It's 2024 calling your friends and saying "I'm glad you're alive" is in!It's 2024 calling your friends and saying "I'm glad you're alive" is in!...more
A novel that feels like a Reddit post. An allegory for a repressive religious upbringing; focused too much on being an allegory than on creating a groA novel that feels like a Reddit post. An allegory for a repressive religious upbringing; focused too much on being an allegory than on creating a grounded world to believe in. A bit repetitive and tedious. Bad writing....more
One of those classics I'll revisit every few years and get completely floored by again and again. The language is colorful and evocative, the logic isOne of those classics I'll revisit every few years and get completely floored by again and again. The language is colorful and evocative, the logic is loose and magical, the birds, the rashes, the flowers, the seasons, the father shrinking and growing in presence and power....more
Kushner's characters are ideas as much as they are characters, which places them in this kind of rarefied space and tilts the world that they inhabit.Kushner's characters are ideas as much as they are characters, which places them in this kind of rarefied space and tilts the world that they inhabit. Whereas in the Flamethrowers Reno felt like a character lacking in agency and was letting the world flow around her, Romy is a character whose agency is limited by economic and social circumstances that she is pushing so hard against. So much so that she is placed within a circumstance that then seeks to further restrict her. That the women's prison not only confines women's bodies within a space, but that it is a place where the very idea of what a woman is is contested with the inclusion of Conan and Serenity Smith. I appreciate this because it isn't doe eyed "representation" but a reflection of real world violence. That Romy uses Smith's assault as an opportunity to escape felt like such a painful little symbol for white feminism.
Kushner isn't Stephen King when it comes to writing propulsive scenes, instead she lingers almost preemptively deflating our perverse desire for a kind of pornography of violence. A gore tease. Because the real horror lies behind all that dryness. She writes like Rachel Kushner and we need that....more
Read "Having 'Having a Coke with You' With You" and immediately burst into tears so...Read "Having 'Having a Coke with You' With You" and immediately burst into tears so......more
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