THEN SHE WAS GONE BY LISA JEWELL

This book made me sick to my stomach.

I’m skipping my usual review introduction: Omg, I’m such a bad reader. I haven’t written a review in years. Blah blah blah.

No. I have to tell you about the physical reactions that flooded through my body with each and every page. Well, maybe not every page. Lisa Jewell’s 2017 novel, Then She Was Gone actually bored me at first. I found myself putting it down and finding excuses to read other books and do other tasks. Then it got good and everything that wasn’t Then She Was Gone was an inconvenience.

What do you mean you bought tickets to the sold-out Barbie movie that I’ve been dying to see? Don’t you know my book just got good?

Jokes aside, let’s talk about the plot. Without spoiling anything, the story centers around the disappearance of a glittering and popular teenage girl named Ellie. She’s blonde haired, well-mannered, and well-loved. She’s likable. Once Ellie vanishes, we stick close to her mother, Laurel, whose thoughts swirl around Ellie and nothing else…for years. She is a shell of her former self until she is awoken. Then things get even more mysterious and sinister and perplexing than I thought possible. Laurel turns into a detective while coming to terms with the neglect she’s shown to her other two children and husband over the years. Eventually, a few other characters’ voices come into play.

In writing this review, I’m realizing I can’t even tell you what made me want to heave without sharing spoilers. We’re gonna have to start a book club, y’all. But I will say that it wasn’t just blood and gore that had me heaving. It was the slow realizations of betrayal; the intimate kind. Everything was too close, too concentrated. A little nauseating microcosm in one London neighborhood.

It all felt real, too. I’ve heard bits of every part of this story in true crime documentaries and news articles. I hate it all. You should read it.

As this is the writer who reads blog, we should talk about the writing. I’m always in awe when a story is all over the place and still makes sense. How does that work, Lisa Jewell? How does that look in your head? We have multiple narrators who tell the story in various ways: present tense, past tense, letter writing, and some weirdly aggressive form of journal writing. I ate it up. It wasn’t just the plot that kept me turning the page, but the need to get back to my favorite character and/or out of a psychopath’s head.

Amidst all of that, Jewell gives us some great writing. I would call her writing style balanced. Easy to read, clear, and laced with some really beautiful lines. Like when Laurel has a moment of self-reflection:

She’s talking in lazy clichés, using words that don’t quite add up to the sum of her disquiet.

p136

Maybe I just really love the word disquiet. Or maybe I liked how Laurel always seemed to call herself out internally because I can relate. Speaking of Laurel’s mind, there’s this bit in chapter 23 after another character shares their feelings:

The pronouncement is both surprising and completely predictable. She can’t process it fast enough and there is a small but prominent silence.

p129

I love how succinct Jewell is here. In two short sentences she says so much about Laurel’s emotional state, her ideas about this character, and gives a peak into the aftermath. The silence will affect them both.

As I wrap up this review, I’m remembering a moment right before the book got can’t-put-it-down good. My partner’s sister saw my book on the counter and mentioned that she’d read it awhile ago. She said something liked, “I can’t really remember much about it but it was really good.” Now that I’ve finished and gone through six stages of nausea, I need to ask her how she’d managed to forget the plot.

This book will stay with me. I’ll probably have the occasional nightmare. If I have a teenage daughter, she may never be allowed outside alone. Or maybe not. Maybe I’ll forget on purpose.

At any rate, I thoroughly enjoyed this read and Lisa Jewell’s ability to stir a world’s worth of feelings within me in 356 pages.

Four and half stars.

THE WRITER UPDATE: FOR OCTOBER

Wow. It’s been over 5 years since I’ve written one of these updates!

My poem, “For October” was published in the July-August issue of The Gay & Lesbian Review and I just got my hands on a copy! This is the first poem I’ve ever had published and the first time I’m seeing my work in print. You can buy a print or digital copy here if you’re so inclined.

There’s nothing like finding out your creative work is being published. It’s exciting, affirming, and thrilling. It’s also always a little (read: very) terrifying for me. This time feels even more terrifying because I’m wading into a new genre: poetry.

My poetry writing started in college when I was really into intertwining religious themes from my Catholic upbringing with my queer identity. I left the church but kept the mysticism. Eventually, I moved onto love poems. I’m one of those mushy stereotypical love poets. Even worse, I really catch my stride in poetry when I’m teetering on romantic desperation and longing. Break my heart, don’t give me the attention I want? At least I’ve got some good writing content out of it.

I wrote “For October” in 2018, submitted it to The G&LR in the summer of 2022, and received word it would be published a year later. It’s been a long journey. The momentary love-madness captured in “For October” has gone. The woman who inspired it is gone. The veneration and self-sacrifice is gone. Still, I’m comforted that a significant moment in my past can live somewhere in its full intensity.

Until the next one.

x

TWWR Playlist | Pride and Prejudice

Nitehawk Cinema in Williamsburg had a special brunch screening of Pride and Prejudice (2005) back in February. I’m usually looking for any excuse to go to Nitehawk, mostly because I’m a sucker for a quality fried chicken sandwich, strong frozen drink, and an elevated theatre experience. But when I saw that one of my favorite movies was playing, I bought two tickets immediately.

I invited one of my girlfriends, ready to swoon over broody Mr. Darcy together while getting splendidly day drunk. She texted me that morning to let me know she couldn’t make it, apologizing for the last minute cancellation. I told her it was okay and turned over in bed with a sinister smile.

“What are you doing today?” I asked my partner, knowing they had no choice.

I’ve already gushed over Joe Wright’s Pride and Prejudice online, so I’ll rein myself in here.

However, it was amazing to watch the timeless adaption on the big screen for the first time. The soundtrack is perfect. The bucolic landscapes and beautiful homes are all captured gorgeously on film. The writing and acting are intoxicating. I could watch Elizabeth (Keira Knightley) and Darcy (Matthew Macfadyen) communicate through silent body language for hours. It was such a treat to enjoy, half-drunk and cuddled up with my partner who either genuinely enjoyed the film or lied to avoid the destruction of our relationship.

Anyway, I’m here with a gift.

Sometimes when I’m over music and podcasts, I’ll play an audiobook. Sometimes I’m indecisive and I want a music / audiobook combination. Thus, The Writer Who Reads Spotify was born.

The Pride and Prejudice playlist is first up. I’ve spliced Wendy Ellison Mullen’s reading of Jane Austen’s novel with Dario Marianelli and Jean-Yves Thibaudet’s breathtaking movie soundtrack. It yields a perfectly balanced listening experience. Give it a listen and let me know what you think!

Also, let’s be friends on Spotify! I’ll be adding more audiobook playlists, author playlists, and playlists that’ll help you write.

Socialize With Us:

Twitter @twwreads

Instagram @writerwhoreads

Spotify @thewriterwhoreads

Pinterest @thewriterwhoreads

Podcast Episode 19: Claude Mckay

In this episode, we discuss the life of author Claude McKay—a Jamaican-born activist and writer who was an important part of the Harlem Renaissance.


We examine a number of his poems as part of our “Nostalgia” theme, exploring subjects like grieving familial loss, romantic love, and the fight for racial equality in the United States and beyond.


Please join us as we try to read a little more, write a little better, and explore the human condition—together.

Readings: The Tropics in New York, December, 1919, Romance, If We Must Die

Resources:

Poetry Foundation

Biography.com

Libcom.org 

Grade Saver

Jamaican Information Service

African American Poetry

Socialize With Us:
Twitter @twwreads
Instagram @writerwhoreads

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Podcast Episode 18: Eudora Welty

In this episode, we journey into the lush and soulful musings of author Eudora Welty—a woman who used plain observation to confect rich and dynamic portraits of everyday life in the American south.


We examine one of her short stories as part of our “Nostalgia” theme, and carve into complex subjects like narrative reliability, the struggle for power within the family unit, and the universal need to be heard.


Please join us as we try to read a little more, write a little better, and explore the human condition—together.

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Podcast Episode 17: Food

In this episode, we talk about two of our favorite topics: food and southern culture.

Please join us as we try to read a little more, write a little better, and explore the human condition—together.

Listen and subscribe on Apple, Google, and Spotify.

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Lilith’s Brood By Octavia E Butler

This is my first review since August 2018.

 Do I even know how to write a book review anymore? Did I ever? 

I’m pretty sure my last review of a novel by Octavia E. Butler was mostly a love note anyway. It should be no surprise that this one will be the same. 

Before we teleport into another timeline to discuss the dystopian, soul-shuddering, mind-fuck that is Lilith’s Brood, I want to start on the last page of the novel. There’s a small box about the author that inspired some intense feelings for me: 

I’m in awe of the trail this woman has blazed, proud of her blackness and activism, sad that she is no longer physically on this earth, and determined to live and write in a way that’s at least as vaguely impactful as she has. If I remember my old book review format properly (I don’t), I’m supposed to save my rating for the end. The absolute reverence and adoration I feel for this author and this story outweighs my self-control: Five Stars. 

It wouldn’t be a Writer Who Reads review without me ashamedly revealing the excessive amount of time I took to read this novel. But I have excuses! On top of my super demanding job and somewhat social life, Butler’s Lilith’s Brood is a compilation of three separate stories: Dawn, Adulthood Rites, Imago. At 749 pages, it’s practically three books in one. 

See, great with excuses. 

The three volumes were published separately between 1987 – 1989  and ultimately collected in a now out-of-print volume called Xenogenesis. In 2000, the trilogy was similarly compiled into the Lilith’s Brood collection currently in print. 

Reading these “weird” titles, you must’ve guessed that this is a science fiction novel. Of course! It’s what Butler does and does spectacularly well. The cover of my copy, tattered and beaten, reads: Multiple Award-Winning Author of Kindred and Fledgling. 

Multiple Award-Winning. 

Okay, I’ll stop flexing for Ms. Butler. You get it. 

This novel was a journey. Like most dystopian novels, it’s uncomfortable. It’s tragedy and unimaginable circumstances happening to humans just like us. It’s a cautionary tale, an alert, a call out. This is what happens when humans fuck up. So stop fucking up. 

Where Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian story rooted in realism, Butler’s Lilith’s Brood is dystopian in unthinkably distressing, supernatural ways. 

I don’t mean supernatural as in magic powers or spirits. The most soul-shuddering thing about the supernaturality of Butler’s world is the plausibility. She truly injects the science in science fiction, conveys it so thoroughly and simply and logically that you’ll spend hours educating your friends about the anatomy of an alien species. Share it as fact. 

Holy hell, Butler. 

Once again I struggle to intrigue my audience with a thorough synopsis without including spoilers, but here we go. Broadly, the world ends due to war. We’ve heard this story before; we’ve almost lived it a few times. If it happens tomorrow we won’t be surprised. 

Perhaps that’s why the story starts after the war—after our worst fears finally come to be. Butler allows her reader to fill in most of those blanks, which in itself is a lesson. See how easily you can imagine the end of the world? Stop it with the wars. 

We start with Dawn and meet Lilith, my favorite character. She’s tall, black, beautiful. She’s guarded and responsible, cautious and open, independent but yielding. I want to call her mother or sister. She’s black femininity in all the ways I’d like to express it. If I knew her in real life, I’d be desperate for her approval. 

So Lilith wakes, disoriented, on an alien spaceship. She remembers the war, her family, her losses, but not how she got to the ship. At first she doesn’t even know if she’s really on a ship. Eventually, slowly, the aliens reveal themselves, their wants, their nature and values. 

That’s really all I can share without spoiling anything. 

Adulthood Rites follows a character named Akin, whose background I will not reveal. 

Imago follows Jodahs, a character I relate to in disturbingly specific ways. Queer ways.

Both Dawn and Adulthood Rites were written in third person; Imago in first person. I speculate that this was done intentionally. Perhaps Butler needed the freedom that the third person perspective allows in the first two stories to flesh out the new world being created. Perhaps our first-person character Jodahs’ transformation called for a more intimate perspective. Or maybe Butler was just tired of writing in the third-person.

While we’re talking about writing, let’s dive into a few of the things that made my mouth water while reading. Normally I mark up my books with tons of hearts to indicate exceptionally written lines. However I always seemed to be moving while reading this: on a subway in NYC, a plane to New Orleans, a rooftop pool in New Orleans where a woman screamed, “You’re reading Lilith’s Brood! I love you!” Or a plane to London, a cafe in London. Yes, it has been a journey. A journey without a pen. 

I’m unable to identify one thing I love most about Butler’s writing, but I’ll focus on the graceful balance of it all. Butler never over-writes or rushes to cram everything in at once. The story unfolds, compounds, builds into a rich world that we fully understand because she’s not using big complex words or explanations. See this simplistic explanation of Lilith’s fear as she comes into contact with something otherworldly: 

“She did not want to be any closer to him. She had not known what held her back before. Now she was certain it was his alienness, his difference, his literal unearthliness.” 

Lilith’s Brood, p13

Other things Butler does well: juggles a ton of characters, building them through action and always keeping the story moving. Nothing is superfluous. No character is poorly thought out. Each has their own distinct voice. And the dialogue! I have to talk about the dialogue. 

The story is tense, of course. Butler expresses this tension, vulnerability, rage, sadness, conflict, recalibration, and more through her dialogue alone. Characters say things and we understand the weight and true meaning without being told. As seen in Adulthood Rites:

“Give him to me,” Galt said. “I’ll make him talk.”

“He’ll talk when he gets ready,” Iriarte said. “Hell, I had seven kids before the war. They’d talk all the time until you wanted them to.”

“Listen, I’m not talking about baby talk!”

“I know. I believe you. Why does it bother you so?”

Lilith’s Brood, p341

There are barely any dialogue tags or text outside of the dialogue here, but clear emotion, tension, and significant characterization. 

Okay, I’ve been patient. Can we talk about sex now? 

When I mentioned talking to my friends about alien anatomy, you had to know I meant sex. I meant that I needed to talk to someone—in this example, my podcast co-host, Trapper—about alien sex. 

And, honestly, all I did was confuse him and myself. I look forward to confusing you as well, as I try to explain how and why I’m enraptured with the way Butler expresses something that is pleasurable, sexual in nature, but maybe not always sex? 

I don’t know! I don’t know! I love it. 

Avoiding spoilers, please read and appreciate this short and breathtaking interaction between nameless individuals: 

Now their delight in one another ignited and burned. They moved together, sustaining an impossible intensity, both of them tireless, perfectly matched, ablaze in sensation, lost in one another. They seemed to rush upward. A long time later, they seemed to drift down slowly, gradually, savouring a few more moments wholly together. 

Lilith’s Brood, p162

And this excerpt from Imago:

“… the rhythm of her heartbeat, the rush of her blood, the texture of her flesh, the easy, right, life-sustaining working of her organs, her cells, the smallest organelles within her cells—all this was a vast, infinitely absorbing complexity.”

Lilith’s Brood, p678

The intimacy Butler explains in numerous skillful ways is not sex as we understand it, but it is pleasure. She used that word a lot: pleasure. It is elegant and transcending, attentive. I love how she writes these scenes. I love it and I don’t understand it fully. I don’t think I want to. How tantalizing. How grossly romantic. 

As this review comes to an end, I feel compelled to speculate on the overall theme. Butler built a whole species, an entire reality and potential future. 

Why did she do it? 

There’s something referred to as the Human Contradiction in the novel, which is the unspoken but thoroughly felt tension between impressive human intelligence and the innate deceit, jealousy, and deception that we cannot seem to shake. 

If Butler simply wanted to point that out, she succeeded. Although I go back and forth on whether she’s making a helpless observation or calling on the human species to change, to improve. 

In the end, I’m glad to say that I have a lot more Octavia E. Butler fiction to read. Butler seems to honor her connection with the story and the reader above any rules, natural or otherwise. It’s this attention to detail, this obvious passion, that has fully pleased me. 

Again, Five Stars. 

Podcast 009.2: Victor Séjour

In this episode, we take an inquisitive peek into the multilayered work of Creole playwright Victor Sejour—a dramatist who wielded satire like a weapon against 19th-century social prejudices and used real life tragedy to instigate audience introspection.
We analyze one of his plays as part of our Morality theme, and tear into meaty issues like codified racism, the many facets of motherhood and self-identification.
Please join us as we try to read a little more, write a little better, and explore the human condition—together!

Listen on ITunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, or right here on the blog. Comments and ratings are appreciated on all platforms!

Reading:

The Fortune Teller

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Podcast 009.1: Edward Prime-Stevenson

 

In this episode, we explore the little-known yet masterfully crafted work of author Edward Prime-Stevenson—a man who faced persecution with bravado and used his talent to strip away social stigmas.

We analyze one of his novels as part of our “Morality” theme, and dig into compelling subjects like the historical/contemporary implications of gayness, unconventional romance and the importance of self-expression.

Please join us as we try to read a little more, write a little better, and explore the human condition—together.

Listen on ITunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, or right here on the blog. Comments and ratings are appreciated on all platforms!

Reading: Imre, a memorandum

Resources:

Left to Themselves: The Subversive Boys Books of Edward Prime-Stevenson

Homosexual Identity, Translation, and Prime-Stevenson’s Imre and The Intersexes

Biography Stevenson, Edward Irenaeus Prime

Manipulating a Genre, “Boy Book”

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The Handmaid’s Tale By Margaret Atwood

We need to talk about The Handmaid’s Tale.

 

My professor in undergrad recommended this book to me. In my memory, she put down my 40-page manuscript, bleeding red with her notes, and sighed.

“Something very basic is off—your dialogue is wrong. Your tenses shift,” she said.  Then she told me to read Margaret Atwood. I bought The Handmaid’s Tale and ate it in days, so quickly I didn’t absorb what I needed. The story was just too good; I needed to get to the end.

Five years passed.

The Netflix show came out.

I hadn’t finished my manuscript.

It became clear that if I were ever going to write my novel or watch The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu, I’d have to really read this book. And write a review.

All of the buzz I’ve heard surrounding the television show always involves the story-line. And why wouldn’t it? A shockingly well-formulated dystopian society that addresses troubling misogynistic realities within our own present-day society is enthralling to look into. To “what-if” until you convince yourself that it could happen tomorrow. To highlight, even further, the injustices we live with today. We like to watch train-wrecks, collapse and catastrophe—even more when they seem to be speeding towards us. Thanks, Margaret.

This is a great time to note that The Handmaid’s Tale was written in the 1980s.

But before we get into the plot, I have to touch on Atwood’s writing. I mentioned, briefly, in embarrassment, the comment my professor made on my tenses issue. It’s easy for me to slip in and out of tenses—a curse, actually. Lets call it a talent, which also happens to be a flaw. In this novel, Atwood manages to seamlessly slip between past and present—when society was normal and then when everything was changed.

How.

How does the story move so fluidly? One second our urgent need to know what exactly “The Ceremony” entails is undercut by a quick immersive flashback…then flows back to the present.

Formatting helps. And the novel reads vaguely stream-of-consciousness. Stay with me now, I’ll explain:

Offred, our protagonist, bounces around her story, sometimes shying away from especially painful flashbacks. Other times, she has no choice but to face them when something in the dystopian present reminds her of the past. It explains the flow and makes her human. It reaffirms that we, as readers, exist in her sometimes delicate, often distracted human mind.

But this isn’t a present tense with blind corners. She’s retrospective in a way that’s impossible in a true progressive present tense. It would be a journal, I think, but she’s not allowed to read and write. So it’s her own way of recounting her experiences as they happened.

Another note on Margaret Atwood’s writing: It’s Poetic. I found this in every line I underlined and, occasionally, in interesting formatting that read more like poetry than prose.

This is true of Atwood’s writing style, in general. I’m no Atwood expert or well-read fan (yet). But I did listen to A. M. Homes read Atwood’s darkly poetic (and oddly funny) short story Stone Mattress on The New Yorker’s podcast. And, stumbling through Foyles Bookstore today in London (Did I mention I’m in London? I’m in London.) I came across a collection of Atwood’s poetry. I didn’t know she wrote poetry. It all makes sense now.

In The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood’s writing is poetic as she…

Plays with words [P.212]:

“Soothing to the eye, the eyes, the Eyes, for that’s who this show is for.”

Questions motives [P.155]:

“As a request it was opaque.”

Makes the intangible, tangible [P.126]:

“Envy radiates from them, I can smell it, faint wisps of acid, mingled with their perfume.”

 

Poetic.

One final note on Atwood’s writing deals with dialogue. In the past tense, the dialogue isn’t punctuated. I like this. I envy this skill of writers—to write clear dialogue without huge punctuation screaming, “someone is talking now” is a talent. Not overly difficult to do, but pleasant and easy to appreciate.

Lets proceed to the plot.

Take a momentary reading break to imagine me staring at a wall for five minutes asking myself how I can sum this up.

The Handmaid’s Tale is something all women carry in the back of our heads when we think of the past, the present, and the future. It’s a cautionary tale backed by indirect historical elements. It’s the story of what happens when everything goes wrong for women all at once.

Basic freedoms, body autonomy, and individuality are replaced with a hideously patriarchal society where tyrannical laws, backed by scripture, create an unrealistically conservative society. The story takes place a few years after the government takeover, so the old freedoms are still fresh in everyone’s minds. Rebels are still fighting the new government—spies and violence and paranoia abound.

It makes sense that Margaret Atwood wrote this in and around West Germany in the early 80s.

Things aren’t great for all of the men, but they aren’t as bad as they are for women. Sounds familiar to me, a black woman. Hi.

I don’t have much else to say about the plot. It’s dystopian and original, relevant and personal. I want to write stories like this, where the category/genre list looks hectic: Fiction, Political, Feminist, Fantasy. Where believable, factually dense worlds are created with scraps of ours. I want to suck in readers, take them far away, and spit them out… only to realize that they’d barely gone anywhere.

These are some of the things Margaret Atwood does well.

Five Stars.