An ambitious and striking comment on art, sanity, and human endeavor.
A writer explores his struggles with mental illness and the death of his father in this experimental memoir composed of a single run-on sentence.
The premise is quite simple: Cowen set out to write and publish the longest sentence ever in the English language without stopping to edit it along the way. The sentence quickly becomes a diary of sorts in which the author explores some of the pressing concerns of his life, including his perceived failures as a writer, his struggles with bipolar disorder (a condition he shared with his father), and his father’s recent suicide. “I haven’t been processing my grief the way I wanted to yet about my dad’s death,” writes Cowen when the subject initially rears its head, “and I’ve been wanting to write something about my dad, and his dad and me and maybe also my dad’s hero, Abraham Lincoln, as he is also said to have been mentally ill at times, or at least a melancholic.” Along the way, the author delves into the history of really long sentences, from William Faulkner and James Joyce to current world record holder, Jonathan Coe (Cowen checks in periodically to see if he’s beaten Coe yet), and similarly long-winded writers. The author also examines other figures suffering from bipolar disorder, like Kanye West, and any other bits of popular culture that stray into his mind. The book is written in a stream-of-consciousness style that veers from critical commentary to myopically metafictional sections about the process of writing the sentence: “Recursivity is something I have been doing with these commas, and the ands, and the whiches, and which is like this, and that is a recursive clause right there, and this is one, too, see they are pretty cool, you just put them in, with a comma, like so.” As an Oulipo-style experiment in form, the volume is certainly an impressive feat, particularly in the way Cowen manages to weave in discussions of mental illness and mania. That said, it’s obviously an acquired taste, and there are portions where the project begins to feel inevitably redundant. But those who stick it out will find that they have a new relationship not only to English syntax, but to the peculiar workings of the human mind as well.
An ambitious and striking comment on art, sanity, and human endeavor.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-66097-064-3
Page Count: 345
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A loving and approachable coming-of-age story about generational change.
Strict traditions face encroaching modernity in this memoir of a Muslim girl.
The author was a jeweler’s daughter in Ceylon, now known as Sri Lanka, in the community of Galle Fort—at first blush, a traditional Muslim neighborhood. But in the 1950s, things were changing; already, the women of the island went out more than they had in years past and veiled themselves less. Before she reached the age of 12, Azad was allowed to spend time with her Christian friend Penny, ride a bicycle, and wear a bathing suit in public, and her doting, conservative father (whom she calls “Wappah”) was rarely unable to deny his daughter’s wants. However, her father still was committed to “the fierce protection of female honor” and still expected the women of his family to make a “good marriage,” so the author was “brought inside” when she came of age. But she was still interested in furthering her education and charmed by her English friends and Western comic books, so she hoped to attend university in the near future. But after her cousin ran off with a young man and Wappah reacted to the situation in an unexpectedly violent manner, subtle changes to custom and culture became more difficult to achieve. Azad’s debut memoir focuses on her memories of childhood and how she struggled against the more stringent aspects of her Muslim upbringing. However, her story is also the story of Galle Fort as the old-school residents struggled with young people becoming more Westernized. The setting is beautifully drawn, and its history comes alive. Just as important is the author’s father’s journey as a man who’s open to change but unsure of it. The book introduces many facets of Muslim culture with great respect, and Azad stingingly portrays Western prejudices, as when the author’s classmates face ridicule for using henna. She also relates her older family members’ opinions on such subjects as marriage while showing just how radical seemingly small changes can be in a traditional environment.
A loving and approachable coming-of-age story about generational change.Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2020
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 249
Publisher: Perera Hussein Publishing House
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Observant, affecting writing about an Australian childhood.
Moncrief’s debut memoir recalls the joys and sorrows of growing up in an Australian country town.
“It was the late 1960s,” remarks the author, “but we were still living in what was effectively 1950s rural Australia.” Along with his older brother, Darren, Moncrief was raised in Tilburn, 30 miles outside of Melbourne. The memoir focuses predominantly on vivid memories from the author’s childhood in a quiet town where “everyone minded their own business and kept mostly to themselves.” Moncrief recalls journeys to a racetrack with his father, who trained horses, befriending a lizard that lived under the back step of the family home, and nursing an injured sparrow back to health. These sensitive recollections are interspersed with tales of cruelty and abuse. As a young boy, the author admits, he received so many bloody noses from his brother that one of his nostrils became “permanently blocked.” The memoir also charts the author’s coping with his parents’ divorce and grappling with adolescence. Each chapter is built around a particular person or event that left an impression on the author’s young mind. One, for example, discusses the author’s first sight of a pregnant woman and his father’s remarking, “pregnant women are beautiful.” This heavily anecdotal approach has the potential to grow tiring, but Moncrief avoids that by capturing a young boy’s naiveté in a satisfyingly amusing manner: “I couldn’t imagine what was wrong with her—that big, swollen stomach bursting forth from her body!” The author has the power to tug at the reader’s emotions—after his lizard was killed by a bully, he writes sorrowfully: “[I] pushed his little body into the crack from where I’d taken him the night before. ‘I’m so sorry, little mate,’ I said. ‘I love you so much.’ ” Moncrief puts a recognizably Australian stamp on the memoir by using Aussie vernacular, from dunny (toilet) to chooks (chickens). Tenderly evoking the minutiae of childhood while celebrating liberation from its horrors, this thoughtfully written, well-balanced book will encourage readers to reflect on their own upbringings.
Observant, affecting writing about an Australian childhood.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-72839-716-0
Page Count: 234
Publisher: AuthorHouseUK
Review Posted Online: April 22, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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