The Prophets
A recommendation by the delightful Evin, who did indeed tell me to read this many eons before I actually did!
If, like me, you found it hard to pick this book up, then perhaps this review is for you. This book is:
– not as trauma porn-y as Whitehead at his peak (The Underground Railroad or looking at you, The Nickel Boys)
– not a glossing over of America’s worst sin
– beautifully written
– not easy per se to get through but not a slog
There are trigger warnings galore in this book, as you might imagine, and some people might not enjoy the overall messaging enough to put up with some flowery prose. I read this in a period of time when I didn’t have very much time to read, so it might look like it took me a while to get through it but in fact I was always wishing I could dip back into it for a long enough stretch to make it worthwhile–this isn’t a book to finish during short commute jaunts (a mistake that I did make). Some commentators note that the book is flowery and heavy on narrative exposition told via inner monologues…maybe? It’s not a thing I have much patience for and I can say that I didn’t feel that way
Heart Berries: A Memoir
A short book, not really my usual style but a nice stylistic break (if not in tone/subject matter, as we continue to be grimdark).
I can’t remember exactly how I stumbled onto this book–my instinct is to say it’s from the NYT but maybe this was a genuine Goodreads AI recommendation–but I can see why it’s there. It’s a really engaging look into a mind fractured and trying to rebuild while surrounded by all the same triggers that caused the fracturing in the first place.
Some of the stylistic choices came across as a bit much, for me, but remembering that this is a memoir and not a work of fiction helps to keep that in check. It’s almost like a work of poetry, in that there are words on the page and then meanings both straightforward and hidden. Once can read the book end to end and take it at face value, but there’s decent depth to be found if you engage with the text a bit more and think about how Mailhot must have felt in each of the situations she whips you through in an attempt to cram her entire emotional journey in a scant <200 pages.