- There is no denying Patricia Lockwood can write. Her prose is studded with sparkling gems. And she peppers her frequently tedious reflections with sharp, wry insights. Her focus is today's social media, mainly Twitter. She refers to it as the 'portal'.
- Her unnamed narrator occupies a space between dystopia and reality, never indulging in damning critique but never shying away from honest and cutting commentary.
- It’s the Trump era, although he's only referred to as the ‘dictator’. There's nothing really original in her political observations but she occasionally nails it:
The labored officious breathing of the policeman, which was never the breathing that stopped.
White people, who had the political education of potatoes - lumpy, unseasoned, and biased towards the Irish - were suddenly feeling compelled to speak out about injustice. This happened once every forty years on average, usually after a period when folk music became popular again. When folk music became popular again, it reminded people that they had ancestors, and then, after a considerable delay, that their ancestors had done bad things.
Go not far enough, and find yourself guilty of complacency, complicity, a political slumping into the cushions of your time. Go too far, and find yourself saying that you didn't care that a white child had been eaten by an alligator.
- Generally I found her descriptions of social media and its obsessions pretty uninspiring. Her brilliant, colourful writing can’t disguise some middling insights. Her odd posts like ‘can a dog be twins’, and her invented words, like spelling sneezing as 'sneazing', are meaningless and tiresome in the extreme.
- In Part Two of the book, however, things change dramatically. Her sister’s baby is diagnosed through ultrasound as seriously brain damaged. If it survived pregnancy it would only live for months. It's an immensely sad and jolting event for her wider family. They address the abortion option but decide not to go down that legally complicated path. They display a commendable and surprising moral depth. This is real life. It's not the empty, indulgent 'portal'. The writing is beautiful and very emotional.
The doors of bland suburban houses now looked possible, outlined, pulsing - for behind any one of them could be hidden a bright and private glory.
- Generally I found her descriptions of social media and its obsessions pretty uninspiring. Her brilliant, colourful writing can’t disguise some middling insights. Her odd posts like ‘can a dog be twins’, and her invented words, like spelling sneezing as 'sneazing', are meaningless and tiresome in the extreme.
- In Part Two of the book, however, things change dramatically. Her sister’s baby is diagnosed through ultrasound as seriously brain damaged. If it survived pregnancy it would only live for months. It's an immensely sad and jolting event for her wider family. They address the abortion option but decide not to go down that legally complicated path. They display a commendable and surprising moral depth. This is real life. It's not the empty, indulgent 'portal'. The writing is beautiful and very emotional.
The doors of bland suburban houses now looked possible, outlined, pulsing - for behind any one of them could be hidden a bright and private glory.
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