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A review by katulka2
An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken
5.0
I just read this book in one sitting.
I'm feeling like I have just been through a horrific ordeal, completely out of sympathy. I hadn't read Elizabeth McCracken before but I developed real affection for her, through moments of dark humor and profound tenderness alike. I share much of her superstitiousness and caution, having always felt both mystified and a bit creeped out by people who name their future children in the fourth week of pregnancy and go public with the news so early on. It's just so jinx-y! This story perfectly confirms those feelings.
Other reviewers have compared this book to Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, but besides the obvious similar subject matter, I disagree. Didion's writing was detached in the way of someone reflecting on a tragedy too soon afterwards. McCracken's writing is much deeper and more evocative than most po-mo memoirs of this sort. In particular, her parenthetical undercurrents of thought, in which she second-guesses herself and repeats her devastating reality, comprise possibly the truest rendering of grief I've ever encountered.
Friends: Has anybody else read this and want to talk about it? I could go on but was trying to avoid spoilers...
I'm feeling like I have just been through a horrific ordeal, completely out of sympathy. I hadn't read Elizabeth McCracken before but I developed real affection for her, through moments of dark humor and profound tenderness alike. I share much of her superstitiousness and caution, having always felt both mystified and a bit creeped out by people who name their future children in the fourth week of pregnancy and go public with the news so early on. It's just so jinx-y! This story perfectly confirms those feelings.
Other reviewers have compared this book to Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, but besides the obvious similar subject matter, I disagree. Didion's writing was detached in the way of someone reflecting on a tragedy too soon afterwards. McCracken's writing is much deeper and more evocative than most po-mo memoirs of this sort. In particular, her parenthetical undercurrents of thought, in which she second-guesses herself and repeats her devastating reality, comprise possibly the truest rendering of grief I've ever encountered.
Friends: Has anybody else read this and want to talk about it? I could go on but was trying to avoid spoilers...