What I Read In June
"Reading is about elsewhere, and about elsewhere coming back to you and illuminating your life in some way" - Anne Enright
Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia de la Cerda
Now, did I realize that the title of this novel was a play on the title of the film Reservoir Dogs when I picked it up in the oft-cited Primrose Hill Books?
I didn’t, and honestly probably never would if a dear friend didn’t look at me reading this book in the tiny Paros Airport and say “so, this is basically Reservoir Dogs for women?”
Dear reader, I was shocked. But also, I have never seen Reservoir Dogs and I hated this book (I wont keep you in suspense). So is the lack of knowing the source material the problem?
I don’t like disliking things, while I remember the time when snark reigned high in the discourse during the late aughts, and early teens. I read every piece with glee. However, now we live in a time where there is simply too much to loathe to go about finding additional things to dislike for the fun of it.
This is de la Cerda’s first book, and I commend her for writing it. There is a possibility I am simply not the target audience for this book, and therefore my opinion is moot.
Could be the case.
This book is a collection of short stories told from the first person POV of different women living in Mexico, as the stories go on we see how they are connected. My big complaint is that every character tells her story with the same level of posturing bravado that it feels impossible to pick the stories apart once the book it complete. All of the voices merge into one posturing, acerbic, violent mass.
That is except for the one story about a trans woman who works as a sex worker and is murdered. It goes without saying, hopefully, that transwomen experience a higher level of violence than ciswomen, and that’s certainly something to focus on. However, creating a character to only die tragically feels exploitative. Perhaps if there was more than one transwoman represented it would lessen the blow.
I finished this book on a plane from Athens to Istanbul. It was around 1am on June 1st, so that’s how it made it into this months round up. As I was traveling I tried to offload the book to lighten my suitcase.
Shockingly my friend wasn’t sold on my pitch of “I hated this book, want to see if you do too?”. I attempted to leave it in our hotel room but as we were checking out the very sweet (and overly attentive) housekeeper ran up to us holding the book. I did a whole pantomime of being very grateful, but inside was shaking my fist at the sky “foiled again!”
Finally I left it in with my (other) dear friend when I left her flat in London. I softened by pitch with “this wont fit in my suitcase, do you want to try it? I didn’t like it much.”
Which somehow worked! So now it’s starting it’s new life in London.
Don’t just take my word for it though, this book has been optioned by Amazon already (as the sticker on the cover tells me), so perhaps it will have a second life. If I happen to run into anyone curious about it, I’ll attempt to refrain from asking “I hated this book, want to see if you do too?”
The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry
I first heard of this book while doing the incredibly dangerous activity of wandering around a bookshop in Dublin (Hodges Figgis) with a brilliant Irish author (Anna Carey- Our Song out now!) as she tapped on various books letting me know if she knew the author and if the book was worth reading (yes, and yes to The Heart in Winter). My arms were leadened with books (including Notes to Self by Emilie Pine which I absolutely adored, but read before I started this project.)
I didn’t buy this book and then kicked myself when I figured out it was unavailable in the states. A rare experience for Americans is to have someone of another country attempt to write a book deeply reflective of your country. I feel this is a less unique experience with other countries, perhaps because Americans are the ones attempting to tell others stories. Imperialism is one hell of a drug.
I want to say that I loved this book, but I just couldn’t attach myself to it. I don’t know if that is my fault or Barry’s. One thing I simply couldn’t get past is the utter lack of quotation marks. I simply do not understand what is attempting to be accomplished by not allowing the reader to clearly understand who is speaking at any given moment. It meant I had to keep going back and reading over sections trying to figure out if that was an observation of the narrator or spoken by a character. It meant I could never relax into the story and let the words flow over me.
Which I’m sad about because old west ill-fated lovers on the run is so supremely my jam. The story is mostly about Irish and English immigrants finding each other in the old West, so not that much of America seemed to leak through.
The romance also never took off for me. I didn’t ever understand why they were so attracted to each other other than she was the only woman for miles, and he wasn’t her religious zealot of a husband. Which is a reason I guess? But after reading so many brilliant western romances, this just wasn’t enough to sustain me.
I hate AI with every fiber of my being, but were I forced to use it for something it would only be to add quotation marks to Irish Contemporary Literature.
I bought this book at Oblong Books in Rhinebeck, NY, it was high up on the shelf, and signed by the author. Which, frankly, I’m a sucker for.
Sometimes I buy a book and it sits high on a shelf for well, years. This one I knew I needed to read right away. I’m not sure why the urgency, I felt like I needed to inhale the story of a woman from an unnamed northern New England seaside town. Although, the descriptions of the terrain and rampant alcoholism made me very confident we were in Northern Maine. Following a woman who thinks she could be a mermaid (is a mermaid?).
I’m slightly embarrassed to admit, but feel it is relevant, that I’m currently working on my first novel, that would involved a little of this coastal magical realism. So this book felt as much research as anything else.
It mapped quite simply onto the myth of a mermaid, falling in love with a human man, who loves, but cannot actually be with her, for some reason. She pines, and pines and ultimately, tragedy.
This is a beautiful dream of a book, it reminded me of The Lighthouse, for no other reason than the whole thing felt like a dream that happens all at once.
The book remains on my bookshelf, waiting for its next reader.
Books Purchased This Month
(it was a very good month)
DNF’s This Month
None!
Though Duke of Sin by Elizabeth Hoyt is proving to be a bit of a slog.