Scan barcode
bookishcassie's review
5.0
Many of you might think that since this is my dear writer-lady friend, Meg Tuite that I will fake my way through a daunting number of cliche remarks about how fabulous this book is.
We'll you're wrong.
There is no faking about this, this book was amazing.
This book that starts out with a Catholic family, which you of course believe are going to follow all the rules of the Catholic faith since they already followed the child-bearing rules, and then you're thrown into the life of Michelle. We pretty much get her life from young adulthood to the death of her superior, who she comes to love. This book is about strong women who take on whatever roles they damn-well please, even Brenda, who shits in someone's yard out of her own free reign of the neighborhood. A lesbian sister who has been stealing driver's license, and smokes more pot than any of did in college (or maybe just me...what can I say it's the Catholic in me)...
Meg has COMPLETELY fresh metaphors - you aren't going to be locked into cliches. And here I am, the girl who copies down Larry Levis, Joyce Carol Oates and Janet Fitch quotes in my spiral notebook, furiously scribbling down Meg Tuite quotes.
A few of my favorites:
-"Each adult holds a sunken continent of memories inside that always come with the accompaniment of wretched sap music." - I mean come on, we all have these mixed-tapes of memories, I know my ex-boyfriends must have all of mine hidden in their closet break-up box.
-"The true essence of the person will always reveal itself within the sinister monotony of the habitual." Like my mother always said, good love works on the day-to-day.
It's true, I'm Catholic - I quite blare it from the roof tops while also blaring my use of birth control and my stance on letting everyone get married, but the writing about Catholicism isn't what makes this book rich. It's the writing about a true coming-of-age of a young woman. Now, some of you may say, I didn't do those drugs, or I never stole. We'll we all steal lipgloss from the corner store and we all have tried something illegal in our vast past times and Meg is here to tell you that this is what it is to be a woman.
Domestic Apparition is the tale of womanhood, in all its senses, in its most human and raw way. We fight for each other, we fight with each other, and we fight against the useless shit that keeps us down.
I'd recommend this book to my mother, my sister and my best friends (and obviously to you). Buy the book, you can read it in one sitting (it can't be put down), DAMN IT.
We'll you're wrong.
There is no faking about this, this book was amazing.
This book that starts out with a Catholic family, which you of course believe are going to follow all the rules of the Catholic faith since they already followed the child-bearing rules, and then you're thrown into the life of Michelle. We pretty much get her life from young adulthood to the death of her superior, who she comes to love. This book is about strong women who take on whatever roles they damn-well please, even Brenda, who shits in someone's yard out of her own free reign of the neighborhood. A lesbian sister who has been stealing driver's license, and smokes more pot than any of did in college (or maybe just me...what can I say it's the Catholic in me)...
Meg has COMPLETELY fresh metaphors - you aren't going to be locked into cliches. And here I am, the girl who copies down Larry Levis, Joyce Carol Oates and Janet Fitch quotes in my spiral notebook, furiously scribbling down Meg Tuite quotes.
A few of my favorites:
-"Each adult holds a sunken continent of memories inside that always come with the accompaniment of wretched sap music." - I mean come on, we all have these mixed-tapes of memories, I know my ex-boyfriends must have all of mine hidden in their closet break-up box.
-"The true essence of the person will always reveal itself within the sinister monotony of the habitual." Like my mother always said, good love works on the day-to-day.
It's true, I'm Catholic - I quite blare it from the roof tops while also blaring my use of birth control and my stance on letting everyone get married, but the writing about Catholicism isn't what makes this book rich. It's the writing about a true coming-of-age of a young woman. Now, some of you may say, I didn't do those drugs, or I never stole. We'll we all steal lipgloss from the corner store and we all have tried something illegal in our vast past times and Meg is here to tell you that this is what it is to be a woman.
Domestic Apparition is the tale of womanhood, in all its senses, in its most human and raw way. We fight for each other, we fight with each other, and we fight against the useless shit that keeps us down.
I'd recommend this book to my mother, my sister and my best friends (and obviously to you). Buy the book, you can read it in one sitting (it can't be put down), DAMN IT.
melanie_page's review
4.0
Tuite’s novella was published in 2012 (so I must have bought it right when it came out) and is 152 pages. It’s set in Skokie, Illinois starting in the 1970s. Conveying the dark humor of her situation, narrator Michelle makes huge jumps in time and focus in each chapter, giving space to discus her three sisters, certain friends, parties, and jobs as she gets older. In the first chapter she is six, and in the second chapter she is fifteen, for example. We end when she has a job after college, meaning the stories are more focused in the teen years. The narrative has an arc, but the chapters don’t smoothly transition, which is a stylistic choice.
Right away, the snappy, witty sentences caught my attention. In the first chapter, the narrator emphasizes how ridiculous her first-grade teacher at the Catholic school is:
One aspect of Michelle that I found confusing was how her interests would change drastically and without context. Early in the book she’s describing her interest in the ambush bug, which “kills termites and arranges their dead bodies around the remaining nest of termites, then waits for the others to come out and inspect this camouflage of curiously silent neighbors before it descends on the parade of dupes with deplorable ease.” Here, I appreciate Tuite’s use of alliteration to give the writing a punchy delivery.
However, later, high school-age and at a house party, Michelle mentally points out, “. . . but the paintings in this place were the real thing. I could tell by their frames . . . The first floor seemed to be from another century. It had dark, Baroque looking portraits lined up along the walls.” Is she an amateur insect enthusiast or a teenage art history scholar? I found this confusing. Sometimes, I thought the narrator changed and I hadn’t noticed.
In the end, I didn’t really relate to Michelle and found the big leaps in time prevented me from getting to know her. However, I did enjoy several scenes that describe things in ways I hadn’t read before, which made me enjoy the story and laugh out loud. When Michelle’s mother gets a call from the police saying they have Michelle in custody, her mother’s response is priceless:
Right away, the snappy, witty sentences caught my attention. In the first chapter, the narrator emphasizes how ridiculous her first-grade teacher at the Catholic school is:
After lunch and regulated nap, Mrs. Pufry would suddenly lurch up out of her chair and stumble toward the supply cabinets, like some hideous, reanimated corpse, and hurl herself around the room throwing out instructions, crayons, and construction paper, and panic, forcing an art deadline on all of us.I love the imagery and unusual verb choices (like “hurl”) to vilify the teacher and put readers on the side of the narrator, Michelle. I do also notice the misuse of punctuation, especially between coordinating adjectives and complex sentences, which is a problem throughout, so heads up on that. I’ve copied all quotes in this review as they were written in Domestic Apparition.
One aspect of Michelle that I found confusing was how her interests would change drastically and without context. Early in the book she’s describing her interest in the ambush bug, which “kills termites and arranges their dead bodies around the remaining nest of termites, then waits for the others to come out and inspect this camouflage of curiously silent neighbors before it descends on the parade of dupes with deplorable ease.” Here, I appreciate Tuite’s use of alliteration to give the writing a punchy delivery.
However, later, high school-age and at a house party, Michelle mentally points out, “. . . but the paintings in this place were the real thing. I could tell by their frames . . . The first floor seemed to be from another century. It had dark, Baroque looking portraits lined up along the walls.” Is she an amateur insect enthusiast or a teenage art history scholar? I found this confusing. Sometimes, I thought the narrator changed and I hadn’t noticed.
In the end, I didn’t really relate to Michelle and found the big leaps in time prevented me from getting to know her. However, I did enjoy several scenes that describe things in ways I hadn’t read before, which made me enjoy the story and laugh out loud. When Michelle’s mother gets a call from the police saying they have Michelle in custody, her mother’s response is priceless:
Are you sure you have the right girl? I mean this seems a bit deranged, if not impossible, for a sober girl to leave the house less than a half-hour ago and suddenly a policeman finds her pooping like a dog in someone’s yard completely soused?This review was originally published at Grab the Lapels.
More...