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A review by peggyd
Toad by Katherine Dunn
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
As a HUGE fan of Geek Love, I worried that I might be putting too much pressure on Toad to live up to those impossible expectations. But mostly I think Toad is just as much a success, albeit in a different, quieter way.
Where Geek Love is large-scale, fantastical love and brutality, Toad is personal, more realistic brutality (I did not find much love here beyond the longing for it and the performance of it). Both are about those on the fringes, those we judge as "out there" or "not normal" and we get to see their interiority and therefore their utter normality, just expressed in more extreme, less acceptable ways.
In Toad, this is all accomplished through Sally, basically a hermit living alone by choice and reflecting on how she got to this place. We bounce between this present with Sally's small house, her jug of goldfish swimming as a table centerpiece and her fat Toad burbling in the backyard, and her past in a small college-town in Oregon where she gets drawn into her neighbor's Sam bohemian and increasingly unhinged lifestyle. Dunn kills it in her descriptions: so many bodily fluids and just gross griminess that I was nearly passing out--I could smell the overwhelming cat piss scenting Sam's house, the body odors of people who wash infrequently all mingling together, the pot and cigarette smoke, all of it. Dunn is the best at setting these scenes and just making them the foundation of her characters' lives. Sally's snot could be its own character, I swear. And Rennell's constant grabbing and adjusting of himself in his leather pants, well, it got to be a bit much.
But she also is exceptionally good at capturing the bleakest parts of ourselves and our experiences. Sally loathes herself--her body, her needs, her clinginess to men who don't truly care for or need her. But she can also see the posturing and insecurities of others and gives them a lot of forgiveness for the bad things they do in service of those insecurities. It's harrowing stuff. There's a description of a horrible tragedy where Sam's girlfriend/wife Carlotta reacts in such a horrific but understandable way that I seriously had to put the book down and breathe for a bit. Shit gets bleak.
Still, the writing drew me in and kept me coming back, turning the pages, sometimes wanting to cover my eyes and sometimes wanting to sit at Sally's table and munch on cookies with her and the goldfish. There's a chapter on Sally's obsession with Volcano Bars (a candy bar) that is told in such exquisite detail I was in awe. Perfect writing, perfect chapter. I knew this world. I understood this world. I was often horrified by this world. And Dunn captures it all perfectly.
Where Geek Love is large-scale, fantastical love and brutality, Toad is personal, more realistic brutality (I did not find much love here beyond the longing for it and the performance of it). Both are about those on the fringes, those we judge as "out there" or "not normal" and we get to see their interiority and therefore their utter normality, just expressed in more extreme, less acceptable ways.
In Toad, this is all accomplished through Sally, basically a hermit living alone by choice and reflecting on how she got to this place. We bounce between this present with Sally's small house, her jug of goldfish swimming as a table centerpiece and her fat Toad burbling in the backyard, and her past in a small college-town in Oregon where she gets drawn into her neighbor's Sam bohemian and increasingly unhinged lifestyle. Dunn kills it in her descriptions: so many bodily fluids and just gross griminess that I was nearly passing out--I could smell the overwhelming cat piss scenting Sam's house, the body odors of people who wash infrequently all mingling together, the pot and cigarette smoke, all of it. Dunn is the best at setting these scenes and just making them the foundation of her characters' lives. Sally's snot could be its own character, I swear. And Rennell's constant grabbing and adjusting of himself in his leather pants, well, it got to be a bit much.
But she also is exceptionally good at capturing the bleakest parts of ourselves and our experiences. Sally loathes herself--her body, her needs, her clinginess to men who don't truly care for or need her. But she can also see the posturing and insecurities of others and gives them a lot of forgiveness for the bad things they do in service of those insecurities. It's harrowing stuff. There's a description of a horrible tragedy where Sam's girlfriend/wife Carlotta reacts in such a horrific but understandable way that I seriously had to put the book down and breathe for a bit. Shit gets bleak.
Still, the writing drew me in and kept me coming back, turning the pages, sometimes wanting to cover my eyes and sometimes wanting to sit at Sally's table and munch on cookies with her and the goldfish. There's a chapter on Sally's obsession with Volcano Bars (a candy bar) that is told in such exquisite detail I was in awe. Perfect writing, perfect chapter. I knew this world. I understood this world. I was often horrified by this world. And Dunn captures it all perfectly.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal cruelty and Suicide attempt