Reading, Writing, and Me

Dear Dickhead  by Virginie Despentes (translated by Frank Wynne) Overview: Oscar and Rebecca are two (potentially) fading stars who've brushed with major fame, names known by the French press. Oscar is a successful novelist who's just released his third book. Rebecca is an actress facing what it means to age in the sexist world of cinema. They both grew up together, living in working class neighborhoods when fame seemed very far away, and after an unfortunate social media post from Oscar, they connect again over email. Charting the COVID pandemic in Paris via email, this is a fascinating novel that takes on feminism, Me Too—in the moment and in retrospect—aging, sobriety, fame, and a global pandemic. Overall: 4 Characters: 4  These characters are tough. Not really the kind that you fall in love with. But interesting, nonetheless, whether you agree with all of their opinions or not. While Oscar begins the book reeling from being accused of sexual harassment by an online feminis...

Black Swans  by Eve Babitz Overview: I don't know how to summarize this collection of stories. I don't think I've ever been so at a loss for summary ideas. This is a collection of essays that purport to be short stories that cover Babitz's life in the eighties and into a bit of the nineties. They cover themes of becoming a writer, rollercoaster relationships, tango, and the fallout of the sixties in LA. Also, there's a fair bit of musing about parking. Overall: 4 Notes:  Where to start... I guess my first major point is that I have no clue why this is shelved in the fiction section. I know she changed some names, but having very recently read Didion & Babitz  I know that many of the details are exactly extracted from Eve's life, and not in a veiled way. Also, the voice in every story is the same. Or, more precisely, the main character, the first person narrator is the same person over and over who happens to be undeniably Eve from every indicator I can tell....

Audition  by Katie Kitamura *preface: the way I've seen this book talked about before interviews sees what happens at the second half of the book as a spoiler. I, personally, don't think you can have a meaningful and honest discussion about what this book does without acknowledging the entire second half, so I'm going to talk about it. You've been warned.* Overview: The actress at the center of the novel is in the middle of a career high in middle age, about to open an incredibly successful play. She lives in a nice apartment with her husband and has a fairly settled, if not boring, life. And then she's approached by a 25ish-year-old man named Xavier at the theater. He wants to know if she could possibly be his biological mother. She explains this is impossible, but Xavier remains in her orbit as the director's assistant and intrigues the actress, making her image if her life had played out differently. In the second half of the book, the script flips and sudden...

Good Girl  by Aria Aber Overview: Nila enters a world of partying and drugs as a young teenager, but it's the year she turns nineteen that she fully immerses herself in the underground techno-club-rave world, sometime in the early 2010s. She escapes the strict rules at home in the Bunker, one of the famous Berlin warehouse techno clubs with a strict door policy. There, she meets an American writer, once famous, named Marlowe. She spends the next year in an electric, dark relationship with him, surrounded by his friend group and ex-girlfriend that define Nila's first adult experiences. Overall: 3.5 Characters: 3  What frustrates me about this book is that it feels like the ending of this novel is the true beginning of Nila's story. When I got to the end, after wondering where the book was heading, I got the distinct impression that I'd read a novel's worth of backstory and got dropped off right at the true turning point. While it could be argued that facing an abusiv...

April was the longest month and then May appeared out of nowhere and has moved at light speed. That's partially owing to the fact that April is the armpit of off-season where winter activities have ended but summer fun and summer jobs haven't started yet and everyone leaves town. I got in a bit more reading than I anticipated in April because my summer job start date kept getting pushed further and further back due to a flooring remodel in our office space that went on longer than anticipated. That was a double edge sword, though, because while I had nothing but time, I wasn't mentally in the best spot. I'd really looked forward to going back to work, so the delay wasn't exactly welcome. I tried to make the best of it, but April is a month that I, emotionally, hope to never return to.  Much like the blah state of my month, the actual books I read also left much to be desired. It was an interesting reading month in the sense that every book was lacking in some fundam...

My Year of Rest and Relaxation  by Ottessa Moshfegh Overview: The narrator is stuck in a period of stasis. She's suppressing the grief from her parents' close together deaths. She's afforded the luxury of not having to do anything by the inheritance they left behind, so when her job at the art gallery feels like a drag, she puts in little effort until she's fired. Her friend is so embroiled in her own problems that there's no one in the narrator's life to keep her in check, and finding a dubious psychiatrist who's willing to medicate her to near death opens up the possibility to unsubscribe from life for a while through pharmaceuticals that send her into deep sleep. The narrator secretly hopes, though, that by the end of the blackouts she will have found a sense of purpose, an idea of life's meaning in her reset black hole. Overall: 4  ReReview Notes: For the last few months, I've wanted to reread My Year of Rest and Relaxation . I owned a copy of th...