Garrett

Book Club 2016

To me, The Girls was pretty much Cutis Sittenfeld's Prep (the only book I have ever thrown away), just with better prose. It's a fair exploration into the psyche of a teenage girl, but Cline does so much to protect her main character that there are no stakes: any sense of drama around Evie is empty. She can leave the ranch at any time so there are ultimately no stakes to her being there past the exploration of her teenage ennui. Even the framing device of her older self looking back on her near-miss with this Manson-esque cult is so devoid of point of view and can be summed up, basically, by, “oops oh well?” Again, don't get me wrong, Emma Cline can WRITE – she just doesn't have much to say.

Favorite Excerpt:

Daisy Foster, standing now to sing a hymn, turns her head and smiles at him. He nots back and opens the hymnal. ”A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.” The words, the sound of the few people singing, make him both hopeful and deeply sad. ”You can learn to love someone,” he had told Denise, when she'd come to him in the back of the store that spring day. Now as he places the hymnal back in the holder in front of him, sits once more on the small pew, he thinks of the last time he saw her. They had come north to visit Jerry's parents, and they stopped by the house with the baby, Paul. What Henry remembers is this: Jerry saying something sarcastic about Denise falling asleep each night on the cough, sometimes staying there the whole night through. Denise turning away, looking out over the bay, her shoulders slumped, her small breasts just slightly pushing out against her thing turtleneck sweater, but she had a belly, as though a basketball had been cut in half and she'd swallowed it. No longer the girl she had been—no girl stayed a girl— but a mother, tired, her round cheeks had deflated as her belly had expanded, so that already there was a look of gravity of life weighing her down. It was at that point Jerry said sharply, “Denise, stand up straight. Put your shoulders back.” He looked at Henry, shaking his head. ”How many times to I keep telling her that?”
“Have some chowder,” Henry said. ”Olive made it last night.” But they had to get going, and when they left, he said nothing about their visit, and neither did Olive, surprisingly. He would not have thought Jerry would grow into that sort of man, large, clean-looking—thanks to the ministrations of Denise—not even so much fat anymore, just a big man earning a big salary, speaking to his wife in a way Olive had sometimes spoken to Henry. He did not see her again, although she must have been in the region. In her birthday notes, she reported the death of her mother, a few years later, her father. Of course she would have driven north togo to the funerals. Did she think of him? Did she and Jerry stop and visit the grave of Henry Thibodeau?
“You're looking fresh as a daisy,” he tells Daisy Foster in the parking lot outside the church. It is their joke; he has said it to her for years.
“How's Olive?” Daisy's blue eyes are still large and lovely, her smile ever present.
“Olive's fine. Home keeping the fires burning. And what's new with you?”
“I have a beau.” She says this quietly, putting a hand to her mouth.
“Do you? Daisy that's wonderful.”
“Sells insurance in Heathwick during the day, and takes me dancing on Friday nights.”
“Oh, that's wonderful,” Henry says again. ”You'll have to bring him around for supper.”
“Why do you need everyone married?” Christopher has said to him angrily, when Henry has asked about his son's life. ”Why can't you just leave people alone.”

He doesn't want people alone.

Book Club 2016

I gave this book 5 out of 5 stars, but there's way more to that rating. I both loved and loathed this book; I think it's perfect as it is but also think it could easily be 200 pages shorter and that some of its more disturbing elements (it's BRUTAL) reach a point of diminishing returns and strain credulity, but at the same time I wonder if it would still be as impactful without those things. There's a lot to think about in the depictions of race (or strange lack thereof?) and in the blithe privilege of literally every character. Like I said, it's not perfect, but also it kind of is?

I was leant this book by my wonderful, brilliant friend Lauren (whose only real shortcoming is that she has spent almost three years refusing to read The Amazing Adventures Of Kavelier & Clay) after a break-up. It's smart, insightful, and loaded with all sorts of “oh duh! I do that!” moments. It is the fictional recounting of a relationship, from start to finish, as looked at through a philosopher's eyes. When friends have relationship woes, I usually pick them up a copy. Used to loan mine out, but someone decided to write in it (!), so I don't do that anymore.

Bottom line: a must read for anyone who has ever been in love, like, or had just a little crush. Yes, that was a Jennifer Paige reference.