Skip to main content

Jami Attenberg: "All This Could Be Yours"

If you're reading Jami Attenberg's "All This Could Be Yours," let's chat! If you haven't started yet, skip this piece (and buy the book).

*This seems to be a story about living with Donald Trump. Attenberg doesn't spell that out, but she gives us a patriarch who is a bad man. A patriarch who abuses powerless people. And she asks: How do you live with such a man?

*This novel is interested in gender. Sometimes, a man is neither bad nor good. In one of my favorite scenes, a woman fields a call. It's her young daughter. The daughter is complaining about Daddy. (Daddy and Mommy are divorced.) "Mommy, when Daddy took me to the mall, he ran into a lady and lied about his girlfriend. Which says that he has actually more than one girlfriend. So am I--also--meant to lie on his behalf?"

Why should women and girls have to field these questions? Mommy sighs. "Your dad isn't a bad man," she says. She pauses. "But he isn't a *good* man, that's for sure." And that's life.

*You get the sense Attenberg is always taking notes. So many brilliant scenes. A monster screams at his children for failing to mourn with proper tact. "Your grandma was eighty-two. She led a good life. YOU DON'T CRY OVER THAT!" (Especially chilling: The monster's wife is grateful for this speech.) A woman, coming unhinged, selects hundreds of dollars of teeth-whitening material in a CVS--she's shopping in her bikini--and she waits until the clerk has scanned everything before admitting she doesn't have any money. Elsewhere, native New Orleans residents view new neighbors with skepticism: "Did you move here to be a saint after Katrina?"

So many ideas, so much life, in this book. I'm halfway through. Are you liking it? Do you feel for these people?
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to Host a Baby

-You have assumed responsibility for a mewling, puking ball of life, a yellow-lab pup. He will spit his half-digested kibble all over your shoes, all over your hard-cover edition of Jennifer Haigh's novel  Faith . He will eat your tables, your chairs, your "I {Heart] Montessori" magnet, placed too low on the fridge. When you try to watch Bette Davis in  Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte , on your TV, your dog will bark through the murder-prologue, for no apparent reason. He will whimper through Lena Dunham's  Girls , such that you have to rewind several times to catch every nuance of Andrew Rannells's ad-libbing--and, still, you'll have a nagging suspicion you've missed something. Your dog will poop on the kitchen floor, in the hallway, between the tiny bars of his crate. He'll announce his wakefulness at 5 AM, 2 AM, or while you and another human are mid-coitus. All this, and you get outside, and it's: "Don't let him pee on my tulips!" When...
3 comments
Read more

The Death of Bergoglio

  It's frustrating for me to hear Bergoglio described as "the less awful pope"--because awful is still awful. I think I get fixated on ideas of purity, which can be juvenile, but putting that aside, here are some things that Bergoglio could have done and did not. (I'm quoting from a survivor of sexual abuse at the hands of the Church.) He could levy the harshest penalty, excommunication, against a dozen or more of the most egregious abuse enabling church officials. (He's done this to no enablers, or predators for that matter.) He could insist that every diocese and religious order turn over every record they have about suspected and known abusers to law enforcement. Francis could order every prelate on the planet to post on his diocesan website the names of every proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting cleric. (Imagine how much safer children would be if police, prosecutors, parents and the public knew the identities of these potentially dangerous me...
1 comment
Read more

Raymond Carver: "What's in Alaska?"

Outside, Mary held Jack's arm and walked with her head down. They moved slowly on the sidewalk. He listened to the scuffing sounds her shoes made. He heard the sharp and separate sound of a dog barking and above that a murmuring of very distant traffic.  She raised her head. "When we get home, Jack, I want to be fucked, talked to, diverted. Divert me, Jack. I need to be diverted tonight." She tightened her hold on his arm. He could feel the dampness in that shoe. He unlocked the door and flipped the light. "Come to bed," she said. "I'm coming," he said. He went to the kitchen and drank two glasses of water. He turned off the living-room light and felt his way along the wall into the bedroom. "Jack!" she yelled. "Jack!" "Jesus Christ, it's me!" he said. "I'm trying to get the light on." He found the lamp, and she sat up in bed. Her eyes were bright. He pulled the stem on the alarm and b...
1 comment
Read more