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Couldn't sleep last night so I picked this up and it didn't help, though it also didn't hurt.
The book is quick, taking maybe only an hour or so to read, but it's a compulsive damn hour. About halfway through, I thought I'd set it down and try to sleep, but fifteen minutes later it was back in my hands. And a while after that I was finished, staring into the dark.
There's a sort of pleasant comfort to this book. It's like running into an old friend, which is a testament to how strong these characters are. It's been probably three years since I read Black Gum, but I was immediately back into it with no need to pick up Black Gum for a refresher. There's a certain amount of joy that comes from a book like this. Where you just pick it up and go. No need to get to know the characters, because the characters know one another and themselves, and so you fall right into their rhythm. It's a compulsive kind of thing, breathing in someone else's body for an hour.
It's also, I think, the most real depiction of how most people respond to current events. There's this notion, especially popularized now, I think, that everyone is always watching, always keeping up with the news of the day. But, in my experience, most people still treat the news the way they did in 2007. Which is to say, they engage with it when it immediately impacts their lives or when someone shoves an opinion at them. I think the idea that people are always on and connected to the intricacies of national debate are especially popular with writers and artists, probably because these specific types of people are more online than just about anyone else. So it's surprisingly pleasant to see a book set right now that addresses the national discourse but only obliquely and never with anything profound to say.
Someone will probably find this to be a deficiency in the book, or at least a weakness, a failing, but both A Minor Storm and Black Gum are so densely realistic that it's hard to imagine these people responding any other way. I think it would even break the characters if they went off in a pro or anti Trump monologue or dialogue. Because when you're living day to day, surviving paycheck to paycheck, your life may literally depend on matters discussed in the national debate (healthcare, for one thing), but you literally just might not have the mental and emotional capacity to work 16 hours a day and give a shit about what people think about transgender bathrooms or the president mocking handicapped people.
If there's one problem I have with this book is that it ends where it seems like it's about to lift off. And this may be because I've mostly been reading books that are 500+ pages this year, but where the novel ends is where most of those accelerate narratively.
Still, this isn't a bad thing. Not every book needs to tell the complete story of a life. And when I think of this and Black Gum, I think of a snapshot of a time and place, mentally and physically. What came before and what comes after might be really interesting, but it's not really what the book is about, or what Osborne's trying to say. This isn't a grand narrative to transform your life. It's a moment, even if that moment last months. But it's a moment inside these people. It's harrowing and weird and funny (I burst out laughing at 2am to something in here) and kind of disconcerting. Disconcerting because sometimes there is no deeper message to people's lives.
Sometimes life is just what happens to you, or what you choose to do.
But, yeah, I just really enjoyed this. Couldn't put it down.
The book is quick, taking maybe only an hour or so to read, but it's a compulsive damn hour. About halfway through, I thought I'd set it down and try to sleep, but fifteen minutes later it was back in my hands. And a while after that I was finished, staring into the dark.
There's a sort of pleasant comfort to this book. It's like running into an old friend, which is a testament to how strong these characters are. It's been probably three years since I read Black Gum, but I was immediately back into it with no need to pick up Black Gum for a refresher. There's a certain amount of joy that comes from a book like this. Where you just pick it up and go. No need to get to know the characters, because the characters know one another and themselves, and so you fall right into their rhythm. It's a compulsive kind of thing, breathing in someone else's body for an hour.
It's also, I think, the most real depiction of how most people respond to current events. There's this notion, especially popularized now, I think, that everyone is always watching, always keeping up with the news of the day. But, in my experience, most people still treat the news the way they did in 2007. Which is to say, they engage with it when it immediately impacts their lives or when someone shoves an opinion at them. I think the idea that people are always on and connected to the intricacies of national debate are especially popular with writers and artists, probably because these specific types of people are more online than just about anyone else. So it's surprisingly pleasant to see a book set right now that addresses the national discourse but only obliquely and never with anything profound to say.
Someone will probably find this to be a deficiency in the book, or at least a weakness, a failing, but both A Minor Storm and Black Gum are so densely realistic that it's hard to imagine these people responding any other way. I think it would even break the characters if they went off in a pro or anti Trump monologue or dialogue. Because when you're living day to day, surviving paycheck to paycheck, your life may literally depend on matters discussed in the national debate (healthcare, for one thing), but you literally just might not have the mental and emotional capacity to work 16 hours a day and give a shit about what people think about transgender bathrooms or the president mocking handicapped people.
If there's one problem I have with this book is that it ends where it seems like it's about to lift off. And this may be because I've mostly been reading books that are 500+ pages this year, but where the novel ends is where most of those accelerate narratively.
Still, this isn't a bad thing. Not every book needs to tell the complete story of a life. And when I think of this and Black Gum, I think of a snapshot of a time and place, mentally and physically. What came before and what comes after might be really interesting, but it's not really what the book is about, or what Osborne's trying to say. This isn't a grand narrative to transform your life. It's a moment, even if that moment last months. But it's a moment inside these people. It's harrowing and weird and funny (I burst out laughing at 2am to something in here) and kind of disconcerting. Disconcerting because sometimes there is no deeper message to people's lives.
Sometimes life is just what happens to you, or what you choose to do.
But, yeah, I just really enjoyed this. Couldn't put it down.