I love it when a work resonated so strongly you have to be personal. It's not egotistical, it means you're in conversation with it. And your Chicago stories, I mean...
I loved it because it acknowledges how much fun it is to be in that messy stage of life when you're being sloppy. It's FUN. the book is also happily horny. It's sad that that's rare! It's been a long time since I really FELT a book like this. It was so fun!
Happily horny is so important! I’m currently obsessed with Starsky and Hutch and it’s an aspect I really love and miss from past decades (in books, tv, movies, whatever): flirting is joyful! Even just the idea of hooking is fun!
I have been re-living Starsky & Hutch vicariously from your Instagram posts. that show is so much fun!! and so suggestive ! Not to be like "what about the children" lol but I benefited as a kid from getting glimpses of adult life where everything WASN'T a warning message like "you might make a wrong choice and end up a junkie in a flop house". by the time I was 23, 24, I was "vetting" the people I let into my life, including men, and I actually did an okay job of it. which is wild considering how WILD I was being. I think the main thing was I wanted to have fun - so if you weren't "fun" (as I deemed it, at any rate), you weren't in my life. and it ended up being a not-bad measuring stick. The flirtiest boys were often the most fun. The predatory jerks don't know how to flirt and so they were "out" before they even approached. I don't know - none of this was conscious on my part at the time. But fun was a priority!
I just finished the book. It was very good, wonderfully immediate and poignant. I liked how everything was not spelled out at the end. Alison didn't say that Jess(k) was flirting with her as well as being friends. Whether she didn't know then or still doesn't realize, or thought it was so obvious as to not be worth mentioning - I don't know. She wasn't an unreliable narrator, just not an omniscient one. A person, telling her story.
I like how she went from saying she was musically clueless to recognizing late in the book that someone was playing in the key of G. With no "I was getting better at this stuff" statement, just an offhand "An older man in overalls plays a familiar lick in the key of G."
I also like that we don't know what happened with her and Julien. And that she remembered her capo.
I enjoy when you write about your life. I hope you are in a good place now.
I am so intrigued by Jessika with a K! I also love how it's not explicitly said - and it only comes to the surface from a comment from Julien - that Allison is one of those women who is so boy crazy she sees other women as threats. She's so blatant about it. She side-eyes other women. It's normal but it's annooying and it's definitely a phase you really have to grow out of if you want to be a better human. Women are already pitted against each other - why do we do this to each other? (rhetorical question. I know why.). So that's one of the most important arcs of the story - even though it's not highlighted or positioned as the point. She sort of realizes how she has been mis-reading Jessika, and other women - and that sometimes you're just supposed to be friends with somebody and nothing else is going on and you need to get over yourself and be a good friend.
and yeah, it was so obvious she knew about music! but she didn't feel confident in really owning it. yet another interesting way the story unfolded - sort of BELOW the text. If you're paying attention, like you were!
The capo!! The final scene was so good, with all its callbacks and resolutions.
Julien is such a great character and I want to know more!
Sheila! I didn't realize how close we are in age until you mentioned going to see Pat McCurdy perform every week -- I went to school in Madison and didn't go to see him every single week, but friends of mine did and I still have one or two of his CDs packed away in my collection.
No way!! Small world! I used to perform with him . He wrote a duet for the two of us. It’s on his album Show Tunes! And I performed with him at Milwaukee Summer Fest for 3,000 screaming drunk people - still one of my favorite experiences ever. He’s still going strong!
This is splendid. So good, Sheila. And also took the top of my head straight off. Different “feckless eras” (said my mom once), but the feelings are eerily familiar. Ordering Riggs today. Would happily order O’Malley’s just as fast.
I love it when a work resonated so strongly you have to be personal. It's not egotistical, it means you're in conversation with it. And your Chicago stories, I mean...
I loved it because it acknowledges how much fun it is to be in that messy stage of life when you're being sloppy. It's FUN. the book is also happily horny. It's sad that that's rare! It's been a long time since I really FELT a book like this. It was so fun!
Happily horny is so important! I’m currently obsessed with Starsky and Hutch and it’s an aspect I really love and miss from past decades (in books, tv, movies, whatever): flirting is joyful! Even just the idea of hooking is fun!
I have been re-living Starsky & Hutch vicariously from your Instagram posts. that show is so much fun!! and so suggestive ! Not to be like "what about the children" lol but I benefited as a kid from getting glimpses of adult life where everything WASN'T a warning message like "you might make a wrong choice and end up a junkie in a flop house". by the time I was 23, 24, I was "vetting" the people I let into my life, including men, and I actually did an okay job of it. which is wild considering how WILD I was being. I think the main thing was I wanted to have fun - so if you weren't "fun" (as I deemed it, at any rate), you weren't in my life. and it ended up being a not-bad measuring stick. The flirtiest boys were often the most fun. The predatory jerks don't know how to flirt and so they were "out" before they even approached. I don't know - none of this was conscious on my part at the time. But fun was a priority!
I just finished the book. It was very good, wonderfully immediate and poignant. I liked how everything was not spelled out at the end. Alison didn't say that Jess(k) was flirting with her as well as being friends. Whether she didn't know then or still doesn't realize, or thought it was so obvious as to not be worth mentioning - I don't know. She wasn't an unreliable narrator, just not an omniscient one. A person, telling her story.
I like how she went from saying she was musically clueless to recognizing late in the book that someone was playing in the key of G. With no "I was getting better at this stuff" statement, just an offhand "An older man in overalls plays a familiar lick in the key of G."
I also like that we don't know what happened with her and Julien. And that she remembered her capo.
I enjoy when you write about your life. I hope you are in a good place now.
I am so intrigued by Jessika with a K! I also love how it's not explicitly said - and it only comes to the surface from a comment from Julien - that Allison is one of those women who is so boy crazy she sees other women as threats. She's so blatant about it. She side-eyes other women. It's normal but it's annooying and it's definitely a phase you really have to grow out of if you want to be a better human. Women are already pitted against each other - why do we do this to each other? (rhetorical question. I know why.). So that's one of the most important arcs of the story - even though it's not highlighted or positioned as the point. She sort of realizes how she has been mis-reading Jessika, and other women - and that sometimes you're just supposed to be friends with somebody and nothing else is going on and you need to get over yourself and be a good friend.
and yeah, it was so obvious she knew about music! but she didn't feel confident in really owning it. yet another interesting way the story unfolded - sort of BELOW the text. If you're paying attention, like you were!
The capo!! The final scene was so good, with all its callbacks and resolutions.
Julien is such a great character and I want to know more!
so glad you read it!!
I only knew about 30% of the songs Alison had in her playlists, so I'm making my way through them slowly.
Mazzy Star! Bon Iver! Lots of new names to me, though.
Sheila! I didn't realize how close we are in age until you mentioned going to see Pat McCurdy perform every week -- I went to school in Madison and didn't go to see him every single week, but friends of mine did and I still have one or two of his CDs packed away in my collection.
I mean that’s Pat with me and my friend in the Photo Booth picture here. Lol. Many many shenanigans. RIP Lounge Ax, my favorite music club ever.
No way!! Small world! I used to perform with him . He wrote a duet for the two of us. It’s on his album Show Tunes! And I performed with him at Milwaukee Summer Fest for 3,000 screaming drunk people - still one of my favorite experiences ever. He’s still going strong!
Love all of this so much Sheila!
This is splendid. So good, Sheila. And also took the top of my head straight off. Different “feckless eras” (said my mom once), but the feelings are eerily familiar. Ordering Riggs today. Would happily order O’Malley’s just as fast.
Feckless era!! Love it! I used to say “I’m having a season of frivolity.” Lol more than a season …