Stacked

Matthea Harvey and Amy Jean Porter’s children’s book for grown-ups is beautiful in words and images. Harvey’s poetic narrative was created from an erasure of A Portrait of Charles Lamb by David Cecil that in turn becomes a dark, strange, lovely retelling of the relationship between Mary and her little lamb. The relationship is fanciful and difficult, and yet really, really, really accurate in its exploration of love. After I closed the cover back up and set it down on my lap I said out loud, “Damn, that was fucking beautiful. It almost makes me not hate other things.” Can you think of a better endorsement? Me neither. Matthea and Amy are a perfect pair. Someone should write a nursery rhyme about them.

Taking time out from thinking about personal problems to sit beside an artificial lake, termed lagoon, and read through each of the vibrant, powerful and heart-slamming stories in Roxane Gay’s debut collection, Ayiti was the right thing to do. Ayiti is innovative, traditional and mostly it’s just really, really, really awesome. She taps into characters, wrenches their emotions out with sharp language and delivers each piece in a few short pages that keep killing after you’ve finished those few pages. I’m going to thrust it onto all my friends, probably with a bit too much vigour and aggression, but also with a passionate love and some good humour. No need to scare off potential readers. Because this book bashed back into my brain the notion that other people have problems, that the world is unfair and gorgeous and strange and sometimes just unexplained and painful and reading this kind of amazing writing should be required for anyone who is feeling sorry for herself, or isn’t, or is just near the book.

Damn, Strayed. You really got me. Again. You are good. You’re good. I ploughed through Cheryl Strayed’s novel, Torch, and loved the shit out of it. As an asshole I wasn’t sure how I’d feel reading Wild. While I obviously know her writing is amazing, and that her advice column, Dear Sugar, is equally wonderful, I worried there was going to be some severe sanctimonious memoir action that would turn me off and my love affair with her prose would end and result in a sweaty, filthy break-up, with me saying some super unkind things that I could never take back. Ever. But low and behold, that did not happen. Big time. Just because a book happens to be a memoir about grief and loss and also hiking (um) doesn’t mean that it’s going to be cheesy and horrible. It can be the exact opposite. It can be loveable. It can include self-doubt and Snapple.  It can be transformative and funny and lyrical and awkward and just plain super amazing and something I will recommend to people all the damn time. Wild is more than any doctor could have ordered. Even one of those brain doctors, like the psychological kind, not the kind that drill into your skull.

Short stories that span time and place, that aren’t afraid to travel through harsh emotional territory, that canoodle with danger and sadness and strive for forgiveness and love and redemption. That’s what’s happening in Yasuko Thanh’s debut collection, Floating Like the Dead. And now you know.

Language. I am using it right now. And now. And even now. In The Flame Alphabet the words used to communicate become painful, become lethal. Children become weapons, their burbles make adults sick, their teenage tongues cause more anguish than their angst normally allows. Parents hide from their beloved offspring, people struggle to understand each other, and mostly they strive to survive against their instincts - to connect with others, to speak. Communication is a difficult thing. Most of us aren’t very good at it, as hard as we try. There are always things left unsaid, things we say that hurt, that are wrong. But in the world of Ben Marcus he is the commander of language, he controls the words on the page. This book is at least half great, half frustrating. He writes to confuse and illuminate, to address a myriad of ideas (family, language, illness, cure, genius, survival) that somehow come together, but also leave the reader uncertain and even unsatisfied. Marcus, has not created a perfect book, but it’s compelling and strange and unsettling. He’s a wily devil.

There is certainly something impressive about the tome, the multi-volume sprawl of a long intricate narrative that spans thousands of pages. And yet, my favourite indulgence is literary satisfaction that comes from something that captivates me with far fewer words. A book that can be consumed in a single sitting, that requires nothing but an afternoon in a chair, a morning curled in bed. The Guardians: An Elegy  is Sarah Manguso’s second memoir. The first detailed a rare autoimmune condition that ravaged her body for years. This new and heartbreaking work is about two kinds of love, friendship and romantic, and one kind of death, suicide. It spans only 104 pages. It had me rapt with every word, every sorrowful ache of memory, every slip her mind takes as she deals with loss and new love in slim, poetic paragraphs. 

Oh.

Sarah Manguso, the things you do to me. 

This is the kind of book that makes me want to slap people upside the face with it when they say they don’t get poetry. This is the kind of book you read and love and mull over and then you read it again and think, “oh shizz, did he just do that?”, and “oh shizz, he totes did,” and then you carry it around with you, in a nice bag along with your lip gloss and moisturizer, to have near you, and also maybe sometimes to just pull out and show people how amazing, and heartsad and hilarious and perceptive and compelling and innovative and just plain wonderfully adept at understanding how we all function in this strange place we call society poets can be. I hope you got all of that? Because otherwise, I’ve got a little something in my purse for you. It’s a bitch slap, courtesy of Daniel Zomparelli and Davie Street Translations. I didn’t get Maltesers at first, but sometimes an acquired taste is the most delicious.

I don’t know if it’s somehow my fault for reading so many of them or the damn writers for writing about it, but here are just so many books about death and dying and the various ways it can go down and bring people down. Stephen Gauer’s debut novel Hold Me Now  is one of those books. A hate crime, a killing gets people down in this book. It’s tough. There are complicated emotions, and strained relationships, and loneliness and sex to pacify emotions and drink to further pacify emotions and desire for revenge, for peace, for something to hold onto, but there are no heroes here. Because that just makes sense in hard times. That we can have people that are important in our lives, but no one can save us from our hard feelings. That we have to muddle along. That we have to take responsibility for our feelings, for our actions. So fine, I’ll take partial blame on this whole death book situation, because sometimes the eyes and mind want to read what they want. Sometimes, it’s on me.

Time has gone by but I have not been lax in my reading. Just getting down in front of the Tumblr to write. And here is a book I read two months ago. And yet, I can’t forget. I can’t forget the poetry of weather, of paper shapes adorned with boy’s printing, fraternal connections, wonder twin power and the quiet grief of a woman with intimate knowledge of what it feels like to be alone when everyone else seems paired up. In these pages I saw a dark house full of family unable to make connections as they struggle with loss, and rain and snow, and a whole world in a single town. In Algoma Dani Couture caused my little heart to skip through dark and light and my little brain to see the bigger picture in the smallest gestures. 

This book and I are acquaintances. We probably go to the same parties, we might throw down a, “hey,” or “how you doing?” but really we don’t have a lot in common. The poems in here are made of cleverness. There are word games. There are allusions. They’re not easy. I’m a bit intimidated by them, like if I’m at the party I think I’m not cool or smart enough to get into a conversation with them. But then when I get home, a little tipsy, kick off my tottering heals, just enough energy left to throw off my clothes and crawl into bed, smear mascara on the pillow, because I’m not quite awake enough to take that off, I’ll think about our relationship before falling asleep. And I’ll realize that I can’t get into every book of poems that comes my way, that I can’t be friend to all, that sometimes the emotional connection isn’t there. But I can give kudos and hang out with the shit I love, and pass on an occasional, “hey” on my way to the bar.

This book here really gets me. Like, I think we should go for beers together. Friends. I might consider us friends. These poems and I had some insightful conversation. They were charming and funny and smart as a whip snap and made me feel okay about my life choices, and further question others and wonder about what they hell people are thinking. They were supportive without being fake, called me out on my crap and weren’t afraid to give me a little shove when I needed one. Sometimes talk is cheap and we need something solid, not empty words and stanzas. None of that here. Just solid poetic realness that surprised and inspired. Like a good beer it had fizz and a lovely flavour. And I felt real good about taking the time to digest these irrational, philosophical, intellectual and emotionally relevant poems. I think I’m going to be happy in this new friendship. Real happy.

I’m going through that thing where I realize that I have all these loaner books on the bedside table and for some reason reading the loaner books is way more difficult than reading the books I have gone out and purchased. I’m not good at being that person who accepts a loaner book from a friend who tells me it is great, or when someone tells me I have to read a book and forces it on me. I just want to be all like, don’t tell me what I’ll like, if I want a book I will ask, dammit. But honestly, the books I have here are mostly things I’ve wanted to read and my friends have very good taste and I shouldn’t be an ass about it, but I am and that is just a quirk that I have to deal with. It’s like clothes. I have my own taste and don’t try to change me with your suggestions or free jeans, man! 

Surprise, surprise, I finally settle in to read Ali Smith for the first time and she blows me away with amazingness. Why did I resist her particular brand of storytelling? Probably because of my assiness, that’s why. Moderate strangeness mixed with believable feelings and comic sensibilities and also she can write in the second person without me wanting to lose my shit. The Whole Story and Other Storiesand I had a lovely morning together and I could not be happier that I experienced her view of the world, her stories about people who fall in love with trees, and mixed up sisters. She is doing something special. Her style is so refreshing that I would even read some half stories. Get it? I know. Terrible.

It can be hard to separate an author from his well documented persona (cantankerous and controversial) and it’s even more difficult when he includes himself as a character in his own novel. While he appears in The Map and the Territory Houellebecq is certainly not playing any gimmicky games. Here he manages to engage the reader with his usual biting commentary on humanity and the world we live in; a skewering of the art world, his continued exploration of the highs and lows and strains and strands of relationships, both romantic, familial and professional and all with merely a smattering of misogyny and barely a sex scene to show for it. Art and artists (and writers too) are not perfect, but they can show us the depths of reality with their work. And Houellebecq, as misanthropic as he is, can do that and even create some hard feelings and quality entertainment along the way. I found the book delightful.

I know, right? 

So, this is weird shit. A screenwriter interviewing strangers from the Pennysaver to combat her inability to complete a screenplay, but I think it’s charming. And sure it’s real pretty because it’s published by McSweeney’s and sure it’s real quirky because it’s written by Miranda July. But there’s something special about the interviews, the way she finds her way into these people that creates a way for a reader to understand both the writer (and interviewer) and the subjects and why they hell we look for any kind of human connection in the first place. Yeah, I went there. Maybe a $10 leather jacket is a gateway drug to a person, a story, an encounter that will make you feel a little bit high. Or queasy. Or discombobulated. Or sleepy. Or happy.

At the end of July’s obsessive project in human interest and procrastination something horribly amazing and touching and sad happens that smacks a reader in the face with how important and affecting strange moments can be. Procrastination might not help an artist finish a project, but it might do some other things that might be good for you. 

But also, finish your writing stuff! For real.

Mindy Kaling sometimes (ok, maybe more than sometimes) talks about how she would like to be friends with Beyonce. And why wouldn’t she? That is a reasonable wish/life goal/aspiration/whatever. Obviously she wants that. It would be awesome to be friends with someone that awe-inspiring and amazing and bodysuit-owning. I felt that same feeling about the delightful Kaling herself as I read through her first book, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me (And Other Concerns). She is very likable. And funny and smart and she writes about clothes and family and dudes and also (so insightful and great and gives hope to other writerly types, ahem) how she came to be a writing-tv-acting superstar. And also (very important shit here) she writes about friendships in a non-self-help, non-creepy/ugly/lame greeting card kind of way. For reals friendship shizz, all right? And like any good friend (in at this point a still fake, unsubstantiated friendship) I didn’t totally agree with her on everything, (it’s okay to have a different philosophy on dudes or whatever) but I was all like, ‘you tell it like you think it, bookfriend.’ Or something like that.

So, the book and I are now friends. We’ve talked about our feelings. It’s a good companion. I suggest you befriend it too. It will even let you borrow it’s clothes. Even that cute dress. Yes, that one.

I can’t think of a subject more worthy of our attention than humiliation. Thankfully, that delightful bastard Wayne Koestenbaum agrees with me and has written a series of ‘fugues’ to examine the various ways humiliation enters our lives. How it exists in history, pop culture, how our own bodies expel it. Koestenbaum is open, whether talking about himself or others or big ideas. He deals with some real sad things, some real sexy things, some real unavoidably uncomfortable things. He covers race, American Idol, Basquiat, your mom and glory holes. This book has it all. It will fill all our your cultural, philosophical and memoirish humiliation needs. It will also make you laugh and question your television viewing choices.

Oh man. As I started to write this puny review I was worried I wouldn’t sound intelligent enough, be able to do justice to this gem with my own words. And then I realized I was going to post it on the internet where anyone could confirm the truth of that statement. But then I also realized that hardly anyone reads this thing because I am kind of lame. So in the reading and writing about Humiliation, I have gone through some shameful stages and now my ego and I are going to hit the kitchen to find some most likely shameful foods that I will most likely eat in a humiliating way while watching a reality television program that involves superiority and inferiority and humiliation.

I will not be broadcasting my humiliating lunch over the internets. I will just eat it and let my own bowel movements humiliate me later.

Marcel is one of the greatest characters of our time. He lives in a world that seems too big for his mini-mollusk self, yet he makes a full life. He has some good times and a comfy bed…I mean bread. He has wants he can’t achieve. He has ways he makes do when he can’t do anything more. We are so like Marcel, with shells that protect us, have the ability to crack. He is also a very observant and sometimes wise shell guy.  Jenny Slate and Dean Fleischer-Camp (and of course Amy Lind and her illustrations) have created a wee book for kids and other people who are awesome. Tiny heartbreaks and wide smiles. That is what Marcel the Shell is for. And also for modelling some very dandy shoes.

Didion’s Blue Nights is here to remind us of average, wonderful and uncomfortable things. We will love people and lose them. We will relish and shun memories to protect and hurt ourselves. We will know certain elements of our loved ones and not others.  We may discover new parts of them as we grow old, as they do. We will get old and older. We will all feel differently about aging, about the way our bodies betray us, about the wisdom that does or doesn’t come. We will question ourselves. We will get swept up in joy and tragedy. Sure, this might not make you feel better about who you are, about mortality, about the simple facts of living. But Didion also writes so elegantly of her life, of fancy California baptism parties, beautiful cakes, Chanel suits, gardens,  New York apartments, that you remember those parts as vividly as days with her dying daughter in the ICU. In her details there is opulence and loveliness, there is social commentary that trickles in to remind us and herself of how she lived and lives, how she parented, how she loved. And even though her writing amazes it has not cured her of her feelings. Her losses still exist. Her losses sit with her everyday.

After getting all up in love with her 2009 short story collection, American Salvage, I was pretty darn sure I could extend more love Bonnie Jo Campbell’s way. And then her new novel, Once Upon a River, floated into my heart. I grew up with a river near me and there is a comfort and excitement and strangeness in that moving water. It can go places, you can follow along the shore and never catch it, you can be caught it in, it can flow, be beautiful, destroy. This book tackles all those things. How we move through life to figure it out. How our lives can be gorgeous and be awful and be scary and strange and that we have to decide what the hell we’re going to do about the beauty and fear and rage. Her protagonist is weak and strong, confused, sexual, capable and wholly human. She can really shoot a gun. A variety of guns. For reals. And skin animals and live in the outdoors. She does things I admire, but let’s be honest, I don’t aspire to do, because I am made of stockings and heels. But we need her to do those things. And she’s a girl. Not in that way that we infantilize females by calling them girls instead of women, but a real teenage girl. Girls. They’re real people. Who woulda guessed?

You Deserve Nothing is really about what it means to deserve things. Alexander Maksik uses school as his backdrop, a place where there are always questions of who deserves to be rewarded or punished, ignored, nurtured, loved, loathed. Education isn’t black and white, just as morality, the content of works of literature and conversations about them have varied meanings to various people. We all gots our own opinions about how we interpret texts, emotions, ideas. And based on those opinions we have our own ways of acting, engaging with others and judging people too. Maksik never gets judgey. He leaves judgement in the capable hands of, what I hope are, thoughtful readers. He makes it possible to sympathize and question his characters. Nice touch.

Also there are teens. Smart ones and sassy ones and ones that are smart and sassy, but also some that are not interesting and some that just don’t give a heck and some that are working on giving a heck. Man, stories about teens are so good. Teens are always so confused and confident in equal measure. Maksik understands this well. And it makes for some very excellent reading. C’mon, buddies. Read up.