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brice_mo's reviews
457 reviews
Eclipse by Keiichirō Hirano
4.5
Thanks to NetGalley and Columbia University Press for the ARC!
Keiichiro Hirano’s newly-translated Eclipse is a subdued exploration of the tension between synthesis and syncretism—a novella concerned with how one responds when the foundation falls out from under belief.
The story is simple—a fifteenth-century Dominican monk feels a burden to explore philosophical possibilities outside Christianity so that he might integrate them into his faith. It worked with Platonic thought, he argues, so why not alchemy? There isn’t much of a premise beyond that, but the first-person narration (translated beautifully by Brent de Chene and Charles De Wolfe) draws the reader toward interiority, even when the storyteller is witnessing some truly bizarre imagery. It’s an effective approach because it forces us to constantly wrestle with a question:
Which matters more—events or their interpretation?
Late in the book, there’s a line about the villagers being filled with “eschatological anxiety,” and that’s perhaps the easiest way to define the story as a whole. All of the disparate elements—alchemical possibility, religious hypocrisy, and un-gendered ambiguity—serve to rupture the narrative and suggest it will careen to some sort of reality-shattering destruction.
And yet it lumbers uncomfortably on.
We expect the catharsis of crisis, but the author rejects it as a form of confirmation bias—the need to retrofit new experience into old beliefs. I say “belief” here because I don’t think this is simply about faith or religion. It seems more broadly ontological.
Throughout the book, we move deep into the nature of belief. When the alchemist’s practices are similar to a monk’s, does the object of faith matter? Similarly, when a lecherous priest holds the power to condemn, what is the nature of absolution? Do these distinctions matter, or are they universally destructive?
All of these tensions come to a head when an innocent, hermaphroditic creature born from the shadows in a cave (hello, Plato?) is stoned for being a witch. Its innocence—maybe its holiness—seems rooted in its lack of humanity. Its refusal of gendered dichotomy echoes the Christological significance of the hypostatic union. More importantly, however, readers are left pondering whether its salvific function originates in its lack of language—the absence of a structure to scaffold faith. The narrative never gives us a clear answer, instead culminating in an apocalyptic explosion of burnt flesh and bodily fluid before returning to muted uneventfulness almost immediately.
In the end, the only sin is holding on to belief too tightly.
Keiichiro Hirano’s newly-translated Eclipse is a subdued exploration of the tension between synthesis and syncretism—a novella concerned with how one responds when the foundation falls out from under belief.
The story is simple—a fifteenth-century Dominican monk feels a burden to explore philosophical possibilities outside Christianity so that he might integrate them into his faith. It worked with Platonic thought, he argues, so why not alchemy? There isn’t much of a premise beyond that, but the first-person narration (translated beautifully by Brent de Chene and Charles De Wolfe) draws the reader toward interiority, even when the storyteller is witnessing some truly bizarre imagery. It’s an effective approach because it forces us to constantly wrestle with a question:
Which matters more—events or their interpretation?
Late in the book, there’s a line about the villagers being filled with “eschatological anxiety,” and that’s perhaps the easiest way to define the story as a whole. All of the disparate elements—alchemical possibility, religious hypocrisy, and un-gendered ambiguity—serve to rupture the narrative and suggest it will careen to some sort of reality-shattering destruction.
And yet it lumbers uncomfortably on.
We expect the catharsis of crisis, but the author rejects it as a form of confirmation bias—the need to retrofit new experience into old beliefs. I say “belief” here because I don’t think this is simply about faith or religion. It seems more broadly ontological.
Throughout the book, we move deep into the nature of belief. When the alchemist’s practices are similar to a monk’s, does the object of faith matter? Similarly, when a lecherous priest holds the power to condemn, what is the nature of absolution? Do these distinctions matter, or are they universally destructive?
All of these tensions come to a head when an innocent, hermaphroditic creature born from the shadows in a cave (hello, Plato?) is stoned for being a witch. Its innocence—maybe its holiness—seems rooted in its lack of humanity. Its refusal of gendered dichotomy echoes the Christological significance of the hypostatic union. More importantly, however, readers are left pondering whether its salvific function originates in its lack of language—the absence of a structure to scaffold faith. The narrative never gives us a clear answer, instead culminating in an apocalyptic explosion of burnt flesh and bodily fluid before returning to muted uneventfulness almost immediately.
In the end, the only sin is holding on to belief too tightly.
The Sacred Heart Motel by Grace Kwan
3.25
Thanks to NetGalley and Metonymy Press for the ARC!
Personally, I find motels horrifying—the endless, identical rooms, differentiated only by peeling plaster or stained carpet; the way time seems suspended in the scent of stale cigarettes; the pulsing anxiety of inhabiting a space designed to be vacated as quickly as possible.
A good motel is usually one that isn’t memorable; how do you situate a body of work in a place defined by displacement?
This is the challenge that The Sacred Heart Motel—Grace Kwan’s debut collection—faces at every turn, but it is one that seems to animate the poet's work.
In the same way that one might overhear a conversation through a motel wall, these poems feel sustained by a kind of distant ambience. They are fragmented feelings that never quite collage into a clear whole. They are pleasant but often anonymous, not quite clearing the distance between voicelessness and polyvocality.
Periodically, however, a line or poem emerges with such devastatingly unexpected clarity that one almost wishes it were encountered elsewhere. If we’re sticking with the motel metaphor here, it feels like stumbling onto a new favorite movie while flipping through channels on a road trip. The excitement is slightly muted by the thought that you could have seen it on the big screen instead of a room with questionably yellowed sheets.
These moments made me admire the poet’s artistry so much that it felt unimportant when I wasn’t fully on their wavelength with the project’s framing device.
As examples, I think “Rationale,” “My Year of Rest & Expatriation,” and “Song of the Bowstring” are truly incredible poems—the kind that demand an immediate reread through the emotional force of their specificity. I instantly stopped reading to send them to people, and as I read through the rest of the collection, I kept returning to them in my mind.
The motel defied its form to become somewhere I wanted to stay.
The Sacred Heart Motel is thrilling. It's challenging. It's frustrating. Grace Kwan has clearly put a lot of care into this collection, and I’m excited to see how they continue to build on their high-concept approach in future work.
Personally, I find motels horrifying—the endless, identical rooms, differentiated only by peeling plaster or stained carpet; the way time seems suspended in the scent of stale cigarettes; the pulsing anxiety of inhabiting a space designed to be vacated as quickly as possible.
A good motel is usually one that isn’t memorable; how do you situate a body of work in a place defined by displacement?
This is the challenge that The Sacred Heart Motel—Grace Kwan’s debut collection—faces at every turn, but it is one that seems to animate the poet's work.
In the same way that one might overhear a conversation through a motel wall, these poems feel sustained by a kind of distant ambience. They are fragmented feelings that never quite collage into a clear whole. They are pleasant but often anonymous, not quite clearing the distance between voicelessness and polyvocality.
Periodically, however, a line or poem emerges with such devastatingly unexpected clarity that one almost wishes it were encountered elsewhere. If we’re sticking with the motel metaphor here, it feels like stumbling onto a new favorite movie while flipping through channels on a road trip. The excitement is slightly muted by the thought that you could have seen it on the big screen instead of a room with questionably yellowed sheets.
These moments made me admire the poet’s artistry so much that it felt unimportant when I wasn’t fully on their wavelength with the project’s framing device.
As examples, I think “Rationale,” “My Year of Rest & Expatriation,” and “Song of the Bowstring” are truly incredible poems—the kind that demand an immediate reread through the emotional force of their specificity. I instantly stopped reading to send them to people, and as I read through the rest of the collection, I kept returning to them in my mind.
The motel defied its form to become somewhere I wanted to stay.
The Sacred Heart Motel is thrilling. It's challenging. It's frustrating. Grace Kwan has clearly put a lot of care into this collection, and I’m excited to see how they continue to build on their high-concept approach in future work.
Masquerade by Mike Fu
1.5
Thanks to NetGalley and Tin House for the ARC!
Mike Fu’s Masquerade might be marketed as a surreal exploration of the narratives we believe about ourselves, but don’t let the pitch fool you—this is a book that seems to think repetition is reflection, redundancy is recursion, and recognition is re-evaluation.
It’s an exhausting and fruitless read, particularly because it is so insistent on telling you it has a lot on its mind without ever offering any evidence to support such a claim.
The protagonist, Meadow, has settled into that post-grad school malaise where his life is uneventful. He’s just gotten out of yet another relationship, and his best friend prophetically says, “You fall easily into this kind of story. Invent a new one and start over.” Then, she promptly vanishes, and Meadow finds a book written by someone who shares his name. Sounds exciting, no?
There’s definitely potential here for parsing out the difference between self-narration and self-mythology, and that seems to be what Fu is reaching for. Unfortunately, it remains beyond his reach at every opportunity, starting with his characters.
The voices throughout the book are interchangeable, often doing little more than explicitly commenting on their inability to write their own narrative. Before you think that’s a very meta and heady approach, please know that it’s not an approach—it’s just something that happens over and over with no development. Fu treats the book’s premise—write a new story—as its conclusion, and it reads like a thought exercise without a thought behind it.
Similarly, the Matryoshka doll approach to storytelling Fu employs here feels like it could add a lot to a deconstruction of narrative. We revisit the same scenes repeatedly, and it seems like the intention is to craft a kaleidoscopic, multilayered story where we dive deeper into the impact of specific moments. What we actually get is closer to an extended montage, endlessly recapping scenes without development and undermining any of the surrealism suggested by the marketing copy with the most wooden literalism imaginable. Most of these scenes are wine-soaked dinner parties, but we don’t even get to enjoy the listless vibe of a hangout. The book just feels like a novella-shaped premise stretched beyond recognition into a novel.
Ultimately, I don’t think these things would matter much if the prose were good. I’ve read many uneventful books that still feel rewarding because each sentence stands as a work of art. Sadly, Masquerade lets readers down here too, offering a frustrating pastiche of clichés—ChatGPT-core, if you will.
It’s a harsh critique, but there were so many moments that felt like an algorithm’s notion of “literary” writing—radical anonymity when it’s clear the author is capable of more. Consider, for example, the following sentences:
“But none of this has come to pass. Meadow has no idea yet about the sordid tale that’s on the cusp of unfolding.”
So much of the prose is uncomfortably and artificially elevated like this, and it’s unfortunate because the authorial voice periodically relaxes into something far more distinctive. I fully believe that Mike Fu could write a book that accomplishes more if it were less preoccupied with identifying its own ambition.
In the end, Masquerade is a frustrating disappointment, a surprise from Tin House. While I sympathize with its command to “write a new story,” I encourage interested parties to skip this book and instead read a new story.
Mike Fu’s Masquerade might be marketed as a surreal exploration of the narratives we believe about ourselves, but don’t let the pitch fool you—this is a book that seems to think repetition is reflection, redundancy is recursion, and recognition is re-evaluation.
It’s an exhausting and fruitless read, particularly because it is so insistent on telling you it has a lot on its mind without ever offering any evidence to support such a claim.
The protagonist, Meadow, has settled into that post-grad school malaise where his life is uneventful. He’s just gotten out of yet another relationship, and his best friend prophetically says, “You fall easily into this kind of story. Invent a new one and start over.” Then, she promptly vanishes, and Meadow finds a book written by someone who shares his name. Sounds exciting, no?
There’s definitely potential here for parsing out the difference between self-narration and self-mythology, and that seems to be what Fu is reaching for. Unfortunately, it remains beyond his reach at every opportunity, starting with his characters.
The voices throughout the book are interchangeable, often doing little more than explicitly commenting on their inability to write their own narrative. Before you think that’s a very meta and heady approach, please know that it’s not an approach—it’s just something that happens over and over with no development. Fu treats the book’s premise—write a new story—as its conclusion, and it reads like a thought exercise without a thought behind it.
Similarly, the Matryoshka doll approach to storytelling Fu employs here feels like it could add a lot to a deconstruction of narrative. We revisit the same scenes repeatedly, and it seems like the intention is to craft a kaleidoscopic, multilayered story where we dive deeper into the impact of specific moments. What we actually get is closer to an extended montage, endlessly recapping scenes without development and undermining any of the surrealism suggested by the marketing copy with the most wooden literalism imaginable. Most of these scenes are wine-soaked dinner parties, but we don’t even get to enjoy the listless vibe of a hangout. The book just feels like a novella-shaped premise stretched beyond recognition into a novel.
Ultimately, I don’t think these things would matter much if the prose were good. I’ve read many uneventful books that still feel rewarding because each sentence stands as a work of art. Sadly, Masquerade lets readers down here too, offering a frustrating pastiche of clichés—ChatGPT-core, if you will.
It’s a harsh critique, but there were so many moments that felt like an algorithm’s notion of “literary” writing—radical anonymity when it’s clear the author is capable of more. Consider, for example, the following sentences:
“But none of this has come to pass. Meadow has no idea yet about the sordid tale that’s on the cusp of unfolding.”
So much of the prose is uncomfortably and artificially elevated like this, and it’s unfortunate because the authorial voice periodically relaxes into something far more distinctive. I fully believe that Mike Fu could write a book that accomplishes more if it were less preoccupied with identifying its own ambition.
In the end, Masquerade is a frustrating disappointment, a surprise from Tin House. While I sympathize with its command to “write a new story,” I encourage interested parties to skip this book and instead read a new story.
The Hormone of Darkness: A Playlist by Tilsa Otta
3.0
Thanks to NetGalley and Graywolf Press for the ARC!
Tilsa Otta’s The Hormone of Darkness is a low-key anthology of translated poems from almost two decades of work.
The collection is framed as a playlist, and I think that’s a helpful way to think of the reading experience. Most of these poems wash over the reader, eliciting acknowledgment more than appreciation, but every so often, there’s a line or two that demands a re-read—a song worth a re-listen.
Consider, for instance, the following lines from the titular poem:
El recién nacido observa por primera vez el rostro de su madre /
Como un astronauta contempla la tierra desde el espacio /
Se reconoce en esa topografia cambiante
(The newborn sees its mother’s face for the first time /
The way an astronaut regards earth from space /
Sees himself in that inconstant topography)
I mean, wow.
Unfortunately, few poems—with the notable exception of “El nuevo cielo” / “The New Heaven”—showcase the same kind of imagistic or narrative cohesion. Instead, moments of clarity feel like infrequent interruptions. I’m sure it’s a stylistic intention, but it’s one that doesn’t always feel fruitful, at least in translated form.
Speaking of which, despite Farid Matuk’s largely excellent work, I think some of these translations overstep their bounds. My Spanish is not great, and everyone has their own personal philosophy of translation, so take these critiques with a grain of salt, but some of the interpretive decisions seem odd. For example, “Contar en orden alfabético” / “Counting in alphabetical order,” a poem comprised only of numbers, finds the translator completely changing the numerical sequence in English to fit the poem’s title, and it feels less like re-mediation and more like regurgitation—the original poem chewed up and spit out. At the very least, one wonders why the poem was included at all when this is an anthology. Elsewhere, certain lines shift in their sequencing, and it feels a little like the translator’s taste usurping the poet’s voice.
That said, Matuk’s wonderful opening essay explicitly wrestles with the translation process, and even the less successful pieces are interesting as a negotiation between two artists. There’s no perfect way to translate, and I appreciate their justification for their decisions. If you're reading this in 2024, there's a scheduled conversation between Otta and Matuk on October 24th about translation, and I expect that will be fascinating.
All in all, The Hormone of Darkness is a pleasant enough collection, and for an English speaker hoping to explore Peruvian poetry, it seems like a great starting point.
Tilsa Otta’s The Hormone of Darkness is a low-key anthology of translated poems from almost two decades of work.
The collection is framed as a playlist, and I think that’s a helpful way to think of the reading experience. Most of these poems wash over the reader, eliciting acknowledgment more than appreciation, but every so often, there’s a line or two that demands a re-read—a song worth a re-listen.
Consider, for instance, the following lines from the titular poem:
El recién nacido observa por primera vez el rostro de su madre /
Como un astronauta contempla la tierra desde el espacio /
Se reconoce en esa topografia cambiante
(The newborn sees its mother’s face for the first time /
The way an astronaut regards earth from space /
Sees himself in that inconstant topography)
I mean, wow.
Unfortunately, few poems—with the notable exception of “El nuevo cielo” / “The New Heaven”—showcase the same kind of imagistic or narrative cohesion. Instead, moments of clarity feel like infrequent interruptions. I’m sure it’s a stylistic intention, but it’s one that doesn’t always feel fruitful, at least in translated form.
Speaking of which, despite Farid Matuk’s largely excellent work, I think some of these translations overstep their bounds. My Spanish is not great, and everyone has their own personal philosophy of translation, so take these critiques with a grain of salt, but some of the interpretive decisions seem odd. For example, “Contar en orden alfabético” / “Counting in alphabetical order,” a poem comprised only of numbers, finds the translator completely changing the numerical sequence in English to fit the poem’s title, and it feels less like re-mediation and more like regurgitation—the original poem chewed up and spit out. At the very least, one wonders why the poem was included at all when this is an anthology. Elsewhere, certain lines shift in their sequencing, and it feels a little like the translator’s taste usurping the poet’s voice.
That said, Matuk’s wonderful opening essay explicitly wrestles with the translation process, and even the less successful pieces are interesting as a negotiation between two artists. There’s no perfect way to translate, and I appreciate their justification for their decisions. If you're reading this in 2024, there's a scheduled conversation between Otta and Matuk on October 24th about translation, and I expect that will be fascinating.
All in all, The Hormone of Darkness is a pleasant enough collection, and for an English speaker hoping to explore Peruvian poetry, it seems like a great starting point.
An Image of My Name Enters America: Essays by Lucy Ives
3.5
Thanks to NetGalley and Graywolf Press for the ARC!
Lucy Ives’s An Image of My Name Enters America reads like Susan Sontag for the terminally online, moving breathlessly and comfortably from Lacan to 4chan memes to My Little Pony. It’s an absolute blast.
The book is comprised of five essays that shuffle along, starting as one thing before morphing into something else entirely. There’s an interesting tension at play here—re-reads are almost certainly necessary if one is to appreciate the scope of what Ives is attempting, but so much of the writing’s spark is in its immediate, off-the-cuff energy.
This momentum makes An Image of My Name Enters America a little incoherent and so earnest that one almost wonders if it’s a very complicated joke. It’s the wonderful kind of cultural criticism that welcomes its own silliness so that it can be genuinely serious. I think “Earliness, or Romance” is exceptional, shapeshifting between a reflection on the film Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and an exploration of how our cultural notions of love are situated in the same cruel optimism that Lauren Berlant wrote about. Oh, also there’s mention of naming one’s Oregon Trail avatar after genitals. Strangely, it works, resulting in a lovely call to care—a yielding of our expectation for romance to make us feel fully known.
That said, this can be a deeply frustrating book for the same reasons that it can be very fulfilling. It’s all over the place. If you ever slip from Ives’s wavelength, it’s an absolute plummet, almost ensuring that you will be lost for the remainder of the essay. The difference between ambling and rambling writing is simply readers’ patience, and I think Ives tests it often. Occasionally, you might stumble over the detritus of what feels like an earlier draft of an essay, and it’s grating. It didn’t ruin the experience for me, but I’m sure it will for many readers.
An Image of My Name Enters America won’t be for everyone. In fact, I think it won’t be for most people, but it’s still worth diving into. These are thought-provoking essays that occasionally prod at the heart. Lucy Ives is a challenging writer, and it feels exciting to see a great mind at work, even in moments when it isn’t clear how it works.
Lucy Ives’s An Image of My Name Enters America reads like Susan Sontag for the terminally online, moving breathlessly and comfortably from Lacan to 4chan memes to My Little Pony. It’s an absolute blast.
The book is comprised of five essays that shuffle along, starting as one thing before morphing into something else entirely. There’s an interesting tension at play here—re-reads are almost certainly necessary if one is to appreciate the scope of what Ives is attempting, but so much of the writing’s spark is in its immediate, off-the-cuff energy.
This momentum makes An Image of My Name Enters America a little incoherent and so earnest that one almost wonders if it’s a very complicated joke. It’s the wonderful kind of cultural criticism that welcomes its own silliness so that it can be genuinely serious. I think “Earliness, or Romance” is exceptional, shapeshifting between a reflection on the film Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and an exploration of how our cultural notions of love are situated in the same cruel optimism that Lauren Berlant wrote about. Oh, also there’s mention of naming one’s Oregon Trail avatar after genitals. Strangely, it works, resulting in a lovely call to care—a yielding of our expectation for romance to make us feel fully known.
That said, this can be a deeply frustrating book for the same reasons that it can be very fulfilling. It’s all over the place. If you ever slip from Ives’s wavelength, it’s an absolute plummet, almost ensuring that you will be lost for the remainder of the essay. The difference between ambling and rambling writing is simply readers’ patience, and I think Ives tests it often. Occasionally, you might stumble over the detritus of what feels like an earlier draft of an essay, and it’s grating. It didn’t ruin the experience for me, but I’m sure it will for many readers.
An Image of My Name Enters America won’t be for everyone. In fact, I think it won’t be for most people, but it’s still worth diving into. These are thought-provoking essays that occasionally prod at the heart. Lucy Ives is a challenging writer, and it feels exciting to see a great mind at work, even in moments when it isn’t clear how it works.
Still Life at Eighty: the Next Interesting Thing by Abigail Thomas
3.0
Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for the ARC!
In Still Life at Eighty, Abigail Thomas gathers her accumulating years and outgrown epiphanies to make a simple point—there’s very little distance between contentment & ambivalence; there are no borders between stillness & stagnation.
This is a book with nowhere to go, but only because Thomas herself is largely homebound. Life is full of tradeoffs, and the author’s lack of mobility might inhibit expansive thought, but it allows her to fully inhabit little moments of reflection. Sometimes she is bored. Sometimes that boredom feels meaningful to her. As the world grows smaller, she is better able to be present with it.
Readers’ enjoyment will depend on whether they are able to be just as present with Thomas.
Personally, I find Still Life to be a book that encourages patience without often rewarding it. Much of the book finds Thomas marinating more than ruminating—simply sitting in a thought without interrogating it. The memoir is built around dozens of brief anecdotes, many of which are contained to only a truncated paragraph or two. Sometimes this brevity feels really effective, such as in “Have I Told You This Before?”, where Thomas concludes that a fading memory allows someone to experience “something we love over and over again for the first time.” At other times, however, it simply feels like wheel-spinning, especially in the mid-pandemic section of the book. Perhaps I should be more gracious, but I am tired of authors asking us to return to the cocktail of fear and boredom that defined the early 2020s without offering substance in return. None of us had a good time, and I think the subject matter lends itself to insularity with the appearance of interiority.
That said, I really loved the final section—“A Few Thoughts About Writing”—because it’s where Thomas seems most keen on sharing her lifetime of wisdom with the succinctness that serves her poorly elsewhere. In particular, “Motive for Memoir” is a precise summary of how someone should write: “Memoir should not be self-serving, even accidentally. If you come out as anything but profoundly human, you’ve probably got the wrong motives for doing this, or you haven’t stood far enough back, or come close enough.” When Thomas praises vulnerability, it carries an extra weight because it’s coming from decades of choosing to be vulnerable.
Ultimately, Still Life at Eighty is a warm collage of a full life, and one that may alleviate the fears of those who see age as a threat. Abigail Thomas is truthful about the difficulty of incontinence and brittled bones, but she suggests that they can create room for something softer and gentler, as she writes near the end:
“At eighty, you don’t expect to learn something new, at least not every day. However, I am learning something new every day. Granted, it’s the same thing, but I learn it over and over with the same startled awareness.”
In Still Life at Eighty, Abigail Thomas gathers her accumulating years and outgrown epiphanies to make a simple point—there’s very little distance between contentment & ambivalence; there are no borders between stillness & stagnation.
This is a book with nowhere to go, but only because Thomas herself is largely homebound. Life is full of tradeoffs, and the author’s lack of mobility might inhibit expansive thought, but it allows her to fully inhabit little moments of reflection. Sometimes she is bored. Sometimes that boredom feels meaningful to her. As the world grows smaller, she is better able to be present with it.
Readers’ enjoyment will depend on whether they are able to be just as present with Thomas.
Personally, I find Still Life to be a book that encourages patience without often rewarding it. Much of the book finds Thomas marinating more than ruminating—simply sitting in a thought without interrogating it. The memoir is built around dozens of brief anecdotes, many of which are contained to only a truncated paragraph or two. Sometimes this brevity feels really effective, such as in “Have I Told You This Before?”, where Thomas concludes that a fading memory allows someone to experience “something we love over and over again for the first time.” At other times, however, it simply feels like wheel-spinning, especially in the mid-pandemic section of the book. Perhaps I should be more gracious, but I am tired of authors asking us to return to the cocktail of fear and boredom that defined the early 2020s without offering substance in return. None of us had a good time, and I think the subject matter lends itself to insularity with the appearance of interiority.
That said, I really loved the final section—“A Few Thoughts About Writing”—because it’s where Thomas seems most keen on sharing her lifetime of wisdom with the succinctness that serves her poorly elsewhere. In particular, “Motive for Memoir” is a precise summary of how someone should write: “Memoir should not be self-serving, even accidentally. If you come out as anything but profoundly human, you’ve probably got the wrong motives for doing this, or you haven’t stood far enough back, or come close enough.” When Thomas praises vulnerability, it carries an extra weight because it’s coming from decades of choosing to be vulnerable.
Ultimately, Still Life at Eighty is a warm collage of a full life, and one that may alleviate the fears of those who see age as a threat. Abigail Thomas is truthful about the difficulty of incontinence and brittled bones, but she suggests that they can create room for something softer and gentler, as she writes near the end:
“At eighty, you don’t expect to learn something new, at least not every day. However, I am learning something new every day. Granted, it’s the same thing, but I learn it over and over with the same startled awareness.”
I'm Laughing Because I'm Crying: A Memoir by Youngmi Mayer
5.0
Thanks to NetGalley & Little, Brown, and Company for the ARC!
Youngmi Mayer’s I’m Laughing Because I’m Crying is an absolute tour de force—a brilliant memoir from an author who couldn’t care less about whether or not you think she’s smart.
That might sound like an odd thing to lead with, but Mayer herself does so. She opens the book by opining that there have been countless, pointless books from countless, pointless white men, so she shouldn’t need a reason for a memoir. She almost invites readers to dismiss her confidence as unearned, but that’s the point—she doesn’t need to earn confidence.
It’s her right.
This mindset allows her to write one of the most incisive and thoughtful memoirs in recent memory because she doesn’t need it to adhere to any genre tropes. There’s no impulse to retrofit history to her current image or depict herself as some sort of demigod moving through crazy, memorable events. She has a clear awareness of her unique positionality as an Asian-American who didn’t grow up in the United States, but that distinctive doesn’t lend itself to self-promotion. Instead, it creates an opportunity to throw Korean and American culture into stark juxtaposition, but never in that sickly sweet way where a narrator seemingly exists to share lessons with a white audience. Mayer has no interest in offering herself to white readers for the feelgood catharsis of feeling bad. In fact, this is a memoir that is selective about when it reveals its author because it has bigger things on its mind.
It’s such a refreshing subversion of the genre. I tire of books that condemn white patriarchal publishing norms while seeming desperate to conform to them—stories that follow the same tired arc. Mayer—again—just does not care about the book’s palatability, and there’s something energizing and freeing every time an anecdote is included even when it “doesn’t make sense.” It doesn’t need to.
Truth doesn’t always make sense.
This is a structural and tonal masterpiece as well. As the focus often shifts away from the author, the book spirals inward, moving recursively through memories, Korean history, and myth, all while never spinning its wheels. Mayer has so much control over every rhetorical move, but she refuses to entertain a writerly ego; she’s too busy with more important matters. She writes with a crassness that might grate against some people, but it serves a purpose—to remind readers that the book isn’t about them or their tastes. The author has lived a lot of life, but she’s intentional about the information she shares and withholds. There are moments of pain where lesser writers would dramatically self-flagellate, but Mayer pulls back—they belong to her, not the reader.
I think the book’s biggest success, however, is Mayer’s mesmerizing ability to pivot from flippancy to razor sharp analysis within the space of a few words. As a few notable examples, she contrasts the harsh reality of her family selling Kool-Aid to survive with how wealthy children cosplay poverty through lemonade stands. She writes about how the thrill of stand-up is that it’s pathetic, even when you’re good at it. She explores how poverty is moralized as a mark of original sin. It’s all just so smart at every turn, but it’s written with the understanding that even such reflection can easily become its own kind of self-indulgence.
I could go on, but I think it’s best to let the book speak for herself. I really hope I’m Laughing Because I’m Crying gets the attention it deserves, and I hope it means that we’ll get to see more of Youngmi Mayer’s exciting work as an author.
Youngmi Mayer’s I’m Laughing Because I’m Crying is an absolute tour de force—a brilliant memoir from an author who couldn’t care less about whether or not you think she’s smart.
That might sound like an odd thing to lead with, but Mayer herself does so. She opens the book by opining that there have been countless, pointless books from countless, pointless white men, so she shouldn’t need a reason for a memoir. She almost invites readers to dismiss her confidence as unearned, but that’s the point—she doesn’t need to earn confidence.
It’s her right.
This mindset allows her to write one of the most incisive and thoughtful memoirs in recent memory because she doesn’t need it to adhere to any genre tropes. There’s no impulse to retrofit history to her current image or depict herself as some sort of demigod moving through crazy, memorable events. She has a clear awareness of her unique positionality as an Asian-American who didn’t grow up in the United States, but that distinctive doesn’t lend itself to self-promotion. Instead, it creates an opportunity to throw Korean and American culture into stark juxtaposition, but never in that sickly sweet way where a narrator seemingly exists to share lessons with a white audience. Mayer has no interest in offering herself to white readers for the feelgood catharsis of feeling bad. In fact, this is a memoir that is selective about when it reveals its author because it has bigger things on its mind.
It’s such a refreshing subversion of the genre. I tire of books that condemn white patriarchal publishing norms while seeming desperate to conform to them—stories that follow the same tired arc. Mayer—again—just does not care about the book’s palatability, and there’s something energizing and freeing every time an anecdote is included even when it “doesn’t make sense.” It doesn’t need to.
Truth doesn’t always make sense.
This is a structural and tonal masterpiece as well. As the focus often shifts away from the author, the book spirals inward, moving recursively through memories, Korean history, and myth, all while never spinning its wheels. Mayer has so much control over every rhetorical move, but she refuses to entertain a writerly ego; she’s too busy with more important matters. She writes with a crassness that might grate against some people, but it serves a purpose—to remind readers that the book isn’t about them or their tastes. The author has lived a lot of life, but she’s intentional about the information she shares and withholds. There are moments of pain where lesser writers would dramatically self-flagellate, but Mayer pulls back—they belong to her, not the reader.
I think the book’s biggest success, however, is Mayer’s mesmerizing ability to pivot from flippancy to razor sharp analysis within the space of a few words. As a few notable examples, she contrasts the harsh reality of her family selling Kool-Aid to survive with how wealthy children cosplay poverty through lemonade stands. She writes about how the thrill of stand-up is that it’s pathetic, even when you’re good at it. She explores how poverty is moralized as a mark of original sin. It’s all just so smart at every turn, but it’s written with the understanding that even such reflection can easily become its own kind of self-indulgence.
I could go on, but I think it’s best to let the book speak for herself. I really hope I’m Laughing Because I’m Crying gets the attention it deserves, and I hope it means that we’ll get to see more of Youngmi Mayer’s exciting work as an author.
One Day I'll Grow Up and Be a Beautiful Woman: A Mother's Story by Abi Maxwell
2.0
Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for the ARC!
Abi Maxwell’s One Day I’ll Grow Up and Be a Beautiful Woman is a fiercely maternal book, albeit one that suggests the characteristics of a wonderfully protective mother make for a needlessly defensive memoir.
All memoir is myth. All memoir is mis-remembrance.
In the best memoirs, however, authors resist—or, at least, interrogate—their own impulse to bend history to their will. They use the form as an opportunity for reflection, revisiting complex experiences with the grace of hindsight. It becomes a site for self-critique as much as self-forgiveness.
Unfortunately, Abi Maxwell seems keen on sanding down every narrative edge, ensuring that she is unimpeachable at every turn and contorting the narrative into a feel-good story with all the sheen of a Netflix original. As a gift to her daughter, it works; as a book for wide readership, it does not.
The prose is as sweet as cough syrup, going down smoothly and progressively dulling the reader’s senses with the warmth of nostalgia—a foreknowledge that rings false. For example, when describing how her 4- or 5-year-old daughter wanted to wear pink shoes pre-transition, Maxwell writes, “we had raised a little feminist human, a child who understood in her bones that female did not equal less." It reads profoundly artificial and self-serving, less like a celebration of her daughter’s unmitigated enthusiasm and more as Maxwell's need to reify mainstream cultural constructions of gender by offering herself as their antithesis. Even in the book’s darkest moments, the author telegraphs her inevitable triumph in a way that betrays the emotional truth of the narrative, and this approach becomes a recurrent weakness.
If one boils the book down to its essence, its premise is “I’m an amazing ally.” After a point, the author’s righteous anger starts to feel like self-righteous posturing, simply because she’s so adamant about declaring it over and over. The emotional weight that might be felt in a short-form essay is lost through repetition. Furthermore, and I hesitate to say this because it’s such a damning critique, there are moments where both Maxwell’s daughter—and her gay brother, Noah—feel like props, as if their purpose is to showcase the author’s advocacy. We don’t get a sense of anyone’s personality in this book, which makes it feel like the author is more interested in LGBTQIA+ issues than LGBTQIA+ people.
It honestly made me squeamish.
It’s a shame because there’s clearly a story to be told here, and I think a book like this could be really encouraging to parents in a similar situation. In fact, I understand and sympathize with why Maxwell frames the story the way she does—she is rightfully protective of her daughter, but I’m not sure we can protect ourselves from history in the way she attempts. Memoir must wrestle with all of it.
Based on other reviews, I’m clearly in the minority opinion, so I hope One Day I’ll Grow Up and Be a Beautiful Woman offers something of substance to its readers; I just wonder if its palatability does more harm than good.
Abi Maxwell’s One Day I’ll Grow Up and Be a Beautiful Woman is a fiercely maternal book, albeit one that suggests the characteristics of a wonderfully protective mother make for a needlessly defensive memoir.
All memoir is myth. All memoir is mis-remembrance.
In the best memoirs, however, authors resist—or, at least, interrogate—their own impulse to bend history to their will. They use the form as an opportunity for reflection, revisiting complex experiences with the grace of hindsight. It becomes a site for self-critique as much as self-forgiveness.
Unfortunately, Abi Maxwell seems keen on sanding down every narrative edge, ensuring that she is unimpeachable at every turn and contorting the narrative into a feel-good story with all the sheen of a Netflix original. As a gift to her daughter, it works; as a book for wide readership, it does not.
The prose is as sweet as cough syrup, going down smoothly and progressively dulling the reader’s senses with the warmth of nostalgia—a foreknowledge that rings false. For example, when describing how her 4- or 5-year-old daughter wanted to wear pink shoes pre-transition, Maxwell writes, “we had raised a little feminist human, a child who understood in her bones that female did not equal less." It reads profoundly artificial and self-serving, less like a celebration of her daughter’s unmitigated enthusiasm and more as Maxwell's need to reify mainstream cultural constructions of gender by offering herself as their antithesis. Even in the book’s darkest moments, the author telegraphs her inevitable triumph in a way that betrays the emotional truth of the narrative, and this approach becomes a recurrent weakness.
If one boils the book down to its essence, its premise is “I’m an amazing ally.” After a point, the author’s righteous anger starts to feel like self-righteous posturing, simply because she’s so adamant about declaring it over and over. The emotional weight that might be felt in a short-form essay is lost through repetition. Furthermore, and I hesitate to say this because it’s such a damning critique, there are moments where both Maxwell’s daughter—and her gay brother, Noah—feel like props, as if their purpose is to showcase the author’s advocacy. We don’t get a sense of anyone’s personality in this book, which makes it feel like the author is more interested in LGBTQIA+ issues than LGBTQIA+ people.
It honestly made me squeamish.
It’s a shame because there’s clearly a story to be told here, and I think a book like this could be really encouraging to parents in a similar situation. In fact, I understand and sympathize with why Maxwell frames the story the way she does—she is rightfully protective of her daughter, but I’m not sure we can protect ourselves from history in the way she attempts. Memoir must wrestle with all of it.
Based on other reviews, I’m clearly in the minority opinion, so I hope One Day I’ll Grow Up and Be a Beautiful Woman offers something of substance to its readers; I just wonder if its palatability does more harm than good.
Dinner for Vampires by Bethany Joy Lenz
4.0
Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC!
Though marketed as a memoir, Bethany Joy Lenz’s thoughtfully restrained Dinner for Vampires is perhaps more accurately described as a testimony. It’s jarring, specific, and boldly redemptive in its willingness to interrogate religious language without dismissing it entirely.
Full disclosure—I haven’t seen any of One Tree Hill. In fact, my only exposure to Bethany Joy Lenz’s work is Psalty the singing hymnbook, a horrifying Christian cryptid I don’t recommend googling before bed. Truthfully, the book seems likely to resonate more with people who are in a similar boat; if you're an OTH superfan, you might be disappointed by how absent the show is here.
Throughout the book, Lenz details the way her involvement in a house church shifted from an exciting alternative to mainstream Christian culture to a more pervasive and perverse part of her life. “I Escaped A Cult” books are a dime-a-dozen, but Dinner for Vampires is distinct from its peers in that Lenz has a genuine desire to believe the best, leading her to earnestly ask questions and dissect the cult’s beliefs and language. Where many books of this ilk demand that readers assume someone would be “crazy” for getting involved, Lenz’s vulnerability invites readers to experience the discomfort of feeling “crazy” for assuming that something is actually wrong.
The muted approach makes for a less splashy book, but it’s one that arguably reflects the reality of religious trauma more accurately. So much of the spiritual, psychological, and emotional abuse depicted occurs within the space of plausible deniability. Lenz expertly describes behaviors that seem just a few degrees shy of innocuous—the kind of off-kilter actions that summon a pit in your stomach before you quickly tamp it down out of fear. To anybody who has moved through evangelical circles, it will feel all too familiar when the author notes the way “repentance” allowed cult members to shirk personal accountability, or how skin-crawlingly recognizable phrases like “guard your heart” and “love on people” are used to exert control.
Suffice it to say, Dinner for Vampires is an exceptionally meaningful book, and not merely another glossy celebrity memoir. Regardless of readers’ religious background, Bethany Joy Lenz has crafted a a grace-filled opportunity for all of us to reflect on how the language of freedom can so easily be abused, and how true freedom is often found in people being there to pull us out.
Though marketed as a memoir, Bethany Joy Lenz’s thoughtfully restrained Dinner for Vampires is perhaps more accurately described as a testimony. It’s jarring, specific, and boldly redemptive in its willingness to interrogate religious language without dismissing it entirely.
Full disclosure—I haven’t seen any of One Tree Hill. In fact, my only exposure to Bethany Joy Lenz’s work is Psalty the singing hymnbook, a horrifying Christian cryptid I don’t recommend googling before bed. Truthfully, the book seems likely to resonate more with people who are in a similar boat; if you're an OTH superfan, you might be disappointed by how absent the show is here.
Throughout the book, Lenz details the way her involvement in a house church shifted from an exciting alternative to mainstream Christian culture to a more pervasive and perverse part of her life. “I Escaped A Cult” books are a dime-a-dozen, but Dinner for Vampires is distinct from its peers in that Lenz has a genuine desire to believe the best, leading her to earnestly ask questions and dissect the cult’s beliefs and language. Where many books of this ilk demand that readers assume someone would be “crazy” for getting involved, Lenz’s vulnerability invites readers to experience the discomfort of feeling “crazy” for assuming that something is actually wrong.
The muted approach makes for a less splashy book, but it’s one that arguably reflects the reality of religious trauma more accurately. So much of the spiritual, psychological, and emotional abuse depicted occurs within the space of plausible deniability. Lenz expertly describes behaviors that seem just a few degrees shy of innocuous—the kind of off-kilter actions that summon a pit in your stomach before you quickly tamp it down out of fear. To anybody who has moved through evangelical circles, it will feel all too familiar when the author notes the way “repentance” allowed cult members to shirk personal accountability, or how skin-crawlingly recognizable phrases like “guard your heart” and “love on people” are used to exert control.
Suffice it to say, Dinner for Vampires is an exceptionally meaningful book, and not merely another glossy celebrity memoir. Regardless of readers’ religious background, Bethany Joy Lenz has crafted a a grace-filled opportunity for all of us to reflect on how the language of freedom can so easily be abused, and how true freedom is often found in people being there to pull us out.
goddess by Cheryl Tan
2.5
Thanks to NetGalley and Querencia Press for the ARC!
Cheryl Tan’s goddess is a slight but sturdy chapbook—a sorbet, of sorts, that whets the appetite just enough for the reader to want more.
I remember reading an interview once where a Singaporean artist spoke about how the physical constraint of the island lent itself to art that was expansive and experimental. This idea resonates with goddess.
It’s a bit difficult to find a center in such a brief chapbook, but it still pulls the reader into its orbit. Tan addresses sexuality, religion, and language, but she handles each subject with such a light touch that they seem almost feather-light. It feels like these poems need the context of a full collection in order for them to land with the force that moves just beneath their surface. They seem to desire conversation with each other, but Tan withholds it. The tension is wonderful.
“Padma” and “Fragments” are standout poems, but the line that burrowed into my brain originates in “honorary hollowscape”:
“can you count down to the moments when memory turns diegetic, the forcing of marrow of bone, ash out of body?”
I mean, wow.
Cheryl Tan’s goddess is a slight but sturdy chapbook—a sorbet, of sorts, that whets the appetite just enough for the reader to want more.
I remember reading an interview once where a Singaporean artist spoke about how the physical constraint of the island lent itself to art that was expansive and experimental. This idea resonates with goddess.
It’s a bit difficult to find a center in such a brief chapbook, but it still pulls the reader into its orbit. Tan addresses sexuality, religion, and language, but she handles each subject with such a light touch that they seem almost feather-light. It feels like these poems need the context of a full collection in order for them to land with the force that moves just beneath their surface. They seem to desire conversation with each other, but Tan withholds it. The tension is wonderful.
“Padma” and “Fragments” are standout poems, but the line that burrowed into my brain originates in “honorary hollowscape”:
“can you count down to the moments when memory turns diegetic, the forcing of marrow of bone, ash out of body?”
I mean, wow.