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Why Did I Ever
by
Mary Robison
After a ten-year silence, Mary Robison has emerged with a novel so beguiling and funny that it has brought critics and her live-reading audiences to their feet. Why Did I Ever takes us along on the darkest of private journeys. The story, told by a woman named Money Breton, is submitted like a furious and persuasive diary-a tale as fierce and taut as its fictional teller.
Paperback, 208 pages
Published
September 19th 2002
by Counterpoint
(first published November 5th 2001)
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Launched on a minimalist female authors kick (thanks Amy Hempel!) I set out looking for Mary Robison. This is her most recent novel (2001), as I haven't found anything earlier yet. It forms a loose narrative out of hundreds of tiny segments (word is, she wrote it on notecards!). It's funny, sharp, sweet, honest - an often less than flattering, but always bold and affectionate portrait of a woman, somewhere past her thirties, dating an "idiot" who falls into the category of men who are "over thir...more
I usually don't go for experimental fiction, but the voice is so strong and the flow of this novel has its own imperative, a driving compulsion from one minimalist snippet to the next. The narrative is sectioned into titled or numbered blurbs that are descriptive, dialog, stream-of-conscious processing, memories, and plain weirdness as the main character, Money, goes into manic phase or interacts with her daughter, friends, co-workers, self. An actual narrative coalesces outside the text, as you...more
I was recommend this by someone whose taste (and writing) I greatly respect and admire so I was all prepared to absolutely love it and start pressing my copy enthusiastically into the hands of my friends. Unfortunately, it took me a long while (about a third of the way in) to feel like I had any clue what the plot was, what the purpose of the at times sentence-long chapters was and why I should care about this woman. An emotional reveal gave the story more pathos and convinced me to keep reading...more
I found this manic and entertaining and ultimately worthwhile, although it was sometimes hard to get my hooks into it. The story is told as a series of short quotidian narratives by the character Money Breton, whose son has been the victim of some terrible sex crime, whose daughter is a recovering addict, and who herself seems to be under-medicated for ADD. There are a couple other key characters, including an imperfect boyfriend, a bitchy Hollywood boss, and the Deaf Lady, who was my favorite....more
I loved this book. Robison has taken the little moments and distractions--no matter how mundane--that make up our existence, and crafted them into something meaningful and quite beautiful. The book was born in her effort to defeat a kind of 'writer's block', and for me it proves something I believe to be true about writing: you can only find the work by doing it.
Robison's sentences are like hard little gems, and her sense of humor and the telling detail are very fine. As a writer, this is a boo...more
Robison's sentences are like hard little gems, and her sense of humor and the telling detail are very fine. As a writer, this is a boo...more
This is a collection of several hundred little chapters, each one of which propels the narrator's catastrophe of a life. Her son appears to have been raped; her daughter is a drug-addict; she has had several collapsed marriages; she loves her children to distraction; she is suspicious and somewhat supercilious about her younger lover; she goes on long pointless drives across the southern states of the US; her scriptwriter job is going nowhere. It is a cleverly written book with a wonderful gift...more
With Amy Hempel-esque humor, this epistemological novel tells the story about Money Breton and the ridiculous and tragic events in her life. Her daughter is a heroin addict, her son is in some sort of protection program after being the victim of a rape crime. Money herself has a shit job in television, and she also struggles with ADD, which I assume is the reason for the brief snippets of thoughts and digressions that structure the novel. This is a witty and tragic examination of a woman whose l...more
May 21, 2007
Tao
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Bobbie Ann Mason, Frederick Barthelme, Ann Beattie, Joy Williams
I like this book. It has many little sections. This book is funny and calm.
I think of this book as something like a literary experiment. And, in that, vein, I wouldn't call it a total failure because it's innovative and different. However, I can't rate it any higher because there's too little holding the "novel" together to make it cohesive enough to warrant a better rating.
Reading it reminded me of how I felt when I read Eeeee Eee Eeee with the notable exception that, at least in that book, it clearly was absurdist and, by the end, the story came together and offered...more
Reading it reminded me of how I felt when I read Eeeee Eee Eeee with the notable exception that, at least in that book, it clearly was absurdist and, by the end, the story came together and offered...more
This is the most disjointed narrative I have ever read and actually enjoyed. Mary Robison is funny:
18. Without Ritalin I can sustain an evil thought or two, such as: "That there feels like cancer of the esophagus." However, I'm liable to skip over more routine kinds of thinking, such as, "Move up in line here," or "Steer."
81. A paperwad pops around in the grass. It blows over my way and catches between my shoes. I snatch it up, undo the crinkled page.
"What's it say?" asks the Deaf Lady. She prop...more
18. Without Ritalin I can sustain an evil thought or two, such as: "That there feels like cancer of the esophagus." However, I'm liable to skip over more routine kinds of thinking, such as, "Move up in line here," or "Steer."
81. A paperwad pops around in the grass. It blows over my way and catches between my shoes. I snatch it up, undo the crinkled page.
"What's it say?" asks the Deaf Lady. She prop...more
While ultimately this book left me with too many unanswered questions and a sense of . . . malaise, I learned from this book, as a writer, that a novel can look however you want it to look. Mary Robison, for example, has her own unique architecture here. Each chapter contains sectioned paragraphs, some numbered and some randomly with titles like "Shoes Dyed to Match the Bag," "Batteries Running Low," and "Whether I Matter or Not Does Not Win or Lose". They aren't usually literal descriptions of...more
I could tell how strangely smart this book was, and there were threads of plot, but for me they were as tangled as the knitting the main character (her name is "Money"? When was I supposed to find that out?) tries unsuccessfully to begin. It definitely feels more like some awful version of real life than most novels do, but it was really really weird. And still oddly compelling. Not sure what to think. Now I want to read a sort of normal story.
this book was filled with so many perfect, sharp, devastating (and devastatingly funny) 12 or 30-word bursts i couldn't help but fall in love with it, but i wish i'dve taken on its collection of bite-sized bursts in one, three-hour sitting.
Instead over a couple weeks what through-line there is in this book involving the troubled son, daughter and relationships remained kinda elusive. Still, the way she captured the internal monologue of Money was pretty remarkable, and even though it ended up s...more
Instead over a couple weeks what through-line there is in this book involving the troubled son, daughter and relationships remained kinda elusive. Still, the way she captured the internal monologue of Money was pretty remarkable, and even though it ended up s...more
My first book by this author. Yes, the wit is sharp-edged and I appreciate that -- in fact, that's what kept me reading to the end. But it's like reading someone's "therapy journal" -- a bit too stream-of-conciousness and lacking in plot for my tastes. There's some obvious structure and progression, but all those snippets just come off too fractured to be called a novel. (Checking the cover to be sure: yes, it is labeled "A Novel".)
I've been in love with this book since I first opened it almost ten years ago. Robison is a magnificent writer - humane, clever, funny, devestating. The book is written in snippets - the narrator's life is falling apart - and I would laugh out loud one second and gasp in astonisment the next. Bold, unique, beautiful, smart, amazing. She writes like an angel gone mad.
it gets, fran-tic, quick. if she strayed into coherence for even two lines too long, this book would not work. she kept at it though, and somehow we ended up with a beginning, middle and end. pick this book up anywhere but the start and focus in its entirety, or else you're in danger of missing it all.
A very intriguing read. Chances are you have not read a book like this before. Most chapters are no more than 300 words or so, which I found really enjoyable, but I did start craving more steady, cohesive information about the narrator's current predicament. The information given is very cryptic and abstract and as I said sometimes this is refreshing and welcome and fascinating and others times it's plain frustrating.
All that said, I almost gave it 5-stars just based on the sheer ambition of it...more
All that said, I almost gave it 5-stars just based on the sheer ambition of it...more
Not sure what to think of this book. I found it to be very strange but I couldn't put it down. Robison has a unique way of expressing her feelings. Sometimes I couldn't understand what she was talking about. I'm not sure why this book gets such high ratings. Obviously I'm missing something.
I've seen M. Robison classified under the aegis of K-Mart Fiction. I prefer Tweaker Lit. She seems to be to crystal meth what H.S. Thompson is to LSD. Whatever she is, read this book because it's weird and funny and broken up into tasty dense little cheesecake slices.
Here's how this writer's work reads: Apparently she will write an entire story making sure characters have odd names, then, take a few middle pages, call them a story and discard the rest - This is oreo-filling writing and it drove me a little crazy.
I would give this zero stars if I could. This is the worst book I've had the misfortune of attempting to read in 5 or 10 years. I normally can get myself to read any book that we read in my bookclub, just so that I can follow the conversation, but this book was unreadable. There is absolutely nothing engaging about it. The main character is insane, and you know what would be really cool--? if the disorganized structure and random meandering of the novel reflected her lack of sanity..? so awesome...more
I think I can only read minimalist fiction from now on.
Side note: I'd occasionally find myself explaining to someone what Why Did I Ever is about. Each time I realised I knew something about the story that I'm sure Robison hadn't actually written and I hadn't known that I knew. What a master.
Side note: I'd occasionally find myself explaining to someone what Why Did I Ever is about. Each time I realised I knew something about the story that I'm sure Robison hadn't actually written and I hadn't known that I knew. What a master.
This novel is GREAT. It is written in short snippets, definitely a new style of novel. It's funny and insightful and easy to read.
This book is flippin' hilarious which when reading it in public made it even more so. For Paulie and the cat is was just mostly sad....
I left this book on a plane with 30 pages left and paid way too much money for a hardcover replacement. The main character is middle-aged, severely ADD, writer who's life isn't turning out anything like she'd hoped. The various plot elements range from mildly depressing to downright f***ed up, but in spite of that, the book is absolutely hilarious. The voice of the main character is fantastic-- witty and sarcastic and inexplicably reassuring. The format of the book-- a couple hundred short disjo...more
Jun 10, 2013
Martha
added it
Interesting and sad. Written as a series of somewhat disconnected vignettes, but the main character's voice and story come through clearly.
Mar 05, 2013
Ayelet Waldman
added it
I wanted to love this book, because it was recommended to me by someone whom I admire tremendously. That's all I'm going to say.
I love this narrator, I fear becoming this narrator, I hope we all go crazy in such compassionate & cynical ways.
The prose in this is astounding. IT. IS. ASTOUNDING. A blurb calls this a Play It As it Lays for the 21st century, and--you know what?-- I'll buy that. I like that actually. Both books are about women, ostensibly in Hollywood, and both have problems. But they charge forward (Robison's protagonist at a quicker rate than Didion's, but we've moved forty years into the future here). I was also laughing wildly, dog-earring sections every 20 pages because there are things in here that I never want to...more
This is not like reading Alfred Lord Tennyson, but neither is it like inhaling from a bag of glue.
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Mary Robison is an American short story writer and novelist. She has published four collections of stories, and four novels, including her 2001 novel Why Did I Ever, winner of the 2001 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for fiction. Her most recent novel, released in 2009, is One D.O.A., One on the Way. She has been categorized as a founding "minimalist" writer along with authors such as Amy Hempel, Fre...more
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“Something else that makes me angry is that I got too old to prostitute myself. I wasn't going to anyway but it was there, it was my Z plan.”
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Mar 15, 2010 07:49am