An Untamed State

How do you rate a book you couldn't put down but wish you'd never read? A five for prose, drama, emotional impact. A one for existing. It's one of the most devastating stories I've ever read. I feel ... undone and I can't recommend it. But giving a low rating to a story that will likely stay with me forever doesn't feel right.

My problem with this is that it's a work of fiction. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I wish it were a factual account. I mean, given the world we live in, it probably is some unfortunate soul's truth. It reads like a memoir and had it been one, I would have felt like I was bearing witness, like I had an obligation to respectfully listen to every horrific detail.

But it's fiction! Gay made up this story! And for the life of me, with so many real atrocities in the world, I can't understand why.

“To what degree does even the most reproving representation of sexual abuse participate in the visceral thrill and habituate us to such treatment?”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/an-untamed-state-by-roxane-gay/2014/05/27/0ebe0f7c-e28a-11e3-8dcc-d6b7fede081a_story.html

I read a few interviews to try to understand why someone would choose to write something like this. Gay says that she saw another side to the Haitian paradise she knew and wanted to explore that.
http://archive.jsonline.com/entertainment/books/talking-with-an-untamed-state-author-roxane-gay-b99275236z1-260459921.html

I just ... I don't even know. I'm beside myself. I think probably I shouldn't have read this book. Holy moley.

SUCH a powerful and complex look at rape and PTSD, but also at class and poverty and Haiti and all these complicated intersections. And such gorgeous prose.

I wanted to read this for awhile because duh, Roxane Gay, but I also put off reading it because I was worried about how heavy it would be. It's like... pretty heavy, but it's not quite the unending wall of bleakness I feared it might be. (Although it has its moments.)

Highly recommended (when the reader feels emotionally prepared).