I’m already wondering how I’ll keep up with the reviews for November reading challenges…
Crudo by Olivia Laing (160pp)
There were lots of parts of this novella that I loved. But there were also lots of parts that I think I would have appreciated more, had I been familiar with the work of experimental writer, Kathy Acker.
The novella is written as stream-of-consciousness – we are in the mind of Kathy Acker, however, the novel is set in Kathy’s un-lived future – she died in 1997, but the story takes place during the time of Trump’s first election win (it pained me that I was reading this after the recent US election, and I couldn’t enjoy Laing’s sharp commentary as purely historic). The narrative focuses on the time prior to, and after Kathy’s wedding –
They were civil, they had chosen their songs, she’d insisted on Maria Callas because she didn’t operate via understatement.
I was lulled by the rhythm of Laing’s words, the cadence occasionally disrupted by one of Kathy’s wild observations. I don’t underestimate the skill that it takes to write like this.
Kathy had no parents, which didn’t stop them annoying her. She thought about them a lot.
Evil was a subject of interest for Kathy, she wasn’t squeamish, she’d worked years in a strip joint in Times Square, she knew about appetite and dead eyes.
This is a political piece and a feminist piece. Who should read it? If you enjoy Levy (strong Hot Milk vibes here), Cusk or Hustvedt, I think you’ll like Crudo.
3/5
Very Cold People by Sarah Manguso (191pp)
So much about reading a particular book is about the moment you’re actually reading the book – by that I mean when and where. I began Very Cold People the night before I was in a full-day professional development workshop on trauma, and then I finished the book after the workshop. And so, the circumstances for, and the incidents of trauma for the main characters – Ruthie, her mother, and Ruthie’s friends – stood out, as if someone had taken a highlighter pen to each page.
Ruthie describes exchanges with her mother (who she describes as ‘…the protagonist of everything…’) that demonstrate the complexity of their relationship, and the deep attachment trauma*.
…I was simply a person who had nothing to share, nothing worth sharing. I pitied the teacher for assuming I was like the other children.
She wanted me to know I was ugly. She was helping me get ready for the world.
This was the first piece I’ve read by Manguso. Her writing is straightforward but exquisite, and had me re-reading sentences. The style reminded me a little of Charlotte Wood, in that Manguso describes something seemingly domestic, which is in fact loaded with meaning.
An old Irish cable-knit cardigan with leather buttons hung in the downstairs coat closet, which smelled of hot farts and smoke. If anyone ever needed a sweater, they could go and put on the warming sweater, which was its name, as if other sweaters were merely decorative. My mother kept the house just cold enough for me to need to wear the warming sweater over my regular sweater, and she cut just enough plastic wrap to cover the diameter of a dish.
Memorable and terribly sad.
4/5
*here’s a link to a more in-depth description of attachment trauma