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?

Comments

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...

Joshie

When I was growing up, a class birthday involved Hostess cupcakes. Often, the cupcakes would come in a shoebox, so you could taste a leathery residue (during the party). Times change. You can't bring a treat into a public school, in 2024, because heaven knows what kind of allergies might lurk, in unseen corners, in the classroom. But Joshua's teacher will allow: a dance party, a pajama day, or a guest reader. I chose to bring a story for Joshua's birthday (observed), but I didn't think through the role that anxiety might play in this interaction. We talk, in this house, quite a bit about anxiety; one game-changer, for J, has been a daily list of activities, so that he knows exactly what to expect. He gets a look of profound satisfaction when he sees the agenda; it doesn't really matter what the specific events happen to be. It's just about knowing, "I can anticipate X, Y, and Z." Joshua struggled with his celebration. He wore his nervousness on his f...

Josh at Five

Joshie's project is "flexibility"; the goal is to see that a plan is just an idea, not a gospel, not a guarantee. This is difficult. Yesterday, we went to a restaurant--billed as "open," with unlocked doors--and the owner informed us of an "error in advertising." But Joshie couldn't accept the word "closed." He threw himself on the floor, then climbed on the furniture. I felt for the owner, until he nervously made a reference to "the glass windows." He imagined that my child might toss himself through a sealed window, like Mary Katherine Gallagher, or like Bruce Willis, in "Die Hard." Then--thank the Lord!--I was able to laugh. The thing that really has therapeutic value for Joshie is: a firetruck. If we are out in public, and he spots a parked truck, he wants to climb on each surface. He breathlessly alludes to the wheels, the door, the windows. If an actual fire station ("fire ocean," in Joshie's parla...

Liars and Saints

Search This Blog