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pedestrienne

pedestrienne

Currently reading

Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution
Sara Marcus
Granta en español 11: Los mejores narradores jovenes en español
Carlos Yushimito del Valle, Andrés Felipe Solano, Federico Falco, Matías Néspolo, Andrés Ressia Colino, Carlos Labbé, Rodrigo Hasbún, Pablo Gutiérrez, Javier Montes, Lucía Puenzo, Samanta Schweblin, Oliverio Coelho, Pola Oloixarac, Elvira Navarro, John Freeman, Antoni

Ill Will

Ill Will - Dan Chaon Read this in conjunction w/ The Night Ocean by Paul LaFarge and there are a lot of similarities - drowning, astral projection, discussion of flying cars in science fiction of a certain era, the slipperiness of memory. But apart from these themes, they are very different books. It was interesting to read this, pick up on the themes, and see how so much was similar but so much was different, as if the authors had used it as a challenge of constraints. But that's an aside. It was a very affecting experience to read this, although it is what I'd term a "literary novel" (knowing that that is a vague and weird term) it isn't overwritten. It's a delicately told story with a brutal core, and a deep sadness to it. Most of the narrators are unlikeable in some way and definitely unreliable, but in a human way, where they are pretty much aware of it. And Chaon writes loss of time and memory so well it sent me into the feeling of these nightmares I often get where I'm trying to stay awake and can't. It's a book that appeals to my true-crime loving self, and my horror loving self (there's a sequence in there that really creeped me out, in the basement of a kind of squat) and my psychological thriller loving self. Thanks to The Morning News for prompting me to read it.