"Why am I trapped in the belief that writing about motherhood is shameful when I know that creating life where once there was none, creating flesh whe"Why am I trapped in the belief that writing about motherhood is shameful when I know that creating life where once there was none, creating flesh where once there was no flesh, is one of the most radical and outrageous things a person can do?"
This fragmented, part auto-fiction, part poetry, part ode to artists gets so much right about motherhood, artistry, capitalism, and the daily monotony of all of the above. Postpartum stages are hazy and overwhelming all at once, you're often trying to find your way back to yourself while trying to keep a human alive. Add in being an artist of some kind through all this...it's a hard mode to sustain. Ravn captures it perfectly, without suggesting this experience of motherhood is monolithic....more
Yeah, so I don't know why I keep trying Personal Growth books expecting something that's going to help me change my life, but here we are. The acknowlYeah, so I don't know why I keep trying Personal Growth books expecting something that's going to help me change my life, but here we are. The acknowledgments for Enchantment suggest Katherine May struggled to write it, and while as a writer, it's sometimes necessary to push through those struggles of a book that fights to come together, sometimes the uphill battle is a sign that there isn't really a book to grow where you're trying to plant it.
We are in an anxious age, and awakening wonder amidst *gestures at everything* feels impossible for many of us. May's solution points to the typical "slow down, ditch your phone, notice and learn and become intimate with nature" mantra, which feels a bit obvious, and much of the book details her personal forays into new experiences like re-learning to swim and beekeeping. Absent are the privileges and circumstances one must often have to achieve these things, which begs the question: do we really need a(nother) self improvement book by a wealthy white lady who lives by the sea?!
The COVID pandemic is referenced often, and I long ago decided I'm pretty done with pandemic perspectives from people who had the ability to stay home and protect themselves. Where are the stories from frontline workers and the examination of a lack of wonder in their lives under the crushing thumb of capitalism? I want to know how a grocery clerk working 12-hour masked shifts with an angry general public can calm their anxieties. Beyond that, how does one slow down when they live in poverty, when they're disabled, when they're a caregiver (May is a parent, so there was a little bit of discussion there), when they're stuck in the never-ending grind with no help in sight? Perhaps this isn't a fair critique, as May is British and many systemic oppressions related to these things are distinctly American. But I do think this book could have benefitted from the author looking to outward research and perspectives, instead of so much autobiographical writing....more
In an effort to resist the instant gratification economy, I waited the three months for my turn to get this from the library, and truly, I ca4.5 stars
In an effort to resist the instant gratification economy, I waited the three months for my turn to get this from the library, and truly, I cannot remember the last time I finished a book in under 24 hours. Or stayed up late and got up early to read it.
Yellowface is such a masterclass in so many things - the unlikeable narrator, the commentary novel, the ultimate "white women gonna white women" story, critiques of online culture. It is both stressful and entertaining and extremely readable. June Heyward felt so real as a character to me, because white people have done stuff like this time and time again in the lit world (primarily I kept thinking of Michael Derrick Hudson's adoption of a Chinese name when his poem was chosen for Best American Poetry, as well as the controversy around American Dirt being an immigrant story written by a white, non-immigrant woman), and continue to do it now. The real-life scandals are often so wild and tend to involve people who consider themselves liberals, and Kuang captured that sort of benevolent racism well, without overdoing June's characterization.
On that note, it's worth noting that things aren't so black and white through the book. In stealing her dead friend's work and passing it off as her own (and publishing about Chinese labor workers under a name that suggests she is not white), June did a terrible thing. But as the curtain is pulled back on her Twitter DMs, one has to admit that she doesn't deserve death threats for it. The map of a Twitter take-down, when laid out this way, seems ridiculous, even though many of us have participated in these public outcries (I'm guessing Kuang wrote this before BookTok exploded, but it would have been interesting to have that angle included, as well). Also, Athena, while portrayed as the victim of June's theft, is unveiled to have her own biases, a reminder that it isn't just white people who can have internalized racism.
Now having read it, I'm totally clued in to why so many readers don't vibe with this book. It packs a very nuanced discourse on the ins and outs of the publishing industry, writing and content creating, and internet/cancel culture, and while I found all that very readable and entertaining and thought-provoking, I don't know if that experience would easily extend to someone who isn't immersed in the book industry, bookselling, the lonely writer's life, Twitter trends, etc. I check all those boxes, lol, so Yellowface very much feels like it was written "for me". Also, this was my first Kuang! So I'm off to read her other novels....more
Wildly interesting concept for a novel, a girl's life growing up and becoming a writer told through the books she discovers and is introduced3.5 stars
Wildly interesting concept for a novel, a girl's life growing up and becoming a writer told through the books she discovers and is introduced to along the way. A novel/memoir of reading. I found a lot of this extremely relatable, the ways in which women are raised and educated to read mostly old/dead white men and especially discouraged from reading women like Plath and Sexton. And it's satisfying to witness this narrator's journey away from the old white dues and towards more women writers....and how all of it, good and bad, fuels her own genius. Her creativity is driven by what she has access to, room of one's own or not, and while some passages were more engaging than others, I liked the premise enough to keep going. Really want to read Pond even more now.
I do feel misled by the title, though, I wanted more stories from the checkout!...more
It's been really interesting to see the outside-the-box ways writers have taken on the memoir/essay (memoir-essay? essay/memoir?) genre. The way storiIt's been really interesting to see the outside-the-box ways writers have taken on the memoir/essay (memoir-essay? essay/memoir?) genre. The way stories don't have to be linear, the way essays can vary in length and style, the way a collection can cover a small time period of the writer's life, instead of being so comprehensive. Elissa Washuta has done just that with White Magic, a collection of essays anchored by a romantic breakup but that branches out into her addiction, health (mis)diagnoses, the occult, and her relationship to pop culture, often pop culture that whitewashes Native traditions.
I love that Washuta and Tin House gave this book the space to be long (400+ pages) and winding and messy. Because there are so many subjects at play, you don't get a deep dive on any of them, which I found refreshing. An essay on Washuta's experience playing The Oregon Trail 2 in relation to her own Native ancestry was powerful, but it struck me that she was just relaying her experience rather than offering some larger socio-political commentary on the problematic nature of the game. Many events, like her relationships with men, read as though she's writing them in order to process them, not to reveal some grander message. It makes sense, as the events of the book take place in the very recent past, and it gives the whole project an immediate feel, like you as a reader aren't here to necessarily learn anything, but to take in these collisions of topics in an artful way and think on them and perhaps continue thinking without ever reaching any conclusion.
As mentioned, the anchor or event that jump-started the writing of the book was Washuta trying to get over a breakup, but structurally, there's no solid arc that pinpoints an epiphany or point of moving past any conflicts. Washuta even brings this up, and I so appreciated that inclusion, as I think Western publishing is still somewhat tied to traditional linear storytelling that includes a set climax amongst rising and falling action. Washuta plays with time a lot, especially in an essay involving Twin Peaks, a show that also fucks with time. She notices a synchronicity of events in her relationship happening almost on the same day each year and structures the piece that way so you're constantly going back and forth in time and revisiting the Log Lady along the way. This book will have you questioning why so many stories are told in a linear fashion and perhaps how we're being harmed or held back from healing by trying to fit our life's stories into that sort of mold.
The pop culture elements seem more prominent than any extensive discussion on Native life, which I think surprises some people, but to me it's an example of a writer not feeling the need to write sooooo much to their identity. Maybe Washuta is as deeply affected by Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham's fraught relationship as she is by the cheapening and appropriation of Native spiritual tools and customs. Writers from the margins have sooooo much to say beyond the trauma of their oppression, and this book really feels like a collection of what was moving and driving the writer most at the time. Again, authenticity can be hard to come by in publishing, but White Magic really feels like a collection told in the shape and voice the author envisioned....more
I finished this a while ago and have been sitting on what to write about it, but if there's one takeaway here, it's that every writing instructor in AI finished this a while ago and have been sitting on what to write about it, but if there's one takeaway here, it's that every writing instructor in America should be using and teaching this book in their classes.
I stopped reading books on writing years ago, for reasons that have become clearer to me over time. They're almost exclusively written by white writers, many of them men. Men who insist on not just writing every day, but writing for uninterrupted hours and hitting certain word counts if you want to be a successful writer. What maybe should have been obvious to me all along was that most of us lacking the privilege these writers have can't sit down and write for eight hours a day, whether because we have day jobs, are parents or caregivers, have the weight of household management on our shoulders, etc. I realized these books weren't written for me per se, but more likely, for dudes with consistent or no jobs who had partners caring for their home and family so they could write worry-free all day. The lack of inclusiveness was a turn-off, to put it mildly.
Enter Matthew Salesses and his brilliant book on craft and workshop that has been needed for far too long. I hear a lot of people say this book blew their minds and opened them to new ideas about writing and workshopping. I can't say it did that for me. Rather, it clarified feelings I've had and have been sort of messily articulating since. Craft in the Real World is for both readers and writers. I come to it as both - the reader who has always preferred less linear narratives, the POC writer in a workshop full of white people who's had a story torn to shreds because they don't understand anything outside patriarchal, Hemmingway-esque, traditionally American standards of storytelling. I saw myself in so much of this book and am so grateful to Salesses for making these points so eloquently and accessibly.
Recommended to readers and writers. This isn't another book on craft that's going to tell you how to write, but it'll open your mind to ways of storytelling that are just as good as the traditional American (white, male) mold we're taught is the end-all-be-all....more
Spoiler-free review. I wanted to like this more than I did. I came to it based on so many readers saying how dark and weird it was....and it is those Spoiler-free review. I wanted to like this more than I did. I came to it based on so many readers saying how dark and weird it was....and it is those things. I think that because of how much weird-ish stuff I already read, this ultimately didn't strike me as all that out there by comparison. I like that it's grotesque and centers female characters, and that it critiques academia, and writing programs specifically, in a darkly funny way. Awad's wit shines in these critiques, without being pretentious, though that wit disappears after the start of the book. I like the whole goth-Mean-Girls-fairy-tale vibe, but it's not an entirely straightforward story. I acknowledge that I didn't always fully understand what was going on....perhaps what was real and what wasn't, due to the state of the narrator's mental health. Or just how meta this is meant to be. And I didn't expect that ambiguity, which is....good? Bad? I don't know?! Overall, it's an enjoyable book, one that most readers looking for something off the beaten path will love. I just went in with higher expectations and it fell a little short....more
Very mixed feelings about this one. There was a lot I liked - it being a novel, that reads more like a collage of philosophical musings than a traditiVery mixed feelings about this one. There was a lot I liked - it being a novel, that reads more like a collage of philosophical musings than a traditionally structured story. That can be extremely my jam, if executed well. My hangup is that I don't feel this is executed well? The shell of a premise (a woman's longtime friend dies by suicide and she is left to care for his dog) is too obviously just a vehicle for said meditations on grief, death, platonic love, (view spoiler)[(also extremely my jam, but I was disappointed that this friendship didn't always strictly stay in "friend" territory) (hide spoiler)] and human-dog companionship. Furthermore, the male friend who dies by suicide reminds me too much of a Phillip Roth character - really likes and at times preys on much younger women - which, ugh. I mean, I love and have loved Roth's writing, but a character like this doesn't feel particularly fresh or interesting in today's literary world.
I don't want this to sound mostly negative. The writing and philosophy make this a good, quick read, if you can get past it feeling too much like an MFA exercise. ...more
If there is a list of "Books Every White American Should Read," this should be on it. There is a lot of nuance that's absent from the mainstream immigIf there is a list of "Books Every White American Should Read," this should be on it. There is a lot of nuance that's absent from the mainstream immigration conversation, and an anthology like this highlights that, in these essays on wide-ranging immigrant experiences. It should be common sense that a Mexican immigrant doesn't face the same challenges or treatment as, say, an Indian immigrant, and that comes through very clearly in these writers' stories. I also appreciate many of these essays speaking to the first-gen experience, as that is also a very specific group of people that deals with very specific identity challenges and isolation.
Many writers I love are in this book, and it's honestly a little heartwarming reading not only their stories of struggle, but their stories of success as creatives, despite the deck being stacked against them....more
I mean, the fact that this was first published almost a century ago and so much of it still rings true is....much sad, very sigh. As someone who writeI mean, the fact that this was first published almost a century ago and so much of it still rings true is....much sad, very sigh. As someone who writes for no money, in no office, in the pockets of time and space I find in between the other jobs I'm doing, I feel deeply the idea that women still don't have the same intellectual freedoms as men. Sure, many women do and have persisted through domestic work and other employment, writing brilliant books. But for every one of those, there seem to be a hundred male writers dishing out advice for success and completely neglecting to mention all the housework and childcare and typing/editing their wives did for them so that they could achieve that rich writing lifestyle.
Anyway, what I mean to say is, I would like an office from which I can write and send out and sell work. Sell. For money. Also money for books and nail polish. That is all....more
I put off reading this longer than I should. I loved Chee's essays as much as I expected to. I read a lot of gay male writers (or probably more than tI put off reading this longer than I should. I loved Chee's essays as much as I expected to. I read a lot of gay male writers (or probably more than the average straight woman, anyway), and reading about his time as an AIDS activist made me realize I don't read very many from that older generation, who lived through the epidemic and lost so many of their peers and loved ones. It's interesting, and maybe refreshing also, that Chee doesn't give much space to a coming out/coming of age story. Those stories are important and needed, but it shouldn't be a requirement for queer writers to get published, and this collection, imo, shows what else that space can be given to when people don't have to constantly explain their sexuality. I appreciated the writing on writing....I don't generally take writing advice or commentary, but I tend to enjoy reading it and agreeing to disagree, especially when it comes from a non-white writer....more
I've never been a big YA reader, even when I was a YA. :p But so much yes to brown girl stories for kids, yes to memoirs in verse, and yes (most imporI've never been a big YA reader, even when I was a YA. :p But so much yes to brown girl stories for kids, yes to memoirs in verse, and yes (most importantly?) to stories about having a foot/hand/whatever in multiple worlds and that struggle to feel like you belong somewhere. In Jacqueline Woodson's case, it's growing up in the north and the south in the 1960s, being black, being a Jehovah's Witness, being a writer who reads below her age level as a kid. There's being perceived as "other," and then there's feeling like you're an unidentifiable "other," and in addition to the insight into the race inequalities of the 60s, Woodson's story does carry that inspirational vibe, suggesting people overcome that societal need to categorize themselves, that they can claim what appear to be conflicting identities and cherish their multifaceted experiences....more
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