REVIEW: I Can Fix Her by Rae Wilde
Like all great horror authors, the messages of Rae Wilde’s books work for both a specific and a universal audience. From her triumphant revenge tale Merciless Waters through to her resplendently incel-baiting-titled collection I Do Not Apologize for My Position on Men, Wilde has developed, through her queer horror, an unapologetic, raw, feminism which examines the freedom that comes with being allowed to be imperfect. But Wilde’s work has also covered universal themes of rage and love and self-hatred. Nowhere is this more true than her latest effort, I Can Fix Her, out from Clash Books June 3, a literary horror time-travel lens into a toxic queer relationship trapped in a grim space-time purgatory that also functions as a trauma-hallucinogen thought experiment for anyone, queer or not, who’s wasted part of their life trying to love or be loved in a relationship that all your friends know is inexplicable masochism. This one really fucked me up, and I love it deeply for that.
It begins with Johnny spotting her ex-girlfriend, Alice, at the local café, complete with a sense of déjà vu. Angry about their break-up, she’s compelled to give her ex a second chance and soon she’s back at Alice’s apartment. What happens next is a week, all spent in the apartment, where it quickly becomes clear that nothing is what it seems, reality is not behaving normally, and Johnny’s goal of changing the toxic cycle that drives their relationship will be harder to achieve than she realised.
I don’t know if I’ve given that plot justice, but rest assured, I Can Fix Her is not just two people talking about their relationship for a week, although given Wilde’s sublime prose and dialogue I’d still read that book in a shot. Rather, it’s a perverse cyclone of fever nightmare logic, symbolic imagery whose cleverness won’t become apparent until you’ve read the denouement, ultra visceral gore, and a descent into cosmic madness. I imagined much of it like the scene from the film Inception where dream logic is introduced and buildings arch into the sky at impossible angles, complete with Hans Zimmer horns blaring out the sapphic chain of self destruction.
But if that sounds too abstract, be assured there’s a distinct theme tunnelling its way through I Can Fix Her like a possessed tapeworm: how one person in a relationship can hammer their head against the other, desperate to change them, unwilling to see their own self-hatred, unwilling to accept that the only change is to leave. Wilde has ruthlessly identified how pathological this form of relationship is; how perverse it can be; how it turns love into this violent, self-immolating thing that defies sense. If you know you know, and this book’s coming for you. That said, it’s a mistake to make it too universal and forget this is a sapphic relationship. These women are fucking up in plain sight—that’s the point. Queer women will see further angles than I as Captain Straight of the USS Man did. Nonetheless, this book captured my past sins more than anything I’ve read for a while, regardless of the author’s intent.
And then there’s the denouement, which ties things up narratively and thematically. As much as I loved what prefaced it, I needed this ending—a cold, clear-eyed, heartbreaking counterpoint to the abstract madness before it, pitch-perfect dialogue encapsulating the cyclical inevitability of our toxic delusions. It’s a brilliant ending—if anyone accuses this book of being confusing, then they fell asleep before this. It introduces the idea, perhaps even more revelatory than the themes discussed earlier, of the divisibility of the self; how you can watch yourself from afar, knowing what you’re doing is wrong even as you’re compelled to do it. How one day, your future self will wonder if that was ever really you who fucked up so badly. Is it hopeful? Is it depressing? Who knows—maybe that’s the point.
Overall, with I Can Fix Her, Rae Wilde has taken risks and absolutely no prisoners. If you’ve ever been in a relationship where you’re both bad for each other, then this nightmarish groundhog day of surreal narrative genius is coming for your jugular and trust me—you need to bleed.
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