Justin Chang wrote in the New Yorker. Which sounds about right. Fábio Assunção and Iago Xavier in in Motel Destino, directed by Karim Aïnouz 'I spent a lot of time in motels,' Aïnouz says when I ask about the location. 'That's where we used to go when I was younger to have sex and have parties. It's something that was very much part of Brazilian culture. There was nothing exceptional about it. As in every Catholic country, there's a huge degree of hypocrisy. So, yeah, this was the place that things were permitted. I always asked myself how come I hadn't seen a movie shot in this place.' As we speak Aïnouz is finishing his star-studded next film. Riley Keough, Elle Fanning, Tracy Letts, Pamela Anderson and Jamie Bell feature in an off-centre drama entitled Rosebush Pruning. Efthimis Filippou, Yorgos Lanthimos's key collaborator, has written the script. That's quite a line-up. Mind you, after all his years in the business, I can't imagine Aïnouz still gets intimidated by celebrity. 'I love being with actors, so I never get really star struck,' he says, chuckling. 'Well, I think I got it a couple of times, with a couple of actors that I met. When I met Cate Blanchett I was, like, wow!' He is practically fanning himself. 'I was such a fan!' Motel Destino is in cinemas from Friday, May 9th
USA Today
22-04-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Jarrett Allen is building a personal library. But it's not for NBA trophies.
Jarrett Allen is building a personal library. But it's not for NBA trophies. Show Caption Hide Caption Who is the real team to beat in the Eastern Conference? Analyzing whether the Celtics or Cavaliers are better built to advance to the NBA finals. Late in the NBA season at the end of a five-game West Coast trip, Cleveland Cavaliers center Jarrett Allen had free time in Portland. He did what he often does on the road: he sought a bookstore. This time, he stopped at Powell's Books, the famous and massive city of books. He first went to the rare books collection and then visited the sci-fi section. 'I have always wanted to visit the rare books room,' Allen told USA TODAY Sports. 'That stuff was so intriguing to me when I went in there – books from the 1400s.' Maybe it's the Tattered Cover in Denver. Or right before the 81st game of the regular season while in New York, he visited The Strand, known for its '18 miles of books.' He left with Martha Wells' "All Systems Red." He's also reading 'The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue,' by V.E. Schwab. ANALYSIS: What we learned from playoffs Game 1s: Warriors' savvy veterans steal home court ANALYSIS: Pistons get culture-shifting playoff win on road. Is Knicks upset next? MORE: Kawhi Leonard lifts Clippers to thrilling win Allen said he is strictly a purveyor of physical books, no e-reading device. 'I want to have a big (library) collection when I get older. I keep all the books that I read, so I want to be able to look back and be like, 'Oh, I remember when I read that back in 2017.' That's the fun in it for me.' Jarrett Allen, defender of rims, support of bookstores and reader of books. 'I love basketball, but I think there's only so much I can do in one day in any type of thing that I do,' Allen said. 'My whole thing is if I'm able to step away from basketball and reset my brain, I can come back even stronger and give more of myself to basketball.' It works for the 27-year-old Allen who is in his eighth NBA season. A vital member of Cleveland's Core Four along with Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland and Evan Mobley, Allen averaged 13.5 points, 9.7 rebounds, 1.9 assists and nearly one steal and nearly one block and shot a career-high league-best 70.6% from the field this season. He also was instrumental in making Cleveland the No. 8 defense and No. 1 offense during the regular season. He is one of seven players to register 70 steals and 70 blocks and recorded 40 double-doubles and contested 766 shots, which was third-best this season. Mobile at 6-9, Allen provides defensive versatility, guarding on the perimeter or in the paint. In Cleveland's Game 1 victory against Miami in their first-round Eastern Conference series, Allen had 12 points, 11 rebounds (six offensive), three steals and one block. MORE: See what has Darius Garland smiling again 'The rap on Jarrett coming out of college was that he didn't love basketball, and that scared some people away,' first-year Cleveland coach Kenny Atkinson told reporters earlier this season. 'That couldn't be farther from the truth. He's just got a lot of other interests. He's an intellectual guy, a smart guy, reads a ton, plays all the video games. But you shouldn't underestimate his toughness and grit. That's growing. … Now that his physical strength has caught up to his agility and athleticism, you're starting to see him in his prime.' Allen played for Atkinson in Brooklyn and had an idea of what to expect including the prospect of playing fewer minutes per game during the regular season and utilizing depth. Allen's minutes decreased this season, but the Cavs won 64 games, the most a non-LeBron James Cavs squad has won in franchise history. They earned the No. 1 seed, three players made the All-Star team (Mobley, Garland, Mitchell) and multiple players are up for season-ending honors, including Ty Jerome for Sixth Man of the Year and Atkinson for Coach of the Year. Mobley, Garland and Mitchell are All-NBA possibilities. 'We all want to be a superstar, and I understand with my role, it's not the most glorious,' Allen sad. 'But I know I get the satisfaction from my team and my players and honestly everybody around the league that understands how my position helps the team win. Basically my job is to try to make things as easy as possible for guys like Darius, Donovan and Evan to be able to show their talents and their skills on the court.' Allen gets his opportunities offensively and makes the most of them. He averaged just 7.8 shot attempts but made 5.5 in 2024-25. Allen, who played in all 82 games, was one of seven players to attempt fewer than eight shots per game with fewer than one 3-point attempt per game and still average double-figures in points. Atkinson likes to create spacing with shooters on the perimeter which opens up driving lanes to the basket. But Allen is not a 3-point shooter. So, during the summer, he spent time with Texas Pro Academy, a basketball training and development center in Austin, Texas. Allen worked on positioning and where he can be most effective offensively. Setting screens for Garland and Mitchell and cutting to the rim where he can catch passes for easy shots was part of the answer. He was 411-for-557 on shots at or near the rim, according to NBA shot chart data. Allen made 159 dunks, and Garland assisted on 30% of Allen's made shots. 'I've been playing with these guys for about three years now, so we know each other's tendencies very well,' Allen said. 'I know how to set the right screen for Darius, I know how to set a different screen for Donovan. The longer you play with players like that, the easier things come naturally.' Game 2 against Miami is Wednesday in Cleveland. "Just dial into all the things that made us great in the regular season,' Allen said. 'It's easier said than done. But we know that there was a time during the regular season when we played, we were unbeatable. We won 10 games in a row three times this season (including 15-0 to start the season). Just trying to find that success and replicating it early in the playoffs so we can get on a roll like that and have it carry us however far we're going to go." Follow Jeff Zillgitt on social media @JeffZillgitt
