Calmed and healed: September book reviews
Writing these felt especially daunting this month. Nevertheless, these are the books I read in September, 2022—
Leave Society Cookbook (Forever Magazine Pocket Bible 2) by Tao Lin
This was a fun and funny supplement to Leave Society that I received for being a Forever subscriber. I was impressed by the thematic cohesion, the design and material quality, and the humor within. It made me remember the infectiousness of some of Tao’s ideas from the novel and his interviews about it. I was more open to the influence of some than others, all of which seem to be full (if evolving) lifestyle commitments for Tao. As an addendum to the Leave Society review I didn’t write, I’ll say that the more open I become to the therapeutic benefits of stuff like cannabis and psychedelics for others, the more strongly I believe that my own puritanical tendencies are right for me. More relevant to this cookbook, reducing exposure to toxins etc. and eating natural foods seem smart, intuitive, and good. I haven’t read all of Tao’s autism essay yet, but I did watch the alien documentary he recommended, which struck me as pretty untrustworthy, though that isn’t to say I fault anyone for believing or enjoying it. I did recently for the first time in my life start drinking diet sodas. My child was also recently diagnosed with autism. Coincidence?
Our Last Year by Alan Rossi
I worked with Alan to edit and publish his essay on Leave Society for XRAY, and so was curious and receptive when he later sent me this PDF (out with Prototype in the UK). The domestic hyper-mundanity was an instant hook, like a depressed-but-still-loving Room Temperature by Nicholson Baker, fully and dutifully immersed in the procedural materiality of making a kid their meal, dreading the indefinite, infinite-feeling loops of a life lived just a half-step above complete precarity. It escalates into unnervingly realistic relationship difficulties and achieves profundity. The scenes of couples therapy in particular were visceral and harrowing and felt almost as if maybe not more effective than actually attending something like that in person. Tao’s blurb says that the book is “calming and healing,” which I at first took to be hyperbole but now do not. I have a vague sense that maybe not everyone will love this book and that I am in some ways close to its ideal reader, so I won’t say this full-throatedly, but rather somewhat self-consciously and with a whisper: I loved this book. When Alan sent it to me, it didn’t yet have a US publisher. I hope he finds one!
Kanley Stubrick by Mike Kleine
Mike recently put a bunch of stuff up on a Bandcamp page and announced a sale, so I bought up everything I could. Spoonerisms are endlessly amusing to me, so this was the obvious entry point. I may be overasserting the prism of my affinities in making this comparison, but it was reminiscent of Mark Baumer grafted with Renee Gladman in its non-sequitur subversion of expectation at the sentence and subject levels, the passage of time, the deliberate vagueness and obfuscation that is somehow no less specific or precise. It’s a little silly but also aesthetically razor-sharp. The hapless pursuit of a missing person starts whimsical, turns nightmarish, and then returns somewhat inexplicably to normal life (or, I should say, “lyfe.”) I especially enjoyed the recurring gag about “watching a program,” where some bizarre/obscure/plausible subject is featured on TV, which brought some feeling of hope and redemption to an activity I usually (though no longer guiltily) think of as consumptive, passive entertainment.
In a Shallow Grave by James Purdy
Troy said to read this, so I did (along with everyone else.) It’s really good! You should just read Unity’s review. I like how the narrator’s peculiar manner of speaking is influenced by reading (or rather being read to) from an inherited library and occasionally makes it hard to situate in time (both narrative time and authorship time). That seems like a courageous decision to make as a writer. I ordered a copy and read a pirated ebook while waiting for it to arrive. Shipping took longer than expected, so I’ve postponed posting this until I could include the physical copy in the accompanying photo, which I’ve decided will give me an edge in my ill-advised and one-sided competition with Unity’s lovely pumpkin pic.
True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee by Abraham Riesman
I don’t know how I know Abraham, but I feel like I do. We’ve been online mutuals for a long time, and I feel like we probably met once at a gathering in Providence, but maybe I’m fabricating that shell of a memory. I enjoy their tweets about Judaism and Modest Mouse and, more recently, sexuality and gender expression, and am also mildly interested in the cultural phenomenon of comics, so I bought this book when it came out and then let it sit on the shelf for a while before recently deciding to just listen to the audiobook! I was amazed at how messy and soapy and sad Stan Lee’s life story is, and how under-the-radar the muddy truth of it is. The book’s treatment of plausible but unverifiable claims was exciting in the way that it interpreted them while allowing for the possibility that they’re true without swallowing them whole. It’s interesting to think about how to transparently deal with gossip, rumor, tall-tales, lies, “larger-than-life” and self-mythologizing true-life people as subjects and characters. I am eager to read (or listen) to Abraham’s forthcoming book about Vince McMahon, which I suspect will be full of equally unexpected delights and sorrows.
Little Engines Issue 7
I think it’s really cool that Adam Voith just mails these out to whoever wants one for free until they run out. Newsprint is in style! Aaron Burch’s art is fun, and Mike Nagel’s piece is on point, per usual. The rest was enjoyable too. It’s a great length for a lil publication!
Lungfish by Meghan Gilliss
I met Meghan a couple of years ago on the tiny island that (I believe) serves as the basis for the setting of this book. It was a magical day. This is a magical book! The isolating agony of being shackled to an addict was so well rendered, as was the feverish and consuming love for and protection of a child. It made me feel both fondness and rage. This book is more experimental than I anticipated it would be. I was delighted by its refusal to over-explain, its fragmentation, its flirtation with but ultimate rejection of a typical Freytag triangle narrative arc. The book was edited by Kendall Storey, who also edited Jordan Castro’s The Novelist, and I detected similar bits of sculpting influence. Great accomplishments all around.
Donald Goines by Calvin Westra
Donald Goines.
jk, I’ll say more. Calvin did a really good job! It’s clear how much care went into fleshing it out, shaping it, and sharpening it. This book is bizarre and funny and unsettling but also a little bit tender. I feel like Calvin lets us see his heart. The drug stuff made me queasy, and I think it was meant to. When it’s described, I can’t help but imagine slicing cuts in my own arms in order to shove bits of illicit clay into the wounds, or chewing glass on the hunch that it would feel good. I liked the status marker of receiving subsidized school lunches, and the recurring preoccupation with how people are or aren’t set up for “success” by being read to and fed breakfast as kids.
Bad Thoughts by Nada Alic
This collection opens super strong—the Miranda July comparison occurred to me before I registered that one of the blurbs says it—the voice is hyperaware, and the narrative impulses feel fresh. The first few stories are some of the best I’ve read recently. After a while, though, the high-functioning slacker ethic permeates the whole book, and the humor gets a little cynical, or glib, or ironical. There’s a level of confessional self-implication that seems almost like cope—well-calculated to avoid having to go even deeper. Huge talent here, obviously, though I’d have liked to see it wreak a little more havoc.