Eduardo Santiago
Intense; a helluva ride. At times impenetrable, then shifting eerily to what felt like vignettes from my own lived experience and sometimes even innermost thoughts. Mostly somewhere in between. Early on I started thinking of it—with apologies to Milan Kundera—as The Unbearable Heaviness of Being and it stuck, felt more and more appropriate as I kept reading, and I mention it not to discourage you but to prepare you: Shapland’s neuroses are weighty. I needed frequent breaks to digest or sometimes just breathe. (Maybe she’d find mine equally weighty. Let’s not find out.)
Five long essays, each with a central theme and many tangents. Toxins, pollution, environmental racism, health (Los Alamos figures prominently in this first chapter, a curious serendipity given my having read 109 East Palace immediately beforehand). Fear, racism, moving through the world as a woman. Consumerism. Self-awareness and mindfulness. And, most interesting to me, the cultural obsession with having babies. Yes, she goes there, explores it from all sorts of directions, bluntly and with some perspectives that were new to me—possibly because I’m male, although I think it might be that I am less tolerant of fools than she is.
Shapland impressed me at this year’s Santa Fe Literary Festival; her stage conversation showed great vulnerability and wisdom. Her writing reinforces my impression of her as a remarkable person, insightful and gifted. Even despite the incomprehensible parts (mostly cultural references I’m too old for) and despite her annoying fretting about the opinions of others (she’s young, I think and hope she’ll grow out of it), this is a phenomenal book that I’m going to be recommending loudly to my friends. Even those with (wonderful! amazing! and I mean it!) children.
Intense; a helluva ride. At times impenetrable, then shifting eerily to what felt like vignettes from my own lived experience and sometimes even innermost thoughts. Mostly somewhere in between. Early on I started thinking of it—with apologies to Milan Kundera—as The Unbearable Heaviness of Being and it stuck, felt more and more appropriate as I kept reading, and I mention it not to discourage you but to prepare you: Shapland’s neuroses are weighty. I needed frequent breaks to digest or sometimes just breathe. (Maybe she’d find mine equally weighty. Let’s not find out.)
Five long essays, each with a central theme and many tangents. Toxins, pollution, environmental racism, health (Los Alamos figures prominently in this first chapter, a curious serendipity given my having read 109 East Palace immediately beforehand). Fear, racism, moving through the world as a woman. Consumerism. Self-awareness and mindfulness. And, most interesting to me, the cultural obsession with having babies. Yes, she goes there, explores it from all sorts of directions, bluntly and with some perspectives that were new to me—possibly because I’m male, although I think it might be that I am less tolerant of fools than she is.
Shapland impressed me at this year’s Santa Fe Literary Festival; her stage conversation showed great vulnerability and wisdom. Her writing reinforces my impression of her as a remarkable person, insightful and gifted. Even despite the incomprehensible parts (mostly cultural references I’m too old for) and despite her annoying fretting about the opinions of others (she’s young, I think and hope she’ll grow out of it), this is a phenomenal book that I’m going to be recommending loudly to my friends. Even those with (wonderful! amazing! and I mean it!) children.