I ended this book with rather mixed feelings. I'll say up front that of course I didn't want to like it, or, specifically, I didn't want to like Vida's writing, because I hate her self-aggrandizing, egotistical, greasy-headed special snowflake douchebag of a husband, and therefore by close association she had to suck too.But I'm not entirely convinced that she does suck. The book has it's faults -- it flouders in parts and doesn't flow; Vida leaves the narrator's age in key scenes vague, which is in turn confusing for understanding of the timeline; there's pockets of information missing that are not "fill-in-the-blanks-without-realizing-it" types, they're more the "WTF happened?" type, where you flip a page or two back to see if you've missed something, figured out that you hadn't, and felt disgruntled with the author for being careless.Basically, there were parts of it that I kind of wanted to write up, workshop-style.Also, believe-ability....not so much. I feel sorry for the narrator, but I very much lose interest in her situation, and I suspect that in real life, all the people we see circling around her in the novel (and somehow, they all seem to show up at exactly the prescribed and dramatically appropriate times...) would lose interest too. She was approached by a man in a park with a gun, then he left. The book is trying to be about the psychological after effects of that, but maybe it should have been shorter. Like a short story. But: Vida does a good job of keeping things very immediate feeling, which I like. There's not hemming and hawwing in the narrative about what it all means. Some of the dialogue is clunky, but sometimes that also makes it more real, which was definitely needed.
I had high hopes for this book. Vendela is an author from that gang of Believer/McSweeney's crew that are seemingly try to recreate everything they write in the footsteps of Dave Eggers - who is shallow at worst and self-indulgent when at his top form (meaning that I think he's really only good at writing about himself or some version of himself; true fiction seems to be beyond him). Here is the utterly depraved way I can describe this book: it's like you're having sex and never have an orgasm. Everything seems pretty good, but it never goes anywhere. The main character has a traumatic experience in a New York park. She's held at gunpoint, but not robbed, raped or pillaged. Basically she's the victim of a random and senseless outreach of depression and desperation. The fallout from the event is both long and drawn out and has no real tangible outcome besides a lot of random sex that is meant to fill an emotional void. In the end, she not only learns nothing, she also does nothing. Altogether unsatisfying. But maybe I'm missing the point? Is that reality?
Do You like book And Now You Can Go (2004)?
“My desire for life is so strong, it’s Cassius Clay.”Vida’s first novel, which takes place in NYC {making me want to go again—tickets are $89 RT if I buy them right now to prepare for King George’s inauguration….if only I didn’t play close to $500 for my tix to Buffalo!} consists of a lively female narrator who is held at gunpoint one nice December day when she is walking in a park. Ellis keeps telling herself she’ll be over it in the morning, waking up more fucked the next day. Falling prey to
—Venessa
This was a really quick read -- a young person's book, about a Columbia grad student (in art history) who gets held up by a dying man in Riverside Park. She escapes (by, unbelievably, quoting great poetry to him), and then begins to reexamine. What comes next is a romp, from one man to the next, from one friend to the next. Lovely writing about a family that has reconstructed itself after the betrayal of the father leaving (for a few years) and then returning. The girl adores her nurse mother -- and we do too. Such a lovely character. The girl goes as a volunteer with her mother to the Philippines on a mission -- helping out on a mass surgical interventions for hundreds of poor people. What does she learn? Hard, exactly, to say. It was funny and smart, had a lovely heart, but was somehow insubstantial -- a snack, not a meal. The girl is embarrassed by her mother's skiing cow T-shirt. But a lovely first book -- I will read more by this writer. I wanted to come to terms with the other half of the Bay Area's big lit power couple -- Dave Eggers is her significant other. Fun dialogue throughout. A heroine one liked, and enjoyed watching in action. Which of these many men will she choose?
—Alec Scott
This story shows us that we can be psychologically sane and function in a morally upright way even after a traumatic encounter with a man who at gunpoint demanded your life. Ellis, the main protagonist is a richly portrayed character, one of resilience and courage. She has the mind of an adult being and yet she possess the forgiveness and vulnerability of a child. The man who nearly killed her was in a hopeless situation, but it did not deter her to pursue her life in a positive way. The medical mission trip to the Philippines was very memorable in the author's words, very poignant and humanistic. I think what was lacking in this novel is a full background on the antagonist's life...what triggered him to do such a thing? what was his family like? but overall it was a swell read, because the pacing was outstanding, and there was never a dull moment.
—Eugene Yu
