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June is almost over and you have probably noticed that the fine folks at Just In Case We Die haven't posted any new material. This month, there was supposed to be a discussion of The Romantics by Pankaj Mishra (#1022 on the curated list). Well, guess what? It's June 24th and Aaron hasn't even had a chance to start reading it yet.

At the end of May, Rebecca's teenage son moved to Illinois from Tennessee just in time for summer to start. Summertime means that now there are four teenagers in their house that need fed, housed, and entertained. Mixed in with that, their daughter needs rides to and from work (at least until she has had her permit for ninety days and can at long last get her license and drive herself). During all of that, Rebecca had a work trip to Washington, D.C. and returned home just in time for Aaron to head to summer camp for a week. He returned from camp just in time to move into tech week for the production of 1776 he has been rehearsing (a production--it should be noted--that also involves Rebecca in many capacities. At the end of the month, Rodney's son is (finally) getting married. There has been legitimately no time to give this podcast the attention it deserves.

Rebecca suggested that the discussion of The Romantics be moved into next month. Instead, the bandwidth in June could be utilized for a round-table discussion of James by Percival Everett, a novel that all three cast members have recently completed. This novel, published in 2024, has won (or been nominated for) almost every literary award on the planet. A reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as told through the eyes of the enslaved man, Jim, it is also a great introduction into the work of Percival Everett, a prolific author of considerable talent. This month, the cast of Just In Case We Die dissects this award-winning novel. Is it a reimagining? Is it a retelling? Does it go too far in its diversions from the original book? Does it deserve a spot on the list of "essentials"? Does this tome have Mark Twain rolling in his grave?

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The critical blurb on the cover of book #776 on our curated list states that The Memoirs of Hadrian is "singularly beautiful", which is a really interesting opinion since the cast of Just In Case We Die found it "boring", "tedious", and "uneventful." Ostensibly, a 300+ page passing-of-the-torch epistle between emperors in ancient Rome, it reads like a textbook by a professor who doesn't care if the reader passes this class or not. The author, a renowned Belgian-French novelist, has some interesting things in her personal biography, but seems to have no grasp whatsoever on how to write one for someone else. Suffice it to say that Aaron, Rodney, and Rebecca are not the audience for this book. Neither can they fathom why this book was chosen by Le Temps as the sixth best book written in French in the 20th and 21st centuries.

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On Sunday, May 3, 2026, The Davis Theatre in Chicago had a single screening of Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie, a new film by Academy-Award-winning director Alex Gibney, as part of the annual Doc10 Festival. This film is a documentary partially stitched together from footage filmed by novelist Rachel Eliza Griffiths as her husband, Salman Rushdie, recovered from the 2022 attempt on his life by a 24-year-old religious extremist. Tickets for this screening were not inexpensive, but the admission price included signed copies of the memoir that this film is based on and an invitation to attend a post-screening Q & A with journalist Bethany McLean, Alex Gibney, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, and . . . wait for it . . . Salman Rushdie himself. That’s right, attendance at this screening allowed the cast at Just In Case We Die the rare chance to be in the same room with a novelist that everyone involved admires greatly.

Yes, you read that right. Aaron, Rodney, and Rebecca were IN THE SAME ROOM WITH SALMAN RUSHDIE!