Review: The Heart Goes Last: Positron Episode Four (Margaret Atwood)

A confession: there are few people I adore blindly and turn into a crazed fangirl about. Margaret Atwood is one of those people.

That said... every author must write their share of "stage directions," the necessary dull bits, the "s/he saids," the do-ing. To reference this blog, they must get Raoul into the elevator. It's not fancy but Raoul must get in the elevator. This was Positron's stage directions.

Positron is Margaret Atwood's serialized novel published through byliner. [If you don't subscribe to byliner, you should. It's fantastic.] Atwood creates another dystopian world (think: a highly structured alternative to the world of her MaddAddam trilogy). Episodes 1-3 were tense and titillating(ep. 1), frustrated (2), and hopelessly bleak (3).  Episode 4 was simply necessary.

However, Atwood's prose is, as ever, unique, sharp, and wholly entertaining. Stage directions or no, I will read anything by a writer who describes two characters as “fornicating like weasels on a griddle.”

Review: Tell The Wolves I'm Home (Carol Rifka Brunt)

I was sucked in by the title and the cover. It’s graphic and lovely and weird and yes, I judged a book by its cover. But after I’d read the synopsis, Brunt’s novel already had three strikes against it:

1. The narrator is a teenage girl. I do not like teenage narrators mainly because I do not like teenagers. They are, with a few exceptions, petulant and uninteresting creatures.

2. It is nostalgically set in the 1980s, a time I feel is far too recent for nostalgia.

3. It’s about dying and grief and AIDS and I’m tired of the literature of dying.

True to my expectations, the novel was overall disappointing.

1. Teenage Narrator Problem... Brunt required far too much suspension of disbelief from the reader; no fourteen or sixteen girl is that selfless and magnanimous. Both the narrator and her sister displayed unrealistic levels of insight and compassion to their own and others’ circumstances. They were gawky Buddhas in teenage bodies and it made the text feel forced and unrealistic. If she had written the story from the perspective of a reflective adult narrator recalling a story, this would have worked.

2. Nostalgia for the 1980s... It wasn’t as bad as I had expected. If anything, it felt more distracting than anything else. It was contextually necessary to set the novel in the 1980s but references to 80s music and fashion drew the reader’s attention away from the seriousness of the situation and leant it a kitsch that was inappropriate.

3. Death and Dying... I was pleasantly surprised. This was the one area the narrator seemed to be a fully developed character. The stigma of AIDS in the 1980s was handled with compassion and respect and illustrated beautifully how far we’ve come (which, sadly, isn’t that far)  in our understanding of the disease and our treatment of people living with AIDS.

Despite all of this, I liked the novel. Truly. There was something about the narrator and her family that was authentic in that beautifully fucked-up way “healthy” families have. Everyone loves each other but they are all essentially and profoundly alone in struggling with their own problems. Brunt’s construction of the family dynamic was brilliantly subtle and that for me that raised the book from mediocre and disappointing to “surprisingly pretty good.”

Plus, the cover and the title. Really. Take a look, it’s lovely.

Review: The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope (Rhonda Riley)

Before I started this book, I did something I normally never do: I read the reviews. It’s not only that I want to form my own opinion of a book, it’s that I don’t care if “the masses” didn’t like it. “The masses” have terrible taste in literature (see Twilight, see 50 Shades of Grey, see the entire career of Danielle Steele). If the review is from someone whose tastes and discernments parallel my own, I pay attention. But otherwise... no. But I read the reviews for one specific purpose: I wanted to figure out to what gene The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope belongs.  Science fiction? Romance? Christian literature? A brief plot synopsis as explanation of my confusion: a genderless creature (A.) is pulled from the earth, turns into a woman (Addie), falls in love with the woman (Eve) who found her, turns into a man (Adam), and lives happily ever after (sort of). However, the reviews gave me no meaningful clue; it was called a sweeping romance, it was called paranormal, it was called “somewhat biblical.” It was all those things and none of them. What it was, was brilliant.

First, the basics. Rhonda Riley can write a damn good scene. Her prose is clear and clean, never feels forced, and her pacing are impeccable. Her characters are entirely believable and when one dies, the loss is felt in appropriate proportion to their importance in the story (a reader pet peeve of mine). Arguably the novel was overpopulated but it covered forty plus years. Overpopulation is to be expected. Riley has been criticized for never answering the novel's Big Question (namely, who/what is Adam?). I say: EXACTLY. That is why the book is  genius and transcends all genre labels. This book is about Truth. Not answers. Riley never explains who/what Adam is because it is not important. Riley’s novel is a reflection on the things we don’t and can’t know about the inner lives and true selves of anyone, despite our relationship with them. Hers is a novel of truth-telling and truth-knowing and the inability to know anyone (including oneself)  fully. It is about the necessary and unnecessary lies we tell ourselves and others. The book is about trust and loving someone. It is about creating a life and learning to accept an essential otherness about one's  partner. It is about the known and the unknown in families, histories, and communities and how we navigate around these truths.

The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope unfolds slowly, revealing a family’s truth, revealing a life that has been purposefully and intentionally created. It is deceptively brilliant, subtle, and dazzling and hums with necessary and startling honesty.
In the space between pleasantly surprised and completely blindsided, I found my reaction to Rhonda Riley’s first novel. But as for my original question: what genre is this? It is truth. Just truth. Nothing else. I anxiously await Ms. Riley’s next work.

A side note for anyone who (like me) makes it a point to avoid romance or Christian fiction: fear not. It’s not that kind of romance and it certainly isn’t Christian fiction.