Isaac Fellman

This book spoke to me and understood me in a way that few books have. It also upset me and depressed me. I guess it was too real. I loved it but at times I hated it and my rating won't do it justice no matter what I do. I don't know if I'll ever be able to read it again. This was a good book. Florence is the absolute worst. I think the reason this book hurt me so much at times is because in so many ways I am Sol. I'm also Elsie and it just feels so profoundly unfair that their lives aren't perfect. It's hard not to take things personally in a book like this and I don't know if that makes it better or worse that it was able to get to me so deeply...… (more)

Really extra brilliant and gorgeous in some places, but I can't decide if it actually hangs together as a narrative. Am I missing something? Is it fragmented for a reason? Do I need to reread it again---and if I do, do I want to?

Update: I'm going to stop my skim reread, because it's making some symmetries clear but falling short of a structure, and now I'm even more conflicted. There are some really wonderful insightful bits in here though, e.g.:

"Well, that's how empire works," said Ariel, and somehow he was glum, muddy, in just the right way to remove any sting from this. "It puts out this mythology that it's the only really safe thing. The myth's meant strictly for the rich and native-born---warm house, outsiders out---but sometimes people on the outside get caught by it too, by that sticky promise of safety."… (more)

I wasn't at all sure I was going to like this, but by about a third of the way through I realized that I really, really cared about these characters. Quotable, smart, messy, all over the place, but in like a tight neat well packaged way (I am a sucker for that kind of story). There are a lot of thoughts I want to return to here.

A few reviews bring up that it doesn't make sense to have both the metaphor (vampires) and the things it's representing (death, disability, transness---less so Jewishness, I agree that wasn't as well incorporated) in the same story, but I would argue that they're not metaphors, they're riffing on each other. What Fellman is trying to get at are instead the things that are common to all of them (and ultimately all of us human beings) in different ways and at different moments: contagion, rot, fear/disgust/desire, limitation, anxiety and coping with risk, legacy.… (more)